> it was forcefully bred by a corporation that treated it like trash to increase their financial gains

The same could be said for plants.

I hear this kind of argument pretty often. It's bizarre, because debunking it is pretty trivial. Even if we assume destroying plants is 100% equivalent to destroying animals (this is obviously a position not many would agree with), destroying animals is worse because animals require plant food to grow. And since animals burn calories that don't go directly to growth, it's an inefficient means of producing food (beef is especially inefficient).

So the choice is: destroy a plant to eat directly OR destroy an animal who needed n plants destroyed to grow sufficiently large to eat. Option A definitionally requires less destruction.

If you do assume animal life is equivalent to plant life, all you're saying is that consuming animals is less efficient. It would be like saying we shouldn't consume icecream because drinking milk directly saves more milk (not sure if this example is true).

The assumption I pose is that (given the very generous notion) if plant life is equivalent to animal life, and destroying life is undesirable, then eating animals is worse (in this regard) than eating plants because it destroys _more_ life.

A small detail: While destroying more life this process is _creating_ more life at the same time... Not that is has to matter.

Its pretty complex. For instance, growing plants means essentially sterilizing the ground under them, killing tens of thousands of small rodents. Millions of insects. Billions of soil microorganisms.

Algae is the future!

I'm not sure the comment you're replying to is saying to choose between one or the other (eating animals or plants) but perhaps rather that sustainable eco-friendly production is what is important regardless of the product.

If you assume that we evolved (this is a position some do not agree with) then you would realize that we are nothing but the top of the food chain and whatever the flip we decide to do with animals doesn't matter--regardless of how much pain it causes them.

Make sense?

This isn't a response to anyone in particular here, just pitching my 2¢ among these comments;

Regardless of whether anything "feels pain" or not, I, personally, would choose to not destroy anything I don't have to, even if it's a uniquely-shaped rock.

I mean, look at [0]. It's probably universally safe to say that the absence of these formations would not adversely affect anyone or anything. Yet, a sapient being would agree that the world would somehow be less, in some intangible metric, without them, even if they weren't the result of a million years of forces..

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=natural+rock+arch&tbm=isch

That is a completely disingenuous argument unless you truly believe that plants are as sentient as animals.

How do you know if one life form is more or less sentient than another? Is sentience not a subjective phenomenon?

I don't think there is currently any way to know this objectively. That's why I framed it as a matter of belief. Based on what we know about the similarities of animal nervous systems (including humans) and the dissimilarities of plant nervous systems (so to speak), I personally believe that animals are sentient to one extent or another but I find it hard to imagine that plants would be.

No. That's why it is very much legal for me to chop up a tree that I find on my property but not a dog.

I don't know where you live but in the UK, dogs are (in law) personal property and discounting welfare issues, you can do what you want with them if you're the owner.

Furthermore, farmers can kill your dog (humanly) on his land if it is causing distress to his animals. In law this is a lawful excuse to cause criminal damage. There are all kinds of lawful excuses. For instance, a person (usually a farmer) is free to kill your horse, humanly, if keeping it alive is causing a material financial loss.

In Germany you'll send to prison if you kill your dog. But killing your chicken, cow oder pig is just fine. That's so weird.

What if you kill the dog for the meat and not just for the heck of it?

> discounting welfare issues

Well, that's the whole point.

I thought you were going to say that in the UK, you can't just chop down a tree on your land - there are often legal barriers preventing the felling of listed trees!

Being listed would seem to imply a tree was specifically selected by a town for historical or aesthetic qualities. They would seem to be on conservation or public land most of the time, no?

It varies by region. In some places any tree with a trunk radius > 4" is listed automatically, for example.

> discounting welfare issues, you can do what you want with them if you're the owner

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "discounting welfare issues". Sure, if you discount the laws that protect dogs, they're not protected, but The Animal Welfare act (2006) does exist, very much does protect dogs from people "doing what you want with them" and is enforced.

Of course, that protection is not offered at all costs. If a dog attacks a person, or invades farmland and attacks an animal, then the priority of that person/farm animal takes precedence over the dog.

In other words, people can do what they want with their dogs. They just need to kill them first. There are lots of ways you can do that, but starvation isn't one of them, because that's a welfare issue. Seems pretty obvious.

What? No. You cannot just kill your dog for any reason. That is illegal, immoral, and inhumane.

Immoral, perhaps. Inhumane, not necessarily. Illegal, no. (Where I live, obviously.)

How is a dog special? Compared to say, a rat or a chicken or a cow?

I guess you're assuming that I'm okay with killing rats, chickens, and cows?

I'm a vegetarian, so dogs are not special to me in that regard. I only mentioned dogs because I was replying to a comment that mentioned dogs specifically.

Yeah, I meant that we kill rodents and pests easily. But are sentimentally attached to dogs and try to rationalize it. I am not attached to a dog, and if I wanted to eat it, I should be allowed to.

Plants don't feel pain.

