11 ms·

Hacker News, where technology > empathy

bayindirh 6y ago
I value ethics and empathy deeply but, I don't understand vegans and vegetarians. Their biggest line of defense is "animals are alive and they have feelings and senses, we abuse them for food". That's sadly right. And they implicitly say that "eating plants are OK because, plants are not animals and they're just happen to grow. They don't feel, they don't understand". On the contrary, there's a growing mountain of research revealing that plants can communicate, issue warnings about diseases and bug infestations. They so-called get stressed when it rains, and their metabolisms startle during fast light changes (like eclipses). More shockingly, they release all the nutrients they store when they sense they're going to die, so other plants can thrive from their remains and nutrient stocks (writing this really moves me). This is complete opposite of "plants are well, just alive wood" hypothesis. When I share this research with vegans and vegetarians, their response is: crickets. Moreover, most hardcore ones suggest that we don't ever need meat to thrive or live a healthy life however, we've evolved that far because we consumed meat. Meat made us and, same people are ignorant of this fact. I can understand that we need to grow these animals more ethically. This is why I always try to buy ethically produced food. I understand that these animals are adding great amounts of greenhouse gases. I can understand that we may live well with less meat. However, we need to understand, some of these animals are evolved under our reign and they may not survive outside farms for long. The cattle are grass puppies now and are essentially "useful pets". We need to understand where we are to move forward. Ignorance and fight won't take us anywhere. We need to talk openly and need to put our prejudice aside. We need to learn and understand first.
- howlin 6y ago
  There are several responses to the "plants have senses" rebuttal: If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than animals. The trophic level of animals in the food chain necessitates that they will eat more calories of plant matter than would provide calories of food upon being eaten. Secondly, you should look at the sorts of plants being consumed and where they fall in the plant's life cycle. Fruits and nuts have been evolved to be eaten by animals. Staple crops such as grains and pulses are generally harvested from plants that have already lived to maturity and died off. Really it's only fresh greens and tubers that require the damage or destruction of a living plant. Lastly, it's important to recognize the evolutionary purpose of sensing pain and suffering from it. Animals use pain and suffering to detect harmful situations and learn how to avoid them in the future. This process consists of sensations, memory and adaptive behavior. Plants may have "reflexive" responses to stimulus, but these responses aren't adaptive and aren't affected by previous experience (mostly... there are some exceptions). There would be no evolutionary purpose for plants to develop a sense of suffering if they have no practical use for that sensation.
  - kaycebasques 6y ago
    > If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than animals. The trophic level of animals in the food chain necessitates that they will eat more calories of plant matter than would provide calories of food upon being eaten. To put this into more laymen's terms, meat cultivation dramatically increases the total amount of plants that we need to grow. As mentioned in my other comment: > 70-75% of soybeans grown globally are for livestock, only 6% are used for human food products (meat eaters often try to claim that soy production is terrible for the environment; surprise, surprise, meat consumption is the main driver) So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)
    - nec4b 6y ago
      "So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)" Only if you believe you are more efficient at digesting grass and other plants than animals.
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    The "plants have senses rebuttal" as you put it is only an illustration that exposes the absurdity of the whole attachment of ethics to consumption of any form in and of itself. The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. One way or another, everything is going to die and be consumed by another living organism. That's why it's absurd. You can arbitrarily pick your own resolution, but it's only arbitrary until you exit the cycle completely.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      > The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. That would obliterate all future human happiness. It doesn't stand up even under a cold utilitarian conception of morality.
- barkingcat 6y ago
  to inject a bit of humour: "When I share this research with vegans and vegetarians, their response is: crickets." I'm suprised the vegetarians you're talking to would suggest crickets, even though that's one of the leading animal protein replacements in the form of insects. Do vegetarians/vegans have similar ethical objections about eating crickets for food? I suspect so, but I don't know if crickets have the same type of cognition/emotions as vertebrate animals.
