Da Roolz are finally up

March 10, 2014 • 5:15 am

After a lot of temporizing (well, I was busy), and compiling past rules with the help of the “Roolz Angels,” I have finally compiled the guidelines for readers who wish to post on this site. You will find them as a permanent widget on the left sidebar, comme ça:

Screen shot 2014-03-10 at 7.00.26 AM

Under “Da Roolz!” you will find the guidelines given below, which of course will be modified over time. But at least there is something permanent to which you and I can refer readers. If you click on it, you’ll see the following. Feel free to make suggestions on this post:

*****

 Here are “Da Roolz,” guidelines and strictures for posting on this website. The site has evolved since it was created in 2009 to provide evidence for evolution, and now covers a variety of topics that strike me as interesting or newsworthy. I like readers to have fun, weigh in with their opinions, learn, educate, but also respect the personal integrity of other readers.

  1. If you’re a first-time poster, I have to approve your initial comment. This won’t necessarily be immediate, as it depends on my checking email.  After that, posting is automatic.
  2. If you have your own website, you may put a link to your anonymous (or pseudonymous) website in your posting name.  I like people to use their real names when possible, as I think this makes them more accountable for their words, but I recognize that there are sometimes good reasons for not doing so.
  3. If you are religious, and profess that strongly in your post, it’s often my habit to ask you to provide evidence for what you believe.  (After all, I wrote a book on the evidence for evolution.)  Do not be offended at this request; simply give a short list of the reasons why you’re so certain there’s a god.  And be prepared for others to dispute the evidence.
  4. Please do not tell me how to run my site.  That is, comments about “too many cats,” “too many boots,” “not enough biology,” “too much religion,” etc., are not welcome.  I provide content free of charge, and if you don’t like the mix of posts, you’re free to go elsewhere.  By all means take issue with what I say, but don’t argue about the balance of topics.
  5. Do not insult your host. Pretend that you’re speaking to me in my living room which is, in a sense, what this website is.
  6. Most important, please try to refrain from insulting other posters, no matter how misguided you think they are.  I don’t like name-calling, for it lessens whatever class this site has and certainly doesn’t foster discussion.  I will often warn people about this behavior either on the site, or in a private email. About 70% of those who are warned respond with truculence, either insulting me or saying that their behavior is fully justified. That’s a good way to get blacklisted—almost as good as telling me to stop posting on cats or cowboy boots. If I ask you to apologize to a commenter whom you insulted, please do so.
  7. Try not to dominate threads, particularly in a one-on-one argument. I’ve found that those are rarely informative, and the participants never reach agreement. A good guideline is that if your comments constitute over 10% of the comments on a thread, you’re posting too much.
  8. If you find something that you think would interest readers, by all means send it to me.  My email is easily available via elementary Googling. I can’t, of course, promise to use everything, but I do look at what people send me.
  9. Sometimes I miss comments, particularly ones that contain links, since those are held by WordPress.  I don’t always read every email that accompanies a post, so posts sometimes slip through the cracks.  Please don’t assume that your post was trashed, as I rarely do that (except from those sent by trolls).
  10. Be judicious about posting videos and very long comments.  I like good discussion, but essays are not on, particularly if you have your own website where you can post it.  Embedded videos are okay, but please think before posting: do they add to the discussion?
  11.  It’s a website, not a “blog.” Humor me on this. Likewise, you will see words like d*g (a play on the Hebrew word for God) and Twi**er, due to my aversion of seeing these words spelled out.
  12. I am glad to receive items from readers, though at times their number is a bit overwhelming! But many of my posts come from those contributions, and I try to remember to h/t readers if I use their contributions. (Sometimes I forget this acknowledgment—in which case my apologies.) If you send me a link and I don’t write about it, please do not feel bad. I get many more tips, photos, and other stuff than I can possibly use, and have to choose. But please do not send me items asking me to post them, or saying, “I think this would make a great post for your site.” That feels a bit presumptuous and coercive, and, as readership grows, I’m starting to get these requests more frequently. Also, please do not ask me to publicize your or your friend’s book, business, or any other endeavor.  If you want to call something interesting to my attention—and of course it must be of potential  interest not just to me, but to readers—that is great, but don’t ask me to post things.
  13. That said, I especially welcome readers’ photographs, particularly of wildlife or nature, but also their cats (in which case you must provide some information!). I can’t, however, promise to use every photo I’m sent.
  14.  Linking to videos.  Don’t embed them directly unless you have something really special to show, for it makes the comments unwieldy.  If you just paste in the http:// address of a YouTube video, for instance, it will put the entire video in your comment. Occasionally I will let this go, but sometimes readers insert multiple videos. To avoid this, and create a link, use the following html formulation: <a href=”URL”>LinkText</a>
  15. Please do not use this site to promote your project, book, website, and so on, or to raise money for your cause. If you think there’s a cause that deserves my attention, by all means email me, and I will make that decision.
  16. Finally, if I post about food, and I often do, realize that those meals are exceptions and I don’t always eat like that! Lectures on food by Leisure Fascists are unwelcome.
  17. This is a cat-friendly site run by a biologist who cares about animals (and plants!). Please don’t diss the moggies, or advocate human violence or cruelty to any animal species.
  18. Finally, do not cry “censorship” if I don’t post your comment. I reserve the right to trash comments that are hyperreligious, hyper-creationist, uncivil, trollish in nature, or otherwise inappropriate.  There is no “right” to have every comment you make published on this site. I try to use as light a hand as I can consistent with keeping an atmosphere of civility and rationality. If you have something to say that I won’t go along with, you are free to start your own site.

