vegans and antropomorphism

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NonZeroSum
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by NonZeroSum »

McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pm
You don't know what platonic forms are, but you're talking about them unwittingly.
You are assuming stuff again...and attacking straw man again. You didnt ask for clarification, you didnt ask me to expand on that, you just assumed how it is Platonism and then you proceeded to attack that straw man you constructed and even though I am telling you how I am not talking about Platonism you still continue to assume that I do.
Because we're still in the same thread and on the same topic, and it supposedly reflects your views (unless they changed in one page without you mentioning it).
Wait....so as long as we are on the same thread I can quote some random text while responding to some other text under that quote? Is that what you are telling me?
No, your claim was that actualization was necessary. You need to back that up: I showed how that wasn't true. It also matters if something WILL BE actualized.
Here is needed some clarification. Do you mean how I claimed that, or do you mean how I claimed how that is under your position?
You could have just read the intro and the first section on potential. It's not long.
If the definition of potential I quoted is not saying what is in the quote you provided now, what then it does say?

" It's precisely the part that contradicted the strawman you made. It's where I explained how a baby and a potato are DIFFERENT, and explained the way in which it is wrong to stab the baby... and then you claim I say they're the same and that there's no difference. "
This needs another clarification. When I said how the newborn and the potato are the same, what do you think I meant by that?
False. Outside of physics, I avoid the word "potential" because it's inconsistent as I have shown. It doesn't function well with materialistic metaphysics.
So, all those time you used word "potential" were never about your position?
IF you kill it, it will not have any interests it the future to sabotage or benefit, thus you can not harm or its interests that it will never have. You CAN NOT do an intrinsic bad or good to it since it will never have interests.
So, if I decide to kill it , as you have mentioned before with women who decide to abort the pregnancy, it will not have interests in the future to sabotage or benefit. Do you agree that if I decide to kill the newborn, the moment I decided that, just like interests, the newborn will not do some good like cure cancer?
Hey McLovin, doesn't sound like there's a lot headway being made in your convo with Brim, it's too many pages to read back and get a sense of where you are coming from, do you think you could explain in your own words why you reject veganism? What school of ethics you are most inclined towards e.g. your answer to the trolley problem? What universal basic welfare it is a moral obligation to treat other humans with? And what welfare/rights you would extend to other animals?

Also it takes everyone a while to get the hang of this, but could you try to use the quote function, so it's clearer the part of the text you're responding to, and distinguishing it from your own:

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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by McLovin »

Hi, NonZeroSum.
I know how to do quotes, but I dont usually do it, because I tend to write short messages and also try to be concise. In the future, if writing longer messages, i will try to include quotes.
As for your questions, we would go a lot off topic (because I had some questions and I got some answers on few questions, and also one question which started the whole discussion), but i wrote what problem I have with vegan reasoning in "My Problem With NTT" thread (and also in this thread).
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by brimstoneSalad »

McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pm " You don't know what platonic forms are, but you're talking about them unwittingly. "
You are assuming stuff again...and attacking straw man again. You didnt ask for clarification, you didnt ask me to expand on that, you just assumed how it is Platonism and then you proceeded to attack that straw man you constructed and even though I am telling you how I am not talking about Platonism you still continue to assume that I do.
I originally asked you to explain. "What do you think some quality being in something's nature means?"
You just said it's an "inherent feature"; you're appealing to some kind of conceptual type or ideal form which is the thing's fundamental nature, and that the instantiation of that thing, however marred, still has in principle. That sounds like a platonic form.
McLovin wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 am That it is inherent feature of that someone. Cut my legs off and I will still be bipedal being. I might not have legs and not be able to use my legs, but me being bipedal is what I am by virtue of being human. Attach two tentacles where my legs once were and I would still be bipedal being. Cut my arms off and attach two human legs where arms were so it would look that I have four legs....and I will still be bipedal being.
My response in explaining that to you is not a straw man, I'm explaining to you that what you are claiming is very philosophically crude.
Your answer to the question I originally asked indicated that you don't know what you're talking about.

If you want to explain HOW what you are saying is not anything like a platonic form, then DO IT. Do not simply claim I am straw-manning you without any further explanation.

Read a couple of these, then explain how your views differ:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals

And maybe try again to answer my original question without appealing to vague ideals if you aren't talking about something like platonic forms as universal truths.

"Human" has no clear meaning. Does it mean human DNA? Because a tumor or a cancer cell has that. Do you mean having DNA capable of being mixed with and creating fertile offspring with one of a certain gene pool we call humans? Something a half-decomposed corpse or a blood-stain has.

McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pm" Because we're still in the same thread and on the same topic, and it supposedly reflects your views (unless they changed in one page without you mentioning it). "
Wait....so as long as we are on the same thread I can quote some random text while responding to some other text under that quote? Is that what you are telling me?
You can quote whatever snips you want. :roll:
I was responding to what you had been arguing in the thread.


McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pm" No, your claim was that actualization was necessary. You need to back that up: I showed how that wasn't true. It also matters if something WILL BE actualized. "
Here is needed some clarification. Do you mean how I claimed that, or do you mean how I claimed how that is under your position?
It literally does not matter.

Both of these are claims:
1. Actualization is necessary because of my belief
2. Actualization is necessary according to YOUR belief

My argument applies equally to either one, and you ignored it.

I don't care if you believe it, or you believe that we must believe it in order for our beliefs to be consistent; it's false.
McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pm " You could have just read the intro and the first section on potential. It's not long."
If the definition of potential I quoted is not saying what is in the quote you provided now, what then it does say?
The definition you quoted is included in the more rigorous entry I quoted.
It also goes into Aristotle's usage which makes a distinction between ALL possibility (which is incoherent) and substitutes in an appeal to nature fallacy instead.
I bolded the important considerations that demonstrate the problems with the concept of potential with respect to moral relevance.

Why don't you examine that segment and explain what you have a problem understanding?
McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pm" It's precisely the part that contradicted the strawman you made. It's where I explained how a baby and a potato are DIFFERENT, and explained the way in which it is wrong to stab the baby... and then you claim I say they're the same and that there's no difference. "
This needs another clarification. When I said how the newborn and the potato are the same, what do you think I meant by that?
You claimed that I SAID they are the same.
I think you meant to misrepresent me intentionally when I said they are the same in some ways but different in others (THUS NOT THE SAME), and you claimed I think they are the same, and you excluded from the quote how they are different.

It's like I said:
"A slice of bread and a car are the same in that they are both made from matter, but different because one is food and one is a mode of transportation"

And you claimed I said they're the same, quoting only "A slice of bread and a car are the same"

And then you didn't understand how I had a problem with you excluding the second half of the quote where I explained how they are different.

A BABY AND A POTATO ARE NOT MORALLY IDENTICAL.

McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pmSo, all those time you used word "potential" were never about your position?
Where did I use the word "potential" here? You brought it up, and I only used it with respect to YOUR bad argument.
McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pmSo, if I decide to kill it , as you have mentioned before with women who decide to abort the pregnancy, it will not have interests in the future to sabotage or benefit. Do you agree that if I decide to kill the newborn, the moment I decided that, just like interests, the newborn will not do some good like cure cancer?
A newborn and an unborn child are pretty similar (particularly late term), the difference isn't very relevant except that a newborn is easier to adopt out making is less excusable to kill.
But you're mixing up two things. I don't see how you don't understand this.

Code: Select all

_________________Interest Violation ___________ Opportunity Cost

Stab Regular Potato______None________________None: Still a potato

Stab Magic Potato_______None________________Large Cost: Now it won't turn into a cancer cure

Kill Fetus______________None________________Large Cost: Can not grow to have a happy life, or do good things in the world
Again, I said that failing to do good is very importantly related to causing immediate harm to an interest: both are bad.
McLovin wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:21 pmDo you agree that if I decide to kill the newborn, the moment I decided that, just like interests, the newborn will not do some good like cure cancer?
Obviously, thus the opportunity cost. :roll:

Sabotaging an interest is one kind of bad thing, but failing to do good is another.

You can evaluate both worlds that would result from your decision to stab or not stab, and see which one is better.
Because there is no interest to sabotage, the failure to do good is the only metric we have to look at.

Situation A: Woman has an abortion, but then because of the abortion graduated high school, got a better job, and had another baby later who was happy
Situation B: Woman does not have an abortion, she drops out of high school to take care of the baby who has an OK life (less happy than Baby in A, but still more or less happy)
Situation C: Woman has an abortion, she never has another baby and as such one fewer happy being exists.

Situation A is the best despite the abortion; because another child is created (who is even happier) the good outcome still happens. Situation C is the worst outcome.

If it was a child with interests instead of a fetus with no interests, it would be different:

Situation A: Woman kills her child with interests, and sabotaging those does a great harm, but then because of this homicide got a better job, and had another child later who was happy
Situation B: Woman does not kill her child, she drops out of high school to take care of the kid who has an OK life (less happy than the new child in A, but still more or less happy)
Situation C: Woman kills her child with interests, sabotaging them and doing great harm, she never has another baby and as such one fewer happy being exists.

