Grrl Power #198 – Sydney’s a what?
Like I said under the last comic, biggest reveal yet! I’m a little nervous about this one, but hopefully there won’t be too much gnashing of teeth and lamentations. Some people aren’t so keen on vegetarians and vegans, but really that’s because there are some of them who won’t shut up about it and endlessly try and convince you that having one more bite of your hamburger will give you soul cancer. Sydney is obviously not one to make a fuss about it. There’s been scant evidence in the comic to make anyone think she is a vegetarian, except I put little tofu cubes in her meal back at the King of Siam restaurant… although looking at that page now, you can just see one cube and it’s bright red from the sauce.
So anyway let me explain. When I started the comic I wanted to avoid a few common writing problems and two I knew of were 1) the man with boobs feminist for Maxima, and 2) obvious author insert. I knew Sydney was going to be very nerd literate and very A.D.D. like me and I wanted some characteristics that set her further apart from me. I’m not nearly as hyper as she is and obviously I’m not a gal, but I wanted some other differences, and I am very much not a vegetarian of any sort, so I figured, why not. While it may seem that it hasn’t affected her behavior in the comic so far at all, I actually got the idea that she started eating spicy food as a way to replace the loss of “savory” as she weaned herself off of meat. That’s right, despite having already named her Scoville, (which I did because I have that same naming alliteration sickness that Stan Lee has evidently) her affinity for spicy food came out of her being a vegetarian. Since I’m sure people will ask, the particulars of Sydney’s diet will be covered on the next page.
I made this page much harder on myself than it needed to be by including Gwen in it. I could have easily kept this scene between Sydney, Peggy and Goth Harem, but no, without Gwen I couldn’t use the phrase “The Hot Topic twins.” Oh and I know I said that all the pages up to 200 had a mini comic under them, but for this one apparently I was thinking of the intra-page mini comic (panel 6), but 199 and 200 definitely do.
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Boo! No vegetarians!
Just kidding, its a good character trait to round her out.
That’s actually pretty cool if you ask me, though I would have to say you need to make up a new word because I’m pretty sure Sydney is her own kind of vegetarian, even if it isn’t exclusive spicy stuff she eats, what she does eat is….well so many orders of magnitude stronger stuff then what at least I would consider spicy, has to be a word for it.
Napalmic?
Napalmic, good turn of phrase. I’ll have to use that when I describe my chili. I, too, am definitely NOT a vegetarian. Heck, closer to an obligate carnivore. Veg, unless it is vine ripe straight from my own garden is my kryptonite. And, like Sydney, the hotter the better. When I am not in the mood for spice, I use habanero sauce (Yucatan Sunshine, decent heat and flavor, relatively cheap) but when I want to bring the heat, I use a home made bhut jalokia (ghost chili) sauce that I made a couple years ago. The aging brought the heat WAY up, fortunately. When I was eating it fresh it was “tame” except for chili newbies.
…So what?
Sydney’s a vegetarian: good for her.
But why does she feel the need for all this ‘outing’ stuff? It’s not a sensitive issue – It’s not like bodybuilders all gang up outside the alternative food shop and beat up the patrons, or like there’s this huge political agenda dedicated to opposing it.
“Hey man, I just want you to know that I’m okay with you dietary choices,and I understand that you don’t just want to poach all of my carrots. Now, let’s go down to the steakh- er, cafe and get a bowl or musli. I’m here for you, bro.”
Actually, there is a huge political agenda dedicated to opposing veganism and vegetarianism. One part of them even had the balls to sue Oprah. OPRAH!
Also, I totally had lunchmeat forcibly rubbed on my face and lips when I was a kid. The teacher let the guy off with a warning.
I think it was Bill Maher that said you’d sooner see a gay president than a vegan one.
Well, I’m sorry for what you’ve experienced. But the fact is that I’m a vegetarian, and… that’s it. I barely mention the fact unless someone asks (usually after asking about pizza toppings). The only time I elaborate on it is either on the Internet or if someone asks or argues (“but you’re not a real vegetarian…). So Sydney freaking out like this seems incredibly melodramatic.
I think the push back that some vegetarians and vegans get subjected to is in proportion to how much they push their dietary choices. If someone wants to be vegetarian or vegan, that is their choice, and affects me as much as if they are homosexual – that is, not at all.
I am constantly amazed how much concern people put in what others do that does not include or affect them. I eat a high animal protein diet. To many vegans I am sure that makes me a monster. I can live with that. But I HAVE had vegans be verbally abusive to me for eating meat and/or wearing leather. You want to make that choice for yourself? Fine, do so, no skin of my nose. You want ME to make that choice? NOW we have a problem.
I have known militant vegans and vegetarians, and I’ve known some downright decent ones. Like any other group of people, they come in all sorts.
Sydney being vegetarian surprises me, but, OK if that is how she is being written, so long as the writing quality stays as high as it has, sure, whatever.
Yeah, I agree that Sydney isn’t one of those kind that would try to shove her dietary choices down everyone elses’ throats & I’m cool with that. I also agree that her reaction in today’s comic is pretty extreme, considering that’s it’s more like she’s deliberately *avoiding* the trait of shoving her views down everyone elses’ throats.
But it’s really not out of her character, either…Sydney is pretty much an overall extreme personality in general.
I have no researched arguement to your position that there is some massive political agenda geared specifically toward opposing an individual’s choice to not eat meat or meat-related products. I only have my own experience, and I can categorically state that I’ve never once seen an organized political statement or activity opposing vegetarianism or veganism, but I have seen plenty of political statements and activities (and bumper stickers and tshirts and billboards, etc) promoting moral veganism & vegetarianism (i.e. “meat is murder,” PETA equating the drinking of milk with the direct torturing of animals, etc), followed by individuals openly mocking them for it…
Most people I know, including quite a few Vegetarians and Vegans think PETA needs to sit down and drink a nice frosty can of STFU.
why would the group “People Eating Tasty Animals” need to chill out?
