6 ms·

Vegetarianism can be the norm, but for that to happen one of two things must happen: either the cost of meat has to be prohibitively expensive ("the stick") or

Vegetarianism can be the norm, but for that to happen one of two things must happen: either the cost of meat has to be prohibitively expensive ("the stick") or vegetarian dishes have to be more appealing to the public at large ("the carrot"). Neither of those things have happened yet. For Firefox to gain market share, either the perceived "cost" of using Chrome has to skyrocket or Firefox has to be superior for a common use case. Ethical arguments attempt to do the former, but imho nothing short of google charging for chrome will increase the cost. Mozilla needs a killer web app that people want to use. Something like gmail that attracts millions of people, with features added to Firefox (new APIs or whatever) to make the app much more effective.

ajbetteridge 10y ago
"the carrot" I see what you did there.
qplex 10y ago
People are far removed from seeing the actual results of their decisions. Humans are also very good at self deception. Even if you sort of know your beef is butchered, it carries little meaning since you never have to see it happen. Same goes for Google stealing your data or Apple making pretty phones with slave labor. Basically pretty much everybody needs to be smacked hard with a stick now and then and told what kind of picture they are really painting.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Humans are also very good at self deception. Even if you sort of know your beef is butchered, it carries little meaning since you never have to see it happen. I never understood this argument vis-a-vis butchering, since it implies pastoral farmers are particularly immoral people, unlike "regular" people who would stop their behaviour if only they'd see the results. Is that really your view? In my opinion, the opposite is true: growing up ignorant of how it works is the only reason why they may be shocked when they find out. If it was a common sight, people would be OK with it just like most people growing up in farms are.
  - boggydepot 10y ago
    In my opinion, if one knows that an action is not right and still do it, then one would be immoral - common sight or not. 'butchering' is probably a grey area whether it is right or wrong. But overuse of anti-biotics and bad farming conditions causing disastrous health issues in humans is easily wrong. edit: humans however are not perfect moral beings, I for example am super tempted to grab a slice of free pizza (which contains lots of butchered suffering animal products) here in the office. but in righting my comment here, I find some strength in fighting temptation.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    I've always been conflicted on the "don't know how it's made" argument. On one hand, I've known people who learned about farming practices and butchery and were horrified (but most went back to meat after a brief stretch of dissonance). On the other hand, I grew up knowing what butchering an animal involves. It never turned me (or a lot of other people) off of eating those animals. I think you're right - it's not that ignorance is required, just that the moment of discovery is a bit shocking.
  - qplex 10y ago
    The argument does not imply that killing animals for food is wrong, but that it is wrong to disconnect people from that reality and expect them to make moral decisions.
- vixen99 10y ago
  You're right about self deception but this is a tricky subject. Would you consider worldwide milk production and its products on the same level as your two examples with Google and Apple? Difficult to see how you can get milk without having to handle the question of what to do with male calves. As to butchering, we can know about it and if the 'how' is unacceptable (often is) then we can ensure the law is applied and modified when better solutions are found. Some kind of public access to slaughter houses should be encouraged and people should indeed be acquainted with the raw facts while ensuring they are able to appreciate the consequences of decisions which may be merely emotive feelings decoupled from fact. Both are needed!
sametmax 10y ago
> vegetarian dishes have to be more appealing to the public at large That is just a question of habit and education. If you are used to veggie food, the meat is not appealing to you. Tastes are things we build, not stuff we are born with. Vegetarianism will not become a norm, if it does, because of one factor only. For such a strong cultural habit, you need several factors. It may happen under a combination of the following: - meat production is costing too much ressources (land, water, energy, etc) compared to the food it produce - meat production does manage to feed the growing propulation; - mass meat production will revealed to be more and more unhealthy, either by nature, because of the artificial products we use for it, or because of the pollution it causes; - it's effect on global warming will trigger a similar reaction as the one we had about CFC. I doubt it though. I see more and more people consumming less meat around me, I'm a vegetarian myself, but I can't see a shift happening any time soon. BTW, morality is a very weak factor. It never stopped people to drink and do something stupid, it never stopped people from bying iphones built by children, and it never made them choose a proper president.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >it never made them choose a proper president. The election system in the US prevents that from ever happening.
