Resolutions

[SR]

Anything pressing for the new year?

[Larry B.]

- Improving my eating habits and physical shape (decrease body fat to one digit-%, hopefully).
- Keep being a good uncle.
- Being always prepared to leave this fucking city, when the sign arrives.

[Hype]

Less beer, more sleep.

[Juana]

Going to be a better person basically.

[Artemis]

I resolve to have more fun and try new things, and travel more. Also, I have not been a very good friend to my friends. I didn't put a great deal of effort into friendships in 2011.I worked a lot and let the things I enjoy fall by the wayside. Life has really become a grind and more banal than ever...I hate it. (Don't worry this isn't Turn Coat talk). I mean that I hate that my life just revolves around working and the day to day stuff like laundry and grocery shopping.

I also resolve to go to the mermaid festival in nyc in June. I'm polishing up my clam shell bra already!

[ant]

I'm going pescetarian after the new year so I'll be basically eating vegetarian+seafood. Mostly for health reasons and to try and lose some poundage but also because more and more I've been feeling bad about eating animals. I just don't think I could ever give up seafood cause I love it so. Plus you can't really pet a sea bass or a lobster.

I wouldn't call it a resolution so much though. I usually don't go in for resolutions so that I don't have to hear it from anyone when I end up doing whatever it is that I said I was going to stop.

[Artemis]

even bacon you're giving up? :cona:

[Hype]

I'm going pescetarian after the new year so I'll be basically eating vegetarian+seafood. Mostly for health reasons and to try and lose some poundage but also because more and more I've been feeling bad about eating animals. I just don't think I could ever give up seafood cause I love it so. Plus you can't really pet a sea bass or a lobster.

I wouldn't call it a resolution so much though. I usually don't go in for resolutions so that I don't have to hear it from anyone when I end up doing whatever it is that I said I was going to stop.

https://theconversation.edu.au/ordering ... hands-4659

[Jasper]

I'm going pescetarian after the new year so I'll be basically eating vegetarian+seafood. Mostly for health reasons and to try and lose some poundage but also because more and more I've been feeling bad about eating animals. I just don't think I could ever give up seafood cause I love it so. Plus you can't really pet a sea bass or a lobster.

I wouldn't call it a resolution so much though. I usually don't go in for resolutions so that I don't have to hear it from anyone when I end up doing whatever it is that I said I was going to stop.

https://theconversation.edu.au/ordering ... hands-4659

That's a pretty specific argument that I doubt is applicable to most of the world, even if it ends up being correct for Australia (which I doubt it would). Rangeland red meat isn't the norm here in North America. Nothing in that article makes me think factory farming is justifiable, and that's the vast, vast majority of our meat. Nothing in that article really shakes my faith in organic farming either. It may be an argument that Australians should eat only free-range beef and organic fruits and vegetables. Things get more complicated and difficult here, because that's not where our meat comes from, and getting anything like that can be logistically, socially, and financially difficult. Factory farms produce a huge amount of poisonous waste that runs right into the surrounding environment - and that's getting especially bad in places like China. The role of fish and seafood isn't really addressed. I think the best option for most of the developed world might be sustainable fish and seafood along with organically farmed vegetables and such.

[Hype]

I don't think even that argument was in favour of factory farming. No sane person thinks factory farming is good. My reason for posting it was mostly just that I think it's a mistake to think pescetarian or vegetarian eating is somehow harming less animals. A good reason for not eating factory farmed meat is that you don't feel right doing it. But that's not an argument about the objective effect not eating it will have on net animal suffering, so it would be wrong to use that to justify it. I think it's a fine argument to just say "I'd feel better not buying factory farmed meat." (That's true of me, and many people...)

I have serious issues with eating fish. I love sushi, love salmon, etc, but I don't believe fish don't feel pain, and I don't think anything deserves to suffer. I think that, unfortunately, though nothing deserves to suffer, suffering is a necessary feature of living, and our goal should be to minimize it (not eating meat doesn't directly affect this, except for yourself, though). Overfishing is also a serious environmental problem. The Japanese are crazy.

Basically, I'm just saying that there's no obvious, clear, connection between not eating meat and some objective moral effect on the world, but that doesn't matter, since it shouldn't be your reason for not eating meat anyway. If it makes you feel better (mentally or physically), don't eat meat.

(And anyway, I agree with almost everything you said, there, Jasper... just quibbling...)

[creep]

i've been preparing myself to go off diet pepsi on the 1st. i'm down to 20oz a day and will probably cut it to 12oz tomorrow. if i just quit at my peak i would suffer through a couple days of headaches.

[ant]

I don't think even that argument was in favour of factory farming. No sane person thinks factory farming is good. My reason for posting it was mostly just that I think it's a mistake to think pescetarian or vegetarian eating is somehow harming less animals. A good reason for not eating factory farmed meat is that you don't feel right doing it. But that's not an argument about the objective effect not eating it will have on net animal suffering, so it would be wrong to use that to justify it. I think it's a fine argument to just say "I'd feel better not buying factory farmed meat." (That's true of me, and many people...)