(yes, i’m being snarky… :) )
You, sir, have just won the internet! LOL THAT is my kind of PETA!
But that line is hardly original.
I like PETA, they are fun to mess with.
Best eaten with a side-order of fries.
I prefer onion rings with a southwest ranch sauce (I think it’s just spices mixed into ranch dressing), although nothing wrong with a nice batch of fries either…and now I’m craving fried pickles, dang you Yorp ;p
Somehow, I’m not surprised…vegetarian fits her just fine. As does being embarrassed about it.
Also, what Peggy says is so true – whenever I put on (or get someone good at it to put on me) a supposedly ‘normal’ amount of makeup, I wind up looking like a hooker.
Try using softer colours for eyeliner until you get used to it. I have a brown eye type(sometimes it changes), and started with brown liner and an olive green eyeliner. Once I got used to that, I used a soft grey, then attempted the dynamic colours(cobalt, emerald and black).
Another thing you need is to find your skin colour. Find a nice makeup counter(make sure you have money to spend on at least an eyeliner), and ask them to colour type you.
Some have an in-between olive complexion and do not even realise it(like me), and makeup in general looks wretched on them. I went to Shiseido, who not only identified it for me, they gave me a colour card where I got to mark my physical matches in colour so I could buy it anywhere(this was right as I was ringing up my foundation). Other than Shiseido, I have yet to find any place that makes my foundation, so I stick with them.
“Normal” makeup in the wrong colour scheme will look wrong if it is not suited for your complexion(which changes with the seasons, as you get more/less sun).
Hope you find your perfect colours.
XD I’ve known my colors for years. I just don’t look good with the ‘fake’ look – and probably wouldn’t bother with it anyway. My hair’s long enough that brushing it takes enough time out of my day, taking a similar amount out for makeup as well just seems wasteful, to me, unless I’m going on a date or something. In which case I wear face powder to prevent shiny-nose, blush specifically applied to make my face look thinner, and mascara to make up for my sparse-ish eyelashes. That’s it.
Awesome. You know what works, and use just enough to accent.
For me, I rarely wear makeup, but when I have to for a job interview or having a parent meeting at the school, I use my powder foundation, a bit of blush, shadow, and lip balm in mostly neutrals. If I feel like fancy, I use a bit of lip colour and eyeliner. Even with the full makeup look, it never takes me more than five minutes, because I refuse to waste time on it.
Well, I don’t normally wear makeup of any kind (I’m just a guy, after all). The only time I did was while in my high school drama club & was prepping to appear on stage. The “color-matching” techniques for that purpose are completely different from women who wear makeup on a normal, every-day basis because stage lights are bright, harsh & deliberately color-filtered.
It’s even a far-cry distant kind of application from models who are photographed & published…And stage makeup can’t even be Photoshopped either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnvoz91k8hc (mmmm…pizza).
I love living in a country where the concepts of “live & let live” & “cause no unnecessary harm” is written into the very fabric of our laws…And equally disgusted by the fact that the attitude of “elitist totalitarianism” is running rampant in both the public & private sectors.
I took some make-up courses, for acting reasons, way, way back when, and then turned around and taught my sisters a major lesson that I see a lot of women missing out on: Properly applied make-up should accent your positive features, downplay your negative features, and not appear to be present at all. Of course, this rule may not fully apply to a person going for a particular look, like Alice Cooper. Also, choosing the right kind of make-up is very important. Some of that stuff is really hard on the skin.
I think Peggy’s assertion is more true internally than externally – I’ve had close tomboy-ish friends go all out with a dramatic evening style of makeup and look absolutely stunning, but convinced that because it wasn’t what they were used to seeing in the mirror, that they looked garish and cheap
Sydney has “The List” out. Look out Harem! She seems to have forgotten to grab all five Harems before this conversation…
That said, I’d love to know what sort of dish she was eating with Peggy earlier(as I have about a half a dozen hot sauces and more than that in hot peppers) that I’d love to try in a nice dish.
Plain baked potatoes are awesome with perhaps a bit of sea salt and pepper blend on it. Think I’ll go make one.
And it is harems turn to have a face like a man. *orders brain bleach bulk*
The author made “the list”. The only other item on my list is… oh yeah, the author for making Dabblers face look manly once.
*more brainbleach*
This may be the weirdest thing I ever say about this comic, but in the last panel, Goth-Harem reminds me of the Heavy. Something about that expression….
In panel 8, when Goth-Harem says ‘yourself’, there’s some funny mark in the bubble between ‘your’ and ‘self’.
Dunno what it is though.
Whoops, that’s a leftover from a bad edit. Should be fixed now.
Well, my take on it is that Sydney must have had a traumatic encounter with anti-vegetarians earlier in life, so now she’s hyper-sensitive about it.
Also, I think the mentioned “mannish” look to Goth Harem in the last panel is from you not seeing her lips for some reason. Maybe she’s biting her lower lip in terror? :)
No, for me it’s not the lips, she has been looking masculine (not manly, just masculine) since the last panel of the last page, just for me the last panel on this page kinda over emphasizes it to the point she almost looks like a guy in drag
This has all the appearance of a critique towards DaveB, but it’s honestly not suposed to be one, it’s just something that stood out for me (the mini-Gothette last page looked like she normally does, just more ‘cartoony’)
I just love how that didn’t even seem to phase Peggy a bit didn’t even drop her food. Also Max’s well whatever to the whole thing. lol
Yeah, I like the way Peggy is just sort of lounging as she’s being carried, completely unfazed. I think she’s adapting to Sydney-storms better than anyone else so far. (Though I see Gwen is up to speed on the whole super-spicy thing.)
On an unrelated note–what in blazes was Peggy drinking before being hauled off? It appears to have multi-colored layers, an upended beer bottle mounted on the side of the glass, and the top of a pineapple as a garnish. Oh, and a crazy-straw.
It was most likely a type of Corona margarita. I personally think beer would absolutely ruin the taste of a margarita but to each there own.
