Actually, no, it wouldn't, unless it was a scientist. You're not asking yourself why army ants live a nomad lifestyle, aggressively attacking all other ant colonies EXCEPT other army ant colonies. You don't really care. Scientists do that for you. And we're not that complicated to figure out.
I was actually talking about more recent discoveries. Like this one. And we know for sure other animals suffer. So? Why should that be the criteria to define when killing is moral, and when it isn't? I'm not trying to convince you to start killing animals. I'm asking you to justify killing plants.
Any suggestions? What's the most impressive, or the most impactful example? What left you thinking about it long after you finished reading/watching/listening?
You don't have to be moral to not abuse dogs. If you're a normal person you will have empathy for them automatically. Seeing any animal get hurt, will hurt you. Laws are there to stop someone without empathy from abusing animals. Morality is a fairytale we tell our children to make them act nicer.
To be moral, one has to sometimes make hard decisions. Historically we as a species failed at that. Even the Catholic church had slaves. You're taking a system that we invented to deal with other people, that we can barely follow, and apply it to animals. Or plants. Or bugs. It's really pushing it.
I feel just fine about my actions, and don't need approval from strangers on the internet. I gravitate to Utilitarianism, with a splash of Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB). Morality is something we invented in order to have a society. To deal with and convince other humans.
Something occurred to me. In the classic example of someone taking a bug apart, does your mind go to an adult doing it? Or a kid? Like burning ants with a magnifying glass... That's something I associate with kids.
The sentience of other people doesn't stop us from doing horrible things to them, or allowing horrible things happen to them. And it's not that all people are monsters. At the end of the day we're monkeys with smartphones. And we only really care about other similar nearby monkeys. It's that simple.
Did you not see the "let's get stupid" part? if you do want to criticize at least get my argument straight. There's no difference between farming animals and farming plants. You eventually kill them on purpose. We like to use sentience as the line we shouldn't cross, but that's almost arbitrary.
I have many arguments against Veganism, but I'm not here to argue against it. You can be Vegan all you want to. Have a blast. I'm here because SOME people who become Vegan become missionaries of a sort. SOME believe that it's immoral to eat meat, and so they need to preach. To convert. To shame.
Well, we are talking about Veganism here. You guys/gals live in La La Land, so I'm not ashamed of taking a ridiculous idea to a ridiculous conclusion. I don't really believe that. But thinking that if you succeed, you won't be harming anybody is also not true. This is not a win-win scenario.
Right now, you're harmless. Annoying, self-righteous, but harmless. And if you're saying you'll object to any political movement - I'll believe you. So let's play this out - you get enough support in your country to get lobbyists to push laws that will decimate meat farming. Will you oppose them?
Of course. I agree with you. But you won't be able to convince enough people to stop eating meat, just like nobody can convince people to stop drinking alcohol. Logic and compassion won't work. The only way this movement will eventually achieve anything is using politics. Laws. Force.
You'd have the same fears with any other industry. It might be justified, might not be. For example - truckers and self-driving vehicles. The difference is cigarettes kill you. In the case of farming animals - you're going to force people to give up something healthy, for "reasons".
Farm animals die out in every country that follows this. They still live in others, and now black markets exist. More people are sick now, because supplements are expensive. There's no milk or cheese. Medicine is more expensive. Clothes are all synthetic. No harm done. I'm sure it's all worth it.
Let's see if it all adds up. Harm reduction is a worthwhile goal. You want to reduce harm. So you're aiming for millions of people to be out of a job. Either by outlawing farming of animals, or convincing the public it's evil to eat meat, leading to a boycott. Should they learn to code?
I'm telling you that there is no right thing. That's something you and Catholics share - you feel guilty, so you make up stories and use whatever you can, virtuous or not, to justify them. That doesn't make it right. It makes you one sick puppy. You're your own worst enemy. You judge yourself.
I understand it. I'm also aware that it's a complete cop-out. Philosophy stalled a while back. Everything that has to do with life, sentience, consciousness or "soul" is still murky at best. You might as well sum it up as "If you're able to kill an animal, you get to eat it." It's not good or bad.
I don't care. I'm willing to pay to plant more, and I don't care about bugs. I also don't believe all that crap about plants feeling, or being sentient. The point of that is to show you that you're making decisions based on emotion. Not logic. Which is totally fine, but you need to own it.
