• Hellfire103@lemmy.ca
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    3 months 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
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      3 months 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
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        3 months 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.

        • x4740N@lemm.ee
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          3 months 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
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            3 months 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
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              3 months 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
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                3 months 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
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                  3 months 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.