Yea, I picked up on that too. I think that the unexpected introduction of a new super (and a powerful/eccentric one at that) will have been the focus of much gossiping in Archon today. And the world tonight.
Do… people really care if someone they know is a vegetarian? What KIND of people? That’s just odd…
I do care! But in the sense of “He’s coming to visit, I should include vegetarian options in the meal/snack bar (or fully go for a vegetarian one).”
But that’s not the way you meant now, is it. And other than that, I don’t care. I have a number of vegetarian colleagues and friends. And the subject hardly ever comes up after the first reveal. If it does, it usually is by sharing recipes.
Vegetarians are servants of the evil Cow Conglomerate who secretly rule the world. Without carnivores to keep the villainous cow population down, we’ll all be slaves to the Conglomerate within six weeks. Vegetarians herald our doom, I tell you, doooooom!
Sidney will boot up Diablo II and come to the rescue with a peg leg and red book…
Some people really can’t handle it if you don’t like stuff that they do. I spent some time early on avoiding alcohol and you wouldn’t believe the preaching I got from my drinking “friends”. I didn’t care what they drank, but they couldn’t handle seeing me with mere orange juice. Some Vegetarians have similar experiences.
my goodness – did I just get lucky in the friend department? It seems everybody has some story about their abusive “friends” that can’t accept them the way they are… why are y’all friends with these people?
I had a different experience; all my friends that drank had a sober driver on call and loved it! (And I got to make money as a ‘taxi’ driver!) I can’t remember how much I made in college between driving friends to and from parties and/or picking up more beer. Everyone was more or less OK with it. Every now and then someone would push on me to get drunk or something but it never went any farther than that.
heh, for me it was in the Navy, i got one of the guys to stop getting hammered after work and play D&D with us. before, he was laughing at us for playing “that stupid game, why don’t you ever go out drinking?”… when i had enough of it i asked him what he remembers of last night?.. him: “uh, nothing, i blacked out…” Me:”so you had a great time, but you can’t remember anything about it…” him “uh… yeah…” then i changed tactics to my wallet vs his wallet. sure the ONE book i had (at that time, I’ve got lots more now) was like $35 that I’ll have for years to come, but how long did that $35 worth of beer last you!?”… there were a few more thought imparted unto his noggin that day, and LO and Behold, a few days later when we were playing back in one of the empty troop spaces, we heard a knock on the door and he came in wanting to see what the game was ‘really’ about… he finally ended up as a really good DM before we transferred out… and he wasn’t blacking out from alcohol poisoning and needing drunk watches anymore either! a win-win scenario for both of us.
Now Harem’s gonna need those 5 bodies, because Syd’s gonna strangle at least one of them.
Harem’s face in the last panel clearly shows she has at least a basic undestanding of what could await her with being on DA LIST!!!.
Have fun murdering the Harem!
As previously mentioned in the comic.
*At trial*
Harem2: “THERE! She is the one who killed me!”
+1
Hmmm…Maybe Sydney is starting to wonder, “If I can get all 5 Harems into my force field, could I use my PPO to get 5 birds with 1 stone, or could any teleport-escape before I nail all 5?”
Why would she be thinking about eliminating any of her team-mates? Bat-man did it because he’s a sociopathic control freak
I still think a bullet or PPO shot through any one of Harem’s heads would be worth a shot. With a quantum-linked brain, what happens to one will, by definition, also happen to the others.
It is also the traditional way to deal with traitors.
Vegans, a vegitatian friend of mine once said, are the dicks of Vegetarianism. Personaly, I’ve yet to meet the Vegan (not vegetarian) who didn’t go out of their way to annoy the crap out of me with a “holier-than-thou” attitude and often insulting behavior. I’m typically called an “evil canivore” which I find inacurate as it annoying. I’m a proud omnivore; I like a good salad with my steak.
when in a showdown with a full-on moralistic vegan, I usually point out the studies that show that literally tens of thousands of animals (mostly insects, vermin, and varmints) are killed, every year, per square mile of farmland dedicated to the production of harvested food – and it’s not just the giant agricorps either. Even organic farms destroy animal environments by tilling, planting, and harvesting. So unless they’re willing to become nomadic gatherers, they need to accept that not just meat, but food itself is “murder,” and just move on.
That’s very true, but since plants are grown to feed meat animals too, it becomes the choice between
Animal Murder + Colateral Animal Murder, or just Colateral Animal Murder.
It’s pretty much impossible to live without killing something – I probably step on ants by accident all the time – but killing less things seems like a good deal to me. I will never claim vegetarianism/veganism is perfect, but it’s pretty good nonetheless.
As pointed out in one of Spider Robinson’s stories in his Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon series, “It is a prime datum of the universe; Life survives only by consuming other life.”
Fertile soil is only fertile because of multiple generations of rotting plants & animals releasing their basic nutrients back into the soil. So that means that both plants AND animals have to die just to feed natural *gathering* populations, including herbivore-animals too!
Sydney’s face in panel 4 is amazing, I shall now make a thumbnail of it!
Meh, Rounds her out with a bit of character development. I can totally see her imagination shooting off to the stars when presented with a steak and thinking “This could totally be a person” then progressing to how “How much would it suck if i got eaten” and going from there.
I actually know vegetarians that where so, because someone they know is a vegetarian, and they simply weren’t douche’y enough to make them cook two meals when they where over, and they just stuck with it for the health benefits after they moved out. Something to keep in mind is a lot of vegetarians are pascatarians(Eat fish as well) and i could see Syd running with that as well.(And i know people who don’t eat fish unless they KNOW the type and date it was caught,)
Personally my largest question is what actions are taken with The List. What does having ones name in it mean for their future. Do they get pranked, Does she simply ignore them if they try to reign her behavior in? Does having ones name on the reverse make her more amiable to act better towards them. Is there a system for being removed/transfered?
Great story, looking forward to reading.
