Jay

I tabled 4 or 5 times with members of this organization when working on my PhD in Minneapolis. I mentioned promoting the health aspect of veganism instead of just the factory farming. The people there at least weren't interested back in 2004. There wasn't any health angle at all in terms of pamphlets, pics, etc. So we had the PETA factory farming video on. With some fake chickens crammed in a cage. That sort of thing. People avoided even looking at all for the most part. I do think focusing on the positive would have been more useful in that public setting. But then I think the negatives of factory farming, etc should be obvious.

Showing that people can be strong and healthy on a vegan diet is something that I think is both very important and actually has a good chance of being successful. So I'll be around occasionally, like it or not. But whenever someone is treated like shit, I will speak up for them. Even that it does no good it is a matter of pride in myself that I will speak up for them. It's too bad that most of you do this instead: http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html Still a person here and there treated like shit is far less than millions of animals murdered daily.

Of course you're not going to address it in any substantial way. You don't address anything that is critical in any way of you except to strawman it and deny it. As such I didn't even address it to you. Why bother? Here in the remainder of your post you just try to attack me. I'm an unhappy exactly because people do the sort of thing you're doing right here and usually not enough others speak up. That is the only thing that gives me unhappiness and it does so for whoever it's directed at. Astrocat or veganpotter or whoever else Your attempt to turn it into something that's wrong with me is a political calculation. It is an attempt to discredit me. (Jay's unhappy therefore his thoughts here don't count.) And golly look how nice Cheeke is being, cares about poor Jay even as Jay is being so critical of him. My, what a swell guy indeed. Untrue smear. You won't work through disagreements. People who disagree with you should just go away. Clearly they're being negative while you're being positive. This, BTW, is a thread about you deleting someone's account and from reading her posts it looks like you haven't got much of a reason.

That says it all actually. The only time I've bothered to criticize you is right now when you've deleted veganpotter after he had 10,000 posts and despite the fact his posting style hadn't changed at all. Plus Astrocat who hadn't done anything wrong at all. In criticizing you for that I point out that you are completely closeminded to criticism. Here you simply state the exact same thing with different words. If it were possible to reason with you, I would. But as you yourself have just admitted, you aren't. Then from there of course, you exaggerate all criticism so that anyone who criticizes you is really just jealous, etc. Typical.

I'm not aware of a single example of Rob ever having a disagreement with someone and actually trying to reason with the person. Can you point to even one single example of that happening on this board? From what I can tell, to actually engage anyone who disagrees with him would be "not being positive". As such I have zero confidence that Rob really engaged Potter by pm in any meaningful way. And for someone to get to 10,000 posts and then without any actual incident suddenly get banned is simply fucked. I have serious doubts that they're still friends and I would like to see evidence of this meeting they're supposed to have this summer. If they were still "friends" then there would not have been any reason to delete his account. You have more compassion than quite a few people here. What Rob is doing is riding very frequent posters like Compassionate Girl and Potter to build his forum and even though he didn't like either he kept his disagreement to himself (because that's what he does) and waited till he thought they had attracted enough other people here, then without ever really attempting to iron out his disagreement, he "throws them under the bus". He's slowly trying to make the forum in his own bizarre advoidant personality image. It's useless to talk to him because he doesn't engage anyone who disagrees with him. He doesn't suddenly become a different person by pm. And have you not noticed he never actually admits being wrong about anything? He thinks he's being positive. He's not. He's one of the most negative vegans I've ever known in that he doesn't believe people can work out their differences. And Astrocat is a wonderful person. Her treatment here has been horrible. There are a lot of meat eaters who are looking for any way possible to be critical of vegans. The way this forum is being run could potentially give them lots of ammunition. Posts like that of DV, Zack, etc make vegans look like hypocrites or even worse, people who care about animals more than people. But such behavior is exactly the same on endless ugly forums.

Thanks now I got that song stuck in my head Garrr I don't understand why/how someone could ignore the rest of her post and instead pull out the silly thing. I was thinking about writing a story about people living in a concentration camp where they're worked to death and yet they're still greeting one another with a smile and trying to keep things light and happy. I'm not sure if the point is that mankind has truly become utterly ridiculous or if such people would be doing the right thing in acting such a way. Astrocat, again I'm sorry how you were treated. I'm sorry you're getting so much less concern than Potter is. I suppose your post might get deleted... I know that's done here. Maybe the whole thread. Gotta keep that positive image, that fake smile. Pretend everything is positive even as we're deleting the accounts of people with 10,000 posts. Michael Hobson, I just tried to send you a pm seeing as you responded to me here at least but I don't think it sent. I'm free Monday-Friday most of the summer but would first like to talk a bit by pm or email.

