2024 ELECTION THREAD
The next presidential race will be here soon! Please see current Bovada odds. Thoughts?
For many centuries if not millennia there has been this deep fight among intellectuals between the team that considers human nature the devil, something to trascend in order to become "better", and those who consider it anti human not to fully embrace human nature and it's consequences.
You're missing at least one other grouping - those that believe embracing some of the excesses of human nature leads to wisdom.
It's not even about Darwinian evolution at all for me for this topic (meat eating).
It's about what you are built for, whatever it was that built you that way.
What is the whole story is that we are heavily programmed at a biological level to eat meat (from large mammals especially but not exclusively), which comes with a myriad of other factors that allowed us to eat meat back in the day and so on.
Embracing and accepting human nature works because if you are programmed to eat meat (and all the ac
We’re programmed to be flexible and get by on what’s available in the environment. Not all of our ancestors had the same amount of any food in their diet.
What kind of distress should a lack of meat cause and when would someone be affected?
We’re programmed to be flexible and get by on what’s available in the environment. Not all of our ancestors had the same amount of any food in their diet.
What kind of distress should a lack of meat cause and when would someone be affected?
In general it will be something akin to "i lack that source of endorphines, so i'll look around for alternatives" (remember it's not just the meat eating per se it's everything that comes with it ), and alternatives we aren't biologically programmed for, surrogates, are going to have negative associated costs.
My model for that is something like you need decent amounts of "satisfaction" in the raw biological sense, your body feeling ok, from life activities.
Those we are programmed for, who reward us more directly, linearly, are the best options. You can "control" a specific urge (unless addict/with significant mental health issues) but you can't control the ovearching "urge" to get satisfaction from existence, so better satisfy the "inner demon" (and come to peace with it) with what works thanks to biology.
If you eat enjoying it a lot , have regular sex and so on you will basically snap less. You will use less psychotic drugs, manage stress better, you won't necessarily need to seek adrenaline thrills or something to "give meaning" to life elsewhere, you will be less often depressed and so on.
Yes a specific individual who gives up on meat doesn't necessarily destroy his life by doing so, especially if he is able to compensate well with other close-to-biology sources (like sex, walking/exercising, having good social relationship frequently, having children/nephews/grandchildren to nurture and so on).
But the numbers are kinda shocking, and mine is an attempt to explain pragmatically why that happens
/
This is a huge recent meta-research, insane amount of literature provided for background, sample size is very big
Results: Eighteen studies met the inclusion/exclusion criteria; representing 160,257 participants (85,843 females and 73,232 males) with 149,559 meat-consumers and 8584 meat-abstainers (11 to 96 years) from multiple geographic regions. Analysis of methodologic rigor revealed that the studies ranged from low to severe risk of bias with high to very low confidence in results. Eleven of the 18 studies demonstrated that meat-abstention was associated with poorer psychological health, four studies were equivocal, and three showed that meat-abstainers had better outcomes. The most rigorous studies demonstrated that the prevalence or risk of depression and/or anxiety were significantly greater in participants who avoided meat consumption.
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If you go check the numbers of prevalence of mental distress in meat-avoiders vs meat-eaters, it is like double in some of the studies, it's an insane result that people mostly don't know about
Vance is going with something like "if you have hate speech laws in your country we won't defend you" which is very good, the USA should force countries to have american values if they want american militaries to have their back
https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/18554600...
if they threaten that credibly we will comply
America gets the ultimate seal of approval...
In general it will be something akin to "i lack that source of endorphines, so i'll look around for alternatives" (remember it's not just the meat eating per se it's everything that comes with it ), and alternatives we aren't biologically programmed for, surrogates, are going to have negative associated costs.
My model for that is something like you need decent amounts of "satisfaction" in the raw biological sense, your body feeling ok, from life activities.
Those we are programmed for, who rewar
I’ll look at the study later so maybe it addresses this but I’m aware that people make the mental health argument.
It seems more likely to me that people who become vegetarian/vegan already possessed qualities/beliefs that predispose them to mental distress than it being a factor of the diet itself. This is not to say it’s mental illness necessarily but rather, higher than average empathy, higher than average concern for issues related to justice, climate, and health. That combination on a topic where nearly everyone is opposed to you, I’m not surprised that some people find that very distressing. Of course if someone adapts an unbalanced and unhealthy diet, vegan or omnivore, that could have a direct impact on mental health. I’d be curious if there have been comparisons made between vegans and other relatively fringe but strongly held social justice beliefs in terms of mental health.
