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A comment on World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018). Parent comment

Re:World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018) by Falling3 on Wednesday November 25, 2020 @01:03PM (#25212137)
Plants are not beings under any standard usage of the word. While plants certainly communicate and show some level of computational processing, there is no evidence they have subjective experiences. There is a very clearly line to be drawn between plants and animals.

And if that's not a compelling enough counterargument, there are two additional issues with trying to conflate plants and animals in this context. First, it takes far more plants to support an omnivorous diet than a plant-based diet. Second, many plant-based products are obtainable without having to harm the plant.

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Re:World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018) by Shebanator on Wednesday November 25, 2020 @02:16PM (#25213077)
People made this exact same "no evidence" argument about animals for years, and many still believe it. The fact is we don't know enough about how plants or animals experience life to be sure of anything.
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Re:World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018) by Falling3 on Wednesday November 25, 2020 @02:46PM (#25213428)
People made the claim _while_ ignoring the evidence. And as I went on to argue, if you really want to play it safe and assume plant sentience, you would still adopt a plant-based diet.
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Re:World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018) by jimmydorry on Wednesday November 25, 2020 @08:37PM (#25216111)
>People made the claim _while_ ignoring the evidence. And as I went on to argue, if you really want to play it safe and assume plant sentience, you would still adopt a plant-based diet.

People would still adopt a plant-based diet because there is no other alternative right now. Purely lab-synthesized food that does not involve cultivation of any other organization is still a long way off from reaching any kind of scale for mass consumption.

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Re:World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018) by Falling3 on Friday November 27, 2020 @06:23PM (#25233486)
> Purely lab-synthesized food that does not involve cultivation of any other organization is still a long way off from reaching any kind of scale for mass consumption.

I don't disagree, but I don't see how that's relevant to my point.

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Re:World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018) by wpietri on Thursday November 26, 2020 @10:19AM (#25220716)
I think you should be careful of our heritage of narcissism here. Historically, ethical protections are extended to anybody sufficiently like the speaker's in-group, and denied outside it. You're making an identical argument here. There are always lines to be drawn, and they're almost always the ones convenient for the speaker.
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