What hope is there for mankind?

Scott Nearing is the only person that approaches idol status for me. That isn't based on the fact that he gave up on mankind and became a hermit but on his uncompromising honesty, Compassion and morality. His autobiography The Making of a Radical has a far more meaningful set of goals to aspire to than 'living off the grid'.

Scott Nearing was a vegan who lived to 100. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Nearing It says vegetarian there but I read the book and he was vegan. Or at least very near vegan; like 99.9% of calories were vegan. At 100 he finally decided to just stop eating and then died.

OK, great for the top industrialized countries in general. Not so sure what real tangible good 'nuke clout' does for France, etc though.

Say what ? ? Since when do any of the gods, or their absence or existence have anything to do with crying ? Oh, that's just how it seems to me. I think a lot of times people maybe don't quite understand what is exactly really going on within them, what it is ultimately that motivates a given action... I could be wrong on this one of course. I think it's occurring at a level where of course people who call themselves atheists, etc are of course still crying just fine. Yes, I do see what she's saying actually. I also think (kind of related) occasional mania is the logical result of being really depressed at times. (Manic-depression) Being bipolar makes more sense than just being depressed all the time. The more ridiculously unhappy someome manages to get, the more "inappropriately" happy they'll just Need to be at other times. Perfectly understandable and if to get happy they have to chuck logic out the window (and appear nuts) I can understand. Just had to deal with someone like that last week. (But then, also, I've seen it within in myself to a lesser extent when I was younger.) Yes, it's nice thing to say. I think there's such a thing though as being incapable of having fun at all in the here and now and thus a person has no choice but to focus on the long term; to focus on improving things in the long term because they're "zombified" and just can't have a good time in the short term. (me, at least in the past. Not really now. But it became somewhat of an ingrained way of thinking even after there were better options....) And so being critical, always looking to improve, can go too far. The need to have fun in the present can end up being seriously neglected. We can die tomorrow or in 60 years. Either way, chances are good that life in this world isn't going to be changing much... I'm just always looking at the other side. I do agree with you actually. I do agree with the sentiments within these quotes very much. I liked Huxley very much BTW.

And although so far nukes have resulted in fewer Americans and Russians dying. The Cold War was awful for the third world. The US won that war. They installed repressive rightwing regimes in a ton of nations. The standard of living in South American and Africa has gone to crap since 1960. The end result are lower life expectancies and 3 billion living on the US purchasing power equivalent of 2 dollars a day or less. It has been disaster and I bet if you tried to somehow calculate total years of life lost, the number would be just as bad as if the Americans and Russians had gone against each other with guns and tanks. In fact just in Russia the life expectancy dropped by almost ten years after they lost and were forced into rightwing economic policies. I believe it went from 64 down to a low of 57. Not sure if it ever has risen back up at all. Nukes have been good (so far) for America. Not so great otherwise, really.

I should have guessed Astrocat, that you probably didn't have much accent really. I'm from West Virginia which is thought of as "hicksville" and some people have pretty southern accents but I have none.

The way people communicate online is not indicative of the way they would communicate face to face, and therefore is not a fair representation of who or how good they are. Electronic communication like forums, email and instant messaging allow us to hide behind a certain degree of anonymity and lack the body language and human feedback that would normally moderate our language. I've heard of numerous scientific studies that have measured this phenomenon. I'm sure everyone, at some time, has said things online that they would never say face to face, and now regret because it's recorded online potentially forever. I think I disagree. In most ways at least it is an even better representation of who people are. People are less afraid to say what they really think online because they're less afraid of physical violence against them. The result being one can get online and quickly see that we really have a lot more in common with our more violent cousins than we like to pretend. Of course people can also lie better online. Of course people can miscommunicate more often. But I think that is outweighed by increase in honesty that comes from feeling safer. It seems it's mostly negative though. Thanks to the internet: 1. People can lie better. 2. They can miscommunicate more easily. 3. They can say potentially dangerous negative things more easily. What are the benefits? Feh. I vaguely remember some.....