reitanqild 10y ago
> For Firefox to gain market share, either the perceived "cost" of using Chrome has to skyrocket or Firefox has to be superior for a common use case. It wouldn't hurt either if we nerds, pros, superusers etc etc stopped spreading FUD like "Chrome is way better".
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  It's not FUD since Firefox does have many flaws. While I don't like Google and Chrome, for an average user it is better to use.
  - endemic 10y ago
    Just curious, why is Chrome better for you? I switched back to Firefox after e10s landed, and tbh they are now functionally equivalent (for me, at least). I now choose Firefox because I find myself more aligned with Mozilla's philosophy, and to promote cross-browser consistency.
    - dkuntz2 10y ago
      Is e10s the default now? I thought you had to enable it yourself, and some extensions weren't huge fans.
      - endemic 10y ago
        I had been using beta/etc. versions. Yeah I've also heard that some extensions don't work within a sandbox, but I'm not really an extensions-type person.
FatalBaboon 10y ago
One argument that has good traction lately around me is data privacy. It remains the killer argument of Firefox against Chrome. What's old is new again.
AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
Firefox for Android allows you to install extensions. Most notably, it allows you to install an adblocker like uBlock Origin. Chrome for Android does not. I'd consider that a killer feature.
- Can_Not 10y ago
  Also Firefox on mobile is already much better.
Grishnakh 10y ago
>Vegetarianism can be the norm, but for that to happen one of two things must happen: either the cost of meat has to be prohibitively expensive ("the stick") or vegetarian dishes have to be more appealing to the public at large ("the carrot"). Neither of those things have happened yet. That's not really true, about them being appealing. There's several Italian pasta dishes that are quite tasty which I frequently make for myself because they're super-cheap: spaghetti, penne, etc. Pasta plus a tomato-based sauce is totally vegetarian AFAIK, and what kind of weirdo doesn't like spaghetti? (Of course, a lot of people eat it with meat sauce or meatballs, but that's not necessary for the dish.) There's also macaroni & cheese; lots of people like that. Of course, the problem with these dishes is that 1) personally I don't want to eat spaghetti or pasta every single night, and I'm probably not alone there, and 2)you don't get much protein this way. The problem with vegetarianism is that there just aren't a lot of good plant-based protein sources that are actually appealing, and you need this for a balanced diet. Meat is a simple and easy way to get lots of high-quality protein into your diet. I believe vegetarianism is going to die out in the next century, as artificially-grown meats are developed and commercialized. If you can eat filet-minion-quality beef cheaply and without having to kill a cow to get it, why bother being a vegetarian? >Mozilla needs a killer web app that people want to use. Something like gmail that attracts millions of people, with features added to Firefox (new APIs or whatever) to make the app much more effective. The problem with this idea is that it breaks the whole idea of the web, which rests on open standards. Web browsers aren't supposed to be walled gardens that are incompatible with each other, they're all supposed to show web content the same way. We should not be going back to the bad old days of site X needing browser A to work. The main thing that differentiates browsers is features and extensions. Edge, for instance, is a mostly unusable browser because it doesn't support all the ad-blocking extensions that Chrome and Firefox do. Performance is also a big feature, and Firefox has been lagging there for some time by sticking to having a single process. Personally I think that Firefox would be fine if they'd stop wasting time and effort on bullshit features like Pocket and work on making it the fastest, most memory-efficient browser possible, which also best supports uBlock Origin and other advanced features. It'd probably also be a good idea if they could support Netflix viewing out-of-the-box the way Chrome does. If they got all that right and working really well, and touted themselves as being "spyware-free", they'd have sufficient marketshare to be relevant and hold their position, which is all they really need to do. They don't need to be #1, they just need to be large and influential enough to keep the others in line and prevent fragmentation of the web like we had in the IE6 days. If 40% of the market wants to be suckers and use Edge and look at copious ads, let them; they don't matter as long as they're not a clear majority.

