this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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What now, vegans?
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.
i don't think this is true. many breeds are ruminants, and no plants are harvested for them at all, as they graze. i don't think it's strictly true that any plant ever needs to be harvested to be fed to livestock.
Do you really think the majority of slaughterhouse animals are grazing? Grocery store and fast food meat comes from animals that live on corn, soy, etc feed, which is why places like the Amazon are being destroyed to grow crops.
I didn't say that.
what soy is fed to animals is almost entirely the byproduct of soybean oil production. that is a conservation of resources.
What are they grazing on?
say what you mean. I don't care for your interrogative.
Most likely they'll continue to heavily downvote me when I describe the complex communication systems plants and fungi have.
But they are scientifically accurate beliefs. They are true.
Emotionally, plant communication is awesome. Simultaneously factory farming also sucks.
Getting mad at a poster because you draw an uncharitable conclusion from the beginning of a post chain is extreme.
First and foremost, let me say that I appreciate you actually engaging.
Now, if what I'm interpreting is correct (and feel free to set me straight if I'm incorrect), your argument stems from a moralistic one. Moralistic arguments are not solid stances to argue from; similar to a hardcore Christian seeing abortions as vile and evil because of a personal moral stance, you feel your moral position is better, therefore you look down on opposition. However that is a personal opinion and those aren't convincing - certainly not for sensitive topics. Let's approach the debate from a scientific standpoint.
Trying to stick to the logic of the situation, the crux of statements I've seen here seem to be “Being vegan is eliminating suffering and therefore should be the end goal.” Is that not correct? I’m not arguing in bad faith like many here or making a shitty “bacon = good” joke. I want to make sure you’re not being misinterpreted.
Other reasons I have seen in threads similar to this coming from the "angry vegan" side of things (and some responses to those) are:
If you want to be vegan because you enjoy it? Go for it. That is inarguable. It's no more or less valid than someone liking the colour red.
If you want to be vegan because you feel it’s healthier? Rock on. Go you! You are probably correct if you monitor your diet. I would argue against it being better than a vegetarian diet however.
If you want to be vegan because it’s easier on the environment? Well, for individuals? Yup! At the moment, you could make a good case that it would be better for the planet, but only because we’re overpopulated and statistically, being vegan is unsustainable if the entire planet were to switch tomorrow. A smarter case to make would be for a reduction in humans as being vegan is an extremely minor step of harm reduction compared to fewer people. Also, most food fed to livestock is not human-consumable and is often byproducts that would otherwise go to waste. Creating more food from waste is more efficient than discarding it.
If you want to be vegan because you don’t like factory farms? Sure, I hate them too, however quitting animal products altogether is not a logical jump to make from that feeling. There are plenty of smaller suppliers you can procure from that do not have those issues; the more logical jump is to just not use bad providers no matter what the product. For example, I have raised bees and worked in a co-operative apiary. There was no abuse, and the likely alternative to us creating the hives was death for the entire bee community. Tell me how being vegan is better than creating my own honey and essentially creating hives and colonies from scratch, but using animal products in that instance.
If you want to be vegan because it’s eliminating suffering (or death)? Again, kind of. This is simply making substitutions for suffering that you’re comfortable with. You can make an argument that it's somehow lesser, but it's bad logic and therefore a bad argument. You’re also applying your own morals (because again, this is a strictly moral standpoint) to other people, which is silly no matter who is doing it. From activists to religious extremists, your morals apply to you and only you. Do not try to enforce them on the outside world. You can argue for them, but getting mad at anyone with a differing view is silly and unproductive. As you said (and dismissed), you can lessen suffering or death, but you can not eliminate it. Your existence causes death. All existence does. Everything alive is only alive because it feeds off other living things who have their own way of existing. A suffering or death being a style you choose to not recognize is not only not a valid defence, it makes you just as guilty as those you attack. Your opposition also feel that their being is higher than those they ingest and they also do not recognize the deaths of those they consider lesser, they simply drew their line elsewhere.
And the way vegans are going about it in these threads isn’t helpful to your cause. Mindless emotion-driven downvoting does not change hearts or minds.
A better outreach for you would be to use the Food subs and post legit great vegetarian food and entice people that way. Doing it the way they are now will accomplish nothing of value. Well, unless they secretly work for a factory farm and want to piss people off so they eat more meat, in which case those psuedo-vegans are doing exactly what they should be in these threads which is mindlessly downvoting instead of engaging.
Feel free to ask for sources for any statements I made that aren't related to personal preference. I can back up everything with peer-reviewed studies.
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.