The Argument for Childlessness

Having children is a vote of confidence in society. If you have optimism in society and think humanity is all peace and roses, then why not have a child. That child will grow up and then face a beautiful world.

But who are we kidding? You'd have to be a dumbass to not see the corruption and rot in society. If you bring a child into this world, it is tantamount to child abuse. You are exposing an innocent child to a world so evil and depraved that another lifetime of suffering is guaranteed.

The best way to reduce suffering is to slow population growth, which means you do not have children.

Not having children not only reduces suffering but is also good for the environment. You help the forests, the mountains, the air, the ocean, the trees, the rivers, and the animals. Nature is innocent, and she suffers due to the virus of humanity.

Not only is childlessness good for humanity and for the environment, but it is also good for your personal finances, so by not having children, you are not only engaging in a selfless act but you are also engaging in a selfish act. It is both selfless and selfish. You are doing something morally right and getting rewarded with hard cash and freedom for it!

Right makes might.

What Do I Do If I Hate Humanity?

Stop breeding.

Every baby you make is a vote for humanity, and humanity has proven itself to be absolutely corrupt.

Humans must go on a birthstrike.

Save all your money for yourself so that you can shield yourself from the degeneracy of society. It is time to euthanize humanity slowly by not breeding. Becoming financially independent is easy and quick and doesn't require any work. Not have a family to look after and especially having children is an easy way to achieve financial independence.

Both men and women should focus on work and focus on investing so that they can live off their investments.  

Why bring a child into a world that is beyond repair? Don't have children, pocket the cash for yourself, and live a life of luxury and freedom. By doing this you set an example for others.

Q&A: Is Veganism Unnatural and Unhealthy?

Question: 

If being vegan necessitates having to eat food that have been fortified with nutrients artificially just to maintain a healthy body, does that mean the vegan diet is unhealthy?

Answer:

No, the vegan diet is healthy. Vitamin B12 is a necessary nutrient that does not come from plants. However, vitamin B12 is also not an animal product. Rather, vitamin B12 is derived from bacteria. As the vegan diet does not forbid food derived from bacteria, vitamin B12 in fortified food or from pills can be taken as part of a vegan diet.

In terms of whether taking an unnatural food is unhealthy, the answer is no. Processed or unnatural food is not necessarily unhealthy. This is the "appeal to nature" fallacy. There are no toxicology reports that prove that vitamin B12 is toxic and there is no scientific evidence that food that is processed is necessarily more toxic than food that is unprocessed.

What is natural?

There is significant industrialization nowadays that it's very difficult to know what is natural or unnatural food.

The main problem with the term "natural" is that it is not scientific. There is no consistent definition.

Natural foods and all natural foods are widely used terms in food labeling and marketing with a variety of definitions, most of which are vague. The term is often assumed to imply foods that are minimally processed and all of whose ingredients are natural products (in the chemist's sense of that term), but the lack of standards in most jurisdictions means that the term assures nothing. In some countries, the term “natural” is defined and enforced. In others, such as the United States, it has no meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_foods

Most people believe that a natural product is one that has not been chemically altered or processed. However, even cooking a product chemically alters it, and so do we classify the cooked beans we ate as natural or not?

Some go as far as to say that a natural product is not cooked and is completely raw (see raw foodism). Natural food is only natural if you can pick it from the ground or from a tree and there is no human intervention thereafter.

However, even with this raw food definition, there is a problem because raw and unprocessed food is not necessarily healthy.

Death cap mushrooms

Death cap mushroom are very natural. You pick it from the ground and do not process it in any way. However, if you eat a death cap mushroom, you will die.



Take another example. A multivitamin is highly processed yet it is healthy. The Harvard School of Public Health recommends you take a multivitamin every day.

Then there is water. Natural water is water from a pond. Pond water can provide us with nutrients. For example, pond water contains vitamin B12.

If vitamin B12 is found in pond water, why not drink pond water?

Pond water is likely to also contain dirt and feces. It is cleaner and healthier, rather than drinking natural pond water, to drink water from a tap, bottled water, or filtered water, all of which are processed and unnatural.

Of course, filtered water does not contain vitamin B12. However, vitamin B12 pills do contain vitamin B12.

Why not just take vitamin B12 pills?

Many will argue that vitamin B12 pills are not natural. But tap water or bottled water is not natural either. Pond water is natural. Do these people drink pond water rather than tap water?

Pond water may contain vitamin B12 but it also contains harmful germs. Likewise, meat contains vitamin B12 but also saturated fat and trans fat.

Supplements are not necessarily unhealthy

Some supplements are healthy and some supplements are unhealthy. Death cap mushrooms are natural but toxic. Aspirin is artificial, processed, but healthy.

As I said, tap water is unnatural and may even have flouride in it. Even salt is commonly fortified with iodine. Why is everything else in our lives unnatural (even non-vegan food) but we demand natural vegan food?

Is it just an excuse?

Conclusion

It is very hard to find food that is natural. Chances are, food is processed to some degree. Even if we grow a banana, we are taking seeds, sunlight, water, etc and then processing these in soil to grow a banana. If we did something chemically similar in a laboratory, would it be natural or not? Chemical reactions happen everywhere and humans intervene to start these chemical reactions. What really matters is not whether something is natural or not but whether it is toxic or not or if it is healthy.

How Much Money Will You Save If You Don't Have Children?

Choosing to not have children was not a hard decision for me. It is good for the world and for the planet. Lower population growth fixes many problems in the world, which has now become overpopulated. Here are the wise words of MTGOStark:

The earth has a limited amount of space, limited amount of resources. If we consume more than the earth can regenerate in a given period of time, then we are on a finite timescale. Earth can possibly last for as much as billions more years with sustainable human activity, as little as a few hundred with unsustainable. 

Something like nuclear [power] would help in the medium-term, but it doesn't help the social problems that come with overpopulation, such as dissatisfaction and social strife that we are experiencing now. 

Overpopulation is relevant even if you are a nihilist or a loner, because a) with our current technology growth you might actually live to see the end of fossil fuels, and b) overpopulation affects the world you're already living in, not just the future. 

We are currently on track to use up all our oil and natural gas by the year 2200. Estimates like that are usually off, but even if we are generous and tack on a few hundred more years, it's still not very much. If we want humanity to survive until the next millennium and beyond, we need to consume less, and the easiest way to do that would be to curb population growth.

But I want to talk about the personal benefits of not having children. Not having babies gives you immense wealth and freedom, so it's good for society and good for you personally as well.

I know of a man in his 40s who is in middle management who is single, never married, and childless, and he drives a Lamborghini Huracan and always wears luxury clothes. He has zero debt. Meanwhile, his peers with similar modest incomes are all married but are drowning in debt, always stressed, wear cheap and tattered clothes, and drive old bombs. They talk about how they are frugal and minimalists, but it's obvious they say that because they blew all their money on a wife and kids so they have nothing leftover for themselves, so glorifying poverty makes them feel better that their resources have been plundered.

Bad Tasting Almond Milk

When it comes to veganism, I believe in replacement. Veganism should not be a sacrifice. You simply take an animal product (such as cows milk) and simply replace it with a plant products (such as soy milk or almond milk).

Lately I have noticed many cafes in Melbourne, Australia giving customers the option of using almond milk in their coffee. However, a few days ago I tried an almond latte at a cafe that has only recently offered almond milk (after I unsuccessfully tried to order one), and it tasted bad. To be honest, it tasted like dairy milk. Just to be sure, I ordered another almond latte from them and watched them make it. They definitely used almond milk. The almond milk brand they used was Almond Breeze Barista Blend.

I kept trying different almond milk lattes from different cafes until I found one that was right for me.

The lesson here is rest almond milk is variable. There are many different types if almond milk on the market. If one type of almond milk or almond milk coffee doesn't taste right, simply try another. Don't give up on almond milk.

Is Evil Innate in Humans?

When I ate meat, I remember I ate meat very freely. I may have known that what I was doing was exploitative and that I was oppressing weaker beings, but people, when they are in the habit of doing something that they are addicted to or that benefits them, when it takes effort to change, they will naturally just rationalize it away.

If you were born into a family that owned and benefited from the slave trade, do you think you’d be likely to grow up and have moral qualms about it? No, if the opportunity is there for easy gain, people will usually take it and they will justify it after to themselves or to others.