ajbetteridge 10y ago

"the carrot" I see what you did there.

qplex 10y ago

People are far removed from seeing the actual results of their decisions. Humans are also very good at self deception. Even if you sort of know your beef is butchered, it carries little meaning since you never have to see it happen. Same goes for Google stealing your data or Apple making pretty phones with slave labor. Basically pretty much everybody needs to be smacked hard with a stick now and then and told what kind of picture they are really painting.

icebraining 10y ago
Humans are also very good at self deception. Even if you sort of know your beef is butchered, it carries little meaning since you never have to see it happen. I never understood this argument vis-a-vis butchering, since it implies pastoral farmers are particularly immoral people, unlike "regular" people who would stop their behaviour if only they'd see the results. Is that really your view? In my opinion, the opposite is true: growing up ignorant of how it works is the only reason why they may be shocked when they find out. If it was a common sight, people would be OK with it just like most people growing up in farms are.
- boggydepot 10y ago
  In my opinion, if one knows that an action is not right and still do it, then one would be immoral - common sight or not. 'butchering' is probably a grey area whether it is right or wrong. But overuse of anti-biotics and bad farming conditions causing disastrous health issues in humans is easily wrong. edit: humans however are not perfect moral beings, I for example am super tempted to grab a slice of free pizza (which contains lots of butchered suffering animal products) here in the office. but in righting my comment here, I find some strength in fighting temptation.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  I've always been conflicted on the "don't know how it's made" argument. On one hand, I've known people who learned about farming practices and butchery and were horrified (but most went back to meat after a brief stretch of dissonance). On the other hand, I grew up knowing what butchering an animal involves. It never turned me (or a lot of other people) off of eating those animals. I think you're right - it's not that ignorance is required, just that the moment of discovery is a bit shocking.
- qplex 10y ago
  The argument does not imply that killing animals for food is wrong, but that it is wrong to disconnect people from that reality and expect them to make moral decisions.
vixen99 10y ago
You're right about self deception but this is a tricky subject. Would you consider worldwide milk production and its products on the same level as your two examples with Google and Apple? Difficult to see how you can get milk without having to handle the question of what to do with male calves. As to butchering, we can know about it and if the 'how' is unacceptable (often is) then we can ensure the law is applied and modified when better solutions are found. Some kind of public access to slaughter houses should be encouraged and people should indeed be acquainted with the raw facts while ensuring they are able to appreciate the consequences of decisions which may be merely emotive feelings decoupled from fact. Both are needed!

sametmax 10y ago

> vegetarian dishes have to be more appealing to the public at large That is just a question of habit and education. If you are used to veggie food, the meat is not appealing to you. Tastes are things we build, not stuff we are born with. Vegetarianism will not become a norm, if it does, because of one factor only. For such a strong cultural habit, you need several factors. It may happen under a combination of the following: - meat production is costing too much ressources (land, water, energy, etc) compared to the food it produce - meat production does manage to feed the growing propulation; - mass meat production will revealed to be more and more unhealthy, either by nature, because of the artificial products we use for it, or because of the pollution it causes; - it's effect on global warming will trigger a similar reaction as the one we had about CFC. I doubt it though. I see more and more people consumming less meat around me, I'm a vegetarian myself, but I can't see a shift happening any time soon. BTW, morality is a very weak factor. It never stopped people to drink and do something stupid, it never stopped people from bying iphones built by children, and it never made them choose a proper president.

