I think its pretty healthy to always check your assumptions. Some things that are mainstream are actually pretty crazy, but taken as normal because we're used to them. For instance, GDP is a pretty crazy way to measure economic health.
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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For instance, GDP is a pretty crazy way to measure economic health.
I know a lot of economists who agree with you, it's just everything else we try to use to measure economic health on a macro scale seems to be worse. When your best tool is only 40% accurate, it sucks.
Yeah, GDP really measures size rather than quality, people just end up ignoring the nuance.
GDP is also significant in that it directly influences how much revenue a government can raise by taxes, and so by proxy how much of public services it can provide. GDP growth also influences what amount of deficit it can sustain (though for various reasons that is not a straightforward relationship as with tax revenue).
You make a good point about killing for food. I'm against killing animals for food and would rather we switch to lab grown meat. It's not fair to the animals that were created plump and killed unnaturally for the sake of eating. If it's a survival situation, that's different, you do what you can to survive. However, modern society is beyond simple survival, we have the resources and means to eliminate animal meat.
But then it begs the question "what about plants? They're alive right?" Also "what about lab meat? Even though they're not a full animal, it's still living matter."
To both those arguments, I'd say, yes, it's still not fair to those lifeforms, however it is much more humane to kill lifeforms without a brain, and that only exist to reproduce. Animals have emotions that we can understand. Fear, joy, and content. They are intelligent. Plants and lab meat are not.
The thing is, when people try to argue that "killing" plants is also killing so I might as well just eat animals, apart from being an insane take as is imho, significantly fewer plants are harvested if you switch to a fully vegan diet. The net result is a lot fewer plants needed to sustain people vs. the oodles and oodles of plants and grains needed to feed cattle, pigs, whatever. There are these charts that show how much more efficient food intake really is if you cut out the middle-man - being animals - and just eat the plants they'd be fed instead.
People just try to discredit vegan whenever they can because of their own insecurities and cognitive dissonance. People who actively oppose veganism, that is
significantly fewer plants are harvested if you switch to a fully vegan diet.
that has never happened.
If you’re willing, I feel there is a bias in your argument that I’d like to explore more with you.
You make the excellent point that plants are living organisms as well, but you also make the assumption that “it is much more humane to kill life forms without a brain.” You then go on to suggest that their sole purpose for existence is nothing more than reproduction.
I’d like to challenge both of those assertions. But before I continue, I want to make certain of my position as anecdotal, as I am not an expert in these matters.
It turns out that plants can see, smell, feel, and have a memory. And according to the scientist in the article, plants and humans also share DNA.
We’ve all heard the advice that we should talk to our plants, as they react more positively (grow) to the sound of our voices. We also know that plants play a vital role in our existence.
The most obvious is converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. They also provide shelter and protection for animals. They also help produce about 10% of the moisture in our atmosphere.
As for brains, no they do not have the same type of brain or nervous system that we as humans are accustomed to having. But that is not to say that plants are incapable of making decisions.
Take the Venus Flytrap as an example: it can detect when a bug has landed inside of its mouth, and after having another external stimuli triggered will it decide to trap that bug inside before it devours it for nutrients.
I could go on, such that plants do communicate with other (e.g., grass when cut, fungus creating underground networks to each other).
How much brain tho? There is significant evidance that mycelium in large forests is significant simmillar to a brain to exhibit some intelligence. What if we grow artificial neuron in a petri dish and teach it to play doom? What if we map and simulate a cubic mm of human brain is stopping that simulation akin to killing it? What about if its a full brain simulation? What if its an artificial intellgence indistinguishable from a human intellgence? Wait gpt4o is already smarter than a large amount of kids and is arguably an indistinguishable intellgence so should be give rights to ai or say its ok to kill dumb kids?
Fundamentally, there is no right or wrong and there are any number of ways you can morally frame something. Usually "things that benefit me and those close to me" are good, "things that hinder me and those close to me" are bad. But at the end of the day it is all subjective, be it on an individual, family, societal, or global level.
People devalue animals as a whole outside of those that have been accepted by society to be sociable, likable - pets, basically - and only see them as a commodity. They don't see the animal that dies for their consumption, the suffering they endure, and don't think about just how many animals die for food. Comparing these mass murders across the globe to the Holocaust might be a little controversial, but I don't see any other way people realise the sheer absurdity of animal AG.
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
When people speak of the ideas that revolutionise society, they do but express that fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.