I would say harm reduction means improving the lives of cows and pigs, not letting them die out because you think their lives suck. Who are you to judge? How many lives were/are saved by pigs alone? Medicine. Skin grafts. Trials. You're willing to give that up or make it even more expensive?
Something doesn't start or stop being ethical based on how it benefits you as an individual. Ethics are supposed to be based on something other than yourself. It's either ok to kill kids, or not. It shouldn't matter how it would benefit you. Get it? You're on the same shaky ground.
If you didn't have access to plants, you would have no issues with eating animals. That's ethical egoism. It's moral because it benefits me. I'm the king of the hill. And in spite of that I choose to eat plants. That's how awesome I am. I'm doing the most ethical thing ever. Delusion.
Fine. Let's get stupid... Two can play that game. To grow one tomato plant you kill many many bugs. Sentient or not, you're snuffing out life left and right. Thousands. Millions. A genocide. You cram and abuse the plants. They live in horrible conditions, and get cut forcefully as soon as possible.
It also causes all of them to live. The joke is that we wouldn't have pigs, if we didn't breed them for their meat. And when we stop eating them, they would become an endangered species. We breed more animals -> We plants more crops. More life. Not less.
And personally, I don't see the harm in more animals and plants living and dying. That's what we humans do. We multiply. It doesn't matter that we know our kids will eventually die. That's part of life, and we accept it. As long as the animal lives a good life, and has a painless death, I'm fine.
I don't care what you told me about the origins of veganism. The phrase "It's moral to harm plants because we gotta eat something" is ethical egoism. There's no denying it. It can apply also to animals. You didn't pick mud to eat. Plants were an arbitrary choice. You just rank plants below animals.
You kill bugs when you grow plants. Why not eat bugs and spare the plants? Cockroach farms are a thing. And if not cockroaches, whatever they eat. Eventually you'll get to something that doesn't feel pain. Maybe. I can just eat meat and be ok. Plant more crops to compensate. Circle of life. Simple.
I'm telling you, logic will fail you every time because we don't understand sentience. Because we can barely define life. You're having a hard time convincing people because for you It's obvious. You never truly questioned your own beliefs. You never had to convince yourself. You lack practice.
When you breed more animals for consumption, you also plant more crops to compensate. You can grow more than needed. More plants will live. Not less. Your definition of harm reduction presumes plants can't feel, and when confronted about it you pivot to ethical egoism. That's a cop-out.
Then you suck at math. Don't blame me. Have a nice life.
Nope. Not If you use the number from the actual paper, which is not round. They round it up or down for articles. That 60.003 (or whatever it is) will change to 60.0029. Or something like that. It's a rounding error. Noise to be filtered out. Not significant at all. Not even worth reporting on.
1. The longer the animal lives - the more plants it will eat. Killing the animal early will save plants. Hint - this is not logic. This is playing with poop. If plants can suffer, by your logic you need to save them. 3. "It's moral to harm plants because we gotta eat something." is ethical egoism.
I have 300 characters to works with. If it's not clear to you that there isn't one calculation that rules them all, you're the one not serious. I took the 60% emissions article sent here as an easy example. Figure out calories per person. Remove a million people. That 60% number won't budge.
Sure thing. There's no way to figure out how many people identify themselves as vegans. No way to figure out what percentage that is from all people. No way to check how a shift of a million people affect carbon emissions, for example. Because Google is not a thing. Have a nice day.
1. You don't know if plants care how they are treated. If you're going by response to stimuli, it's not much different than ours. 2. If I breed a cow which doesn't care, would it be ethical to farm it? 3. Morality that depend on if it serves you is called ethical egoism. It's not awesome.
He has always been this:
I self-published Without a Dawn in May. I made zero compromises, and I couldn't be happier how it turned out: store.steampowered.com/app/3145620/... 💛💚 Unfortunately, I've had very little luck with exposure, including the gaming press. 😩 #visualnovel #gamedev #steam
Well, nothing I can do for ya there... Sorry. Run the numbers yourself. You'll see.
Although the sentence is technically true, moving a tiny rock changes the world in such a small way that nobody would ever notice. For all practical purposes it changes nothing. One, or even a million people turning vegan won't even register on the global scales. In any way. At all.
