An unsent letter from 2013

I am a capitalist. Though many might claim otherwise. My principal belief that motivates this counter-claim is that I do not believe that increasing ones bottom line is an argument for morality by itself. "I did action X because it generates more income" is not acceptable, in my mind, as an argument for worth to further the claim that action X is moral.

A business entity providing goods and services to customers for income is the basis of our economy. It's a good idea, at its heart: potential customers get access to more than they otherwise would and in achieving this, the entity gains some monetary reward. Over time this has grown both in size and complexity to the point that analysing modern businesses in this way is an over-simplification at best. But of the many things that are missing, is something so simple one might have included it in the original statement. Morality. Ethics. That definition of an entity would include a guild of assassins but, for such an extreme example, I'm confident few would think assassins have a moral place in a modern economy.

The argument of the bottom line has allowed people to get away with too much. Ridiculous examples like assassins guilds aside, there are still sufficiently unethical business entities in existence today such that most people would garner consensus on their amorality. Pyramid schemes, the motivations for occupy Wall St., the "businesses" of corrupt politicians and gangsters are all primarily motivated by increasing their income.

Puppy mills justify their deplorable treatment of humanity's favourite animal by claiming to be meeting a need that can't be met by animal breeders and handlers. A similar argument is made by abattoir workers' treatment of livestock before they are killed. "We need to electrocute these cows before they are killed so they don't feel the pain of bleeding out as a result their throats cut by a circular saw" is a commonly accepted argument that is rarely followed up by "And what is the reason for hanging them upside down in suspended suspense so that they can watch the cows ahead of them be electrocuted and slaughtered?". In both cases, the point could be made that in order to serve up the unimaginable quantity of meat we consume, a degree of unpalatable slaughter automation (Incidentally, Slaughtomation would be an incredible name for a horror film) is necessary. But, to me at least, this sounds like the age-old argument of "The end justifies the means". We all want to eat meat so we slaughter them by the tonne and treat animals cruelly. We all want to own a dog, so we produce them like they were factory products and treat animals cruelly.

So in order to increase supply to satisfy modern quantities of demand (and there is a hell of a lot of demand for meat and puppies, in particular in the wake of a PETA campaign or film featuring a dog), we need to sacrifice outdated concepts of morality and ethics. But there is a third element to the concepts of supply and demand: price. If price increases, demand drops. Unfortunately, demand dropping means sub-optimal income for the business (they sell less than would be the most efficient amount to sell for any price). So in reality it isn't about meeting huge demands at all; it's about meeting those huge demands while still maximising income. Unfortunately for puppy mills and the meat industry, "the profit margin justifies the means" is not an argument with established efficacy.

Yesterday I bought half a kilo of beef for $3. A week before I bought a kilo for $4. Both were on 'special' at the supermarket and market respectfully, but as I understand it 'special' means selling at reduced profit (never at a loss). That retail price is competitive with that of many vegetables.
Vegetables that would have been easier to grow, are better for you (relative to adding more meat to the average diet) and are better for the environment i.e. less land used and plants convert CO2 to O2 and (most) don't produce methane.

This isn't an argument for vegetarianism, but it is an acknowledgement that we are meeting our incredibly high meat demand using methods that ethically we would condemn if we weren't able to ignore them. We could meet the same demand, a higher one in fact, by supplementing our meat consumption with some yummy meat-free dishes without increasing overall dietary costs for the average consumer, quite possibly decreasing them in fact.

As for the industrialised state of the pet industry, puppy mills and their equivalents don't just cater for people seeking genuine pet ownership, pets ready availability in pet stores (one step away from a drive-through experience) allows for our whims and wishes to get the better of us whenever we are exposed to a cute puppy on an ad to make us want to buy breakfast cereal, toilet paper, or paint. And we are exposed to such things constantly. By contacting breeders and waiting for pets availability, or by applying to go through the adoption process, it gives us time to reflect on our reasons for wanting a pet and whether we are prepared for the responsibilities and downsides that come with it. Pounds, breeders, rescue groups, and private owners all vet potential owners as well, limiting the damage (to the best of their ability) to the animal by not placing them with an unsuitable owner. 

This would be further improved by us enacting some social change to do away with toxic notions like pets being 'practice for having children' or as toys for children. Encouraging couples who want to evaluate each other as potential parents to use more ethical and effective means of doing so, for example, honest conversation - an excellent life skill for interpersonal relationships among other things. I'm not saying we should do away with pets for kids, that is laughable, but to make them less readily accessible in the form of pet stores that enable impulse purchases of living creatures would also put a small burden on us as a society to accept that unavailability. While pet stores are great for entertaining children at a mall or shopping centre, perhaps petting zoos or designated pet areas could substitute as a more ethical and wholesome activity. And probably improve the accessibility of malls for those who do decide to take on pets and don't want to leave their "beloved" practice-child in a hot car while they do their shopping.