professor-ceiling-cat-text_s

128 thoughts on “Da Roolz are finally up”

  1. <a>href=”URL”>LinkText</a>

    That has one > too many and should actually read:

    <a href=”URL”>LinkText</a>

      1. now there is a space missing

        <ahref=”URL”>LinkText</a>

        should be

        <a href=”URL”>LinkText</a>

        and hurray for Da Roolz, glad to see them up!

        1. But if you’re going to shorten a URL, please have the courtesy to explain what it is you’re linking to.

  2. “Do not insult your host”

    Okay, this is why I’m on permanent moderation isn’t it?

    All I can say is that we Australians have a funny sense of humour. Jerry, you look my father’s best mate. They were both smokers and they both died of lung cancer within a year of each other. I had a special affection for both and looked after them while they were dying.

    Also that musician/singer/songwriter I compared you with is my favourite of all time. I’ve been following him for over 35 years – since I was a teenager.

    My wife says “ruggedly handsome”. Perhaps I should have gone with that.
    My apologies for the unintended insult.

    BillyJoe

      1. He was definitely wrong about one thing. I don’t remember what exactly, but I let him know in an excessively long and roolz-violating exchange. Those were the good old days.

        1. The roolz should include, “don’t challenge Ben on solar because you’re wrong”. 😀

          2. Reminds me of the old cheer, “Sun god! Sun god! Ra, Ra, Ra!”

            …but, seriously, I’m merely an acolyte. And we do all properly worship the Sun, right? Preferably with the assistance of a terrestrial deity (aka, “cat”)?

            b&

          4. Um…”If you’re feeling hollow, try Apollo?”

            “Gimme an ‘H’!” “Gimme an ‘E’!” “Gimme an ‘L’!” “Gimme an ‘I’!” “Gimme an ‘O’!” “Gimme an ‘S’!”

            “Huitzilopochtli’ll teach ya!”

            Is that the bast you can do?

            Apparently…yes….

            b&

      3. Well he’s wrong about all philosophy being bullshit! Only 90% is! Without good philosophy how would one choose between ,for example, the Copenhagen interpretation and the Many Worlds interpretation of QM? Both “fit” the data.With good philosophy one realises that Many Worlds is intrinsic to QM, not something bought in from outside and made to fit.

        1. Ben does not agree with MWI anyway, so not the best example.

          In fact, MWI is testable in principle; see the Everett FAQ (Google it; WordPress balks at an embedded link).

          /@

          5. There is a book by David Wallace called The Emergent Universe which has received great reviews and which I’m going to read soon. It’s all about how good philosophy compels you to accept the MW interpretation.