  - curryst 6y ago
    As someone who raises crickets for pet food, I can confidently tell you that you needn't kill crickets. Just give them a water dish and at least 10 will promptly drown themselves. They're either suicidal, or so painfully stupid that the only reason they haven't been wiped off the face of the planet is the incredible rate they reproduce at. In a less facetious sense, I do believe that insect neurology is substantially different. Crustaceans have a nervous system web, which is why you have to cut crabs and lobsters in half to kill them rather than just stabbing them in the head.
- kibwen 6y ago
  I'm unsure what this comment is trying to say. If your objective is to have empathy for plants and thereby eat fewer of them, then you would also seek to eat less meat since raising livestock requires vast amounts of plant-based feed. In addition, any scientist who has ever taken an animal laboratory ethics course will understand that there exists a rough hierarchy of public empathy towards certain animals: first primates, then typical companion animals, then livestock animals, then fish, then vermin, then insects. There is no "gotcha" here; it is entirely reasonable for someone to have more empathy for, say, mammals than they have for grain. And I say all this as someone who eats meat.
- nromiun 6y ago
  Maybe vegans do that but most vegetarians I know of don't eat meat for one simple reason: they are disgusted by it. Vegetarians don't really care about the ethics of it. In fact they are fine with animal based products, like milk.
  - cute_boi 6y ago
    You are in fact make a generalization and thats fair here. But I must so you are little incorrect here. You have clearly not seen how world lies, how society lies. So let me explain it to you. First when you grow you drink mom's milk and you are under impression drinking milk is good for health which indeed is. So people start consuming milk everywhere. And there are advertisements which shows happy cows, chocolates made from milk. Vegetarians are under impression that its ethical. And many farmers advertises as if their cows are happy they are grass fed etc. In some religion they even worship cows etc giving impression that cows are respected etc. And the other thing you often hear is cows babies get enough milk and farmers only sell excess milk. So from religion, society people are brain washed so much they don't even see how animals are tortured, left on road after buffalo/cows stops giving milk. I wish media would cover this subject more especially in India which is probably top 3 vegetarian country in the world.
    - nromiun 6y ago
      I was speaking from my own experience. Many of my family members are vegetarians and some of them are in the milk business (small scale). Pretty much everyone knows that the cow's milk should go to the calves. Sure almost all companies lie in their ads but people aren't as stupid as some would think. Some people are under the impression that they are into some great secret of the world (about how cows are handled in the milk business). But the reality is that most people know about it but don't care. So to reiterate the number one reason most people (that I know of) become vegetarians because they are disgusted by meat. I wish there was some great vision to it but there isn't.
- kaycebasques 6y ago
  As a real vegan (not a meme about vegans that you saw from meat eaters) I can confidently tell you that "animals are alive and they have feelings and senses, we abuse them for food" is not my biggest line of defense. My biggest lines of defense are: * Dr. Kim Williams, former president of the American College of Cardiology, said "there are two kinds of cardiologists, vegans, and those who haven't read the data" * Animal agriculture is responsible for 20-33% of all freshwater consumption globally * Mass cultivation of animals increases the chances of pandemic * 41% of mainland USA is used for grazing livestock, yet meat only provides 18% of our calories; feeding the world on a vegan diet could reduce farmland use by 75% or more * Going plant-based for two-thirds of meals could reduce food-related carbon emissions by 60% (the way we produce, distribute, and refrigerate food is a huge contributor of global emissions) * 70-75% of soybeans grown globally are for livestock, only 6% are used for human food products (meat eaters often try to claim that soy production is terrible for the environment; surprise, surprise, meat consumption is the main driver)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    meat only provides 18% of our calories But what percentage of our protein?
    - lkbm 6y ago
      I'm not finding a lot of people answering this question from a cursory search, but I found one source saying 33% globally[0]. (This may include eggs and dairy.) Personally, I eat more protein than I did when I ate meat, though to be fair I still eat eggs. It's not hard at all to get adequate protein. [0] https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/worlds-main-sources-protein-7395.html https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/worlds-main-sources-protein...
