Board 8 > why do vegans not care about plant suffering

(+) Yeah! (+)

what is wrong with them
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Plants don't make cute noises as babies
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Plants don't have pain receptors.
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All lives matter.
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All lives are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

All lives are equal, but some are more equal than others.

You don't even know the meaning of that quote.
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Nintendoboy375 posted...

EndOfDiscOne posted...

All lives are equal, but some are more equal than others.

You don't even know the meaning of that quote.

Oh ok
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Dancedreamer posted...

Plants don't have pain receptors.

So what you're saying is, if someone was unable to feel pain, at all, it'd be okay to stab them? You monster!
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Dancedreamer posted...

Plants don't have pain receptors.

They actually do feel pain. Studies have been done on this...

Long story short. Vegans are superficial. If they can't SEE the pain, they don't care.

IronmikeC posted...

They actually do feel pain. Studies have been done on this...

This is pure pseudoscience. The studies showed that there was a reaction, but the reaction has never been shown to be anything more than changes in fluid movement within the plant and changes in internal pressures.
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Esuriat posted...

IronmikeC posted...

They actually do feel pain. Studies have been done on this...

This is pure pseudoscience. The studies showed that there was a reaction, but the reaction has never been shown to be anything more than changes in fluid movement within the plant and changes in internal pressures.

They also apparently let out a gas when damaged, too.

Which, to be honest, is just a reaction to damage. Which is not a possible definition of pain.
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Yeah. What I recall is that some guys tried to prove by polygraph or maybe EEG that plants feel pain but after peer review of the reports and reproduction of the tests, they were totally negative for electrical activity or resistance.
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That being said, plants are living things, and even if they don't have what we'd consider a consciousness, I still think respecting them as organisms is important.

Not to the extent of "hug a tree" (though I have a feeling that the tree might "like it" that you're breathing carbon dioxide directly onto it) but showing an awareness of the world around you and being respectful of it benefits you, as well as other surrounding creatures.

I might be a little miffed that we just paid the city (and not through taxes, this is something that everyone on this street paid for out of pocket) to redo our shitty roads, which apparently included tearing down a whole bunch of trees that had been around since we moved here, as well as one tree that a local grade school had planted.

Granted, I understand why they did it, it was to redo the sewer pipes, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm mad that it had to happen in the first place.
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God put animals on this planet to be eaten. Why would he make them taste so delicious when fried?
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It's a bit difficult to feel pain without any kind of nervous system.
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FlyingForever posted...

God put animals on this planet to be eaten. Why would he make them taste so delicious when fried?

But he bans you from eating so many of them
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What is pain? Is it a response to stimuli from structural damage?
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charmander6000 posted...

What is pain? Is it a response to stimuli from structural damage?

Pain is the nervous system sending a message to the brain, sometimes incorrectly.

Like, there are disorders that result in feeling pain for no reason, like fibromyalgia, and it sucks.

That being said, plants can "suffer" without feeling pain - poor conditions or a disease will result in the plant withering or being unable to thrive. This doesn't benefit anyone... unless the plant is an invasive species whose suffering benefits other plants and human beings.
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yo why do vegans smoke weed tho
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foolm0r0n posted...

yo why do vegans smoke weed tho

Clearly, it's 'cause they want to get close to nature :P
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Dancedreamer posted...

FlyingForever posted...

God put animals on this planet to be eaten. Why would he make them taste so delicious when fried?

But he bans you from eating so many of them

Not my god
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kill everything
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ninkendo posted...

kill everything

Everything tasty
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FlyingForever posted...

God put animals on this planet to be eaten. Why would he make them taste so delicious when fried?

Some mormon dude on a survival reality show said something like this. He was very douchey but I appreciated his humility after the experience. I also laughed at his incompetence when he fucked up a snake he was trying to cook by overcooking it until it was hard as a rock, then fucked up a 2nd snake by trying to smoke it instead, only to have his smoker-rig that he made burn down completely because he fell asleep (although in this case, the girl he was paired with was also responsible because she was supposed to be keeping an eye on it too and also fell asleep. With the first snake though, she voiced much concern about cooking it for too long and the dude was basically all "quiet woman u have a vagina so u dont know wat ur doing but I do")
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There is evidence plants feel pain.
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Might be that they do care, but that they have to eat something to survive, so they try to minimize the harm they are doing by not eating any animal products.
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The reason that vegetarians/vegans eat plants and seafood is because plants, bugs, and shellfish don't feel pain.
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the same reason shinra don't care about the planet suffering
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because they don't live in a fantasy land and realize people gotta eat. o yeah someone said that already
Bospsychopaat posted...

