Comment author: MorganHouse 08 May 2009 12:00:24AM 3 points [-]

In this situation, I would say that whatever you currently believe is the minimum, is the actual minimum. If you manage to convince yourself that a higher minimum is required, you have simply updated the variable.

Comment author: Yvain 03 May 2009 09:12:49PM 6 points [-]
  1. I don't eat meat.
  2. Ethical. If I wouldn't want people torturing dogs, I have no justification to be okay with people torturing cows, pigs, and chickens, and from what I've seen conditions in a lot of farms and slaughterhouses are tantamount to torture. Even though animals can't think verbally, they still have some level of awareness and the ability to feel pain, so causing them suffering is verboten. I am kind of sympathetic to the argument that free range meat raised with the animals' welfare in mind isn't so bad, and to the argument that if we weren't raising these animals for food they'd probably be endangered or extinct. But free range is only a small percent of meat products, and there are major environmental costs anyway, and the meat-farming industry just does so much damage in so many ways that I feel I need to do my part to discourage it. Right now my goal is to aim for zero meat and accept the inevitable lapses when they come as not being an ethical disaster.
  3. I'm not too strict about it. When I'm traveling or a guest somewhere it's pretty tough to avoid meat, so I let myself get away with it.
  4. Hard to tell. I think I'd at least share my reasons with them, but if they didn't want to that's their choice. As long as they can provide a rational explanation, of course :)
  5. Never tried.
  6. I eat a lot of Quorn when I'm in the British Isles, and soy products when I'm elsewhere. Quorn is better, but I haven't been able to find it outside Britain and Ireland.
  7. I'm pretty live-and-let-live about this.
  8. Became a vegetarian in elementary school, I think, maybe middle school. Gave it up on three or four occasions for a few months, usually after moving and not being able to find good vegetarian foods there, but always went back. Sometimes give it up for a few months when I go back to my parents' place, because the food there is too good and I don't have as much control over my diet.
  9. I love meat and I want it all the time.
  10. I don't really eat many fruits or vegetables. I hate them to the point where I have trouble keeping them down. This doesn't apply as much to salads. So I kind of live off of grain products, with some milk and eggs and Quorn thrown in. There are a lot of diet theories that suggest I should be very fat right now, but I'm actually pretty thin. Go figure.
Comment author: MorganHouse 03 May 2009 10:39:32PM *  9 points [-]

Ethical. If I wouldn't want people torturing dogs, I have no justification to be okay with people torturing cows, pigs, and chickens

Dogs are genetically selected for living together with humans. As such, and unlike their wolf predecessors, dogs are friendly towards us. In many cases, care is reciprocal, in that we more often care about people who care about us. I propose that chickens don't have even the slightest sense of morality, and don't care whether their siblings live or die. With this in mind, I think it's a somewhat justified to torture birds and low mammals, since they don't care about our or their families' well-being to begin with.

However, I would never torture a chicken unless I was at least 99% sure it had valuable information, and the future of the farm was at stake.

Comment author: Alexandros 01 May 2009 07:13:18PM *  8 points [-]

It seems you are conflating net neutrality (ISPs should not discriminate based on packet characteristics, including origin) with the concept that users should pay for the resources they use.

For one thing, spammers usually use botnets so no change there, average users would bear the cost one way or another. Unless you are advocating depriorization of all email traffic, ISPs have no way other than spam filters to differentiate what counts as spam. I see no connection to the net neutrality debate, or the pay-per-usage model.

As for porn-downloaders, I take it you mean people with high bandwidth needs, which includes all sorts of downloaders. (I really don't see why you would emphasise porn here, even if you're trying to evoke feelings of moral resentment, LW would seem the unlikeliest of places that this would have any efect.) I never had a problem with bandwidth usage caps, as long as they are explicit. Then carriers can compete on what they set these limits to and I can choose based on my needs. Nothing to do with net neutrality as far as I can see.

As for my libertarian view on net neutrality: When the governments allow for true competition between ISPs, they can drop all net neutrality provisions as far as I care. But then again, in a truly competitive market, I doubt we would be having a net neutrality issue to begin with.

Comment author: MorganHouse 01 May 2009 07:58:54PM 2 points [-]

| As for my libertarian view on net neutrality: When the governments allow for true competition between ISPs, they can drop all net neutrality provisions as far as I care.

Do you believe that true competition can exist in a free market where the economics of scale are as big as in the ISP market? If net neutrality isn't enforced, a big ISP could squash a small new ISP by demanding a lot of money for peering. They are much less likely to try something like this against a big ISP, who has a lot more bargaining power.

(I am Assuming "true competition" means at least low barriers to entry.)