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I felt we should start in earnest with something I’ve seen repeatedly in other threads on Lemmy - veganism. I’ve tried to have discussions on it elsewhere, but they tend to heavily downvote me when I describe the complex communication systems plants and fungi have.

I am not arguing that you should not be a vegan or vegitarian. I am arguing against poor and misapplied arguments and would like converts to channel their energy into more productive approaches.

PREFACE

There are many sources and studies claiming how plants communicate via root systems, pheromones, and other mechanisms (some we’re discovering continually). As someone who worked in forestry (and lived on a non-corporate farm that produced mostly alfalfa), it’s somewhat more apparent once you’re there and present in that world.

Some brief citations:

https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/plants-feel-pain.htm

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/24473/20191218/a-group-of-scientists-suggest-that-plants-feel-pain.htm

You can find many more if you look, however you can also find refutations based on what “pain” really means.

Regardless, we’ve known for quite a while that most plants have pain responses, and fungi are absolutely notorious for this. Speak to a botanist (or read the articles above) and they’ll tell you that plants respond to warnings from their peers about dangers, brace for pain, and signal pain to others. To be clear they don’t seem to feel pain (but keep in mind that they said this for years about crustaceans as well, but it was simply because we didn’t know how they functioned well enough) - not understanding the pain or “othering” the pain because it isn’t one you’d care to recognize does not mean there is no pain.

There are several things that I feel are inarguable: Life for some organisms means death for others. Period. You can not avoid it on a micro or macro scale, all you can do is change WHAT you kill and attempt to eliminate suffering. Not all death causes suffering, and not all suffering causes death.

Plants are cool as hell though I suppose that understanding the above means that it can fuck with the worldview of vegetarians, and nobody likes that.

THE CRUX

Now, if what I’m interpreting from vegans on other threads (and real life) is correct, their argument stems from a moralistic one. Moralistic arguments are not solid stances to argue from; similar to a hardcore Christian seeing abortions as vile and evil because of a personal moral stance, they feel their moral position is better, therefore they look down on opposition. However that is a personal opinion and those aren’t convincing - certainly not for sensitive topics.

So let’s approach the debate from a semi-scientific standpoint because I want to make sure they are not being misinterpreted.

Some reasons I have seen to be on the vegan side of things (and some responses to those) are:

• If you want to be vegan because you enjoy it? Go for it. That is inarguable. It’s no more or less valid than someone liking the colour red.

• If you want to be vegan because you feel it’s healthier? Rock on. Go you! You are probably correct if you monitor your diet. I would argue against it being healthier than a vegetarian diet however.

• If you want to be vegan because it’s easier on the environment? Well, for individuals I would agree! You can make a good case that it would be better for the planet, but only because we’re overpopulated in respect to how we’ve been doing things and haven’t adjusted as a species to account for the extra population. At the moment (statistically), being vegan is unsustainable if the entire planet were to switch tomorrow. A smarter case to make would be for a reduction in humans as being vegan is an extremely minor step of harm reduction compared to fewer people. Also, most food fed to livestock is not human-consumable and is often byproducts that would otherwise go to waste. Creating more food from waste is more efficient than discarding it.

• Factually and inarguably, humans are omnivores and are we are predisposed to eat meat. Nearly every other non-insect animal species eats meat to some extent either intentionally or not. Cows eat bugs in the grass they consume, deer will eat chicks when they can, many species will eat eggs if they find them, and the list continues. Heck, most of the food coming from other species who can’t eat mean is non-vegan in that it is a product from another animal (either as waste or otherwise). Being functionally able to be vegan is an extraordinarily privileged and unusual position to be in as far as humans go as there is a greater cost with some places on Earth completely unable to do so even if they wished to. Among animals in general I feel this is even moreso, and I consider humans just another animal. If anything, I see the vegan position as removing humans from the animal kingdom and positioning us above them. I find this supposition to be arrogant.

• If you want to be vegan because you don’t like factory farms? Sure, I hate them too, however quitting animal products altogether is not a logical jump to make from that feeling. There are plenty of smaller suppliers you can procure from that do not have those issues; the more logical jump is to just not use bad providers no matter what the product. For example, I have raised bees and worked in a co-operative apiary. There was no abuse, and the likely alternative to us creating the hives was death for the entire bee community. I would heartily disagree that being vegan and refusing this particular honey is more of a positive act than essentially creating hives and colonies from scratch.

• If you want to be vegan because it’s eliminating suffering (or death)? Again, kind of. This is simply making substitutions for death that you’re comfortable with, be it non-sentient (or sentient in a way you don’t recognize) life or otherwise. You can make an argument that it’s somehow lesser because an animal death is more comparable to human death, but it’s bad logic and therefore a bad argument. This is also applying your own morals (because again, this is a strictly moral standpoint) to other people, which is silly no matter who is doing it. From activists to religious extremists, your morals apply to you and only you and you must prove out that the choice you view as moral is the intelligent choice, and not a strictly emotional one. Do not try to enforce them on the outside world. You can argue for them, but getting mad at anyone with a differing view is silly and unproductive. As I said, you can lessen suffering or death, but you can not eliminate it. Your existence causes death. All existence does. Everything alive is only alive because it feeds off other living things who have their own way of existing, be it sentient (which is a differentiation humans created) or otherwise. A suffering or death being a style you choose to not recognize is not only not a valid defence, it makes you just as guilty as those you attack. Some anti-vegan opposition also feel that their being is higher than those they ingest and they also do not recognize the deaths of those they consider lesser, they simply drew their line elsewhere on the scale of life.

Let’s do a thought experiment!

If you could have a choice to either painlessly shoot a deer though the head, or (elsewhere and in accordance with nature) a lion would tear the animal apart over the course of an hour while slowly eating it alive, which is the more moral choice?

Would not eating the meat be wasteful?

Is the lion immoral?

Are you better or more moral than the lion?

AND ONE MORE THING

The way vegans are going about it in these threads on Lemmy isn’t helpful to their cause. Mindless emotion-driven downvoting and anger-posting does not change hearts or minds. Yelling at people making stupid “bacon = good” jokes doesn’t convert people, it only entrenches them.

A better outreach would be to use the Food subs and post legit great vegetarian food and entice people that way. I feel that doing it the way they are now will accomplish nothing of value. Well, unless they secretly work for a factory farm and want to piss people off so they eat more meat, in which case those psuedo-vegans are doing exactly what they should be in these threads which is mindlessly downvoting instead of engaging.