• Hellfire103@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    104
    arrow-down
    13
    ·
    14 days ago

    “Know” is a stretch. Plants respond to attack by releasing chemicals (e.g. nettles and grasses), curling or retracting their leaves (e.g. acacia), or by changing their morphology (e.g. holly); but they have no nervous system - let alone a brain - so it’s not like you’re killing an animal.

    • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      101
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      14 days ago

      Plants having no nervous system is being challenged with the idea that the plant itself is its central nervous system.

      They react to stimulus, they emit sounds (different ones when in “pain”), and communicate with each other.

      They don’t have consciousness in a way we understand

      I dont mean this as a “dunk” but more of a how neat is that

      • LordGimp@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        38
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        14 days ago

        It’s always funny to me how people eat up the concept of a distrubuted neural network in tech but scoff at the same idea applying to something like a tree or a fungus.

        Pando is the largest organism by area, and the Humungous Fungus is the largest by mass. The idea that those organisms don’t “think” in some way is laughable.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          edit-2
          14 days ago

          “In some way” is doing A LOT of heavy lifting there. … although in the general sense, agreed.

          Especially given how many outright wrong or otherwise assinine conclusions some “thinking” animals come to… Perhaps communicative consciousness is overrated on the intelligence scale.

        • x4740N@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          14 days ago

          It always seems lime some excuse in a counter response by vеgаns

          The number of times I’ve responded to them telling them that plants probably process pain in a different way to us has always been shot down by them

          Tell them that brains extremely simplified are just on and off responses to certain stimuli / information just like plants have specific reponsonses to stimuli and computers having 1’s and 0’s that respond to information

          A mycelium network could be counted as a brain

          • BlackDragon@slrpnk.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            13 days ago

            If you actually believe harming plants causes them pain and that that is bad, you should be vegan. Animal agriculture harms far, far more plants than any plant agriculture ever could.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              13 days ago

              But then you’re still causing plants pain by farming and eating them. Isn’t that argument no different than saying if you believe that harming animals causes them pain, you should be in favor of eating the ones that are hunted because farming them causes more pain?

              I really don’t know if plants can cause pain and I think the environmental arguments for not eating meat are far more compelling than the ethical ones, but regardless, I think this is a poor argument for veganism.

              • BlackDragon@slrpnk.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                13 days ago

                But then you’re still causing plants pain by farming and eating them. Isn’t that argument no different than saying if you believe that harming animals causes them pain, you should be in favor of eating the ones that are hunted because farming them causes more pain?

                If you insist on animal abuse then you should do it through hunting rather than factory farming precisely because of the diminished amount of suffering caused. But it’s still more suffering than would be caused by just eating plants so I’m not sure I understand your point

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  13 days ago

                  I’m talking about an argument for veganism though. If you are saying that it’s acceptable for people to eat hunted meat, you’re not saying they should be vegans. And you’re encouraging a massive increase in hunting.

          • LordGimp@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            12 days ago

            I’ll trade you. I’ll read ur book if you check out the ender quintet, or at least speaker of the dead. The hierarchy of foreignness is a concept that has REALLY stuck with me. Also pequininos are bros.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          14 days ago

          because humans invent things from scratch that nature has already created and optimzed, it’s why we’re seeing a lot of optimizations on current tech that comes from nature itself.

          It’s a really weird problem to have.

          • LordGimp@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            14 days ago

            Go find that video of a slime mold optimizing Japan’s rail system by finding oats in a maze

              • LordGimp@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                13 days ago

                No. The slime mold doesn’t just solve the maze. It figures out the optimal path and grows only where it needs to reach the goal. It’s a fascinating thing to watch in time-lapse. The “water in a maze” idea is that if it fills every passage, the only drain would be the exit.

                • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  12 days ago

                  obviously, but the flow path of the water is going to be a direct path to the end of the maze also. You just have to wait for it to fill up first lol.

      • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        I dont mean this as a “dunk” but more of a how neat is that

        It’s truly shameful that disclaimers like these feel necessary in this age of shitting on everyone else online. Lemmy users suck too.

        • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          13 days ago

          Yeah, but on the other hand I’m old enough to know that when I get excited about something I can talk about it in a way that “clobbers” so I like to disclaimer myself when I know I’m exhibiting that kind of behavior.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      14 days ago

      We don’t know how consciousness works enough to say they don’t. Having a brain and/or nervous system might not be necessary.

      They don’t have muscles either, but some plants are known to uproot themselves and fucking move.

      • strawberrysocial@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        13 days ago

        Yeah, plants aren’t stationary. All plants move, just very, very slowly compared to animals. Looking at time lapse videos of vines growing, reaching out for something to grab on to and stuff is pretty neat. They kind of whip around in circles until they feel they’ve hit something worth grabbing onto.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        14 days ago

        We don’t know how consciousness works enough to say they don’t. Having a brain and/or nervous system might not be necessary.

        Hmm sorry but no, there are traits exhibited by conscious entities which we don’t observe in those which lack consciousness. This is a nice explainer on consciousness, note that it’s not saying anything about needing a brain to exhibit those traits

        https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#DesQueWhaFeaCon

        correct me if I am misremembering sth

        • howrar@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          13 days ago

          there are traits exhibited by conscious entities which we don’t observe in those which lack consciousness.

          Implying we have a way of determining whether an entity is conscious or not. That’s the entire point of contention here.

        • strawberrysocial@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          13 days ago

          How will we ever know for sure if plants have their own form of consciousness that doesn’t follow a list of requirements that’s based on animals, or can feel pain.

          • nifty@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            13 days ago

            But why do you think plants should have some own form of consciousness? All organism which have circulatory systems have generally similarly behaving circulatory systems. So why should consciousness be different?

            No, if an organism does not exhibit all properties of consciousness that we see in all other organisms, then it’s not conscious

        • kronisk @lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          13 days ago

          which we don’t observe in those which lack consciousness.

          See what you did there? You assume a priori which entities lack consciousness, and then motivate this by claiming they lack traits that can be observed in conscious entities. That is very neatly circular.

          • nifty@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            13 days ago

            What you and other people who’re objecting to my comment are saying is that there is no way to define consciousness because we don’t know all the different ways something can be conscious. But that doesn’t matter because these organisms lack the properties which we see in other conscious organisms, ie proprieties we do know about

            Here’s what I am saying: consciousness is an emergent property of some discrete biological processes, and we have developed some idea of what consciousness looks like when exhibited by an organism.

            So that means that all organisms which are conscious have to exhibit the same properties. You cannot pick and choose which properties to exhibit because then what you’re doing is something else, and not exhibiting consciousness.

            Like, if you’re a heart of some sort, you have to exhibit the same activity as a heart in general across all different organisms to be classified as a heart.

            It’s possible that same organisms exhibit some parts of consciousness as we have noticed till now, but if those organisms do not exhibit all parts of consciousness then they’re not conscious.

            • kronisk @lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              13 days ago

              So, I’m guessing everyone in this thread has a different conception of what “consciousness” actually is and what we’re talking about here, which makes it difficult to discuss casually like this. You seem to have a very exclusive definition of consciousness, which only serves to avoid the argument, really. “It’s possible that same organisms exhibit some parts of consciousness as we have noticed till now, but if those organisms do not exhibit all parts of consciousness then they’re not conscious”…you’re splitting hairs. If plants could be proven to be aware, have subjective experience, a sense of self, it would be reasonable to change our definition of consciousness to be more inclusive - simply because such a concept of consciousness would be a lot more useful then.

              Emergentism is a popular hypothesis, not a fact. Christof Koch lost the bet, remember? The idea that “all organisms which are conscious have to exhibit the same properties” and “you cannot pick and choose” does not logically follow from anything you’ve said. These are criteria that you set up yourself. Take the idea of qualia as an example, how could we ever observe that an animal or a plant does or does not experience qualia? Nobody solved the problem of other minds.