    - kaycebasques 6y ago
      I don't know but I think I can anticipate your concern. It's very viable to meet your protein needs on a vegan diet. That stuff about vegans not being able to get complete proteins is meat industry propaganda. Furthermore, the World Health Organization said that only 10 to 15% of daily calories need to come from protein. I believe I've also read that there's no proven benefit to all of the extra protein that Americans eat daily (I haven't looked into that claim in-depth, though).
- cute_boi 6y ago
  > plants are well, just alive wood Plants don't feel as much animals do. They don't feel the torture animals do. They don't grief. They don't show responses that they don't want to be killed. The fact is at the end we have to draw lines even though we don't want. For vegans its probably in bacteria. Vegans don't care about bacteria even though they are living. Its the situation where vegans cannot go beyond right? Are you going to say vegan eat bacteria so eating meat should be justified? Nope.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- axepeartree 6y ago
  Sentience is what matters. Comparing animals (like cows) with plants is absurd.
- triceratops 6y ago
  I was with you until > Moreover, most hardcore ones suggest that we don't ever need meat to thrive or live a healthy life however, we've evolved that far because we consumed meat. Meat made us and, same people are ignorant of this fact. That's just flat-out untrue. Meals would be less delicious and you'd have to plan a bit better to get certain nutrients (B12) but healthy life is absolutely possible on a vegan diet. And even more so on a lacto-vegetarian diet (one of the most ripped guys I know is lacto-veg).
- sparrc 6y ago
  Most vegans and vegetarians are well aware of the "but plants have feelings tho" argument. It's actually one of the most common arguments that people who like to "gotcha" vegans will bring up. The fact that plants can have subconcious reactions to stimuli does not mean they are sentient beings. These reactions are more akin to when you subconciously kick when a doctor hits a hammer on your knee. Plants do not have a central nervous system nor do they feel pain in the same way animals do. In an evolutionary sense, pain is useful for animals because it tells us to deliberately move and avoid that pain, plants are obviously not able to do this.
- mike00632 6y ago
  You know that it takes more plants to raise animals than it does to just eat the plants directly, right? So even if you believe your argument that plants feel pain just like animals do then it's preferable to go vegan.
- addicted 6y ago
  I’m pretty sure vegetarians, or vegans for that matter, don’t need to defend themselves. Also, we evolved without living in stone structures and sewn clothes. I don’t see you asking people who wear jeans and tshirts to defend themselves. I’m neither, but you’re arguing a straw man version of what either vegetarianism or veganism is.
  - novok 6y ago
    Vegans and vegetarians want to legislate meat eating away, and there is a lot of nutritional deficiencies and allergic reactions that come from vegan eating that carnivores / omnivores would want to avoid. There is a big moralizing streak in veganism, and a lot of vegans are into it from ethical, moralizing or emotional reasons, which leads to activism and trying to ban, tax and reduce meat eating. We see where the puck is heading.
- novok 6y ago
  Animals also die in a lot of vegetable farming too. Lots of small rodents, squirrels, birds, insects and so on grinded up by various farming machinery or poisoned from pesticides, and until we have replicators or scalable permaculture farming we will never escape that. If 800 rats and fluffy squirrels die violently & painfully for the equivalent amount of veggie nutrition of one cow who is killed ethically, eating grass grown naturally, are their lives worth less? What is the ratio?
- neuralRiot 6y ago
  Believe me that we have heard all the possible arguments against veganism including “plants feel pain too”, it’s not one or the other, livestock is fed plants, so you cause more suffering by eating them.