Ultimately, my argument is not only could we easily afford ethics and morality, we could do so more affordably and healthily than we are now, and we could feel better that we aren't keeping our despicable practices out of sight and mind. It wouldn't even be that difficult and we could still maximise for income as capitalists are always going to. We would just need to reflect on our practices and no longer indemnify their ethicality by the argument of the bottom line.

Toxic Oil Syndrome

I was at Victoria Market the other day and saw a stall vendor move one of the non-halal chickens into the halal chicken tray after someone had purchased the existing one. Being an atheist, I don't much care whether I eat that which has been forbidden by the gods or not but some people would care. And I think everyone should have the right to make an informed decision regarding their purchase. Even if I think they are wasting their money. I'm looking at you, Apple Macintosh users.

Now I have to admit, I could have confronted the butcher/vendor but I did not mostly because I did not expect it to achieve anything more than perhaps her temporarily moving it back. But she was doing the Wrong Thing. Hardly scandal of the year, and sometimes Wrong Things are too appealing to refuse, but the Wrong Thing nonetheless. I would be astounded to hear that the person who bought that chicken went home and got smote by their god for violating his arbitrary rules regarding slaughtering some living things but not other living things.

And yet, the right to make an informed purchase is far more important than we would normally assume. In Spain there was some kind of embargo on olive oil - I don't know the details, look it up. And what was happening was people were importing some other kind of oil (rapeseed perhaps?) that was not fit for consumption, but could be made "fit for consumption" if you bathed it in chemicals first.

So they did exactly this, then claimed it was regular old olive oil and people bought tons of it and cooked it, ate it, used it to lubricate their sex, whatever you normally do with olive oil. Everything was great, the vendors were making money, circumventing an embargo, presumably no one who bought the olive oil was unhappy with it... and then... the consumers of the oil began to express symptoms of "toxic oil syndrome" (not a pre-existing condition, but one that doctors made up to describe the bullshit that was happening to them).

The main problem here is that each individual in the chain has done Nothing Wrong. The consumers thought they were buying olive oil, used it as olive oil. The importers bought the rapeseed oil expecting it was going to be used to clean engine parts. The retailers cleaned the oil in the way they thought would remove all of its dangerous constituents, and then sold it as "Olive Oil" expecting consumers to not know the difference (consumers didn't by the by). Had they sold it as "chemically-cleaned rapeseed oil" then they would have done Nothing Wrong either, and blame would shift to the consumers who substituted questionable product for olive oil.

Informed purchases are more than just "something nice" that all businesses should do. It should be the law. In a lot of cases it is the law. But then what is with "extra light" olive oil (it has nothing to do with 'extra virgin' or 'low fat' by the way), meat pies made out of pig snout and camel lips, soft drink with 16 teaspoons of sugar per glass, or "cage-free" eggs?

Our government really needs to pull its finger out of its arse and address the lawlessness of labelling and consumer confusion.

Now even fucking Google is trying to put me in a box

• "This video is not available in your country."
  
• "Willkommen bei YouTube!
  Vorgeschlagene Sprache (von uns festgelegt): Deutsch
  Du kannst die Sprache über die Links oben neben dem YouTube-Logo ändern.
  Klicke auf "OK", um die Einstellung zu übernehmen, oder auf "Abbrechen", um die Website in Englisch anzuzeigen.

WHAT BULLSHIT IS THIS?? Everything I love about the internet seems to be going to shit lately. Why would I only want to look at videos made by people from my country or my language? If I wanted to talk to the people around me, I wouldn't do it through fucking Youtube. Youtube, and most social networking sites, chat rooms, and probably even most websites are all about people who don't live down the road from you. It's so fucking awesome to chat/play games/watch videos with people from Karachi, Milan, Shanghai, Antarctica... ok, its not always awesome. But it has the potential to be awesome. You can share opinions about politics, video games, culture, dodgy companies and annoying bastards.

