WMN: t3_2rekjo_t1_cnh4d1z

[TITLE]

CMV: I believe you have three choices once you discover the suffering animals endure in the meat industry...

[Anticarnist]

The options are as follows: 1. You don't agree with what is going on and stop supporting it. 2. You don't care about animals, so you're content with paying for them to be abused for your pleasure. 3. You don't agree with what is going on, but try to put it to the back of your mind and continue to support it. Reasoning: I used to follow 'option number 3', but recently started 'option number 1' in an attempt to line my actions up with my values. I suspect this way of looking at it is still somewhat simplistic however, so feel free to prove me wrong. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

[MizzKittay]

[STA-CITE]>1. You don't agree with what is going on and stop supporting it. [END-CITE]Stop supporting it how? As in never buying meat again, even as you know that doing so will not have any impact on the meat industry whatsoever, and won't make even an ounce of difference in the lives of animals? What's the point? If I stop eating meat today, it won't make any difference whatsoever and won't save even a single animal's life. The only way to make real change in industries like this is to organize and participate in a boycott on a wide-scale level, and/or to petition the government to make regulation changes.

[Anticarnist]

I wouldn't buy ivory, dog leather or fur for the same reasons - I find meat disgusting based on what I've seen and want no part of endorsing it whether it makes any difference overall or not.

[NaturalSelectorX]

[STA-CITE]> You don't care about animals, so you're content with paying for them to be abused for your pleasure. [END-CITE]What about "I care about animals, but see it as a necessary evil for my sustenance." I feel the same way about animals in medical research. I feel terrible for the animals, but it's necessary for the health of humans and a better option than researching on humans.

[Anticarnist]

Slaughtering animals is not a necessary evil for your sustenance though (is it? I don't know, for all I know you could be a hunter in the middle of nowhere in Alaska).

[NaturalSelectorX]

I am an omnivore, and my diet consists of meat and plants. There is not a good way to supply meat at an industrial scale that doesn't involve some measure of suffering for the animal. We could trade information back and forth as to whether or not it's possible to be happy and healthy without meat, but I'm firmly convinced that meat is a requirement for my diet.

[NeverQuiteEnough]

[STA-CITE]>I'm firmly convinced that meat is a requirement for my diet. [END-CITE]very curious as to how you can think that when there are so many vegans? I eat a bit of meat myself but I've never considered it a necessity.

[Mavericgamer]

There are a lot of anti-vaxxers too. Just because there are a number of people who are wrong doesn't make them right. Not saying the vegans are necessarily wrong, but numbers is a bad argument. And more directly attacking the rightness/wrongness of it: there are lots of vegans, but there aren't a lot of what I'd call healthy-looking vegans.

[NeverQuiteEnough]

I'm not using the opinion's of vegans to support my argument, I'm using their health. You say that they don't *look* healthy to you anecdotaly, but my experience with vegans and the science indicates that they are perfectly healthy if not healthier. I understand that not everyone bases their views in science though.

[Mavericgamer]

Nice subtle ad hominem at the end there. If we want to play the petty games like that: *opinions* They're fine when they're living city lives. As someone else pointed out, processed meat is linked with an increase in heart disease, when you only compare people whose diets consist of unprocessed meats exclusive to any other sorts, then they're about even. We also have a massive support system that allows it. Further: the poster you were replying to said he was sure it was a requirement for *his* diet. While if you're perfectly healthy veganism is fine, there are certain deficiencies of enzymes that are not an issue if you eat an omnivorous diet.

[NeverQuiteEnough]

wait so are there or aren't there healthy vegans? I thought you were asserting that there aren't.

[Mavericgamer]

My real contention is that vegans aren't healthy in the classical "survive in the wild without civilization" sense. They won't get heart disease or modern problems that plague first world problems and stem from over-processed meats, but if they are plopped into, say, Ghana, they're eating whatever they can, or likely dying.

[NeverQuiteEnough]

that's a weird ass definition of healthy mate

[Anticarnist]

Meat is the industry that creates the most suffering for animals though... Being the one that requires the most land usage and causes the most environmental issues as well as obviously slaughtering them. Vegans are also the group least likely to die of heart disease, with vegetarians being second and omnivores being first (or the same, depending on which study you're looking at). I'm convinced it's a healthier diet, which is a nice bonus for being compassionate.

