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Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

nytimes.com

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Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#21

Post by tempestn »

jonmrodriguez wrote: post #5
13415 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If vegans were serious about stopping suffering, they'd create a machine that instantly destroys earth. Edit: While I'm perfectly fine with being downvoted for this and understand why - this was meant as a joke, and you shouldn't joke on HN - I need to point out that this Doomsday Machine Argument is a standard argument against Negative Utilitarianism, which was first published by R.N. Smart, and anyone with a negati…

Speaking as a vegan: The reason I am vegan is for utilitarian reasons. Neuroscientists agree that there is firm evidence that all animals (NOT PLANTS) are sentient to varying degrees. I believe that in the future it will be possible to quantify exactly how sentient each species is (e.g. a dog is 1/4 of a person or a cow is 1/5 of a person). Furthermore, through technology such as EEG, fMRI, and intravenous monitoring…

How would you feel about raising (for example) cattle in a perfect, free range setting—giving them plenty of quality feed, as well as breeding opportunities—and then eventually slaughtering them painlessly in their sleep? So the cow would live what is presumably an excellent cow life, which would then, unbeknownst to it, be cut short. The alternative of course, without the farm, is that the cow would not have existed at all.

From a utilitarian perspective, ISTM such a situation could only be considered a net good for the cow, let alone the people who eat the meat. A good but truncated life has to be better than no life at all. The counter-argument would appear to be one of moral absolutism rather than utilitarianism—that killing a sentient being unnecessarily is simply wrong. Which isn't to say that that argument is necessarily flawed; I'm not sure there's even an argument to be had once you get to the level of disagreement on moral absolutes. But I do think the utilitarian aspect is interesting to consider.

Edit: As an aside, I recognize that the vast majority of farms (ie factory farms) are nothing like the idyllic farm described.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#22

Post by techbio »

yosito wrote: post #7

I highly recommend that anyone concerned about causing suffering to plants by eating them read about Kirtimukha. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtimukha

I was unfamiliar with this. Great story. I appreciated the inclusion in the article of the related myth of Ouruboros.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#23

Post by AndrewKemendo »

spraak wrote: post #2

Some people love to use this information as a fallacious argument of futility against veganism, i.e. that suffering cannot be avoided because "plants suffer too!". But this misses the point. Plants can respond to stimuli, but it doesn't mean that they feel pain, suffer and have a consciousness and emotions like animals do. > Plants have no eyes, no ears, no mouth and no hands. They do not have a brain or a nervous sy…

You're shifting the burden of culpability to a specific and more concrete definition of "pain" and "suffering" than our current science recognizes.

The neuroscience of pain and suffering isn't binary and is extremely complicated and multi-variate [1].

For example in humans, nociceptors [2] – tissue sensing nerve cells – respond to damaging or potentially damaging stimuli by sending “possible threat” signals to the spinal cord and the brain. This is interpreted on a spectrum of what we interpret semantically as "pain." What is shown in the videos of the plants, is effectively no different than the nociception process in humans, which could safely be classified as "pain."

If you want to define a distinguishing point for pain/suffering differently, that's fine, but it wouldn't have much basis scientifically.

[1] http://clbb.mgh.harvard.edu/pain/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#24

Post by cwmoore »

spraak wrote: post #2

Some people love to use this information as a fallacious argument of futility against veganism, i.e. that suffering cannot be avoided because "plants suffer too!". But this misses the point. Plants can respond to stimuli, but it doesn't mean that they feel pain, suffer and have a consciousness and emotions like animals do. > Plants have no eyes, no ears, no mouth and no hands. They do not have a brain or a nervous sy…

What does veganism have to do with HN or the article? This seems like basically a political discussion hijacking a science post.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#25

Post by pg_bot »

ianai wrote: post #8
jonmrodriguez wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a vegan: The reason I am vegan is for utilitarian reasons. Neuroscientists agree that there is firm evidence that all animals (NOT PLANTS) are sentient to varying degrees. I believe that in the future it will be possible to quantify exactly how sentient each species is (e.g. a dog is 1/4 of a person or a cow is 1/5 of a person). Furthermore, through technology such as EEG, fMRI, and intravenous monitoring…

