Post a controversial opinion

He did really appreciate India's ability to do good vegetarian. I am mostly vegetarian/spouse reformed decades vegan but vegetarians/vegans are super annoying as a class so I get his thing. It's like religion; it's fine to believe whatever you believe but please, I don't need a TedTalk on it. And if you are going to eat an animal I do appreciate people eating every single item on the animal.

vegetarians/vegans are super annoying as a class

my typical experience as a vegetarian is everyone else manufacturing a crisis about the possibility that i might not be able to eat something at a restaurant and how that's gonna piss me off, while i say "it's cool, i'm not worried about it, there's always something for me to eat, seriously, don't worry about it"

karl otm

admittedly, though, i have occasionally ran into the kind of veggie person that makes everyone else go way out of their way to satisfy their own eating preferences, and it easy pretty annoying. but honestly, for every 1 person who is like that, there are 40-75 people who are just loudmouth dipshits who ruin dinner by their mere presence at the table

Yeah, my spouse was vegan for over a decade and now eats fish and won't refuse butter or a little ricotta in pasta. People used to try to make accommodations for him but we've always told them it's fine, bring our own dish or just make sure he eats a lot beforehand. I eat veg at home but will eat anything that someone prepares for me because meat and organs are delicious (except kidneys, but I would still eat them). Being able to strictly stay veg or vegan in a lot of places with not much income is a privilege, although it's gotten a lot better in the last decade.

yeah the strict part is key, i guess. not being as strict definitely makes things a lot less of a hassle. one time i was a little out of it and got really fixated on the word "bleu" and ended up ordering a burger, forgetting that the patty would be meat. i was by myself and was too embarrassed to send it back when i realized my mistake, because they didn't do anything wrong. so i ate the burger and went home. nobody's perfect

I had a friend who has been vegan/freegan for 2 decades and I get it. It's kind of a good way to be.

America is substantially more evil in every conceivable dimension than Canada, and to suggest anything else is silly hyperbole. it would take a lot more than Ontario electing Doug Ford or Trudeau nationalizing a pipeline to change that

― flopson, Friday, June 8, 2018 5:10 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Speaking as an American, I don't understand how this even a little bit controversial.

(It might be more controversial if you'd used 'America' to describe all American citizens rather than our default approach of attributing the actions of the rich + powerful to an entire country full of people.)

America sucks.

As a Canadian it’s annoying how your country is more news worthy and all we hear about.

Apologies. Just a bitter Canadian.

vegans vs paleo

Paleo eaters are waaaaay more vocal and obnoxious

xpost Dude, you think YOU'RE sick of hearing about America. People here won't fucking shut up about it

One thing the rest of world may have to thank our current president for is what will surely be our rapidly-diminishing influence on pretty much everything.

American does suck (speaking as an American) I thought it was random that I am in a SA country and they covered that racist NYC midtown guy on the nightly news here. And then segued into Trump.

I remember getting on the completely wrong bus in India once (for a 2 hour journey) during the Bush years. Of course everyone made us take one of the seats because we are white and I tried to put some kids on my lap so they wouldn't have to stand because I felt so terrible about it. And then the question "You are American??? Do you like George Bush???" The answer is always no. no. no.

If it’s any consolation I hate Vancouver. City of cunts

Lots of performative wealth here.

Dude, you think YOU'RE sick of hearing about America. People here won't fucking shut up about it

― This Bobo Isn't Going to Honk Itself (Old Lunch), Sunday, 10 June 2018 01:59 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

theres no tension in this statement fyi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyHSjv9gxlE

I rly want to visit Mexico sometime, I’m sure they still talk about los EE.UU. all the time but at least they do it in Spanish

i don't think there is anything wrong with veganism per se, i have lots of vegetarian/vegan friends who are fantastic wonderful people in addition to being completely and totally reasonable, and then i had relatives on the facebook who were constantly pushing fucking "forks over knives" at me. so vegetarians and vegans are cool but i will never find the mass freak-out by hippie vegans discovering that the impossible burger contains gmos not funny.

As a leftist Canadian, I only find flopson's opinion controversial insofar as idk what it means to evaluate and compare the overall level of evil of entire countries.

I could say a lot more on the Canada VS America sweepstakes of evil but for now I'll just say: give it time.

Trudeau’s a tool

i don't think there is anything wrong with veganism per se, i have lots of vegetarian/vegan friends who are fantastic wonderful people in addition to being completely and totally reasonable, and then i had relatives on the facebook who were constantly pushing fucking "forks over knives" at me. so vegetarians and vegans are cool but i will never find the mass freak-out by hippie vegans discovering that the impossible burger contains gmos not funny.

― Arch Bacon (rushomancy), Sunday, June 10, 2018 12:37 AM (nine hours ago)

anti-GMO people are way worse than vegans/vegs, it's not even close

my ex-girlfriend is vegan, feels very strongly about it but never gives any other person a hard time. (she's jain, which explains both the veganism and agreeableness.) my experience overall with vegans and vegetarians has been pretty positive actually. and even as a ambivalent meat-eater I totally sympathize with their position and can understand why the issue means so much to them. the way we treat animals is pretty disgusting tbh

anti-GMO people are way worse than vegans/vegs, it's not even close

YES. Ugh.