[NaturalSelectorX]

[STA-CITE]> Meat is the industry that creates the most suffering for animals though... Being the one that requires the most land usage and causes the most environmental issues as well as obviously slaughtering them. [END-CITE]This doesn't really matter if it is something that is necessary. [STA-CITE]> Vegans are also the group least likely to die of heart disease, with vegetarians being second and omnivores being first (or the same, depending on which study you're looking at). I'm convinced it's a healthier diet, which is a nice bonus for being compassionate. [END-CITE][This study](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20479151) shows that unprocessed meat is not linked to heart disease, but processed meat is. I would also argue that a vegan *has* to be more conscious about their diet, and that extra attention results in health benefits. Many people consider fish to be extremely healthy, and often include it in their "vegetarian" diets. Eating fish has been associated with a *reduced* risk of heart disease. Fish farms are equally as cruel as the rest of the meat industry, but we don't relate to them as much so they don't tug on our morals. Certainly, you can still be healthy with alternative diets. However, you have to curate your diet much more if you do not include meat. I'm not convinced that an equally curated diet including meat would not be healthier.

[Kirkaine]

So what do you do when you discover [the suffering animals endure in the vegetarian food industry](http://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659)?

[Anticarnist]

Ahh I've seen that article before and it's incredibly flawed. It boggles my mind it was even published in all honesty. Livestock animals eat a hell of a lot more crops humans do right? So if you're really concerned with the damage done by the land use of growing food, then not eating meat would be a great first step to reducing it. The land required to feed one vegan for a single year is 1/6th of an acre and the land required to feed one meat eater for a year is 18 times more than that. [Here's a cool infographic I found this morning](http://www.cowspiracy.com/infographic/)

[Kirkaine]

[STA-CITE]>Livestock animals eat a hell of a lot more crops humans do right? [END-CITE]Not all crops are created equal. How much grass do you eat on an average day? No mice are slowly poisoned to death growing grass, they are for the crops that humans eat. Why, it's almost like you only read the top two paragraphs.

[Anticarnist]

I read it a month or so ago I'm actually referring to corn. More corn is produced for livestock than humans. 36% of all privately held acres in the US is used for growing corn just for livestock. That's without even getting into the massive amounts of land used for soy and hay production for livestock.

[Kirkaine]

Once again, read the article closely. It's written by an Australian (where most livestock is grass-fed), and explicitly notes that it only applies when livestock is fed on grass rather than grain. The fact that the US uses a poor method of production is not an indictment of the meat industry as a whole.

[mrgoodnighthairdo]

That's a pretty silly article, as ~~fruits and~~ grains are also used to feed livestock. So if one were intent of causing the least harm, then a vegan style diet is still the best option.

[Kirkaine]

Livestock (at least in Australia, where the article is from) mostly eat grass, not grain. Certainly not fruit.

[mrgoodnighthairdo]

I'll take your word on that, but, assuming there are millions of heads of livestock in Australia, then I would imagine that whatever they are fed is farmed and harvested. So it would probably have the same problems. I mean, unless Australian livestock are all free range.

[Kirkaine]

The vast majority are. Australia isn't exactly short on space.

[mrgoodnighthairdo]

Then I would totally eat Australian beef. I personally don't have a problem with slaughter itself. It's the abuse inherent in the entire industrial process that I have a problem with. Slaughter, in these cases, is probably the least suffering those animals experience.

[NotAnArmadillo]

I think there is an option between 2 and 3. You care a little about animals, but you care care even more about your own pleasure and health. Therefore, you think that the benefit you receive outweighs the harm done to animals, and agree with what is going on.

[kingpatzer]

4. You recognize the economic reality that your singular choices will not change a trillion dollar industry and accept that for you individually there are more important battles to fight. This is categorically different than (3) in that the person holding this view is not putting it to the back of their mind, but rather prioritizing their own efforts and energies. That is, they are putting other things in front of this issue. While the end result may be the same, the mechanism is different so it is a fourth option.

[nighthound1]

Option 2 is very restricting. Option 4: you don't care for animals' suffering but you enjoy their taste, so you continue to support the meat industry. This doesn't necessarily mean that I am paying money so that some animal on the other side of the world gets abused for my pleasure that I don't even witness.