- cronix 6y ago
  > On the contrary, there's a growing mountain of research revealing that plants can communicate, issue warnings about diseases and bug infestations. The TV show Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson discussed this "Mycelium Network" on Season 3/Episode 7, "The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth," that aired Nov. 17th. It was quite fascinating. It starts about the 5 minute mark. https://www.fox.com/watch/78c4500e6b3b7bf2d9b9832ae23f79c7/ https://www.fox.com/watch/78c4500e6b3b7bf2d9b9832ae23f79c7/
- mkolodny 6y ago
  From your line of reasoning, I'd guess that you have no moral issues with eating humans. If eating animals and plants is the same, then isn't eating non-human and human animals the same? If you do have a moral problem with eating humans, then you probably have moral hierarchy - humans' lives are the most important, and every other life is less important. Some vegetarians have a different moral hierarchy - animals' lives are most important, then plants' lives. You can value plants' lives, and treat plants with respect, and still decide that you're morally okay with eating plants.
  - cies 6y ago
    Animals we eat, eat plants. So eating plants directly is being more sparing with plant lives.
- Razengan 6y ago
  > I value ethics and empathy deeply but, I don't understand vegans and vegetarians. That’s a ironic contradiction. If you witness the conditions in which animals are born, raised, harvested and culled by the millions, and still be okay with it, you really don’t have a claim to empathy. [I enjoy meat]
thelastwave 6y ago
The solution is obviously to invent empathy technology.
- JacobSuperslav 6y ago
  I love it ;) A device that will allow us to interpret other's feelings without empathy?
kelnos 6y ago
I'm really disappointed in these sorts of low-effort responses because they seem to be interested in shutting down discussion without allowing for any differences of opinion. The idea that animals should be revered and never used as food is an opinion, not a fact. One can be sympathetic toward the treatment of animals raised for food, and advocate for better treatment while still consuming animal products. The funny thing is that your comparison is also just flat-out wrong: the technology in question is also in part a product of empathy! Yes, there are efficiency and cost concerns around incubating eggs to maturity where the (male) chick will just be discarded, but there's also a strong empathetic argument that terminating an egg shortly after fertilization is much more humane than killing male chicks after birth.

I value ethics and empathy deeply but, I don't understand vegans and vegetarians. Their biggest line of defense is "animals are alive and they have feelings and senses, we abuse them for food". That's sadly right. And they implicitly say that "eating plants are OK because, plants are not animals and they're just happen to grow. They don't feel, they don't understand". On the contrary, there's a growing mountain of research revealing that plants can communicate, issue warnings about diseases and bug infestations. They so-called get stressed when it rains, and their metabolisms startle during fast light changes (like eclipses). More shockingly, they release all the nutrients they store when they sense they're going to die, so other plants can thrive from their remains and nutrient stocks (writing this really moves me). This is complete opposite of "plants are well, just alive wood" hypothesis. When I share this research with vegans and vegetarians, their response is: crickets. Moreover, most hardcore ones suggest that we don't ever need meat to thrive or live a healthy life however, we've evolved that far because we consumed meat. Meat made us and, same people are ignorant of this fact. I can understand that we need to grow these animals more ethically. This is why I always try to buy ethically produced food. I understand that these animals are adding great amounts of greenhouse gases. I can understand that we may live well with less meat. However, we need to understand, some of these animals are evolved under our reign and they may not survive outside farms for long. The cattle are grass puppies now and are essentially "useful pets". We need to understand where we are to move forward. Ignorance and fight won't take us anywhere. We need to talk openly and need to put our prejudice aside. We need to learn and understand first.