They "do" see other reply. Questions is: at what point do we consider it suffering ? When there is a reaction to harm ? When it has a brain ? When it has consciousness ? And what about a virtual brain, does it suffer ?

Plants react to things that can harm them. Pain, however, is something that it requires neurons to experience.

A rash rejection of dialog.

Plants are very lowly sentient through structures that are the plant-counterparts to animalian neurons.

They communicate with other plants and they sense what can be described as "pain."

But, I don't think arguing on the sentience of an unprotected kingdom will further this discussion.

The discussion on animal welfare seems to be an emotional one alone. As long as our mirror neurons aren't firing in response to the perceived pain animals feel, all is millhouse.

This is why, I believe very few care about plant welfare. They have no mouths with which to scream, so we believe (or make ourselves believe) that they aren't in pain. That they are too dumb to feel pain (this parallels sinisterly with the cruelty of psychological medicine in the 20th century).

Not to mention how silly it is to care about plant welfare... or is it? There have been little studies done on how the constant slaughter of plants affects the secondary factors (maturation speeds, yield, etc. -- as apposed to the primary: deforestation, etc.).

However, I don't think there ever will be such advances in this field. Perhaps because they have no way of polluting this discussion with emotions, unlike their animal counterpart.

Ive always found in the quieter parts of Silicon Valley and areas, there does exist a merge between the technological and something else. I've seen this something else be called luck, magic, parapsychology.. Many names. But I've also found that it is indeed whispered and talked of behind the scenes.

I've learned these arts as well, to hear the ebb and flow of what goes on around me. Many times, I can feel the data going on the wire, and the emotion it carries. Standing in our data center's networking room, I can feel thousands of voices, like a cacophony all unawares that they too are projecting emotions. Some of us can hear.

But in learning how to hear, I also learned how to listen to other things we wouldn't normally consider sentient. Plants. I found I've been able to hear them, and their talk. It's not words per se, but more of word-pictures. And the more I do so, I come to the understanding that Chomsky was indeed correct, but also wrong: emotion is the underlying language.

How do I prove this? I don't. I can't, at this time. These techniques were taught to me, along with my innate abilities. I doubt even an fMRI would be able to pick up on these, until long after my brain processed them. But what then?

I've also been attempting to find a way to connect whatever that emotion energy I'm feeling is. If it's not matter, it must be energy.. or something else. I'm not ready to say there's a something else yet... So it must be a type of energy that we can measure, no? I know I've pissed off enough other pagans and occultists, but my primary goal is to bridge these two disparate (scientific vs esoteric) into a unified theory. Or barring that, a way to "view" this energy. Because once we can sense it, we can manipulate.

But alas, I figure I'll be downvoted or worse yet, ignored. I certainly don't hold a publicly acceptable view for sure.

From my viewpoint, the practitioners have all but secluded themselves for the time being, away from all public scrutiny. Very seldom do I hear of them mentioned, and of those very few are intelligent.

And I believe this is what could hold you back, atleast in public acceptance (if you're even aiming for this -- and not just discovery among the "initiated").

I'm sorry I can't offer you anymore words, getting a taste of the esoteric after all of this time away has left me in shock.

So, may you succeed in your journey and if there's anyway I may assist, I would oblige.

> From my viewpoint, the practitioners have all but secluded themselves for the time being, away from all public scrutiny. Very seldom do I hear of them mentioned, and of those very few are intelligent.

They still are out there, but most have gone the anti-technology, anti-science.. almost hippie like. To most of them, it's all flowers and happy auras, and vibes. That sort of stuff. In my opinion, they are a dead end. It's all circle this, good vibes that. And absolutely no proof, no scientific work on understanding the underlying nature. Nothing.

> And I believe this is what could hold you back, atleast in public acceptance (if you're even aiming for this -- and not just discovery among the "initiated").

Nahh, I obviously don't talk about this at work. It can easily be seen as "Religion". No sense in alienating people. If they are intent on discussing it, I invite them to a coffee shop, a bookstore/cafe, a quieter bar and talk.

Then again, I do have to be careful in whom I talk with. Obviously, these ideas are exactly mainstream. And, many of them can have very deleterious paths (cults, single-mindedness, magus-itis). Last thing I want to do is get someone who is weaker-willed into something they cannot handle. Primarily, I don't want to be responsible for someone else's failures.

> I'm sorry I can't offer you anymore words, getting a taste of the esoteric after all of this time away has left me in shock.

> So, may you succeed in your journey and if there's anyway I may assist, I would oblige.

Thank you much for the kind words.

There are a few ways to help, and they be primarily information. I'm blessed with an ample amount of money and goods. It's mind I need.. Thought. Ideas. Creativity.

Primarily, this "woo woo" area, Ill call it magic. The problem is that the only way to sense it is to be trained in it. And how do you know if someone is trained? Its a chicken and egg problem. The way out of this, is to develop some sort of sensor that can "sense" whatever this is. Once a sensor is made, then ideally it would provide a way to prove/disprove these claims. Not only that, but we in the engineer class (yes, systems engineer as well) would also be able to experiment in making devices to manipulate this energy. With appropriate feedback from the sensors, we could start mastering this other realm.

