this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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science

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just science related topics. please contribute

note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

"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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

c/woosh

Too bad the joke wasn't obvious.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

You might honestly have meant it as a joke. Others bring up the point genuinely frequently. It makes sense to address it as such.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It's not obviously a joke as this is how people genuinely argue against veganism

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] stembolts 3 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

vastly more plants need to be harvested to feed livestock,

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

Do you really think the majority of slaughterhouse animals are grazing?

I didn't say that.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

what soy is fed to animals is almost entirely the byproduct of soybean oil production. that is a conservation of resources.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

say what you mean. I don't care for your interrogative.