OT: Will non net-neutrality kill the internet?

[Chris H]

I have no idea what the original wording of that Commandment is,

The Biblical Commandment is irrelevant. We are discussion absolutes.

and
AFAIK there are no remaining native speakers of that language, so even
if we had a reliable copy of the original wording (and we don't), we
couldn't be sure we were interpreting it correctly.

The Bible is a semi historical work of fiction put together over several
hundred years for political ends. It has no relevance to a discussion of
absolute morality

It might have been
absolute, or it might not have been; there is simply no way to know
today, which is why opinions vary.

It has nothing to do with it. Had it been the word of God it might have
done. It isn't so it hasn't.

We are discussing absolutes and morality. Not religion.

 

[Stephen Sprunk]

different results, but likely in the larger sense, this is only a minor
variation...

The results matter.

And there is more variation than you'd like to admit; for instance,
consider how in the Middle East it is "immoral" for a woman to expose
her face, arms or legs to a man (other than her father), whereas in the
rest of the world it is not. (And opinions vary about exposure of her
breasts; in some cultures that's immoral, but in others it's not.)

Paul has generally been considered an authority on these matters.

Only by Christians, of course. The majority of humanity considers the
New Testament to be a collection of fairy tales.

also notable is that most major Asian cultures also are monogamous, which
implies that it does have weight outside of western culture.

I suspect that is mainly for practical reasons, e.g. the male and female
birth rates are roughly equal, rather than moral ones.

yes, but in most cases, people don't do this.

Lots of people are imprisoned for offenses that are immoral in another
group's interpretation but not in their own. As far as murder, well,
that is still quite popular for morality offenses in the Middle East,
and even in Europe it was popular until a few hundred years ago.
Remember the Inquisition?

in mainstream Christianity, there is a wide variety of doctrinal variations
between groups, and most get along just fine...

If you limit the meaning of "get along just fine" to not killing each
other over their disagreements, sure. Beyond that, there is quite a bit
of animosity and strife.

similarly, most pose no real threat to people who disagree with them.

You do not consider the threat of being fined, imprisoned or even
executed over a dispute in interpretation of morality (or even what
morality applies) to not be significant?

IMHO, the _reason_ you don't see much variation or a "real" threat is
that you happen to _agree_ with the particular version of morality that
is enforced where you live. Since anyone who disagrees with you is
immoral in your view, you don't care about what problems _they_ have.

yes, but that doesn't mean he is not keeping track.

if people are not careful, there will be hell to pay...

Prove it--without using a circular argument.

Even people who accept your God and the Bible can't agree on what the
correct morality is, so how can you expect someone who doesn't to care?

possibly.

but, in this case, since it was presented as a "kill 1 to save 10" scenario,
it is a direct tradeoff:
kill 1 person, and be responsible for their death (via action);
let 10 people die, and be responsible for their deaths (via inaction).

I am not responsible via inaction for deaths caused by someone (or
something) else, which makes the correct action in that scenario clear.

in this case, it is not really all that different of a matter from, say, a
triage.
classify who will live and who will die, and hope that the best choice was
made.

Ah, that is different. If both people will die without my assistance,
then I am not responsible for either death, and therefore I can freely
choose to save either--or neither--without guilt.

either way, guilt can't be escaped, and hence, it is the goal of finding the
lesser of the evils, which will tend to be preserving those who have the
most value.

Wrong.

S

 

[BGB / cr88192]

both of these are allowed.
to argue against these being valid would undermine the book of Joshua, as
well as several others.

the book basically gave the Jews the divine authority to take over the
land
of Israel and, basically, kill anyone who stood in their way of doing so.

<--
you say that like it's a bad thing...

?!
-->

if one has belief, and assumes that the creator and the people operate under
a comparable moral code (assume that, for sake of his own authority, he
follows a comparable code), than any actions that the creator has taken are
assumed to be morally valid, and ones' model should be able to account for
them.

most conventional ethical models (such as traditional utilitarianism, ...),
as well as many commonly held views (dunno if there is a name for it,
"common US humanist ethics" or whatever...), would be unable to hold up with
the vast majority of the OT in question.


similarly, a model needs to be able to deal with the vast majority of
existing moral rules, "reasonable" laws, ...

all hopefully withough degenerating into a simple blind legalism (pure
legalism has a failing in edge cases, as in: it does not tend to provide
good answers in the case of dillemmas, does not readily extend to new
contexts, ...).

many people try to address this matter via "principlizing", which tends to
result in a lot more rules, and often "principles" which tend to either make
little sense or it is unclear how they work or where they would apply.


