she/her

fan of beans and buns, JS enjoyer, Genshin addict

  • 1 Post
  • 24 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: September 19th, 2023
  • Miphera@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyz•HoneyEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Don’t you feel that you just see it that way because you’re on the opposing side on this? This sounds to me exactly the same as how a homophobe for example would describe gay rights activists.

    Just go through all the points you mentioned in this and your previous comment, and replace those scenarios with the issues of various types of bigotry and ethical issues like transphobia, racism, child labour, slave labour etc.

    Don’t get hung up on how bad these are in comparison to each other, that’s not the point. Just look at how they’re all ethical issues where a group of sentient beings are being harmed, and what kind of advocacy you’re in favour of to prevent that harm. And why you would see the one issue you might be on the side of the harm being carried out so differently.

  • Miphera@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyz•HoneyEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Again, all of these reactions to stimuli can be explained as direct, chemical reactions, not signals that get sent to a central unit, are processed, being “felt”, and then being reacted to. There is no one thing or being in plants like the central nervous system of animals that is capable of feeling something.

    Regarding the topic of sentience, I propose looking at it like this:

    There’s a range of definitions that is somewhere around it being the capacity to perceive, to be aware, to be/exist from ones own perspective. However you define it, a central nervous system or other type of similar central unit would have to be a requirement, because that is what would actually be sentient. You are your brain, your hand is just part of your body, if it was chopped off, it by itself is not sentient.

    And whatever vague definition of it you go with, there’s two options: Either sentience is real, or it isn’t. If it isn’t real, literally nothing matters, gg. If it is real, non-human animals with central nervous systems, and therefore sentience and the capacity to suffer, deserve ethical consideration, and we should do what is reasonably possible to reduce their suffering and death.

    Since we don’t know the answer to the existence of sentience, we should err on the side of caution. If we’re wrong, and we’re all as sentient as a rock, the inconvenience we’d have suffered in our efforts to protect fellow sentient-but-actually-not beings can’t be felt by us, no harm done. If we’re right, the suffering we’ll have prevented, in both scale and intensity, is indescribable.

  • Miphera@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyz•HoneyEnglish
    11·
    2 months ago

    Reacting to stimuli like the colour of light is irrelevant. My phone camera would fall into the same category, then. A light switch reacts to getting pressed and turns on a light, it’s reacting to a stimulus.

    What matters is sentience, which plants cannot possess, since they don’t have a central nervous system. And even if they did, a diet that includes meat takes more plants, since those animals have to be fed plants in order to raise them.

    They all make it up as they go along. It’s very similar to religious beliefs in the way it is personal. Each has their own set beliefs on where to draw the line of what is vegan and what is not

    The extent to which we are tied to every living thing on Earth means that many vegans have set impossible goals.

    Regarding these two, is this any different from human rights? Where people draw the line regarding slave labour, child labour, which type of humans they care about (considering racism, homophobia, trans phobia, ableism etc). I’m sure lots of people have impossible goals regarding human rights, but working to get as close to those as possible is still sensible.