          6. Oh, please — not philosophy!

            A scientific, especially an experimental, argument for the theory would impress me. But philosophy? Why not just make a theological argument and be done with it?

            b&

          7. I don’t want to misrepresent the book and do the author a disservice so I’ll read it first then say more. It’s on my “to read” pile. David Wallace is a quantum physicist as well but decided to focus on foundational issues as that’s where his interest lies (according to his brief bio).

          8. I’ve had a chance to read through it…and I’m not convinced. I think I’ll likely wind up withholding judgment until some of the other Big Questions get resolved, like quantum gravity and dark energy. Not because I think those phenomena are related to decoherence, but rather because I get the sense that, as with Mercury’s orbit, there’s an entirely different perspective yet to be found that will clarify all these things in an unexpected manner.

            That, and there were some real doozies in the essay, such as, “Mutation itself, one of the sources of evolutionary diversity, is a quantum event.” Some mutations will be quantum events, but much genetic change is entirely classical. And, as I already hinted, his quantum AI demonstrates either an appalling ignorance of computing theory or the same type of magical consciousness thinking he accuses the advocates of the Copenhagen Interpretation of engaging in. Simply, if his experiment would work, the smallest DRAM module you could have bought in the ’70s would have had orders of magnitude more “intelligence” than the experiment calls for. I’m also pretty sure the labs working on quantum computers have enough of the rest of the hardware he describes.

            So, I’m open to being convinced, but I don’t think there yet exists what it would take to convince me. In the mean time, I don’t know with at least a beer on MWI being “not even worng.”

            b&

  4. Genuine question:

    8. If you find something that you think would interest readers, by all means send it to me.

    and

    12. I am glad to receive items from readers, though at times their number is a bit overwhelming! […] But please do not send me items asking me to post them, or saying, “I think this would make a great post for your site.” That feels a bit presumptuous and coercive

    I would never want to sound presumptuous and coercive, but if I find something that I think would interest Professor Ceiling Cat’s readers, how do I say so without saying it?

    Jerry: I’ve never sent an email because it does feel intrusive to me, I’ve used Twi**er instead, as a hit or miss strategy, knowing that one does not need to check all Tw**ts and that you dislike Twi**er anyway; it seemed less pushy, even if (or because) I know you may have never seen them (that was Dobbs article on Selfish Genes, and you did comment on it, so I wasn’t disappointed at all!).

    1. I don’t find emails intrusive; I just can’t answer every one. Twi**er is a dreadful way to communicate with me as I never, ever check it. The best thing to do is just to send me a link and maybe describe it. I look a nearly all of these and choose the ones I find most interesting and think that others will, too. The only thing to omit is saying that “this will interest your readers” or “this would make a good post.” For some reason that feels coercive to me. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of readers don’t do that.

      1. Thanks! Now I can follow Da Roolz properly. Keep up the good work, I never stop to be amazed at how much hi quality content you manage to put online.

        1. I have sent e-mail to Jerry a couple of times- about matters which I consider interesting and which I thought might interest him, but which were relatively trivial (music and stuff)-and have been almost embarrassed that he sent replies in each case. This is a pearl among websites and da roolz ,I think, are second nature for most of the people who comment here, but spelling them out,as it were, is necessary because there are occasional visitors who lack basic courtesy.

  5. Good roolz….here are some suggested edits:

    You may want to just combine 8, 12 & 13 as it appears they address the same thing – sending stuff via email. Also, 10 & 14 appear to contradict with 10 saying embedding is okay and 14 saying it isn’t. Maybe combine these with the “don’t embed message”.

      2. No, I wasn’t telling Jerry how to run his site. He asked for feedback and I helpfully gave it. 🙂

  7. Well said ! I luv cats and animals in general. However, there are a lot of people out there that I can live without ! Keep up the great work!

  9. Still curious as to why you object to the term “blog”. Per Merriam-Webster, it’s simply:
    “a Web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences”. Whereas the term website simply means any site with a unique URL. Do you feel that “blog” is derogatory?

    1. My impression is that Jerry just considers it a rebarbative term.

      In any case, as Jerry often posts other peoples research, does this site actually meet than definition? 😉

      /@

          1. Speaking of Uncle Eric, he’s got a post up on Choice in Dying which reprises a lengthy exchange here on WEIT, including your own self.