Animal Protein vs Plant Protein

There are many who believe that eating a plant-based diet will leave them protein deficient.

It is easy to understand why many would believe this is the case. Below is a list of food ranked by the PDCAAS (protein digestibility corrected amino acid score), which is the measure of protein quality used by the World Health Organization. The list comes from Wikipedia.

1-1.21 cow's milk
1-1.18 eggs
1 casein (milk protein)
1 soy protein
1 whey (milk protein)
0.99 mycoprotein
0.92 beef
0.91 soy
0.87 Sacha Inchi Powder
0.82 pea protein isolate
0.78 chickpeas and soybeans
0.75 black beans
0.74 tubercles
0.73 vegetables

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Digestibility_Corrected_Amino_Acid_Score

Any food with a PDCAAS of 1.0 is a "perfect protein." In 1990, the FAO/WHO decided that "proteins having values higher than 1.0 would be rounded or 'leveled down' to 1.0 as scores above 1.0 are considered to indicate the protein contains essential amino acids in excess of the human requirements."

As you can see on the list, there are plenty of vegan options on that list that are equivalent to animal products. For example, rather than eat beef (0.92) you can eat soy (0.91). Rather than drink whey protein (1.0), you can drink soy protein (1.0).

However, someone eating, say, black beans, may believe that he would become protein deficient because black beans have a PDCAAS of 0.75.

However, people generally don't eat the same food all the time. A key limitation of the PDCAAS is that it doesn't take into consideration the fact that if you eat two or more foods with low PDCAAS, the combination of these foods can create a perfect PDCAAS of 1.0.

This concept is explained in the article: "[G]rain protein has a PDCAAS of about 0.4 to 0.5, limited by lysine. On the other hand, it contains more than enough methionine. White bean protein (and that of many other pulses) has a PDCAAS of 0.6 to 0.7, limited by methionine, and contains more than enough lysine. When both are eaten in roughly equal quantities in a diet, the PDCAAS of the combined constituent is 1.0, because each constituent's protein is complemented by the other."

Should we worry about protein deficiency? Is anyone protein deficient?

The video below by Dr Michael Gregor shows that statistically speaking, 97% of Americans are deficient in fiber whereas only 3% of Americans are deficient in protein. For the average person, getting enough fiber is far more of a concern than getting enough protein. Just about everyone gets more than enough protein.

Soy Milk is Healthy

There's nothing wrong with soy milk. The studies show that soy reduces the risk of prostate cancer in men, and in women it reduces the risk of breast cancer. The cancer risk reduction is caused by the phytoestrogens in soy. The scare that phytoestrogens feminize men is also overblown given that the affix "phyto-" means "plant" and plant estrogens have weak to no effect on humans. It is animal estrogen such as estradiol in dairy milk that has been shown to reduce testosterone levels in men, and there are many studies that suggest dairy milk may increase prostate cancer risk although this is not conclusive. Bottom line is if you're really concerned, just drink almond milk.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20378106

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19496976

Review of "Nosedive" Episode of "Black Mirror" - Netflix

Last night I watched Black Mirror on Netflix. I watched an episode called Nosedive, which I thought was brilliant. Basically it is about a woman living in a social media obsessive world where everyone is given a rank. Everyone wears smart contact lenses that have facial recognition software, so when you see someone, you instantly know what their social media rank is. Social media rank is used to discriminate against people. For example, hardly anyone talks to those with low rankings. What is horrifying about this episode of Black Mirror is that this is not too different to how the world works today. We have social media ranking us all the time, although it is not as sophisticated as it is in this movie. It might be easy to think that you can simply delete social media apps from your phone and be done with it, but it’s not as simple as that, in my opinion. Social media is not the problem, I think. The problem is that, in order to be financially successful, you must be a conformist. People have been conforming and showing off and putting down others ever since the dawn of humanity, but social media merely allows us to do it with greater efficiency.

Most people just accept it. “It’s how the world works,” they would say, or they’d say, “You have to play the game.” This is true, but only in the early stages. In my opinion, you need to conform initially in order to save up enough money to buy enough ETFs to live off dividends, but once you are living off dividends, you are a free man, and you can do what you want.

You must be a slave in order to escape from slavery.

The Strong Oppress the Weak

Many people say that in nature the strong oppress the weak. For example, a lion will kill other animals and eat them. They argue that this is justification for them, as humans, killing animals and eating them.

It is true that the strong oppress the weak. However, although many people use this to justify themselves oppressing beings weaker than themselves, they are not too enthusiastic when they themselves are oppressed by stronger beings.

For example, one of my friends argues that he is justified in killing animals because they are weaker beings. However, he also complains about the government, banks, or rich people in general oppressing him.

Most people will point to the law of the jungle when it benefits them, but when it doesn't benefit them they will argue against the law of the jungle.

In my opinion, it is best to try to stay away from these people. If they don't care about others, why should you care about them?

The strong will oppress the weak. Some will help the strong while some will help the weak.

Oppression is all around us. We see it not only in domination of one species by another species (e.g. humans dominating cows) but we also see it within species. That is, humans oppress their fellow humans. When a billionaire owns a factory and a wage slave must work in this factory to feed his family and pay the mortgage, this is oppression.

Oppression is everywhere and will likely endure for as long as humans exist. However, this does not mean we should throw our hands in the air and give up. We can all play our role in reducing oppression.

As I said, when there is oppression, there are those who will help the strong and there are those who will help the weak. Usually those who choose to help the strong are doing so for self-interest. For example, if you work for a slave owner and you are paid an income for helping to oppress slaves, you'd likely want to make excuses for doing what you're doing. If you're eating meat and you enjoy it (or you find it convenient), likewise you will tend to make excuses for doing what you're doing.

Reacting to oppression with more oppression

There are those who, when they are angry at being oppressed, react not by attacking their oppressors, but they react by oppressing those weaker than themselves. For example, if a manager at a factory shouts at a worker, the worker may come home feeling angry and depressed, and and he may take his anger out on his child who may, in turn, take out his anger on the family dog.

Then there are groups that have been oppressed. Much is being said in the media today about the so-called "losers of globalization":

In a nutshell, the thesis holds that "globalization" has led to profound economic changes, which have transformed and divided societies. The ones who profit from these changes, mostly better educated and mobile (upper) middle classes that work in the service sector, are the "winners" of globalizations, and support the mainstream parties that have implemented neoliberal policies. The ones who suffer because of these policies, mostly lower educated men in the industrial sector, are the "losers" of globalization and support populist parties.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/the-revenge-of-the-losers_b_11407468

It is interesting then that these "losers of globalization," rather than channel their anger at their oppressors, are attacking Muslims or migrants or other weak groups.

There is a natural desire for those who are oppressed to seek easily available victims on whom to unload aggression. A junior manager being bullied by senior managers may take his anger out on his workers because he can safely do so. If a working man is being oppressed by his boss, he cannot easily hit back at his boss but he can easily kick those around him who are already downtrodden. A father or mother dissatisfied with life can take their anger out on their children because children are small, weak, vulnerable, and, more importantly, they are easily accessible and available to be oppressed.

This is why it is important to protect yourself from others. Never put yourself in a position where you hand power to someone else to control your life, even if initially they seem nice. Aggression can be triggered easily in a human simply through oppression, and oppression is everywhere in the world.

Protecting the weak is a natural instinct

Many of those who seek to help the oppressed do so not through self-interest. They do so because they care about others.

The instinct to help the weak is natural. It is stronger in some than in others. If we see a puppy being beaten on the streets, we are likely to want to intervene if we can or if we have the courage to do so, but the level of compassion people have for the puppy will vary.

Just as I cannot save all men I cannot save all animals. Oppression is likely to endure for as long as humanity exists. But for me, it is easy to replace animal products with plant-based equivalents and reduce demand for animal products thereby reducing animal suffering. I'm not saying everyone needs to do what I am doing, but this is what I am doing.

Firstly, protect yourself from oppression. Once you are free and shielded from oppression, help those who were once oppressed like you were.

Becoming an Urban Hermit

For a long time I've felt the need to distance myself from society. I am transitioning towards the life of an urban hermit. I work, go to the gym, eat, and otherwise watch YouTube or Netflix.

Relationships, drama, gossip -- these things tire me. All the drama and trivialities, all the negativity of humanity, and people trying to enslave you by making you conform to their vision of how you should live life.