I've a few ideas how to do this.

1. Auras. Some people see it naturally. Some can be trained to see it. What is it? Is it EM? What frequencies? Is it magnetic domain, or electric domain, or both? Could a camera detect this? What if you could adjust the response frequencies in the CCD to different areas?

2. Remote sensing. This would require time and lots of money at an fMRI. Would entail in self-selecting people whom claim to have these gifts. Fraught with false positives, given fMRI tech. Open ended investigation on peoples' brains. Not likely.

3. Emotion. Is it possible to sense emotion? I believe yes. We all have felt it, someone staring at us. Someone angry, and we don't know why. Dread that makes a room thick. What's going on, and why? Is this measurable? If no devices, can we use people to detect (and then measure with equivalent of lie detector electronics, to bypass verbal means)?

But these are diffuse ideas, and none are terribly good. But given my computer science, engineering, IoT sensor net, and biological backgrounds, It's all I have. If you have other ideas, I'd be very much interested in knowing or collaborating. I don't even need much of citation. I'd rather enable the occult for the masses, by means of science.

If you'd like to get ahold of me, you can email me [email protected]

Sincerely,

My study of these energies so far points toward body language, posture, empathy, intentional breath, hypnotic trance and synesthesia as being the major drivers. The calmer you are and more relaxed you are, the easier it is to sense. I've read theories around how the nervous system normally deals with too much background noise, and by calming the mind you can free up bandwidth for the esoteric. I'm not convinced of there being any relation to the EM realm and as I'm sure we all know, psychedelics seem to increase one's sensitivity to these things.

I've sent you some thoughts.

> Many times, I can feel the data going on the wire, and the emotion it carries.

That's easy to prove. Have people send certain kinds of data and then name the emotion. You could upend several sciences and also be rich.

So why don't you?

Sometimes people confuse what they envision with what they perceive.

But given that what we perceive is in most cases so heavily filtered through what we believe, I'm not sure this is necessarily a conceptual mistake.

Envisioning something in the minds eye isn't necessarily a sense but it's pretty close. I do think it's a good idea to regard envisioning as property of our own mind however rather than relating it entirely to external phenomenon. Which should also be more widely practiced with perceptions in general IMOP.

I had considered that to be a plausible avenue - that it was all just in my head. Indeed, I could just be self-selecting phenomenon that I've done as proof that something else exists.

The key out of this mind-trap is unbiased 3rd parties.

For example, consider this. You're by yourself. You do something "magical". It conjures an invisible dragon around you. It has a distinct shape and look. Ok. So this is in your head, as per your comment above.

Now, you go to the local book store, and you meet some friends. You're not talking about any of your private practices. One friend looks at you and your shoulder and says, what's with the dragon thing around you?

Is it really there? Someone else selected 2 unique details about it out of nothing. Or, did your subconscious chose the reality that someone chose to say that to you, reaffirming your belief? Or what? Mere coincidence? (There is no such thing as coincidence in this world, only the inevitable.)

How many times one must go through with "interesting" happenings with others, whom have no clue what you're doing? We will never receive 100% proof.. But then again, a zero knowledge proof doesn't provide 100% certainty.

There's a lot we don't understand about how things relate and how our minds work and the deeper nature of reality sure.

But also we sometimes correlate things that aren't necessarily correlated because we are just walking talking shitting correlation machines and it's what we do.

I don't mean to say "all in your head" like it's a bad thing though. My opinion is that most things are at the end of the day so I hope it's not offensive.

> But also we sometimes correlate things that aren't necessarily correlated because we are just walking talking shitting correlation machines and it's what we do.

Heh :) I don't quite attribute humans to a complicated form of a calculator, but I get the sentiment. People thought back in the early 1900's, that people were not much more than really complicated mechanical systems, like clocks. Now, It's computers. I still think that's too simplistic.

> I don't mean to say "all in your head" like it's a bad thing though. My opinion is that most things are at the end of the day so I hope it's not offensive.

No, not at all! I had to first consider that wasn't the case for me. Consider it a sanity check. "Am I just seeing bullshit because I want to?" Probably. Can I disprove this? Yes. The key to disprove, is kind of a double blind test - you don't say anything, and someone else confirms... The only better test I could think of, is if someone else devised a ritual for you, and you conducted it, and you noted effects and happenings.

Thank you for sharing, beautiful

I disagree with you quite strongly on this (and I don't believe there really is enough of a dialog to 'rashly reject'), however, if plants do indeed 'feel pain', so what? Humans can live off fallen-fruit and seeds, but the acreage required would prohibit human populations above hunter-gatherer densities, and in almost all areas of the planet this method of eating would produce severe malnutrition.

This is what I'm arguing for: "so what if they feel pain?"

Is it okay to kill brain dead animals?

What about a painless and euphoric death?