Well, I don’t recall any actual repercussions being shown in the comic, so far the intimidations factor is only implied. In the case of Leon (ARC’s resident geek/nerd IT Expert), Sydney turned her book upside down before writing Leon in. This implies that there may be either positive or negative repercussions for being included in her List…But as far as what the specific relevance is with Sydney’s list, only time & observation can tell. Which is something DaveB will show us, in the due course of time.
There are probably several reasons. I know that there was more than one, for me, back when I used to habitually carry around a pocket notebook myself. The most important of which being a way to, covertly, look up peoples’ names when I forgot them. Plus it was handy being able to build up a shopping list, as you noticed shortages, rather than trying to remember everything when at the shop. Also I dislike the concept of carrying around a phone, but still needed to have people’s numbers, if I needed to use a pay-phone to get in touch.
In Sydney’s case, I think one strong reason is likely to be impulse control. Having an extreme negative reaction to an incident, without giving it the time to think things through, can be a good way of both getting in trouble and loosing friends. When looking at her upending the List and writing in the back, she is showing that she probably also suffers from the same problem as me, namely ‘playing it coy’. It is probably less alarming for people to see her writing a note, than for her to say “you look like potential spouse material.”
There are only two reasons to be a vegetarian:
1)erroneous, internally inconsistent and nearly always insufferable ethical beliefs.*
2)The complete inability to digest meat.
Which is it?
Sydney keeps her damn mouth shut about it, is in fact embarrassed about it, so she can’t be an “ethical” vegetarian. Yet she eats spices that should turn her digestive tract into bloody slurry….
*(You’re an omnivore, you have teeth and digestive tract designed to digest meat, NOT eating meat is unhealthy and requires the luxury of a 21st century food industry to pull off without suffering nutritional deficiencies. And I don’t care what your theology is, insisting that it is immoral for humans to eat meat is to assign immoral agency to every single meat eating species on earth, most of the supposed obligate herbivores (horses and deer eat meat. Yup. Deer suffering calcium deficiency will find baby birds and crunch ’em up like popcorn) and even several members of the plant kingdom. And frankly, everything grows on the remains of living things.)
The word everyone seems to be looking for is smug. Because really, there is nothing wrong at all with being superior. Nothing wrong with being proud of having earned superiority, with sharing the knowledge of how you became superior so that others may follow you, or correct you if you happen to be wrong. Nothing wrong at all. What’s wrong, is smugness (I write smugly).
Also, the argument that you should eat meat because it’s natural doesn’t hold up. Dying at the ripe old age of 39 from a fever is perfectly natural. Screw natural. Unnatural Star Trek future for me, thanks.
Going on from Zedd’s comment about natural not meaning right, it also doesn’t follow that making a moral argument against eating meat automatically makes all meat-eating life immoral.
A lion may be cruel when it kills a gazelle, but it’s also an obligate carnivore without the luxury of 21st century technology to cater to its requirements. Most animals also don’t have the capability for abstract thought that’s required to make moral judgements, and if you’re not capable of making moral judgements then it’s hard to say that your actions are moral or immoral, they’re simply amoral. To say that another is immoral because they’re incapable of understanding why an action is wrong, or because they have no choice but to perform that action or starve is not reasonable. It’s not logically inconsistent to recognise that.
I’m assuming you mean ethics-based vegans’ beliefs are internally consistent?
also, 3) quasi-legitimate “healthy diet” reasons and 4) distaste for meat?
Personally, I eat meat, because it’s so good, but I could never hunt an animal, and I’d rather farm procedures change, but I won’t do anything about it. Plus I prefer my meat be as far from recognizable as possible (except for steak), and as a child occasionally freaked out about eating chicken off the bone. I don’t eat any seafood, organ meats, or anything too exotic.
Hypocritical? Maybe. Picky? Definitely. Weird? Sure. But I don’t care what other people do, other than to pull the odd “Ew!” face.
There was a Vegetarian I met one time who didn’t eat meat for political reasons- rather good ones, as it turns out. Do you know just how much land and how many resources are devoted to the beef industry across the planet alone? Or how much environmental damage large-scale modern meat farming creates? How many governmental resources go to artificially inflating that aspect of the agricultural industry?
Not enough to make me give up bacon and burgers, but definitely a decent reason to belay meat on the menue.
While those are good arguments, some land just isn’t suited to crops. I’m living on a farm that hasn’t had decent rain in about 2 years. We can still keep cattle, the native grass is resilient.
Personally, I’m more annoyed by how much perfectly good cropland is buried underneath cities. We seem to want to live where it’s prettiest, and those places also happen to be the places best suited to feeding us.
Then there’s ethanol. I’m not convinced there’s a net energy gain in using coal or oil to produce fertilizer, diesel to plant and cultivate corn, then whatever to turn said fertilized corn into fuel for your car.
We’d probably be better off energy wise planting solar panels wherever we’re growing corn for fuel, and I’m pretty sure the chemistry to produce said solar panels is itself deleterious.
Notice how there is no perfect fix?
Hydroelectric kills fish and interferes with spawning. It also tends to require drowning valleys.
Wind power kills birds, and the really big ones kill the more protected ones, like eagles.
Solar, well, photovoltaic, involves the same chemistry used to make computer chips, and I’m pretty sure that’s poisonous. (A Fresnel array of mirrors all pointing to a Sterling engine is probably more neutral.)
Nuclear involves waste we Really don’t want to deal with. (I wonder if there is as much problem producing the fuel rods as there was making Plutonium warheads. I understand there are areas around Denver that are still pretty hot from mill tailings. I’m thus no longer convinced pebble bed reactors are a good idea.)
And of course fossil fuels are tapping into a massive “carbon sink”, and aren’t inexhaustible. (although, personally, I’m a man made global warm…sorry “anthropocentric climate change” skeptic. I guess I’ll never be allowed to publish any heresy.)
Liquid thorium reactors are the best solution to those problems you mentioned. But I have championed those in the past here, so will not clutter up screen space with it here too.