              Consciousness is nothing like a heart; the function of the heart can be observed and measured. How do you know that you possess awareness? You can only experience it. (Actually, that we are aware is the only thing we can know with complete certainty.)

              • nifty@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                13 days ago

                Er, that’s what I am saying however is that you can observe and measure consciousness.

                You seem to have a very exclusive definition of consciousness, which only serves to avoid the argument, really.

                I don’t, I am just going based on current findings.

                I am not sure why it’s hard to accept that some living things may not be conscious. Viruses propagate “mindlessly”, they’re neither living nor conscious.

                I also don’t understand why you think emergent properties are a hypothesis. Emergent properties of biological processes are fact, look at any cell of any major organ in the body. Why do we treat the brain differently? Because I think we get irrational.

                • kronisk @lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  12 days ago

                  Er, that’s what I am saying however is that you can observe and measure consciousness.

                  Going with any definition of consciousness relevant to this discussion, say phenomenality and/or awareness, no.

                  I am not sure why it’s hard to accept that some living things may not be conscious. Viruses propagate “mindlessly”, they’re neither living nor conscious.

                  That’s not really the point - I don’t claim to know what entities possess consciousness. The point is that you don’t either.

                  I also don’t understand why you think emergent properties are a hypothesis. Emergent properties of biological processes are fact

                  Obviously I’m talking about Emergentism as it relates to consciousness, and the idea that consciousness is an emergent property is not a fact, no. And there are perfectly valid reasons - for example, the “explanatory gap” - why someone might find it unsatisfactory.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      14 days ago

      They have the knowledge and are doing something about it. If other plants can send out this chemical by observing it themselves, that sounds like a reaction from a communication. It may not be cognition like we expect but it is behaving like cognition would. Hard to argue that plants don’t know or care of their friends start dying.

      • kshade@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        14 days ago

        I’d argue that knowledge is more than that, otherwise books or state machines could also be said to know things.

        • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          14 days ago

          The plants are acquiring information and making an independent change to their status with this information. Books do nothing with knowledge other than communicate it to others. Machines are unable to make independent changes to itself unless programmed to do so.

        • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          14 days ago

          I don’t care what a plant thinks of me; it won’t change the dynamic that I’m motivated and it’s prey.

          My point is that plants “think” but do so differently than meat bags. Plant cognition is more like a series of low level chemical reactions that look like thinking, but so does brain chemical squirts if we look close enough. So plants may actually be thinking using mechanisms which don’t rely on complex brain architecture because it has another method of processing that thought. Probably across the whole structure but the process is really inefficient so it takes a long time to finish compute.

          Like if a super computer made the judgement of a calculator - they are both crunching numbers but there is an order of magnitude difference in how fast the answer is found. Maybe a plant has low bus speeds and crappy compute limited to simple threaded operations.

    • VelvetStorm@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      12 days ago

      Lobsters contain 15 nerve clusters called ganglia dispersed throughout their bodies, with a main ganglion located between their eyes. So, according to the logic here whyis it wrong to boil them alive if they don’t have a brain?

      For the record, imo it is wrong to boil lobster, crabs, and other crustaceans alive. There is no reason you can’t kill them directly before boiling them.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      14 days ago

      by this logic do people even truly exist. Maybe you’re just the only real person in the world, maybe im the only real person in the world, we have no way of proving this.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    50
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    13 days ago

    Carnivores eat animals that eat a lot more plants than humans could ever eat.

    That’s why I only eat baby animals. They only drink milk, which hurts no one.

  • Chev@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    44
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    13 days ago

    Everybody needs to eat stuff. And if it is about reducing pain and having a better climate impact, you should plants all the way. A cow eats 50 times the amount of plants that it gives back in meat.

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    arrow-down
    13
    ·
    14 days ago

    hey vegans, cool fact, plant based diets are vastly more efficient and effective at feeding people than meat based diets.

    Meat consumes plants to exist, most of that energy is lost. Not so much with plants.

    Just start telling people this shit lmao. Who cares about morality when you can pretend to be saving the environment instead.

