It's funny to me because it reads like a satire of non-vegans, but this is literally how most of them are.
:vegan-liberation:
Welcome to /c/vegan and congratulations on your first steps toward overcoming liberalism and ascending to true leftist moral superiority.
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No plant-based diet bullshit or promotion of plant-based capitalism. Veganism isn't about you, it's about historical materialist anti-speciesism, anti-racist animalization, and animal liberation. Ethical vegans only.No omni apologists or carnists. Babystepping is for libs, and we're not here to pat you on the back. Good faith questions and debate about how to fight for animal liberation are allowed.No advocating violence to any species for any reason. If you think this is negotiable GTFO. This includes but is not limited to animal testing, slaughter, and mass euthanasia. Anything that promotes speciesism or the commodification of animals will be removed.Use Content Warnings and NSFW tags for triggering content.
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Take B12. :vegan-edge:
Plants aren't sentient, but regardless, this person bringing up "plant rights" is just a deflection. We could handle environmental issues far better if we get rid of the nightmare that is animal agriculture, as that is fucking up the planet more than anything else. Natural ecosystems would be better for both plants and animals because we'd be without the problem of clearing vast amounts of land to grow crops to feed animals who are also responsible for a shitload of carbon emissions.
This seems to be neglecting the fact that animal agriculture absolutely requires a ton of energy production. It's not just happening in a vacuum—it's tied to things that you mentioned like transportation and fossil fuel usage. Also, as far as the point about transportation goes, just to be clear, the "local meat is more environmentally friendly than a vegetable that is transported across the world" take is not true.
This table covers environmental impact of many factors.
Here is an actual high quality version of the image.
Edit: I misinterpreted IncorrigibleDirigible's comment. My bad, G.
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Animal agriculture will undoubtedly be more costly to the environment than plant agriculture—that's for sure. And who knows? Maybe I was missing something about other sources of energy production being more costly than animal agriculture, but especially with the sheer scale of it (over trillions of animals exploited and slaughtered every year), it is very destructive regardless.
However, irrespective of any environmental concerns about certain things possibly being worse than animal agriculture, the exploitation of animals ought to be condemned from an ethical standpoint anyway, and ultimately, even if there are concerns about environmental destruction in other ways, reducing our negative impact on the environment by doing what we can as individuals and finding solutions on a broader scale would not preclude going vegan anyway, so it remains a moral obligation.
that's actually fairly contentious, some researchers argue that they might be
though my answer to the "what if plants turn out to be sentient after all?" thing is i'll cross that bridge when and if we get to it
No, not really.
A few "experts" who arrive at their beliefs off of vibes rather than science may say they support the notion of plant sentience, but it's not taken seriously as a scientific idea.
Non-vegans also don't believe it. If anything, they just throw it out as a disingenuous excuse to alleviate guilt.
Something I ask non-vegans who say this stuff [NSFW]
If plants are to be sentient and that therefore makes exploiting animals for food and eating plants morally equivalent, would you consider using a cucumber as a sex toy to be morally equivalent to bestiality?In every case, they dodge the question and act as if they don't understand the relevance.
the "experts" are botanists, they aren't like just random people and the idea has been published in scientific journals
and yeah, of course non-vegans are being disingenuous, that's what they do
Can you a cite a source, though? I've seen non-vegans cite sources and arrive at the wrong conclusions because they misinterpreted the sources. For example, they think that responding to stimuli is an indicator of sentience, but it's not. I feel like you are assuming far too much good-faith when it comes to this debate about plant sentience. Just because an idea is discussed and seems controversial doesn't actually mean that it's truly contentious with in a scientific context. Not all "debates" are genuine, and not all "controversies" are scientifically valid, and this is really just a "We have to validate both sides" kind of framing. Can you please demonstrate to me a single reputable botanical source that endorses plant sentience?
I get that it's a deflection. I think the "universal principle of non-use" that other comrades mentioned is where I was actually headed with this reasoning but I didn't have the words for it. Is there any reading I can do about that?
The foundational writings of The Vegan Society by Leslie Cross don't take a long time to finish, and they get the point across extremely well I find.
Appreciate it, that was a good read