However as regards your final point
There is an interesting field of science emerging to deal with such issues. Namely contentious areas of science where no party can clearly prove a case one way or the other. Yet where lives are at stake and inaction could be as costly as the wrong action.
Take the tobacco industry for example. There were clear indicators that there were probably links to cancer and a whole bunch of other diseases. But there were also scientists who were coming up with results which contradicted those. As no quantitative measure could be made of the issue, it fell down to rhetoric and propaganda to tip the balance in public debate. And one side had a multi-billion dollar industry financing it.
So we ended up with decades of painful suffering and millions of deaths.
So finding a way of measuring such issues in a dispassionate manner, where the bullshit politics can be ignored is vital if we are to make life-critical decisions. If we have no means to do that, then I would always side with the camp which leads to 0% chance for extinction of humanity, rather than the opposite one. However, we now no longer need to use such crude means to help set policy.
The cunning technique that has been put forward, and I feel to be of great merit, actually has a very simple concept that inspired it. If you are a scientist and need to know how credible another scientist is, but do not know their field of speciality, then you can ask opinion of others. However the only people who will be able to give you the answer are in a field you already know nothing about. Which obviously has pitfalls. Such as not being able to tell if they have undeclared conflicts of interest, eg. being friends with the person you are investigating.
So the rule of thumb that has been shown to be of most use, for generations of scientists, is to simply find out how many papers they have published. And if your need is pertinent to a specific subject, you can narrow it down to how many they have done on that particular topic. The more papers they have done, the more knowledgeable you can consider them to be in the field. If they have many then it is reasonable to assume that they are expert in the field. Given that they cannot get published in scientific journals without diligent peer review.
Ok, it is subject to some flaws. But it holds true, significantly more often than it fails, when tested by more rigorous investigative techniques.
As such, if you are a politician, needing to make an urgent decision in an emergency “do I evacuate the populace from this area, and suffer the economic consequences, or not?” yet are getting conflicting scientific advice, you can apply that rule of thumb. Ask all of the scientists to list the number of papers they have in the relevant field.
First off you can see if one camp is composed of eminent scientists and the other of grad students (for example). Which might help immediately. But the total number of papers (regardless of how many scientists are involved) published by those supporting each camp are the key figures you are looking for.
You are not an expert in the field. And you do not want to risk being swayed by fast-talking from a smooth-tongued expert who’s arguments you cannot debunk. So just go with the group who are shown to have the bulk of expertise in the field. Those who have more papers.
The same can be done for fields where the issue is not a shortage of time, but the possibility of big money giving a minority camp a greater voice. Be it ensuring that their work is always brought to the public eye or convincing charismatic or powerful individuals to champion the cause. Or discrediting the opposition.
Do that math on climate change and you find that the sceptics have significantly less scientists in their camp and are also less experienced in the field. Given the vast numbers of scientists involved, the flaws of the technique are reduced. If you use it on one person, they might be a genius who only published one paper, but which won a Nobel prize. But use it on many and the flaws will balance out.
So there is no need to be an expert on climate change. You just need to be able to count.
“Take the tobacco industry for example. There were clear indicators that there were probably links to cancer and a whole bunch of other diseases. But there were also scientists who were coming up with results which contradicted those. As no quantitative measure could be made of the issue, it fell down to rhetoric and propaganda to tip the balance in public debate. And one side had a multi-billion dollar industry financing it.”
And yet, that’s the side that is losing
* Number of successful prosecutions of the directors and/or shareholders for mass-manslaughter: 0
* Amount of profit earnt in the decades since the likelihood of a connection was proposed: Billions
* Number of ongoing deaths: Hundreds of thousands per annum.
* Emerging markets: Third world countries and those transitioning to industrialised nations.
* Numbers countries attempting or succeeding going Smoke-free: too many to count
* Number of stupid laws being passed to make the act of smoking illegal: too fracking many
* Number of countries forcing tobacco companies to repackage their products in blank packaging: too many
It is important to balance individual rights to freedom (your point), with the immorality of propagating the deaths of others (my point). I have no objections to other peoples’ lifestyle choices (unless they cause actual harm to me, of course). Where laws impinge too heavily on personal freedoms too much, you have my sympathy. Where they are well-targeted at discouraging new victims from acquiring the addiction, however, you do not. Likewise those actions which help people to give up their addiction, if they are trying to do so voluntarily.
Clearly the latter two objectives are incompatible with the former, and will cause conflicts of interest. However given that the first is a point of personal convenience, and the others are matters of saving lives, morally there is no doubt which should get the priority in grey areas.
But it is perfectly right to fight it when politicians try to extend things too far. When they forget that balance is required and attempt to impose their life-choices on others they are going too far. 1920s prohibition showed us that such is not only unenforceable, it also creates far more problems than it solves. Aside from simply being immoral.
But all that diverts attention from my critical point. Namely that as a society we do not punish those who actively work to hide the truth, whilst knowing that it is putting other peoples lives and well-being at risk.
Every time a pharmaceutical company cherry-picks scientific trials, concealing the ones that did not favour their product, they are knowingly creating a false impression of it’s worth. Each loss or death which follows should be accountable. Not just those where the product causes direct harm, but also those that stem from encouraging people to switch from a more effective treatment.
Currently, however, such actions are perfectly legal and have no repercussions whatsoever. Simply because the default of our system is that ‘entrepreneurship’ must take precedence over harm to society.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention that I consider that every successful recruitment of a person to becoming a smoker should have repercussions on:
the executives of both the advertising company and the tobacco company
the shareholders of both companies.
Any future medical expense that the victim might suffer which could (on the balance of probability) be caused by smoking, should be borne by the above listed individuals. With no upper limit on liability and no statute of limitations. Any transfer of shares would not mitigate the liability of the original owner, but would extend it to include the new owner.
Likewise for any loss of earnings they might suffer, increases in insurance and/or the costs of life and medical insurance where might become unavailable, due to the smoking addiction.
