in case you don't know this only has limited effect, cause you can open it again in a private browser. besides the search works with the procast setting, and we're not talking external constraints, people, us, me,... lack at this point internal mental defenses against the negative impact of social media.
See, this is the problem with all these mindfulness tools. I, the human, can simply defeat every challenge the computer attempts. And i require the ability to do so in case i have a need that's only satisfied by searching reddit for textbook recommendations while I'm in half price books, or a youtube video to fix my broken zipper pocket before i head to the gym soon. The fact that they time wasting sites are also the "goldmine of knowledge" sites make me include a back door in any time minder tool. A backdoor which is only used when needed... until it slowly becomes muscle memory and the tool is defeated by my capacity to learn to fuck myself over again and again.
Instead you ought to pay someone $15/hr to sit next to you. Anytime you're distracted by a website for more than five minutes, they punch you in the arm.
They also have to know they don't get paid if you manage to convince them to go away and leave you alone for a while.
Someone should to invent an AI powered one that is utterly unpredictable and installs in the boot sector. You're browsing Hacker News one day and suddenly your smoke alarms goes off. You do it the next day and your Echo device starts playing death metal at highest volume. You do it the next day and your car alarm goes off.
It's great that you slip into this mode automatically.
For me, the reframing of "goal" to "quest" helps enormously with this change of mode. A "goal" is something I hope/want to achieve in future - but today I'm busy with day-to-day chores etc. A "quest" however is something you are on. So if I'm on a quest to do X, of course I need to do something toward it every day.
For some reason I have a hard time with "quest" because it seems to have an endpoint. I'm not "on a quest to hike all the mountains." I'm just the kind of person for whom that kind of thing eventually happens because it's normal.
It very well might be my "fear of success" issue though. I don't have a fear of being different than I was before. That slips in under "part of the normal process of growth and change."
But being a person who's on a quest? Who might eventually achieve the thing? That lands differently, and in a way that prevents me from actually doing it.
I think my successes have to slide in under the radar so I don't sabotage them.
This Joel On Software article [0] is a good starting point. Incredibly it's now over 20 years old so that makes me feel ancient! But still relevant today.
The suggestion that the web should just use utf-8 everywhere is largely true today. But we still have to interact with other software that may not use utf-8 for various legacy reasons - the CSV file example in the original article is a good example. Joel's article also mentions the solution discussed in the original article, i.e. use heuristics to deduce the encoding.
Yes, this has happened. See this example from OpenJSF:
"The OpenJS Foundation Cross Project Council received a suspicious series of emails with similar messages, bearing different names and overlapping GitHub-associated emails. These emails implored OpenJS to take action to update one of its popular JavaScript projects to “address any critical vulnerabilities,” yet cited no specifics" [0,1].
Not for trains - there's a shared expectation that pedestrians should not access the track.
Similarly, not for a freeway.
Where some feel the balance is wrong, is at local-level streets. Today the assumption in most places is that cars have total right of way, and pedestrians must keep clear. It doesn't have to be that way. In a residential area, it's quite feasible to say all road users have equal right to use the space. And in that circumstance, put the onus on the car user (wielding a heavy, dangerous weapon) to not hit other road users.
> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual
A good rule of thumb for this that a few of my circles use: you can check, but only after 10 minutes have passed. Of course, 95% of the time by then no-one cares, as you say. Occasionally it's still relevant after 10 minutes, and so checking makes sense.
Do you check everyone's card when you split the bill? What makes you think the others are debit rather than credit cards?
For info: the debit & credit cards from my bank look almost identical. The only difference is one says "credit" in small black text. My credit card handles exactly like my debit card in terms of tap-and-pay etc. I just wouldn't use it to take out cash from an ATM, but then I can't remember when I last needed to do that.
Easy! People have lots of different reasons why they may choose not to eat meat or dairy. "Not liking the taste" is one possible reason. If that particular one isn't your reason, then you may still miss the taste/texture of certain foods, so having a substitute helps.
Who said anything about liking or disliking the taste of meat? If you're vegan, you don't want to eat meat, for whatever reason. What sense does it make to then pretend to eat meat anyway?
