It’s okay not to know. English is spoken in a lot of different places in different ways. I doubt that in your 40 years you’ve explored this.

Google Trends shows that it’s most popular in Malaysia and the Philippines, relative to its use in other countries.

No, that’s a welfare state

Autumn’s beautiful though. It’s just that shorter days and the reason can make it a bit depressing.

Taiwan is a full democracy, not a flawed one. At least according to the widely respected Economist Democracy Index.

Taiwan is more democratic than Canada and Germany. And a lot more than the US, but that’s not surprising.

I feel the same way. She is also way too well known for any expert to be fooled into thinking it’s going to be a serious interview

death is a part of life, and having meaning in death to provide nutrition for continuation of life is just a reality.

You’re missing something pretty important here. Death is part of life is an argument that you’d use to try and justify hunting. Farming also means breeding more animals that will be raised for their meat and killed after a few years.

Globally, 60% of all large mammals are livestock. It’s a crazy number and there is nothing natural about this. The killing isn’t the root problem, producing/breeding huge numbers of animals is.

Death might be a natural part of the circle of life, but we’re artificially starting this circle for many farm animals. If we’d stop doing this at such an insane scale, we wouldn’t need to discuss their death (or quality of life)

Importantly, this is something that we choose to do even though we don’t have to. The owl has to hunt for mice and isn’t able to choose not to. This makes our moral position not comparable to owls or any other animal.

But let’s also be reasonable.

Eating cats and dogs is controversial. So is eating sharks or whale. Some diets are unnecessarily harmful. Since we all live on the same planet, that affects others and it makes sense to have an opinion on this.

Outside of the US, it’s not controversial to say the average meat intake in the US is too high: for health reasons and for the environment. I think it’s okay to judge people when they eat abnormal amounts of meat.

I think it’s easier to mess up a vegan diet than a keto one.

People often worry more about vegan diets than other diets. But somehow people’s concerns aren’t proportional to the risk of messing up your nutrition needs.

It’s not about health risks; it’s more about their personal feelings. Most people don’t like that animals are killed for food, but giving up tasty meat and cheese is tough. Instead of supporting vegans, they question them. This might be because admitting they eat meat just for its taste feels wrong. So, they deflect by questioning veganism. It’d be great if there were more understanding and supportive and less defensiveness about food choices.

I’d be nice to occasionally hear “Good for you! I’m happy that you make choices that are in line with your values!” But alas, most responses tend to be “But aren’t you barely allowed to eat anything now!?”

So much time and effort online and on TV is expended arguing against eating plant based food. It’s hard not to see through this.

people without any guns

A mob stormed and airports in Russia. Americans may see Europe as an exotic place, but mobs storming airports is pretty rare here.

So are mass shootings. While they happen, they’re very rare.

Sorry maybe I sounded a bit harsh. I think we’re on line here, but to be sure. I mean that the average voting age in 2006 could be an interesting detail when doing an analysis of the origins the current situation. So would other themes that played a role in the campaign before the election. I remember reading about this that the corruption of the alternative parties was an issue for voters too.

But when it comes to justifying huge numbers of civilian casualties, it’s a pretty well established principle that civilians can never directly be held accountable with violence for the actions of their government. So that means that we don’t need to engage with arguments about whether voters knew what they were getting into or any specifics about the election. Because doing so would be giving in to your opponent (in a hypothetical debate) and you’d be undermining your own position.

Maybe my points have the same problem. But since people who support the bombings don’t seem to care about international law, I felt like these were a good second line of defence.

I wrote this on Reddit to argue against someone who suggested that Israel’s response is justified, given that Hamas won an election. Here’s what I responded:

There are several significant issues with your reasoning:

1. Voting has never implied being responsible for the crimes of your government.
2. There have not been elections since 2006. The Gaza Strip does not have a democratic system. This further challenges the argument that the population should pay some kind of price.
3. Hamas won the elections by taking 74 of the 132 seats in parliament. This means that 60 seats were for non-hamas participants of these elections. Consequently, many people who are trapped in Gaza and want nothing to do with Hamas are being punished/killed.
4. About 50% of the Gaza population is under 15 years of age. Attacking Gaza in this way should never have been on the table given these demographics.

Shared first 🥇 with real meat products.

Still rocking a higher life expectancy though, vegans got that going for them.

The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.

Still civilians though. And, not all of them did. All in all it’s madness to equate the entire Gaza population with the perpetrators the way that Israel is currently doing.

To be fair, extremism flourishes when conditions are bad. Hamas is potentially a product of these conditions, or at least partially. If both peoples would be afforded better conditions, they might seem less incompatible than the two groups seem at the moment.

About time the Palestian issue is put back on the agenda. Strangely enough, Israel is doing everything they can it seems to make that happen.

What do you think raping and massacring people at a music festival is going to do?

Nothing, just cause more suffering. But this isn’t a bad guy vs good guy argument. The point that’s being made is that extremism tends to be a product of its environment.

Please note that this is not an anti-Israel line of arguing.

Conditions in Gaza are terrible and many people have lost loved ones during their lives there. It creates an environment where extremism can flourish. It’s not a certainty, but the probability is just much higher in environments that are severely deprived.

The actions of Hamas are inexcusable, and Israel will surely want to bring them to justice. But after that it’s time to acknowledge that if conditions in Gaza are kept as poor as they are, the chances of this type of violence happening again are almost guaranteed. It’s also in the interest of Israel to allow and facilitate improved conditions in Gaza.

Such an enlightening argument.

I guess then it was an excellent idea to shoot up a music festival.

/s

I am sorry you lost several loved ones. I can’t imagine what that must be like.

Hopefully, while grieving, you won’t be stuck in anger for much longer. The people that you have lost wouldn’t want children to pay the price for your country’s revenge.

Of course you want Hamas to be brought to justice, but there are many people like you and I in Gaza that are just trying to live a life free of violence. Hamas might kill indiscriminately, but they are a terrorist/radical group. A country must not sink to their level, especially a democratic one.

Nothing will make it easier for Hamas to find new recruits than large numbers of people in Gaza who are grieving their lost ones: and so the cycle of violence continues.

It’s not that far fetched. It works the other way around as well.

Israel has much more freedom to do what it pleases in terms of its illegal settlements if the other side appears violent and unreasonable. Occupying Gaza creates a breeding ground for extremists, but could be considered an acceptable status quo for Israel as it’s impossible to find broad support for Palestine if it’s associated with extremists.

I just can’t fathom how it wouldn’t also have helped Hamas’ cause by forbidding any form of sexual violence.

It would have helped their cause if it had been possible to draw comparisons between them and Israel: both kill lots of civilians. But the reports of rape and other sexual violence just makes it impossible to feel anything but disgust.

I think there are few things on the other side of the spectrum that you might have missed.

*Mumbles sometimes about books in the US*