Re: civility revisted (was Bring me your... cloned???)

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 11/3/03 1:56:40 AM Eastern Standard Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> as chris mentioned recently, this board has a long history of civility and

> i

> think most of us would prefer to keep it that way. we pretty much " police "

> ourselves and do a damn good job of it most of the time. i'm sure i'm not

> the only one who would appreciate it if you joined us in keeping it civil

> and staying focused on the *topic* of discussion and leave the sarcastic

> jibes and personal comments behind.

>

Dave's just a little sensitive today ;-)

Chris

[Guest guest]

>

> i honestly have NO IDEA where you

> got all these notions about me from a fairly benign post on

hydroponic meat!

> all i did was disagree with you on something and state why. not

sure how

> that got interpreted as contempt for what you wrote and a

declaration of my

> " grand mission in life. " i'm not in the habit of personally

attacking

> *anyone* as you seem to think i did to you. you would be hard

pressed to

> find a *single* post that i've written to this list over the past

year and

> half (and there have been MANY) in which i showed contempt or

arrogance, or

> personally attacked anyone. it's just not my style.

I wish that Tom had not brought it back up, and I suspect

he has less concern for you than he's pretending and more

of an agenda to shut me up, since he can't really win a fair

argument with me. I was happy to have put the argument

behind us, and don't really want to have an enemy in you.

But regardless, since it _has_ now been brought up, I

guess it must be taken apart piece by piece and it seen

just what was actually said. I went back and read the posts,

and you are right that there was not a single post but rather

an escalation over the course of a few. My first post was

#32725 where I wrote

" Actually, _I'm_ looking forward to the eventuality of

directly cloned meat. This will allow humans to consume

flesh foods, guaranteed free of e-coli, etc., without

the brutal necessity of butchering our fellow beings. "

This was followed by a series of replies where basically

it was insisted that such could never be possible because

of reasons x, y and z. I didn't consider any of these posts

inflammatory in any way, maybe the other participants

thought so, I don't know. You were not yet one of them

at this point. Then in reply to one of them where I wrote

" since we _know_ about this, we will add them, or

whatever substrate is needed by cattle to produce them,

to the nutrient mixture delivered to the tissue cultures. "

you wrote in message #32767

" you are WAY more trusting of the small group of human beings

controlling such a project and their funder$ than i am. "

Now while I didn't really consider this inflammatory or

anything like that, I didn't like the implication that I

was naive, and I especially didn't like it, being as it

was based on what you considered the attendant political

and/or economic issues. Bases upon which I never argued

anything, and so based upon which I resented your calling

me " trusting " . Again, I didn't consider it inflammatory,

but I definitely did not want to leave the charge of naivete

unanswered. So in message #32776 I wrote

" I'm not trusting of anybody, ... " and " We're discussing the

feasability of producing nutritious meat in culture mediums,

not what choices some commercial food producer might

make in the future when using such technology. "

Your reply to this one, message #32811 is where you

first really get my goat, when you write (emphasis mine)

" WRONG. it is not logical to dissociate the two because " a "

doesn't exist in a vacuum and is not an end in and of itself.

it WILL be followed by " b " so we clearly have to look at what

" b " is too. this is the reality, the practicality of it. if you

JUST want to have an interesting but TOTALLY IMPRACTICAL

CONVERSATION about the theoretical benefits/drawbacks of such

meat, then that is another issue. I'M MORE INTERESTED in the

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS of such technology as *that* is what

would affect us, NOT THE THEORIES. "

and

" AS A WAPF CHAPTER LEADER, I'M much MORE CONCERNED with the

PRACTICALITY of any situation, NOT LOVELY DISCUSSIONS on

THEORETICAL models that will NEVER BE practiced in REALITY.

my community wants nutrient dense foods and they want to

support the local economy. if for no other reason, the

hydroponic meat scenario, in practical terms, would probably

only be practiced by agribusiness (which i'm guessing are

the current funders), not small family farms, and from that

perspective alone, it will further erode consumer's choice

and erode local economies. "

You have every right to be more interested in, or concerned

with anything you want, and I never contested that fact, but

I'm not " wrong " for discussing something other than your

interests.

