Why You Should Go Vegan

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VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

crazyvanman posted:

Is it not also possible to have a level of respect for plants that is based not in trying to decide whether they are 'equal' to animals, but just that they are different? I tend to work with the logic:
- It would be great if I could just survive on air, thus not having to damage or kill any other living being
- This is not possible; I must eat something to survive
- I can survive and thrive without eating other animals and their secretions

So, I eat plants. But I can still have a relationship with them that feels (and yes, I realise this slippery subjective slope) less exploitative and damaging. I harvest plants from the wild, I plant seeds and allow the plant grow through as much of its life as possible before taking it, and so on. I respect plants to the level that I will go out of my way to not step on ones that can't tolerate foot traffic. I also respect them enough to base a large part of my life to understanding them, how to cultivate them and how to survive by them. In fact it's one of the things that frustrates me about vegans - we are usually much more obssessed with animals than plants, even though we have vowed to make the former a much less significant part of our lives.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we can still recognise that plants are alive, and there's the interesting idea that they have abilities such as communication. But this doesn't mean that the kind of moral consideration we afford them has to be directly comparable with that we afford to other animals.

Avocados were going extinct before people started eating them

https://www.avoseedo.com/how-the-avocado-almost-went-extinct/

Unfortunately, once the megaherbivores died off, avocados lost their main source of distribution. The remaining herbivores did not have large enough digestive tracts to consume and excrete the avocado pit, and dropping seeds at your own roots isn�t a very good survival strategy. At this point, avocados should have gone extinct. Why didn�t they?

....

Avocado trees owe their continued existence to their unusually long lifespan and hungry humans. Central Mexico has avocado trees as old as 400 years of age. Because avocados live so much longer than other fruit trees, they were able to survive until another consumer, this time hungry humans, came along.

The earliest humans in Central and South America quickly came to appreciate the avocado: in particular, the Olmecs and the Mayans. These groups started the first avocado orchards, picking the hardiest and best-tasting avocados to cultivate. Thus the avocado�s journey to worldwide cultivation and consumption began, saving them from a time when the avocado almost went extinct.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2023 03:15

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 11:47

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

TychoCelchuuu posted:

This kind of argument with respect to animals is known as "the logic of the larder" and it is taken by many (myself included) to be very unconvincing (and I find it equally unconvincing in the context of plants). For some discussion see:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/duty-and-the-beast/logic-of-the-larder/58B2C0EE30721567EF1DA108340D84CC

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-005-1805-x

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.htm

https://philarchive.org/rec/JOHCAN

I don't know if it matters, but I've been vegan for well over a decade. Also, in the case of avocados ... the tree doesn't die when you take the fruit.

But back on topic, meat production is a climate issue more than plants.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2023 07:29

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