I took a very different strategy, and essentially came up with a different
model.

I had called it "egoistic pragmatic utilitarianism" mostly because:
it starts from the point of view of a single person (rather than requiring
an overall view of everything), and each person in the system may have their
own perspective (disagreements are possible, and are a natural part of the
model, the assumption is that both are allowed whatever is valid from their
POV);
it is pragmatic in that practical concerns are the main point of emphasis;
it is based on utilitarianism in that a vaguely similar methodology is
assumed (namely, value and weighting), although it does carry some notable
differences.

as a whole, it does seem able to address much of observed reality, although
it does allow some questionable edge cases (more along the lines that it
allows exploitative, destructive, or otherwise immoral behaviors, if they
can still be shown to still benefit the "ego" in question). a reasonable fix
hasn't been found.


I also haven't tried setting up a computer simulation of the model, since
this would likely be a fairly complicated thing to set up tests for.

whether or not it is moral, it is a justifiable action.

<--
and probably legal
-->

yep.

protection of oneself, ones' family, and (possibly) ones' property,
effectively justify the use of deadly force if needed (granted, it should
not be used if it can be avoided).

<--
in the UK you'd probably be on iffy ground if tried protection of
property as your defence.
-->

in the US, I think it depends on location and other factors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_law

actually, as I see it, it is similar to the police:
police are fully allowed to use whatever force is necessary;
however, "shoot first, ask questions later" is not generally looked upon
favorably.

<--
unless it's a Brazillian electrian or you're the SAS
-->

well, general as a general rule...

like, say, police loading up with guns and trying to fight crime Rambo
style...

no. a bomb is likely to do much more damage to life and property, and many
of these terrorists tend to blow themselves up in the explosion anyway,

<--
depends on your flavour of terrorist
-->

fair enough...

AFAIK, many of the Muslim ones tend to be suicide attacks, where either they
are the bomb, or they blow themselves up in the process, or they otherwise
expect to be killed somehow during the course of the attack.

this may be because usually instant rewards are assumed:
massacre people, die, then instant trip to heaven.


most other groups tend not to try bombing in this way, or try to destroy
property rather than people (like, blowing up buildings in the early AM
timeframe when they are mostly empty, ...).

but, AFAIK, on a large scale, non-Muslim terrorists are a minority...

 

[BGB / cr88192]

I disagree.


I don't see any moral exceptions there.


Many would say yes.


Many would say yes.


Many would say yes.


Many would say yes.

we call most of the people who believe a lot of this hippies or socialists,
and they have otherwise no real validity...

I have no idea what the original wording of that Commandment is, and
AFAIK there are no remaining native speakers of that language, so even
if we had a reliable copy of the original wording (and we don't), we
couldn't be sure we were interpreting it correctly. It might have been
absolute, or it might not have been; there is simply no way to know
today, which is why opinions vary.

Israel revived the language (Hebrew) and made it the official language of
the country.

granted, one can debate that maybe their recreation is not accurate, or
whatever, ...


anyways, it is very unlikely that the proper interpretation would be
something which undermined much of the rest of the OT, as that would be
problematic.

a "do not murder" interpretation is much more effective, and remains
consistent...
as well, AFAIK many newer translations use this wording anyways...

 

[BGB / cr88192]

and black is white and pigs can fly. This is arrant nonsense.

different specifics does not necessarily mean a different model.

yeah right. Are there a lot of forced abortions in America to enforce
the One Child policy? Just how big was the leader of China's majority
in the last election?

The US has its problems but this sort of moral relativism from useful
idiots just takes the biscuit.

a difference in laws doesn't necessarily mean difference in morals.
who ever says that public opinion influencing an election is a "moral
right"?...

why not just say "a government can make whatever laws they figure best
benefit the nation"?...
people can then oppose them if they want, or follow them, and there is no
particular fault either way.

and the country has not imploded either politically or economically, so they
can't be doing things "THAT" badly, even if one may disagree with things
like the one child policy, public humiliation or executions, labor camps,
....

(granted, I don't strictly agree with all of their policies, but they can't
be so easily disproven either...).


