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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>…</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Will Steinberg via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] bee free, honey! it's fake<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>> </span>>…<span style='font-size:11.0pt'> we can keep our grubby paws out of their hives and let them pollenate our crops without robbing or molesting the little stingity-ass bitches.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>>…Wait, you’re vegan?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Nooooo!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>No Will, I have no ethical dilemma regarding devouring red meat, even steak, knowing some religions consider that prime rib someone’s dear departed grandmother. But bees… well, in a paradoxical way, that’s different.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Odd, sure. We treat non-human animals differently. The SPCA deals mostly with man’s best friends, dogs and cats, OK we get that. Those guys are so good to us. We don’t eat them. Horses too, California passed a law to make it specifically illegal to deal in horse meat. We understand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Our natural human instinct is to extend our empathy toward those life forms which are more like us, mammals generally, warm and cuddly they are. I do recognize that I am on the fringe here, cheerfully devouring cows and swine while extending sympathy to a goddam BUG of all things. OK it’s odd, it’s fringe. Weird.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>But if you ponder my reasoning, it makes sense, kinda. Depending on how one defines the term “reasoning.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Cows just stand around out there in a nice pasture, munching away at grass (if they are lucky and are not raised on a feed lot) and having everything they need or want (what does a cow REALLY want?) They are safe from predators, they can mate at will (not you, Will, I meant if the bull is around) they have it made! If they are dairy cattle, they have it even more made in a way: they live longer lives, they produce milk extracted by machine, not just painlessly to them but apparently they like it (it relieves pain from genetically modified absurdly large mammary glands (bursting with profit for the dairy farmer (who treats his little producers with care))) so cows are OK, even if we eventually devour them at the end of their short lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Horses are expensive toys for rich people, so they are OK. Dogs and cats are fed and cared for. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Bees. Bees are placed out where they can work for us, pollenate crops, make honey their instinct tells them they will need to survive the winter. Then we take it from them and give them corn syrup, laced with nicotinoids to replace their evolution-polished life giving fluid, in which they sustain themselves and their larvae, doing unknown harm to them? Is this how we repay our little servants? Shame!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>OK, well we figured out how to make artificial paraffin, so we don’t need to take from them the material which evolution (somehow) taught them to use as the structure of their own homes, and in a lot of ways, the artificial wax is better: it is more chemically uniform, so its properties are easier to predict. Go ahead, burn candles now, with a clear conscience. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>If we get most people to go over to artificial honey (by price advantage) that will solve a lotta lotta problems for the hives. I have a notion we can then let them do what evolution programmed them to do, use their own stored honey as a winter food source, we can stop feeding them corn syrup, which will reduce (not eliminate but reduce) their pesticide burden, which would help give them a fighting chance against the varroa mites and other bee parasites, and now Will, see what you made me do, write all that, in response to a light-hearted three word question.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Well done, sir.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>I am not kidding however. It would be good for the bees if we stop extracting their honey. They need it more than we do. Don’t buy it, don’t eat it, don’t serve it to guests, don’t even give it in a goody box.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></div></body></html>