If you get a girlfriend, get married, get a mortgage, buy a car and house, buy her a wedding ring, give her an expensive wedding ceremony, and then have children, then who are you benefiting?

Women, real estate agents, car manufacturers, bankers...

Everyone else benefits, and you are nothing but a slave to be exploited.

 

How Machines Will Take Over

Google's official mission or vision statement is to organize all of the data in the world and make it accessible for everyone in a useful way.

Advancements in information technology shines a light on the dark side of humanity, exposing it for all to see.

Humans start to lose faith in humanity and turn instead to machines as well as the large corporations that own and control these machines.

Human Extinction is the Solution

People are going to behave the way they want to behave, and they won't stop unless they no longer exist. Extinction is the only solution. We must shield ourselves from the corruption of the world, refuse to breed, encourage others not to breed, and watch humanity collapse. Only human extinction will guarantee the end of human depravity.

Review of Aussielent Body (Australian Soylent)

Many years ago, a Californian software engineer named Rob Rhinehart invented a product called Soylent, which was a powder that contains every nutrient needed to survive and thrive. Soylent is not only available in powdered form but also in bottled form, food bar form, and there is a coffee-flavoured version as well.

The idea behind Soylent is that you do not need to bother with cooking or cleaning. You just eat (or drink) Soylent, throw away the packaging, and get on with life. You save time not having to cook or clean.

Soylent is unfortunately not available in Australia. However, different businesses in different countries have similar products: Huel in the UK, Joylent in the EU, and Aussielent in Australia.

As of writing this, Aussielent has one vegan product called Aussielent Body (it is also low-FODMAP as well, if anyone has irritable bowel syndrome). You can buy a week's supply for A$82 (US$61) but if you buy a month's supply you pay A$320 (US$240). To me this seems extremely cheap.



The Aussielent came in transparent resealable bags (see image above). Each bag contains four servings and each serve provides about 25% of your RDI.

According to the instructions, you mix the powder with water in a protein shaker. I have tried this and personally find the taste to be boring. It tastes a little bit like oatmeal. Having read reviews about Soylent all over the internet, I know that this bland oatmeal taste is a common complaint given to Soylent, but supposedly Soylent is meant to be bland because it is meant to be a staple like rice. You can add flavoring to the product if you like. As such, I like to mix my Aussielent in a mug with coffee or cocoa powder, soy milk, and hot water. I sometimes even mix in chocolate flavoured protein powder (Earth Protein) if I have run out of cocoa powder. I find Aussielent Body is tastiest when mixed with instant coffee.


Aussielent Body mixed with instant coffee and soy milk in a mug just before boiling water was added.

I do not live off Aussielent. I don't even bring it into work because it is simply too much hassle to mix powders at work. I am afraid of the mess I'd be creating. Having powders flying everywhere is not something you want at the office. There is a bottled Aussielent available but unfortunately the vitamin D in this bottled Aussielent is not vegan yet. Vegan vitamin D is supposedly difficult to source in Australia. I have seen other companies struggle to find vegan vitamin D, so I don't blame Aussielent. Vitasoy unfortunately was unable to make their Calci-Plus soy milk vegan because they were unable to find a vegan vitamin D source. Soylent in America was able to easily procure vegan vitamin D from the Dutch biotech company DSM (see Vitamin D - Soylent FAQ).

Aussielent was able to find vegan vitamin D for Aussielent Body in the form of "high vitamin D mushroom powder," but this form of vitamin D cannot be put into an aseptic container for the ready-to-drink Aussielent.

Nevertheless, I am confident that Aussielent will deliver a vegan bottled Aussielent soon as I would happily bring bottled Aussielent to work to drink for lunch, which will save me from the hassle of making a sandwich every night.

Something that I find puzzling about Aussielent is whether there is any omega 3 in the product. Soylent in America makes a big deal about the algae oil in its product. There is an interesting Vice article about Soylent's plans to replace all food with algae. The reasoning is that algae is a highly efficient and sustainable way to produce fats. Algae can be grown cleanly and quickly in bioreactors in factories. Omega 3 DHA and EPA in Soylent comes from algae oil. However, the ingredient list of Aussielent Body (as well as the non-vegan Aussielents) make no mention of any algae nor is there any mention of any animal omega 3 source (i.e. fish oil).

Lasting Happiness Depends on Ignorance of Atrocity

A few years ago, I made the decision to stop watching TV because it was filled with crap. There was nothing on TV other than silly renovation shows and other filthy reality TV shows like Big Brother or X Factor. So I decided to simply watch YouTube instead. I purchased a Chromecast and started streaming YouTube to my TV.

YouTube was addictive. One of the benefits of YouTube is that it learns what you like based on what you have previously watched, and it recommends videos to you based on your interests. I started to become very interested in certain topics, such as investing, veganism, digital nomadism, minimalism, and antinatalism. However, being exposed to and becoming obsessive with all of these non-mainstream ideas has somewhat alienated me from the mainstream. This is something I have realized today.

I have become so angry with the world and with other people. I cannot stop seething with anger over just about everything. When I go out to lunch with my dad and he eats meat, I cannot stop seeing in my mind graphic slaughter of animals. I see pigs having their throats slit and cows being shot in the head, and they fall to the ground flailing. When I am with a group of women who talk about weddings and relationships, I seethe with anger because of how superficial these women are when they are obsessive about what colour of clothing they should wear or how to arrange flowers at a wedding. When I see someone at work feeling superior and putting down his subordinates or when I see someone putting down others because he has some status symbol, e.g. trophy wife, luxury car, or large mansion, I can only think about debt or wage slavery, and I know that status anxiety is the primary fuel of the wage slavery system. I see the dark side of everything and it makes me really angry and also really depressed. I cannot stop thinking about everything that is wrong with everything. There is absolutely no positive thinking with me. I can only think negatively, but that is because I am convinced that I am viewing the world objectively. I am convinced that, in reality, we live in a negative world, and positive thinkers are deluded.

It’s not just YouTube. I admit it’s also other circumstances in my life that affect me such as my parents’ divorce as well as tensions with friends and colleagues at work. I have also experienced painful breakups with girls.

There’s not much I can do. One option is to conform to society. I can try to be normal. I can assimilate. But once you know something, you cannot fool yourself. Ignorance is bliss, but once you know the truth, you cannot forget it. If you drank a yellow liquid thinking it was a delicious soft drink, then all of a sudden you realize it is some guy’s urine, you cannot simply erase that knowledge from your mind and go back to pretending that you are drinking a delicious soft drink. The same applies with all the filth in society. Once you’ve seen the truth, you cannot unsee it.

There is no option then but escape. I need to retire and get out of the country where I can be alone and start a new life. I need to save up enough money to do this. While I am doing this, I need to be an urban hermit. I just go to work, come back home, watch YouTube and Netflix, and then go back to work again. It’s tough working and pretending to be normal when you’re not. It’s hard faking it, but it has to be done. I need to become a millionaire before I drop out of society and go ghost. I just hope I can do it before I turn 40. My goal is to be a millionaire in my thirties. Once I am a millionaire, I will quit and retire. I will start a new life. I am thinking I will buy websites off Empire Flippers and spend the rest of my life managing websites for a living. Even if I fail, it doesn’t matter because I am a millionaire who lives off dividends. I will try something else. Managing websites for a living will allow me to live anywhere, but I am sure there are other things I can do to make money online, and even if it doesn't worki, it doesn't matter because I live off dividends. I can travel to, say, Kuala Lumpur, rent a one-bedroom apartment there, and then spend all my time in co-working spaces there managing my websites, and if I feel lonely I can use the internet to meetup with fellow vegans there. I will be free to be with whomever I want. It will be beautiful. Even if things don’t work out, I can just leave and go to another country, such as Bangkok, and even if things don’t work out, I can just fly back home. The bottom line is I have freedom to do what I want.

Secrets of the Slave State

Even if you remove the slave state, the power vacuum will ensure another slave state emerges to replace it. Slavery and oppression are a natural features of life. We humans enslave and oppress livestock. There is only one option then and that is not to resist slavery but to understand the slave system, survive within it, and live within the system as best we can.

