tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55930261035126484162024-03-18T13:12:34.059-07:00A Meaningful Life, A Better WorldMattBall.org is the site for, you guessed it, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ball">Matt Ball</a>. Damn, you are as smart as you are good-looking! <br>Want more? Please check out <b><a href="https://www.LosingMyReligions.net">Losing My Religions</a></b> for my latest and greatest. Thanks.Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12389020149472026193noreply@blogger.comBlogger1660125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-6646771819780559512024-03-18T13:12:00.000-07:002024-03-18T13:12:00.132-07:00An Absolutely Remarkable Thing<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxuhauTqv9R-9vpSlbG3h0DugFTTWHOxSA4Tkg1BT6JAW3S_1yvs0-nuNStknHnGlsDTNcX9T3MDXD6kaHZqLYLtYlsXkQHQ56SzA9EAVQjNX16rQsEcv7PTLzhyphenhyphencc4pbNtsWZHtKGKy7Pr7RtyHGPBp01Oz3wMJTHi_9qv420ocXH0XgZHuWDErlrc4/s500/51gt5p1F46L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="331" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxuhauTqv9R-9vpSlbG3h0DugFTTWHOxSA4Tkg1BT6JAW3S_1yvs0-nuNStknHnGlsDTNcX9T3MDXD6kaHZqLYLtYlsXkQHQ56SzA9EAVQjNX16rQsEcv7PTLzhyphenhyphencc4pbNtsWZHtKGKy7Pr7RtyHGPBp01Oz3wMJTHi_9qv420ocXH0XgZHuWDErlrc4/s320/51gt5p1F46L.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Kindle notes for Hank Green's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-Remarkable-Thing-Novel/dp/1524743445" target="_blank">An Absolutely Remarkable Thing</a>*</i>:</p><p><br /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">I’m going to attempt to come at this account honestly, but I’ll also admit to a significant pro-me bias.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The power that each of us has over complete strangers to make them feel terrible and frightened and weak is amazing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">the average middle-class person in the US is one of the 3 percent richest people in the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">When you get stuck fighting small battles, it makes you small.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">no matter how much you proofread, the first time you open the final version of your book, you will find a typo on the very first page you look at. Ugh.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Humans are terrible at believing reality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">More people died in car accidents on July 13 than in those bombings.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">We are irrational beings, easy to manipulate if you’re willing to do whatever it takes.</span></p><p><br /></p><p>* Note: both Anne and I liked this novel much more than the sequel, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beautifully-Foolish-Endeavor-Novel-Carls/dp/152474347X/ref=pd_bxgy_img_d_sccl_1/143-4793958-8058968?pd_rd_w=MFh29&content-id=amzn1.sym.9713b09e-9eac-42a7-88bb-ecfe516a6b92&pf_rd_p=9713b09e-9eac-42a7-88bb-ecfe516a6b92&pf_rd_r=EVYS4EX3RHXEA1V6DYGY&pd_rd_wg=i3wjt&pd_rd_r=b1be17d8-5e15-4a19-b7d4-e1c653e484e8&pd_rd_i=152474347X&psc=1" target="_blank">A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor</a></i>.</p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-24592552772336054192024-03-17T06:30:00.000-07:002024-03-17T06:30:00.136-07:00The Ongoing Threat of Cows<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZhh4gDQKE1SgrZmAMMaEDW_5B7C80EVTp-m5GnLg0G7aKPv6prqhU6fLIGpbpe2pdaUOGtAzEyzWc9vHvFsy9mqwBXmpb0S-TQKAmPdb7iZ6ozTCR-U7v2_T_RXSxffso_ZEtyqmQdCuSQJPDL1xg66cyI3wE-rFafxTVxlyKVwvzP7mWufzcjDfOG3w/s1737/tastemeat.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="1737" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZhh4gDQKE1SgrZmAMMaEDW_5B7C80EVTp-m5GnLg0G7aKPv6prqhU6fLIGpbpe2pdaUOGtAzEyzWc9vHvFsy9mqwBXmpb0S-TQKAmPdb7iZ6ozTCR-U7v2_T_RXSxffso_ZEtyqmQdCuSQJPDL1xg66cyI3wE-rFafxTVxlyKVwvzP7mWufzcjDfOG3w/w640-h204/tastemeat.png" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHweXjwPJQJe-dFNuOlBzQPGrJe8TckSATItDZXIiFjTQCXPKuKfg3FX3kIdSHiXzxYqs38xKMqNitsoOvbCadbTbXNPiBh6SpFI0BCOcq6zuZRCoUs3ChLxDRxbxXvvzr17eNH_lrFMJAT87bAjW0LlQDOPTrNzxkP3fKyL8t5Knp56jMAq6q55DXY8/s1733/cowsworld.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="1733" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHweXjwPJQJe-dFNuOlBzQPGrJe8TckSATItDZXIiFjTQCXPKuKfg3FX3kIdSHiXzxYqs38xKMqNitsoOvbCadbTbXNPiBh6SpFI0BCOcq6zuZRCoUs3ChLxDRxbxXvvzr17eNH_lrFMJAT87bAjW0LlQDOPTrNzxkP3fKyL8t5Knp56jMAq6q55DXY8/w640-h204/cowsworld.png" width="640" /></a></div>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-1860111470583003922024-03-15T07:42:00.000-07:002024-03-15T13:53:43.305-07:00Weekend Reading: The Case against TikTok<p> </p><p>Following up on <a href="https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-6e5#%C2%A7tiktok-is-a-silent-engine-of-chinese-government-propaganda" target="_blank">this</a> from Noah Smith, <b><a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-case-against-tiktok" target="_blank">Matt Yglesias makes a longer case</a></b>. (Even Kevin Drum <a href="https://jabberwocking.com/we-should-ban-tiktok-as-pure-trade-retaliation/" target="_blank">can make the case</a>.)</p><p>The more important point is that TFG is clearly a paid agent of China (as well as an agent of Russia, paid or not). </p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-55181100013118378432024-03-14T06:30:00.000-07:002024-03-14T06:30:00.130-07:00"Filth" - More on what's at stake<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdBgZ9mFG4soLsoxXTwVPgHdzElUDFCRC_L7Ph_-Qg9DP7EH2IuOHK47cXbG0lB0Y0zqPTGGiEKT2Th8N8wPT4nME1S_JqxV7PfE97Upw36PB3O4KCQ8yzcjEST537YcSPvuIHdgSrali6mqmHUqMcj6Ai54WRr-yoSbGLLyQu3gyGHss8d7-AYGJK18/s2192/economy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="2192" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdBgZ9mFG4soLsoxXTwVPgHdzElUDFCRC_L7Ph_-Qg9DP7EH2IuOHK47cXbG0lB0Y0zqPTGGiEKT2Th8N8wPT4nME1S_JqxV7PfE97Upw36PB3O4KCQ8yzcjEST537YcSPvuIHdgSrali6mqmHUqMcj6Ai54WRr-yoSbGLLyQu3gyGHss8d7-AYGJK18/w640-h350/economy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Is any of the below more important than Biden's age? Especially after he <a href="https://jabberwocking.com/that-was-a-pretty-good-speech-from-biden-tonight/" target="_blank">kicked ass</a> in SOTU?</p><p><i>Via <b><a href="https://andrewtobias.com/watch-5/" target="_blank">Andrew Tobias</a></b>:</i></p><p>TRUMP’S MAN IN NORTH CAROLINA</p><p>Trump calls the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, “Martin Luther King on steroids.”</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">“I think you’re better than Martin Luther King,” he told Mark Robinson at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., last weekend. “I think you are Martin Luther King times two.”</span></p></blockquote><p>The INK offers <b><a href="https://the.ink/p/north-carolina-maga-mark-robinson?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=70374&post_id=142374801&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=5jgrx&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">a compendium of Robinson’s views</a></b>: on the Holocaust (“hogwash”), women (not suited for leadership), abortion (eliminate it entirely), gays (“filth”), Parkland school-shooting survivors (“prosti-tots”).</p><p>Frank Bruni lays out <b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/opinion/trump-mark-robinson-north-carolina.html" target="_blank">The Grotesque Rise of Mark Robinson</a></b>.</p><p>Trump’s choice. The Republican Party’s choice. Scary times. ...</p><p><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ULLhHrtVXpQ" target="_blank">Equal Rights Not Fair</a></b> (20 seconds): the MAGA view.</p><p><i>Also:</i> <b><a href="https://www.vox.com/24087411/anti-abortion-roe-dobbs-birth-control-contraception-ivf" target="_blank">The anti-abortion playbook for restricting birth control</a></b></p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-53387743558910411652024-03-13T06:30:00.000-07:002024-03-13T06:30:00.132-07:00Don't waste your money<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><h3>Michael Manring - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fon5mk0yCtg&ab_channel=WindhamHillLovers" target="_blank">Welcoming</a></h3><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE61BrkTF7xkko0-L3N0imIGx6DAI1habK1br_t_sceP0TytH7cf1TfD-LemvyhONutpcu4Fb3_r2DH96CapC2O3dznQx26Cc3GN9gcNw8EZrCnuA86auIf3Xdyht6V4nT8UIwOFQ6lPQGTKlZmIKetPOKIvBGezoz4dbKcsAPlqs4Hv0XkRHzw2rbg_c/s3262/PXL_20220511_075022386%20(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2457" data-original-width="3262" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE61BrkTF7xkko0-L3N0imIGx6DAI1habK1br_t_sceP0TytH7cf1TfD-LemvyhONutpcu4Fb3_r2DH96CapC2O3dznQx26Cc3GN9gcNw8EZrCnuA86auIf3Xdyht6V4nT8UIwOFQ6lPQGTKlZmIKetPOKIvBGezoz4dbKcsAPlqs4Hv0XkRHzw2rbg_c/w640-h482/PXL_20220511_075022386%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's a lotta green</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-once-bet-1m-113000485.html" target="_blank">Warren Buffett once bet $1M that he could beat a group of fancy hedge funds over 10 years — and <b>he crushed them</b> with a technique requiring absolutely no investing skill</a></p><p>In short: Index funds. Keep It Simple, Silly (KISS)</p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-89148152385949806442024-03-11T06:30:00.000-07:002024-03-11T06:30:00.149-07:00The End of Veganism, from Losing My Religions<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: x-large;"><br />I’m a level-five vegan.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: x-large;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: x-large;">I don’t eat anything that casts a shadow.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: x-large;" /><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: x-large; position: relative;">–</em><a data-cke-saved-href="https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Jesse_Grass" href="https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Jesse_Grass" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: x-large; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><em style="position: relative;">Jesse Grass</em></a><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: x-large; position: relative;"> to Lisa Simpson, mocking her mere vegetarianism<br /><br /></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOlb_i3EOTpzsHf9VW9nORTkrziOZt6Sk8HiRero4MoSAR9zfmjIJdyWjotaQMV-sxX3wO8p_HmWMnF52xBSeG1B2LsA5Bgyd9Xk_6sPGF5ipvDZPjJgyxxGjmGvYaLmTJcI7YdxaPasuyY0Kpfcpc_E8Pe9XXNQecCVT7M5ekBCYGMPh6LdKKvjTybqo/s1148/whyihatevegans.