Profile for Militant Vegan

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Your Max's in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #9
I'm sure it's an ego boost to someone.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
What music (if any) are you listening to... in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #802
Came into a positive glut of music this week, but at the moment.....

The wrens - the medowlands

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
What else do you play? in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #18
BoE... and nothing else!

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
What music (if any) are you listening to... in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #766
the pixies - death to the pixies

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Note to Everyone in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #5
Funny site, though.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
I'm having a party! in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #40
I assume everyone's going to be ok with it if I bring my garbage sack of oily rags and variously shaped erotic lighters as party favors? 'Cause like my grandpa always told me as a boy, "It ain't a party unless the fire department gets called!"

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Petz 3 downloads in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #1
Is this a put-on?

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
What music (if any) are you listening to... in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #753
Elvis Costello - when i was cruel

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
I'm having a party! in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #26
I will bring enough delicious strawberry flavored soy smoothies for half, so that I can watch you all fight amongst yourselves.

Suffice to say, I'll also be bringing a sense of humor, and a comfy chair.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Here We Go Again (Political Compass) in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #15
- 8.95 Economic
- 9.15 Social

In my case, I believe it does indicate revolutionary fervour!

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Poll in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #2
Absolutely has to be Khoth. A giant fire breathing dragon, old as sin, with a passionate love for books and knowledge and magical skill coming out of his ears! What's not to love? ;)

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Free Will in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #10
There's also the issue of sublimated response, where what we do is influenced by factors we aren't consciously aware of. Not that this has been proven to satisfaction, but it may bear on the idea of absolute free will.

In any case, I don't really feel a burning passion to discover if there is, in fact, something like an absolute manifestiation of free will, like some unexplained region of brain activity as was suggested earlier. The illusion of free will, if that's all that this experiance of reality truly is, is enough to satisfy me.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
What music (if any) are you listening to... in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #736
Elvis Costello - when I was cruel

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Why? in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #75
quote:
Originally written by USA-se Xenerali-veiratu CUSITURA:
Plants are alive, yes, but they're not conscious; neither are eggs or cheese. (If you're against it on the basis of no explotation of animals, I'd be more than happy to point out that chickens would have eggs anyway.)

I agree, and I do beleive that animal exploitation is a valid reason to choose a vegan diet. And as for chickens laying eggs, do you believe they'd choose to lay them in a factory setting in which they're stuck in a cage roughly the size of their body, have their beaks cut off so that they can't peck the eyes out of other chickens, be force fed antibiotics with thier food, and a host of other conditions imposed by factory farming? I see a crucial diffrence here.

quote:
Most fish, conscious or not, are not capable of feeling pain on a level similar to that of intelligent land creatures.
And quite frankly, to say that an animal has a similar life to you is biologically sound but otherwise ridiculous. Cows are stupid, stupid animals, and the same goes for chickens; they feel pain, they bleed, but to say they have a common thread with humans on more than a biological level is preposterous.

Why exactly is it preposterous? Is self-awareness the only condition which separates us? Try not to forget that humans, despite all arguments to the contrary, are still a form of animal life. We hold a niche within the same ecological community that all other forms of life occupy. From what power do we derive the right to set ourselves apart and say that the lives of other creatures are worth nothing, because they do not resemble us in form and bearing? Just for arguments sake, try listening to the scream of a pig being gutted, or a cow being slaughtered, and tell me that that animal feels no pain. This argument is similar to that mechanized veiw of the animal kingdom which arose during Descartes's time, when bear-baiting and fox hunting were populkar sports.

quote:
I personally happen to fall in more to the exploitation angle (being a good socialist, and also not wanting to tangle with the implication of eggs having anything to do with grown humans); I might be a vegetarian if I thought it would do any good for the animals in question or for humanity as a whole; but overall, people in America are still going to eat twice as much as they need while people in Africa are still going to starve for want of half of it.
My response is that pessimissim is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As long as you believe this is a fixed reality, it will hamper all efforts to make a change. Do people have to live this way? More importantly, is it possible for this lifestyle to continue indefintely? To both, I say no. America's current model is not a sustainable one; it's dependent on fossil fuel consumption, when Hubert's Peak indicates that the crisis point for this resource is fast approching. It's dependent on a system of agriculture which destroys topsoil at a catastrophic rate. It's dependent on an agricultural system of factory farming which exploits the animals and laborers alike. If these facts existed alone in a vaccum, independent of any activism or public action, they wold be enough to ensure the eventual toppling of the current American way of life. Combined with the societal preassures arising from environmental organizations, anti-animal exploitation groups, social justice groups, and labor organizations, I cannot help but see the potential for change.