 

Five Rules to Live By

1. Work as if it were just something you do. You don't need to work hard. Try to enjoy whatever work you do.

2. Live a minimalist lifestyle. Have your own room. Do your own thing: Netflix, YouTube, writing, etc. Subscribe to Soylent (or Huel, Joylent, or Aussielent) so you don't need to be dependent on a someone else cooking or cleaning for you. Share accommodation with others to save money, but try to minimize socializing with those you live with.

3. Invest in a diverse range of high dividend paying ETFs. As fast as possible, live 100% off dividends from these ETFs so that 100% of your salary goes towards investing rather than living expenses. You live off other people's labor, not your own. When you get used to living off dividends, you are no longer dependent on your job. The true measure of a man's wealth is how many years he can survive if he did nothing. If a man can survive forever without work, he is a free man. Anything else is partial or full slavery.

4. Don't connect. Try to shield yourself from the world. Isolate yourself more. Use your dividend income to achieve this. Have your own room, don't connect with others. Live off dividends. Do your own thing. Be an urban hermit. Once you are achieved total independence, you can venture out in search of what makes you happy (dating, hobbies, etc) but you are safe in the knowledge that you can always retreat back into your fortress should you need to.

5. Never marry and never cohabitate. Marriage is slavery. Never have children either.

My Friday Night Watching the Movie "Unfaithful"

I did something interesting on Friday. I didn’t bring lunch in, but rather than go out at lunch to get food, I decided to just not buy anything and instead drink powdered tea. My mother has been to an Asian supermarket and has purchased powdered tea that comes in satchels. The powdered tea comes from Korea (from a business named Damtuh) and is made of ingredients like black beans, soybeans, and rice. Rather than going hungry, I found that I was able to keep myself quite full and get through the day. In the afternoon I also had two bananas and an almond latte. I left work right at five and went to the gym. I am thinking of measuring what I do in the gym so that I can track my progress. I am hoping this will motivate me more.

When I got home on Friday I had a big dinner of cauliflower, mashed potatoes, oranges, avocado, carrots, and potato. After this I drank two cups of green smoothie (a blend of green leafy vegetables, Earth Protein, and a banana). Then I had high-protein hot chocolate, which is pretty much just a chocolate flavoured protein shake mixed with soymilk and boiling water. I prefer warm beverages to cold beverages, so I like to drink my protein hot (in a mug rather than in a shaker bottle).

Given it was Friday night, I finished watching a movie on Netflix called Unfaithful. I enjoyed watching this movie considerably, and it was close to home for me because of the adultery and divorce between my parents. What I thought was interesting was that the couple in this movie tried very hard to shield their child from the adultery, to protect the child, but my parents didn’t do that. They pretty much tried to get me to choose sides, and then I was asked to bail them out because they were in debt. I followed them because I used to look up to my parents and respected them, but in hindsight I realize I was exploited and used. Basically what happened was my father took money out from the family home using a home equity line of credit, and he used this money to fund his womanizing and to start a family with a new woman, and then when everything was discovered, my brother and I were the ones who paid off the loan. All this shattered any faith or trust I had not only in my family but also in anyone. I simply don’t trust anyone, and I have now walled myself off from everyone. I don’t want or need friends or family. I will never get married, never have children, and I will do everything in my power to eliminate dependency, debt, commitment, obligation, and duty. The objective of my life is to continually increase my freedom by increasing dividend income, and I will use this dividend income to shield myself from the world and do what I want to do rather than conform to society, which wants me to be a slave so that, understandably, I can make money for businesses so they can pay dividends to their shareholders.

There are many things in my life that have traumatized me, and it’s easy to just dismiss my problems as first world problems, but these problems are still real to me, and any problem can be rationalized away by comparing it to an even worse problem. A problem is still a problem, even if it’s less of a problem than some other problem.

It's also easy to dismiss my problems by saying that I should just man up and take responsibility for myself rather than blame my parents, and I have done that. I don't blame my parents. I don't blame anyone for the atrocities they commit. I simply react and protect myself. I am taking action to wall myself off from society and become an urban hermit who is funded and protected by dividend income.

When I think about it, I like my life. I have Netflix now, and I am starting to watch movies now rather than just watch YouTube, and I have noticed how much movies socialize you into a conventional way of life. For example, while watching Unfaithful, I was attracted to marriage because it looked like the marriage that the couple in the movie had was very nice. However, this would not have been apparent had I watched YouTube because YouTube is brilliant at sniffing out what you’re interested in and suggesting you watch it, and I am simply not interested in relationships.

My plan is to either share accommodation with others and then block them out of my life as much as possible or to live alone. If I feel lonely, I can easily get some friends on Meetup or even Tinder, but if I meet a girl on Tinder I just want to be friends with her. I have tried using Tinder while travelling solo overseas and it works fine, and it even works where I live now as well, although lately I have just gotten tired of socializing, so I uninstalled the Tinder app and then installed Netflix instead. I’d rather spend a Friday night watching a good film than going out. The pleasure from watching a good film is so much better than going out. Going out is quite boring. Most girls out there are boring, and I think it’s because they are spoilt because there are so many men out there willing to entertain women just so they can have sex with them, and so women expect men to bring to the table a certain level of entertainment and for their efforts women will reward the man with sexual favours. But I don’t care about sex with a woman because, if I wanted sex, I can just go to a registered brothel, and there are plenty of registered brothels here in Victoria Australia. Going out with women is also expensive, and there is an expectation by the lady that the man pays for everything just to signal to her that he is rich, which is important for women because they want to marry rich men and take their money. Not all women are like this, but enough are.

Young Men Turning to Online Role Models

Yesterday was an interesting day because it was fairly boring and I didn’t do much. I remember reading an article by Victor Pride about how to deal with perfectionism to create success. When I read Victor’s article and thought about my performance at work, I started to realize that I am a perfectionist, but this is not a good thing. It actually makes me very slow and unproductive. Victor cites a Business Insider article that has the following to say about perfectionism:

Burns defines perfectionists as “people who strain compulsively and unremittingly toward impossible goals and who measure their own worth entirely in terms of productivity and accomplishment”. 

In the workplace, perfectionism is often marked by low productivity as individuals lose time and energy on attention to detail and small irrelevant details of larger projects or mundane daily activities. 

Adderholt-Elliot describes five characteristics of perfectionist students and teachers which contribute to underachievement: procrastination, fear of failure, the all-or-nothing mindset, paralyzed perfectionism, and workaholism.

I think I will digress for a moment now and say that I owe Victor Pride a lot. I think this happens considerably nowadays but young men (although I am in my early thirties now, so am I really young?) are faced with a crisis in that they tend to grow up in broken homes, and this shatters the respect that they had for their father as authority figures. I am projecting now because this is what happened to me! I should talk for myself. Basically I respected my parents, but when the marriage broke down, I pretty much became lost, and this was especially the case throughout university when I was struggling to figure out what I should do for the rest of my life. Couple with this the fact that gender roles are being questioned and attacked (for good or for bad) and young men are really lost about how to behave. Thankfully, there is the internet, and Victor Pride really helped me in the early days, although there are many other internet role models. Basically the internet has opened my eyes up to many different ways of thinking, and YouTube in particular allows you to receive wisdom and motivation from others. The bottom line is to receive your wisdom from many corners of the internet because there are so many viewpoints on the internet, and there may be no correct viewpoint. Just be exposed to many viewpoints and make a decision for yourself.

Back to the topic of productivity at work. On Friday morning, it took me about two hours to send out two emails because I was checking everything. I had to make sure it read well, I had to make sure it was sent to the right person, I had to make sure I didn’t say anything that was wrong, etc. I suppose there is nothing wrong with this. I cannot make mistakes. That would be horrible, so I guess I don’t really have a choice, but I am a slow worker. This may also explain why I work so much. I come in early sometimes and stay in late, and I take work home over the weekend.

Is Almond Milk Unhealthy? Sustainability of Milk and Chemophobia

When I googled "almond milk," near the top was a Sydney Morning Herald article titled The Unhealthy Truth about Almond Milk, which would make anyone think that almond milk is bad for you. When I read through the article, I realized that the article mainly focuses on the environmental problems with almond milk production. Growing almonds uses a considerable amount of water. That being said, dairy milk production results in significant water use as well, and all the deforestation issues linked with soy production also apply to dairy milk because dairy cows eat soybeans, and most soy is grown not for human consumption but for the meat and dairy industry:

Another impact of the dairy industry on the Australian environment is by its massive use of water and land area. In 2004-2005 the dairy industry was responsible for 19% of all the water used in Australian agriculture. This is more than 12% of all the water used in Australia. Cows need a lot of land to graze on (if they get the opportunity) and the production of their feed also takes up a lot of land area. The production of cattle feed is a major reason for deforestation and is putting pressure on nature both in Australia and overseas.