Your sex, race, age, religion all count for nothing unless you specifically choose it to. Sure, that leads to situations made famous by anti-technology activists like 60 year old paedophiles pretending to be 11 year old girls. OK, just as a side note here (and its sort of relevant in a way) why the FUCK is 'paedophile' supposedly incorrect spelling according to the US spelling dictionary? I know they spell it 'pedophile' (yeah that's better underline that one bitch). But surely, surely, surely, surely they should consider the CORRECT spelling as at least an alternate and not INCORRECT. Pfft fucking ridiculous. But yeah, somewhat relevant - why would I encounter that problem unless I was on the internet? It's not like I would walk through Grosvenor Square and have someone stop me and say 'excuse me sir, paedophile should be spelled without an a'. And then I'd right click him and select Dictionary -> English_AU. You can be yourself on the internet, without fear of anything being unladylike if you're a lady or too white if you're white or stupid if you're American. There's also no fear of retribution: if you're an arsehole by nature, you can be an arsehole.

Being on the internet, being an internet personality, its an international thing. You aren't bound by rules or laws of any specific country (except sometimes of wherever the server is located). On the internet, youre not part of a country, ethnic group, sex or anything you cant avoid being part of in real life. The beauty of this chaotic, uncensored, raw environment is amazing and boundless. Sure, letting people do whatever they want also creates its problems. But that just makes it interesting and having experienced countless viruses, including loss of control of computer, data loss, components being fried, I don't think you can say I haven't yet experienced the worst of it. And yes, I've also encountered tubgirl, kitten stomping, prolapse pics, cp, snuff, church of fudge, swap.avi, pain olympics, pretty much everything.

The internet is fucking great, now Australia is trying to censor and moderate everything thats going on. Fucking wicked. Obedient K Rudd will most likely cower to the demands of Sony et al, and force ISPs to block torrents as well as porn. Facebook will start to cost money, or be taken over by Microsoft and crammed with even more ads than it has now. Wikipedia won't be open to editing by anyone. In fact, possibly, Australia will block it altogether. And Google, the company thats supposed to have a shred of good will and decency, they are putting me in a box. I can't watch Australian videos because I'm in fucking England. This is such bullshit. And Tor takes a million fucking years to download youtube videos. FOR FUCKS SAKE!!

Iraq war: Inappropriate conduct and the obligatory blame game

This post is in response to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/middleeast/28site.html?_r=1
http://unseenwar.com/ (cache of http://www.nowthatsfuckedup.com/bbs/viewforum23-0-50.html , this site has been redirected to the Florida Sheriff's department)

Concerning the posts of dead Iraqis and Afghans (whether they are Al-Qaeda or civilians is unclear, but it appears to be a bit of both), the images and attitudes toward dead people are quite disturbing.

People seem to be mainly concerned about the fact that they were posted on the internet though (because as we all know, the internet is a safe place where stuff like this doesn't exist). So firstly: fuck off! If you support the war in Iraq but are disgusted by evidence of it then you need to seriously reconsider your idea of what happens in war. Having your 20 year old citizens fight on your behalf while not having to think about it is probably great if you are happy remaining ignorant. What you are upset about is that these photos are informing you of what you are supporting.

Besides of that, my problem is the blaming of the photo posters. The problem is (a) that these things happened in the first place, which would be the fault of the US government, and (b) the attitude people have toward Iraqis, Afghans, Muslims and insurgents (which is the dirty word for people partaking in a rebellion), which is also the fault of the US government and in the soldiers' case also the US military.

So why are the soldiers getting punished for informing the rest of the world as to what is going on? Even if they do it with their perverted 'look ma, I killed an Iraqi' motivation, why do these pictures need to be censored while much worse pictures remain on the internet? Basically, the US government doesn't want the bad publicity.

So the US government rushes to jump on the opportunity to blame their own soldiers. The same young men they have forced to risk their lives for their cause. The same men they have brainwashed to think exactly what they are expressing on that website.

Australia treats you like a child: banned content in Australia

No film, book or video game should be "refused classification" i.e. banned in Australia. We have a range of ratings from those suitable for small children right up to those unsuitable for Australian states. Adults have the right to chose what they will be exposed to, and Australia does not have the right to
chose on their behalf.

Between 1930 and 1940 the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) banned films because they discussed communism, blasphemy or simply were "not in the public interest" (this film dealt with child birth). Currently the reasons the OFLC use are a little better: Cannibal Holocaust is a very graphic 80's film about cannibalism and Ken Park is a film about a group of adolescents with abusive homes; you can see the reasons for banning but it still comes down to Australia's belief that Australians don't have the ability to chose what they want to watch.

It's understandable why Wolf Creek or Underbelly would be banned until the respective trials were closed, but we not only have an R18+ rating (the commonly accepted age where people are considered adults in Australia) but a further X18+ which can not be sold in Australian states (only territories). So there is no argument that the reason is that some material is unacceptable for children (of course there is a lot of films that are unacceptable) as the rating scheme goes high enough to exclude all non-adults.

