The number of users being those who would rather leverage the software for free, and then resell a walled garden version with proprietary extensions.
The alternatives to the GNU tools are largely permissively licensed, yeah? What could possibly go wrong with that..
Completely agree, very well said. I remember feeling agitated that someone I knew, like that, had interpreted at least one verse from the sermon on the mount to make it mean the exact opposite of what it was saying. Wish I could remember which line.
Of course. They fit the pattern of Yeshua's own characterization of the Pharisees perfectly. Just read Matthew chapter 23 and replace "Pharisee" with "Fundamentalist".
Or don't. There's countless better ways to spend time.
That carnism is an extremely entrenched mass psychosis or mania, and an insane amount of people need to sober the fuck up.
One popular answer is that sometimes people just experience things that they find scientific answers to not be able to answer adequately. We as a species are still far from knowing everything.
I'm a spiritually-inclined person. Also think it's totally legit to be atheist. You'd think that actively wanting diversity of belief would be reasonable, but evidently a lot of people just want uniformity and cultural erasure.
As someone who unfortunately has had contact with such people, I can assure you that the most extreme of them read their Bibles (KJV ONLY!) every day. For these fundamentalists the Bible is literally their laws, and so extensive knowledge of scriptures becomes a core part of how they exert power over each other and maintain their social hierarchies.
It might still not be popular to be vegan yet, but the movement is growing rapidly. It could be a symptom of a larger trend - that the injustices against non-human animals is too terrible to keep Ignoring.
Sometimes it just needs to be recognized that a problem isn't going to go away until we start doing the hard work of solving it together.
I can respect that you mean well, but there's a lot of issues with your comment, which I'll get into.
Haven’t really seen it mentioned here, but for those who don’t know, the male chicks are not used for chicken nuggets, but primarily for pet food or plant fertilizer. Also not every country does this practice.
The first problem here is that you're still treating chicks like they're commodities. What their carcasses are used for is irrelevant, because we're never going to continue progressing morally until we can learn to see these beings - who think, feel, and have their own qualia - as someone, not something. We can discuss side issues all day, everyday, like the environment, health, and pandemic potential. But we also have to stop being afraid to recognize this as a matter of justice.
Not only that, but eliminating eggs from the human global diet would be unfeasible. This is because eggs are the best source of protein, with only whey protein coming second.
Protein is not the only nutrient that matters, and it's generally effortlessly easy to get all the protein you need on plants alone. The view that people can't get enough protein on plants is such a thoroughly debunked myth that it's embarrassing that vegans have to dispell this nonsense in virtually every discussion still.
They are also the only food with such a high protein content that also contains all essential nutrients.
This is a dangerously bad take. In the first place, eggs do not contain all essential nutrients. Eggs either completely lack some essential vitamins and minerals, or have them in such low quantities that you would have to eat an insane amount of eggs to meet your daily needs. Just as importantly is that the nutrients are a package deal - eggs contain almost as much fat as they do protein, and are so high in cholesterol and saturated fats that the more you eat, the faster you are on your way to a heart attack, stroke, and/or erectile dysfunction.
And before someone posts “but da beans!” - no, they’re not on the same level. Although beans are a good source of protein, they’re neither complete
Protein "incompleteness" in plants is so misunderstood that it's effectively an outright myth. Virtually all plants have all 9 of the amino acids that are essential for humans. Where the incompleteness comes in is that human muscle tissue is composed of amino acids in a particular ratio. If we don't have enough of even one of those aminos in our diet, our bodies can't synthesize new muscle. For this reason it was believed that the closer a food matches the amino acid ratios in our muscles, the better that food is for gaining muscle. Obviously this way of thinking supports the idea of consuming other being's muscle tissue since that's naturally going to be the closest to our own (and yes that kind of thinking implies that cannibalism provides the "best" protein).