          2. “… but religion can really only be understood from the inside.”

            This is where I stopped reading. This is as silly as saying someone cannot understand how a plane flies without being a pilot and an aeronautical engineer.

          4. That got me, too. The same can be said, I suppose, for smallpox and ebola. If you’ve never had it you just can’t understand!

      2. Rebarbative: Unattractive, objectionable.

        Really good word and superbly applicable description of the word b**g. Thanks ant/uncle eric.

  10. Rule 20: There is NO ….. rule 20.

    (To be shouted loudly in an unconvincing Australian accent).

      1. … And he wasted 5 of them on his own vanity instead of “thou shalt wash thy hands”.

      2. Yeah, but Jerry’s not imaginary. Reality always imposes complexity, in my experience.

      1. Doesn’t that depend upon whether there are olives on the branch? And how much you like olives?

        1. DO NOT EAT RAW OLIVES! Trust me on this. Olives need some serious processing with nasty chemicals (especially lye) to turn them into the amazing delicacies you find in jars.

          I don’t know if raw olives are actually poisonous or merely taste that way…but, seriously. Don’t eat ’em like that.

          …but the properly-prepared fruit of the olive tree is delicious and fantastically healthy. Lots of fats, yes, but the healthy kind your body needs to build cell membranes and the like. And (almost) all its carbohydrates are fiber, which is good. Then there’s a bunch of trace stuff which is generally also good. As a snack with, say, some figs and nuts and fresh veggies, and you’d be hard pressed to do better….

          b&

          2. When you’re hungry enough…in this case, I suspect a fire likely would have created wood ash, and rain washed ripe olives into it where they soaked a while, and somebody hungry enough ate them and not only lived to tell the tale but realized that they’re quite tasty.

            b&

          4. I prefer my olives to be in the oil category. Regular for cooking, extra virgin for salads. And what’s with pimentos?

          5. Toss some freshly-cooked and drained pasta with olive oil, olives, pimentos, garlic, capers, and some oregano…serve with an Italian sausage and Romanescu broccoli (steamed al dente with some balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and Reggiano drizzled, sprinkled, and shredded (respectively) on top) and you’ve got yourself a real meal!

            b&

          9. Hear hear! Wonderful stuff those olives. Nice tangy ones on salads! I am partial to French (Provencale) olives; but Spanish and Italian are nice too.

          10. I’ve yet to meet an olive I didn’t like.

            Well…that’s not entirely true. I’ve encountered some canned abominations or variations thereon.

            I’ve yet to meet a variety or style of olive I didn’t like.

            …but I’ll admit to a special fondness of Kalamata olives….

            b&

          11. I’m not sure if by “raw olives” you mean green olives or unprocessed olives. I don’t know about how green olives need to be treated, but ripe olives merely need to be soaked in water for about a week (changing the water each day) to leach out the bitterness. No lye or any other chemical needed. Then, soak them in brine to give ’em that yummy saltiness and they’re ready to eat! I have done this with about five pounds of olives I picked myself, and they were delicious. And no I did not have any sort of reaction to them.

          12. By “raw olives” I mean the things you pick right off the tree. Good to hear that you had good success processing your own harvest!

            b&

          15. Ben, you inspired me to do more research on olive processing. According to UC Davis Lye is sometimes used on olives. For some reason, I can’t cut & paste from their PDF, but it says lye is used because it is faster than the water leech method and it appears it also opens up the cell structure allowing flavorings such as vinegars and spices to better penetrate.

          17. Ben: DO NOT EAT RAW OLIVES! Trust me on this.

            You can eat raw olives, if you choose your tree carefully.

            It’s true that in general there’s so much tannin in them they they’re awful when fresh. But, for example, there used to be a tree at the Los Angeles Co. Arboretum which had fruit that could be eaten right off the tree. Wikipedia makes reference to such trees: “In addition to oleuropein, freshly picked olives are not palatable because of phenolic compounds.[39] (One exception is the throubes olive, which can be eaten fresh.)”

            Musta been a throubes!

      1. That went for a Burton at about post #3. It amuses me greatly that much of this discussion about roolz has been about pseudo-roolz that don’t actually exist on this site. About par for the course, I think.