If you like meat so much you just have to have it, then what sense does it make to be vegan? Be flexitarian. Eat meat once a year, every Easter Sunday. Eat vegentarian. I don't know! But at least accept the fact that you can't stand being vegan because you really want to eat meat and dairy.
For me, anyone who eats pretend-meat or pretend-dairy is a pretend-vegan. If you're going to go off meat to save the planet, or because you think meat is murder, then stick to your own morality and go without anything that is in any way "like" meat. Otherwise, you're just advertising the need to eat meat and justifying everyone else to keep eating it and ignore your pleas for the environment and the baby calves.
If you tell me "I'm vegan, but I have to eat something like cheese", the easiest thing for me to reply is "I'm not vegan and I have to eat cheese". It just makes a joke of the whole idea of being vegan.
> For me, anyone who eats pretend-meat or pretend-dairy is a pretend-vegan.
I love that you can get all the taste without the violence and suffering. Eating is not always a single-person activity, so having vegan substitutes for meat and cheese is great when eating together with non-vegans who may be wary of falafels.
There are very few vegans who are vegans because of taste. Many are worried about the environmental impacts of mass animal agriculture killing trillions of animals every year.
The most prominent and outspoken animal liberation advocates — Ali Tabrizi and Ed Winters come to mind — are strong proponents of vegan-dairy, vegan-seafood and vegan-meat. It really doesn't make sense to call those people "pretend vegans". Check their talks and films[0][1], they aren't "making a joke of the whole idea of being vegan".
I don't get why carnists place such importance on real suffering and real death. Is it not real Adidas shoes if it isn't made by slave labour or something? Is it not a real car if it's not guzzling diesel? Why not cut down on causing harm when it's so easy? I don't get it.
You're asking me whether I think two big-name vegans who make movies and give
TED talks about veganism are pretend-vegans? For pushing pretend-animal
products? Yes! Yes they are! It's like asking me if the Pope is a
pretend-Christian for pushing pretend-faith and pretend-salvation if you just do what he says. Sure he is!
You want to be like saint in the world and reduce harm? Then don't go baptising
nut mush as "cheese" so you can enjoy what you have sworn off and are
pontificating against, like the apocryphal stories of Catholic monks baptising
their meat "fish" so they could eat it on Wednesday. Stop advertising meat and
dairy with your actions, contrary to your words. Stick to your principles and
then come to preach to me about mine.
I was vegetarian for a while, and stopped because it turned out I wasn't willing to go without meat. Had really good meat substitutes existed at the time, things might very well have panned out differently, and I'd still be a vegetarian to this day.
Lots of people try and fail to become vegetarians because they don't find the substitutes acceptable. If you consider it a purely personal issue it probably doesn't matter, but if you're interested in lowering global animal product consumption, then I think ideological purity is the more morally questionable position than trying to develop a product that can convince the world to take up veganism.
> pretend-vegans [...] For pushing pretend-animal products?
I would agree that people who endorse pretend-vegan products are pretend-vegans. There are many products labelled as "veggie" that still contain egg, such as Quorn.
But your logic fails by assuming pretend-meat = pretend-vegan. You don't kill anyone by playing Doom, just like you don't eat anyone when eating vegan nuggets.
(Yes, there's an argument that violent games can lead to real-life violence, but are you really claiming that vegan meat-substitutes can cause harm by in some cases leading people to eat meat?)
> You want to be like saint [...] Then don't go baptising [...] then come to preach to me about mine.
I find it interesting how religious terms are used as an insult towards vegans. It's a very common and highly irrational defense-mechanism many carnists use when experiencing cognitive dissonance because of all the violence they're willingly and knowingly contributing to while also thinking of themselves as good people.
> Stop advertising meat and dairy with your actions, contrary to your words. Stick to your principles and then come to preach to me about mine.
The paradox here is this: The more you stick to your principles as a vegan, the more upset non-vegans can get, while simultaneously demanding that you do stick to your principles, because otherwise you're a hypocrite. I have heard these carnist proverbs before, and unfortunately they defy logic.
For instance, regarding sticking to principles, I choose to not sit at a table where animals are eaten, even if there's also vegan food available. I do this to stop endorsing meat, which is what you're demanding, but no doubt such a stance would upset you as well.
