this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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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.