The companies (and all the individuals who run it and finance it) know that every new customer they acquire is putting that person’s health and life at risk. Where they actively recruit new customers they are therefore knowingly both imposing a greater cost on society and contributing to causing likely harm to another.
Whilst that other person is informed and consensual, they also bear some of the burden, hence why I am so lenient in my above position. And those individuals should have to bear some of the cost of their own treatment (but not all, and certainly not by the rest of society). However, where such advertising is targeting ill-informed or ignorant individuals my leniency is dropped. Where people who lack appropriate informed knowledge or are legally unable to provide consent, then I feel that it should be considered a criminal matter.
So advertising in third-world countries, where the public are not properly informed as to the risks, and targeting schools or children (even in an incidental fashion, where the primary target is adults) would be sufficient reason to instigate charges of attempting mass-manslaughter and (for shareholders) conspiracy and financing of such. Plus similar charges as relates to actual bodily harm, to reflect non-life threatening illness.
Until society matures to where that is considered the norm, I will carry on considering that we are living in an amoral society.
Oh, and one further implication of that. A truly enlightened society might consider that wandering around publicly, puffing on a cigarette, and espousing how wonderful it is, could be considered a means of direct, personal advertising. Have a thought on the implications of that. Both as regards individual morality and, in light of my previous argument, on legal principles.
“Sets up a line to hand out Darwin awards to smokers”
Raising livestock usually requires that a lot of land is used to grow crops to feed those animals so, if anything, eating meat reduces the amount of the already limited land available to us to grow crops for ourselves.
Climate change really just comes down to an equation in my mind. There’s an amount of greenhouse gasses that are produced naturally on one side, and the world’s ability to absorb those gasses – forming bodies of water, reducing water vapour in the atmosphere; the propagation of life, and trapping that life, in death, underground where it becomes coal and oil, rather than free carbon, etc. That equation is in a rough equilibrium. Obviously there are extreme events that tip the scale and push it out of equilibrium, and there’s obvious drift over the long term, but it’s mostly fairly stable in the short term. If you add to one side of the equation, the other side will be effected. If that’s a one off event like a massive volcanic eruption, then it’ll be bad for a while, but those gasses will eventually be captured, and the ash will fall. On the other hand, if it’s a consistently increasing burning of fossil fuels, then it’s going to be harder to tackle – you can’t just wait for it to be captured, because you’re always adding more. It’s like trying to drink from a glass of water that’s constantly being refilled – if you’re drinking 2ml/s, and they’re adding 3ml/s, then it doesn’t matter how large the glass is, you’re eventually going to end up spilling a lot of water and the only way to stop that is to drink faster or make them add the water more slowly.
The only way that our activities could be having no effect on the environment is if greenhouse gasses have no effect on it.
Okay, I feel like this has to be said.
I don’t care about someone being a vegetarian, as long as they’re not annoying about it. If you want to be a vegetarian, fine. If you enjoy it, great! If you start acting like you are somehow superior to me because of it? I’m gonna want to slap you!
Do you know what would be funny? If your dietary choices really did make you superior.
I’m pretty sure they do, at least through early adulthood.
After all, malnutrition has deleterious effects on development, so why would neurological development be any different?
This page made me laugh out loud.
Yeah, I woke up my roommate on accident. Woops.
I think that Syd’s diet isn’t ‘by choice’. Maybe a side effect of one of the orbs? (I’m tempted to think Greenie, which may also give her that inhuman resistance to capsacin… and toxins in general? Life Support functions?)
If it wasn’t by choice it wouldn’t be an issue.
“Oh, yeah, I don’t order meat since it makes me too heavy for blue to fly.”
“Oh, yeah, I don’t order meat since it gives me horrible gas.”
You, know, or whatever. Nothing to see here – move along.
But the whole point is that she is afraid of what others will think of her choice not to eat meat.
Which is definitely unusual for her; she otherwise seems unafraid of disclosing anything! (Well, the existence of the orbs, and she had a reasonable explanation for that fear). Heck, she is militantly geeky, and nerdiness is something that many have grown up trying to minimize to fit in socially.
Not so much, these days, admittedly.
But Dave says in author comment we’ll find out more next page, so I’ll shut up now…
Actually, her worry still applies. Her nervousness seems less about her reasons for being a vegetarian, but rather how she believes others will perceive her status as such. There are many many people out there who would automatically assume it was for such and such a reason and attack her for it. Just like, as was discussed in another page’s comments, people will tend to assume a girl with a chest over a certain size must have gotten a boobjob, with all the assumptions that carries.
People rarely consider the reasons behind something when they are prejudiced about that thing.
If a strict vegan ever got turned into a zombie, what would he eat?
Easy. They’ve been massively suppressing all carnivorous urges for a long, long time. Dead, with rotting brains, suppressing such things doesn’t work so well. We’ve all seen what just alcohol can do in releasing inhibitions – with that pile of meat-loving let loose, all controls gone, that’s going to be the scariest, most ravenous zombie anyone’s ever seen!
They go after Pamela Isley’s “GRRRAAAIIINNNSSS”
Heh, followed a link to DA the other day, and then checked out the artists other works, and one of them was what you described: vegetarian zombies attacking Poison Ivy :D
Where I got it from. *Nods* Although one my favorites from him is the “Everest Incident”
Well, you know that an all-meat diet can cause constipation.
So maybe they want BRANNN! BRANNN!
Also, I had no idea that when I wrote the comment that someone had actually made a movie about it https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1380852/
and a youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PsYIkFoLEms
and some comics:
https://farleftside.com/2008/7-30-08.html,
https://vegetarianzombies.com/)
I think I may have independently created an already existing meme.
So…. here’s a fun fact: Hitler was a vegetarian. Maybe Sydney’s got a bit of an evil streak in her after all. ;-)
So… Does Daphne get on the list five times, or just once?
