Boiling lobsters while they are alive and conscious will be banned as part of a government strategy to improve animal welfare in England.
Government ministers say that “live boiling is not an acceptable killing method” for crustaceans and alternative guidance will be published.
The practice is already illegal in Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand. Animal welfare charities say that stunning lobsters with an electric gun or chilling them in cold air or ice before boiling them is more humane.
Chopping down plants & eating them is also barbaric.
Do plants feel pain the way a lobster would? I genuinely don’t know.
I do know that making an animal suffer rather than giving it a quick death is wrong.
From what I’ve read so far, unfortunately, it seems like they might. Plants can communicate with each other and form underground resource networks with other plants, fungi, and microorganisms. Including for illness, boring bugs and pain responses. The smell of fresh cut grass is one of those warning/pain responses.
I’ve wanted to do some bonsai succulents, but the process towards any living thing seems cruel and painful.
You only quoted part of their question. Yes, plants react to pain, but that doesn’t mean they feel pain the same way a lobster does.
We cannot measure pain for neither plants nor animals. You presuppose the feelings of the animal while at the same time rejecting it for the plant when we really do not know.
Do they require a nervous system? Maybe. To what extent? We do not know.
No, I’m simply going by my best guess, informed by what I know about the current state of research. That’s not conclusive evidence, but it is morally incredibly hard to argue against it.
After all, I cannot measure pain for humans besides myself. You may just be a philosophical zombie. When I’m treating you like you can experience pain, I’m presupposing your feelings. What if you’re programmed to act scared of pain & secretly wish to experience it?
I do not know. Does that mean you may have a lesser pain experience than plants? How should that affect my decision making?
No, you are at best basing your opinion on measured pain response in order to determine the level of pain experienced. Many animals have a measured pain reaction. You also know of your own experienced pain and assume it in other people and animals while excluding plants.
The first part is scientific and the second is not. The problem is that you are acting like your belief about how animals feel pain is qualitatively different from the above regarding plants.
We both know why you get agressive about it: You want to some extent anthropomorphize animals because you care about them, which is ok, but not scientific.
Since it’s unscientific for me to assume your experienced pain, there’s no moral reason why I should let my assumptions affect my behavior. Consequently it’s just as moral for me to eat a potato as it is for me to eat you alive. Am I understanding you correctly? If not, please explain what your standpoint has to do with the discussion, as you’ve already ignored my previous attempt to bring it back to the topic.
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Now this I can agree with.
Yes agreed so lets just starve then, only proper thing to do
Just learn to photosynthesize like that guy obviously does
You’ll avoid eating carrion and probiotics and fallen fruit and seeds and nuts? Did you simply overlook other possibilities than harming living things?
I’m daunted by the possibility some may fall for that false dichotomy, and not mean it in jest.
Don’t have to be a failed breatharian.
Can be fruitarian.
Seeds and nuts are offspring. Carrion/Roadkill is caused by unsafe/Subaru infrastructure standards and not practical as a law dir everyone without killing a lot of people. Fruit are somewhat fair game, but could also be eaten by wild animals and are unnatural cruel breeds.
Avoiding all suffering is embracing death for all. Existing is suffering by necessity.
Some seeds (~ and some nuts?) require/want(?) to be imbibed and crapped out, to spread the offspring further, strip the germination inhibiting layer, and provide fertiliser for.
Though be careful with that, otherwise suffering can be made a fetish.
there is no proof seeds or nuts want anything at all
hence the “(?)” on that linguistic quirk.
though, some evolutionary biologists and others still would use that expression, that shorthand, without flinching.
Nah, you starve. You’re the one who’s into that stuff.
No, it fucking ain’t.
And it’s also not a funny joke.
Curious response.
Indifferent, dismissive, in denial, about the suffering of plants? Speciesist? Just never been introduced to plants, be it with plant medicine, or scientific studies? Plants feel. Just because it’s not expressed in familiar mammalian ways, does not mean they’re not living feeling beings. Seeing chopping down plants and eating them as barbaric is a valid perspective to take. I wonder if you have anything above contradiction on Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement to make your argument have any compelling substance…? Or if this will just remain as a limbic reflex to preserve self image, without entertaining the idea in curiosity. Come, get curious, not furious. :)
[Edit: Oh wow. Just saw the up/down votes ratio on that “Chopping down plants & eating them is also barbaric.” comment. At time of writing, up 8, down 55! Wow. Presumably a lot of other people also kicking off all reflexive in defence of their magnanimous morally-superior identification/self-image (presumably) being vegetarian or whatever. Face the horror, folks. 'Ain’t the angels promoted to be in that moral relativism and speciesistical ignorance. LOL. (Cue all the more down votes on this comment, due to this edit clashing with those who’ll still double down in wilful ignorance refusing to look into this. Hehehehehe).]
Allow me to upvote you👌
Id say the distinguishing difference is the function being the thing, where suffering relies on the set of distributed tools being used to measure and process suffering.
Many people excuse animal suffering by denying these parts exist, despite being basal and meadurable even in fish.
While I do think to some degree you are right, and we should be careful where we bound expected suffering, but eating a plant is much more like eating a disembodied part of an animal, or cell culture, rather than the full animal nervous experience.
At the very least, near the bottom of the triage. Its a constant energy balancing act as we progress as intelligent life. Also case by case as different eco-niches are fit. Don’t underestimate life and intelligence.
This is coming from a perspective inspired by Michael levin from tufts university, in the understanding of diverse intelligent systems.
Cause it’s a stupid fucking argument.
If consumption of plants is unethical extinction of life is the only moral choice.
Isn’t it time you checked in on Carol?