In terms of the environment, dairy milk is not ideal not only due to water and land use but also due to methane and manure produced by cows. Cows consume a considerable amount of feed (soybeans). A more sustainable option includes eating insects (e.g. Exo cricket bar) because, unlike cows, insects are cold-blooded and therefore don't require energy to keep their blood warm. Insects can also be stored in trays that can be piled vertically making it more space efficient. Another option is algae (e.g. Thrive algae oil), which is being used considerably now in Soylent. The latest Soylent iterations use algal oil or algal flour. Algae is a very efficient converter of simple sugars into protein and fat. Unlike animal products that convert plant sugar and plant protein into animal protein and animal fat, algae plants are clean and sterile areas where bioreactors convert simple plant sugars into algae protein and algae fat. There is no need to kill animals or wipe away their blood and manure.

Focusing back on the Sydney Morning Herald article, the article mainly discusses the environmental issues facing almond milk. It does, however, briefly mention health issues:

Even the watery carton version can be a good source of vitamin E, which helps with cell regeneration in the body. It's also full of omega 3 fats, which are handy helpers for balanced mental health and cholesterol levels. That's about it, though.

Some brands only contain 2 per cent almonds, while the other 98 per cent of your expensive "milk" is water with some emulsifiers, and sometimes the odd sweetener thrown in, along with nutrients such as vitamin A and D that have been artificially added. Nutritious.

Basically this says nothing. The first paragraph states that almond milk contains vitamin E and omega 3 fats and then says "that's about it, though" suggesting that almond milk has very little nutrition. But this is not a huge problem. For example, pure filtered water contains no vitamins in it. It just contains water. But is this a problem? No, water is important. Furthermore, if we are to eat or drink based on nutrient density, we wouldn't drink milk because all milk has little nutrient density as measures by the aggregate nutrient density index (ANDI). Almond milk's ANDI score is 19 and soy milk is 31. Simply put, green vegetables have the highest nutrient density as measured by the ANDI score. Green vegetables have ANDI scores of around 900 or more whereas all milks have ANDI scores below 50. The bottom line is that if we wanted high nutrient density we'd drink a green smoothie. However, most people who drink coffee do so to get caffeine, and the milk is designed to mask the bitterness of the espresso and to cool the beverage down. Dairy milk, soy milk, almond milk, and coconut milk all achieve this.

The second paragraph about how almond milk contains only 2 per cent almond is, in my opinion, not a big issue. If you put a handful of almonds into a blender and only put in a little bit of water, the resulting mixture will be extremely thick and creamy. It would not mix well with coffee and would be very high in calories. The almond milk content in almond milk varies from 2 to around 15 per cent, but the bottom line is that you cannot put too much almonds in almond milk otherwise it would cease to be an almond milk and would become almond butter.

When the article states that almond milk is mostly water with emulsifiers, sweeteners, and vitamins artificially added it, it is appealing to chemophobia. RationalWiki defines Chemophobia as follows: "Chemophobia is the fear, distrust, or dislike of anything seen as 'chemical.' Like various other 'phobias,' its use is non-clinical as it is not recognised as an actual irrational fear, but rather describes a set of prejudices against chemicals." Basically everything is made up of chemicals, and adding emulsifiers, sweeteners, and vitamins to almond milk doesn't make it unhealthy. To read out the ingredient list of almond milk and announce that it contains many complicated sounding chemicals is completely irrational and appeals to the prejudice that many hold against science and scientists.

The Aeon article aptly titled ‘Chemophobia’ is irrational, harmful – and hard to break describes it best:

[E]ven as much of the world became cleaner, the anti-chemical movement became so polarised that all artificial chemicals are now considered tainted. This false assumption has led to a popular demand for products that are ‘natural’ or even ‘chemical-free’.

In reality, ‘natural’ products are usually more chemically complicated than anything we can create in the lab. To demonstrate, I broke down the components in an ordinary banana. (For brevity’s sake, I omitted the thousands of minority ingredients, including DNA.) Here is the result:

INGREDIENTS:

WATER (75%), SUGARS (12%) (GLUCOSE (48%), FRUCTOSE (40%), SUCROSE (2%), MALTOSE (<1%)), STARCH (5%), FIBRE E460 (3%), AMINO ACIDS (<1%) (GLUTAMIC ACID (19%), ASPARTIC ACID (16%), HISTIDINE (11%), LEUCINE (7%), LYSINE (5%), PHENYLALANINE (4%), ARGININE (4%), VALINE (4%), ALANINE (4%), SERINE (4%), GLYCINE (3%), THREONINE (3%), ISOLEUCINE (3%), PROLINE (3%), TRYPTOPHAN (1%), CYSTINE (1%), TYROSINE (1%), METHIONINE (1%)), FATTY ACIDS (1%) (PALMITIC ACID (30%), OMEGA-6 FATTY ACID: LINOLEIC ACID (14%), OMEGA-3 FATTY ACID: LINOLENIC ACID (8%), OLEIC ACID (7%), PALMITOLEIC ACID (3%), STEARIC ACID (2%), LAURIC ACID (1%), MYRISTIC ACID (1%), CAPRIC ACID (<1%)), ASH (<1%), PHYTOSTEROLS, E515, OXALIC ACID, E300, E306 (TOCOPHEROL), PHYLLOQUINONE, THIAMIN, COLOURS (YELLOW-ORANGE E101 (RIBOFLAVIN), YELLOW-BROWN E160a), FLAVOURS (3-METHYLBUT-1-YL ETHANOATE, 2-METHYLBUTYL ETHANOATE, 2-METHYLPROPAN-1-OL, 3-METHYLBUTYL-1-OL, 2-HYDROXY-3-METHYLETHYL BUTANOATE, 3-METHYLBUTANAL, ETHYL HEXANOATE, ETHYL BUTANOATE, PENTYL ACETATE), 1510, NATURAL RIPENING AGENT (ETHENE GAS).

This exercise illustrates a larger point. The distinction between natural and synthetic chemicals is not merely ambiguous, it is non-existent. The fact that an ingredient is synthetic does not automatically make it dangerous, and the fact that it is natural doesn’t make it safe. Botulinum, produced by bacteria that grow in honey, is more than 1.3 billion times as toxic as lead and is the reason why infants should never eat honey. A cup of apple seeds contains enough natural cyanide to kill an adult human. Natural chemicals can be beneficial, neutral or harmful depending on the dosage and on how they are used, just like synthetic chemicals. Whether a chemical is ‘natural’ should never be a factor when assessing its safety.

Q&A: Can Vegans Get Enough Protein or Calcium?

Question:

Is it possible to get enough protein and calcium in a vegan diet? I know all whole plant food contains protein, but the question is are the quantities you're eating enough to make a difference?

Answer:

As a vegan, I drink soy milk or almond milk rather than dairy milk. The soy milk that I drink has 37% of your RDI in calcium in one glass (see Vitasoy Original Soy Milk). This is roughly the same RDI as one glass of full fat dairy milk (30%). Almond milk also typically contains the same amount of calcium. The calcium in almond milk or soy milk typically comes from mineral salts such as calcium carbonate or calcium phosphate.

As for protein, according to the chart in the study below, vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores all get roughly the same amount of protein in their diets. In fact, omnivores get more protein from plants than from animal sources. This shows that there are no issues with getting protein from plant sources. Many people on many different diets already get enough protein. The Australian Government recommends 64 grams of protein per day for a man under 70.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4081456/figure/F1/

A vegan can easily get enough protein in a day by eating beans. Dried beans are also cheaper than meat, which ensures you not only get enough protein but also helps you make more money.

Protein deficiency is very rare in developed countries. Protein is just one nutrient out of many more. It is strange that so many people are obsessive about protein when the human body needs more than protein. There are so many other vitamins and minerals we need. For example, we should not be too concerned about protein deficiency when 97% of Americans are deficient in potassium.

Chiang Mai as a Safety Net

It is important to save up enough money so that you are not a slave to your manager at work. If things are not going well at work, you can always take your FU money and go live in the country where you can work on working online.