Negative traits are on the increase IMHO. Have you heard of Devo? (Devolution) 80's rock band. That was what their name stood for. (Yes, that's an improper term for what they're describing.) I agree with them though. Yes. I define 'evil' as knowing that you're causing unnecessary harm and not caring. Evil at it's heart is about just not caring. IOW, indifference. What stands against evil usually is hate. One can't hate unless they believe in the existence of evil. When someone is causing harm we can either try to reason with them or try to use force to stop them. We try to reason with them when we think they're just stupid/ignorant. When it appears that instead they're evil we turn to force. When we believe someone is evil, we feel hate. This hate makes us angry which physically makes us better able to apply force. But I believe there is no such thing actually as evil. Instead I'm trying to use the term, "profound stupidity". Which is where a person is too stupid to understand why they should care about not causing harm. This means, at least in theory, never needing to turn to force; still trying to reason with people and make them understand why they shouldn't cause harm; never needing to feel anger/hate because I never believe in evil; always being openminded and optimistic enough to think that they can eventually understand and change. In reality, the reasons for not causing harm aren't so well established. Does altruism actually exist? Or is it really just selfishness with very long term thinking? Or is what we call altruism actually a sort of pride? Is it people who've read sufficient books just making sure they're never going to be the Bad Guy in real life. Etc. But you know that just aint so, right ? The reason that socio/psychopaths get along so swimmingly seems to be because they have defective functioning of the cerebral cortex.... the area of the brain connected to empathy and remorse. With a lack of conscience, people who wish to behave selfishly have a green card to do so from their brain.... but it's pretty obvious to me that you don;t have that. I'd say that from what i can tell, you probably excercise your cerebral cortex regularly - examining situations and your own impact and effect upon and within them , rather than trying to deflect and defer emotional and mental responsibility onto others for yourself, your decisions and your own choices. However many people mindfully and actively do the opposite.... and would be hostile towards those who would advocate that they do things any differently. I'd say that the brain is like any other part of the body..... keep it in good shape and it will work well.... leave it to atrophy from laziness and there will be cobwebs there when you want to actually use the thing. That goes for the front, just as much as the back or the sides.... or so I think, anyhow. I do think it does very simply come down to people not bothering to think enough; being closeminded; dismissing others; using only (relatively) short term thinking. They assume evil where there isn't any (not good enough empathy) and the phantom evil just endlessly bounces around as people dismiss and hate one another. They're indifferent to others because they're thinking is too short term to understand the great benefit they themselves are missing out on. They haven't read/heard enough stories to understand they're being the Bad Guy, etc. Those who surround themselves with "positive" energy seem to be not entirely adverse to using that description as a pretty euphymism to describe their own mindful decision to be unsupportive towards those in a state of distress (because upset people are negative and must be avoided) , to behave as if they are always right (since positivity is the right way to go) , to maltreat others then trivialise and dismiss their response as "negative" , and to generally be prejudiced against anyone who has had a bag deal fortune out of life.... In short, I think a lot of people are superficial and have a twisted approach to positivity..... after all, embracing positive energy is only meaningful if someone has their interpretation of "positive" worked out meaningfully to begin with. After all, when you think about it, a lot of fleshivores could say "I enjoy eating meat so it's positive... I avoid vegans because they make me feel bad about eating meat, giving out their bad vibe negative energy" , and they just make a mindful effort not to think about the animals because "that's negative, man, and I focus only on the positive things in life" There , they appear to regard a positive approach to life to be the sort where they do things that make them feel good , and help them to avoid any uncomfortable confrontations or introspection which a more honest person might instead choose to face up to. Many vegans appear to be perfectly capable of having - and deliberately cultivating - that sort of self-absorbed mindset, and they sometimes don't seem overly shy about applying it to humans rather than animals. At least now I realise it. It would seem the act of becoming vegan means daring to think about non-positive things... I wonder if it's that vegans have sacrificed some of their ability to empathize with their fellow humans in order to empathize better with animals. Seems unlikely but I wonder. Or it could just be a totally arbitrary focus of "positivity" on one thing while not at all on another. ... but that's radically different from the stance of those who "only focus on the positive" , or whatever.... who opt to ongoingly suppress a huge chunk of emotional state, and maltreat or neglect entire situations or individuals for failing to be "positive" , thus choosing to limit or entirely nullify their potential to discuss reality in an intelligent and meaningful manner. I believe that i have good foundation for my definition of positivity, and that it is anchored in a mature and productive philosophy of life. I doubt that those who would disagree with me, would feel half as secure as I do if they tried to discuss this with me..... which I dersay that they wouldn't because that would be negative ! I think I'm afraid of getting a negative surprise. Thus I try to always think about negatives. But it's actually really hard to be happy when any given negative is on your mind...

