Comment on Those poor plants
BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 3 months agoI’m not a vegan but it’s foolish to think that vegans aren’t objectively correct. Let’s even say that plants are conscious beings on the level of cows or pigs. The conditions these plants are grown in are a million times better than that of the average factory farm animal. Additionally, in order to sustain ourselves on cows and pigs, exponentially more of these conscious plants need to be killed to fatten the conscious animals we are eating.
If we just ate the plants instead there would be several orders of magnitude less suffering in the word, antibiotic resistant bacteria would be a less immediate issue, a significant amount of our greenhouse gas emissions would disappear, and we’d all probably be healthier to boot.
Yes, something has to die in order for any organism to continue it’s existence. Let’s not pretend that only plants dying are a better alternative in every way to animals dying in order to further our collective existence. You accuse vegans of being reactionary but your comment smacks of knee-jerky defensiveness for something you seem to understand is wrong
potpotato@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Devil’s advocate: are they a million times better?
Monocultures, moldboard plowing destroying soil structure and creating an Ap horizon, organics depletion and excessive application of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides…
Suspending any personal beliefs in the matter, it is truly easier to empathize with people, mammals, then others animals because we better understand their experience. We cannot understand the abstractions of a plant’s lived experience. Humans are only just starting to examine the intricacies of plant familial systems through root and mycorrhizal networks.
BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Fair enough. I’m not going to sit here and claim that out current agricultural structure is perfect or even ideal. I personally think a decentralized and highly local system of food production and distribution would be better for the products themselves as well as the environment, human health, and community strength. A million times better is hyperbole but I think it’s fair to say industrial agriculture is better for the plant than it’s equivalent for livestock.
Fertilizers aren’t great, pesticides aren’t great, soil erosion isn’t great. If we waved a magic wand and turned everyone vegan we would still see a net decrease in these harmful agricultural practices simply because people need less food than cows or pigs (among others), especially in the numbers were raising these animals in. If we’re going to care for the wellbeing of the plants we eat, it would still be better to stop raising animals for food from a purely mathematical perspective.
I also agree that animals are easier to empathize with, and as such, we may overlook other (possibly intelligent) forms of life as a consequence. Perhaps one day we will achieve a thorough understanding on the lived experiences of plants and that knowledge may create another paradigm shift. But we need a planet that is capable of sustaining life for that to happen. Reducing our collective meat consumption is one of the myriad tools we have to ensure that end. Sorry if I’m coming off as confrontational or anything. I’m sick and my brain is foggy so I wasn’t paying much mind to tone in this comment haha. Not trying to start shit or anything, just too lazy to edit