But that line of thinking breaks down under scrutiny. For starters, there are thousands of chemicals our bodies make that require amino acids, why are they not a factor in discussing "protein quality"? Second, a food being really high in protein is not necessarily a good thing. There's growing evidence that animal proteins themselves may be harmful for health and longevity.
Anyway, I really want to drive home the point that the protein incompleteness thing is damn near a nonissue. If you're a person who is strength training on a vegan diet, yes, you will make your life easier by diversifying your protein sources. But for the average person, the low amount of methionine in beans can easily be overcome by either simply eating some grains from time to time (or daily, grains are fucking great), or the person could eat 4 servings of beans in a day to get their rda of methionine (and all other essential amino acids).
nor are they actually as high as they seem, because the protein they have isn’t as bioavailable as that of eggs (speaking of, this is why there’s certain practices in vegan diets to gain more nutrients, such as eating leafy greens with an acid to get more iron or soaking pecans to remove the pyric acid in them to absorb the minerals they have better).
Food synergies are important for everyone, not just vegans. If for example you're trying to get the antioxidant and antiinflammatory benefits of eating berries, obviously you would rather increase those benefits by getting the synergies that come from eating a mix of berries, as opposed to mixing those berries with milk or bananas which are known to reduce or cancel out the berries beneficial effects.
Anyway, I'll finish my protein rant with a link to a YouTube video on the subject, from a real nutritional scientist who specializes in the subject. Tl;dw? The bottom line is that it's not only possible, but easy to get all the protein we need on plants alone. Carnists seriously need to just drop the whole protein thing because y'all just do not have a case in your favor here.
Removing eggs from the world diet would actually lead to more ecological harm, even without more ethical chicken rearing practices becoming wider spread, because the amount of farm land needed to ensure proper nutrition for everyone with a mixed vegetable diet would be significantly higher than ensuring there’s just enough eggs for everyone.
I'm not going to get into this one because other commenters have already done so. But no, that's preposterous on the face of it. Any animal agriculture is fundamentally going to take more land and resources to produce food because those animals need to be raised on plants, so why not raise the plants for ourselves directly? And before anyone chimes in about the suitability of land for agriculture, maybe take some time to learn more about things like Permaculture and regenerative ag. If a person can grow a small food forest on an abandoned parking lot with 12 inches of manure in the midwest, or Geoff Lawton can re-green the desert, it warrants investigating just how many places we can make abundant. Anyway, Cowspiracy is a good documentary to learn more about animal ag land use.
You don’t like baby chicks getting ground up? Don’t own carnivorous pets, and buy from more ethical egg farmers.
No, the purchasing and consumption of eggs is what drives chick culling. They do it because male chicks are considered a waste product of that industry, and any commodities sold from it likely grew out of a way to recoup costs. If you want to end chick culling, the best way to do it is go vegan.
Or if you can, honestly just get your own chicken or 2. You’ll have enough eggs with even a single chicken to be honest. Hens don’t need much space, males can be eaten once their 4am crowing drives you crazy - although they do keep the hens happy.
From a practical standpoint, raising your own chickens puts you at risk of getting h5n1. The more time goes by, the more that risk increases. From a moral standpoint, you might be causing less suffering to chickens this way, but you'd still be causing suffering as well as being an exploiter of that animal. Chickens have been unnaturally bred to produce way more eggs than their bodies can handle. Not only is this prodigious amount of egg laying an uncomfortable experience for them, it generally leads to nutrient deficiencies that end up causing their bones to break under their own weight. They can regain that lost nutrition by consuming their own eggs, which is something they sometimes naturally do.
As an alternative, consider either supporting an existing animal sanctuary, or start your own. As a bonus, you could use their manure to help grow a garden. Veganic agriculture can involve animals, as long as those animals are free-living, safe, comfortable, and they're not being exploited.
If you can afford it or don’t have very particular diet restrictions, go vegan - you probably don’t need as much protein as you think.
But up there you just said... oh nevermind. 🤔 Yes, go vegan. Also, in most places it's less expensive to be vegan, especially when you factor in the cost of healthcare.