So first I'm told I'm naive because I discuss the feasability

of culturing meat without bothering to consider what Suze

considers other more important ramifications. When I

protest against _that_, I'm flatly told " wrong. " , and that the

conversation that I chose to engage in was " totally impractical "

and one in which she was not " interested " , after which she

went on to detail just what she _is_ interested in. My thread

was further denigrated as " a lovely discussion on theoretical

models that will never be practiced in reality " , followed by

further detail about what her community wants and how my

interest doesn't serve that in any way. It is to these words

that I referred when I wrote " Suze expressed contempt for

the posting of anything not relevent to her grand mission in

life. " Does nobody else find such characterizations as

" totally impractical conversation " to be contemptuous?

I replied to this one in message #32879 with

" How can you tell me that I'm wrong? I'm telling you what

_I_ was talking about. I think I know what subject _I'm_

talking about. " and " I'm telling you I'm not interested in

any political incidentals, and I never brought them up, so

you've no right to criticize or correct me on such points.

If that's what interests you, and you want to turn the thread

in that direction, then by all means do so, but don't do it by

attacking me. Just append your own thoughts in reply to one of

the messages in the thread. "

I fail to see any inflammatory language on my part, only

defense against the charges made. Furthermore, you can

see that it was here that I first characterized message

#32811 as an " attack " , so you can't act surprised to see

it only now, nor now can you claim not to know why I

characterized it as such either. I continue in #32879

with

" You certainly have alot of cheek to call someone else's

conversation " totally impractical " . There's more going on

in the world than just _your_ personal concerns. "

Here is the _first_ comment made by myself that could

even remotely be construed as inflammatory, but please

note your choice of words upon which it followed.

To your comment

" if you just want to have an interesting but totally impractical

conversation about the theoretical benefits/drawbacks of such

meat, then that is another issue. "

I further respond with

" No, that was _the_ issue, if _you_ want to have a conversation

about the political concomitants of the matter, then _that_ is

in fact " another issue " . "

which is completely true. I've reposted the entire exchange

here so anybody can see that the original issue was whether

such meat could ever be nutritionally equivalent to so-called

real meat. The political side that was later brought in was

in fact " another issue " .

After being told about the worthlessness of my line of

conversation and how it ought to have followed the lines

prescribed by Suze, I finally become annoyed enough to

let her have a dose of my own opinions about the various

things she thought were so much more important.

The rest of my reply in #32879 follows.

" Now we know what _you're_ more interested in, but this is not

your private list. Furthermore, you've now opened the door

for me to tell you what _I'm_ interested and not interested in. "

" I'm on this list too, and I don't give a damn about supporting

small family farmers. Whoever will give me the product I want

at the best price, I'll support. I don't romanticize the small

family farm, nor am I a technophobe. "

" That's lovely for you! I'm guessing that some sort of

brightly colored sash or shiny badge comes along with

that position? "

" If you're not concerned with " lovely discussions on theoretical

models " then you need not have joined the thread, right? I'm

not concerned with what you discuss in many threads, so I simply

don't join them. Here again you also declare what you think is,

or is not practical, but I have my own ideas about what I think

is practical, and I don't defer to you. "

" I'm not concerned with _your_ community or _your_ local economy.

The only " community " with which I'm concerned is my own family

and circle of friends. Furthermore, _I_ participate in a _world_

economy, and don't give one whit about propping up inviable local

enterprises that _ought_ to die a natural death. "

" Many many people now grow plants at home hydroponically,

and I can tell you that I would grow meat this way too if

I could, before I would eat anything that came from a

slaughterhouse.

And _that's_ what _I'm_ talking about! ;-) "

-end quote-

If my language is considered inflammatory in these last

comments, then so be it. At least at this point no one

can pretend not to know exactly what sort of remarks

provoked them. Alas though, they were not even the

last provocative remarks, for how you have also accused

me of trolling. I think anybody can see which were the

first trollish words to appear in the thread. It is those

that I marked in bold above, for not only is their tone

contemptuous, but it should also now be obvious to all

that they in no way logically followed from what I originally

wrote.

> her role as the leader of some " Wildly Angry Premenstrual

> Females " (that's what WAPF stands for, right?).

>

> ---->is this an attempt at wit?

Yes, and a successful one.

> have you read what the stated mission of this forum is, and how it's

> *foundation* is the WAP/NT paradigm with it's encumbant valueing of

local

> sustainable farming? (this is in reference to your first post,

which i

> honestly don't see the point of responding to).

Which first post? The same post that I'm calling the first

post? If you really don't see the point of responding to it,

why did you? We wouldn't be where we are now if you hadn't.