I haven't eaten meat since the 90s and I loved Bourdain and never really had a problem with him being so anti-veg but I definitely do understand why it bothers some.

Anti-gmo ppl: This is irrational, right? Everything humans have cultivated and strategically cross-bred to have certain traits is basically genetically modified already, right? idgi

It's frankenfoid! Like splicing a pig butt to an ear of corn? Would you really eat that if you knew?

But realistically, there are probably billions of people in the world eating GMO foods, and no one has demonstrated any ill effects so far.

The number of IRL people I have met who drag vegans/vegatarians when they find out about their dietary preferences, as compared to annoying vegetarians/vegans, is about 50:1, no joke.

Anti-GMO people are like anti-vaccine people.

Everything humans have cultivated and strategically cross-bred to have certain traits is basically genetically modified already, right?

― which do u hear yanny or (in orbit), Monday, June 11, 2018 9:16 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes. Most fruit is cloned; most everything else, from corn to cows, is a carefully-bred mutant.

xp Good that's what I thought.

I am feeling very lucky that I don't think I have ever come across an anti-gmo person before. Or maybe I thought they were passionately talking about cars.

i think there are economic/political concerns when multinationals are able to patent certain strains of staple crops, and some of the stuff about genes designed to force farmers into regularly having to come back to the seed companies for new stock sound shitty if true, but i don't think a lot of the anti-GMOers have read into this stuff it's just the usual memejerk

they had a ballot measure in my state to require GMO labeling a couple years ago and it was basically bankrolled by whole foods so they could exploit it for market segmentation. It lost.

Don't get me started on the topic of dog breeds. Really, don't.

"Oh, you have a Schwabian Blueback? They're so intelligent! I have two Permese Shityunots. They're so affectionate!"

"Wait - is the corn in this tortilla GMO-free?"

controp: purebred dogs are abominable

well, the people who breed and own them instead of adopting a dog-shaped dog

and obv the ability to transfer genetic material across species is some kind of different order of change to selective breeding but i'm not sure there aren't environmental examples of this too

Oh yeah, then I have had discussions about monsanto and also farming (a bunch of monsanto crops planted in close proximity killed a lot of my brother's corn a couple of years ago). The other arguments just sound Goop-y.

Oh man, now I am remembering my trump voting brother trying to make a climate denial point by trying to explain to me how my wine grapes were gmo. I was like wtf are you talking about?

and obv the ability to transfer genetic material across species is some kind of different order of change to selective breeding but i'm not sure there aren't environmental examples of this too

― the Messi inside (Noodle Vague), Monday, June 11, 2018 4:33 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Apparently lots of organisms have bits of code from other organisms already? Idk

yeah i think for example insects might transfer bits of other species' code thru viruses and other vectors but i'm only remembering things i've read

silby, I can (and will) go further than your controp on dogs. Pretty much ANY intentional breeding of cats or dogs is basically murder, as long as hundreds of thousands of pets continue to be be euthanized for lack of good homes.

and obv the ability to transfer genetic material across species is some kind of different order of change to selective breeding but i'm not sure there aren't environmental examples of this too

Yeah like 40% of human DNA is bacterial in origin; 8% is viral in origin.

i'm anti-GMO on the basis that a lot GMO crops rely on increased pesticide use. i also share the concerns that NV mentioned about the politics of it and things like patent ownership issues

don't really give a fuck about genes being played with etc but i do care about the ecosystems we inhabit and who holds the power when it comes to feeding people

Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch should be accorded the respect due to their humanity, such as it is and what there is of it.

xxxp flu viruses? Though I don’t know if they are classified as different in the way this thread is talking about.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/change.htm

A subtype or a virus with a hemagglutinin or a hemagglutinin and neuraminidase combination that has emerged from an animal population that is so different from the same subtype in humans that most people do not have immunity to the new (e.g. novel) virus. Such a “shift” occurred in the spring of 2009, when an H1N1 virus with a new combination of genes emerged to infect people and quickly spread, causing a pandemic. When shift happens, most people have little or no protection against the new virus.

Xp to silby

At the dog park one time I meet a cute mini husky. The owners tell me the father is Pomeranian and the mother is husky. I jokingly ask “how does that even work”. Their response (seriously): IVF

Like, I will coo at and pet your cute dog, but if you got it from a breeder I am def silently judging you.

i'm anti-GMO on the basis that a lot GMO crops rely on increased pesticide use. i also share the concerns that NV mentioned about the politics of it and things like patent ownership issues

― I'd Rather Kecak (NickB), Monday, June 11, 2018 12:42 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't really give a fuck about genes being played with etc but i do care about the ecosystems we inhabit and who holds the power when it comes to feeding people

― I'd Rather Kecak (NickB), Monday, June 11, 2018 12:44 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I believe you are misinformed regarding pesticide use, but I will have to look for some research when I get home

My first thought was that some gmo stuff was made to be heartier and disease resistant so less pesticides can be used. But I am sure I am just thinking of a niche example.