No, I'm pretty sure I've got it right. There are people out there, that think them going vegan will change the world (gasp!). That's self-delusion. That's people who don't realize how insignificant they are, or just can't accept it. I would pity them, if most weren't so annoying and preachy.
I'd argue veganism is rarely a solution to anything. Maybe if you have diet issues. Maybe for space exploration. Other than that, it's just a personal preference. Sometimes, it's self-delusion. Same as recycling plastic, moving from a car to a bicycle, or intermittently turning your A/C on/off.
Then I would say most efforts should be pointed that way. Fix the cruelty. Figure out cheaper and more reliable ways. Pass laws. This is emotionally driven. Own it. People have emotions. They don't need to be tricked or shamed. Figure out a real solution. Going vegan is not a solution.
And that would be an excellent argument if this discussion was about how to streamline the food industry, improve the world or fight climate change. But here it's used to validate an already reached conclusion. Animal farming is bad, and whoever supports it is immoral, and supports animal abuse.
Well, then it can be. No reason for it not to be. We're talking about money and better trained people. This is not rocket science. And if this conversation was about making the lives/deaths of animals better - I'm all for it. But it wasn't. It was go vegan, or you support animal cruelty.
An alien more evolved than us might know that our inferior "sentience" is just an illusion. In its eyes humans, cows, and plants are just creatures with different defense and survival mechanisms. I can breed cows that don't feel pain. Can they be farmed morally? No? Then it's not a valid argument.
So, you didn't bother to read anything else written in this thread. Although they don't feel "pain", they do have similar mechanisms for self-defense. Why is the pain mechanism in cows more or less important than the mechanism in plants? We still don't fully understand life.
I'm not saying it is. But just throwing out that the meat industry produces 60% of the total food production greenhouse gasses is not a smoking gun. It's very simplistic. By itself, it doesn't mean anything at all.
Baby #elephant gets embarrassed... 😭 #bluesky
Oh yeah, you're now muted. Have fun screaming into the void. I bet you have a lot of smart things to say. Let it all out. Have fun with it.
You can choose to pay fines, or go to prison. You just don't want to be inconvenienced. You don't care enough. You're immoral. You support animal cruelty, and have no spine. Fuck off.
I guess you really can't read. You consider raising one cow, using its milk, and when the time comes - slaughter and eat it, to be cruelty to animals. Most people don't You're imposing your fucked up, stuck up, Karen point of view on me, and trying to justify it. I warned you. Now, fuck off.
At the end of the day, we are both defining some line, arbitrarily, that we will not cross. I won't eat dogs. You won't eat cows. Morally, we're on the same footing. But you're trying to claim we're not, which is misguided. You're also trying to shame, which is disgusting. You're not good at this.
Again, you're missing the point. Sentience is an arbitrary tool to use when drawing the line separating moral from immoral. You are following a feeling. An emotion. Subjective. And you're trying to pass it as logic. Fact. But logic and facts are not on your side. They are on mine.
You do have a choice. You can not pay taxes, and go to prison, or pay fines. At least you won't be contributing to animal abuse. You don't get to set artificial boundaries for yourself. Either you're complicit, or you're not. So get off your high horse. You clearly are.
Yes, we do. I wonder why you don't hear about this more. It's as if cockroaches are not as cute as cows... Where's the PETA video about how it's horrific, and should be stopped? bsky.app/profile/cyb3...
Considering the mean market is vastly larger than other food production markets, it makes sense. Is this supposed to be a shock? If anything, it means that even though the rest of the markets are small, they still manage to produce 40% of the greenhouse gasses. That seems bad.
That has nothing to do with what I've said. And having read the introduction I can already see a flaw. Ancient rain forests are being cut down for meat production. Ok. So stop doing that. And before you say that you can't control it - you can't control people to go vegan too. That's even harder.
I do know the fallacy. I'm not saying that because nature does it this way, it should be this way. The opposite - we were the ones who bread the animals that were useful to us. They are still useful, and most live long and happy lives. No clothing or food. What about medicine? Skin grafts?
What makes that immoral, relative to harming non-sentient life? We make a lot of assumptions, when we don't really know how life works. How sentience works. Other forms it might take. It's not that I'm arguing that it's moral to harm animals. I'm asking why is it moral to harm plants?