quote:
And one consumer's difference won't change the policies of the meat industry.
Exactly. This is absolutely true, and that truth is part of the reason I discuss these issues with the people around me. An indivdual may not be able to affect a significant change, but a group certainly can. Veganism is more than a diet, or a fad; it is a movement.

quote:
The conscience-food market is and always will be dominated by the upper-class, who have the money and time to waste frittering away about how horribly we're exploiting animals, and at the same time supporting the exploitation of migrant farm laborers.
I recognize that there is a great deal of validity in what you're saying here. Large-scale retail of food in America is certainly supportive of exploitive labor practices. This is not to say that alternatives to such practices don't exist. For example, I do my shopping at our town's local co-op grocery. The food sold is produced regionally and organically. I choose to shop there because it agrees with my principles. So I don't think it's fair to say that every vegetarian is a hypocrite, and I think it's especially unfair to lump every vegetarian together as upper-class. This is certainly untrue. Most of my friends are vegan or vegetarian, and they come from a whole range of social backgrounds: working class, middle-class, low income, high-income. Social conscience is not a privillage of the elite. Look at the history of organized labor, of women's sufferage, of abolition. These were issues that were persued successfully by the lower classes of society, because they had an interest in doing so. Today, they have a compelling interest in persuing an end to exploitive farming practices in this country because it is an industry whose workers are derived almost exlcusively from the lower class. Putting an end to the slaughterhouse industry, and all the backbreaking toil, low wages, and health risks that accompany it, putting an end to the factory farms which are dependent on a steady influx of migrant labor from mexico, putting an end to dangerous working conditions prevalent within packing plants; these are surely not elite issues - they are of the utmost concern to the laboring classes.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Why? in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #70
Plants live, but are not aware, or conscious. Moreover, they have very limited sensory equipment, and no pain receptors. They don't feel anything like pain.

Plus, they're tasty.

Given the choice between an animal, whose experiance of life has a lot in common with mine, and a plant, who isn't alive in the same sense that I'm alive, I'll choose the plant.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Why? in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #68
quote:
Originally written by Distantly Bemused:

Ah, but is cold-blooded murder wrong if it saves more lives than it ends? And can you equate all life to be of equal value, amongst humans or indeed amongst animals in general?
Your first point is valid. Murder is a contextual evil, and cases can be made to support both arguments. However, I still believe that it is possible to collectively construct an idea of what moral and immoral behavior might look like. It isn't as though everyone's cultural background is so radically diffrent that we share no common values. Is there an appropriate situation to sexual violate children? To defile corpses? To beat an old man for looking at you cross-eyed?

Speaking for myself, I do consider all life to be of equal value. That's part of what it means to be a vegan. So in my own life, this belief has allowed me to construct a moral definition. Life is sacrosanct.

[ Monday, January 05, 2004 19:10: Message edited by: Militant Vegan ]

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
BoA Arena? in Blades of Avernum
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #18
You could also make each submission subject to a reveiw process of some sort, to make sure that nothing ridiculous like the above examples has been incorporated.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Hit That - One More Time in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #7
An official member of the 500 club now? Nice.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Why? in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #63
Well, I don't believe we can agree on any sort of absolute definition regarding good and evil. Like so many things in life (and this topic :) ), there is no single definition that everyone works with in their assumptions. I guess the closest we could collectively come would be to set up some broad ethical boundaries that are mutually acceptable to attempt to get a framework in place. For example, most people would agree that cold-blooded murder or sadism is an evil action, while generosity or kindness would be considered good. Someone want to jump in here?

[ Monday, January 05, 2004 19:15: Message edited by: Militant Vegan ]

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
What music (if any) are you listening to... in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #715
Opeth - The Moor, off of Still Life.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Shogun in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #5
Don't give up. It's worth reading.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Couple questions in Blades of Avernum
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #8
Regarding carrying over experiance, you could always create a party that meets your expectations or requirements for the scenario and then package it with the actual scenario. Didn't Terrors Martyr do that for Echoes: Assault, or am I just getting all turned around?

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Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Shogun in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #2
What exactly are you writing about, from the book? It's been a while since I read it, but I'll try to help if I can.

[ Sunday, January 04, 2004 13:00: Message edited by: Militant Vegan ]

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Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
Okay, I still have to ask... in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #16
*applause*

Way to stick up for yourself, man. You've got my vote.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00
What music (if any) are you listening to... in General
Warrior
Member # 3252
Profile #689
Robert Johnson - he sold his soul to the devil to learn the blues. It was worth it. He is amazing.

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Learn About The Man Behind the Messiah.
Posts: 137 | Registered: Tuesday, July 22 2003 07:00

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