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="766" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOlb_i3EOTpzsHf9VW9nORTkrziOZt6Sk8HiRero4MoSAR9zfmjIJdyWjotaQMV-sxX3wO8p_HmWMnF52xBSeG1B2LsA5Bgyd9Xk_6sPGF5ipvDZPjJgyxxGjmGvYaLmTJcI7YdxaPasuyY0Kpfcpc_E8Pe9XXNQecCVT7M5ekBCYGMPh6LdKKvjTybqo/w428-h640/whyihatevegans.png" width="428" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">When the weather turned briefly cooler a while back, Anne and I did a taste-test of the </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/beyond-chicken-nuggets" href="https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/beyond-chicken-nuggets" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Beyond Meat chicken tenders</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> versus </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://impossiblefoods.com/products/chicken" href="https://impossiblefoods.com/products/chicken" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Impossible Foods’ chicken nuggets</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">. I </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.mattball.org/2022/04/plant-based-chicken-taste-test-and.html" href="https://www.mattball.org/2022/04/plant-based-chicken-taste-test-and.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">blogged</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> about this and posted the blog on social media. (Excerpt from blog: On Beyond's package, they loudly say “NO GMO’s.” I remember listening to multiple interviews with Beyond’s Ethan Brown, who said, “People tell us they don’t want GMOs.” I have to say, with all due respect, you are talking to the wrong people, Mr. Brown. What people want is cheap meat. Full stop.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">The picture that came along with those social posts was a bag of the Impossible Foods nuggets, winner of the taste test. (Anne still prefers </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.gardein.com/chickn-and-turky/classics/seven-grain-crispy-tenders" href="https://www.gardein.com/chickn-and-turky/classics/seven-grain-crispy-tenders" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Gardein’s</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">.) That picture prompted some vegans to think that the best use of their time was to angrily comment about how Impossible’s products AREN’T VEGAN! This is because their plant-derived heme – the ingredient Impossible uses to give their beef products that slight “metallic,” bloody taste – had been tested on animals so it could be approved by the FDA.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">So: Animal killing that is somehow connected to a company at any point = all their products are NOT VEGAN!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">But of course, harvesting “vegan” food kills many animals. Rodent control programs on farms growing vegan food and in facilities producing vegan food kill many animals. Trucks transporting products kill many animals. </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">And so on.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">I briefly tried to reply constructively. (“I understand that you’re upset about this. But I don’t care if something is vegan. I only care about what can actually help a lot of animals.”) As is always the case, engaging enrages them further.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Of course, NOT VEGAN Impossible Foods has helped many animals by producing products chosen by people who would otherwise eat animal meat. But it sure hasn’t made them popular with (many) vegans. (“</span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.livekindly.com/the-impossible-burger-debate-was-a-test-for-vegans-and-we-failed/" href="https://www.livekindly.com/the-impossible-burger-debate-was-a-test-for-vegans-and-we-failed/" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Impossible Burger Debate Was A Test For Vegans, And We Failed</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">.”)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">“Vegans or animals” is what ended my career. “Vegans or animals” was the driving force behind our current very non-vegan organization, </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.onestepforanimals.org/about.html" href="https://www.onestepforanimals.org/about.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">One Step for Animals</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">. I’ve seen this dynamic for the 35 years since I first stopped eating animals. It took me quite a while to recognize it, being in the vegan bubble myself. But if looked at objectively and without personal ego invested or identity involved (which is not easy) the reality is clear:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Veganism has been terminally poisoned by people obsessed with protecting their vegan identity.</strong></p></blockquote><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">For this very vocal and visible minority – and yes, it is only a minority of vegans – veganism is only about </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">them </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">and defending </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">their</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> strict rules of being “vegan.” (Or “Vegan,” as some write it.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">At least this is true in the United States. From my time in Germany, for example, it doesn’t seem to be the case there. While editing this chapter, I came across Kenny Torrella’s “</span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23273338/germany-less-meat-plant-based-vegan-vegetarian-flexitarian" href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23273338/germany-less-meat-plant-based-vegan-vegetarian-flexitarian" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">How Germany is kicking its meat habit</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">” at Vox. But Deutschland shows the “unintended consequences” of focusing on meat instead of animals: Although per-capita </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">meat </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">consumption is down there, each German is consuming one more factory-farmed </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">animal</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> than ten years ago [2022]. That means that despite a large drop in meat consumption, </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">many millions more animals are suffering on factory farms</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">. Not cool.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Another perfect example of (some) vegans caring about themselves </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">über alles</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: 16px;">One: Publicly refuse to eat animals – live vegan</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: 16px;">Two: Publicly refuse to sit where people are eating animals</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: 16px;">Three: Encourage others to take the pledge</span></p><p><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-size: 16px; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">–The Liberation Pledge</span></em></p></blockquote><p><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Doesn’t that say it all? “Publicly refuse to sit where people are eating animals.” So it isn’t just about the purity of what you </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">consume</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">, but also the purity of anything you </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">see</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Of course, this removes opportunities to </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">actually help animals</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">, because the only way to actually help animals is by being with non-vegans and persuading them to take animals into consideration.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">The Liberation Pledge is only one example. My pal Ken recently suggested I listen to an interview with a “vegan advocate” he thought I’d like. In the interview, it was all “advocating veganism,” “promoting veganism,” “making veganism mainstream,” “repeating the case for veganism over and over.” The advocate went on to say </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">his</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> new book was going to be </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">the</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> comprehensive and irrefutable case for veganism.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">If only someone had thought of that before.</em><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">I wonder how many vegan advocates actually listen to what they are saying. It is all about promoting </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">their </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">diet, </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">their </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">lifestyle, </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">their </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">beliefs. Not actually about animals.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Back in 2016, I was excommunicated from the national animal rights conference and fired from my full-time job. My sin? </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/05/vox-voices-video.html" href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/05/vox-voices-video.