Here B is likely to be the best case. Despite the happier child in the end in A, that margin probably doesn't offset the harm of murdering the original child who already had interests.

The component of interest violation adds another layer of harm which shifts the equation.

Do you finally understand?
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by esquizofrenico »

Hi McLovin:

I have a question for you about this topic, I hope it´s not off topic. I understand the reasoning that leads to consider abortion inmoral, but the thing is that most people that are againts abortion consider that contraceptives are moral. How is it that is it is inmoral to intentionally stop the development of a morula into a human being, but it is not inmoral to intentionally stop the development of a ovule and a spermatozoon into a human being? Clearly using the outcome consideration both cases are identical, (one has more probability to develop into a human than the other, but since contraception is used multiples times, in fact the expected ammount of humans lifes you are stopping from being born will be for almost everyone higher because of contraception than because of abortion).

The only answers I have seen to this questions are metaphysical (saying that a morule is esentially different than a ovule and a spermatozoon), but i´ve never seen a naturalistic differentation between the two. In this topic I believe that the Catholic Church is (at least in theory), much more consistent than Protestantism.
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by dapto »

Jebus wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:52 am
bigbossomni wrote: Tue Jan 02, 2018 11:14 pmwhat authority are vegans to tell others what is right or wrong? Because ethically everything vegans claim is emotionally based opinions. Not facts
What if you caught a child molester messing around with one of your kids? What authority would you have to decide if what he did was right or wrong?
I don't have any moral authority in this case. However, I may choose to act in defense of my child given that as a mammal I have empathy for my child. (In fact I have empathy in varying degrees proportional with how much I identify with the object of my empathy, the perpetrator is on this scale somewhere).

I am curious with regards to your assumptions about the videos you've listed.
How to become vegan in 4.5 hours:
1.Watch Forks over Knives (Health)
2.Watch Cowspiracy (Environment)
3. Watch Earthlings (Ethics)
Congratulations, unless you are a complete idiot you are now a vegan
For 1, I work in biological sciences and am going to be uninspired by anything that is not peer reviewed in a high impact journal. The China Study is a good example of how you can produce rubbish and make it sound like it has a scientific basis.
For 2, environmental concerns sway me less. I'm more of the view that progress and the industrial revolution are the real problems here.
For 3, I grew up in the post-modern era. As humans we tend to narrate our lives and this gives us meaning. A coherent narrative and effective use of modal language can persuade and inspire. However, what makes one such narrative better than another? Current neuroscience puts much of what most assume about decision making and the process of forming an opinion on shaky ground.

Nonetheless I"m keen to watch these videos. Thanks for posting.
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Dapto, would you make any moral claims at all, or are you something of a nihilist?
dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:25 am For 1, I work in biological sciences and am going to be uninspired by anything that is not peer reviewed in a high impact journal. The China Study is a good example of how you can produce rubbish and make it sound like it has a scientific basis.
I wish there were a better health documentary. Reducetarianism is an easier argument to make on health grounds (just like it's harder to argue against quitting cigarettes entirely vs. smoking in moderation).
dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:25 am For 2, environmental concerns sway me less. I'm more of the view that progress and the industrial revolution are the real problems here.
You're walking along the road with a backpack full of rocks which you don't really need (you picked them up for aesthetic reasons); no problem, you have two working legs and a strong back. Then somebody comes along and fractures one of your legs with a baseball bat.
Now you can't get home, and nobody's coming to help... you could limp home if you'd drop the rocks, but the real problem is that asshole who fractured your leg, the rocks are innocent!

What do you plan to do about it?
1. Travel back in time and stop the bat wielding assailant somehow
2. Be reasonable and drop the rocks, recognizing that it's the most practical way to survive
3. Stand on principle, keep the rocks and die on the side of the road, unable to get home.
dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:25 amHowever, what makes one such narrative better than another?
If you don't like the narrative, use reason and evidence. We tend more toward that than emotional appeal.

By the way, welcome to the forum. You should post an intro if you're so inclined.
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by dapto »