But it is important to be very careful with what is given the highest rating and what is banned altogether. In China, films and books are banned if they represent the government in anything but a positive light, if they suggest Tibet or Taiwan are their own independent countries. I doubt it is like that currently in Australia, but the fact that we could go in that direction is incredibly concerning.

So it comes down to: Australia believes Australian adults can't choose media that they will think acceptable. If someone will be offended by graphic imagery of cannibalism, then I would think they wouldn't watch a film named Cannibal Holocaust. Even if the content is not obvious in the title, it is most likely obvious in the blurb; but at the very least: it will be obvious in the listed reasons to why the film received the classification - maybe R18+ high level violence, depictions of cannibalism, sexual references

So this brings me to the reason why I bothered to write this at all.... Fallout 3 has been refused classification by the OFLC because it contains drug use. Now, there a second problem here: video games do not have an R18+ rating so anything that does not fit into the MA category or below will be refused classification. This is a string in censorship of otherwise good games: Manhunt, Postal 2, GTA SA, GTA 4. The first pair for violence, the second for sexual content.

I haven't even got onto books yet, and at this stage it looks like I might give it a miss. You may think, well books and literature are one thing but video games are different. If anything, video games should be LESS subject to censorship laws: an FBI study showed that only 12% of psychopaths played violent video games while 24% watched violent movies and 30-something% read violent books. An Australian study showed that the playing of violent video games does not render children prone to violent behaviour.

Basically, if Australia thinks that Australian adults can't appropriately make a choice about what to watch then they are treating them like children. Children can only watch G or PG movies. Similarly, Australians can only watch up to R-rated movies and play up to MA-rated games, and some things are totally unsuitable for the Australian adults mind like blasphemy, cannibalism and drug use. Who gave them this right to choose on our behalf? Who gave them the right to treat us like children? Oh... right.

Genetically Modified Opinions

Many acronyms strike fear into the hearts of the uneducated, but few more than GM and DNA. But what is this DNA? Will it spread through the GMOs and contaminate our existence? Will it unlock secrets that disprove the existence of our God of convenience?

Most people believe nothing of the sort. In fact, most people who are against the consumption of genetically modified foods hold this belief because they believe not enough testing has been done. Fifteen years ago, when the term 'Frankenfood' was coined and struck fear through the hearts of the masses once again, they would have been right. But the massive economic benefits that genetic engineering can provide, have caused many companies and research labs to go research-crazy (which is rarely a bad thing), and now, doctors and research fellows across the globe carefully prepare to present their findings to the plethora of consumer and agricultural boards.

Technofear aside for one second, why are we even considering GM foods to begin with? What makes them any better than our current food, or selectively bred animals and plants?
Well, because the technology essentially alters the way that food is constructed, humans can construct the plant or animal in any way they please...

• GM plants can be made pest-resistant, reducing or eliminating the need to use harmful pesticides. This has been proven, and because of this Amish communities in the US have adopted GM seeds to eliminate their need to buy harsh chemicals.
• In areas of the world where diseases or mineral deficiencies are especially prominent, GM crops can be made to contain immuno-accelerators or excess of a certain mineral, to help with that area's health crises.
  
• Meat can be made healthier, more succulent and more massive (so eg. less cows will have to die for the same quantity of meat), similarly fruit can be made larger, tastier and cheaper. In light of the western world's obesity epidemics, this is perhaps the most beneficial aspect of genetically modified foods.
  

There are only two understandable reasons to not embrace these, and many more, benefits some of which, we desperately require:
The first is that many years ago, tests were conducted that showed experiments of a GM strain of potato caused growth problems in rats. Since then, this test has been shown to be false, and many similar tests have done to ensure the safety of every recombinant-DNA food that is even to be considered being put on the market. It is very good that society halted the release of GM foods until enough testing had been done, and the proper organisational and governmental boards have been put into place. But now, we are ready for GM foods to be released into the public market.
The second is that people have a problem with humans 'doing God's work', now the existence of God and the complex relationship religion has with science is left for another article, but consider the example above, the Amish, one of the most conservative and fundamental Christian groups of the world have embraced GM food. Then what is the problem with those myopic white-coats 'playing God'? Is it that they will have power, which should be reserved for judges, policemen and politicians? Or do we just think that, sooner or later, a scientist will create a homicidal strain of tomato that will serve as his minions in his quest to become ruler of the universe?