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Quoting</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">, with source, what celebrity chef Anthony Bordain said about vegans. With all the suffering in the world, and all the many people allowing and even perpetuating this cruelty, it was a founder of One Step for Animals who became the </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">bête noire</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> for Gary and his fellow fanatics.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">In case it isn’t clear: </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">I</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> did not say anything bad about vegans. I was merely noting what </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">a famous celebrity</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> said about vegans. And for that, I was banned.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">That is truly some insecure theocratic bullshit.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Paul and I have a saying: </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">The biggest impediment to the spread of veganism is vegans</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">. While I was writing this today, he sent me yet another news story to prove it: A vegan saying drinking pee as the key to longevity. (There was once a table at Vegetarian Summerfest promoting this.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Don’t get me started.</em><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Over a quarter century ago, our Best Man Mark said, “I grow weary of the term ‘vegan.’ It has just become a label for moral superiority.” And he said this after being a founding board member of our national vegan group.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">You might wonder why I’m so strident in my attack on the vegan fanatics, especially since I’m on good drugs and supposedly so mindful.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">It is because I helped create them.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Of course, even before Jayne went on her crusade, some vegans have hated me. Eventually, even my long-time best pal turned on me for annoying the Vegan Police. But despite all my efforts to make the focus </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">actually helping animals</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">, I did spend two decades working every day to build up a “vegan” group.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Oops.</em><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">It would be one thing if “vegan first, vegan only” was actually helping animals. But if promoting veganism worked – if the next leaflet, book, video, movie, website was really going to make a difference – we would have seen it by now.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">How do I know? </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Because I did the projections</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Decades ago, I calculated what would happen if every vegan converted </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">just one other person every five years</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">. Have we seen anything like that? No. When Animal Charity Evaluators did the most thorough metastudy of surveys about vegetarianism and veganism, they found: “Around 1% of adults both self-identify as vegetarians and report never consuming meat. [This is important because many people call themselves “vegetarian” but still eat meat.] </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/is-the-percentage-of-vegetarians-and-vegans-in-the-u-s-increasing/" href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/is-the-percentage-of-vegetarians-and-vegans-in-the-u-s-increasing/" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">It seems that this percentage has not changed substantially since the mid-1990s</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">.” [The mid-1990s being when we started our vegan group.]</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">What I didn’t realize when I built those projections was that the vast majority of people who “go vegan” subsequently quit veganism. Unbiased surveys show that over </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://faunalytics.org/a-summary-of-faunalytics-study-of-current-and-former-vegetarians-and-vegans/" href="https://faunalytics.org/a-summary-of-faunalytics-study-of-current-and-former-vegetarians-and-vegans/" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">80%</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> revert. (And then, of course, spend the rest of their lives badmouthing veganism.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Why? One survey of former vegans found that the top reason for quitting was that they couldn’t take the pressure to maintain </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">the level of purity demanded by other vegans</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">. Again, vegans are “the greatest impediment” to the growth of veganism.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">But really, </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"><em style="position: relative;">vegans</em> <em style="position: relative;">don’t matter</em></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">. It is </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">irrelevant </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">how many vegans there are.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">The only thing that matters is how much </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">suffering</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> there is.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Think about it. If you were to promote a position that would lead to more suffering than an alternative, would you do so? There might be strange edge cases, but choosing to create more suffering than an available alternative strikes me as pretty much the very definition of immoral.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">And on that measure, the world has gotten </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">way </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">worse for non-human animals since Anne and I stopped eating animals and co-founded a group promoting veganism. On average, every person in the United States eats </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.onestepforanimals.org/about.html" href="https://www.onestepforanimals.org/about.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">more animals</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> today than ever before in history. This is true globally as well. Those are the simple, bottom-line facts, the facts that all vegan advocates have to answer for.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"><em style="position: relative;">Everything</em> I’ve learned indicates the United States would be a better place for animals if we ended veganism.</strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Not that you should eat animal products. (You can, as we’ll get to. [Later in </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">the book</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">.]) But we should never utter or use the word “vegan” again.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Still think we need to promote “vegan”? A 2017 survey found that vegans are viewed more negatively than atheists, immigrants, homosexuals, and asexuals. The only group viewed more negatively than vegans is drug addicts. Another 2017 survey found, “Meat-eaters are being put off going veggie because of certain aggressive vegans.” In 2018 – the year I stopped </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/05/how-vegans-hurt-animals.html" href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/05/how-vegans-hurt-animals.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">collecting these stories</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> – researchers found that “vegan” is the single worst word you can possibly use to describe a product – worse than “diet,” “sugar-free,” or “low-calorie.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">As a long-time reader </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.mattball.org/2016/02/ive-become-almost-embarrassed-to-say-im.html" href="https://www.mattball.org/2016/02/ive-become-almost-embarrassed-to-say-im.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;">noted</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">I’ve become almost embarrassed to say I’m vegan ... not because of what it stands for, but because of the negative impression people have been left with due to other vegans and their negative behavior and words.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">I talk about this more, with many documenting links and graphs, in my 2017 post, “</span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/05/how-vegans-hurt-animals.html" href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/05/how-vegans-hurt-animals.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">How Vegans Hurt Animals</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">.” In that blog, I go into more about why vegans are so unpopular. (Tl;dr: It is because they are [justifiably] rage-filled and just can’t get past that.) It is my second-most-popular post of all time, having been hate-linked by many vegans in their ongoing campaigns against me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Think about it this way: If we want to help animals, </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">why</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> would we use – let alone promote – a word that has such negative baggage? A word that makes people think of pee drinkers, screamers in restaurants, and terrorists. (The latter is what Anthony Bourdain called them.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">What reason could there be to use that word? What </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">possible </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">reason, other than an unwillingness to put helping animals first?