Grishnakh 10y ago
>it never made them choose a proper president. The election system in the US prevents that from ever happening.

reitanqild 10y ago

> For Firefox to gain market share, either the perceived "cost" of using Chrome has to skyrocket or Firefox has to be superior for a common use case. It wouldn't hurt either if we nerds, pros, superusers etc etc stopped spreading FUD like "Chrome is way better".

angry-hacker 10y ago
It's not FUD since Firefox does have many flaws. While I don't like Google and Chrome, for an average user it is better to use.
- endemic 10y ago
  Just curious, why is Chrome better for you? I switched back to Firefox after e10s landed, and tbh they are now functionally equivalent (for me, at least). I now choose Firefox because I find myself more aligned with Mozilla's philosophy, and to promote cross-browser consistency.
  - dkuntz2 10y ago
    Is e10s the default now? I thought you had to enable it yourself, and some extensions weren't huge fans.
    - endemic 10y ago
      I had been using beta/etc. versions. Yeah I've also heard that some extensions don't work within a sandbox, but I'm not really an extensions-type person.

FatalBaboon 10y ago

One argument that has good traction lately around me is data privacy. It remains the killer argument of Firefox against Chrome. What's old is new again.

AdmiralAsshat 10y ago

Firefox for Android allows you to install extensions. Most notably, it allows you to install an adblocker like uBlock Origin. Chrome for Android does not. I'd consider that a killer feature.

Can_Not 10y ago
Also Firefox on mobile is already much better.

Grishnakh 10y ago

>Vegetarianism can be the norm, but for that to happen one of two things must happen: either the cost of meat has to be prohibitively expensive ("the stick") or vegetarian dishes have to be more appealing to the public at large ("the carrot"). Neither of those things have happened yet. That's not really true, about them being appealing. There's several Italian pasta dishes that are quite tasty which I frequently make for myself because they're super-cheap: spaghetti, penne, etc. Pasta plus a tomato-based sauce is totally vegetarian AFAIK, and what kind of weirdo doesn't like spaghetti? (Of course, a lot of people eat it with meat sauce or meatballs, but that's not necessary for the dish.) There's also macaroni & cheese; lots of people like that. Of course, the problem with these dishes is that 1) personally I don't want to eat spaghetti or pasta every single night, and I'm probably not alone there, and 2)you don't get much protein this way. The problem with vegetarianism is that there just aren't a lot of good plant-based protein sources that are actually appealing, and you need this for a balanced diet. Meat is a simple and easy way to get lots of high-quality protein into your diet. I believe vegetarianism is going to die out in the next century, as artificially-grown meats are developed and commercialized. If you can eat filet-minion-quality beef cheaply and without having to kill a cow to get it, why bother being a vegetarian? >Mozilla needs a killer web app that people want to use. Something like gmail that attracts millions of people, with features added to Firefox (new APIs or whatever) to make the app much more effective. The problem with this idea is that it breaks the whole idea of the web, which rests on open standards. Web browsers aren't supposed to be walled gardens that are incompatible with each other, they're all supposed to show web content the same way. We should not be going back to the bad old days of site X needing browser A to work. The main thing that differentiates browsers is features and extensions. Edge, for instance, is a mostly unusable browser because it doesn't support all the ad-blocking extensions that Chrome and Firefox do. Performance is also a big feature, and Firefox has been lagging there for some time by sticking to having a single process. Personally I think that Firefox would be fine if they'd stop wasting time and effort on bullshit features like Pocket and work on making it the fastest, most memory-efficient browser possible, which also best supports uBlock Origin and other advanced features. It'd probably also be a good idea if they could support Netflix viewing out-of-the-box the way Chrome does. If they got all that right and working really well, and touted themselves as being "spyware-free", they'd have sufficient marketshare to be relevant and hold their position, which is all they really need to do. They don't need to be #1, they just need to be large and influential enough to keep the others in line and prevent fragmentation of the web like we had in the IE6 days. If 40% of the market wants to be suckers and use Edge and look at copious ads, let them; they don't matter as long as they're not a clear majority.