Although technically there is only one Harem/Daphne, fairly sure Sydney will consider them to be individual and only add Gothette for this entry
but Gothy wasn’t the one that blurted it out in the dining room. not sure which one it was, but it wasn’t Gothy
It was her brain though. Look two comment threads up for a good solution to that problem.
And Gothette was the 1/5th of a brain that started the thought process :D
There seems to be very little protest, or even comment, on the way Sydney just picked up three people and dragged them into the next room.
In spite of that, Sydney seems quite a bit more adult, all of a sudden. She’s expressing her feelings in a far more reasoned manner than her usual monosyllabic expressions, and setting clear boundaries for what she considers acceptable topics. Is panel 7 the longest single sentence she’s said in the series?
That depends on your definition of sentence… The long strings of cursing from early on didn’t have much in the way of periods, so I think those might be a touch longer if you consider them sentences.
I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have pegged her as a vegetarian. Also, did anyone see if Sydney ever gave that check she got from Joel to the bank, or if she at least still has it and hasn’t lost it somewhere?
I also feel I must add (because I forgot to add it in my first comment) that I like the idea of Sydney being a vegetarian, and I think it adds something interesting to her character. Also, now I am wondering about whether Sydney is also a pascatarians like AimlessSage talked about earlier.
Men, she’s vegetarian. I agree, as long as she doesn’t prostelyze about it, I don’t see it as a big issue. Heck, my brother is more of a pain with his diabetic diet than any vegetarian’s I’ve known.
Reminds me: Knew a woman years back at tech school who was a vegetariasn. She wasn’t in people’s faces about it, so no one gave her grief over it either. We were having a hot dog BBQ day once and I noticed she was just wasting a bun with onions, relish, and mustard. I asked her if she ate tofu dogs?
Her reply was priceless: “I’m a vegetarian, not a freak!”
I laughed pretty hard at that.
Damn autocorrect. That should be ‘eating’ not ‘wasting’!
Grr.
And ‘meh’ not ‘men’.
I think my tablet and I need to have a chat…
Granted, if you’re a meat eater, that is wasting. :p
I agree with your friend, sort. I can enjoy a meal w/o any meat in it, but I can’t abide veggie things that are pretending to be meat. Tofu cubes, yes. Tofu Bacon, Oh Hell No!
Perhaps people should be looking at this slightly differently.
—IF— Sidney has a fear of being bullied for being vegetarian, then the LAST people she would want to tell is a room full of “the toughest people on Earth”.
Of course, given what we have seen of the organization it shouldn’t be a problem (There is an ALIEN on the team for crying out loud).
Zack Tilly! (was going to say more, but just can’t get the thought to look/sound ‘right’)
Hrms….while I’m sure it was done primarily for comedic effort, I find it interesting how Sydney grabbed each woman differently with the
MolestorbLighthook.Gwen’s securely wrapped up in that she’s not going anywhere and her arms are restrained while still being placed in a comfortable position; Peggy’s secured enough to remove chances of being dropped, however her arms are free, restraints are loose, and she’s placed in a relaxed pose; Harem however, finds herself in a compromising and disorienting position.
Could almost be taken as a way to show how Sydney’s subconscious views them. Peggy’s a friend thus the relaxed and loosened grab; Gwen’s an unknown, in regards to how she may react and potential capabilities but hasn’t given Sydney a reason to treat her poorly; Harem however….
I agree, the gentleness is directly proportional to the sympathie :)
Seconded.
Sounds good here
BWAHAHAHAHA YEEEESSSSSSSS
So, okay, Sydney is a veggie. Why? Not a trivial question there as the answer gives a great deal of insight to her personality. Veggies basically fall into two groups – 1: Health which falls into several subcategories. 2: Philosophically opposed which includes PETA types who are against eating animals, cruelty etc. Regarding this last, most (all I have encountered anyway) tend to be pacifist, nonviolent types which seems to exclude Sydney. Extreme examples are Adolph Hitler as opposed to Gautama Buddha.
No way comparing her to Hitler, but I don’t see Sydney avoiding a nice juicy steak because of the cow’s big brown eyes.
I’m leaning towards health.
I don’t know of any diets for controlling ADD, but I do know caffeine helps some people, and cutting out sugar helps some. Perhaps her doctor suggested she try a non-meat diet to see if it’d moderate her tendencies, and it worked well enough, (even if only by placebo effect,) that she stuck with it.
Check out the Feingold diet (https://www.feingold.org/). You’d be surprised what can trigger or exacerbate ADHD.
Hmm, health reasons could be why, but I’m leaning toward the moral environmental view. That is the one that almost convinces me. (Actually, it does convince me, strictly speaking, but I figure the world is a lost cause anyway, so I’m gonna enjoy my meat while I can…)
Things are gloomy for the world, but whilst there is life there is hope. *
* Even if the world was ending, we might be able to build a space-ship and get off of it. Possibly. Although should I get a ticket for it, and Katie Melua did not, I would give her my seat.
I’m willing to bet pounds to pesos that it was Leon busting out the “Inconceivable!”
Equal odds Max would be first with the next line. You know the one.
Personally it makes me expect a sword-wielding masked man in black to come leaping to the rescue of our fair heroine. And I am not talking a ninja.
I see nothing wrong with Sydney being a vegetarian. Even if she was a militant vegan.
The difference is when it feels like the author is trying to force a way of thinking on the audience or a part of the character. It might be something hard to distinguish sometimes, but it’s an important difference.
So, willing to kill people to enforce her belief that killing is wrong?
Nonono, you misunderstand the militant vegans. To their mind, an animal’s life is worth more than a human’s. By far, oftentimes. So they feel perfectly justified in killing humans to protect animals. They’re just aware that the law would get in the way, so usually utilize other methods. Usually.
You make it sound like they are actually nice people, despite not being carnivores!
*wags tail*
Except if you are eating a bucket of chicken in front of their prostest
By their standards, they are – but that doesn’t mean much XD Hitler was a nice guy by his standards, I’m sure. Not comparing militant vegans to Hitler, just making a point. People rarely think that they are evil, or doing evil. Most people act in accordance to their own personal code of ethics (however strange that code may seem to others). Problems arise when said code of ethics does not mesh with the morals of the society they live in.