I’m also a vegan. There wasn’t any singular reason that led me to this resolution, but many factors. For instance, I probably wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for modern medicines use of animals. But that’s more of a survival issue than killing an animal because it’s protein is preferable to a plants. To an extent, I realized how little enjoyment I got out of eating meat compared to the suffering animals face. I read…

Based on the largest study currently available[0], there does not seem to be any evidence supporting a vegan or vegetarian diet having any protective effect on all cause mortality. There's a lot of pseudoscience in the health and wellness community so I would remain skeptical when reading about any alleged health benefits of a particular diet.

[0]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312055008_Vegetaria...

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#26

Post by ianai »

13415 wrote: post #4
spraak wrote: post #2

Some people love to use this information as a fallacious argument of futility against veganism, i.e. that suffering cannot be avoided because "plants suffer too!". But this misses the point. Plants can respond to stimuli, but it doesn't mean that they feel pain, suffer and have a consciousness and emotions like animals do. > Plants have no eyes, no ears, no mouth and no hands. They do not have a brain or a nervous sy…

If vegans were serious about stopping suffering, they'd create a machine that instantly destroys earth. Edit: While I'm perfectly fine with being downvoted for this and understand why - this was meant as a joke, and you shouldn't joke on HN - I need to point out that this Doomsday Machine Argument is a standard argument against Negative Utilitarianism, which was first published by R.N. Smart, and anyone with a negati…

I disagree. The doomsday machine “argument” is invalid - it’s probably some dual argument to solipsism based on the near zero thought I’m willing to expend.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#27

Post by ianai »

pg_bot wrote: post #25
ianai wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also a vegan. There wasn’t any singular reason that led me to this resolution, but many factors. For instance, I probably wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for modern medicines use of animals. But that’s more of a survival issue than killing an animal because it’s protein is preferable to a plants. To an extent, I realized how little enjoyment I got out of eating meat compared to the suffering animals face. I read…

Based on the largest study currently available[0], there does not seem to be any evidence supporting a vegan or vegetarian diet having any protective effect on all cause mortality. There's a lot of pseudoscience in the health and wellness community so I would remain skeptical when reading about any alleged health benefits of a particular diet. [0]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312055008_Vegetaria...

Literature supporting a whole foods, plant based diet has already been documented and discussed in the book “How not to die.”

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#28

Post by jllaneras »

mirko22 wrote: post #16
ianai wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also a vegan. There wasn’t any singular reason that led me to this resolution, but many factors. For instance, I probably wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for modern medicines use of animals. But that’s more of a survival issue than killing an animal because it’s protein is preferable to a plants. To an extent, I realized how little enjoyment I got out of eating meat compared to the suffering animals face. I read…

> and it’s awful that so much of human activity results in life’s death and extinction What you mean is nature not just humans. Life death cycle is natural thing. World is full of beauty, but it is also full of suffering and pain, large portion of it not having to do anything with humans. Animals can starve in nature, get mutilated etc. Nature is both sides of the coin, not just the pretty one. As for what you eat, i…

It's so easy to convince ourselves that eating meat is completely fine. Maybe it wouldn't be that easy if every time you wanted to eat meat you had to go yourself to the slaughterhouse and see the horrors caused by those you pay to.

Second, is proven that growing vegetables is more sustainable that growing meat.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#29

Post by trendoid »

cwmoore wrote: post #11

It seems to me that AI is more plant than animal, and the specific biological response mechanisms that plants use have explanatory power toward understanding and communicating about AI in a more productive way than the popular conception of GAI as sentient.

Really? Considering AI has (or will soon have) the best "brain" when it comes to adapting its default heuristics based on new information, plants don't seem to fit the right explanatory model.

I would like to know in what way you think they are a better model than animals.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#30

Post by WaltPurvis »

cwmoore wrote: post #11

It seems to me that AI is more plant than animal, and the specific biological response mechanisms that plants use have explanatory power toward understanding and communicating about AI in a more productive way than the popular conception of GAI as sentient.

Interesting... Care to elaborate?
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