I saw a post on lemmy about how we could prevent 133 holocausts by promoting animal rights and veganism. The article opened by doing some math about how many dogs you could torture and kill in order to be equivalent to taking a human life, and then how many animals humans kill, and concluded that we’re committing holocaust equivalents many times over.
I have respect for people who question the status quo and think seriously about morality. Thinking about slavery, it used to be argued “this is the natural order,” “this is actually the moral thing to do” and so on. It wasn’t easy then to stand up for what we now see as the obvious moral position. So I have some receptivity to this type of argument.
That said, I think back to when I was a Christian (atheist now), and was fully bought into the anti abortion movement. They argued that fetuses were human, that we were committing fetus holocausts all the time. Taking that view to its logical conclusion, one could justify things like killing a few (abortion doctors, judges) to save many (fetuses).
The author of the vegan piece was not advocating for such things. But one could ask why not. I think the fact the conclusion (133 holocausts) is so far outside accepted views should prompt some examination of the starting premises. (Is any killing of an animal for food the same as torturous factory farming, should we do something about animals that eat other animals etc)
I’m glad I read the piece because there’s value in hearing other perspectives. We can’t see ourselves and our own blind spots. I would have responded in-thread but that community description said “not a place for debate”, so tossing out this thought here.
You make a good point about killing for food. I’m against killing animals for food and would rather we switch to lab grown meat. It’s not fair to the animals that were created plump and killed unnaturally for the sake of eating. If it’s a survival situation, that’s different, you do what you can to survive. However, modern society is beyond simple survival, we have the resources and means to eliminate animal meat.
But then it begs the question “what about plants? They’re alive right?” Also “what about lab meat? Even though they’re not a full animal, it’s still living matter.”
To both those arguments, I’d say, yes, it’s still not fair to those lifeforms, however it is much more humane to kill lifeforms without a brain, and that only exist to reproduce. Animals have emotions that we can understand. Fear, joy, and content. They are intelligent. Plants and lab meat are not.
The thing is, when people try to argue that “killing” plants is also killing so I might as well just eat animals, apart from being an insane take as is imho, significantly fewer plants are harvested if you switch to a fully vegan diet. The net result is a lot fewer plants needed to sustain people vs. the oodles and oodles of plants and grains needed to feed cattle, pigs, whatever. There are these charts that show how much more efficient food intake really is if you cut out the middle-man - being animals - and just eat the plants they’d be fed instead.
People just try to discredit vegan whenever they can because of their own insecurities and cognitive dissonance. People who actively oppose veganism, that is
that has never happened.
If you’re willing, I feel there is a bias in your argument that I’d like to explore more with you.
You make the excellent point that plants are living organisms as well, but you also make the assumption that “it is much more humane to kill life forms without a brain.” You then go on to suggest that their sole purpose for existence is nothing more than reproduction.
I’d like to challenge both of those assertions. But before I continue, I want to make certain of my position as anecdotal, as I am not an expert in these matters.
It turns out that plants can see, smell, feel, and have a memory. And according to the scientist in the article, plants and humans also share DNA.
We’ve all heard the advice that we should talk to our plants, as they react more positively (grow) to the sound of our voices. We also know that plants play a vital role in our existence.
The most obvious is converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. They also provide shelter and protection for animals. They also help produce about 10% of the moisture in our atmosphere.
As for brains, no they do not have the same type of brain or nervous system that we as humans are accustomed to having. But that is not to say that plants are incapable of making decisions.
Take the Venus Flytrap as an example: it can detect when a bug has landed inside of its mouth, and after having another external stimuli triggered will it decide to trap that bug inside before it devours it for nutrients.
I could go on, such that plants do communicate with other (e.g., grass when cut, fungus creating underground networks to each other).
How much brain tho? There is significant evidance that mycelium in large forests is significant simmillar to a brain to exhibit some intelligence. What if we grow artificial neuron in a petri dish and teach it to play doom? What if we map and simulate a cubic mm of human brain is stopping that simulation akin to killing it? What about if its a full brain simulation? What if its an artificial intellgence indistinguishable from a human intellgence? Wait gpt4o is already smarter than a large amount of kids and is arguably an indistinguishable intellgence so should be give rights to ai or say its ok to kill dumb kids?