• BillyClark@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    7 days ago

    If she doesn’t eat any creature that feels pain, that doesn’t mean she’s a vegan. She might be a vegan, but that statement makes her a vegetarian by most definitions.

    And he’s snuggling with pigs on pig farms. I think there are some people who would say that such actions are only possible on exploited pigs who are headed for the slaughterhouse, and therefore, because he has made himself part of the meat system, he wouldn’t be a vegan, either.

    I’m not a vegan either, but I find it weird that SMBC would use that word so loosely in a strip where the definition of “vegan” is so central.

    • Pudutr0n@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      Maybe they did it intentionally to further annoy vegetarians/vegans.

      Also, despite any form of consciousness they might have is alien to us, plants very likely experience pain. They also communicate and engage in nutrition transactions with fungi through root systems.

      It’s great that people try to be nicer to other living things but reality is no matter what we do to survive as human beings, we will cause some suffering and death, like it or not.

      • iglou@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        6 days ago

        Also, despite any form of consciousness they might have is alien to us, plants very likely experience pain

        No. They have a response to stress, which is wildly different from experiencing pain. And that’s what your source is about.

        Your source refers neither to the word “pain” nor to the word “experience”. Please don’t mislead people with your own misinterpretations.

      • MaxMalRichtig@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        6 days ago

        Plants don’t “feel pain”. The entire concept of “pain” is alien to everything without a central nervous system.

        Plants DO however react to stressful external stimuli. They do that in a way, that we will never be able to relate to.

        Some publications use words as “pain” and “suffering” in that context in order to go give non-academic folks something to relate. But on a scientific level, these terms are irrelevant at best.

        • Pudutr0n@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          6 days ago

          There is nothing to be said with any certainty about the subjective experience of any of consciousness other than our own. You (and philosophers and scientists) can keep guessing as much as you want, though, and keep pretending to be sure.

          • MaxMalRichtig@discuss.tchncs.de
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            6 days ago

            Read my second sentence again.

            The thing I am SURE about is, that using words and concepts from one area and postulating that they are applying in the same sense in another area, just because we found some loose similarity or similar trait, is logically not sound. See False-Equivalence

            Our understanding of “pain” only makes sense when applying it to beings with a nervous system, because this word describes just THAT.

            It’s like talking about hair and hairstyles and then applying the derived insights to birds, because their feathers “remind” us of hair.

            It just doesn’t apply. Other contexts require dedicated concepts that are not “loaded” by using termina from irrelevant concepts.

            Emotive language does not help your argument. It weakens any validity it might have otherwise.