Peter Sunde: 'In prison, you become brain-dead'
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
That part of the story is really fishy to me. TPB has roughly the same type of advertising as one of the many porn tube sites. But a porn tube visitor easily costs the site tens of megabytes in streaming video while a torrent tracker only has to serve a few 10-30kb large torrent files. Yet the tube sites appear to be able to make some money, but TPB with less than 1% of the bandwidth costs/visitor couldn't?
It appears that the TPB guys are claiming that the hosting revenue earned by the second company should not be treated as the ill-gotten revenue earned by the TPB, even though they owned and controlled both companies. And indeed, there are laws in most nations and internationally addressing precisely those sorts of sketchy relationships.
Of course, that doesn't mean that even a few weeks in prison isn't atrocious. But a lot of people have been through much more, sometimes when they weren't even guilty, and didn't have a voice to be heard.
"He went to jail for piracy? I better stop pirating!"
"He went to jail for piracy? I better be more careful!"
> “People ask if I would have done anything different if I could. The answer is no. This has been nothing more than five months of wasted time.”
Prison is supposed to be a place of rehabilitation. If there's no rehabilitation, there's no point to it.
Strange timing. He was just arrested:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/pirate-bays-fredrik-neij-caught-tha...
The article is just whining by someone who tried to escape his prison sentence for two years and after getting caught (and then bragging about destroying evidence) is shocked that the system treats him as not being very trustworthy.
;)
The argument I alluded to is that there is an internally consistent viewpoint in which the government action at hand is genuinely corrupt and supporting crony capitalism. In this worldview, one that I think there's a strong chance that Sunde adheres to, he's not being whiney, he's taking rational actions.
But that said, I think there are times to give up on your vegan diet having to do with the culture that you find yourself immersed in. This has nothing to do with prisons, but if you're traveling in a culture where veganism is unheard of you should be a good guest and not push your beliefs on them, making your hosts uncomfortable. Just eat the meat.
In the West veganism is a luxury. A fetish for the rich and it is classist. Even outside of the West eggs and animal fat (not meat) are an important diet of many poor people.
Now in the west, eating only plants is an expensive luxury.
The implication here seems to be that tradition is a valid justification for beliefs and practices, whereas personal ethics are not; and indeed, anyone pursuing the latter is worthy of stereotyping and derision.
To put this thought in other terms: In the context of contemporary culture, wouldn't you call the Buddha a "hipster"?
"Wasting" food when you're trying to send a signal not to produce so much of one type of food is not really waste.
I know I'm assuming, but like many wealthy westerners you probably travel to poorer parts of the world. Believe me, you were consuming animal protein or fat even if you were told otherwise. So what did you accomplish other than to show your elitism?
I don't think veganism is a particularly moral or ethical value. It reminds me of a conversation I was a third-party to where an American kept expressing how happy she was that a South American tribal chief was keeping to their "natural" lifestyle, while the chief kept expressing that they want schools and opportunities for his people. They were talking through each other.
Some paths of Hinduism also hold vegetarianism as an ideal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_and_religion
PS: World wide there are ~250million to 1 billion vegans depending on definitions. AKA is eating insects ok?
Edit: I'm responding to your recent edit. No, eating insects is not vegan. Why would you think that? Crickets and cockroaches are quite tasty with soy and sesame oil but not vegan.
The subject of the article would save his health and mind if he consumed eggs and milk.
"Dietary vegans (or strict vegetarians) refrain from consuming animal products, not only meat but, in contrast to ovo-lacto vegetarians, also eggs, dairy products and other animal-derived substances. The term ethical vegan is often applied to those who not only follow a vegan diet, but extend the vegan philosophy into other areas of their lives, and oppose the use of animals and animal products for any purpose.[4] Another term used is environmental veganism, which refers to the avoidance of animal products on the premise that the harvesting or industrial farming of animals is environmentally damaging and unsustainable.[5]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism
PS: Also if you actaully read the link: "Jains are either lacto-vegetarians or vegans."
I wonder if you feel the same way about Orthodox Jews or Muslims eating pork.
But surely you can see why vegans, who do believe animals' rights are very important, would not see any more merit to your advice than you would to advice that encouraged you to abandon your deeply held values because they're inconvenient.
I think western wealthy vegans don't have particularly strong morals or ethical values and are vegan for other elitist and classist reasons. I think if they were exposed to the real world they would have a more practical (and Buddhist) outlook on diet.
I don't think they particularly care about animal rights either. You can have a moral and ethical existence and still eat eggs and animal fat.
I don't usually like to bring myself into things, but since we're getting into people's thoughts, I'll just be explicit here: I do not believe one can lead a fully moral existence while having animals killed or abused for your convenience. I'm not trying to force this on anyone, but I'm not going to have anyone force it out of me either. You disagree with this belief, and that is your right, but to assume that I secretly know your system of morality is right and mine is wrong seems incredibly pompous to me. I believe what I believe just as strongly as you believe what you do.
Even in the u.s. you can eat animal products where the animals lead healthy lives.
Thus, cows are constantly bred. Any male calves are sold off for meat (usually veal which in some countries consists of considerably cruel rearing practices -- if not used for veal they're just shot) and the female calves are used to continue the milk herd.
And that's just considering the dairy products from good farms.
It is not a binary choice between just loss of freedom and loss of freedom plus compromise of one's dietary practices.
It seems odd that we would be assigning the same punishment regimes to people so pacifist that they won't even eat plankton as we assign to people who destroy human lives with nary an inkling of remorse.
Veganism is something I can understand and respect. The morality of state justice, on the other hand, is far less defensible when you look past its well-groomed public image. Depending on your locale, the prisoners in your nearest prison may be treated with less respect than the animals in your closest slaughterhouse. In that light, making morality-based appeals to the prison kitchen seems almost pointless.
Pork can be easily avoided, whilst other meat and animal products are widely used by the food industry (Food additives) that avoiding such products isn't as easy for Vegans.
Except that's obviously wrong because plenty of poor people have strict dietary requirements.