It's challenging to examine one's own beliefs. I've eaten too many animals myself. I hope you have a good day.
A lesson I learned early in life is this: just because someone is upset with what you're saying, doesn't mean your 're right, or that they're upset because you're right, or even that they're upset about what you think they are.
For example, what I find annoying in your comment is the casual attribution of thoughts, emotions, morals and life experiences to me that you have no way to know I have. But you go ahead and make the assumption I do anyway and then triumphantly proclaim you defeated my "logic".
For example, I am not a carnist. I don't even know what that is.
I don't believe it's immoral to kill another animal to eat its meat. I don't believe it's immoral to kill another animal violently to eat its meat. Killing another animal requires violence that cannot be reduced to zero. And if you don't know what you're doing, you'll make matters worse because the animal will know what you're trying to do and then it'll try to run away and resist and cry for its mother. I know this very well. I know where my food comes from. I see my food running around when I look outside the window. I don't have any cognitive dissonance to work through.
Maybe you've eaten too many animals. I'm prepared to bet you have, especially if you come from North America or Western Europe, where people eat way too much meat and don't really know what to do with food unless it has meat in it. I do not come from such a culture and I haven't eaten too many animals.
Finally, I don't know how I'd react if you refused to sit at the same table as me because I'm eating meat. Probably, I'd think your'e a bit of an entitled prick, but be upset about it? Why?
You're making too many assumptions about my motives and experiences, when all I've said is that if you are vegan then you should stick to your principles and not eat meat or dairy. Are those not your principles? Or are you the kind of vegan that's OK with eating meat and dairy?
> For example, I am not a carnist. I don't even know what that is.
"Carnism is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals." ( https://carnism.org/carnism/ )
> you should stick to your principles
You're measuring vegans by principles they're not claiming to have, such that eating plant-based meat and dairy substitutes is ethically wrong.
This is additionally double-standards: Criticizing someone who tries to reduce harm for not being perfect (because of this alleged transgression of eating plant burgers, wtf?!), while giving a free pass for those who don't care. Surely it is better to try to reduce suffering and harm than to be indifferent?
> Or are you the kind of vegan that's OK with eating meat and dairy?
No. But I'm fine with plant milk and plant burgers, because those are not made out of animals or animal products. I like the taste and, most importantly, it has made vegan eating more accessible for my non-vegan family.
(Actually, I'm not too much into Beyond Meat, because it tastes too much like flesh for my taste, while I love Linda McCartney sausages. But that's just my own taste buds, and I don't worry too much about what tastes other people like.)
> "Carnism is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals." ( https://carnism.org/carnism/ )
Someone made a webpage.
> You're measuring vegans by principles they're not claiming to have, such that eating plant-based meat and dairy substitutes is ethically wrong.
Are you measuring me by the principles I don't have? For example, do you think it's wrong for me to eat meat and cheese and any animal products I like, even though I don't think there's anything wrong with it, as you do?
> Probably, I'd think your'e a bit of an entitled prick, but be upset about it? Why?
Because you're really upset about some people substituting cheese with fermented nut butter while still calling it cheese. It's not really too far fetched.
You’re attempting to redefine ‘pure’ veganism as consuming no animal nor animal-like products whatsoever. I can see where a word for that might exist, but what is commonly considered ‘vegan’ is not your definition.
If vegans can redefine "cheese" then why can't I redefine "vegan"? You're saying that only vegans can distort commonly used terms to promulgate their beliefs? They can sell "vegan" cheese as propaganda for their ideals but I can't just say, well then, you're not vegan because you're eating cheese?
> I love that you can get all the taste without the violence and suffering.
