now convinced "it's in our nature"

Post Reply New Topic

Meanwhile, you're arguing that Oxford University, Cornell University and the Chinese government have conspired to... promote a vegan agenda, for nearly thirty years? What?

Anyway, Campbell points out, rightfully so, that industries have a tendency to try to block information that would damage their industry's profits. Big Tobacco did it, millions of people are dead because of it. Now, Big Food is in the game: there are dozens of demonstrable health, social, economic and environmental blights that the food industry has visited upon us. Read and/or watch "Food, Inc." for an in-depth look at the issues (like foodborne illness, pesticides, genetic engineering, and more)... I can't do the book and film justice, I hope you'll experience them for yourself. This isn't some tinfoil hat flick, it's mainstream: check out this review in the New York Times.

Keep in mind that out of the largest 100 economies on earth at present, 51 are corporations. (Source: Story of Stuff.) Governments work to protect corporate interests and in many cases, government positions are held by people with direct ties to industry.

This ought to dispel any characterization of the China Study as anything less than scientific.



The American Dietetic Association describes properly planned vegan diets as "appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life-cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence and for athletes." They note also that plant-based diets are "often associated with health advantages including lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure levels and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes". Check out some happy, healthy, vegan kids in this video: Vegan Parenting.

No, what I meant was, and I made it in a form of a question, because I'm not quite certain of it, is wether this: as well as a claim of him stating that people in power in the US government rejecting his "findings" or the "truth" if you will, for their own convenience, that seems to resemble conspiracy theories, and it isn't surprising, considering that others have made similar claims such as Scientologists and/or those against Psychiatry regarding psychiatric medication.


There is the big problem of studies such as this, and is the problem of impartiability, there is an obvious tendency to support a single and PREFERABLE view, and that would be enough for me to discredit the credibility and claimed accuracy of said study.


well, I'm not denying that a healthy vegan diet can be succesful, the issue is that that would have to be very carefully done, otherwise terrible consecuences may arise, given that I have some anecdotal experience related to it, althoug that wouldn't mean much to this argument, in any case, it seems a lot of effort has to be done to achieve a desire effect with the diet, which frankly, I don't think to be really that necessary other than following an ideology and belief system, which is fine to me, the issue is putting kids through this risk, which seems pretty sad. The video shows parents imposing their diet beliefs on their children, and well, children don't have much of a choice, do they?


The issue is wether claimed evidence is credible evidence.

thanks for derailing the thread

Interesting how that happens, isn't it?

In a way, actually, it is related to the topic. Human nature is to be passionate about things; its a survival mechanism. And, so, people also feel passionate about their food choices, among other things, but with food being a very large part of life, well ...

On topic:

I don't feel children are naturally violent so much as self-protective and curious. They don't bite, hit or scream because they enjoy inflicting pain on others; they do it because they passionately want to get their own way at the moment, whatever that is, or they are trying to learn what happens when they do it. Passion, survival, and curiosity are all inbred, for all those traits are essential to advancement. What a child does not have is the ability to temper or channel these instincts and that is what we, the parents, are there to teach them.


Off topic:

My opinion on food choices: people are omnivours, and will survive on whatever food can be found. A varied diet eaten close to the earth (ie without over-processing) is the healthiest, and whether that contains meat or not is dependent on what else is available to the one person. Different people may actually thrive on different diets, given years of evolution in areas with different food alternatives. That food is global is a very new thing, remember. So all this arguing is a bit silly; the answer for one person may not be the answer for the other. The only important thing is that everyone give some educated thought to selecting among the choices they find. We have to eat to survive, there are no perfect choices, it just is; remember the story of Johnny Appleseed and how he didn't want to eat any living thing but discovered it just wasn't possible? So, instead, he settled for choosing as humanely as possible. As we all should, doing our best to balance all the unique factors in our own lives.

Lets not battle the food thing any further; it is absolutely pointless; no minds will change.

[OFFTOPIC for the last time :p]



well, even though criticizing questionable "science" and children's health seems somehow of an important issue, if you will, yes, it is silly, silly enough to seem like a PPR-like discussion, where all things are exremely silly


Yes, it is actually pointless.


Even thoug mine does everytime, you are right and it would be kinda absurd to expect otherwise.

[/Apologies for derailing the thread :p]

Digger, Sorry for derailing the thread... I started off half-jokingly not really expecting anyone to take it seriously...

So... to restate the thread...

I don't actually think we've wandered quite so far.