I have serious issues with eating fish. I love sushi, love salmon, etc, but I don't believe fish don't feel pain, and I don't think anything deserves to suffer. I think that, unfortunately, though nothing deserves to suffer, suffering is a necessary feature of living, and our goal should be to minimize it (not eating meat doesn't directly affect this, except for yourself, though). Overfishing is also a serious environmental problem. The Japanese are crazy.

Basically, I'm just saying that there's no obvious, clear, connection between not eating meat and some objective moral effect on the world, but that doesn't matter, since it shouldn't be your reason for not eating meat anyway. If it makes you feel better (mentally or physically), don't eat meat.

(And anyway, I agree with almost everything you said, there, Jasper... just quibbling...)

I currently only eat meat from local farms where I know the animals are treated ethically up to and including slaughter. I wasn't making a point about not eating meat because of the overall suffering of animals or the larger environmental impact. Moreso I'm just having an internal ethical issue with eating certain animals. I've seen personality in cows and pigs as I've interacted with those animals in recent years and although not to the same degree I include chickens in that group as well. I don't have that feeling regarding seafood. I also passionaltely enjoy easting seafood of all kinds so this is not some overall altruistic endevour either. My decision is a combination of personal feelings about those animals and health.

[Hype]

Yeah I just wanted to say something about this because I've been arguing with fellow academics about it for years, and Will Kymlicka (big-name philosopher in my dept.) is publishing (or has already published, I forget) a book on animal rights, so everyone's talking about it.

I don't have a problem with eating meat, because those animals are already dead, and I have no illusions about abstinence on my part somehow having a meaningful effect on anything. (I do, however, think that advocacy for legal changes and so forth has, and would continue to have an effect. My view about animals rights is roughly my view of human rights... I support helping the desparately poor 5 billion people on this planet, but I can't possibly live a lifestyle that aims to abstain from tacit support for anything involved in causing their suffering.) That's why I said a good argument for not eating meat is that it makes you feel better not to, but it shouldn't be because you feel like if you eat meat you're harming animals, or not harming them if you don't.

I also don't make arbitrary distinctions as far as personality. Personality is a sliding scale based on complexity of behaviour. Of course, I also think rocks have thoughts (that's not a joke... can talk about it in another thread maybe)... fish are somewhere in the middle.

[Larry B.]

I also think rocks have thoughts (that's not a joke... can talk about it in another thread maybe)

Ahhh, you're approaching the truth of the universe. One step at a time. Keep this in mind: Gitá + quantum physics.

[Hype]

I also think rocks have thoughts (that's not a joke... can talk about it in another thread maybe)

Ahhh, you're approaching the truth of the universe. One step at a time.

Start another thread. I'll explain why you've misunderstood me.

[Larry B.]

I also think rocks have thoughts (that's not a joke... can talk about it in another thread maybe)

Ahhh, you're approaching the truth of the universe. One step at a time.

Start another thread. I'll explain why you've misunderstood me.

I wasn't joking, btw

When you start that other thread, I'd also like to read your opinion on oceans and if they can be considered living beings.

[Hype]

No, you start the thread. I resolve to continue posting less and starting less threads in the New Year. It's been easy what with being so insanely busy. I should be marking 50 papers at the moment.

In the thread Larry starts I will explain that what I said had absolutely nothing to do with Hindu scriptures or quantum mechanics, and that's at least part of why he misunderstood me when I said rocks have thoughts.

[MYXYLPLYX]

i've been preparing myself to go off diet pepsi on the 1st. i'm down to 20oz a day and will probably cut it to 12oz tomorrow. if i just quit at my peak i would suffer through a couple days of headaches.

Similar here. I'm getting off soda (upwards of 4 + cans of Coke a day) but not caffeine...yet. My plan is to switch to tea next year and then work towards weaning off caffeine down the road.

Oh, and also drink at least twice as much water as any other beverages.

[Juana]

I personally drink at least 66 oz of water a day I have a little camelbak filtered water cup thinger that I fill up and drink thru out the day. The only sodas I drink are cherry coke zeros. I drink a lot of V8 as well... just have to make my Irish half give up the whiskeys.

[Larry B.]

No, you start the thread. I resolve to continue posting less and starting less threads in the New Year. It's been easy what with being so insanely busy. I should be marking 50 papers at the moment.

In the thread Larry starts I will explain that what I said had absolutely nothing to do with Hindu scriptures or quantum mechanics, and that's at least part of why he misunderstood me when I said rocks have thoughts.

If both methods arrive to the same correct conclusion, it doesn't matter if the fundaments were written by Einstein, a drunk Hindu, Spinoza or Dr. Quantum. The fact of the matter is that rocks have thoughts and oceans are alive.

[Hype]

No. You're wrong. Where is the thread?

[nausearockpig]

Record music in a studio, play it live, continue writing my books, read more, travel some and spoil my wife more.

[Larry B.]

Has anybody screwed up their new year's resolution already?