Dapto, would you make any moral claims at all, or are you something of a nihilist?
Well spotted. I have a great deal of sympathy for moral nihilism. I'm well versed in religion.
What do you plan to do about it?
1. Travel back in time and stop the bat wielding assailant somehow
2. Be reasonable and drop the rocks, recognizing that it's the most practical way to survive
3. Stand on principle, keep the rocks and die on the side of the road, unable to get home.
Realistically to step out of the metaphor I expect pandemic or climate change or natural disaster to reduce human population drastically. It seems likely that a circa 1177BCE type event will occur which will reset the balance.
If you don't like the narrative, use reason and evidence. We tend more toward that than emotional appeal.
My issue is not with reason and evidence but with the problem of competing narratives. If you use reason and evidence to ensure that your narrative is consistent and you appeal to coherentism what makes your narrative more valid than the next? I'm with PIlate when he asks "what is truth?". I'm not arguing for nonsense but which truth? As an example, Bell (of Bell's theorem) thought that classical theory with the inclusion of a super liquid could be used to explain all quantum effects and couldn't understand why this wasn't more popular. Yet, today, you'd be hard pressed to find any physicist that would support these ideas not necessarily because they are not valid in terms of evidence and reason, but because the paradigm is not one they have imbibed from their youth.
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by brimstoneSalad »

dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:06 am
What do you plan to do about it?
1. Travel back in time and stop the bat wielding assailant somehow
2. Be reasonable and drop the rocks, recognizing that it's the most practical way to survive
3. Stand on principle, keep the rocks and die on the side of the road, unable to get home.
Realistically to step out of the metaphor I expect pandemic or climate change or natural disaster to reduce human population drastically. It seems likely that a circa 1177BCE type event will occur which will reset the balance.
So your answer is #4. Something would have killed me on the way home anyway, so I won't even try.
A self-fulfilling prophecy.

Is this your preferred outcome? If not, on what basis do you have such absolute faith that it will happen that you won't lift a finger to attempt to avert it? :shock:

If there's a child in the road not paying attention and a car coming, and you don't think the kid will have time to get out of the road even if you intervene, a cost-benefit analysis might say it's not worth risking your life jumping in front of the car to grab the kid, but is it not worth even shouting out a warning to the kid (which risks almost nothing) just in case?

I'm interested in hearing your answers to those questions.
dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:06 amMy issue is not with reason and evidence but with the problem of competing narratives.
There are no narratives competing with science and reason, only competing models within it.
dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:06 amI'm not arguing for nonsense but which truth?
But this is nonsense. It's throwing out all knowledge for sake of some poetic ambiguity.
It's like Jordan Peterson/Reza Aslan religious narrative stuff.
And I'm afraid that appealing to quantum physics to confuse macroscopic reality is stock in trade for quacks like Deepak Chopra.

I'll explain:
dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:06 amAs an example, Bell (of Bell's theorem) thought that classical theory with the inclusion of a super liquid could be used to explain all quantum effects and couldn't understand why this wasn't more popular. Yet, today, you'd be hard pressed to find any physicist that would support these ideas not necessarily because they are not valid in terms of evidence and reason, but because the paradigm is not one they have imbibed from their youth.
These are not different narratives in the sense I think you mean, but different mathematical models and ways of explaining things. Provided they are equally simple and predictive, you're pretty much free to choose whichever helps you do the math better and nobody is going to complain as long as you get the right answer in the end (unless it's tripping up them trying to follow your work, which IS a reason to use the same system other people are).

We could talk about gravity as an attractive force between matter, or as a repelling force from the void; as long as the outcome is the same it really doesn't matter (which is why you should do it the same as other people do it so you can more easily read each other's work, which does matter). Mathematically identical is mathematically identical for primal forces, the only issues are pragmatic.

This is either because we don't know which model is "really" correct, or in some cases the actual fact may be very different from anything we can easily visualize, or for primitive and quantum forces there may in fact be none (something that doesn't scale up to the macro world).

The facts of relevance are manifest in the behavior of gravity (or anything else on that level), which is not up to reasonable differences in interpretation. And ANYTHING emergent from those forces doesn't leave any question of the truth of their possessing underlying realities because they are contingent only on that uncontroversial fact (of general behavior), not on the underlying quantum mechanics themselves.

E.g the functioning of a grandfather clock doesn't matter which theory of quantum gravity you use, it only relies on the uncontroversial fact of the force of gravity on its mechanisms, so ambiguity at the quantum level of the underlying fact of gravity doesn't scale up to ambiguity of how a clock works.

Imagining we had no actual evidence of its mechanics, if you wanted to make a model of mind in which pain didn't exist and what we perceive as pain was just an extreme deprivation of pleasure, or say there was no pleasure and only the state of being more or less free of pain, then such differences of models could be excused by ignorance, BUT that doesn't mean they're both true just because they both work. In no sense does the legitimate question of reality on a quantum level bleed into the emergent macroscopic world; it stops at the very non-controversial manifestation of those forces.

And even if it did bleed through, and the pleasure only vs. pain only models were equally true, it still wouldn't matter because however you model it the unambiguous behavior comes through that indicates sentient beings have preferences for one state over another and express those clearly by changing their behavior through learning. I.e. sentience is true in the same way the basic mechanics of a clock are true, regardless of the way you interpret the underlying forces.