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">So what is the alternative?</strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">We could and should put the focus entirely and always on the others who need our help.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">I certainly don’t think it would hurt if we were all “animal advocates” instead of “vegans” or “vegan advocates.” Never talk about ourselves, never talk about our diet, never talk about our rules or dogma.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"><em style="position: relative;">It should never be about us</em>.</strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">And of course, I say this as a person who cofounded Animal Liberation Action but allowed the name to be changed to be about veganism instead.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><em style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; position: relative;">Sorry.<br /></em><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">PS</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">: Since it is unlikely everyone will take my advice above, a variety of admirable people are working to support current vegans, in part to lower the recidivism rate and also change the public’s view of vegans. </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.worldofvegan.com/" href="https://www.worldofvegan.com/" style="color: #8273da; text-decoration-line: none;">World</a><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.worldofvegan.com/" href="https://www.worldofvegan.com/" style="color: #8273da; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> of Vegan</a></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> is the prime exemplar of this.<br /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">PPS</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">: In case it isn’t clear, </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.mattball.org/2024/01/it-is-fantastic-not-being-vegan.html" href="https://www.mattball.org/2024/01/it-is-fantastic-not-being-vegan.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I’m not “Vegan.”</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> I’ll outsource this to Vincent, the head of One Step for Animals, Australia, who blogs at </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://theanimalist.medium.com/" href="https://theanimalist.medium.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">theanimalist.medium.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;">“</span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;">Even if all vegans were nice and friendly, the point of my article is that veganism in itself as a movement is not something I want to be a part of. </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;">A broader, more inclusive approach focusing more on the animals and less on every detail of an individual’s current lifestyle is more effective. Either way, [veganism] remains nothing but a tool amongst many that can be used against speciesism, for animal rights. It isn’t a goal, and it shouldn’t be a dogma (a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;">“I have called myself a vegan and worked at changing veganism, but I have come to the conclusion that veganism is what it is and that it is a closed club, which is detrimental when it turns it into </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;">a rigid dogmatic venture based on personal purity and exclusion</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;">. Veganism as a movement to fight speciesism is not something I embrace or even condone any more.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;">“I still don’t consume sentient animals and their by-products and I still want to encourage others to do likewise, in a friendly and pragmatic manner. Promoting an animal-friendly lifestyle is a tool, not an end.”</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> <br /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">Or, as Margaret Atwood put it on Ezra Klein’s </span><a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-margaret-atwood.html" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-margaret-atwood.html" style="background-color: white; color: #8273da; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">podcast</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;">:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Is it about how virtuous you are?<br />Or is it about actually trying to better conditions?</span></strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5c5c; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 16px;"><em style="position: relative;">Find the rest of the book at <a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" style="color: #8273da; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">LosingMyReligions.net</a></em></span></p><p><br /></p><p>Also <a href="https://www.onestepforanimals.org/the-end-of-veganism.html" target="_blank">published</a> on One Step for Animals' website<b><br /></b></p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-30354021601575746542024-03-10T06:30:00.000-07:002024-03-10T07:48:47.520-07:00Sunday Funny, Parks & Rec Edition<p><b><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/rXNDKeVcwf4?si=kf6MWIFvBxUl6DCR&t=27" target="_blank">Enjoy</a></b></p><p>(link to <i>hilarious</i> YouTube video; watch the eyes, especially JRB's)</p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-56107591088614455342024-03-09T05:06:00.000-08:002024-03-09T05:06:00.134-08:00Theory of Change: "But this time will be different!"<p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: center;">Green Day - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDBlqu6KF4k&ab_channel=GreenDay" target="_blank">Minority</a><br /><br /></h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeVpHLo4ZsyOtt8wEMJ9u6vjz4RqqKh4KrmDeYPqz2MDkU7boNm2yUUrVWAPVVHJKrQ4wl5HAJ-nLgw8sDIpXkbEfhiZt_EX8smhZ7u4TD1pr2f3IKLHOu82-uLHFodovO07HaIEihyphenhypheniKoq39W3vDSblIkofMZsPcCNTB059gDTuB_r9-vwnVpeS2-mhc/s1147/whyihatevegans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="756" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeVpHLo4ZsyOtt8wEMJ9u6vjz4RqqKh4KrmDeYPqz2MDkU7boNm2yUUrVWAPVVHJKrQ4wl5HAJ-nLgw8sDIpXkbEfhiZt_EX8smhZ7u4TD1pr2f3IKLHOu82-uLHFodovO07HaIEihyphenhypheniKoq39W3vDSblIkofMZsPcCNTB059gDTuB_r9-vwnVpeS2-mhc/w422-h640/whyihatevegans.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>From <b><a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/socialists-or-anarchists" target="_blank">Matt Yglesias</a></b>:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">When activists do things like throw soup on the Mona Lisa to protest climate change, it barely even seems worth delving into a detailed argument about why this is unlikely to generate useful reductions in global carbon dioxide emissions. It’s like believing that if you shoot William McKinley, global capitalism will collapse.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">And I think there really is common intellectual DNA here.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The activist shop Momentum, which incubated the Sunrise Movement and has trained a lot of other young progressives, advocates an organizing model that stipulates that disruptive actions will help build popular support for a cause. I have no idea why they think that’s true — if anti-abortion protestors shut down a major art museum demanding a national ban on abortions, I think that would make them look scarier and even more extreme. But it’s basically <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed" target="_blank">Propaganda of the Deed</a>, with the violence toned down.</span></p></blockquote>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-65023473865421461592024-03-08T05:30:00.000-08:002024-03-08T13:14:57.686-08:00Weekend Reading: Personal Finance Rules<p> <br /></p><h3 style="text-align: center;">Will Ackerman: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJEO8GRvzac&ab_channel=WillAckerman-Topic" target="_blank">The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit</a></h3><br /><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe1aCr8wGSTp52-REcY2GrUnfMi96MMGgsHPowJR4ZuZmUtZGHCIbAz6aDaDDnuUrqjPOPvUbx-06QsJye5G63eOemzvOTe15uMtmZYLFPWf9IpgywOCbjSb1PEdIkLntUNExAtbG19CUkUFaJv5PSp0t0BJBNPe8sjq8knL3_zTz3Xclu8IwdyO6tAfk/s4080/PXL_20240222_211329038.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="4080" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe1aCr8wGSTp52-REcY2GrUnfMi96MMGgsHPowJR4ZuZmUtZGHCIbAz6aDaDDnuUrqjPOPvUbx-06QsJye5G63eOemzvOTe15uMtmZYLFPWf9IpgywOCbjSb1PEdIkLntUNExAtbG19CUkUFaJv5PSp0t0BJBNPe8sjq8knL3_zTz3Xclu8IwdyO6tAfk/w400-h301/PXL_20240222_211329038.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne about to enter The Void.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><b><br /><a href="https://www.newretirement.com/retirement/personal-finance-rules/" target="_blank">This</a></b> list of personal finance rules is not a substitute for <a href="https://andrewtobias.com/" target="_blank">Andrew Tobias</a>' <i><a href="https://andrewtobias.com/the-only-investment-guide-youll-ever-need/" target="_blank">The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need</a> </i>(or even<i> <a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">TBTSNBN</a></i>) but it is really good. Worth reading (I don't agree with everything). My edited (their list has much redundancy) summary list (with my own additions):</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Always Pay Off the Credit Card</li><li>Spend within Your Means</li><li>Prioritize</li><li>Live a Little</li><li>Understand How Emotions Impact Financial Decisions / Understand How to Make Good Financial Decisions</li><li>Recognize the Relationship Between Money and Time </li><li>Never Loan Money to Family or Friends</li><li>"Diversity" in Portfolio Is Overrated</li><li>Don't Project Current Conditions into the Future</li></ol><p></p><p>The last two are from me. #8 - for example: you are told to hold more in bonds the closer you get to retirement because they are (supposedly) less volatile. But the last few years have shown that not to be true. Our bond funds were down as much as our stock funds but without the upside in good years. We used to have target-date funds, and those suck (not just performance, but also the "management" expenses).