Another thing I could see that’s not physiological is how veganism could affect your social life. If you choose to debate this online when the vast majority of people, even those who probably otherwise share your politics, don’t care or deride you for the opinion, I could imagine some people suffering in mental health. If you choose to debate people in your social circle that could create a lot of friction at the least. Basically, there are a lot of ways you could become isolated which has a huge impact on mental health.
I’ll look at the study later so maybe it addresses this but I’m aware that people make the mental health argument.
It seems more likely to me that people who become vegetarian/vegan already possessed qualities/beliefs that predispose them to mental distress than it being a factor of the diet itself. This is not to say it’s mental illness necessarily but rather, higher than average empathy, higher than average concern for issues related to justice, climate, and health. That comb
According to the above metaresearch, the single best study in terms of rigors and design was this
Here the crucial additional part is they match vegetarians with non-vegetarian socio demographic equivalent people. They are aware of the problem you describe and control for it.
But for the "non physiological" aspects, i never claimed it's all physiology. If you notice, i don't even discuss proteins, fats and so on. Even being a nuisance at a BBQ , or a company dinner, or a marriage, is a cost with mental health implication and you can't dismiss that as "non biological": you try to "overcome" a biological pulsions others instead want to embrace, having social problems is part of the price you are paying and part of the reason you shouldn't do that (if you want to live a good life )
The indian press is reporting that the Trump-Vance campaign site has official plans for attempting to remove ius soli (birthright citizenship) being automatic for newborns without american parents (through executive order).
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri...
But i can't find that in the T-V campaign site and non-indian press isn't discussing the topic currently (afaik)
SNL this time was actually funny.
Yet, further proof no one among them even slightly believed for a second Trump is a "fascist" or whatever, because they wouldn't do this , if that was the case.
According to the above metaresearch, the single best study in terms of rigors and design was this
Here the crucial additional part is they match vegetarians with non-vegetarian socio demographic equivalent people. They are aware of the problem you describe and control for it.
But for the "non physiological" aspects, i never claimed it's all physiology. If you
They didn’t control for any of the issues I described. They controlled for sociodemographic factors. They actually indicate that any of those things I mentioned might contribute to their findings. This study as well as the meta study both mention that there is no indication as yet that the diet itself causes mental health issues. The one you linked here says the opposite may be the case. They also mention that with Seventh Day Adventists, where someone would not be in the minority, there is possibly a positive mental health association. This study and the meta study also mention that they may be excluding data from a country like India where the fact that vegetarianism is much more common and accepted could produce different results.
I guess I thought you were centering your argument on some belief about a nutritional cause because otherwise I don’t really care about the argument. What makes a good life is subjective and some might consider holding a principled stance even to the possible detriment of their mental health to be doing that.
It's a good thing there's not a dedicated thread to discuss this. Peoples feelings could get very hurt by the discussion
It's very weird. She explicitly said there was no line Israel could cross that would cause her to reduce funding.
Are they mad she expressed sympathy for civilian suffering?
She even seemed down for war with Iran.
Trump had a peace treaty with Iran when he took over and chose war. Covid response was bad and incompetent, but if Trump simply did nothing in the middle east in his first term we'd be way better off right now. Pretty much every side except hard core Israeli right wingers and hard core Hamas islamists who'd rather fight than accept a peace compromise.
Arizona and Nevada now filled in so final map above.
I haven't read this thread in the last few days because most of you guys simply project your opinions with no data to back it up, so I don't know if the popular vote has been discussed or not.
2020 popular vote: Biden 81.25 million votes, Trump 74.25 million votes
2024 popular vote: Trump 74.65 votes (almost identical to 2020), Harris 71.00 million votes (10 million less votes than Biden four years before).
The popular vote discussion is mostly about the top two parties as third party voting didn't result in anything of note. In 2024 there were about 10 million less votes cast than 2020. Harris received about 10 million less votes than Biden four years before while Trump received almost the exact number of votes in 2020 and 2024. It is a bit over simplifing things, but the the people that voted for Trump did so in 2020 and 2024 PERIOD. There was no Trump enthusiasm gap or surge. There doesn't seem to be any Trump shift. I think it is "bad math" to say Trump over performed.
What it looks like is that Trump performed the same while Harris underperformed. This seems to simply be about 10 million voters from the year 2020 deciding in 2024 they didn't have the enthusiasm to fill out a ballot for Harris.
I haven't read this thread in the last few days because most of you guys simply project your opinions with no data to back it up, so I don't know if the popular vote has been discussed or not.