I've never tested this out in practice, so I don't know if it will work or not. That being said, going out into the country is just one option in my head. Another option is going to Chiang Mai where US$1000 per month allows you to live like a king.

There are plenty of "digital nomads" in Chiang Mai who earn Western wages and also live luxurious lifestyles (pools, maids, etc) on less than $1000 per month, allowing them to save and invest heavily, which is completely different to the hand-to-mouth paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle that is common in America, especially with marriage, mortgage and children heavily promoted.

Anyway, this is all in my head. I am still a worker bee at the moment trying to save up as much FU money as possible and trying not to conform to the marriage, mortgage, and children lifestyle that would destroy my savings and make me a wage slave for the rest of my life.

FU Money is Important

If you don't know what FU money is, watch the YouTube video below. Otherwise, skip the video.



FU money is absolutely integral to happiness, in my opinion. For me, I have calculated FU money to be $1000 per month, which requires about $300k in investments.

There are three necessities: (1) shelter, (2) food, and (3) wifi.

Shelter is $500 per month based on the rent on a one bedroom house way out in the country. Food is $400 per month based on the cost of Soylent (or Joylent/Huel/Aussielent depending on where you live). WiFi is $60 per month. Round it up to $1000 per month.

If anything goes wrong, I can just retreat into the country, sip on my Soylent, and slowly work on eCommere.

Right now, of course, I am in the matrix and I am working, but because I have FU money I don't feel the need to be ambitious or to make myself uncomfortable. I am just cruising so that I can grow my passive/investment income so I can earn more than $1000 per month. That being said, I am sort of passive and betaish at work. I am a junior worker so I follow orders from the manager, but it's not too stressful. If things get really bad, I can always try to transfer to a different area, but otherwise I can just leave and live in the country building up or bootstrapping online businesses.

Social Media vs Face to Face

During the daily commute, I see people on their phones in the train. When you hear people talk, they always lament about how people don’t talk to each other face-to-face anymore, that they are always on their phones.

I am always on my phone, but why is that? When I think about it, I think it’s because the phone is better than a human. For example, if you’re talk to a human, he might be too boring or too negative, and you may not feel comfortable telling him to change because maybe he is negative or boring by nature, or maybe he will be so offended by you trying to change him that he might lash out. This is how humans are. They are difficult to deal with. The smartphone, on the other hand, is completely obedient. Suppose you’re watching a YouTube video. If the YouTube video is boring or negative, just stop watching it! If the person who made that video keep producing bad content, then unsubscribe from his channel. Smartphones allow you to connect but they give you the ability to easily filter out the trash so that what you’re left with is high quality.

People often complain about how there is someone on Facebook who keeps posting about trivial things they do. For example, they go to the bathroom and then post a picture of their toothpaste! Whenever I hear someone say this, I always wonder why they don’t just block this person. Facebook has a block feature where you can stop a person’s posts from showing up. This is much better than real life interaction. Suppose you are at work and someone there keeps talking to you about what toothpaste he uses. Unless you want to get in trouble with HR or if you want to get fired, you can’t just “block” him and tell him to get out of your face. The person telling you about his toothpaste might be your manager or the CEO of the organization. Even outside of work, there is a pressure to be polite and to tolerate people’s stupidity. On social media there is no such thing. If someone annoys you, just block them.

The Urban Hermit

Yesterday I was very busy. I arrived at work early at six in the morning to get more work done. All in all, I am happy with my job now. I enjoy the work. I have recently signed up for Netflix. Watching YouTube videos is great, and I have learned a lot from watching YouTube videos, but there is so much hate and negativity on YouTube. Dealing with the trolls on YouTube is quite draining. I am hoping the world of Netflix is more civilized. I will still continue to watch YouTube, but I will try to get into Netflix more.

My intention is to become an urban hermit. I am not a hermit who goes out into the wilderness to live. That may come later. For now, I need to earn money, so I need to work, and I don’t know how to earn money if I’m out in the wilderness. I need to be among society for now. However, just because I live among society, it doesn’t mean I need to be fully connected with society. I can erect emotional barriers to protect myself from the negativity of humanity.

I am blessed in that I am happy with my job right now. Only two months ago I was miserable because I had a horrible manager. I was extremely depressed, and I even thought about just quitting. But everything is working out now. I simply spoke to my manager’s manager and told him that I wanted a change, and then all of a sudden I was put into a different team. Sometimes you just have to ask and you will receive. Even if things go bad where I am now, I can just try to move again, and even if that doesn’t work, I can just retire and live off my meager dividends.

But for now, I am happy to work, and I enjoy working. I try to stay away from the office gossip and politics. I hate that. I just do the work, and I like to be around positive and friendly colleagues. Outside of work, I am happy to just eat, sleep, read, exercise at the gym, and watch YouTube and Netflix. I don’t mind being alone. I don’t mind isolating myself. Even something as simple as watching YouTube or Netflix gives me so much joy. I have recently realized that people set standards for you. They tell you to get a girlfriend, get married, get a mortgage, get a car, get a house, and have children. Obviously you’ll be working hard like a slave, and you’ll enrich your bank, real estate agents, and even your wife. Everyone else benefits when you’re a slave. But I will just say no to all this and live my life. If I just make money and then use that money to block everyone else from my life as much as possible, then that’s it. I have total peace and quiet. As an introvert, that is appealing.

Dealing with Vegan Stigma

Having been a vegan for about a year, I've found that the diet itself is simple. There is a huge abundance of vegan products on the market nowadays. Not only is there vegan meat but also vegan cheese, vegan milk, vegan protein shakes, and even vegan yoghurt. To be a vegan, all you need to do is do exactly the same thing you are doing currently but veganize everything gradually. For example, replace all meat with vegan meat, replace dairy milk with almond milk or soy milk, replace dairy yoghurt with coconut yoghurt, replace dairy cheese with coconut cheese (e.g. Bio cheese is now available in Australian supermarkets), replace whey protein with pea protein, and replace multivitamins with vegan multivitamins.

Many people assume that vegans do not get any protein in their diet or that being vegan makes you nutrient deficient. In reality, if you simply eat whatever you normally eat but replace it with vegan substitutes, your nutrient intake will be roughly the same as what it was when you ate an omnivore diet. This is because vegan substitutes are usually designed to have the same nutrition profile as the animal product they replace. For example, most brands of soy milk have the same amount of calcium and protein as dairy milk. Of course, some vegan food will have more of some nutrients (e.g. coconut yoghurt has more saturated fat than dairy yoghurt) and some vegan food will have less of some nutrients (e.g. almond milk has less sugar, protein, fat, and calories compared to dairy milk and soy milk). Regardless, if you eat a wide variety of food, it should all balance out, and if you are very paranoid, you can simply take a vegan multivitamin (e.g. Deva Multivitamin and Mineral Supplement from iHerb).

Social stigma

The biggest difficulty with being vegan is the social stigma and discrimination from other people. This is something I have grappled with for a long time. If you tell people you are vegan, all of a sudden they come up with assumptions about you. They will assume you're not getting enough protein or that you lack iron. Over time, I have discovered a way to deal with this. I simply don't tell people that I am vegan or vegetarian. I simply tell people that I am an omnivore who doesn't eat much meat because I don't like the taste whereas I like the taste of meat replacements such as tofu and beans. Even though I tell people I don't eat much meat, in reality I don't eat any meat at all, so that makes me a liar.

I don't eat out too much. It's easy to eat vegan at home. I make my own vegan sandwich that I take to work. However, if I am eating out with others, I always order the vegetarian or vegan option, and when people see this they usually ask me if I am vegetarian. I simply say no. They will usually just be confused but then change the subject. This happens most of the time. However, some people will say something like, "If you're not vegetarian, why are you eating the vegetarian dish?" The assumption behind this question is that omnivores must eat meat all the time. Obviously this is false. You can be an omnivore and eat meat, say, during dinner only. Technically, you can eat meat once every five years and still be an omnivore. You'd be 99.7% vegan, which still technically makes you an omnivore.

So how do I respond if someone asks me, "If you're not vegetarian, why are you eating the vegetarian dish?" I just look at what is in the food, e.g. tofu or beans, and say something like, "I am eating this because I like tofu. I like the texture and the taste." The bottom line is to be specific about the food, e.g. "I really enjoy this fried tofu. It is delicious. It is also healthy."