</p><p>Re: 9: I'm writing this when the markets are hitting irrational highs. (Our couple of shares of Nvidia stock - recommended by our pal Ken - is up more than <i>1000%</i> on - crazy. Truly crazy.) I wrote<i> <a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">TBTSNBN</a></i> when the market wasn't doing well: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Don’t pay attention to the market. There will be several scary financial times in your life. As an earning adult, I’ve lived through 1987’s Black Monday, the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, the collapse following 9/11, the Great Recession of 2007-08, the market cataclysm early on in covid, and the current (2022) bear market. The worst thing you can do is react to market conditions. The best thing you can do is keep to your investment schedule no matter what. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/you-may-miss-the-markets-best-days-if-you-sell-amid-high-volatility.html" target="_blank">Some of the best market gains follow the worst declines</a>.</span></p></blockquote>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-85895147465418133402024-03-07T05:30:00.000-08:002024-03-07T05:30:00.145-08:00More Good News, Trees Edition<p><br /><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/17/us-east-trees-warming-hole-study-climate-crisis" target="_blank"><b>Very cool: trees stalling effects of global heating in eastern US, study finds</b></a></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeSE7ipYLTvGCriqlfvLCirJkQhUMBE2N9_HThXi9z3mRh8l4UMwOSPbqD-tZmVWFVEM9DCNawKF7yHkbjvsDGDtmFApUppWrIv44HlcCodF47q2ZCKohqD9jkuwMkrv8IXh6dcBvDRTerVHwCi7IOtlzf-74gq3Xg184xrhbGy08hFOfD-B80F62NxeQ/s2534/GHCudokasAEwmqc.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="2534" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeSE7ipYLTvGCriqlfvLCirJkQhUMBE2N9_HThXi9z3mRh8l4UMwOSPbqD-tZmVWFVEM9DCNawKF7yHkbjvsDGDtmFApUppWrIv44HlcCodF47q2ZCKohqD9jkuwMkrv8IXh6dcBvDRTerVHwCi7IOtlzf-74gq3Xg184xrhbGy08hFOfD-B80F62NxeQ/w640-h252/GHCudokasAEwmqc.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-77617990426680594702024-03-06T05:30:00.000-08:002024-03-06T10:00:22.579-08:00The other Matt on how to end liberalism (and Debbie Downers)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimedbT7cE_RpzLa9lo65AgxEMNKqIPKS8s8Z283gE1cMYR02G6q0PHCWXiuOnIg9zjhmyrOS7gVmgA0iuzsDYAnK-9NdUyoB-IxlHeGYbvIY2RLSboqkbBfNq8vxH9YwNJ6yCUiiCo3PSNgYajS9cnaoRfd6G1y6t-hX5UshUzzrmEyh-DaRgRCcH53ig/s1530/strong.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="1530" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimedbT7cE_RpzLa9lo65AgxEMNKqIPKS8s8Z283gE1cMYR02G6q0PHCWXiuOnIg9zjhmyrOS7gVmgA0iuzsDYAnK-9NdUyoB-IxlHeGYbvIY2RLSboqkbBfNq8vxH9YwNJ6yCUiiCo3PSNgYajS9cnaoRfd6G1y6t-hX5UshUzzrmEyh-DaRgRCcH53ig/w640-h374/strong.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /><br />(Please also see and share: <b><a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/debbie-downer-progressives-arent" target="_blank">Debbie Downer progressives aren't helping</a></b>)<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-rise-of-cosmopolitanism-and-the" target="_blank">The rise of cosmopolitanism and the crisis of liberalism</a></b></h3><p><b>How much can a democracy ask voters to care about non-citizens?</b></p><p><i>excerpts:</i></p><p>Suppose someone proposed the following policy idea: an immediate 35 percent cut in Social Security benefits that would eliminate more than 100 percent of the program’s existing funding gap, with the extra money saved dedicated to highly effective public health programs in poor countries. The programs recommended by GiveWell (where we send 10 percent of your subscription fee — thank you for your support!) save lives for a few thousand bucks a pop and provide some ancillary health benefits. These are very beneficial, cost-effective programs, and more funding would save a lot of lives.</p><p>This idea would, obviously, be politically catastrophic. ...</p><p>Right now, if I say “giving money to promote rigorously evaluated public health programs in poor countries is an admirable thing to do,” I think most people would be inclined to agree. But if we had a hot-button political conversation about cutting Social Security to support Vitamin A supplementation, opponents wouldn’t want to just say “well, I’m selfish so I don’t want to do it.” The backlash would involve people making the claim that Vitamin A supplementation is actually bad. We’ve already seen Marc Andreesen, because he disagrees with some prominent effective altruists about AI safety, promoting absurd theories that helping poor kids avoid malaria is bad. ...</p><p>David Frum wrote a piece in 2019 that really bugged me, titled “If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will.”</p><p>His point was that if you decide it’s constitutive of liberalism to espouse humanitarian values toward foreigners seeking refuge, then ultimately, the mass public will decide that means they need to reject liberalism. So if you want to save liberalism, you’d better come up with some other theory.</p><p>I did not like this idea. I found it to be a bitter pill to swallow, in part because I find the right-wing attitude toward this question of border security to be really irrational and weird. ...</p><p>But this is where the Social Security thought experiment helped me see what Frum was saying — that idea is so obviously a non-starter that nobody pushes for it, and if they did, it would be a kind of right-wing provocation to own the libs. I could imagine Tyler Cowen or some other smart libertarian writing about this as a way to criticize the idea of the welfare state. And conversely, I could even tell you from college political philosophy classes where to go to get an official defense of the proposition that it’s okay to prioritize domestic over global redistribution, even though the global poor are poorer. That’s John Rawls’ view as outlined in “The Law of Peoples,” and he further argues in “Political Liberalism” that this should hold true as your political philosophy, even if in your personal worldview you are a cosmopolitan consequentialist. Just as we ask a Muslim or a Mormon to set aside their religious convictions about alcohol and try to formulate policy ideas about booze grounded in secular public reason, we should ask cosmopolitans to come to the table with arguments grounded in the public reason of national interest.</p><p>One thing I’ve changed my mind on over the years is I used to be the kind of person who looked askance at “billionaire philanthropy” as a kind of poor alternative to democratic politics. But I now think there are lots of things — like helping the neediest people in the world — that you can’t reasonably expect democratic politics to accomplish, and it’s appropriate to count on private charitable undertakings to fulfill some of those values.</p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-69827757633717663152024-03-05T04:20:00.000-08:002024-03-05T13:12:02.170-08:00What do people know and why don't they know it?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAyPuozgItijnH4bwcbjXA7iY1srMwRUlryPz5NHhwmMz-I7VOmiMHn7QT9xsZ449I8r4pYbdq38PMVckmJyxKZIYEcQuaIXiyInfB1jQ7u4xI2vKYGyZ6mEYotwXFHkIqwtPnmqq8PwkVIQc19gML4nsKmo06k8fPUtdnJB12NJfG1dC_H3RVyFU1Yl0/s3342/skybw%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1885" data-original-width="3342" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAyPuozgItijnH4bwcbjXA7iY1srMwRUlryPz5NHhwmMz-I7VOmiMHn7QT9xsZ449I8r4pYbdq38PMVckmJyxKZIYEcQuaIXiyInfB1jQ7u4xI2vKYGyZ6mEYotwXFHkIqwtPnmqq8PwkVIQc19gML4nsKmo06k8fPUtdnJB12NJfG1dC_H3RVyFU1Yl0/w400-h225/skybw%20(2).jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Here is my question. What percentage of the electorate in the six swing states know these facts:</p><p>1. Hunter Biden is a criminal and drug addict.</p><p>2. Donald Trump was found guilty of sexual assault.</p><p>3. Donald Trump was found guilty of fraud.</p><p>4. Donald Trump has multiple fines against him totaling over half a billion dollars.</p><p>4. Donald Trump personally killed a bipartisan bill to secure the border - a bill endorsed by the Border Patrol Union, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</p><p>5. Donald Trump has been barred from doing business in NY.</p><p>6. Joe Biden is 5% older than Trump. Biden eats healthy and exercises. TFG thinks exercise is bad and is famous for chowing fast food.</p><p>7. Inflation is way down.</p><p>8. Unemployment is historically low.</p><p>9. Republicans' star witness lied about bribes paid to Hunter and Joe Biden.</p><p><b>This is the problem, IMO</b>. All people hear is the narrative: Biden is old, everything is terrible. They don't hear the facts. This is Ds fault as much as the Republican-owned media. Really, only <a href="https://jabberwocking.com/" target="_blank">Kevin Drum</a> [<a href="https://jabberwocking.com/voters-dont-know-anything-yet/" target="_blank">update from Drum</a> after the above was published] and <a href="https://andrewtobias.com/" target="_blank">Andrew Tobias</a> (and <a href="https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/" target="_blank">Hannah Ritchie</a> re: "doom") are pushing back. and Colbert.</p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-69617483662420800542024-03-04T05:06:00.000-08:002024-03-04T05:06:00.135-08:00I wish I had been wrong, but here we are<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq8DTFoTVNmEFNLRn0X78b1peYReEJy9DXcP5sUQW14Vjpz2MZw8jOghZGxzdkpXhDZw3HhFWOO6mdQAL1MPy_Yz0EUIRYWbo2ZfgugzjnfR4IjVt2aREarTaC18VtBFS3liAJ7qqRt8E_GwKnIH2bFbbO1X_l73LvbtAxvqw8tdC6SY2IkM-6_AWkRgY/s792/Ardyth4birthday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="779" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq8DTFoTVNmEFNLRn0X78b1peYReEJy9DXcP5sUQW14Vjpz2MZw8jOghZGxzdkpXhDZw3HhFWOO6mdQAL1MPy_Yz0EUIRYWbo2ZfgugzjnfR4IjVt2aREarTaC18VtBFS3liAJ7qqRt8E_GwKnIH2bFbbO1X_l73LvbtAxvqw8tdC6SY2IkM-6_AWkRgY/w197-h200/Ardyth4birthday.