Though of course you're just being disingenuous. Your real

intent is just to show further contempt for my posts, just

as you did before.

> not that you have to share those views, in fact dissenting

> opinions are welcomed and encouraged, and for the most part

> are what makes this forum interesting.

Well thank you your highness. Are you a list-owner or

moderator of this group? Is that the reason you feel

you can take such a condescending tone with me?

> but your comments to date on this subject don't smack of a

> dissenting view as much as they do of trolling, actually.

> (such as the comment above.)

All of my comments to date on the subject have now been

posted in one place for all to see. So it should now be

obvious to all as well who the real troll is.

> ------>WHAT attack? LOL, maybe it's just the late hour, but this

> conversation seems rather surreal to me. i just re-read my post and

there

> was absolutely NO attack and no expression of contempt. it ain't my

style as

> i said, i have too much respect for my fellow human beings (well

most,

> anyway, LOL) to be involved in personal attacks. i'm more

interested in

> *ideas*. if i thought there was anything in there that remotely

resembled an

> attack, i'd apologize, but i can't find a thing!

See above.

i'm sure i'm not

> the only one who would appreciate it if you joined us in keeping it

civil

> and staying focused on the *topic* of discussion and leave the

sarcastic

> jibes and personal comments behind.

So one should stay focused on the topic of discussion, and

leave the sarcastic jibes behind, eh?

Well if you aren't the proverbial pot calling the kettle

black!

[Guest guest]

-

>This will allow humans to consume

>flesh foods, guaranteed free of e-coli, etc.,

Well, to divert the conversation back to its original subject, do you

really think hydroponic meat would be guaranteed to be free of microbial

contamination? (I'm taking your " etc. " to cover e. coli as well as other

categories of problems.) For that to happen, the meat would have to be

grown in perfect clean-room conditions. Animals, by contrast, have

built-in immune systems, and when they're fed healthy diets -- as pastured

grass-fed cattle are -- their meat is healthy too, provided the animals are

processed in clean plants and not contaminated by meat from grain-fed

cattle suffering severe dysbiosis.

-

[Guest guest]

well, this is the most bizarre post i've read in some time. i'm not

touching it with a 10-foot-pole! LOL

her highness

[Guest guest]

>> her role as the leader of some " Wildly Angry Premenstrual

>> Females " (that's what WAPF stands for, right?).

>>

>> ---->is this an attempt at wit?

>

>Yes, and a successful one.

You see, this is inflammatory. This is a personal attack. You're

making fun of Suze by characterizing her as a stereotypical member of

a group rather than treating her as an individual and an equal,

thereby discounting her argument. One's arguments should stand

completely isolated from their person. What you said is every bit as

insulting to women as it would be insulting to gays for me to make a

joke about your membership in the Grand Old Waterskiing Foundation.

You're a member of Gays Obsessed With Fashion? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Funny,

right? No, stupid and insulting.

Tom

[Guest guest]

, it's not my goal to " win " any discussion. I'm just interested

in learning and aiming for a fuller understanding of nutrition as well

as the world in general. The last thing on my mind is shutting up an

intelligent party in an interesting discussion. New and contrary ideas

are the lifeblood of intellectual progress.

Your twising our discussion into a battle and attributing ulterior

motives to my posts is childish. I say this bluntly, with no intent or

desire to belittle you. I'm saying what appears to me to be true, but

of course it's just my opinion. If you disagree, fine! Let's just move

on. Ideally, all of the foregoing should be understood tacitly, but I

want to make it clear.

Anyway, no hard feelings whatsoever, seriously. Let's get back to our

discussion!

Tom

> I wish that Tom had not brought it back up, and I suspect

> he has less concern for you than he's pretending and more

> of an agenda to shut me up, since he can't really win a fair

> argument with me.

[Guest guest]

> clearly has the upper hand the logic of his argument. The

practical

> feasibility and political ramifications are absolutely dissociable

------>well, in *your* mind perhaps, but i stand by my original post

that for any *practical* purposes discussing the ability to create

hydroponic meat in a vacuum without discussing how it would impact

*anything* is impractical. not that there is anything wrong with

that - if you look at my original post you'll see that i in fact said

IF it's discussed in a vacuum, it's simply " impractical " .

however....if you guys want to discuss it in a vacuum, have at it!

suze

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 11/9/03 1:17:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> ------>well, in *your* mind perhaps, but i stand by my original post

> that for any *practical* purposes discussing the ability to create

> hydroponic meat in a vacuum without discussing how it would impact

> *anything* is impractical. not that there is anything wrong with

> that - if you look at my original post you'll see that i in fact said

> IF it's discussed in a vacuum, it's simply " impractical " .

