What now, vegans?
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Eating plants is better for plants than eating animals that eat plants.
Also, sympathy with animals is only one possible reason to be a vegan. Some people are motivated differently (environment protection).
Yeah bit of a weird take. What now? I'll keep making the more sustainable choice I guess
Pretty sure it was a joke
I think you both took OP's comment too seriously. Just chuckle and move on.
Your electronic devices are communicating with each other yet you keep on using them like your personal slaves. You monster.
Okay, GLaDOS.
I'm vegan and this is so obviously not an issue ethically. Never mind that vastly more plants need to be harvested to feed livestock, this is a chemical response that is in no way similar to the pain an animal feels.
Go cut your lawn and then kill baby cow and try to tell me it's the same.
"This is a chemical response..." As opposed to sensation of pain, which is a also chemical signal? All sensation is chemical signaling. In fact all your experience of life. Us the result of chemical signaling. (Like dopamine, Serotonin, etc)
I agree with everything you said, it's just that this was a terrible argument.
c/woosh
Too bad the joke wasn't obvious.
You might honestly have meant it as a joke. Others bring up the point genuinely frequently. It makes sense to address it as such.
It's not obviously a joke as this is how people genuinely argue against veganism
If you encounter someone genuinely dumb enough to make that argument and believe it, feel free to ignore them. They are just bringing you down.
Interesting, as explained in the article the smell (VOC) we would experience of a newly cut lawn would technically be the cries of the plants. So other plants see it as a warning and they bolster their defenses. Ain't that no different from a baby cow being killed slowly probably through a predator. It would communicate through cries. Making similar animals interpret this as a warning perhaps making them react by running away or fighting back. Maybe we don't see the VOC as act of cry because we simply don't have any idea how to process it, since we're not plants. Though we could argue that plants does not have consciousness as we're aware of while animals do.
Edit: anyways not trying to question your choice of veganism, I think it's a noble choice. I just wanted to share my thought on that statement you mentioned.
I'm talking about the actual morality of it, nevermind the sustainability and health difference.
You're likely not being honest if you think you'd feel the same killing a baby a cow as you would cutting the grass.
Plants don't have a brain to process information, they are releasing these chemicals as an innate response. If you've ever spent time around cows or pigs you'd know there's little difference between their ability to feel and think from a dog.
All I've learned from this comment is that "you don't know what you don't know" and you're mad that others are being open-minded to things that are unknowns.
You can't factually assert animals and plants are different but "they just are" despite the answer being beyond the horizon of current science.
If you had said, "the lack of a brain as we understand it," maybe. But you are too certain about unknowable things for me to follow your reasoning.
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Most likely they'll continue to heavily downvote me when I describe the complex communication systems plants and fungi have.
I see comments like this and realize something is defederated for my instance somewhere and I’m missing half of the conversations OR half of y’all need to up your dosage 😂
What I've stated is not baseless. There are many sources and studies claiming how plants communicate via root systems, pheromones, and other mechanisms (some we're discovering continually). As someone who worked in forestry (and lived on a non-corporate farm that produced mostly alfalfa), it’s somewhat more apparent once you’re there and present in that world.
To quote myself on another thread:
I trust you know how to use search, but some brief citations: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/plants-feel-pain.htm https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/24473/20191218/a-group-of-scientists-suggest-that-plants-feel-pain.htm
You can find many more if you look. We’ve known for quite a while that trees do this, and fungi are absolutely notorious for this. Speak to a botanist (or read the articles above) and they'll tell you that plants respond to warnings from their peers about dangers, brace for pain, and signal pain to others. To be clear they don't seem to feel pain (but keep in mind that they said this for years about crustaceans as well, but it was simply because we didn't know how they functioned well enough) - not understanding the pain does not mean there is no pain.
Life for some organisms means death for others. Period. You can not avoid it on a micro or macro scale, all you can do is change WHAT you kill.
Plants are cool as hell though I suppose that understanding the above means that it can fuck with the worldview of vegetarians, and nobody likes that. If you disagree, please be respectful and let me know what your reasoning is.
My dude I didn’t see what you were responding to, that’s what my comment was in reference to.
On a lot of posts I see what appear to be responses but not what they’re responding to. So if you take your comment that I responded to entirely out of context and made it a top level comment you may see what I mean, idk if the comment you’re responding to is defederated or what.
Anyways my dude plants rule, I’m with you.
Understood! Wasn't trying to be a dick, just adding clarity if needed.
I agree with pretty much everything you've said in this comment chain, except the part about everything that's currently alive being sustained by the auffering of some other living thing...the very plants we're speaking about get their energy from a combination of sunlight and air (specifically carbon dioxide). AFAIK, we haven't found that soil reacts to having nutrients extracted, and the sunlight and air are there anyway. So, if any organism can look down on us for our cruelty, it'd be the non-carniverous plants ;)
To be clear, I didn't say suffering, I said death and I was moreso referring to animals and how we survive.
You can cause death without causing suffering, and also the opposite.
I'm sorry to hear that's happening.
We'll, you called it haha
They'll start to photosynthesis now
We already photosynthesize vitamin D
Yeah, but can you photosynthesize a veggie wrap?
Check mate, vegans.
So what happens when I mow my lawn? Are the carrots upset that we eat them?
The smell of fresh cut grass is the smell of grass screaming.
As much as your PC giving out error beeps is the computer in agony.
Sometimes I crush a bunch of keys on the keyboard at the same time just to remind my computer who's boss.
The Happening is what happens
You just reminded me I'm still angry I saw that in theaters all those years ago...lmao.
I'm sure the pigs and cows are upset but that certainly hasn't stopped us.
I mean they literally aren't.
They get food and shelter and aren't aware of their end.
Nature is fucking brutal. It's survival in easy mode.
You should do a little research about conditions on factory farms. I started raising our own cows and chickens because I didn't want to contribute to that system financially any longer once I was educated about it. Still buy some meat I can't raise myself from the store, but for the majority I know they aren't overcrowded, arent given antibiotics or other drugs unless they're actually sick, quality food, humane shelter and they aren't slaughtered on site. For most livestock, their entire existence is suffering. Chicken have their beaks removed because they'll attack each other over the overcrowding otherwise, cows and pigs stanfing in pens so small they can't turn around, unethical slaughter practices, sometimes it's just slitting the throat and letting them bleed out in site of other animals, etc.
These are the cries of the carrots. Let the rabbits wear glasses!
This. Is. Necessary.
Every pricker bush when I brush up against the side of the trail:
"Get him!"
Really beautiful short video!
I clicked through to the article but don't see a video (or a link to any video). Am I blind?
Theres an embedded player about 1/3 of the way down, but its not obvious that its a video player
It’s impossible for me to find. Got a link?
The shareable link to the video just links to the article 😔
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