howlin 6y ago
There are several responses to the "plants have senses" rebuttal: If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than animals. The trophic level of animals in the food chain necessitates that they will eat more calories of plant matter than would provide calories of food upon being eaten. Secondly, you should look at the sorts of plants being consumed and where they fall in the plant's life cycle. Fruits and nuts have been evolved to be eaten by animals. Staple crops such as grains and pulses are generally harvested from plants that have already lived to maturity and died off. Really it's only fresh greens and tubers that require the damage or destruction of a living plant. Lastly, it's important to recognize the evolutionary purpose of sensing pain and suffering from it. Animals use pain and suffering to detect harmful situations and learn how to avoid them in the future. This process consists of sensations, memory and adaptive behavior. Plants may have "reflexive" responses to stimulus, but these responses aren't adaptive and aren't affected by previous experience (mostly... there are some exceptions). There would be no evolutionary purpose for plants to develop a sense of suffering if they have no practical use for that sensation.
- kaycebasques 6y ago
  > If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than animals. The trophic level of animals in the food chain necessitates that they will eat more calories of plant matter than would provide calories of food upon being eaten. To put this into more laymen's terms, meat cultivation dramatically increases the total amount of plants that we need to grow. As mentioned in my other comment: > 70-75% of soybeans grown globally are for livestock, only 6% are used for human food products (meat eaters often try to claim that soy production is terrible for the environment; surprise, surprise, meat consumption is the main driver) So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)
  - nec4b 6y ago
    "So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)" Only if you believe you are more efficient at digesting grass and other plants than animals.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  The "plants have senses rebuttal" as you put it is only an illustration that exposes the absurdity of the whole attachment of ethics to consumption of any form in and of itself. The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. One way or another, everything is going to die and be consumed by another living organism. That's why it's absurd. You can arbitrarily pick your own resolution, but it's only arbitrary until you exit the cycle completely.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. That would obliterate all future human happiness. It doesn't stand up even under a cold utilitarian conception of morality.
barkingcat 6y ago
to inject a bit of humour: "When I share this research with vegans and vegetarians, their response is: crickets." I'm suprised the vegetarians you're talking to would suggest crickets, even though that's one of the leading animal protein replacements in the form of insects. Do vegetarians/vegans have similar ethical objections about eating crickets for food? I suspect so, but I don't know if crickets have the same type of cognition/emotions as vertebrate animals.
- curryst 6y ago
  As someone who raises crickets for pet food, I can confidently tell you that you needn't kill crickets. Just give them a water dish and at least 10 will promptly drown themselves. They're either suicidal, or so painfully stupid that the only reason they haven't been wiped off the face of the planet is the incredible rate they reproduce at. In a less facetious sense, I do believe that insect neurology is substantially different. Crustaceans have a nervous system web, which is why you have to cut crabs and lobsters in half to kill them rather than just stabbing them in the head.
kibwen 6y ago
I'm unsure what this comment is trying to say. If your objective is to have empathy for plants and thereby eat fewer of them, then you would also seek to eat less meat since raising livestock requires vast amounts of plant-based feed. In addition, any scientist who has ever taken an animal laboratory ethics course will understand that there exists a rough hierarchy of public empathy towards certain animals: first primates, then typical companion animals, then livestock animals, then fish, then vermin, then insects. There is no "gotcha" here; it is entirely reasonable for someone to have more empathy for, say, mammals than they have for grain. And I say all this as someone who eats meat.
nromiun 6y ago
Maybe vegans do that but most vegetarians I know of don't eat meat for one simple reason: they are disgusted by it. Vegetarians don't really care about the ethics of it. In fact they are fine with animal based products, like milk.
- cute_boi 6y ago
  You are in fact make a generalization and thats fair here. But I must so you are little incorrect here. You have clearly not seen how world lies, how society lies. So let me explain it to you. First when you grow you drink mom's milk and you are under impression drinking milk is good for health which indeed is. So people start consuming milk everywhere. And there are advertisements which shows happy cows, chocolates made from milk. Vegetarians are under impression that its ethical. And many farmers advertises as if their cows are happy they are grass fed etc. In some religion they even worship cows etc giving impression that cows are respected etc. And the other thing you often hear is cows babies get enough milk and farmers only sell excess milk. So from religion, society people are brain washed so much they don't even see how animals are tortured, left on road after buffalo/cows stops giving milk. I wish media would cover this subject more especially in India which is probably top 3 vegetarian country in the world.
