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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

#41

Post by spraak »

cwmoore wrote: post #24
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.

A huge percentage of HN comments are only tangentially related to the link.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#42

Post by spraak »

tempestn wrote: post #21
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…

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…

However good their life was before, you're still taking it against their will.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#43

Post by justtopost »

groestl wrote: post #33
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.

As our testing procedures improve, we find out more and more about the cognitive abilities of animals, and have since found self-awareness in chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, magpies, and recently, through sniff tests, dogs. I find it not far fetched that at some point, we start to recognize (some) plants as sentinent beings, maybe on a different timescale than us. Would be interesting to know why you think they are…

Dogs are not self aware, otherwise I would love a source. That just sounds like some feelgood popsci.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#44

Post by spraak »

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...

You have ONE study, and a cohort one at that.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#45

Post by Thiez »

mirko22 wrote: post #17
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…

In my view, what’s futile about it is the fact that for many veganism has to do with moral choice against animal suffering but gets conflated with “living healthy”. Skin of an apple that you buy in standard shop is anything but healthy due to the amount of chemicals applied to it. Even the home grown plants can be treated in a way that is unhealthy. And thirdly, things like avocado plantations are anything but enviro…

Are you seriously suggesting that (all else being equal) a mixed diet is healthier than a vegetarian diet because in a mixed diet you consume less chemicals through fruit and vegetables?

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#46

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

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 read about Kirtimukha, but what does that have to do with concern over causing plants suffering by eating them?

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#47

Post by kregasaurusrex »

I never realized that the chemical signals could travel so quickly through a plant, and previously thought this process took hours instead of a few minutes. While we as humans feel almost instantaneous pain, there's a short delay before the spike in calcium ions are then propagated to the rest of the plant's structure. Will be interesting to see how the related knowledge we can learn from simpler eukaryotes could eventually be expanded to include all sorts of more complex ones.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#48

Post by cannonedhamster »

jllaneras wrote: post #28
mirko22 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Without making a claim against veganism/vegetarianism, you do realize that people have been killing their own animals and eating them for many years. I'd wager most of the people who work in factory farms still eat meat. You don't find a huge proportion of butchers going vegetarian/vegan. I don't think that evidence supports that seeing how your food is killed has any impact on most adults, although it can be traumatic for children. The meet your meat campaign was largely ineffective, whereas making vegetarianism/veganism easy to do has shown actual upticks in vegetarianism that seem to be self fulfilling cycles. People aren't generally monsters, but that doesn't mean they want to sacrifice if they don't have to. Make a product that competes with meat on price, taste, and texture and I think most people will choose the vegetarian option unless there's significant social pressure not to.

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#49

Post by girvo »

adrianN wrote: post #18
hw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some people who don't feel pain (congenital insensitivity to pain). If there was a way to raise animals such that they lack the ability to feel pain and emotions, would it be acceptable to vegans to then consume animals?

Lab grown meat will hopefully become a thing in the next decade.

There’s an interesting contingent of vegans who don’t think lab grown meat is a good idea ethically.

https://www.thoughtco.com/laboratory-grown-meat-is-not-vegan...

Re: Watch Plants Light Up When They Get Attacked

#50

Post by jaytaylor »

justtopost wrote: post #43
groestl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As our testing procedures improve, we find out more and more about the cognitive abilities of animals, and have since found self-awareness in chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, magpies, and recently, through sniff tests, dogs. I find it not far fetched that at some point, we start to recognize (some) plants as sentinent beings, maybe on a different timescale than us. Would be interesting to know why you think they are…

Dogs are not self aware, otherwise I would love a source. That just sounds like some feelgood popsci.

Web sources seem to agree with justtopost:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/2017...

Dogs fail the mirror test.

They are certainly quite intelligent, but technically don't meet the criteria for self-awareness.

And the scent thing where they spend less time on their own scent, or don't mark over their own scent, is dissmissed as a reflexive action.

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