Just because there are zero evidence for something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ask religious people. We are clueless when it comes to consciousness and life in general. I don't support cruelty to animals. And if you try and claim it one more time - it will be the end of this conversation.
1. You pay taxes? You also pay for animals to be treated cruelly. I don't see you going out shaming people for paying their taxes. 2. My suggestion that we don't know if plants have something similar to our mechanism of pain, is for one purpose only - to show you how arbitrary your own choice is.
Why do you draw the line at pain and distress? If some animal doesn't feel pain, does it make it morally ok to abuse it? I don't wish for animals to be abused. But I live in the real world, which I have little control over. I'd rather people do something productive. Going vegan is not it.
Well then you're just being ridiculous. That's how we evolved. That's how our civilization grew. That's how we could migrate during harsh seasons and bad weather, and still survive. That's why sheep are not extinct. They're useful. Are you claiming we're past that? We don't need it anymore?
1. Show me one question that I didn't answer. 2. We know sentience exists. And that's about it. 3. You can't be 100% healthy on a plant based diet. You need special supplements, as far as I know. I'm not an expert. What about a cockroach farm? Is that moral? Do roaches have sentience?
Sure. And plants might grief too. You just don't know. And yet, you claim they are lower than animals. They are nothing. They can be enslaved. Abused. Crammed. Put chemicals on. Cut using combines. All because they are not cute enough for YouTube.
"The point is that YOU are supporting extreme cruelty to animals. When asked to defend your support you resort to gaslighting" 1. No. You saying it makes you an asshole. 2. When did I resort to gaslighting? Quote, please. I'll wait.
No. And if you continue playing dumb, this will get boring really quick.
And philosophically speaking (which is what this discussion really is), I wouldn't think raising a dog, slaughtering it, and eating it is immoral, if that was they way our society had evolved. There is no difference between a dog and a cow, besides our own emotions and attitude. It's arbitrary.
It's not ok to cause animal suffering. You seem not to be able to understand my position. No matter how hard I try. I'm not for suffering. Personally, I would beat the shit out of someone abusing a dog. That doesn't mean that I'm against raising a cow, using its milk, slaughtering, and eating it.
Let's take dogs as an example. They are basically wolves (which are very much not like us) which were bread to produce an animal with traits we find either cute, or useful. If beetles could gather up a flock of sheep - we'd be breading and domesticating them.
I'm the one saying we don't have a good criteria to define what is moral or immoral when it comes to other species. Cramming cows together? The jury is out. You're the one making claims. That plants are less than animals. That's why cramming plants as tightly as possible is fine, but not cows.
We have no idea what consciousness is. We have no idea what sentience is. We have no idea if both are illusions created a brain. Up until 2018 we didn't know the electrical signals the Arabidopsis plant sends out from leaf to leaf were protection from herbivores.
What you're describing is the worst-case scenario. Not all farms operate that way. Those that do can be fixed. Going vegan won't change anything outside of your own life. You want to change the world? Find a way to make those animals have better lives and conditions. Be realistic. Not delusional.
No, it's not that simple. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. I'm not for animal cruelty. I believe animal farming can be done "humanly". You can read all of that in the rest of the replies. Turning vegan is not a solution. It's a cop-out. Just like religion - it's the easy way out.
Are going to have a discussion about how it's immoral to kill a person? Oh, wait... Except in war, right? In all of my responses I've maid sure to make it clear - I believe mistreatment of animals is wrong. I'm against that. Yet, you do this? Fuck you, you sanctimonious piece of shit. Muted.
I'm the only one in this thread who is not fooling themselves. I've made a choice to eat meat. I don't need to justify it or excuses for it. And sentience is still not a valid criteria to draw a line, as the alien with a super-conscious thought experiment demonstrates. It's arbitrary to use it.
"It's defined as at least the ability to choose a preference to be comfortable." Cockroaches fall under that definition. So do plants. Are you serious now?
And you won't be able to convince any poor people to vote with their wallets at all. At least until some progress is made in making those better practices and more competent employees cost less. Until then, McDonald's will remain in business no matter what you do on that front.
No. I'm saying you won't be able to convince people to vote with their wallet to not eat meat at all. You could convince SOME people, ones who are better off (money wise), to vote with their wallets and buy only beef from the one company that does it better. Better practices. Competent employees.