<snip>

it is assumed here that rightness and wrongness arise from evaluations (this
"moral calculus"), otherwise one would have to assume intrinsic values
(problematic, since one can't demonstrate that intrinsic values exist), or a
nihilistic position (I was faced with this for a while, but came up with a
model which could at least mostly hold together).


anyways, a universalist model can seem relative in some cases, such as if it
allows evaluation from many possible sources at the same time, which can
likely account for many of the variations seen between societies without
otherwise breaking the underlying model.

not everyone is happy, and wars/conflicts/... are inevitable, but this may
be a tradeoff...

the US doesn't have the same laws, because they don't have the same overall
societal or political architecture.



anyways, I don't claim to either support humanistic ideals, or to believe in
a strict absolutist mindset (where a difference in large-scale architecture
would pose a problem), so the exact manifestation may allow some variation
while still preserving the relevant aspects.

for example: in my case, neither preservation of life, nor preservation of
personal freedoms, nor presevation of happiness or wellbeing, ..., are
axioms (for sake of a consistent model, intrinsic values were avoided, and
most values were made extrinsic, or IOW, manifesting in a manner similar to
economic properties...).

for example, how does one prove that the life of a person has value in
itself?... really, if it is assumed that a person is possibly (simply) just
matter, then little is contained in their structure to give this value.
something else is then needed to give them such value, and this may be in
effect, their relations to and interactions with others, and with external
systems. then, they can have value, without needing to depend on the
existence of non-demonstratable properties.


however, they may still be present, for example, due to not being required
to enforce ones' views on others, and it being to a net detriment to oppose
them. so, for example, one preserves personal rights, not because there is
inherent value in personal rights, but because it works out to the greater
benefit for everyone involved.

and, if another can derive greater benefit by opposing ones' rights, that is
valid as well.

the cost then is if someone does something which is, in all cases, a
detriment to those involved.
it is these things which can be opposed.


it is much like how the same piece of code may be used in all manner of
codebases without otherwise compromising its functionality...

granted, yes, the model still has a few faults and questionable edge
cases...

 

[Stephen Sprunk]

The Biblical Commandment is irrelevant. We are discussion absolutes.

The specific example being discussed, which you snipped from your quote
above along with an attribution, was the Commandment "Thou shalt not
kill", which is an absolute.

S

 

[wolfgang kern]

"BGB / cr88192" in dispute with others who waste my bandwidth:

may I ? add:

"You shalt not abuse free thinking spirits connections"

x-lat: could you please remove ALA and AOD from this
not even considered as OT from most readers here ...

I like philosophic discussions about why and when a god
may have dicided to create time.

But me and many others expect to see posts about programming
or technical news in this groups.

Granted, we all often take side steps into OT, but we usually
come back quite fast to the original sense of our party.

Now this thread goes a bit to far and much to long for my
and for sure not only for my taste.

So if someone could tell me any link from ASM to God or Devil
I'd be really curious and will listen like a good child
even I'm not a believer of any kind ...
....
__
wolfgang

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

yeah right. Are there a lot of forced abortions in America to enforce

the One Child policy? Just how big was the leader of China's majority
in the last election?

At least up to 1930ies, at least in US South, sterilization was widely used as criminal punishment.

And, as about "kind" "socialistic" Sweden, sterilization not only lasted till 1970ies, but was not even a sentence by the criminal court - just the "undecent" woman could be sterilized due to pressure from some child protection governemental body.

So, what's wrong with Chinese abortions?

Now take the "juvenile justice" arising in the West, when the mother can be parted from her child forever due to "being too rough" to him (and the definition of "too rough" is up to the today's mood of the governemental officer - forgot to buy a Mars snack to him, for instance).

All these things, 100% impossible in Stalin's USSR, not to say late USSR, cause me to believe that _Western system is not less cruel then the communist one_.

Just the different flavour of cruelty. Probably based on the difference between Orthodox and Calvinist religion.

 

[Stephen Sprunk]

we call most of the people who believe a lot of this hippies or socialists,
and they have otherwise no real validity...

If so, then "we" would be wrong. Socialists believe that the workers
should own the means of production; the ideology has nothing to do with
whether it's okay to kill people under certain circumstances except,
perhaps, that fewer workers would probably die if they were the ones in
charge rather than some capitalist motivated to cut corners on safety to
improve profits at the expense of the workers.

