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.
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.
scrape sheet of metal with scissors
loud noise and sparks
my god… it’s screaming… minerals feel pain…
You joke, but I have more respect for panpsychism than assuming the phenomenon of consciousness is only in ourselves and things that think / have nervous systems similar to our own exclusively.
But what’s the point (in a manner of speaking, I know natural selection isn’t guided by intent) of pain? It’s there to provide negative feedback and train you to avoid the painful thing. What purpose would pain serve in a sedentary organism?
I’m aware that evolution doesn’t only preserve positive traits, but where in the history of plant development would using the calories to perceive and process pain have helped an ancestor survive?
ugh, I inadvertently deleted the edits, but things came up on my end and I’m not as motivated anymore
purpose is a made up thing that only exists within subjectivity.
people would literally rather turn into blitzed out new age panspiritualists than agree with a vegan that killing a cow isn’t equivalent to peeling a potato
Have you considered how delicious cows are though?
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.
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.
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.
Good for you. Have a a nice day.
Milk isn’t a creature and doesn’t feel pain
Getting the milk from almost perpetually pregnant cows is another story tho
perpetually pregnant cows
Milk and veal, double win.
Pigs are great creatures, there is nothing wrong with bonding with a pig, anymore than bonding with a dog. The ones in the concentration camps though, it would break your heart seeing them, it’s disgusting. I’m not against eating pork, if raised the old way, on a farm, can run around, root for insects, eat acorns in the fall, come back to the barn. I will not keep buying pork from these concentration camps, they are truly disgusting places.
Pigs are great creatures
I agree. Especially bacon, ham shanks and sausages.
