I’m Mike, I’m a grad student, research assistant, and teacher’s aide at UC Santa Barbara.
I got here by way of OB (as many of us did), got there by way of a Reddit link to, if memory serves, Explainers Shoot High. Aim Low!, though my memory is pretty hazy, since I wound up reading a lot of posts very quickly. I got to Reddit by way of XKCD, and got to XKCD by way of my roommate sending me an amusing comic about string theory.
Let’s see. I’m car-free, and a lifestyle biker. I love to ride, and enjoy the self-sufficiency of getting everywhere by my own muscle.
I’m currently a pescatarian, and haven’t eaten any land-critters since I was 11. I continue to do this because I remain uncertain about the nature of consciousness, and thus am not certain to what extent animals suffer or experience morally significant pain. I suspect that morally significant consciousness is limited to the primates, but having not yet been fully convinced, I accept the (relatively minor) inconvenience of avoiding meat. If anyone would like to help me resolve this uncertainty, I’d certainly enjoy the conversation.
I’ve been an atheist for about a year now—Eliezer’s OB writing, along with some other writings I found through Reddit, pushed me in that direction throughout the end of 2007, but I did not accept the matter as fully determined until February 2008. This was not without personal consequences.
I have been rather addicted lately to the music of Tim Minchin—I’d recommend him to anyone here.
I’m currently working in high-energy particle physics under the direction of professor Jeff Richman and in collaboration with the good folks at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN I’m hoping to, in this way, gain some first-hand experience with how science progresses, and then spend the bulk of my life trying to explain this to the world—trying to convey a gut-level understanding of what it is scientists do, and why they can be trusted when they tell you how old a rock is, or what’s likely to happen if you keep putting the same amount of carbon in the atmosphere every day for the next 50 years.
I’m a pescetarian too, and have been since I was seventeen. I have recently stopped eating octopus and squid as well as things I share air with. There are a lot of reasons to reduce or eliminate meat consumption, not just ethical concerns about animal consciousness—as long as you can enjoy a good quality of life and level of health without eating animals, it’s easy to find adequate reason not to. (It’s more efficient, more environmentally sound, less expensive, healthier, and, yes, provides a nice ethical nervousness buffer zone to make sure you’re in the clear as far as the moral significance of animals is concerned.)
Handle: MBlume
Name: Michael Blume
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Education: Physics BS, pursuing PhD
External: UCSB Physics, Livejournal, Twitter, OKCupid (any advice here would be appreciated, incidentally), Facebook
I’m Mike, I’m a grad student, research assistant, and teacher’s aide at UC Santa Barbara.
I got here by way of OB (as many of us did), got there by way of a Reddit link to, if memory serves, Explainers Shoot High. Aim Low!, though my memory is pretty hazy, since I wound up reading a lot of posts very quickly. I got to Reddit by way of XKCD, and got to XKCD by way of my roommate sending me an amusing comic about string theory.
Let’s see. I’m car-free, and a lifestyle biker. I love to ride, and enjoy the self-sufficiency of getting everywhere by my own muscle.
I’m currently a pescatarian, and haven’t eaten any land-critters since I was 11. I continue to do this because I remain uncertain about the nature of consciousness, and thus am not certain to what extent animals suffer or experience morally significant pain. I suspect that morally significant consciousness is limited to the primates, but having not yet been fully convinced, I accept the (relatively minor) inconvenience of avoiding meat. If anyone would like to help me resolve this uncertainty, I’d certainly enjoy the conversation.
I’ve been an atheist for about a year now—Eliezer’s OB writing, along with some other writings I found through Reddit, pushed me in that direction throughout the end of 2007, but I did not accept the matter as fully determined until February 2008. This was not without personal consequences.
I have been rather addicted lately to the music of Tim Minchin—I’d recommend him to anyone here.
I’m currently working in high-energy particle physics under the direction of professor Jeff Richman and in collaboration with the good folks at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN I’m hoping to, in this way, gain some first-hand experience with how science progresses, and then spend the bulk of my life trying to explain this to the world—trying to convey a gut-level understanding of what it is scientists do, and why they can be trusted when they tell you how old a rock is, or what’s likely to happen if you keep putting the same amount of carbon in the atmosphere every day for the next 50 years.
That’s the plan, anyway.
I’m a pescetarian too, and have been since I was seventeen. I have recently stopped eating octopus and squid as well as things I share air with. There are a lot of reasons to reduce or eliminate meat consumption, not just ethical concerns about animal consciousness—as long as you can enjoy a good quality of life and level of health without eating animals, it’s easy to find adequate reason not to. (It’s more efficient, more environmentally sound, less expensive, healthier, and, yes, provides a nice ethical nervousness buffer zone to make sure you’re in the clear as far as the moral significance of animals is concerned.)
i’m also mostly vegetarian. i eat some fish.