When you choose to eat something because you like the taste, there's no argument against it. If you eat tofu because you like tofu, there is no argument against that. If someone doesn't like the taste of tofu, that is their subjective view.

A particular conversation will not necessarily be the same as the example above, but the bottom line is to not use labels. Be a vegan, order vegan food, but just don't use labels. By doing this, people cannot use their preconceived stereotypes or prejudices, and it messes with their simplistic views of the world, which can annoy some people. It forces them to talk about the specifics and the detail, and you can use this as an opportunity to educate others on the scientific and factual basis behind the vegan diet.

Most people think in extremes. It's black or it's white. There are no grays. You are either vegan or not. The trick then is to act as if you are 99% vegan (and therefore not really a vegan but a flexitarian) but actually be 100% vegan. Practically speaking, being 99% vegan (and therefore an omnivore) versus 100% vegan makes no difference, but socially it means a lot.

Too often we apply labels to ourselves and to others and this often makes complex matters simplistic. When you're out and about and socializing, it is different to being on the internet or if you are among good friends or family members who really understand you. On the internet, you can focus on one topic in depth and there is time to think, but when you're out and about with people you don't know that well (e.g. work colleagues), discussions are meant to be superficial and light. Conversations also tend to wander around. The topic changes all the time. Because these conversations are superficial, they are based on stereotypes and prejudice, and most people recognize that you're not supposed to take these conversations seriously. Rather than fight it, go along with it, but stay vegan.

Don't Have Children

I am very much against having children. Not only are children expensive, but there are around six billion people in the world right now, and the population is predicted to be around ten billion by 2050. This population explosion is putting massive strain on the world’s resources. It’s creating immense environmental destruction. The animal exploitation industry will only grow to feed rising demand, and the animal holocaust problem will only get worse. With so many people on earth, it’s also inevitable that human suffering will rise as there are more people competing for scarce resources. If I have a baby, how will that help? It is inevitable that my hypothetical son will suffer. I am introducing him to a world filled with corruption, oppression, and slavery. It is better if he were never born in the first place.

Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World

I’m spending less time with my dad nowadays. He seems to want to catch up with me every Saturday and Sunday, but if I see him every day on the weekends, I will never have time to do what I want to do. I have a dream of becoming a digital nomad one day, so I need to spend time over the weekend teaching myself new skills, such as how to code. (I am currently using a site called Codecademy to learn how to code.)

There is a lot of work that I need to do, so I have tried to cut down how much time I spend with my father. Over the last two weeks, my dad has invited me for lunch four times, and I have rejected two times, usually on a Saturday.

I had lunch with my father today. It’s tough being vegan in a non-vegan world. When you see animal slaughter videos, you realize how much hell the animals must go through, and I feel like I need to do everything I can to help these animals. The problem begins with people buying animal products. If people stop buying animal products, the animal exploitation industry would be starved of funds, and they would not have enough money to cause more harm to animals. However, most people just don’t care. I told my dad that there is no need to eat meat, but he just made excuses that vegan meat is too expensive, and if instead of eating meat he eats beans, it wouldn’t taste good. This disturbed me because the suffering of animals clearly doesn’t matter to him. Something as trivial as the taste of food can influence whether he decides to slaughter a cow. It bothered me so much.

Everyone is different, I suppose. People have different values. I can’t really blame my father. That’s just what he thinks. I remember meeting up with a vegan friend a few weeks ago who told me that it’s important that vegans do not isolate themselves from the world. Veganism needs to go mainstream if it is to be successful. But I find it so difficult to be around meat eaters. I have always been different to others. Now that I am vegan, I am even more different.

I'm not too sure what I should do in the future, but I see two options. One option involves retiring early, buying a place in the country, and retreating into the wilderness where I can be left in peace. I will be like a modern-day hermit. The other option is the opposite. Rather than retire early, I can continue to be integrated into society. I will continue to work, continue to be a consumer, and continue to try to make a difference to society from within. You cannot change the system if you are outside the system.

Nudie Coconut Yoghurt

I purchased coconut yoghurt (spelled "yogurt" in the US) from Woolworths a few days ago. At first, I didn't like the taste but over time I started to like it. It definitely has a coconut taste. The ingredient list also claims that it contains "cultures" so you'd be eating good bacteria as you would with dairy yoghurt.

It's winter here in Australia, so eating coconut yoghurt is not ideal. I prefer to eat baked beans, but I haven't seen vegan coconut yoghurt in the supermarket before, so I felt I had to give it a try.



Given it is made of coconut, it is low carb, low protein, and high in fat, and the fat in the coconut yoghurt is mostly saturated fat, so if you care about heart disease then you may want to eat this in moderation. Mainstream dairy yoghurt such as Yoplait contains less than 2% fat whereas this coconut yoghurt has 14% fat. However, mainstream diary yoghurt is higher in carbs and higher in protein.

According to government guidelines, you should be eating about 20% of your calories from fat anyway. A diet high in vegetables and fruit (rather than nuts and seeds) would naturally be low in fat, so throwing in fatty vegan food can help increase your fat intake. Other good sources of vegan fat are avocados, peanut butter, as well as other nuts and seeds.

There is a popular misconception that a vegan diet is low in fat and high in carbs, and many people who criticize the vegan diet criticize it for its low fat levels (that is, not reaching the 20% fat recommended by health authorities). A vegan diet can be low in fat, but it all depends on what you eat. An omnivore diet filled with low-fat milk, lean meat, and low-fat yoghurt can have lower fat than a vegan diet filled with avocados, peanut butter, macadamia nuts, coconut yoghurt, etc.

Low protein levels in almond milk is not a problem

I drink almond milk regularly. There are many brands of almond milk that don't taste great, but there are many that taste really great as well. You need to try different brands to determine which is best for you.

Dairy milk can be particularly hazardous for hormonal health due to its high levels of estrogen. Many people know that soy is high in phytoestrogen, but what is less well known is that the prefix phyto- means "plant" and this should be a strong clue that plant estrogen in soy does not work well in humans (animals). Dairy milk, on the other hand, comes from cows, which are not only animals but also mammals, just like humans. We are closely related to the cow, and the estrogen in cow's milk (estradiol) is highly potent in humans.

Men who drink dairy milk regularly suffer from a significant drop in serum testosterone levels due to high levels of mammalian estrogen (estradiol) in dairy milk.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19496976

Almond milk has zero issues with estrogen, both plant estrogen and mammalian estrogen. However, many people, when arguing against almond milk, argue that its protein content is low.

My response to this is that the protein content of food is hardly a great indicator of how healthy it is. If it were, milk would not be unhealthy compared to, say, protein shakes. In fact, if protein were the measure if how healthy food is, we should all drink protein shakes all the time since one cup of protein shake contains about 25 grams of protein compared to dairy milk, which contains only 9 grams of protein per cup.

Of course, focusing on protein is a concern if you protein deficient, but virtually no one suffers from protein deficiency in the developed world. Even if you do have a high need for protein if, say, you were a bodybuilder, milk is very inefficient because protein shakes contain more protein. Furthermore, if you were a bodybuilder, you'd be very concerned about the mammalian estrogen in dairy milk and its impact on serum testosterone levels.

Rational Misanthropy

I pray to God that there will be a massive financial depression that will plunge the world into violent warfare and render the human species extinct. Our extinction will ensure all suffering is eradicated forever. To hedge against the possibility this won't happen, I've borrowed from the bank to invest in leveraged ETFs, and if the financial collapse doesn't happen, I'll hopefully be rich enough to play a major role in destroying humanity so that the earth, the animals, and humanity itself no longer needs to suffer.

Chicken contains high levels of phthalates

Going vegan will not eliminate industrial toxins in your body, but the scientific evidence shows that it will significantly reduce it.

Vegan chocolate from Woolworths

Got this vegan chocolate from a Woolworths in Melbourne CBD.

Christianity has reformed but Islam has not

Statement:

Christianity has been reformed, the crimes mandated within Islam aren't the norms of the West.

And IF a Christian within the West commits a serious crime then it's dealt with by man made democratic law, not divine unreformed Islamic law that will have you acquitted if a father kills his own daughter if she supposedly shamed him within an close to 100% Islamic country.

The Christian house in much cleaner in the 21st century.