I used to be vegan until kidney failure, and now with a transplant am back to mostly vegetarian (at least for now until I can go back to being fully vegan). I also used to raise animals for food and farm because I came from a poor family initially. If you don’t care, then just consider eating less meat and eggs will ya? Too much ain’t good for your health either. Plus it’ll taste better if you don’t eat it every day. A weekend bbq is way more special when you haven’t had meat the prior everyday.
A weekend bbq is a lot more special when it becomes fully uncoupled from the guilt of living on the commodification, exploitation, suffering, and atrocities of other sentient beings. Reducitarianism might be gaining traction, but it really hasn't led to any appreciable results. Experts in fields like health coaching all insist that the most effective way to adhere to a more ethical diet and lifestyle is to go all in. If you mess up, that's okay, just forgive yourself and try again. It's absolutely worth it.
One of the things that really changed my perception was learning that a single burger patty might contain some ground up flesh of a few, or possibly even a hundred or more animals.
Our food system does a really good job of hiding it's brutality behind heavy processing, and clever packaging and advertising. But once we open our eyes to what really goes on, it can't be unlearned. We have a responsibility to at least make ourselves aware when our actions are responsible for awful things happening.
I was also raised to believe that foods like rice were "filler". Refined grains might not have much to contribute, but it's been a lifechanging experience to have learned better that whole grains are nutritional and culinary cornerstones.
Everyone here saying that tofu, rice, flower, etc don't have flavor of their own should stop adding so much sugar, salt, and fat to everything they eat.
Lol. The funny thing is they are kind of technically right. All refined sugars have some harmful effects like blood sugar spikes and inflammation, but corn syrup only has a slightly higher ratio of fructose to glucose as table sugar does. In small, irregular doses it's fine to consume. And for athletes it can even be beneficial since refined carbs can replenish glycogen stores rapidly.
Mainly the people who are profiting from anti-carb diet fads - Atkins, keto, paleo, carnivore, etc.
If you're blaming rising obesity on sugar, it shows you're more susceptible to marketing than you are knowledgeable about the relevant science.
Refined sugar is generally not good, and certainly whole food sources of carbs are much more beneficial than simple sugars - however, sugar is not nearly as much of a demon as popular health influencers make it out to be. Importantly, it also needs to be kept in mind that the "standard american diet" (sad) or standard western diet is one that's high in animal products, fat (particularly saturated fat), refined carbs; while being low in whole fruits, vegetables, and fiber and phytonutrients in general.
Walter Kempers rice diet is worth learning about. It was a terrible diet - patients could basically only eat white rice, sugar, and fruit. But despite being an absurdly high sugar and high carb diet, a lot of patients saw dramatic improvements in their health, particularly when it came to things like obesity and type 2 diabetes reversal.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/education/information-all/walter-kempner-md-founder-of-the-rice-diet/
Then that's just one more reason to go vegan, since animal ag workers are some of the most exploited people. Plus, animal ag industry is one of the top funders of the republican party. Supporting the exploitation and commodification of non-human animals is one of the best ways to just keep on supporting fascism in general, so congrats on that I guess.
Love seeing more vegan memes and content.
Or maybe you need to recognize when a message is only going to continue to grow, and get louder. Get with the times.
Nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide among the 371m lb of pollutants released by just 41 plants in five years
A vegan blue cheese won the prestigious Good Food Award, until the dairy industry forced the foundation to disqualify it with a rule-change.
A coordinated effort to stop buying animal products on a mass scale could go a long way toward crippling the GOP, but too many on the left are still too busy crying, "no ethical consumption under capitalism tho," to be ready for that conversation.
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=2024&ind=A04
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=2024&ind=A06
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=2024&ind=G2300
ROCHESTER, MN—Hailing it as the best-tasting and most satisfying such product on the market, vegetarian food manufacturer Greenwood Farms unveiled a more realistic meat substitute Friday made from soy raised in brutally cruel conditions.
