Bloody Stanley

A common question that comes up among non veg*ns and vegetarians is the question of why some vegans choose not to consume honey.  The practice itself might seem trivial and mundane at first; after all, commercial producers of crops use bees to pollenate their crops, so regardless of what vegans do, they’ll still be contributing to the exploitation of bees.

The honey industry, however, is not as…gentle as far as using bees to pollenate crops goes, so this argument is kind of a moot point. You can’t really compare commercial use of bees in crops to the production of honey, simply because the practices that are used to raise the bees are different.

Commercial crop producers benefit from raising bees because a third of the crops eaten around the globe would not grow without bee pollenation. So this is kind of necessary to our diet; if commercial production did not exploit bees, we would have severe limitations on what food we could eat, people would starve, and so on. So this is justifiable. Not to mention that bees (that pollenate organic crops, GM - genetically modified - crops are unhealthy for humans and bees) benefit from an increase in population as colonies increase to pollenate the crops.

Honey, however, is not necessary in any case. Firstly, a lot of people argue that due the the significant decrease in the bee population across North America and Europe due to CCD (colony collapse disorder), the increase in bee colonies on honey harvesting farms contributes to the bee population in worldwide. This is true. However, this will at no point help the problem, because the truth of the matter is that studies believe that CCD is due to commercial farming practices that allow bees to move from farm to farm to infect other bees.  The solution to this would be to regulate commercial practices, or by creating “buffer” fields of crops that are not useful to bees to pollenate, so they stay in their individual zones. Increased honey production should not be the solution, for it is harmful to bees, as I will explain.

Beekeepers are primarily concerned with keeping their bees alive, both for production and because of the severe decrease in honeybee and bumblebee population worldwide, and this is true. However, honey farms resort to practices that can be considered cruel to ensure this. For example, farmers will burn the hives of any bees that are considered to be infected to prevent their sickness from spreading, but they cause this sickness, because beekeepers put bees on artificial diets that weaken them. This sort of thing does not occur with commercial crops, because the bees diets are not affected; honeybees eat that honey that they produce, but farmers take it away and replace it with sustenance that reduces the effectiveness of their immune system to pathogens. So honey farms can be thought to contribute to CCD in this way.

So honey farms are actively harmful to bees whereas commercial farming, regulated properly, is more beneficial. I repeat, there is no need for humans to eat honey; there is no nutritional value, and there are replacements, like artificial sweetener. I personally have gone my entire life without consuming honey more than a few times, and I haven’t used honey in a few years now.

I do agree that vegans shouldn’t be acting morally superior. However, all the facts I have stated are true. honey farms hurt bees in the long run, and don’t solve the greater problem of CCD.

This article is here to inform, so anyone, feel free to respond.

I’m going to come back and edit this to make it more readable later.  This was honestly just written while my mind was abuzz with all the information about this stuff.

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The SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) have been declaimed as purveyors censorship and unconstitutional infringement of our right to freedom of speech.  I’d like to examine the bill more objectively.  Mostly to organize my own thoughts/knowledge of the bills.

Upon their inception, the SOPA and PIPA legislations were created for the purpose of strengthening anti-copyright infringement laws, and the original drafts of the bills received widespread approval from both political parties.  SOPA was the Senate’s draft of the bill, while PIPA was drafted by the House of Representatives. 

Both bills are heavily supported by the entertainment industry, with major names such as the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the United States Chamber of Commerce.  Inevitably, this is because the bill focuses mainly on copyrighted intellectual work such as movies and songs that many sites (Megaupload, most recently and infamously at the time of this writing) host on their websites.  It has always been illegal for these sites to do so, but SOPA and PIPA give the federal government the legal teeth to really put a stop to piracy laws. 

SOPA and PIPA give the government a few formidable tools to combat piracy:

1) Companies that find their copywrighted property hosted illegally by another site can sue for a court order to have that site’s funding cut off from adverising agencies, as well as have that site removed from “search engines.” 

2) American ISPs can and are required to block access to certain domain names known to host pirated material - but tech-savvy users can bypass this block using the website’s IP address, if known.  This being the internet, those IP addresses will be known.