Suze, they are dissociable in anyone's mind and towards the end of the above

paragraph you reveal that you simply don't choose to dissociate the two,

though you are perfectly capable of doing so.

This discussion is simply making a circle now. The discussion *was* about

technical feasibility, and you didn't simply say, " well, this *other* issue is

an important related issue which we should also discuss " but rather you called

" wrong " for discussing the issue he was choosing to discuss rather than

the issue *you* prefer to discuss.

One good reason to dissociate them (not that you *need* a reason to talk

about what you want to talk about) is that technical feasibility is an intensive

property whereas political feasibility is not. In other words, whether

something can or cannot be done with technology is not affected by who is doing

it or

who they are doing it for. Whether or not a technologically feasible thing

happens to *get* carried out *is* affected by political feasibility, BUT

political feasibility is wholly dependent on the political landscape. We should

probably call this politico-economic feasibility, because the force of, say,

consumer demand, as at least as powerful as political forces, especially in a

so-called " democracy " where consumer demand can affect the polity directly.

Technical feasibility can be discussed based on fact, logic, and

extrapolation, whereas political feasibility is subject to change and is simply

guesswork.

Any sensible economic analysis recognizes that the " powers that be " have no

aversion whatsoever to producing nutritious meat, but rather want to maximize

profit, and therefore sell sub-nutritious meat that is produced cheaply to the

market that does not demand other methods of production. So there is no

reason to " trust " or " distrust " producers to " do the right thing, " but rather

one

would expect them to produce according to demand, and we don't know what

consumers will demand.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 11/9/03 11:57:29 AM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

Uh, the desire for profit is central to the profit system, and since

> nutritious meat will never be as profitable as less-nutritious agricultural

>

> products, there's always going to be an incentive for producers to produce

> less-nutritious products and to tilt and sway consumer demand (which is

> fairly malleable) away from nutrition. Even if we all magically entered an

> NT world, the incentive to change demand would still be there.

, take a trip to the health food store. Consumers who are educated or

conditioned to believe that any given product x2 is healthier than its

counterpart x1 will pay up to three times the price for x2.

There is no direct relationship between nutrition and profitability. There

is an indirect relationship and it is dependent on consumer demand. Since we

don't know much about how nutritious hydroponic meat would be created, we have

no reason whatsoever to believe that this indirect relationship will hold true

in the same way.

You're confusing " profitable " with " low-cost. " Something is only more

profitable when lower-cost if the revenue remains constant, and it is quite

clear

that that is not the case when it comes to products marketed for their health

value.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Uh, the desire for profit is central to the profit system, and since

nutritious meat will never be as profitable as less-nutritious agricultural

products, there's always going to be an incentive for producers to produce

less-nutritious products and to tilt and sway consumer demand (which is

fairly malleable) away from nutrition. Even if we all magically entered an

NT world, the incentive to change demand would still be there.

>Any sensible economic analysis recognizes that the " powers that be " have no

>aversion whatsoever to producing nutritious meat, but rather want to maximize

>profit, and therefore sell sub-nutritious meat that is produced cheaply to

>the

>market that does not demand other methods of production. So there is no

>reason to " trust " or " distrust " producers to " do the right thing, " but

>rather one

>would expect them to produce according to demand, and we don't know what

>consumers will demand.

-

[Guest guest]

if you look at my original post you'll see that i in fact said

> > IF it's discussed in a vacuum, it's simply " impractical " .

>

> Suze, they are dissociable in anyone's mind and towards the end of

the above

> paragraph you reveal that you simply don't choose to dissociate the

two,

> though you are perfectly capable of doing so.

>

> This discussion is simply making a circle now.

------->i'm not sure why you wanted to rehash this thread in the

first place, but as long as you chose to not read what i wrote, which

i thought was pretty clear, then it will do nothing but go in

circles. maybe my wording *was* unclear or perhaps you are

misenterpreting it, but again, i implied that it CAN be discussed in

a vacuum, however i find that unrealistic and impractical. i think

it's a given that the point of developing such technology would be to

USE it. and again as i said in the original post, it's impractical to

look at " a " and ignore " b " which *will* follow " a " .