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Of course, when push comes to shove, most right-wingers are "pro-life" for others, but not for themselves. </p><p>The great rationalization re: in-vitro fertilization has started, <b><a href="https://jabberwocking.com/heres-the-secret-to-being-pro-life-and-pro-ivf/" target="_blank">summarized by Kevin Drum</a></b> (with one addition):</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Life begins at conception!</li><li>IVF inherently involves the destruction of fertilized embryos.</li><li>But <i>I</i> want/need IVF.</li><li>Therefore <i>those </i>embryos aren't human life.</li></ul><p></p><p>But when it comes to others, as written <a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">you-know-where</a>:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Think about it: take two pills and expel a tiny clump of cells with less sentience than a cockroach. The world is spared yet another unwanted child, and on average, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101570014/abortion-access-tends-to-lower-child-poverty-rates-economists-say" target="_blank">poverty is reduced</a>. The woman regains control of her life, and in the future, can bring a wanted and provided-for child into the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Furthermore, consider examples of what they want.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Some states are banning all abortions in all cases. Imagine a 10-year-old child who has been raped. It is discovered after only six weeks. Despite Republican lies, this really happens. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2022/07/16/rape-10-year-old-ohio-girl-exploit-her-tragedy/10054545002/" target="_blank">It happened hardly a month after SCOTUS overturned Roe</a>. Republicans want to force raped 10-year-olds to carry to term and give birth, rather than let her have a 10 mm clump of cells removed. This is not a joke. The Family Research Council has a <a href="https://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF04F16.pdf" target="_blank">50-page document</a> saying why a raped woman must carry the pregnancy to term.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Those who ask, “Well, how often does that happen?” are missing the point. (But again: <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2022/07/16/rape-10-year-old-ohio-girl-exploit-her-tragedy/10054545002/" target="_blank">it does happen</a>! The world sucks more than you know!) This example clearly shows that there is complete asymmetry between the woman (a child, in this case) and the blastocyst.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Or consider an <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ectopic-pregnancy/symptoms-causes/syc-20372088#" target="_blank">ectopic pregnancy</a>. The pregnancy can’t come to term – <i>the pregnancy will kill the woman </i>before viability. But <i>Republicans would rather kill an actual human being </i>rather than let her take a safe drug to save her life. Indiana state Rep. Davisson <a href="https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1555303016101732353" target="_blank">explained</a>: “[None] of us are guaranteed tomorrow. We must accept death as a consequence of life.”</span> </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">That is just completely nuts. Cuckoo-bananas. </span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Banning abortion isn’t about protecting life.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">It is about expressing hatred and exerting power.</span></b></p></blockquote>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-83300982203205193492024-03-03T06:30:00.000-08:002024-03-03T14:12:07.885-08:00Another<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Rosanne Cash performing "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCtFDt9KoAg&ab_channel=KCRW" target="_blank">A Feather's Not A Bird</a>" Live</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">We were lucky enough to see her perform this live. <br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">National unity: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Republicans make up shit to complain about Biden</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Democrats make up shit to complain about Biden<br /><br />Biden has brought the country together!<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ARFqeBfj2Bje5pXRUSAvG7O29LDYeEfegSZhJNgw3vKIfb3ETlAux_lqAGVkK9SQHSf8WgMc71CffSncsJQ_6iB2gM_alx1K_v883_4RuLloy4ieDi2dPskGzHiw5gge3kc5urNUKBdxUQbXUf5WflOtu9h3kWQ5avFZySTXCvS8rGjF1dEstsnwVQA/s960/lookold.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="960" height="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ARFqeBfj2Bje5pXRUSAvG7O29LDYeEfegSZhJNgw3vKIfb3ETlAux_lqAGVkK9SQHSf8WgMc71CffSncsJQ_6iB2gM_alx1K_v883_4RuLloy4ieDi2dPskGzHiw5gge3kc5urNUKBdxUQbXUf5WflOtu9h3kWQ5avFZySTXCvS8rGjF1dEstsnwVQA/w640-h532/lookold.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><br /></p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-30284611148470499772024-03-02T05:30:00.000-08:002024-03-02T05:30:00.127-08:00Anthropocene Reviewed<h3 style="text-align: center;">Mary Chapin Carpenter - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cChsyweLDos&ab_channel=MaryChapinCarpenter-Topic" target="_blank">Why Walk When You Can Fly?</a></h3><p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBoEi6_gLecuNdKGXZqsgS4h6pduRb_tg-xjbDB_v8XajmPe-SLvfMrMZ-t6kJQMTOJ5UKRhPmnPG4TpHct7l_fWVGwkfNtGyxL83VkvLjmTPQTnXE-OVF_qhQyZFb9n7H5KZWP8BmATvsQmtzpsWz9j0f_HggLCc6ZyDt9EHg-0cpCpv4l73uMOkCu4/s4080/PXL_20240224_204639584.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="3072" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBoEi6_gLecuNdKGXZqsgS4h6pduRb_tg-xjbDB_v8XajmPe-SLvfMrMZ-t6kJQMTOJ5UKRhPmnPG4TpHct7l_fWVGwkfNtGyxL83VkvLjmTPQTnXE-OVF_qhQyZFb9n7H5KZWP8BmATvsQmtzpsWz9j0f_HggLCc6ZyDt9EHg-0cpCpv4l73uMOkCu4/w482-h640/PXL_20240224_204639584.jpg" width="482" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">All these palm trees <a href="https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/agua-caliente-park-caught-on-fire" target="_blank">burned in 2022</a> (see the charred trunks) and are now back.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Here are my Kindle notes from John Green's <a href="https://anthropocenereviewedbook.com/" target="_blank">The Anthropocene Reviewed</a> (based on his <a href="https://www.johngreenbooks.com/podcast" target="_blank">podcast</a> of the same name) simply listed in order:</i></span></p><p>consciousness is temporary and precarious.</p><p>when people write reviews, they are really writing a kind of memoir</p><p>To fall in love with the world isn’t to ignore or overlook suffering, both human and otherwise. For me anyway, to fall in love with the world is to look up at the night sky and feel your mind swim before the beauty and the distance of the stars.</p><p>Humans are a threat to our own species and to many others, but the planet will survive us. In fact, it may only take life on Earth a few million years to recover from us.</p><p>Two hundred and fifty million years ago, during the Permian extinction, ocean surface waters likely reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees Celsius. Ninety-five percent of Earth’s species went extinct, and for five million years afterward, Earth was a “dead zone” with little expansion of life.</p><p>Halley’s comet will be more than five times closer to Earth in 2061 than it was in 1986.</p><p>I am extremely happy that my children are no longer three,</p><p>As many as a quarter of women died in childbirth, and around 50 percent of children did not live to the age of five.</p><p>You often hear people say, “There are so many chemicals in it.” Of course, there are also lots of chemicals in wine, or coffee, or air.</p><p>“It is fortunate,” Charles Dudley Warner wrote more than a century ago, “that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.”</p><p>Scientists sought out more productive strains of the mold, and eventually the bacteriologist Mary Hunt found one on a cantaloupe in a Peoria, Illinois, grocery store. That strain became even more productive after being exposed to X-rays and ultraviolet radiation. Essentially all penicillin in the world descends from the mold on that one cantaloupe in Peoria.</p><p>We imagine other animals as being without consciousness, mindlessly following the leader to they-know-not-where, but in that construction, we sometimes forget that we are also animals.</p><p>‘In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”</p><p>I hope you never find yourself on the floor of your kitchen.*</p><p>Kurt Vonnegut wrote that one of the flaws in the human character “is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”</p><p>For every grain of sand on Earth, there are trillions of viruses.</p><p>Philipp Dettmer’s book <i>Immune</i>, there are so many viruses on Earth that “if they were laid end to end, they would stretch for 100 million light years—around 500 Milky Way galaxies put next to each other.”</p><p>We often hear that we live in unprecedented times. But what worries me is that these times feel quite precedented. For humans, being in uncharted territory is often good news, because our charted territory is so riddled with disease, injustice, and violence.</p><p>I am highly suspicious of attempts to brightside human suffering</p><p>I don’t believe we have a choice when it comes to whether we endow the world with meaning.</p><p>“No bright line between imagination and memory.”</p><p>One day I was at church, and the gospel reading included Matthew 19:24, which goes, “Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” The minister said that people take every line of the Bible literally except for that one, when it is the only line that is meant literally.</p><p>Densmore was a passionate vegetarian who survived primarily on raw apples and was known for getting into arguments at restaurants whenever he overheard a stranger ordering a meat dish.</p><p>Now always feels infinite and never is. I was wrong about life’s meaninglessness when I was a teenager, and I’m wrong about it now.</p><p>“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.”</p><p>“You’re going to be okay, you know. Not in the short run . . .” and then she paused before saying, “And also not in the long run, I guess. But in the medium run.”</p><p><br /><span style="font-family: times;">* I hope that for you, too. </span> 😢</p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-34232772551964609312024-03-01T04:40:00.000-08:002024-03-01T05:33:09.176-08:00“Gandalf is old! Let's just give Saruman the Ring.” <h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br />Wilco "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSQjcAxbR0&ab_channel=JaumeSaur%C3%AD" target="_blank">You Never Know</a>" </span></h3><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">“</span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Come on, children, you’re acting like children</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: georgia; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;">”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #212121; font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