These methods mainly come into play when illegal content is hosted on foreign websites that U.S. has no jurisdiction over.  The only method by which they can be stopped is through regulation of access to U.S. citizens, specifically.

As knowledge of the government’s considering this legislation spread, online juggernauts such as Anonymous, Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Tumblr took it upon themselves to spread word of their fears of the bill’s undermining free speech.  Wikipedia underwent a blackout on January the 18th, while Tumblr allowed users to “blackout” their own blogs in protest of the bill, calling for Internet users to call their state representatives and voice their concerns.  As a result of the protests, many representatives DID actually back down, sending SOPA back to the drawing board.

Nonetheless, PIPA is still in the process of being considered for legalization (voting will occur on the 24th). On the day of the protests prosecute several members of the Internet file hosting site, Megaupload, including the founder.  The Internet group Anonymous immediately responded by taking down government sites such as those of the Department of Justice’s. 

At the end of the day, the bill seems to be primarily supported by Congress - the White House itself has spoken out against the bill, stating that the way to remedy piracy in America is to so work with the existing infrastructure of the Internet according to a public statement in response to the Jan 18 protests.  In fact, the Obama Administration has hinted towards desiring a more hands-off approach, letting the industry sort itself out, which might actually be a wise decision. 

In any case, the anti-piracy proponents for the bill have been perhaps unfairly demonized.  Although the Obama administration has openly decried the bills, the administration itself is somewhat conflicted and dubious in its approach to controversial bills.  The most clear example of this in recent times is President Obama’s approving the NDAA (National Defense Authority Act), giving the government the legal authority to detain and imprision anyone, including U.S. citizens, deemed a danger to national security, without trial.   The president claimed that he would never enforce some of the more controversial points of the act, but he nevertheless signed them into being, and the action did not go unnoticed by groups such as Anonymous, which has had similarly negative reactions, possibly fueling their responses to the current state of legistlative affairs.  As a result of these events, there has already been a heightened awareness against any restrictive acts by the government, and rightly so.  The main concern is whether or not this heightened state of alarm has clouded our evaluation of the SOPA and PIPA bills. 

For one thing, a portion of the provisions of the bills call for corporations to act themselves, suing websites for hosting their content.  While the government might not be aware of it, the economy has quite well adjusted to the Internet as a resource of commerce, and many companies, moviemakers, and artists or publishers make use of websites such as Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube for their own advertising purposes.  It’s therefore not unthinkable for these businesses, as the White HOuse wishes, to sort out the piracy issues on their own.  Even in the current climate, PIPA and SOPA give businesses a fair amount of discretion to decide which uses of their copywrited content constitutes illegal usage - YouTube itself has shown progressivism in adapting to changing climates of copywrite issues, and has even retrograded upon some of its more unpopular rules in the past.  The industry has already shown a capacity to adapt, which SOPA and PIPA do not necessarily limit. 

The reaction to Megavideo’s shutdown could also be considered exaggerated.  For years the website has hosted illegal content, from software to movies and songs, and its worth noting that the website does accrue profits from its service, and because this money was garnered illegally, the federal government already has the authority to arrest these individuals, even outside of the authority of the acts.  Perhaps badly timed, but not necessarily representative of what these acts can do. 

The aforementioned situation also indicates what many opponents of the bills - and the government - seem to overlook:  that the Internet is an industry interested in making a profit, just as much as the entertainment industry is.  While the corporate juggernauts of Google and Tumblr have tried to paint the bill’s supporters as dark capitalists interested in making money at the citizens’ expense, the same is equally true of Internet websites themselves.  Both sides are businesses, and both sides are interested in pursuing their own agendas.  Of course websites like Google and YouTube would act against the bill - if for no other reason than because the bill represents restrictions upon their activities.  It costs money to institute anti-piracy policies - something well noted by anti-PIPA/SOPA protestors - which is money that these websites do not want to spend.  Don’t get carried away by all the flowery speech concerning freedom of speech, because the cold truth is that this is an argument in which both sides are pushing the same interests.  Both sides spend money lobbying in Congress, and corporate influence is inherent no matter who you support.  Anonymous itself is a group that originated on the Internet, and makes use of that culture to its maximum extent, as seen with its reaction to the shutdown of Megavideo.  Bias is inherent in both sides - but the majority of America consists of Internet users, so we mainly receive one side. 