  14. Is it possible to speak approvingly of meat eating (viz #16) without by implication advocating cruelty to the relevant animal species (viz #17)? I pose the question respectfully, in the interest of initiating discussion of the issue(s).

    1. It’s entirely possible and not at all uncommon for livestock to be raised and slaughtered humanely; that’s all that you’ll find in Whole Foods and similar markets.

      Whatever ideals one might have about a Garden of Eden fantasy where all the carnivores are vegetarians, the fact remains that not only has such a world never existed but that there’s no way to get there from here. The entirely-vegetarian human population some PETA types propose would result in the mass death and rapid extinction of the very animals and species they’re allegedly trying to protect.

      The practical solution is humane treatment of livestock (generally free access to both pasture and shelter) coupled with already-extant slaughter procedures (with proper enforcement).

      …but then human population coupled with quarterly stock profit margins raise their hydra heads. So long as there’re several billion people on the planet, and so long as the oil pumps keep pumping, it’s unlikely we’ll see much change. If it’s any consolation, the oil wells are running low, meaning that we’re not going to be able to afford to feed so many people for much longer. When that happens, it’s not going to be pretty, but it’ll at least put a dent in human overpopulation…however that might come about in practice….

      b&

      1. Rather than advocating for my own position, which is that it is inherently cruel to deprive an animal of its life for the purpose of eating it, and rather than engaging at length with some of the entirely unfounded statements you have made, perhaps we could focus on your first claim. Certainly it is possible to raise animals humanely for meat consumption, but it is the case that, regardless of the euphemisms employed by the meat industry, the overwhelming majority of livestock in most of the world does not enjoy what a reasonable person confronted with it would call humane conditions. A ‘free range’ chicken can be labeled as such without it having once in its life ever been outdoors. Slaughtering food animals in a genuinely humane fashion would render them unfit for consumption; I suspect that we espouse rather different definitions of what constitutes ‘humane’ treatment.

        1. You’ll get no argument from me that factory farming is unethical. As the Whole Foods promotional materials as, “Is it too much to ask (of the chickens) for room to flap?”

          And slaughtering techniques are far more humane than what wild prey get at the fangs and claws of wild animals — and, for that matter, generally much more humane than what Americans shamefully do to victims of execution.

          As to the claim that it’s cruel to kill an animal just to eat it…well, that means that every predator in the entire history of life on Earth is cruel. Considering that there are vanishingly few animals that are exclusive herbivores, and that there are even carnivorous plants, that doesn’t seem like a substantive position of any significant value.

          Besides, what would you do with the dead bodies? Just let them rot so the bacteria can eat them? Do you think the animals wouldn’t die if we didn’t eat them, or that livestock would live at all if they weren’t bread for food?

          b&

          1. “As to the claim that it’s cruel to kill an animal just to eat it…well, that means that every predator in the entire history of life on Earth is cruel.”

            I’d concede the point if I believed that any one of those non-human predators possessed a consciousness that could consider the concept of cruelty, but I do not and thus will not. And does not the argument that we take our cues from animal predators when determining our standards for what constitutes cruelty seriously undermine your objection to the admittedly appalling treatment of human subjects of judicial execution?

            “…slaughtering techniques are …generally much more humane than what Americans shamefully do to victims of execution.”

            I disagree with you profoundly; if you can point me to a case of a human prisoner being beaten and electrically prodded on his way to the killing floor, and then autopsied before actually expiring, my disagreement with your statement might be less appalled, but it would still exist.

          2. I disagree with you profoundly; if you can point me to a case of a human prisoner being beaten and electrically prodded on his way to the killing floor, and then autopsied before actually expiring, my disagreement with your statement might be less appalled, but it would still exist.

            If you think prisoners go gentle into that chair or if their deaths are swift or painless, you haven’t been paying attention to the news.

            But, regardless, what you describe does not conform to what I understand to be industry-standard best practices, though I certainly wouldn’t dispute the possibility that such happens.

            And I’m certain that any slaughterhouse found to operate as you describe would never again supply Whole Foods with meat, and I’m reasonably confident in their auditing procedures such that it’s not something that happens in their corner of the industry.