You seem to have a serious problem with terminology and recognizing that
there are many, many overlapping groups with different interests and
positions, rather than merely two possible viewpoints (i.e. yours and
"liberals"/"socialists"/"hippies").

Israel revived the language (Hebrew) and made it the official language of
the country.

granted, one can debate that maybe their recreation is not accurate, or
whatever, ...

Exodus was not originally written in Hebrew as we know it because that
script did not yet exist. Scholars today can't even decide if, back
then, the Israelies of the era used Paleo-Hebrew or Assyrian script.
The modern Aramaic-based script was only introduced about 2300 years
ago--roughly a millenium after Exodus was supposedly written. _Then_ it
was translated into Greek, the Greek into Latin, and the Latin into
English, which is what you read today.

Of course, even if we knew the exact Hebrew words used in the original,
we have no clue how much the meaning of various words has evolved and
changed in the ~3500 years since then.

Finally, even with two modern languages, it is virtually impossible to
translate a text from one to another without losing accuracy because the
exact meanings (both denotation and connotation) of the words available
rarely match perfectly. Thinking we can do better with a missing text
written in an unknown script of a dead language through multiple
separate translations is beyond foolish.

anyways, it is very unlikely that the proper interpretation would be
something which undermined much of the rest of the OT, as that would be
problematic.

There is no shortage of self-contradictions in the Bible; what's one more?

a "do not murder" interpretation is much more effective, and remains
consistent...
as well, AFAIK many newer translations use this wording anyways...

.... because that's what people _want_ it to say.

S

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Exodus was not originally written in Hebrew as we know it because that

script did not yet exist. Scholars today can't even decide if, back
then, the Israelies of the era used Paleo-Hebrew or Assyrian script.
The modern Aramaic-based script was only introduced about 2300 years
ago--roughly a millenium after Exodus was supposedly written. _Then_ it
was translated into Greek, the Greek into Latin, and the Latin into
English, which is what you read today.

Same language can change scripts during its lifetime, like the Uzbek language in the USSR moved from Arabic to Cyrillic.

So, even if the 5 Books were written in Assyrian script, then the language could can still be Hebrew.

Lots of texts survived from the ancient city of Ugarit. They were written in cuneiform similar to Shumerian. Many of them are deciphered by the scientists (the interesting story about Baal and Anath and so on). The language is AFAIK (have read somewhere) around 99% same as Hebrew.

As about translations. St. Jerome IIRC used the Hebrew original directly, not the _very bad_ Greek translation which is a) shortened b) full of bugs (regardless of the legends of its sacrality - 70 translators gave the same text or such).

 

[Chris H]

The specific example being discussed, which you snipped from your quote
above along with an attribution, was the Commandment "Thou shalt not
kill", which is an absolute.

Oh... Is it a Biblical commandment as well?

SO if thou shall not kill is an absolute all governments who execute
people are immoral. As are all soldiers and policemen.

 

[Nick Keighley]

On 17 Aug, 19:30, "BGB / cr88192" <[email protected]> wrote:

<snip>

[justified killings - in war]

<--
you say that like it's a bad thing...
-->

if one has belief, and assumes that the creator and the people operate under
a comparable moral code (assume that, for sake of his own authority, he
follows a comparable code), than any actions that the creator has taken are
assumed to be morally valid,

I regard such people as dangerously deluded

and ones' model should be able to account for them.

well I know such people exist. I hope pragmatic considerations over
ride their ideology much of the time.

most conventional ethical models (such as traditional utilitarianism, ...),
as well as many commonly held views (dunno if there is a name for it,
"common US humanist ethics" or whatever...), would be unable to hold up with
the vast majority of the OT in question.

uh? why? I'm a great believer in the Golden Rule. Treat others as
you'd like to be treated yourself. The only evil is doing unnessary
harm to others. We operate iterated prisoner's dilema. Obeying the law
is usually a good idea.

similarly, a model needs to be able to deal with the vast majority of
existing moral rules, "reasonable" laws, ...

see above

all hopefully withough degenerating into a simple blind legalism (pure
legalism has a failing in edge cases, as in: it does not tend to provide
good answers in the case of dillemmas, does not readily extend to new
contexts, ...).

hence my "usually obey the law"

There is the concept of the unjust law.

many people try to address this matter via "principlizing", which tends to
result in a lot more rules, and often "principles" which tend to either make
little sense or it is unclear how they work or where they would apply.

the priciple is to try not to harm other people. To try to get along
with people, within reason.