His fellow coworkers didn't just bum rush him because of two reasons; 1. Shocked at first into doing nothing. 2. They felt compassion for him. They were probably aware he was close to losing it before he indeed did lose it. They stood around feeling sorry for him. Some cautiously came up to him trying to implore him to stop. They should have punched him immediately says nobbi... If I had been there and this was some person I had probably spent years working with, I would have avoided getting violent with him in the hopes he'd quickly calm back down on his own. Anyway I work in a hospital and occasionally patients who aren't in their right mind get potentially violent, I always avoid resorting to phsyically restraining them if possible because as soon as someone lays their hands on them they really get aroused. I guess if someone really disliked this coworker of theirs, they may have been happy to see this day come and quickly jumped forward to kick his ass. And I guess some other coworkers who were completely and utterly indifferent to him may have just walked out without trying to help him calm down.

VeganEssentials, I didn't know you hurt your back. I'm sorry to hear that. I also herniated a disc doing squats a few years ago. For me just letting it slowly get better over the course of a few years is what worked. And facing that I'm just not built to do squats or deadlifts. Endcruelty, Personally something like an ab wheel would bother my back I'm sure as with the abs tightened and your body still wanting to bend, there is lots of compression going on in the spine. It's probably the equivalent of a few hundred pounds pushing on your lower spine.

Phew, thanks man! Well don't change what you're doing too much. What you've been doing has had very good results and (I'm guessing from those german videos although I don't speak german) has resulted in some positive publicity. Strongman and powerlifting training is even more marginalized than bodybuilding.

Ignorance is bliss. A college education is a racket.

I don't think crying and laughing have much at all really to do with each other. Wonder why she thought such a thing? I don't get it. I went a decade without crying because after I recognized it required a belief in a "god", I found it too ridiculous to manage, yet I laughed plenty.

The problem is that people really exist in this world that are harming others and actually don't care. AND we don't usually really know who they are. We just know they're out there. And so we have to defend ourselves. A big part of defending ourselves is deciding that this or that person is no good. Like BethL has decided such people exist and has decided they just aren't going to change. Maybe sometimes she'll be wrong and through a misunderstanding dismiss/badly treat someone who is openminded and open to talking and trying to be good. I'm not saying BethL is doing something wrong. She's doing what we all do to different extents. As mortals we have no choice I'd like to think I try really really really hard to assume the best of people. But when they just flat out won't talk to me, won't work with me, (because they're thinking the worst of me) then there is finally nothing I can do. I would like to think vegans especially wouldn't be so quick to assume the worst of one another. But amazingly, ye gawds do they ever. I've seen people who've devoted their lives to veganism just dismissed as not even worth recognizing as being alive at all by... other fucking vegans! Still to this day, there is not a single vegan on the planet that I'm not open to talking to, to trying to work with, to understand. I don't think anyone is beyond hope. I don't think there are any "dark entities". I think everyone can change. I don't believe in the existence of evil (harming othes and just not caring). There is only ignorance and stupidity and when you give up using reason with such people, only force is left. And you've already lost then. And that's the problem. If I just dismissed people as some kind of hopeless evil (like I've been dismissed) then I would have so much more piece of mind. It comes down to being happy or being moral. I choose to be moral and miserable. While others choose to "surround themselves with "positive" energy".