            Again, I’m not trying to defend inhumane agribusiness practices or argue that they don’t happen. I am trying to point out that they’re far from universal, and that the solution is to follow the models of good animal husbandry we already have.

            b&

          3. I think that we are largely in agreement on most of the issues here. I am just as opposed to the execution of humans as I am to that of animals, and I am familiar with the horrors of prisoner execution. My position is that there are degrees of cruelty, that most food animals are treated in ways that would be considered horrifying and unacceptable were people actually willing to educate themselves about them, that ‘industry-standard best practices’ are largely smoke and mirrors and frequently ignored, and that ostensibly humane producers and retailers of meat comprise a tiny percentage of the industry.

          4. I think our only remaining area of disagreement is that I would urge people to change their practices to only consume ethically-raised meat, whereas you seem to be trying to convince society to go cold turkey, as it were.

            I don’t think the latter is either realistic nor desirable, which is why I’m happy with my own position.

            Cheers,

            b&

          5. “I don’t think the latter is either realistic nor desirable…”

            I’ll respectfully take exception to the latter characterisation, but is it any less realistic than trying to convince people to give up religion? Both are ultimately futile causes, I fear, but one does what one can.

          6. A great many people shop at Whole Paycheck, and California is right now wrangling over legislation to mandate standards similar to Whole Paycheck’s minimums to the entire industry. This is not at all a futile cause, but very realistic and, honestly, quite likely to be increasingly legislated. What that’s going to mean economically and socially remains to be seen, but it’s far from futile.

            b&

          7. “As of December 3rd, 2012, the Whole Foods Market’s percentage of market share in the overall U.S. grocery business stands at 1.04 percent…”

            But, hey, despite my per se objection to meat eating, I wish them well. It’s movement in the right direction!

          8. I’ve been using Whole Foods because they’re the local example where I shop and because they have good name recognition. There’re a number of other grocery stores with similar standards, such as AJ’s (which might be local to Arizona). Ethical meat is certainly a too-small portion of the market, but it’s far from nonexistent, it’s growing…and California might (or might not) be poised to move the industry substantially in that direction.

            b&

          9. “I’d concede the point if I believed that any one of those non-human predators possessed a consciousness that could consider the concept of cruelty, but I do not and thus will not.”

            I think the problem with this argument is that it places the focus on intent not on result. I don’t think it matters to a gazelle being consumed alive that the beast nomming on it isn’t making a conscious effort to cause pain. (Nor is it making any effort to prevent it.) The suffering is what matters and every predator is in fact cruel. It is the way the life works, for better and worse.

            (I note that the word “cruel” appears in the dictionary with both meanings, however. It can be used with or without the notion of “intent”, so this argument probably can’t be resolved to mutual agreement.)

          10. My point was that employing the behaviour of animal predators as a justification for the behaviour of ostensibly sentient human beings is specious. I clearly stated the sense in which I used the word.

    2. Is it possible to speak approvingly of _not_ eating meat without by implication rudely advocating that meat-eaters are advocating cruelty?

      As it happens, there is. Just insert “unnecessary” cruelty. And that is what most husbandry advocates, except possibly some religious cruel slaughter methods.

      Another argument that can be done is that we should cut down on meats. On average we eat too much to be healthy, and it isn’t as efficient as other food production. (Though I believe fish and shrimp plants gets close, as well as if we adopt insects for food.)

      The problem I get, apart from the rude “holier than thou” attitude of some participants in a discussion about foods, is that we can’t cut down 100 % without having a plan for avoiding genocide of species. (With the possible exception of pigs, that are close to the wild form and possibly can be simply released.) It is immoral elsewhere, and it should be so here too.

      So we have an as of yet unsolvable conundrum. Blame our agrarian ancestors.

      1. “…we can’t cut down 100 % without having a plan for avoiding genocide of species.”

        Do I understand correctly that you are advocating factory farming as a means of conservation? Most if not all food animals are hybrids, not species. Simply ending the breeding of livestock and allowing existing stocks to live out normal lifespans under humane conditions resolves that issue. It isn’t so much that it is an unsolvable conundrum as that people are unwilling to objectively consider the possibility of life without meat.

    4. Whatever ones position on the question of cruelty to animals, here’s the reason we can’t keep eating meat in the way we currently do. There are too many of us and our rock in space is too small.