[garnteller]

There is a 4th choice. You can choose to not anthropomorphize animals, and, despite how much you love your dog, realize that a chicken is just a chicken, and that your farmed tilapia doesn't have the cognition to question whether it's life is worth living. I want the animals to be raised humanely, and, yes, I want them to be killed humanely. But it's not like a wild turkey sits on it's deathbed and thinks fondly of those days gone by, when it roamed free and raised its baby turkeys. No, it thinks more "food? sex? food?". Yes, they feel pain, but so does an earthworm, if you mean "experience messages that say 'bad things are happening - endeavor to stop them'". They don't look back and say, "Man, remember when I bumped into that electric fence? That hurt like hell." The best they can manage is "Fence. Bad." There is no "meaningful" or "meaningless" life for an animal - they don't philosophize beyond needs. Most farm animals spend less time hungry, scratched by brambles, running from predators, etc than wild animals. It doesn't make it a better of worse life - it's just existing. That's the other choice - accepting that animals are less than humans.

[midnight_thunder]

We don't need to justify eating meat by declaring humans superior to other animals. We only need to declare that humans are superior to other animals in the viewpoint of humans. Likewise, a lion's needs are superior to the needs of other animals in the viewpoint of the lion. When we kill animals, they suffer. But their life and eventual suffering would not have come to be without human intervention. Humans evolved the way they did in part because of their omnivorous diets. We should not attach human morality to animals we cultivate to further our own existence. In that way, you are right.

[Anticarnist]

[STA-CITE]>Humans evolved the way they did in part because of their omnivorous diets. We should not attach human morality to animals we cultivate to further our own existence. In that way, you are right. [END-CITE]I agree we evolved to be able to eat meat through the invention of cooking around two million years ago and it got us through some tough times. However, this has now turned to bite us in the ass with [factory farming now becoming the biggest man made cause of climate change.](http://www.cowspiracy.com/infographic/).

[midnight_thunder]

This is true, but is the environmental impact relevant to the topic? There are eco-friendly ways to get animal protein, like eating insects. I bet most of us will live to see this as normal. Would you be against mass-production and harvesting of insects?

[Anticarnist]

[STA-CITE]>There are eco-friendly ways to get animal protein, like eating insects. I bet most of us will live to see this as normal. Would you be against mass-production and harvesting of insects? [END-CITE]I think it makes a huge difference on whether there is an alternative or not, and since I'm healthier than ever on a vegan diet I'd say that eating insects would be immoral (Although I imagine it's more difficult to empathise with a locust than a pig regardless of whether they both suffer to a similar extent or not).

[ketocurious193]

where would you draw the line for what's moral to eat and what's not? what is it about a chicken or a locust that makes you think their suffering is comparable and more important to that of a cabbage's, fungi's or bacterium's?

[Anticarnist]

A nervous system and a brain.

[ketocurious193]

i'm not trying to be bitchy or anything - but why? Plants and bacteria can sense and react to the world around them, they just use a different system rather than neurons - why do neurons confer some sort of superiority?

[Anticarnist]

Well that really is a philosophical discussion that I'd like to look into further!

[jabrodo]

That's ultimately the place this debate ends up going. Why does veganism, which takes a stance that places sanctity on life, draw the line at only *animal* pain and suffering? As /u/Mavericgamer says elsewhere, it is a fact of our existence that in order to continue living, we need to kill and consume other organisms. We're heterotrophs, that is what we do. So, all other factors being controllable (suffering, quality of life, etc.), why is it ethical to kill and eat plants, but not animals? You can object to factory meat farming. You can object to cramped, unsanitary conditions in egg farms. All these things have their issues, and solutions exist to get their products from sources that don't abuse their animals. However, the answer to the basic question, is that it is not unethical to kill and eat another animal or any organism; it is the basis of heterotrophic existence.

[ketocurious193]

i agree - i think it poses an interesting thing though. If you don't confer specialness onto neurons then there are very few ways to differentiate between any organism. So why is it more wrong to eat a cow than a plant? We can't possibly know - we have to eat something - so why is the person that chooses to eat a mix worse than a person who chooses to only eat one - they're both killing things and we can't really know which thing is suffering more since we can't quantify suffering anyway, and we don't really know much about plant sensation. It ends up falling to anthropomorphism, empathy and, for lack of a better term, belief. It's a lot easier to empathise with a cow that shares features and does things we do when injured (vocalise etc) but plants react too - just not in ways we really perceive. I think if you take the argument through like that, it makes it really hard to get morally outraged with how people choose to eat.