The fact is that animals rip, shread, tear etc... Dogs for example love to rip sheets. The thing that prevents them from continuing this after the puppy stage isn't their nature, it's us training them not to. Plants unknownly destroy walls and all sorts of things.

My point has always been that it's in the nature of life itself to destroy.

It was just the words you chose that caused the reaction, if you say kids are difficult instead of calling them barbarians that's something everyone can agree with to some extent. The style and words you choose to say something effect the kind of reaction you will get back.

And all the science I don't understand, it's just my job five days a week...

I'm not here for the debate, but the book "Children: the Challenge" was recommended by our psychologist as being excellent for helping regain control when things are getting too bad. Puts things into perspective, discusses logical parenting. It's old, I warn you, and the examples seem pretty lame, but the reasoning is sound. We do what we do naturally, of course. Parental responsibility is to train the child to control themselves and the inappropriate parts of their nature, lesson by lesson, over the years. So if they abuse a privilege, they have the choice of correcting the problem or losing the privilege. If it's kept in simple terms, even a little kid can understand that.

I think it is mostly a good thing that we have civilized society. A civilized society is more egalitarian, and gives a greater number of people the ability to pursue happiness in life. When we agree not to fight each other, we can focus on other things and live a more productive, relaxed life.

I think there is hope for humanity in the short term, especially if you consider all of the progress made in the past 1000 yrs or so, and I don't mean technological progress, I mean progress toward ending or minimizing pain and suffering. Humanity has come a long way since the dark ages, the inquisition, and even the middle of the 20th century. The advances made in medical science just over the past 50 yrs are mind-boggling. Granted, humanity still has a long way to go, but I think the history of progress is a pretty sound basis to continue to have hope.

Children will be children, and yes it can be very frustrating raising them, and often its very hard for me to imagine my children ever growing up and being mature, contributing members of society. But my parents felt the same way about me at one point, and I turned out ok. As so many on this forum have counseled, with time and patience most children will outgrow destructive tendencies, and this is why good parenting is essential.

I agree that destruction is in our genes, as an adaptation that has allowed for survival, but so are love, compassion, and altruism in our nature because these adaptations have also allowed for survival. It is also in our nature to overcome basic instinct, and this is what has prevented humanity from wiping itself out so far. So, yes, there is hope for humanity.

I don't get all the rational "ideas" about vagan and vegetarian. If we look at "nature" we always see animal (and plants) hurting eachother. If a lion need to feed he hunt down his prey.
I have a vegetarian wife (me and our child are not vegetarian) because he can't afford hurting animals. I don't feel her behavior strange from a "feeling" point of view but (as she also said) there is nothing "rational" about that. Humans are omnivore, hunting to feed is in our nature so there is nothing wrong about it for me.

I can think that rationally speaking we can improve over the "hurting" phase, there is a big difference between going in a plan with an arrow, killing a prey and eat it, and storing a tons of caw in a single store, pumping them with drugs and making them eating an "unusual" diet to make the grow up faster. From a pure rational point of view hunting is far better than battery breading.

A good rational argument about a vegetarian diet could be the one that reduce it to the minimum necessary for a right diet because breading destroy ambient far easier than farm so reducing the meat diet could improve saving the earth (we consume far more meat than the one "necessary" for us). But this has nothing to do with consciousness, pain and the like, it's simply a pragmatic point of view. I like Earth and I should leave in it so I must try to preverve the better condition for it according to my necessity.


Back in topic.
We live in an highly structured society and I see an improve in care/love/peace in history. We shouldn't stress too much as "bestial" or "animalistic" the destructive behavior because also love, compassion and friendship are from our "animal" instinct.
What we must stress is how our rational part can understand our pulsion and focus them in the right way. Instincts are neutral from a moral point of view, like science (you can use nuclear power for energy or to destroy people). Our society have a set of common rules that helps living in peace with eachother (also some of them can be improved) and a set of "social" rule that help people understanding eachother. Only throw that we can avoid chaos and bad behavior. We are not born bad or good. Hurting people is not something bad "a priori" but it's bad "a posteriori" because if you have the freedom of hurting someone he "must" have the same freedom and it's bad for you. When a child grow up that kind of rule can be extrapolated in an higher way so you no longer behave like a "trained dog" but you can understand the more "profound" implication of some rule, you no longer want to hurt people because there is no meaning in that, because you learn respect and also it's nothing good in a "rational" point of view.
We don't born "bad" we simply born unable to cope with our instinct, but we all (or barelly all) learn to cope with it while growing up. That's why parenting is very important and it's particulary important to make child understand the meaning of a particular rule or common behavior.