      1. Vegetarianism isn’t enough to solve the overpopulation problem. If anything, it’ll make it worse. Food shortages are just one small facet, and there’re plenty of others every bit as sharp that’ll do as much damage over a similar timeframe.

        The human population will decrease dramatically over the course of the coming century, if not sooner. The only question is how that’ll happen, and how many (if any) humans are left and what they’re left with when the population figures stop decreasing.

        b&

        1. I don’t think the suggestion is that it is sufficient to solve the problem. Mine certainly isn’t. But I have a very hard time seeing how it would make things worse.

          In any case, the real argument you’d get from me would not be advocating complete vegetarianism (unrealistic goal) but drastic reduction in the quantity of meat consumed (much more attainable, IMO).

          1. But I have a very hard time seeing how it would make things worse.

            Oh, that’s easy. What’s the best possible outcome? We’re able to feed more people with fewer resources.

            Which means we have more people.

            Which is exactly the problem we need to solve.

            Rather than trying to come up with new and better ways to feed (and house and entertain, etc.) more people for longer lifespans, we need to be coming up with ways to reduce the number of people.

            First, of course, is birth control. Then there are small thing we could do, such as encourage risky behavior with a greater chance of death than lingering — helmet-free motorcycle riding, amateur SCUBA, that sort of thing.

            But the sad fact of the matter is that what’s actually most likely to happen are the much more traditional methods of human population reduction: war, disease, famine, strife.

            b&

          2. Well, OK. I’m all for population control. But if you’re going to rely on war, famine, and strife to set the limit, then it makes no difference either way.

            These two options (eat less meat; use more birth control) are not mutually exclusive.

          4. It’s not me who’s going to rely on disaster to limit human population; it’s the civilization itself. That’s what unbounded exponential growth means to populations; catastrophic crashes, and we see it at every level from petri dishes to empires. The only pleasant alternative is a steady-state system, and modern economists especially consider such a thing the kiss of death. Thus the boom-and-bust…with a really big bad boom looming just over the horizon.

            That’s a big part of why I’m not so keen on anything that makes food production (especially) more efficient. We’ve got far more than enough efficiency…for a sustainable-sized population. And its our efficiency that’s gotten us into the mess by making it so easy for us to explode our population.

            We must (and will, whether we want to or not) instead focus all our attention on inefficiency — on putting the brakes on. The gentlest way to do that is birth control on a massive scale, and the only way to do that in an ethically defensible manner is to hand out condoms like candy and provide free and universal access to any and all other forms of birth control, on demand, no questions asked. But the fucking asshole Christians wouldn’t let that get through even if anybody tried.

            The only other way to balance the equation is for people already alive to die sooner rather than later. But nobody’s going to volunteer for that, which is why we’re stuck with the usual suspects of war and starvation and the rest.

            Not a pretty picture, but it’s the one we’ve gone ahead and painted for ourselves, like it or not.

            b&

    1. NO! I did not know that would embed & on the roolz page! Ban me – sorry sorry sorry…

      1. Why not go the whole hog and just break *all* the roolz on the roolz page? You’re halfway there already…..

  16. Oy! Too many roo[/slammed by rool #4]

    That was the first time I read a roolz buk and found it enjoyable. Or perhaps the first time I read one…

  17. Well done sir! You provide something that is sorely lacking on the internets: QUALITY CONTROL! Thank you, thank you, thank you! 🙂

  18. I’m still puzzled over your spelling of d*g. Isn’t the Hebrew spelling of G*d one of reverence and respect for the name? Not due to aversion of the word.

    -Florian

  19. Rule 12:
    Jerry, I have over 60,000 digital travel and wildlife photos. If you are looking for anything in particular drop me an email and I’ll check my library.

    P.S. not all slides scanned in yet.

    Have camera, will travel.

  20. Your posts are inspiring to one who was abused by the Catholic Church,keep it up /lease?

  21. While not a rool, exactly, I would appreciate having one that explained what “sub” (or //, or…) means. That way when the inevitable question arises, which it seems to do every other week or so, someone could just say “rool #19”. It would save the lives of a lot of innocent key strokes.

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