Because if you break it down logically, it just isn't. Morality is relative. But it's not the same as "I feel it should be". You still need to logically explain why it's immoral. In the rest of the posts in this thread I'm trying to show you that your position is not logical. It's emotional.
Everything you are describing can be fixed. Starting with the killing itself - that's a skill issue. Better employees, with better training. There are also ways to make the animal drowsy, or unconscious. Veterinarians do it without "spoiling" the meat. It all comes down to money and public opinion.
No being "wants" to die. That's the only thing evolution does account for. If you don't die - you get to pass part of you down. It's not cruel to breed an animal, raise it, and before it gets old and sick - slaughter and eat it. That's farming. Just not on an industrial scale. Is that bad too?
Yes. It's arbitrary. I can get attached to a pencil, if Pixar made a movie about it. That's not an argument.
No, I'm saying I'm ok with them feeling pain. Just like I'm ok with cows feeling pain. Not as a rule, obviously. I'm saying it's ok to farm plants, and it's ok to farm animals. It's ok to farm dogs, but we have no reason to do so, and we are attached to them emotionally. But it's not wrong.
It's not logical. Stop saying that. For the simple reason that sentience is one of the least understood phenomena. We're not even sure if it's real. We can't define it properly. For all we know - it's just another illusion. It's not logic. It's emotion. Evolution is good. This is not evolution.
You don't make choices in your reactions. So what? You don't decide to pull your hand away when you touch a hot stove. It's pure reflex. Just like plants.
Research show we don't really make a lot of conscious decisions. Our brains plays a lot of tricks to make us feel that we do. We're just monkeys. Don't fool yourself to think otherwise. Pain and consciousness are just excuses to draw the line somewhere, and should not be taken seriously.
Then let's say the alien is much more evolved. It evolved a super-conscious. It knows our inferior "conscious" is just an illusion created by chemicals in our brains. Just another mechanism. The plants are simpler. They just didn't get one yet. To the alien we're just two species of creatures.
If the fight is for making the lives of cows better, longer, and healthier - I'm all for it. But if the fight is to stop farming cows all together -that's not going to happen, realistically. Wasted effort. I'll be willing to pay more for happy cows, and so will many other people.
Yes. In the grand scheme of things. I'm not denying meat farming as an industry can be cruel in pursuit of profit. It can be fixed. Improved. I'm saying I don't judge people for buying the factory farmed beef, just like I don't judge vegans for farming plants. The acts themselves are not immoral.
You also don't have any choice to react. It's a mechanism. Arabidopsis (Google it) is a plant that sends out electrical signals from leaf to leaf when it is being eaten by caterpillars or aphids, signals to ramp up its chemical defenses against herbivory. It's not pain. But it's not nothing.
It's like wearing shoes that are too small for you. At the end of the day when you remove the shoes - it's amazing. But you don't feel amazing unless you wear the tight shoes all day long. We all start falling apart eventually, craving to not feel. To take the shoes off. You just have a head start.
People exploding this false messaging that I voted for a bill + funding that I quite literally voted NO on. The threat environment this morning is scary. Doesn’t help anyone. Drag me for the position if you disagree but don’t lie. It’s out of control. Saying I voted for this funding is false.
When I was little, the U.S. military came to our home at gunpoint and took me and my family away. We were imprisoned for years in barbed wire camps simply because we were Japanese American. I have spent my life telling that story, hoping it would never be repeated.
His invincible ignorance. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/w...
The end is usually quick and painless. We figured out how to cheaply do that... I think most of the problem is how they live their lives until that, and it depends on the farm. I've personally been to pig farms, where they seem pretty comfy. But I'm not under the illusion all farms are the same.
1) That's not my personal experience. Students either learn from reading or don't. It doesn't really matter if it's on a screen or a piece of paper. Are you talking about some technological issue? Cheap screens maybe? Are there studies about this? 2) Makes sense. Are you allowed to scan something?
According to my middle school biology class - most of them propagate by pollination. Correct me if I'm wrong or not up to date. We don't know if plants feel pain, and it's a bad indicator of anything related to "wellbeing" or consciousness: bsky.app/profile/cyb3...
Moriah 