Might be that they do care, but that they have to eat something to survive, so they try to minimize the harm they are doing by not eating any animal products.

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I'm not really sure whether it matters if plants react to pain or not, since arguing that it matters is basically arguing that it's okay to kill animals as long as it's a quick and painless death... Which kinda defeats the argument to begin with.
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i think its because vegans are psychopaths who are hell bent on destroying plant life
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_stingers_ posted...

i think its because vegans are psychopaths who are hell bent on destroying plant life

you do realize you rely on said plant life to live right
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I'm not vegetarian myself but...

If your goal is to minimise the number of organisms you kill or maim in order to survive, then it's much better for you to eat plants only, because if you eat animals you're responsible not only for their deaths but all the plants they themselves had to eat over the course of their lives. So yeah vegetarians kill fewer plants in order to live than the rest of us do. It's a basic consequence of the food chain being what it is.

I'm not personally terribly interested in this argument from a moral standpoint but I think it has a bit more merit from a ecological sustainability standpoint. Like... it just isn't possible for the world in its current state to support 7 billion people who eat as much meat as the average American does.

Having said that, the day that artifical meat takes over probably isn't too far off (might even be during our lifetimes) which will probably render a lot of these concerns moot.
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NeoElfboy posted...

If your goal is to minimise the number of organisms you kill or maim in order to survive, then it's much better for you to eat plants only, because if you eat animals you're responsible not only for their deaths but all the plants they themselves had to eat over the course of their lives. So yeah vegetarians kill fewer plants in order to live than the rest of us do. It's a basic consequence of the food chain being what it is.

How does that make sense? The animals eat those plants without human intervention.

Are you responsible for everything somebody has ever said in their lives once you speak to them?

Your own logic kinda backfires, since killing the animal stops it from eating further plants, so if anything, vegetarians are killing more plants by letting them continue to be eaten by animals.
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Because plants know what they did.
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https://hugelolcdn.com/i/435033.png
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StealThisSheen posted...

How does that make sense? The animals eat those plants without human intervention.

We wouldn't raise nearly as many animals if people didn't eat meat though. It's not as the meat we're eating is wild. "Those animals" wouldn't exist if we weren't eating them.
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foolm0r0n posted...

https://hugelolcdn.com/i/435033.png

Actually it's a fairly simple decision. But then I'm not a biocentrist so this probably isn't much of a dilemma.

Plants' evolutionary advantage is that they're highly replaceable. They have no emotions, their histories are purely in the realm of humanity. You destroy five plants, get seeds, and replant them, and within a few months you've replaced them.

It's... a bit different with trees, but not different enough for the sake of this.

(Though I'm pretty sure a train running over five trees would be doing just as much damage to itself, if not more so, than the trees.)

The ecological awareness comes from realizing that you should replace them, not preventing them from dying. And making sure they're growing up in a healthy environment.

A human being is a much more complex life form that has history, has emotions, a consciousness, and as far as we've decided, a right to life. A human being is an investment of a lot of time, energy, and resources.

Also, it's to our benefit, as a species, to look out for each other, just like plants do everything they can to propagate their own.

...But then I think I've succinctly proven that I'm not whatever a biocentrist is.

EDIT:

As far as the vegan/carnivore discussion goes, I honestly would prefer emphasis on humane standards for animals in both how they're raised and how they're slaughtered. While it would be nice if, one day, we could leave meat behind forever, we just aren't built for that - we're omnivores, we need stuff in both meat and vegetables to thrive. And furthermore, as long as we keep pets, we'd still need those animal farms because we need to feed our pets, too. Cats CANNOT live on a vegetable-based diet, they will die.
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da fuck is wrong with you
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UltimaterializerX posted...

StealThisSheen posted...

it's okay to kill animals as long as it's a quick and painless death

This is exactly true. Humane slaughter (instant death with a high action bolt gun) is a real thing.

What about their general quality of life up until the moment of death?

(Genuinely interested in your answer here since I remember you being an animal lover)
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While it is primarily an emotional argument for me to say that animals should have a higher quality of life when they're raised for slaughter, there's a smaller component that should be more appealing to the common observer:

The meat's gonna be higher quality because the animal isn't literally sick from constant stress from birth to death.
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thundersheep posted...

StealThisSheen posted...

How does that make sense? The animals eat those plants without human intervention.

We wouldn't raise nearly as many animals if people didn't eat meat though. It's not as the meat we're eating is wild. "Those animals" wouldn't exist if we weren't eating them.

To be fair, a lot of those animals aren't being fed wild plants, either, which is actually something people complain about

I don't think there's a winner in this argument
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