2020 popular vote: Biden 81.25 million votes, Trump 74.25 million votes
2024 popular vote: Trump 74.65 votes (almost identical to 2020), Harris 71.00 million votes (10 million less votes than Biden four years before).
The popular vote discussion is mostly about the top two parties as third party voting didn'
those are the votes counted by now afaik.
this is how it should end (if votes not already counted end up split the same as those already counted)
/
Updated estimate:
Harris 76.2m votes (48.4%)
Trump 78.5m votes (49.9%)
other 2.6m votes (1.5%)
Total turnout 157.3m votes (vs 158.6m in 2020)
Trump margin +1.5%
Tipping-point state: PA (Trump +2.1%)
https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/18556...
Harris was one of the worst candidates ever in American history, underperforming her own party nominees almost everywhere for almost every post.
from dogcatchers to senate candidate, she did worse than almost every one of them. worse than male democratic candidates, worse than female democratic candidates, worse than white democratic candidates, worse than minority democratic candidates, worse than young democratic candidates and worse than elder democratic candidates.
she lost with all demographics and all areas of the country compared to Biden, against the same opponent.
Trump was very beatable, but not by such an horrendous candidate it looks like (she did worse than I expected tbh, I thought the whole mind virus had conquered more minds)
I haven't read this thread in the last few days because most of you guys simply project your opinions with no data to back it up, so I don't know if the popular vote has been discussed or not.
2020 popular vote: Biden 81.25 million votes, Trump 74.25 million votes
2024 popular vote: Trump 74.65 votes (almost identical to 2020), Harris 71.00 million votes (10 million less votes than Biden four years before).
The popular vote discussion is mostly about the top two parties as third party voting didn'
Wait, that's not how it works, is it? If there were 10 million fewer total votes cast, shouldn't the null hypothesis be that the "missing" votes affect each candidate in proportion to their 2020 numbers, so dems lose about 6 million votes and reps lose about 4 million votes or w/e? I don't see where the assumption that all the Trump voters showed up but 10 million fewer Biden voters (i.e. presumptive Harris voters) showed up comes from in the information given.
I'm not disputing that this is what happened btw, but I'm saying you haven't made a case for it.
Wait, that's not how it works, is it? If there were 10 million fewer total votes cast, shouldn't the null hypothesis be that the "missing" votes affect each candidate in proportion to their 2020 numbers, so dems lose about 6 million votes and reps lose about 4 million votes or w/e? I don't see where the assumption that all the Trump voters showed up but 10 million fewer Biden voters (i.e. presumptive Harris voters) showed up comes from in the information given.
I'm not disputing that this is wha
ladyb data isn't the final data, that's just what has been counted already.
but no if you get lower turnout you shouldn't use the prior you describe because one of the 2 parties, or candidates, could be particularly good or particularly bad at activating low propensity to vote voters.
like Obama was truly good (him, his campaign, whatever) at activating low prop blacks. when Clinton comes and doesn't do the same that's a specific loss for the party that depends on the candidate not on overall turnout.
IE the candidate is a factor in the function that determines turnout. turnout is NOT independent on who the candidates are.
To put it another way with toy numbers, let's say that 18 people showed up to vote in 2020 and 10 voted for Biden and 8 voted for Trump. Then in 2024 14 people showed up to vote and 8 voted for Trump and 6 voted for Harris.
a). ladyb is saying the same 8 people showed up both times for Trump, but 4 of the Biden voters stayed home, making it 8 Trump - 6 Harris in 2024.
b). Others are saying that actually, 6 of the previous Trump voters showed up and 2 stayed home, and of the previous 10 Biden voters 2 stayed home but of the 8 that showed up, 2 switched their vote to Trump in 2024, again making 8 Trump - 6 Harris in 2024.
I don't see any evidence in ladyb's post for a) being any more likely than b).
ladyb data isn't the final data, that's just what has been counted already.
but no if you get lower turnout you shouldn't use the prior you describe because one of the 2 parties, or candidates, could be particularly good or particularly bad at activating low propensity to vote voters.
like Obama was truly good (him, his campaign, whatever) at activating low prop blacks. when Clinton comes and doesn't do the same that's a specific loss for the party that depends on the candidate not on overall turn
Ok I get that, but I don't get why one prior should be considered any more likely than another in the absence of evidence. Ladyb's post seemed to be implying that because the Trump numbers were the same across years, this was essentially evidence for scenario a) in my toy example above. I don't find that evidence in and of itself persuasive enough to make that case.
