Interesting Links for 01-12-2016

[andrewducker]

How Stable Are Democracies? ‘Warning Signs Are Flashing Red’ (tags: democracy politics viaPatrickHadfield ) Parents urged to stop telling kids to believe in Corbyn (tags: labour politics christmas funny ) Lack of sleep costing US economy up to $411 billion per year (tags: economics sleep usa work ) Parents should avoid pressuring young children

Comments

[supergee]

When I first saw the Tallow story, I guessed that Tallow was a dead politician and it was something like our issues with dead slaveowners on the currency. Perhaps those who are both vegans and homeopathists will find this issue particularly important.

[andrewducker]

I actually have less sympathy for vegans than I do for people whose religion makes cows sacred.

[ggreig]

Why? They're both sets of beliefs that may be deeply held, and crucial to identity and self-perception.

I'm not in either camp, but sympathise with both. I'm genuinely interested as to why you're differentiating (even if it's not by much), and in a direction that's less likely to get sympathy as society gets more secular.

[andrewducker]

Because there's a difference between "It has been commanded by the universe that you do not do X" (which is then taken as an absolute by the follower of the religion) and "I am against the damage caused by X" which is usually less so.

Most vegans, in my experience, won't deliberately eat meat/animal products, but they won't go to huge lengths to avoid even the slightest trace of a side-effect of them. Whereas for people whom it is a religious commandment it will cause them to distort their whole lives far more.

[ext_2864067]

I can't help but feel that there's quite a lot of awful mainstream smug about the way the situation with the new fivers is being reported.

Sure, I don't care if there's animal tissue in the things. But there are quite a number of people who do, for ethical or for religious reasons. I don't think they're right, but I respect their right to feel that way.

It's a little bit 'tyranny of the majority' to sneer at them this much. They're not stopping the rest of us from using animal products. They just want to be in a situation where they realistically have a choice about doing so.

Is that so much to ask?

[a_pawson]

I suspect that if you were to trace the supply chain all the way back to source, you would find an awful lot of non-food things that we use everyday rely on some sort of animal product at some point in the manufacturing process. All sorts of chemicals are made from animal byproducts. Chemicals that are sold and end up being used to make things that are entirely unrelated to food. I suspect it would be practically impossible to live in modern society and completely avoid anything that had any component that was 100% vegan.

For example, everyone who has an inkjet printer uses ink that contains an animal byproduct in the form of glycerine. Yes glycerine is also made from vegetable sources but it is a globally traded commodity and when sourcing it an ink manufacturer cares not one iota where it came from. They care about the chemical purity and the price.

I agree about the sneering though, it would be much nicer if people could accept that other people are entitled to express their opinion, even if we then ignore it.

[gonzo21]

It would be very interesting to know how much Russian money is behind Trump.

Likewise UKIP and Farage.

[a_pawson]

A lot of UKIP's money has come from the EU. Not all of course, but a significant amount.

[heron61]

Money may be only the start. I find the timing of the Senate Intelligence Committee's message and the start of recounts interesting - if Russia hacked US voting machines (or more accurately, hacked the code used to program them to read November ballots, since the voting machines themselves are not networked, but the code to read them is developed on networked machines), then things are about to get really interesting here.

[gonzo21]

And we have the uncomfortable knowledge that Trumps very first phonecall as president-elect was to Putin. Not the Pentagon. Not the White House. Putin.

And since Nov. 8, Trump has talked to Putin more than any other world leader - more than the leaders of the United Kingdom, Germany or France, more than the leader of the state of Israel, more than the leaders of nations hosting US nuclear weapons overseas.

[cartesiandaemon]

It's also the case that, even if I don't really care about the amount of cow-death in the new money, if there's something a minority object to, they tend to be criticised at whatever point they object to it, whether it's "but in practice there isn't any, so why are you objecting to it being legal, you pedant" or "it's only a tiny bit, why do you care so much, you overreactor?" or "you were completely ok with a tiny bit, why are you complaining about how prevalent it's become, you hypocrite" or "everyone does it, why do you care if it's practically mandatory, you weirdo?"

So I tend to react badly to stories saying "why do you care about this, it's a tiny issue?". Because even if I don't, I know that argument is used all the time about things I DO care about, like "why do you care about violating human rights? It's only of a few people" etc.

[momentsmusicaux]

MacBooks being more expensive and looking like toys. That's what. WAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!