I find that this is a welcome character trait aslong as she doesn’t preach which i doubt she will. this is going to be even more enjoyable already
Considering she has gone this far without even hinting at it, and the fact she didn’t want anyone to know, seriously doubt she is suddenly going to start preaching about it
that is why I am happy
Sydney would probably like my New Mexican hot potatoes then. :) I went to NMSU, I know scoville levels on chile like you wouldn’t believe. They had to post it everywhere at that college, so you could not put yourself in the hospital if you ate a scorpion pepper inadvertently.
By far the most interesting thing on this page to me is the use of the Light Hook®. I wonder how far it can extend…
So, which team member is a Princess Bride fan?
You missed being first to catch that reference by at least 1 hour. Scroll up.
Vegetarians will one day lead to the extinction of cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, all edible animals, as when theyre no longer required for food, there is no use for them. We must stop these vegetarians before they get away with the extermination of all these species!!!
You give those genetic freaks far too much power/influence
Now the real question is, just how many of Harem’s forms just got added to the list? If it’s more then one, then the revenge…could very well be truly and completely epic…and as well, I think it just proves Sydney’s toughness to go all vegetarian and eat spicy like she does. The meat does tend to mute the purity of the flavor of pure spice at times with it’s own juicy goodness.
Ohh… pure cap in the popcorn…
If dosed with a “fire” she couldn’t escape..whould Harem teleport randomly trying to escape the burning?
i don’t think it will work out too well… i know it doesn’t for the Endermen caught in a rainstorm!
Since cows eat hay & grass, they are made of plants and should be ok for vegetarians to eat.
+1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9vxHN8_jSE
This cow would like a word with you.
Took a long time for the cheeping to stop! o_O
XD Awesome.
I had to join the host of thumbs down for that video, I am afraid. Tethering an animal to be eaten alive, just for entertainment purposes is the epitome of unnecessary cruelty. Especially when the one doing the eating will prolong the suffering by not being properly equipped to dispatch the victim rapidly.
Was the chick tethered? Didn’t notice that, was just grossed out by the eating and how long it took for the cheeping to stop
I didn’t see any tether. Just a cow snagging one chick from the crowd of them.
Besides, it’d be rather difficult to tether one of those fluffballs….
It is possible, just didn’t really see it here, but that may just have been the quality of the video
It is not immediately obvious, as there are other ropes around, to do with the cow. But the tether-line becomes apparent at 0:09 and pulls taught at 0:12. Once that tightening is noticed, it is incontrovertibly a tether. Prior to that, yea, if it was a happenstance, it would be funny. But now that you know how to spot the tether, it sheds different light on the clip.
The entire thing has been deliberately staged*. Presumably the owners were well aware that the cow had developed an aberrant habit. They, or people they knew, brought in people to witness it and set up the camera. Given that there is no hint of surprised reactions from the crowd you can easily infer that all the locals were anticipating the event. And, as you see, at the end, having great fun. Despite being there purely to seeing a helpless animal being terrorised. Plus you can witness the bird desperately struggling to escape, but being brought short. With the unpleasant consequence that follows.
And it is not like a cow would even get any nutrition for that, having stomachs purposed for processing vegetable matter not meat.
If that had happened in the UK, and the perpetrators were tracked down, they would likely be banned from keeping animals for many years, if not life. Plus would certainly face a hefty fine and likely prison time too.
* I do not blame other people for not noticing that. Other than being a photographer, my dad went on to become a film director. Some of which were documentaries. And he taught my brother and I how to look out for such staging. I no longer even look for it consciously, as such manipulation leaps out at me. It happens a lot, even in crowd scenes, for example. The very presence of a TV camera crew can spark the incident that they subsequently record, and then present as if it were spontaneous. And it is rife in nature documentaries, but can be well-intentioned and may be unavoidable for some filming.
Fortunately audiences are getting more aware of these issues, as you can see from the ratio of dislikes on the clip.
Ah. Yes, you are right, it does put a whole different perspective on the clip. Spontaneous random cow-happens-to-like-the-taste/texture-of-chicks is awesome. Animal abuse definitely not awesome.
The calf was not forced to eat the chick, unless you imply that it was deliberately, over many months, starved/deprived of it’s normal food to the state that it requires the consumption of chicken little
If you have a problem with that, what about fish vs duckling?
Or maybe deer vs bird was staged as well
I was referring to the abuse of the chick, by way of removing its fighting chance at fleeing.
If you can point out the tether used, I’d be willing to listen, but I don’t see one in either of the clips you mentioned.
The tether was in the earlier clip, namely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9vxHN8_jSE
The tether is near the cow’s mouth. First visible at 0:09 and then pulled tight to the mouth at 0:12.
Yeah, I saw it there. I was referring to the fish and deer clips, sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
Or, for a bit of payback: birds eating a giraffe (warning: extremely graphic, no, not giraffe-ic :P)
When I look at that and think of maggots, it makes me wonder if the commentator is imposing the wrong interpretation on the incident. If they are only eating rotting meat they are actually cleaning the wound. Certainly the giraffe does not seem to be responding as if in pain.
Looking at the other comments on the video though, it seems that those birds are known for keeping wounds open to feed on the blood.
But, if there are two species of such birds, one of which restricts itself to a role which promotes good health in it’s symbiotic partner. And the other of which act as blood-sucking parasites, I can see that the former might actually evolve a more successful relationship long-term. Given that populations of the latter would kill off their hosts in times of hardship.
Of course, such hypothesis would also require the extinction of the human race. Or some change in our society whereby we could actually have confidence that there will be such wild species around for evolution to actually operate on.
That impression is, sadly, just an illusion, created by a simple filming technique. One shot being of a cow eating grass with birds milling around, as you describe. Perfectly normal and innocent. Then they cut to the staged shot.