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What if plants were animals like any other?

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Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not comparing the suffering of plants and animals. It's only pointing out that by virtue of feeding an animal, you necessarily kill plants. So when you raise an animal to eat, you're killing both the animal as well as the plants it consumed. The 7-10x number is relative to the number of plants you'd have killed if you instead ate plants directly.

The quote says: "Even if plant suffering were of the same intensity as animal suffering, omnivores would produce seven to ten times more suffering than plant lovers alone." Note the word "suffering". The quote is comparins suffering , not killing . > The 7-10x number is relative to the number of plants you'd have killed if you instead ate plants directly. The quote says: "Worse, the production of one animal protein r…

I'm not sure what you're contradicting?

In order to get 1 calorie of meat, you need to use 7-10 calories of plants. So by necessity, if you eat 1 calorie of meat, you are producing (at least) 7-10x the suffering relative to eating 1 calorie of plants, since 7-10x as much plant mass (and hence plants) needed to suffer to create the meat.

I'm going to stop responding at this point because I'm not sure how else I can explain this.

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote says: "Even if plant suffering were of the same intensity as animal suffering, omnivores would produce seven to ten times more suffering than plant lovers alone." Note the word "suffering". The quote is comparins suffering , not killing . > The 7-10x number is relative to the number of plants you'd have killed if you instead ate plants directly. The quote says: "Worse, the production of one animal protein r…

I'm not sure what you're contradicting? In order to get 1 calorie of meat, you need to use 7-10 calories of plants. So by necessity, if you eat 1 calorie of meat, you are producing (at least) 7-10x the suffering relative to eating 1 calorie of plants, since 7-10x as much plant mass (and hence plants) needed to suffer to create the meat. I'm going to stop responding at this point because I'm not sure how else I can ex…

> In order to get 1 calorie of meat, you need to use 7-10 calories of plants.

But where does this counting of calories come from? The article is talking about proteins. It says "the production of one animal protein requires 7 to 10 plant proteins" (my underlining).

> So by necessity, if you eat 1 calorie of meat, you are producing (at least) 7-10x the suffering relative to eating 1 calorie of plants, since 7-10x as much plant mass (and hence plants) needed to suffer to create the meat.

So, when you say "7-10x as much plant mass (hence plants)", you mean that 1 unit of plant mass = 1 plant, or did I wilfully misunderstand you again?

> I'm going to stop responding at this point because I'm not sure how else I can explain this.

You can explain it if you get the units right. Are we talking of proteins, calories, or units of suffering? What are we counting exactly? Maybe try to explain that?

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are potentially interesting questions here about The Limits of Obligation.[0] If killing animals is wrong, do humans have a moral duty to bring about the extinction (or at least genetic engineering) of all carnivorous animals? Probably not, but that begs the question: is killing animals wrong (given that it would continue to occur at roughly the same rate even if there were no humans in the world)? One way to a…

> killing animals... would continue to occur at roughly the same rate even if there were no humans in the world Would it? Maybe in absolute terms when you include insects, but it's less clear if you talk about specific taxa. >50e9 chickens per year are slaughtered (and most don't have great lives before that), which is comparable to low-end estimates of the total number of wild birds on the planet ( https://www.dw.co…

If there were no humans, other animals would take over where humans are now. There would be more prolonged dying at the very least.
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