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So here's an interesting question: if plants are conscious, can vegans eat them? And if not, what will they eat? Not trying to troll vegans; if this is differ

• krisrm 7y ago
  I'm not a vegan, but if you think of veganism as more of a "harm reduction" approach to eating, it doesn't matter whether you define plants to be conscious or not. As in, it causes relatively more harm to a large number of organisms to eat an animal as food (the animals are presumably going to eat plants anyway), versus cutting out the middle man and just eating plants.
  • bin0 7y ago
    Fair enough. I guess not all vegans will be homogeneous here either; I'm assuming some are in it for harm reduction, some for ecology, some for the "animals cute" factor. Oh well. I appreciate the insight.
    • krisrm 7y ago
      Certainly! And yeah - I'm sure there's a whole range of perspectives. Probably the idea that plants might be defined as "conscious" bothers some people, but I just can't understand that frame of mind. What are you going to do about it... starve?
      • viklove 7y ago
        I think the point is that the line between animals and plants would become arbitrary if plants were indeed conscious and could feel pain. Why eat plants but not animals then?
        • s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
          I think that line would become blurred, but there would still be room for a variety of views. There's still the level of consciousness and intelligence to look at. I eat everything but octopus/calamari. I think they are too intelligent to eat. I've seen smart cows, and if I didn't grow up eating beef and it wasn't such a great source a protein, I would cut it out too and just eat chicken. For me it's where do I draw the line of intelligence of what I want to eat. The less likely the animal can comprehend what's going on, the easier I feel about it.
          • ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
            I seriously wonder if there are any extreme psychopaths or serial killers, that intentionally eat as much Octopus as possible just to satisfy their urge to cause maximum harm to other beings? I can't eat Octopus, Pigs, Dogs, or any type of Ape because they are too aware of the process. Oddly I don't have the same aversion to Dolphins or Whales. They may have a comparable amount of intelligence to animals that I wouldn't eat, and a dolphin is even cuter than an octopus, but for some reason I don't have a problem identifying them as food. Sort of like Sheep and Goats, they are cute, but also clearly labeled as food in my head.
  • MisterOctober 7y ago
    Vegan here -- naturally, there are as many philosophical approaches to vegan practice as there are vegans, but for me and others I know, it definitely is oriented toward 'harm-reduction' [or as I like to say, minimizing exploitation]. It's impossible to live and thrive without being detrimental to other organisms - for me, the idea is to accept the inevitable cycle of struggle and violence, while minimizing the _exploitative treatment_ of other beings [plant or animal -- easier said than done with regard to plants -- one easy step is to include as much fruit and perennial leaf matter in the diet as practical [i.e., the plant is treated more like something to be nurtured rather than merely 'grown and discarded']
    • ianai 7y ago
      I went vegan initially after comparing the harmful effects of animal products with the relative ease of eating something else. Subjectively, I feel much healthier eating plant based, Whole foods. I have noticed beneficial effects as well-lost weight, for instance. Though I do perceive eating plants as more moral than animal products, as well. It seems like plants don’t experience treatment like animals do, just as a general.
• billmalarky 7y ago
  If consciousness is a byproduct of advanced organization of organic matter, I imagine we can use technology to create simplified versions that lack the complexity required for consciousness while still being nutritious.
  • BuildTheRobots 7y ago
    > I imagine we can use technology to create simplified versions that lack the complexity required for consciousness while still being nutritious You could say the same about breeding animals for meat or even people for slavery - in fact that seems to be not to many steps down that route. I don't think either are acceptable though, so we're back to deciding where to draw that suffering line.
  • droithomme 7y ago
    > I imagine we can use technology to create simplified versions that lack the complexity required for consciousness while still being nutritious. Or economically valuable for organ extraction. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,138483,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,138483,... > [Labs] at the University of Texas and at the University of Bath ... created headless mice [and] headless tadpoles. > "It would almost certainly be possible to produce human bodies without a forebrain," Princeton biologist Lee Silver told the London Sunday Times. "These human bodies without any semblance of consciousness would not be considered persons, and thus it would be perfectly legal to keep them 'alive' as a future source of organs."
• kingbirdy 7y ago
  It would depend on why people are vegan as to whether they would be okay with eating conscious plants. They could adopt an even stricter diet such as Fruitarianism[0]. I'm not sure if it's currently feasible to adopt a diet of exclusively lab grown food, but that could be an option down the line. They could also become Level 5 Vegans [1] ;) 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Yaa_LMDcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Yaa_LMDcs
• vfc1 7y ago
  Plant conscience and plant lives matter arguments are usually used as a futility fallacy argument against the reduction of animal products consumption. Something like: See, even plants are conscious, there is no point so let's just continue eating steaks and pork chops every day.
  • ianai 7y ago
    Aka they’re a nearly thoughtless dismissal of veganism.