[Raintee97]

But you can't fault that first early primate that ate meat.

[NeverQuiteEnough]

would you say that elephants who make lifelong friends and paint are fine farm animals? or dolphins that have the intellect of a 4 year old? pigs are among the most intelligent animals, much smarter than dogs. cows have best friends, at least, though they are kinda dumb. I'm not sure that you are going to be able to draw a distinction where it's ok to eat animals but not humans, on the ground of our superior emotions or intelligence, though I'd love to give out a delta here because carnitas is my favorite.

[Anticarnist]

[STA-CITE]>a chicken is just a chicken [END-CITE]A chicken feels pain and suffering and does not want to feel those things as much as we do. [STA-CITE]>But it's not like a wild turkey sits on it's deathbed and thinks fondly of those days gone by, when it roamed free and raised its baby turkeys. No, it thinks more "food? sex? food?". [END-CITE]My sister is severely mentally disabled and most likely doesn't have the capacity to think fondly of days gone by on her death bed either. Does intelligence really make much of a difference when it comes to the ethics of whether we can kill them without moral concern? I still don't see any good argument for how animals are 'less' than humans (beyond our own obvious bias). EDIT: formatting

[ketocurious193]

[STA-CITE]>A chicken feels pain and suffering and does not want to feel those things as much as we do [END-CITE]how do you know that?

[Anticarnist]

Why would you think they don't? It has been scientifically proven and well-documented but I'm on my phone now and I'm actually rather shocked I would even have to dig out evidence.

[ketocurious193]

it's more the 'wanting' - i mean that seems to be conferring some sort of sense of self onto the animal 'i, mr chicken, enjoy my life and do not want to feel harm'. which is pretty high cognition we're talking about there. I may well be mistaken, but we struggle to show even if humans have that - i mean damn we didn't even have conclusive proof that babies experienced pain rather than nociception until the last few decades. So what evidence/documentation do you have that animals have these qualities? And I sort of mean aside from behavioural tests - because these tests are notorious for anthropomorphism - for pretty much every example of an animal showing some sort of higher cognition there's an example of a much lower organism (slime mold, bacteria) showing similar behaviours - but for some reason we differentiate between the two. Just to clarify - I assume you're right and that animals are closer in self awareness/capabilities to suffer to us than bacteria - but I'm not actually aware of any concrete evidence of this other than, well, assumptions.

[garnteller]

How does a chicken "want" anything? It is completely incapable of developing a though like, "Today would REALLY suck if that damn fox bites me again". Yes, intelligence matters. If not, we wouldn't allow brain-dead people to be unplugged. Self-awareness puts one in a separate category than an animal. But, regardless, I'm not trying to convince you not to care about animals, but that a rational person could come to the decision that those without higher cognition or self-awareness aren't equal.

[Anticarnist]

Self awareness isn't a human-exclusive trait - dolphins, apes and elephants have been proven to possess it. Regardless of self-awareness, the ability to suffer is what I regard as being more important to an individual.

[garnteller]

That may be what YOU consider, but that's not what others consider, which is why they can validly reach different conclusions. And "suffer" needs more definition to discuss whether it's something animals can do.

[Mavericgamer]

Option 3.1415926: I buy all my meat from local farms that I know have free-range chickens and cows that are grass-fed and well-treated until they are humanely slaughtered, and once the technology exists to 3D-print a chicken breast that tastes about as good as the real thing at an affordable price with 0 animal death, I eat that instead.

[Anticarnist]

I personally don't see any distinction between my pet dog and a chicken. If I had to take my cat to be euthanised at the vet, I would never consider his throat being sliced by a machine as he hung upside down as humane treatment. Probably not even a bolt to the brain either. I agree that synthetic meat would be absolutely amazing though!