    • Soulcreator@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      13 days ago

      Hey non-vegan, fun fact: No one really cares when you tell them eating plants are more efficient.

      Common responses include “bAc0Nnnnnn!” and “I’m gonna eat two times the amount of meat to make your efforts useless”.

        • Soulcreator@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          12 days ago

          Hi friend, I propose you try an experiment: post a small handful of anonymous comments on the Internet, try to make them benign as possible but casually slip in an acknowledgement that you are vegan. Something along the lines of “God that recipe looks amazing, but I think I might swap out the beef broth for veggie broth as I am vegan” like I said the point of this experiment is to say something completely as benign and inoffensive as possible.

          Once you post sit back and wait for the responses to roll in. You will likely find that while not every time, it is incredibly common for people to send you pictures of bacon, and an abundant of angry responses to the mere offhand mention of the word.

          I sincerely wish it was a straw man fallacy, but it unfortunately is a exceedingly common response to the word.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        12 days ago

        hey non vegan vegan fun fact, you would be surprised at the sheer amount of consumption and productive the livestock sector of agriculture creates.

        Likewise you could easily just respond to the last line with “you can’t take away my gas stove, i’m just going to burn gas lamps in my home now” and get a little bit eepy and sleepy due to all the buildup of combustion products inside your home.

    • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      13 days ago

      The animal industry feeds the plants as much as the plants feed the animals. I’m not sure how vegans feel about synthetic fertilizer like miracle grow, but that’s what will have to be used in place of manure if the meat industry goes away.

      Many of the organic crops grown use animal manure to fertilize the plants. I know you can use seaweed and other plants for compost(weeds are already composted back in via tilling, seaweed requires harvesting from the ocean or long distance shipping from farms), as well as cycling crops to prevent nutrient deficiency…

      BUT manure doesn’t just add nutrients. It adds beneficial bacteria that helps keep the soil healthy and make the nutrients bioavailable to plants. It conditions the soil for water retention, and helps break up clay soil and add organic matter to sandy soil.

      Will vegans keep animals just for manure? Or will organic lables on food be less important? Are we going to start scraping the forests for leaves to chop up an add to farm soil? That can’t be good for forests though. I guess I’m just confused about how to maintain large farms without access to large amounts of manure.

      • skibidi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        The ideal answer is compost, regenerative agriculture, and (better treated) human-sources waste.

        Organic crop yields will almost certainly reduce a bit without animal waste fertilizer, but that is fine since crop consumption will fall by a greater amount due to not needing to feed a bunch of extra animals.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        12 days ago

        an interesting idea, but anything that decays and “composts” can be used as a fertilizer so.

        This includes things like organic scraps, you don’t just have to use animal shit. Although it’s a pretty good one if you have access to it.

        I think personally, we should move to a more decentralized food production system, to help alleviate some of the costs of industrial agriculture, which are pretty heavy.

        • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 days ago

          Diseases spread via human feces which why we tend to not use it. We could sanitize it by processing it, but then it won’t carry the benefit of beneficial bacteria cultures so it’s not as good as animal supplied manures.

    • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      14 days ago

      but much of the plant matter that animals eat is grazed or waste from some other agricultural product.

      • Cypher@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        13 days ago

        TBF land clearance for grazing land is a catastrophic issue for the environment and going on in places like the Amazon rainforest.

        Some ecosystems are naturally evolved to supporting grazing species like the grasslands of North America which was once home to millions of Buffallo but that’s not true of most land currently used for grazing.

        • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          13 days ago

          land clearance for grazing land is a catastrophic issue for the environment and going on in places like the Amazon rainforest.

          absolutely. I have some ideas about what to do about it, but none of them involve buying beans

          • Cypher@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            13 days ago

            It’s at a point where I’m all for a UN resolution to end land clearance in locations like the Amazon Rainforest, to be enforced by lethal means if necessary.

            Billions of lives may depend on securing such important ecosystems.

              • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                13 days ago

                The UN doesn’t even have any influence with the UN. Even if I supported lethal enforcement of environmental protections (which I do in many cases), the UN’s idea of enforcement is a kindly-worded letter. If the USA doesn’t back something the UN has no power. And the USA is one of literally only two countries in the entire world that don’t recognize access to healthy food as a human right.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        14 days ago

        that can be true, but we also grow a substantial amount of feed for agriculture usage, even if it’s not local to us. A lot of alf alfa being grown is exported.

        It’s all dependent on whatevers cheapest at the end of the day. And regardless of this fact, a lot of energy is still lost in this process, cows are a significant contributor to climate change, ironically.

        • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          13 days ago

          There was a good discussion of this on Reddit recently. Sorry to link to Reddit, but it’s a good, topical post worth perusal.

          https://www.reddit.com/r/Agriculture/comments/1dv7fw9/how_much_good_land_is_used_to_grow_food_for/

          ETA:

          We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year). These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less).

          https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/pdf

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            13 days ago

            yeah that pretty much checks out. The best solution to climate change is to kill shit like private jets and yachts. But that’s unlikely to happen.

            • RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              13 days ago

              The best solution to climate change is to kill shit like private jets and yachts.

              I severely doubt those emissions are anything but negligible because there are so few yachts and jets.

              Edit: Yeah, just downvoting is cheap, so here’s just a single statistic for you: https://ourworldindata.org/global-aviation-emissions

              Total aviation is responsible for about 2.5% of worldwide carbon emissions. That’s all air travel, private jets included. While it’s obviously very popular to focus on the luxuries of the rich, it just won’t be effective to focus on those when fighting climate change, let alone being a solution as you claimed.

              • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                13 days ago

                What’s an easier solution, in your opinion? Getting the ultra wealthy to give up their yachts and jets (by getting rid of the ultra wealthy entirely, which also addresses the evils of capitalism), or convincing hundreds of millions of people to change just about everything about the diet they’ve been eating for tens of thousands of years?

                • RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  13 days ago

                  That’s actually a good question. Considering the political power the ultra-rich wield, I’m not sure. But I think we should focus what brings the most bang for the buck.

              • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                12 days ago

                wait until you find out about all of the infrastructure and build costs for these things.

                realistically we should do everything, but transit is one of the significant providers of emissions, along with power production and agriculture.

        • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          14 days ago

          all of agriculture is only about 20% of our GHG emissions. cows are a fraction of that… there are definitely bigger issues.

          as for the alfalfa, it’s also a small fraction of global crops. 2/3 of all crop calories go to humans with only 1/3 going to livestock… this includes about 70% of the weight of the global soy crop (after we have pressed it for oil), as well as fodder like corn stalks. we basically fed livestock trash and get food. it’s a pretty good deal.

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            14 days ago

            all of agriculture is only about 20% of our GHG emissions. cows are a fraction of that… there are definitely bigger issues.

            obviously, but in terms of livestock, cows are pretty significant.

            30% of all global stock going to feed is a pretty large percentage of global crop production.

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              14 days ago

              I think it’s probably fine. it will work itself out when the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

              • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                13 days ago

                i think it’s a lot more likely to work out better in a highly decentralized system, i’m not much of a commie myself personally, as i prefer to live outside the bounds of normalcy, and unless i get a lot of say in the commie meetings i’m not sure i can justify existing in that society lol.

  • barsquid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    14 days ago

    There’s no way this won’t restart the same argument with someone, huh? Top-tier shitpost, well done.

    • Heydo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      13 days ago

      Fun fact, humans share more DNA with fungi than they do with plants. We share nearly 50% of our DNA with fungi.

      Plus mushrooms are the sex organs of the mycelium organism. Just an extra fun fact for free there.

        • Heydo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 days ago

          There are theories that hypothesize that mycelium came to earth via asteroids from space.

          So it may be more apt to say that OP eats space dick instead.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        It’s my understanding that fungi came around rather late in the game. Long after animals and plants both.

        • Revan343@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          13 days ago

          The earliest fungi evolved approximately 1.5 billion years ago, while green algae, the earliest plant, only evolved ~1 billion years ago. Animalia is significantly newer.

    • Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      13 days ago

      Similarly, I plan on double crossing the mafia so Thin Lips Johnny can chop me up and feed me to the pigs. Circle of life.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    I mean if you stretch the definition enough even cells know they are being eaten. they usually respond by “shit this cant be good, I better press this big red button”

  • BCX@dormi.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    16
    ·
    14 days ago

    Those poor cats. Vegans shouldn’t be allowed to own meat.

      • Glytch@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        14 days ago

        That website is confusing, it doesn’t let you order any dog meat. It also seems to assume I would have a problem with the product? Is that a strategy to make me want it more?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        14 days ago

        Doing this sort of “eating a cow is no more ethical than eating a dog” thing isn’t necessarily untrue (although ethics are, of course, a subjective thing) but it does not really convince people not to eat meat. If you are going to argue from an ethics of killing and eating an animal angle, talk about why it is cruel to kill and eat animals that most people who eat meat are used to eating.

        • Makeshift@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          13 days ago

          Different people react to different things. It takes many approaches to reach multiple types of humans.

          I personally reacted after months of being shown hypocrisy, with the tipping point being when I said there’s no problem with eggs and dairy before I was shown what the egg and dairy industries do.

          Part of that process was really realizing, not just knowing but consciously thinking about and considering the fact that humans are also meat. I am meat. The cats I loved were meat. My human family is meat. It’s not okay to eat them in a sandwich. Why is it okay to eat strangers in a sandwich?

          No one approach will work on every human, and many people take a lot of different approaches over time to really understand.

        • theyoyomaster@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          13 days ago

          I always fall back on the concept of graphing how delicious the animal is vs how much of an asshole it is. Ducks? Absolutely delicious and raging assholes; they are the perfect meal. Dogs? Too sweet to ever try and on the negative side of the asshole graph. Cats? Rather asshole but not sure how they taste…

          • flerp@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            13 days ago

            Maybe you’re joking but I have seen people say this seriously so I’ll respond seriously. Determining which conscious beings to inflict pain and suffering onto based on characteristics they were born with through no choice of their own is pretty shitty.

            • theyoyomaster@lemmy.worldOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              13 days ago

              I’m all for the most humane and ethical means of getting meat and the day I can get a steak that didn’t require a cow to die but is indistinguishable from the real thing I will absolutely switch over, but until then I’m going to enjoy delicious, delicious duck and not feel bad about. Wouldn’t eat a dog even in an apocalypse though.

      • x4740N@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        14 days ago

        Yeah that’s an obvious troll response you vеgаn’s use

        People are well aware of it

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            13 days ago

            Yep. My vegan brother has two dogs and three cats and has no problem giving them meat (or meat-based food anyway) as part of their diet.

            It’s not some universal idea that vegans will be okay with keeping meat-eating pets but refuse to give them that meat.

      • Makeshift@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        Vegan is a philosophy, not a diet. The word you’re looking for is plant-based, not vegan.

        A vegan wouldn’t buy leather shoes or woolen sweaters. Someone on a plant-based diet would.

        • naught@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          13 days ago

          Sure, but the average person does not know or care about the distinction. It’s much easier to explain this way. I’ll see if I can incorporate this terminology instead next time though

    • Asa@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      14 days ago

      Great idea, let’s stop re-homing rescue animals shall we?

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    There was a Hungarian cult that convinced others that people can survive by eating light. There were some deaths and was quickly shut down, but they exist forever in anorexia-related jokes.

    • abbadon420@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      13 days ago

      I think you’re talking about Breatherism? There’ve been a couple of those cults all over Europe. It’s not particularly popular, luckily, but they often make it to the newspapers, because someone usually dies.

      It originates from Hinduism though. There’s a another Indian religion called Jainism. These are the monks you see brushing away the beetles before their feet, to not step on them. It’s very much about nature and spiritualism and being good. Fasting is a key concept of this religion and the most extreme cases will choose to fast until death to cleanse the world. This is all very spiritual though and takes years of preparation.