Response:

Christianity hasn't reformed. It's simply lost its power. If Christianity had its way, we'd be stoning non-virgins. Democracy and Christianity are independent. You can have Christianity's powers limited by democracy and the same can apply with Islam.

"If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you."

Deuteronomy 22:20-21

Q&A: Is conversion of ALA to DHA inefficient?

Question:

Don't we need DHA to be healthy? You cannot consume ALA and rely on it to give you DHA because conversion of ALA to DHA is poor. The science is there. We only convert about 4% of ALA to DHA, and for EPA plus DHA, only 12%. See the study below:

http://www.dhaomega3.org/Overview/Conversion-Efficiency-of-ALA-to-DHA-in-Humans

Answer:

Vegans can easily get DHA by taking microalgae-based DHA supplements. I recommend taking DHA and EPA supplements from Deva Nutrition. The Deva supplements contain about 130 mg of DHA per pill, and it is recommended you take one or two per day. Let's just round it up and say we need 200 mg of DHA per day (there is actually no medical consensus on how much DHA you need per day).

Suppose you didn't want to take DHA supplements because you couldn't afford them. If conversion of ALA to DHA is 4% then that means we need 5 grams of ALA per day. 15% of chia seeds by weight is ALA, which means we only need 33 grams of chia seeds per day, which is about two tablespoons.

But vegans cause harm too...

Q: If it's not vegan to ride horses, is it vegan to watch shows such as Game of Thrones? Is it vegan to watch tv shows that use animal actors? Being vegan is impossible because no matter what you do, you are harming animals.

A: Vegans try to reduce animal suffering as much as practicable. Just because it's impossible to be perfect it doesn't mean there cannot be progress. Just because you cannot save 100% of your income it doesn't mean you should not save at all. Just because it's impossible to achieve perfect sterility it doesn't mean you should perform surgery in the sewers. Just because I eat plants or cause harm to living beings by watching Game of Throne, it doesn't mean I should rape a little girl. It's pretty obvious, but we humans tend to grab into any rationalization to justify some habit or prejudice we already hold.

Are supplements useless?

Q: "Haven't studies shown vitamin pills to have no positive effect (apart from fish oil and calcium)?"

A: Some do and some don't. It's important not to generalize and say that because one supplement doesn't work (such as antioxidant supplements) then therefore all supplements don't work. Some have been proven to work while others have been proven not to work.

 

Do vegans need to take flaxseeds for omega 3?

Ground flaxseeds are a great source of omega 3. Two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds provide you with enough ALA, EPA, and DHA.

If you don't want to grind flaxseeds, you can just take two tablespoons of chia seeds per day. Chia seeds have approximately the same amount of ALA as flaxseeds but you don't need to grind them. You can just mix them in with your smoothie. If you're really lazy like me, just buy microalgae-based DHA supplements.

Will Cyanide in Vitamin B12 Supplements Kill You?

One of the most common arguments used against the vegan diet is the argument that you will develop a nutritional deficiency and, in particular, a deficiency in vitamin B12.

However, although it is possible for a vegan to have a vitamin B12 deficiency, being a vegan doesn't necessarily mean you will become vitamin B12 deficient.

Vitamin B12 deficiency can easily be found in fortified food or drinks such as Vitasoy Original Soy Milk, which contains 50% of your recommended dietary intake of vitamin B12 per cup. Vitamin B12 can even be found in Braggs Nutritional Yeast as well a vegan meat from the Fry Family Food Co. In Australia, the Vitasoy soy milk and Fry Family vegan meats can be found in Woolworths (also known as Safeway) supermarkets. Nutritional yeast is more difficult to find, in my opinion.

If your diet is low in vitamin B12 fortified food, an alternative is to take vitamin B12 supplements, which can be purchased from either your local chemist or online via major retailers such as Amazon or iHerb.

However, some people have raised concerns that most vitamin B12 supplements on the market contain cyanide in them and therefore they are poisonous.

There are B12 supplements without cyanide called methylcobalamin. Many vegans who are afraid of cyanide poisoning take this form of vitamin B12 due to fears of cyanide poisoning. However I take cyanocobalamin. I am aware it contains cyanide in it (or when it breaks down in the body it forms cyanide), but I do not consider it harmful. The levels of cyanide are too small to be of any harm.

Cyanide is a natural chemical that is found in water, soil, and even the air that you breathe as well as fruits and vegetables that you eat. The amounts found in cyanocobalamin are so small that they pale in comparison to the amount you absorb naturally via vegetables, air, etc. Jack Norris RD's page provides a great explanation:

"The safety of cyanocobalamin has raised concerns due to the fact that cyanide is a component of cyanocobalamin, and the cyanide molecule is removed from cyanocobalamin when used by the body’s cells. Cyanide is also found in many fruits and vegetables and so humans are always ingesting small amounts of cyanide, and like in most fruits and vegetables, the amount of cyanide in cyanocobalamin is considered to be physiologically insignificant.

"According to the European Food Safety Authority, 'Data of from a Norwegian dietary survey show that the average and high (97.5th percentile) daily intake of [cyanide] among consumers amounts to respectively 95 and 372 micrograms/person or 1.4 and 5.4 micrograms/kg bw/day (7).' The amount of cyanide in a 1,000 microgram cyanocobalamin is 20 micrograms."

http://jacknorrisrd.com/safety-of-cyanide-in-cyanocobalamin/

Be True to Yourself

I have just came back from brunch at Monk Bodhi Dharma in Balaclava. I was there with some vegan friends.

It was really nice to be around vegans because I really click well with these people. Whenever I am with my family, they are so negative. All they do is complain about this or that. They usually gossip about what other people are doing or they complain about corrupt politicians. They don’t actually do anything. Most vegans are actually doing something. By not buying animal products and instead buying vegan products, they are reducing demand for animal exploitation.

I have so many people in my life who I just don’t like being with. On Friday after work I met up with a bunch of people I used to work with. Most of these people were working in other areas now. I hadn’t seen them in years. They were all grown up now and they were either getting married or were in the process of getting married. They were also planning children. Many also purchased houses and some were buying investment property. I felt left out and odd because I was single, I had no intention of ever marry or ever having children, and I prefer to invest in stocks or ETFs rather than property. I really felt like I wasn’t among my people. 

Many people have tried to change me. Some of my friends have tried to set me up with girls (my father did this as well) but I found that being in a relationship with a girl did not enhance my life whatsoever. I found it tiresome to be responsible for entertaining a girl. Whenever she was not happy, it was my fault. I prefer to just be single. 

I have always felt weird about being single because it’s not socially accepted. Society expects certain things from you, e.g. get a girlfriend, get married, have children, buy a house for yourself, and then buy an investment property. When I’m with my old work colleagues, it’s all about conformity to these ideals: who has a wife, who has an investment property, who is getting married, and so forth. I remember a few night ago when I told a friend that I like to spend my free time watching YouTube, and he told me that I should “find a girlfriend” as if that is for some reason the highest purpose of any man’s life. 

Lately I have been trying to just be honest with what I care about. Be firm with my beliefs. In the past I would just stay quiet and allow people to lead me. They would try to find girls for me or try to get me married. Now there is no compromise. I do what I want to do and I don't accept other people trying to direct my life. In fact, when I was with my old work colleagues, they asked me how my dating life was, and I told them flat out that I did not want to date ever and that my family has given up on trying to get me date because I am stubborn and will never bend to anyone else's values. I would rather die. I also told my friends that I will never get married and I will never have children because I have been turned off my annoying children. Surprisingly, they seemed to respect my choice. I think that makes all the difference. People will respect you if you have a view of how you should live. If you’re wishy washy, they will try to push their views on you because you seem lost and in need of direction. I need to be firm with my values and my beliefs. If I am a vegan, I should stick with it and never waver. If I want to be a man who goes his own way and never gets into a relationship with women or never marries them, I need to give my reasons for it and loudly advocate it. The same applies for my investment beliefs. If I truly believe it is better to buy stocks, I should give firm reasons why. Even if you believe property is a good investment, you can easily buy property funds on the stock exchange. 

I think I have been inspired especially by Durianrider in a video called Why I Don’t Care Anymore where he discusses the importance of being true to yourself. If you are bold and forceful for what you believe in, people will hate you for it, but these people are people you don’t want to be around anyway, so your honest behaviour is a filter that removes people you shouldn’t be around, and people you should be around will be drawn and attracted to you, and you will spend more time with them.