</span></span><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #212121;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also: <b><a href="https://youtu.be/5VFLXW0wUBA?si=H6gQYyMsyajNL_Za&t=525" target="_blank">Colbert</a></b></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #212121;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://youtu.be/n06UidnrCso?si=8xzYRv8xE1rqDOhP&t=78" target="_blank">Colbert on Thursday's coup attempt</a></span></span></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Two memes:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq_R2SOH4jWVlfKw7d7X6ogwAMyRZVXiol2McqfhFO45xxphE1nhdFWFX64U8EhVbn0sY6MgsHIHH6e_12UyTT0jNvlyvhFeN18_3Z_w_4jvEp19jJL445Wl0lRscKi-9ythXXViDkgx43L68dirFQ_qfGMnTIbFSa9yopONjiZPMB_W9LyxV5yQBmPIU/s1117/ganvssaur.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="1117" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq_R2SOH4jWVlfKw7d7X6ogwAMyRZVXiol2McqfhFO45xxphE1nhdFWFX64U8EhVbn0sY6MgsHIHH6e_12UyTT0jNvlyvhFeN18_3Z_w_4jvEp19jJL445Wl0lRscKi-9ythXXViDkgx43L68dirFQ_qfGMnTIbFSa9yopONjiZPMB_W9LyxV5yQBmPIU/w640-h504/ganvssaur.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwuuxqCtkdnC65kkT7uDhVkabPcNSlWzV5egv2afCfp71f0Mg3Q6ZLgIq64RCR1zrbYq_Mxj5CIgJvow9eOWW79SdEZn_QP1ycVrPVUh1DvGP09mj8Nz_7ag79CH5IXsZfgoB-aKZixKsATcfx3OMRfr35Q1kvT9Uv2IyNGUwSCIFqCp-OOczS4eLrJHk/s853/429578891_8130793946934201_2004410133514469532_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="853" height="602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwuuxqCtkdnC65kkT7uDhVkabPcNSlWzV5egv2afCfp71f0Mg3Q6ZLgIq64RCR1zrbYq_Mxj5CIgJvow9eOWW79SdEZn_QP1ycVrPVUh1DvGP09mj8Nz_7ag79CH5IXsZfgoB-aKZixKsATcfx3OMRfr35Q1kvT9Uv2IyNGUwSCIFqCp-OOczS4eLrJHk/w640-h602/429578891_8130793946934201_2004410133514469532_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-44324981518321894612024-02-29T05:30:00.000-08:002024-02-29T05:30:00.126-08:00Do you believe anything that is not falsifiable?<p>When our kid was in 8th grade, after a full unit on comparative religions, a very subversive teacher asked the kids why they believed their specific religion*. The teacher led them through a discussion until the kids realized that they held their beliefs because their parents had taught them. </p><p>One student, though, said (paraphrasing): "I think EK would be an atheist regardless of what their parents taught them. They question everything."</p><p>This hits on what I consider to be the most important question: </p><p><b>Why do we believe what we believe?</b> </p><p>If we had been born in a different place (e.g., <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/the-17-countries-with-the-worst-quality-of-life-in-the-world/slidelist/53008535.cms" target="_blank">Central African Republic</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/world/asia/indonesia-election-islam.html">Indonesia</a>) and/or different time (e.g., <a href="https://www.timemaps.com/civilizations/ancient-greeks/" target="_blank">400 BCE</a>, <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive" target="_blank">536 CE</a>), would we have believed anything close to what we believe now? </p><p>There is, of course, no way to free ourselves entirely from the biases of our upbringing (or <a href="http://humanhow.com/list-of-cognitive-biases-with-examples/" target="_blank">our human nature</a>). But I think the best way to minimize our limitations is to regularly ask: </p><p><b>Do we believe anything that is not falsifiable? </b></p><p>This reminds me of when Bill Nye and creationist Ken Hamm shared a stage and were asked, "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/bill_nye_on_creationism_show_me_one_piece_of_evidence_and_i_would_change_my_mind_immediately/" target="_blank">Is there anything that would change your mind?</a>" Hamm answered, "No." Nye answered, "Evidence."<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qOFJxnh0_bQ/YY_x3-MoP7I/AAAAAAACBBY/titt51tcHdksY3dyA8PXUPh-K_lYna24gCLcBGAsYHQ/s852/evidence.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="852" height="373" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qOFJxnh0_bQ/YY_x3-MoP7I/AAAAAAACBBY/titt51tcHdksY3dyA8PXUPh-K_lYna24gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h373/evidence.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* The title chapter of <i><a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">TBTSNBN</a></i>. </div></div>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-52428753179880097052024-02-28T05:49:00.000-08:002024-02-29T03:37:08.438-08:00Universe of Uncertainty<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjgu1F4taTk01JTG8kdnWmFXPdIQe1J1GaUZ_L2lva23WHqnZRtGgLNfGx4JDK6CYIzUJuQVBxuYnd7utsVUDzlggfx73-PJMtTX4MV1j8GG66KAsh5jt15g1LKGhP_0W73ImrpjmQh9OFQnMiUxFHaOni_BjwtAtC9n3050b0OQkfYjRj7X1DtzDiJA/s800/researchers-reveal-a-h.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="800" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjgu1F4taTk01JTG8kdnWmFXPdIQe1J1GaUZ_L2lva23WHqnZRtGgLNfGx4JDK6CYIzUJuQVBxuYnd7utsVUDzlggfx73-PJMtTX4MV1j8GG66KAsh5jt15g1LKGhP_0W73ImrpjmQh9OFQnMiUxFHaOni_BjwtAtC9n3050b0OQkfYjRj7X1DtzDiJA/w640-h388/researchers-reveal-a-h.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Researchers took a data set regarding public opinion on immigration and public services. They sent this exact same data set to 161 researchers in 73 teams from around the world.<p></p><p><a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2203150119" target="_blank">Those teams got the above "results,"</a> pretty much showing any result you wanted. <br /></p><p><i>Using the exact same data</i>.</p><p>Consider that whenever you hear the results of a study. Let alone some <a href="https://www.mattball.org/2024/01/michael-lewis-going-infinite.html" target="_blank">projection about the future</a>. </p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-6472772131136245962024-02-27T05:01:00.000-08:002024-02-27T05:01:00.173-08:00Bonus Pictures (from others)<p>Also from Feb 19 (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNsCeOV4GM&ab_channel=TheBeatlesVEVO" target="_blank"><b>A Day in the Life</b></a>) </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9SFbB_eZe1oEd3fpzDnFYjPLznhvF__HEY3jCi42uh2_oi8AD_MgwWzqkoXZyA8OenvaV6GVqgAAU0gf6XWpAjbguUTpY0r90_3LUM9UHD2jAbeU5HRoLpMBnFWCTK3sOZD2c4D0-DT4HBEOBTgVsG4BDHantAGr8RogBiYnHm_rm1ljhxdSRQak6_k/s1022/attachment1708392109569.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1022" data-original-width="767" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9SFbB_eZe1oEd3fpzDnFYjPLznhvF__HEY3jCi42uh2_oi8AD_MgwWzqkoXZyA8OenvaV6GVqgAAU0gf6XWpAjbguUTpY0r90_3LUM9UHD2jAbeU5HRoLpMBnFWCTK3sOZD2c4D0-DT4HBEOBTgVsG4BDHantAGr8RogBiYnHm_rm1ljhxdSRQak6_k/w480-h640/attachment1708392109569.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guess how many saguaros are in this picture by Kari N?</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzv33COJEYYSXVzAw_oGyYiDO0mwZ851WTF1E0xyv-A-UV3BNSmutvzAdP6v6sOJUrQWTGxuL7eoJbFicAihpi6OYvi6bVAmZ4SvFOYNWdZsgwHLCiSyadJzbLqkc8XfwSMt6mwbn8WaWosK0GzSqXphQyDmaWzWOhGp1aPJbKY24Fg2KFhD4b_EAEsw4/s1600/attachment1708392162390.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1109" data-original-width="1600" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzv33COJEYYSXVzAw_oGyYiDO0mwZ851WTF1E0xyv-A-UV3BNSmutvzAdP6v6sOJUrQWTGxuL7eoJbFicAihpi6OYvi6bVAmZ4SvFOYNWdZsgwHLCiSyadJzbLqkc8XfwSMt6mwbn8WaWosK0GzSqXphQyDmaWzWOhGp1aPJbKY24Fg2KFhD4b_EAEsw4/w640-h444/attachment1708392162390.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By EK</td></tr></tbody></table>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-66235239958219741102024-02-26T05:30:00.000-08:002024-02-26T05:30:00.131-08:00“Your Kids Are Not Doomed”<h3 style="text-align: center;"><br />Wilco - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnKHVGmsiv4&ab_channel=KEXP" target="_blank">Pittsburgh</a></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5nmPB4EPUpzkS-yk58LNMpBgJZUr1uV89hkG3zw_W7RccGIikywTO0-mTz6QZMhkV5cWyfNdHt50JaAwXpWvm49Up6z1rrLIBOTPhSi4yAokSrViYf0wFpbhEuTw9YVW7KEbSeFOzx8TEqZzBXgjRXH5HVC6hOH3JT92MjeXyvFB7TX5IXszvXy3DaH8/s1024/Wilcox%20010.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5nmPB4EPUpzkS-yk58LNMpBgJZUr1uV89hkG3zw_W7RccGIikywTO0-mTz6QZMhkV5cWyfNdHt50JaAwXpWvm49Up6z1rrLIBOTPhSi4yAokSrViYf0wFpbhEuTw9YVW7KEbSeFOzx8TEqZzBXgjRXH5HVC6hOH3JT92MjeXyvFB7TX5IXszvXy3DaH8/w400-h300/Wilcox%20010.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p><br />I read a novel recently where a couple said they weren't going to have kids because the cherry trees were blooming earlier. </p><p><sigh></p><p>From <i><a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">TBTSNBN</a>:</i></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">[T]wo weeks after I put this chapter together, Ezra Klein published “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opinion/climate-change-should-you-have-kids.html" target="_blank">Your Kids Are Not Doomed</a>.” In it, he cites just how bad it was for the average human for nearly all of human history, concluding, “<b>No mainstream climate models suggest a return to a world as bad as the one we had in 1950, to say nothing of 1150</b>.” More from Ezra’s column:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">As my colleague David Wallace-Wells … wrote to me, “What looks like <a href="https://www.mattball.org/2024/02/taking-armageddon-seriously.html" target="_blank">apocalypse</a> in prospect often feels more like grim normality when it arrives in the present.” Oof. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This is no mere abstraction or prediction. The evidence that we ignore mass suffering is all around us. We are ignoring it right now, just as we did yesterday, and just as we will tomorrow. “An estimated 20 million people died of Covid, and now we’re over it. What do we make of that?” Wallace-Wells wrote to me. “<b>Ten million people a year are dying of air pollution.</b> <b>What does it tell us about climate change, which is quite unlikely to ever kill as many as now die from particulates</b>?”</span></p></blockquote>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-51964836159613950652024-02-25T08:26:00.000-08:002024-02-25T08:26:00.128-08:00Please share with anyone sane<h3 style="text-align: center;"><br />Pet Shop Boys - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRHetRTOD1Q&ab_channel=PetShopBoysParlophone">It's a Sin</a></h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpoX2MYpEIM-HetPzhCG1LmcJXunFyc3mm5w1_4Cs_YVAmNZBAUuky_yQjRDJ-reZrltC-g-o9AhvIwJphIeDPy1A4oYTvTU586v4ifyGMG96XaJAs0bHDTB5fOJXcNcM_yJpc-eD7DcrBii6Gts7eVGzI1QRxZ3ShcE2bNZQyQzaMApMC9D-Dpo9uayM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="1108" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpoX2MYpEIM-HetPzhCG1LmcJXunFyc3mm5w1_4Cs_YVAmNZBAUuky_yQjRDJ-reZrltC-g-o9AhvIwJphIeDPy1A4oYTvTU586v4ifyGMG96XaJAs0bHDTB5fOJXcNcM_yJpc-eD7DcrBii6Gts7eVGzI1QRxZ3ShcE2bNZQyQzaMApMC9D-Dpo9uayM=w640-h266" width="640" /></a></div><b><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1760286644421222779" target="_blank">This</a></b> is their goal. (<a href="https://jabberwocking.com/recreational-sex-is-the-oldest-recreation-of-all/" target="_blank">More</a>.) (They are not only creating a world with more unwanted children, but <a href="https://jabberwocking.com/alabama-starts-to-lose-ivf-centers/" target="_blank">fewer wanted children</a>.) <p></p><p>Vote and campaign for every Democrat, or else you are helping these monstrous Christo-Facists take over. </p><p>Full stop.<br /></p><p>PS: It must be so awful to be so repressed and frustrated that you want to keep other people from enjoying life. They do loads of damage to the world, but I really feel sorry for these "conservatives." </p><p></p><p></p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-78432802765645253042024-02-24T05:30:00.000-08:002024-02-24T05:30:00.134-08:00Unweaving the Rainbow, or Reality Is Better<p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Whatever the explanation for consciousness is, it might always seem like a miracle. And for what it’s worth, I think it always will seem like a miracle. <br /></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>-Sam Harris, quoted in "<a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">Day 4 Concluded</a>"</i></span></h3></blockquote><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7C2yKADoEPGnqkf5PI_BfpOgE6dgDb6fYBQ_3W8GgUbRuLVhKIDMxWCpFlFzkB_KJzlsjZCvyCIAkijR79qcwkuSzXbYMiuKThdyqaKHqoyTF1UbJlFdooDmxyl-iM4PQtYKHlQbxfV2D6OEjkzqYwLS7_GDD6uJJ2zIMhha9t_Xn1c47WjsEDBMAPg/s400/pie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7C2yKADoEPGnqkf5PI_BfpOgE6dgDb6fYBQ_3W8GgUbRuLVhKIDMxWCpFlFzkB_KJzlsjZCvyCIAkijR79qcwkuSzXbYMiuKThdyqaKHqoyTF1UbJlFdooDmxyl-iM4PQtYKHlQbxfV2D6OEjkzqYwLS7_GDD6uJJ2zIMhha9t_Xn1c47WjsEDBMAPg/s320/pie.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I want to make one* point about <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lddo2sTX68M&ab_channel=Sentientism" target="_blank">this</a></b> excellent Sentientism podcast with <a href="https://www.preventsuffering.org/" target="_blank">Opis'</a> Jonathan Leighton:</p><p>The host claims if we take a "scientistic" (reductionist / evolutionary biology) view of the world, we "crush the meaning and the fun and the value and the joy" from life (at <a href="https://youtu.be/Lddo2sTX68M?si=D5ne703iy6IcWaKq&t=658" target="_blank">11 minutes</a>).</p><p>Um ... no.</p><p>In short, I am as reductionist a person as you'll meet. All that exists is matter and energy. Everything is just bosons and fermions following the laws of physics (unless I'm a <a href="https://www.mattball.org/2022/06/a-blow-to-my-ego-from-yuval-harari.html" target="_blank">simulation</a>). </p><p>But if you know me or have read <i><a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">TBTSNBN</a>**</i>, you know my life has fun and value and joy. I <i>greatly </i>enjoy <a href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/09/quite-probably-my-favorite-recipe.html" target="_blank">food</a> and drink and sunshine and <strike>NSFW</strike>, even though I know why I crave it. I have less suffering the more I <b><a href="https://www.mattball.org/2023/06/enlightenment-june-2023-emptiness-and.html" target="_blank">internalize reality</a></b>. </p><p>In short, <b>we don't need illusions to have joy or value our lives</b>. My experience argues just the opposite.</p><p>If interested in this topic, please check out Dawkins' <b><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unweaving_the_Rainbow" target="_blank">Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder</a></i></b>. Existence is truly filled with wonder; the more we understand, the more we (well-off humans reading this) can appreciate and be grateful for our limited time of consciousness. </p><p><i>*OK, I have many points I want to make, but this is the most relevant one, IMO.</i></p><p><i>**<a href="https://www.losingmyreligions.net/" target="_blank">The Book That Shall Not Be Named</a></i></p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-47570702021184273582024-02-23T05:30:00.000-08:002024-02-23T05:30:00.141-08:00Weekend Reading: A Failure of Cost/Benefit Analysis<p><b><a href="https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/pepfar-and-the-costs-of-cost-benefit-analysis" target="_blank">PEPFAR and the Costs of Cost-Benefit Analysis</a></b></p><p>Excellent and worth reading. </p><p>One note: These were calculations based on an issue that was going on <i>right then</i> and <i>had data</i>. Yet the Expected Value crowd got it very wrong. If they had gotten their way, there would have been much more human misery.</p><p>We should consider this when we hear someone claim to have an Expected Value about something in the future, especially the far future, especially <i>especially </i>when they want their particular personal pet project to have priority over the present.<br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDTF76oBVtthuTurqJJBtoFQwcEmo1yX1V_GdXAEd4Pqzqaf3NfAsHsWzGtCTjkUGW_TdQhGc4US1Hua7YDRFDMIgBivTJHBhchmM8QP8VnErWgAuC421VKrtRaOuhPz5RwARi6D7MhFz1axgpJIlTdgLITm8Iw6S2vj-kPsQiq7e8-Dmbevggi-XDis/s4080/PXL_20240214_184111048.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="4080" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDTF76oBVtthuTurqJJBtoFQwcEmo1yX1V_GdXAEd4Pqzqaf3NfAsHsWzGtCTjkUGW_TdQhGc4US1Hua7YDRFDMIgBivTJHBhchmM8QP8VnErWgAuC421VKrtRaOuhPz5RwARi6D7MhFz1axgpJIlTdgLITm8Iw6S2vj-kPsQiq7e8-Dmbevggi-XDis/w640-h482/PXL_20240214_184111048.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snow above the desert</td></tr></tbody></table>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-87878937893494927382024-02-22T05:30:00.000-08:002024-02-22T07:04:58.478-08:00Equality of Opportunity<h3 style="text-align: center;">Mary Chapin Carpenter: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkyuZ3HuLvs&ab_channel=MaryChapinCarpenter-Topic" target="_blank">The Age Of Miracles</a> </h3><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXp2rQtPGsSPR2FFiIftC77yYc7_d6cvODuBSa35lvbcFnxrsCcvghoppBt-WPudOXW_LsFUaGFZl6ovtmMB_pq6sun1El-G8IfgoMFJcB-jkuaLrWzsS74GYhWRteMzoeIUCu7P24LNvgQX2UTMMCcI6Np32E57LCUGMrXt7c5WVTAQNAePjZKVJNiNg/s4080/PXL_20240203_184123852~2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="4080" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXp2rQtPGsSPR2FFiIftC77yYc7_d6cvODuBSa35lvbcFnxrsCcvghoppBt-WPudOXW_LsFUaGFZl6ovtmMB_pq6sun1El-G8IfgoMFJcB-jkuaLrWzsS74GYhWRteMzoeIUCu7P24LNvgQX2UTMMCcI6Np32E57LCUGMrXt7c5WVTAQNAePjZKVJNiNg/w640-h482/PXL_20240203_184123852~2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mountains above us.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Paraphrasing Ezra Klein*: Right-wingers and libertarians often complain that liberals want equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. But equality of outcome is <i>far</i> more possible than equality of opportunity. </p><p>Anne and I were born to white parents, each of whom had a college degree. Our offspring was born to a healthy and brilliant Professor at Carnegie Mellon ... and me. (Can't win 'em all.) </p><p>How can anyone, say, born in poverty to a single mother ever have equality of opportunity? </p><p><a href="https://www.mattball.org/2023/03/so-you-think-you-can-free-will.html" target="_blank">Questions of free will aside</a>, <b>it simply isn't possible</b> to think there ever could be equality of opportunity. </p><p>None of us <i>deserve</i> anything, especially not credit for our achievements. It isn't us - it is all luck, starting with <a href="https://www.sloww.co/ovarian-lottery/" target="_blank">the ovarian lottery</a>.</p><p>The best we can do is to <a href="https://www.mattball.org/2017/03/a-theory-of-ethics.html" target="_blank">set up the society we would want under the veil of ignorance</a>. </p><p>If you want more re: meritocracy, check out <b><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20919030/meritocracy-book-daniel-markovits-inequality-rich" target="_blank">this 2019 summary</a></b> of <i>The Meritocracy Trap</i>.</p><p><i>* Not recommending his recent Green-Party-esque badness.</i></p>Matt Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02137415162558919893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5593026103512648416.post-76311492484152066422024-02-21T05:30:00.000-08:002024-02-21T05:30:00.130-08:00Sky & Desert Pictures, February 19, 2024<p style="text-align: center;"><b>Michael Hedges - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXdGLJhWCVY&ab_channel=StropesFoundation%2CInc." target="_blank">The Happy Couple</a> </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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