And in any case, the points that groups such as the NPAA make aren’t entirely misguided.  Owners of intellectual property DO deserve to have their property treated as they wish it to be.  In the same manner that selling another person’s work without permission and accruing what amounts to stolen profits is morally wrong, it’s fair to say that cheating those owners out of their profits for their work - or legally purchased work - is morally reprehensible as well.  No matter what you may see in the future, the truth of these bills is that they have a fair and respectable premise.

However, another common and very valid complaint against the bills is their failure to recognize the current culture of the Internet and how it has been integrated into society.  It’s no secret that the government is slow to respond to change - it is adaptable, but slow.  The Internet is also a relatively infantile industry, one that is still under study and that we are still adapting to with the rapid pace of techological and social advancement.  PIPA and SOPA, as well as their supporters, seem unable to recognize the freedom and innovation that the Internet requires, similarly to the way that concrete and non-digital industries need some room to expand.  PIPA and SOPA stifle economic growth of the internet because of the funds they demand for newspawned websites to institute anti-piracy reform.  This could be seen as the reasoning for the bill’s vague wording - while we have seen this as opening it up to abuse in the future, it also opens it up to repair as well.  Such is the nature of America, to be naively idealistic for a moment.  Unfortunately, those who support the bill tend to be ignorant to the adaptive nature and needs of the Internet, and will undoubtedly obstruct progress.  This too, is the nature of America. 

The whole scenario hearkens back to the early 20th century, when the government struggled to adapt to the growth of big business in America as industries underwent a major industrial overhaul.  We saw the result of unrestrained influence by the government - businesses were allowed to take advantage of consumers and adjudicate decisions at their leisure, until the government took a hand in regulating the commerce.  Today, we, the people, find ourselves cornered on two fronts, by the Internet, which profits from consumers, and the entertainment industry, which further seeks to profit from consumers.  Big business in the 1900s took over half a century to finally regulate to acceptable levels, and we still struggle with it.  The same should be considered probable for the Internet.  Being a new industry itself,  we may have to impose unprecedented and questionable legislation to equitably regulate it - the important thing is doing so without foresaking either the consumers or the producers. 

Therefore, the knee-jerk reaction that has so widely been seen nationwide against SOPA and PIPA, while well-intentioned, might be misinformed, just as the acts themselves are.  It’s necessary, as with so many times in history, for both sides to come together and compromise their way to agreeable copyright policy, (To be fair, the side of the Internet has shown more willingness to do this than the opposing side has - for an example, look up Chris Dodd.)  In order to stimulate both moral, political, and economic progress.  SOPA and PIPA are not the first attempt at this, but they are perhaps the most shaking in recent memory.

And if your claim to freedom of speech is a claim to freedom of free software, movies, and music, you are merely propogating the motives of SOPA and PIPA activists.  Once again,  SOPA and PIPA have a very solid premise for their drafting, it’s merely the implications and applications that are at fault. I strongly urge anyone who has felt that they are affected and subjugated by these acts to take a calmer, objective, and closer look at them.

In all honesty, I don’t see why there should be such an outcry against the acts without first considering them.   They are a trademark example of progress in adapting an industry that has for so long been allowed to grow unchecked, and, in some cases, at the expense of others.  Misguided, perhaps, but just as worth considering as any other act.  Let’s first see how these acts play out before we so readily slice their throats. 

Then again, I’m a high school student trying to organize his thoughts onto a clean sheet of digital paper, so obviously, take all of this with a teaspoon of salt.

If you actually read through all of this, thanks for reading. :D

Links:
Overview of PIPA and SOPA History (NYTimes)
Protect IP Act (Wikipedia)
Stop Online Piracy Act (Wikipedia)
Anonymous Takes Down Responds to Megavideo Shutdown (RT.com)
Indictment of Megavideo (NYTimes)

White House Position on SOPA (Mashable.com)

White House Response to SOPA Petition (Mashable.com)