I don't believe you can, because I understand how cheese works and nut paste doesn't work that way. If you want nut paste to behave in a way that reminds of cheese, you have to stuff it full of gums and emulsifiers and stabilisers and all the additives that go into typical over-processed junk food. Cheese works the way it works because of a confluence of factors that developed over millions of years of evolution of mammals, and the bacteria that live in our guts and help us digest our food, including our mothers' milk. For example, did you know that cheese is made naturally in the stomachs of ruminants? When a young ruminant drinks its mother's milk, that milk ends up in the fourth stomach, the abomasum, where it is fermented by lactic acid bacteria and coagulated by proteolytic enzymes, pepsin and chymosin, and turns into cheese. I'm not sure why that is done so. Obviously the fermentation, that breaks down sugars, and the proteolysis, that breaks down proteins, helps the animal digest its milk, but why coagulate it also? One possible reason is that it helps the animal digest the milk slowly while it runs away from predators.
The same processes are also in effect in the human stomach and while I'm not 100% sure about this, human babies likely also make cheese in their little stomachs.
Bottom line is, cheese has evolved along with mammals over millions of years and there is no other process that we know that can create the same kind of substance. The vegan cheese substitutes we're discussing in this thread don't even come close.
As to vegan "meat", that's just vegetables. Why do you need to eat vegetables and pretend to eat meat? In another comment you accuse me of cognitive dissonance, but what is the mental process that allows you to eat cauliflower and call it a steak? To me it sounds like self-dellusion, make-believe.
But even if you really could reproduce the taste of meat and cheese "without the violence and suffering" as you say, then I'd think you just want to have your steak and eat it.
> I don't believe you can, because I understand how cheese works and nut paste doesn't work that way.
Totally agree. It's not quite the same. I'm prepared to occasionally abstain from certain well-tasting foods or use a less-than-perfect substitute out of solidarity with farmed animals and out of care for the planet. It's a trade-off. I agree.
> As to vegan "meat", that's just vegetables.
Yea, exactly. And sometimes mushrooms.
> Why do you need to eat vegetables and pretend to eat meat?
It's a good question. I think it's a bit more complex than pretending to eat meat. For me, personally, it's more about reclaiming certain dishes that we usually consider meat-based but that don't have to be, such as burgers and hotdogs.
For those who've just seen Cowspiracy or Earthlings and start to realize how harmful industrial animal agriculture is but also "can't live without their cheese and their meat", those meat substitutes are perfect. They substitute the taste but not the harm. They can make a zero-effort switch without changing any habits or learning to cook new dishes. It's the best of both worlds.
I love that 7-Eleven has started selling vegan hotdogs here. You get the choice of buying a delicious hotdog without having to worry about eating the body of someone who've been driven around in crowded trucks to then have their brains shot out with a pressure gun or being gassed. To me, it seems like self-delusion to buy the murder-hotdogs when the vegan ones are available.
I'm sure you've heard this one a thousand times before and you have the answer ready. I don't know the answer you have ready so I'm curious to hear it:
"Killing animals is not murder. Murder is when a human kills another human".
Go ahead then. Say your thing.
By the way, I think that hotdogs are gross and unhealthy and I wouldn't eat one, meat or no meat. Like I said in my original comment (from which it's true I digressed more than a bit) there are a ton of other things you can eat and enjoy that are vegetarian or vegan and that are not fake meat or fake cheese. I don't understand why some vegans and vegetarians prefer to substitute the meat and dairy they say they don't want to eat anymore with fake versions, rather than learn to cook and enjoy food without meat and animal products. That to me is just lazy and self-deceiving.
To "murder" is often used in the meaning of to "kill intentionally and with premeditation". Was that not clear from the context?
> there are a ton of other things you can eat and enjoy that are vegetarian or vegan and that are not fake meat or fake cheese.
We agree completely here.
> That to me is just lazy
Again, I agree. However, I think it's good that we're creating opportunities for lazy people to eat vegan too (or people who don't have time to cook, or parents with picky children, or traditionalist family that insist that you can't have Christmas without roast pig, etc.).
>> To "murder" is often used in the meaning of to "kill intentionally and with premeditation". Was that not clear from the context?
The context was that killing a non-human animal is murder. Murder is when a human kills another human. When a human kills a non-human animal it's just a "killing".
I don't really understand it either because I'd usually rather have tasty veggies than imitation meat, but what someone finds tasty is what they find tasty and they don't need to justify it.
You mean maybe they just like the taste of pretend-dairy, not as a reminder of the taste of dairy, but as something new? Then why call it "vegan cheese"? That just smacks of self-deception to me.