Thank you for responding cubby. I didn't see your response till now as I had given up on bothering to check this thread. Someone notified me of it. It's understandable that a lot of people didn't even look at the thread. I guess I know that. And I guess that's fine that a bunch of people haven't said anything. I don't think it's common TBH. I think people try to think "positive thoughts" and that means not thinking about suffering, etc. Thank you for saying the bold. I think it matters to do so even if ultimately there's nothing more that can be done. I don't know the answer exactly and won't go on and on with my thoughts about it here. I would like to understand why Michael Hobson chose to ignore me but I wouldn't want to be a stalker so I guess I won't be taking part in his meetup group ever (the closest thing of that nature anywhere near me). Perhaps he thinks I'm lying. I'm fine really. This thing that happened to me did bother me more than what happens to others of course. But ultimately it's because of how much I cared about others, that it bothered me so much how I was treated. My life situation isn't so bad really. Have a good wife. Financially doing OK. Have good parents. A couple good sisters. A few nice people I know online. I work with some very good people. Really, I'm personally doing decently well. It is more the question of this world that I can't ignore. How is it that any such thread as this on any board, let alone a vegan one, gets ignored? Let's hope here it's because a lot of people just never looked at it. Thank you for taking the time to reply. If anything further, pm would be better. Although pm's aren't necessary. I won't be around often to keep checking this awful thread.

I know VBB is Cheeke. I was almost the first poster he had here. Just so surprised I hadn't heard of Avi before through this site that I wondered if that was like just a form people could fill out or something that Cheeke had missed.... OK, was just me who missed it then before.

Wasn't sure if Cheeke, etc was aware of this: http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bio_avi He's a powerlifter though who just happens to be the best looking bodybuilder I've seen. http://www.prestoshare.com/users/a1/deavman/veganbodupload/avi-front2.jpg I don't know if he's aware of this forum. I don't think he'll mind me putting these pictures here. He needs to be better known. http://www.prestoshare.com/users/a1/deavman/veganbodupload/P1011999.JPG http://www.prestoshare.com/users/a1/deavman/veganbodupload/P1012058.JPG

Way back in about 2001 I was really into discussing politics in discussion forums and I discovered this website which I thought had really good articles: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/LiberalFAQ.htm Somewhere along the way into reading it I found out that the author had been killed: http://www.psnw.com/~bashford/kang-ev0.html It was ruled a suicide. Really shouldn't have been. Personally what I think happened was that he made the mistake of trying to interview Richard Mellon Scaife (billionaire and number one funder of rightwing think tanks, etc). Scaife was known for having a temper. Scaife got angry and figured out he wasn't actually attached to any company but was actually just some nobody with an internet site. Scaife had Jack Daniels forced down his throat, shot him in the head and he was left to bleed to death in the bathroom outside Scaife's office in Pittsburgh. Based on the smear articles that Scaife had written up it was apparent he knew about Steve's website. But he pretended not to have any idea who this person was to the police. The police guessed he was some homeless drifter, his death was ruled a suicide and that was that. I really liked his site (which got mirrored right before Scaife managed to get it taken down). It bothered me quite a lot to know what happened to him. Occasionally I would share this story hoping some people would show something other than indifference. Posted it to at least 15 discussion boards I'm sure. No one really cared. (Although obviously someone has cared to keep a mirror up, etc all these years so Somebody out there cares.) There was a lesson there to be learned. I was just thinking about this recently because, I just never learned that lesson. If not with public high school or my time in the military, I should at least have managed to learn this lesson about indifference with Kangas. I don't think I ever will. So Mr. Kangas, I'm sorry. It's clear from your site you were trying very hard to be a good person. I'm sorry your life was so much dust. Right here, I still don't get it. How can people be so indifferent? I thought about where that meat came from. I imagined the horror behind it. The PETA films, etc never meant anything to me as I had already imagined it even better than that. I've thought about Kangas in that bathroom. He's there with two goons. His face is blood and tear streaked. They're forcing the Jack Daniels down... etc. I've imagined it. I read his site and thought about it. The indifference bothered me a lot. I think about Mary and her 4000 posts of dust. Mary cared. She wasn't just posting for fun. She was(is) trying to help people. I can't comprehend such indifference as she got. Over and over I see these things and have such a hard time believing them. And I shouldn't. I am, in a sense, delusional. Why can't I just accept that with extremely few exceptions people are utterly selfish? And I am an ass I guess for talking about such things. Pretty clearly. Supposed to put on a big fake smile and keep all the negative stuff bottled inside, keep them out, keep that wall high... http://soundclick.com/share?songid=5981153