>>>The discussion *was* about

> technical feasibility, and you didn't simply say, " well, this

*other* issue is

> an important related issue which we should also discuss " but rather

you called

> " wrong " for discussing the issue he was choosing to discuss

rather than

> the issue *you* prefer to discuss.

---->it's not which issue *i* prefer to discuss, it's looking at the

issue wholistically, if you will, rather than dissociating a part

from the whole. besides, again, i said it can be discussed in a

vacuum, but that it's simply impractical. maybe i should've simply

left out the word " wrong " as it appears to have gotten some hackles

up. so let's say, nix " wrong " and read the rest of the para, which is

the guts of my argument.

i honestly don't have much time to waste on fruitless conversations,

which this appears to be, so if i do respond again, it will be brief.

suze

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 11/10/03 8:49:59 AM Eastern Standard Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> ------->i'm not sure why you wanted to rehash this thread in the

> first place,

It wasn't my perception that I was " rehashing " it because I responded

directly to 's post as soon as I received it. This perception may have

been

brought about, however, due to a deficiency in 's delivery system, which is

not too inconceivable.

but as long as you chose to not read what i wrote, which

> i thought was pretty clear, then it will do nothing but go in

> circles

maybe my wording *was* unclear or perhaps you are

> misenterpreting it, but again, i implied that it CAN be discussed in

> a vacuum, however i find that unrealistic and impractical. i think

> it's a given that the point of developing such technology would be to

> USE it. and again as i said in the original post, it's impractical to

> look at " a " and ignore " b " which *will* follow " a " .

Suze I understand what you wrote, but I was replying specifically to the

relevance of your response to . In other words, your belief that there are

other issues that must be discussed if one is to have a comprehensive

discussion about the prospect of hydroponic meat is absolutely true; however,

your

response to david that he is " wrong " on the issue of technical feasibility for

this reason is a non-sequitor.

There are two more logical inconsistencies to deal with as well. And please

note that a) I'm responding to several people, not only you, who levelled the

same criticisms against and therefore if you are not interested in this

I'm writing it for the general topic that others have commented on, and

this is not personal criticism and certainly not bashing of you, as I explicitly

defended your posts as NOT contemptuous.

Anyway, first of all it should be noted that it is virtually impossible to

discuss two issues at once. You can do so in the same discussion, but even then

you must separate the issues into paragraphs or sections and deal with one at

a time. was no more discussing the issue of technical feasibility " in

a vaccuum " than you were discussing politics and ethics " in a vaccuum, " as I

don't recall you really addressing the issue of technical feasibility.

Second of all, the initial response to about him be trusting etc was

not so much a case of discussing " a " without " b " when " b " follows " a, " but

rather a case of discussing the feasibility of " x " as regards to technical

factors

such as " a " " b " and " c " while ignoring politico-economic factors such as " d "

" e " and " f " which also affect the feasibility of " x. "

In other words, the initial claim on 's part was that hydroponically

produced meat can be made as nutritious as grass-fed meat because we are

technically able to provide the substrates necessary for the production of CLA

and

other important factors, so there is no reason to believe hydroponics would have

a qualitatively similar effect on the nutritional quality of meat to the

effect of grain/confinement-feeding. You responded by saying he is more

trusting

of the powers that be than you are. The only sensible interpretation of the

implication of this statement is that, despite the technical feasibility, the

people in control of producing the hydroponic meat would either have no interest

in producing a more nutritious product or would have an interest in producing

a non-nutritious product. Your comments about the economic *implications* of

producing hydro meat, IOW the " b " that follows " a, " came later, in discussing

family farms, etc.

Now this latter part IS a valid concern and you are perfectly right for

bringing the issue up, but it addresses the issue of ethics, not feasibility,

which

also brought up, asserting that hydroponic meat was more ethical due to

the supposed humane effects on animal welfare. It is not a logical response

with which to claim is " wrong " about a) his beliefs on the feasibility

or his claim that the feasibility can be discussed without regard to the

above. The comments on political feasibility are more related, but rest mostly

on guesswork and therefore don't carry much weight, and furthermore don't

really counter 's assertion that it is *feasible* for the hydro meat to be

*possible* because the simple *possibility* that certain interests will

interfere

with a certain course of development do not in any way negate the other

possible courses of development, in which case the latter are still considered

" feasible. "

Chris