There's not a reasonable alternative "narrative" to sentience. Any such "alternative" would have to disregard all of the evidence and the simplest models explaining it/accurately predicting behavior in favor of a convoluted theistic explanation which does absolutely nothing to further our state of knowledge and only adds more unsubstantiated assumptions which drastically reduce the probability of it being correct.

Truth of empirical reality may be provisional and probabilistic, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist within the domain of moral certainty, and the very limited potential ambiguities with respect to the underlying truth of quantum mechanical forces don't scale up to emergent properties of the natural world.
dapto wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:06 am
Dapto, would you make any moral claims at all, or are you something of a nihilist?
Well spotted. I have a great deal of sympathy for moral nihilism. I'm well versed in religion.
It would be helpful to know where you fall:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/File:Contemporary_Metaethics.png

Are you an error theorist?
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Re: vegans and antropomorphism

Post by dapto »

Is this your preferred outcome? If not, on what basis do you have such absolute faith that it will happen that you won't lift a finger to attempt to avert it?
It's not my preferred outcome, but however uncomfortable it my be to consider, the current population growth rate is unsustainable and nature has a way of resolving these imbalances. I've listened to several academic seminars over the last 12 months where scientists assert that it's too late to do anything about climate change. There are specific examples of slowly unfolding natural disasters like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia for example where any action will now not affect the outcome. Harm minimisation is probably the reason for not expressing these views in the media. I tend towards not purchasing processed food and I attempt to purchase organically farmed products where possible (it forms the majority of my grocery purchases). These decisions do have a positive effect on the environment (and my health :-)
There are no narratives competing with science and reason, only competing models within it.
I'm using the word narrative to explain any kind of language which links one thing to another. But more than that, I'm referencing the innate tendency we have to arrange pretty much everything into a narrative after the fact. Generally this is a good thing: evolution conserves traits in response to selection pressures and history shows that communication has enhanced our ability to manipulate our environment to improve our survival outcomes; technology wouldn't be possible without language and reason.
But this is nonsense. It's throwing out all knowledge for sake of some poetic ambiguity.
It's like Jordan Peterson/Reza Aslan religious narrative stuff.
And I'm afraid that appealing to quantum physics to confuse macroscopic reality is stock in trade for quacks like Deepak Chopra.
If we can think of paradigms as a collection of consistent and interwoven narratives then Thomas Kuhn's scientific paradigms are an example of competing narratives. It's true that some paradigms work better than others. It's also true that we have virtually one scientific community which means that the dominant paradigm will be almost universally accepted until there's scientific revolution. But unless we believe that as humans at this point in evolutionary history we are able to apprehend and comprehend the mysteries of the universe then it's pointless to posit that what we are talking about is Truth. I just used quantum physics as a good example of scientific paradigms and Bell is no quack, but yes, spooky action at a distance has captured the public imagination and is being used to argue all sorts of perverse things.
Truth of empirical reality may be provisional and probabilistic, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist within the domain of moral certainty, and the very limited potential ambiguities with respect to the underlying truth of quantum mechanical forces don't scale up to emergent properties of the natural world.
There have been some interesting experiments done which show that the narrative we come up with to explain events or facts happens irrespective of whether we are ignorant of the relevant facts. For example, experiments on subjects with a divided brain, or recent experiments done on decision making. It seems clear that the part of our brain constructing the narrative is not necessarily the part of the brain forming the opinions and making the decisions and we are not conscious that this is going on. These are of course old ideas in psychology but they have been reframed in the field of neuroscience in light of recent experiments. (i.e. our hold on reality is tenuous).
One of the great things about technology is that it works and we can say this is largely due to the scientific method employed in discovery and human reason. However, if our ability to communicate in narrative form (to ourselves and others) came about because of selection factors related to living in small groups it may not be the right tool for scientific enquiry just the best we've got. For example we've evolved to reframe new information in the light of our held paradigms in ways that are complementary. This is perhaps because of the biological cost of changing paradigms we're heavily invested in, and the advantage afforded by having complex paradigms but it's not the shortest route to progress. (i.e.our hold on reality is pragmatic).
It would be helpful to know where you fall:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/File:Contemporary_Metaethics.png

Are you an error theorist?
I don't think any kind of moral statements are true. It seems to me that morality was necessary when we started living in larger than family groups and although you get recurring themes like the Confucian golden rule, or the Hammurabi code, morality was and still is relative. On the other hand I think that some moral statements have their origins in emotion and some in law etc etc. Does this make me an error theorist? Probably.
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