No set of ethical guidelines is perfect, you're going to be wrong some
of the time. Live with it. It's an imperfect and human world and you
(and I) are imperfect humans.

I took a very different strategy, and essentially came up with a different
model.

I had called it "egoistic pragmatic utilitarianism" mostly because:
it starts from the point of view of a single person (rather than requiring
an overall view of everything), and each person in the system may have their
own perspective (disagreements are possible, and are a natural part of the
model, the assumption is that both are allowed whatever is valid from their
POV);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

it is pragmatic in that practical concerns are the main point of emphasis;
it is based on utilitarianism in that a vaguely similar methodology is
assumed (namely, value and weighting), although it does carry some notable
differences.

I'm suspicious of the "value and weighting" bit. In general any form
of quantitative ethics strikes me as broken by design. And often a way
to justify a decision actually made by other means.

as a whole, it does seem able to address much of observed reality, although
it does allow some questionable edge cases (more along the lines that it
allows exploitative, destructive, or otherwise immoral behaviors, if they
can still be shown to still benefit the "ego" in question).

but does everyone else have to tolerate his ego? This is why we have
prisons. We can also pick and choose who we socialise with or do
business with.

a reasonable fix hasn't been found.

because there isn't one. The mistake was thinking there was.

I also haven't tried setting up a computer simulation of the model,

thank goodness

<--
unless it's a Brazillian electrian or you're the SAS
-->

well, general as a general rule...

The Brazillian electrician was a suspected suicide bomber who was shot
several times in the head by Metropolitan (London) Police officers. He
was not a suicide bomber, not a muslim, not even middle eastern. No
one was charged. [this was a week after a series of suicide bombings
on the London underground]

The SAS have been accused of "operating a shoot to kill policy" (what
else do police or army marksmen do? ITTM "shoot without warning
policy") in Gibralter and Northern Ireland.

like, say, police loading up with guns and trying to fight crime Rambo
style...

hence the Brazillian electrician. They shot him in the head because a
body shot was too dangerous.

<--
depends on your flavour of terrorist
-->

fair enough...

AFAIK, many of the Muslim ones tend to be suicide attacks, where either they
are the bomb, or they blow themselves up in the process, or they otherwise
expect to be killed somehow during the course of the attack.

But the IRA didn't. I thought the 10p piece was their smartest weapon.
A bomb threat causes nearly the same economic disruption whether or
not there is actually a bomb.

this may be because usually instant rewards are assumed:
massacre people, die, then instant trip to heaven.

most other groups tend not to try bombing in this way, or try to destroy
property rather than people (like, blowing up buildings in the early AM
timeframe when they are mostly empty, ...).

but, AFAIK, on a large scale, non-Muslim terrorists are a minority...

IRA, ETA, Red Army Faction, OAS


yes! give them a damn good shaking!

<snip>

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

uh? why? I'm a great believer in the Golden Rule. Treat others as

you'd like to be treated yourself.

This rule is not enough to provide moral basis for paying taxes and service in the army as a conscript, for instance.

This rule is not enough to provide moral basis for fulfilling the bureaucratic requirements of the governement like "this and that documents must be presented by you to the official".

So, lots of laws are not based on this rule.

Well, also the notion of "blasphemy" which still exists to some degree (blasphemy against the national flag, for instance) in many legislations. The Golden Rule is not enough to make a basis for it.

Many sexual taboos are also not based on Golden Rule. For instance, an adolescent boy may dream about sex, so, if his adult female teacher will seduce him - then his will benefit, and nobody else cares - according to the Golden Rule.

This is also connected with the question of "is pleasure the only value or there are some values beyound pleasure, greater then pleasure". The Golden Rule mostly works if pleasure (and avoiding pain) is the highest value.

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Oh... Is it a Biblical commandment as well?

SO if thou shall not kill is an absolute all governments who execute
people are immoral. As are all soldiers and policemen.

Then the OT contradicts itself, since it contains lots of laws with death penalty - for sex with animals, for instance.

Yes, probably this is a question of the word used. "Killed" and "executed" are different words in most languages. Though shall not kill, but thy governement shall execute

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

we speak of moral laws, the ones we can find in the bible

In the Bible, i.e. the OT, you can find, for instance, Kashrut.