  - nromiun 6y ago
    I was speaking from my own experience. Many of my family members are vegetarians and some of them are in the milk business (small scale). Pretty much everyone knows that the cow's milk should go to the calves. Sure almost all companies lie in their ads but people aren't as stupid as some would think. Some people are under the impression that they are into some great secret of the world (about how cows are handled in the milk business). But the reality is that most people know about it but don't care. So to reiterate the number one reason most people (that I know of) become vegetarians because they are disgusted by meat. I wish there was some great vision to it but there isn't.
kaycebasques 6y ago
As a real vegan (not a meme about vegans that you saw from meat eaters) I can confidently tell you that "animals are alive and they have feelings and senses, we abuse them for food" is not my biggest line of defense. My biggest lines of defense are: * Dr. Kim Williams, former president of the American College of Cardiology, said "there are two kinds of cardiologists, vegans, and those who haven't read the data" * Animal agriculture is responsible for 20-33% of all freshwater consumption globally * Mass cultivation of animals increases the chances of pandemic * 41% of mainland USA is used for grazing livestock, yet meat only provides 18% of our calories; feeding the world on a vegan diet could reduce farmland use by 75% or more * Going plant-based for two-thirds of meals could reduce food-related carbon emissions by 60% (the way we produce, distribute, and refrigerate food is a huge contributor of global emissions) * 70-75% of soybeans grown globally are for livestock, only 6% are used for human food products (meat eaters often try to claim that soy production is terrible for the environment; surprise, surprise, meat consumption is the main driver)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nitrogen 6y ago
  meat only provides 18% of our calories But what percentage of our protein?
  - lkbm 6y ago
    I'm not finding a lot of people answering this question from a cursory search, but I found one source saying 33% globally[0]. (This may include eggs and dairy.) Personally, I eat more protein than I did when I ate meat, though to be fair I still eat eggs. It's not hard at all to get adequate protein. [0] https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/worlds-main-sources-protein-7395.html https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/worlds-main-sources-protein...
  - kaycebasques 6y ago
    I don't know but I think I can anticipate your concern. It's very viable to meet your protein needs on a vegan diet. That stuff about vegans not being able to get complete proteins is meat industry propaganda. Furthermore, the World Health Organization said that only 10 to 15% of daily calories need to come from protein. I believe I've also read that there's no proven benefit to all of the extra protein that Americans eat daily (I haven't looked into that claim in-depth, though).
cute_boi 6y ago
> plants are well, just alive wood Plants don't feel as much animals do. They don't feel the torture animals do. They don't grief. They don't show responses that they don't want to be killed. The fact is at the end we have to draw lines even though we don't want. For vegans its probably in bacteria. Vegans don't care about bacteria even though they are living. Its the situation where vegans cannot go beyond right? Are you going to say vegan eat bacteria so eating meat should be justified? Nope.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
axepeartree 6y ago
Sentience is what matters. Comparing animals (like cows) with plants is absurd.
triceratops 6y ago
I was with you until > Moreover, most hardcore ones suggest that we don't ever need meat to thrive or live a healthy life however, we've evolved that far because we consumed meat. Meat made us and, same people are ignorant of this fact. That's just flat-out untrue. Meals would be less delicious and you'd have to plan a bit better to get certain nutrients (B12) but healthy life is absolutely possible on a vegan diet. And even more so on a lacto-vegetarian diet (one of the most ripped guys I know is lacto-veg).
sparrc 6y ago
Most vegans and vegetarians are well aware of the "but plants have feelings tho" argument. It's actually one of the most common arguments that people who like to "gotcha" vegans will bring up. The fact that plants can have subconcious reactions to stimuli does not mean they are sentient beings. These reactions are more akin to when you subconciously kick when a doctor hits a hammer on your knee. Plants do not have a central nervous system nor do they feel pain in the same way animals do. In an evolutionary sense, pain is useful for animals because it tells us to deliberately move and avoid that pain, plants are obviously not able to do this.