Do you really think that this is about moral? is it _really immoral_ to eat pork?

For most (if not all) Christians, pork is OK. For Jews and Muslims (Sunni at least) - pork is tabooed.

For Jews, also lots of other food is tabooed too.

Is this about moral?

This is not even the alcohol taboo by LDS and Baptists. Alcohol can really cause the person to become insane, and - in a long term - to degrade. What about pork?

 

[Chris H]

if one has belief, and assumes that the creator and the people operate under
a comparable moral code (assume that, for sake of his own authority, he
follows a comparable code), than any actions that the creator has taken are
assumed to be morally valid, and ones' model should be able to account for
them.

Thus 9/11 is morally acceptable.....

 

[Chris H]

Then the OT contradicts itself, since it contains lots of laws with
death penalty - for sex with animals, for instance.

Yes, probably this is a question of the word used. "Killed" and
"executed" are different words in most languages. Though shall not
kill, but thy governement shall execute

So there are no moral absolutes! Thou shall not kill unless some people
in charge say it was OK.

So ANY killing by any government is legal?

Now I thought that ceased to be a defence in Nuremberg in 1946.....

 

[Chris H]

In the Bible, i.e. the OT, you can find, for instance, Kashrut.

Do you really think that this is about moral? is it _really immoral_ to
eat pork?

Not at all... AFAIK it is not a moral issue but one of hygiene. Not all
laws are about morality.

This is not even the alcohol taboo by LDS and Baptists. Alcohol can
really cause the person to become insane, and - in a long term - to
degrade. What about pork?

Both can make you ill.

There are still no moral absolutes.

 

[Nick Keighley]

I was thinking of it as a good rule for personnel interactions. If we
want to (or are compelled) live with very large numbers of people (the
typical city) then thre are inevitably more rules and less decisions
based on personnel inter-action.

This rule is not enough to provide moral basis for paying taxes and service in the army as a conscript, for instance.

I (mostly) happily pay taxes because there are some things I think
governments do better than corporations. Fix roads, run schools,
provide public libraries, provide health care -). And since we want
our social rules enforced. Provide policemen and prisons. If we want
our state to endure then soldiers are sometimes needed to. I'm happy
say my country hasn't had conscription in 40 years(?). I'd be unhappy
if it were introduced.

This rule is not enough to provide moral basis for fulfilling the bureaucratic requirements of the governement like "this and that documents must be presented by you to the official".

So, lots of laws are not based on this rule.

necessary for an orderly society.

Well, also the notion of "blasphemy" which still exists to some degree (blasphemy against the national flag, for instance) in many legislations.

not in mine I'm glad to say. I think most blasphamy laws are silly.
Though I see no point in causing unnecessary offence. I appear to pray
when appropriate at weddings and funerals. There may be public order
reasons for such laws. Though I'd prefer some sort of common law
offence to be used ("conduct likely to occaision a breach of the
peace").

The Golden Rule is not enough to make a basis for it.

in urban societies we need rules to reduce friction. Instead of
arguing about what is right and what is wrong the law is simply
applied. You can't park there. You can't drink alchol there.

Many sexual taboos are also not based on Golden Rule. For instance, an adolescent boy may dream about sex, so, if his adult female teacher will seduce him - then his will benefit, and nobody else cares - according to the Golden Rule.

a tricky area. From what I gather the boys aren't necessarily as
pleased as you mught expect them to be.

This is also connected with the question of "is pleasure the only value or there are some values beyound pleasure, greater then pleasure". The Golden Rule mostly works if pleasure (and avoiding pain) is the highest value.

it's mostly about the advantages of living in a stable society. I walk
the street unarmed. I prefer it that way.

 

[Nick Keighley]

Not at all... AFAIK it is not a moral issue but one of hygiene.  Not all
laws are about morality.


Both can make you ill.

pork will only make you ill if prepared or stored or cooked improperly

the rationalisations I'd heard for the pork taboo (*why* do these
things have to be rational?)

- pork doesn't keep in a hot climate [so how come the vietnamese eat
pork?]
- a previous middle eastern religion thought pigs were sacred
- pigs are omnivours and compete directly with humans for food. Bad
idea in an arid area

<snip>

And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers,
of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in
the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
Lev.