mike00632 6y ago
You know that it takes more plants to raise animals than it does to just eat the plants directly, right? So even if you believe your argument that plants feel pain just like animals do then it's preferable to go vegan.
addicted 6y ago
I’m pretty sure vegetarians, or vegans for that matter, don’t need to defend themselves. Also, we evolved without living in stone structures and sewn clothes. I don’t see you asking people who wear jeans and tshirts to defend themselves. I’m neither, but you’re arguing a straw man version of what either vegetarianism or veganism is.
- novok 6y ago
  Vegans and vegetarians want to legislate meat eating away, and there is a lot of nutritional deficiencies and allergic reactions that come from vegan eating that carnivores / omnivores would want to avoid. There is a big moralizing streak in veganism, and a lot of vegans are into it from ethical, moralizing or emotional reasons, which leads to activism and trying to ban, tax and reduce meat eating. We see where the puck is heading.
novok 6y ago
Animals also die in a lot of vegetable farming too. Lots of small rodents, squirrels, birds, insects and so on grinded up by various farming machinery or poisoned from pesticides, and until we have replicators or scalable permaculture farming we will never escape that. If 800 rats and fluffy squirrels die violently & painfully for the equivalent amount of veggie nutrition of one cow who is killed ethically, eating grass grown naturally, are their lives worth less? What is the ratio?
neuralRiot 6y ago
Believe me that we have heard all the possible arguments against veganism including “plants feel pain too”, it’s not one or the other, livestock is fed plants, so you cause more suffering by eating them.
cronix 6y ago
> On the contrary, there's a growing mountain of research revealing that plants can communicate, issue warnings about diseases and bug infestations. The TV show Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson discussed this "Mycelium Network" on Season 3/Episode 7, "The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth," that aired Nov. 17th. It was quite fascinating. It starts about the 5 minute mark. https://www.fox.com/watch/78c4500e6b3b7bf2d9b9832ae23f79c7/ https://www.fox.com/watch/78c4500e6b3b7bf2d9b9832ae23f79c7/
mkolodny 6y ago
From your line of reasoning, I'd guess that you have no moral issues with eating humans. If eating animals and plants is the same, then isn't eating non-human and human animals the same? If you do have a moral problem with eating humans, then you probably have moral hierarchy - humans' lives are the most important, and every other life is less important. Some vegetarians have a different moral hierarchy - animals' lives are most important, then plants' lives. You can value plants' lives, and treat plants with respect, and still decide that you're morally okay with eating plants.
- cies 6y ago
  Animals we eat, eat plants. So eating plants directly is being more sparing with plant lives.
Razengan 6y ago
> I value ethics and empathy deeply but, I don't understand vegans and vegetarians. That’s a ironic contradiction. If you witness the conditions in which animals are born, raised, harvested and culled by the millions, and still be okay with it, you really don’t have a claim to empathy. [I enjoy meat]

thelastwave 6y ago

The solution is obviously to invent empathy technology.

JacobSuperslav 6y ago
I love it ;) A device that will allow us to interpret other's feelings without empathy?

kelnos 6y ago

I'm really disappointed in these sorts of low-effort responses because they seem to be interested in shutting down discussion without allowing for any differences of opinion. The idea that animals should be revered and never used as food is an opinion, not a fact. One can be sympathetic toward the treatment of animals raised for food, and advocate for better treatment while still consuming animal products. The funny thing is that your comparison is also just flat-out wrong: the technology in question is also in part a product of empathy! Yes, there are efficiency and cost concerns around incubating eggs to maturity where the (male) chick will just be discarded, but there's also a strong empathetic argument that terminating an egg shortly after fertilization is much more humane than killing male chicks after birth.