[Mavericgamer]

I do see a distinction between a pet and livestock, namely that we domesticated those pet animals for the purpose of companionship (and in the case of the dog, a symbiotic relationship involving feeding them scraps for protection against predators that their scent can pick up easier than our sight, particularly at night), and have bonded with them specifically because their utility functions are greater as companions than as meat. Chickens simply aren't. Also, again, local farms and humane slaughtering, not factory farming. As far as I'm aware, chickens at my local farm have their brains destroyed at the stem as quickly as possible while their head is chopped off. Gory, but painless, as the pain center is instantly destroyed. And I wouldn't want to witness it, but I would accept that as a humane death (as humane as we can make death, anyway), as it has as little pain as we can deliver. Admittedly, a better way would be a proper Brompton Cocktail, but that would taint meat, and so is unfeasible. Finally, here is the big problem I have: It is literally impossible for me to live without other things dying. I wish it weren't so, but it is. Carrots get eaten or boiled alive and we have no evidence that suggests, one way or another, if that is causing them suffering, as their nervous system is sufficiently different from us that I believe we wouldn't know what we were looking for. However, there are plants that emit pheromones to alert other plants of an impending insect-predator's presence and causes other plants in the area of the same type to activate defenses, and other plants that will actively tense up in response to needle pricks (which, further, will stop responding when exposed to typical anasthetics), which tells me that when plants behave in an animal-like manner, they can and do respond to some sort of pain stimuli. So, I don't consider plants to be necessarily more moral. Further, I find death by human to be more humane than death by any other cause that most game or livestock animals could hope for. At the best, chickens, pigs, deer, and cows would have their throats ripped out by weasels or wolves or whatever other predator. At best they'd die slowly and painfully of some disease that they have no hope of overcoming, or slowly and painfully of starvation after breaking a leg and falling behind their herd. Nature is not pretty, and we should be working to improve it. I work best when I've had more to eat than a salad, so in the long run, future animals benefit more by my consumption of meat than they would if I was trying to go vegetarian/vegan.

[Anticarnist]

I may have a different stance on seeing no difference between companion animals and farm animals because many of my pets are exotic and farm animals. The fact we have domesticated some animals also does not mean they suffer any differently to their wild cousins. Are you seriously saying you consider slaughtering an animal morally equal to harvesting a crop?

[Kinnell999]

[STA-CITE]> Are you seriously saying you consider slaughtering an animal morally equal to harvesting a crop? [END-CITE]Have you considered the substantial number of animals which are killed as a result of crop farming (pesticides, killed by harvesters, etc)?

[Anticarnist]

Of course. Have you considered the fact more crops are needed to be grown for livestock than humans?

[Kinnell999]

Livestock can co-exist with other animals on natural grasslands - there is no need for crop farming practices to be employed to raise animals. The point is you should be more concerned with how farming is done than what is farmed. Both crop farming and animal farming cause suffering to animals if done poorly.

[Mavericgamer]

In a day, I eat maybe 1/3 of a cow or 1/2 of a chicken if I'm hungry. If I were eating veggies, I'd consume several plants. I consider my 1 chicken/2 days to be morally equivalent to the 8 heads of lettuce/day it would take me to get the same basic caloric intake (note: I don't have any real accuracy for the amount per day, just a rough guesstimation) to be about morally equal. [STA-CITE]>The fact we have domesticated some animals also does not mean they suffer any differently to their wild cousins. [END-CITE]On the contrary: A sheep with a shepherd is many times less likely to have its throat ripped out by a wolf and having its last experience on earth be something as gruesome as the beginnings of being eaten. A bolt to the brain sounds bad, but there is nothing past that instant. No pain, no awareness, just cessation of life. Ditto that for every other domestic food animal, and even animals that we hunt for food: at the very least we are less vicious than other predators in that we wait until the animal is definitely dead before we start eating it. I'm not arguing that death at the hands of humans is better than living on; in the general sense, living on is better than just about any death; I'm arguing that of the potential ways to die, being killed is the best an animal can realistically hope for. EDIT: I keep forgetting to add this, but I also think that quality of life is something that should be accounted for when debating this. How much does a cow need to fear predators when it's under the watch of a farmer? (keep in mind, my defense is for traditional-type farms, not the admittedly abhorrent factory farms, from which I don't buy any meat). Up until its last day, it is living essentially a cow vacation. Plenty of grass to eat, maybe the occasional milking but other than that, it's generally less stressful (assuming animals feel stress at all, which I'm assuming you would believe if you believe animals can suffer, as stress is the basis for suffering) up until the very last second. So, in ultimate terms of maximum hedons versus stressors per lifetime, livestock does pretty damn well.

[Celda]

[STA-CITE]>In a day, I eat maybe 1/3 of a cow or 1/2 of a chicken if I'm hungry. If I were eating veggies, I'd consume several plants. I consider my 1 chicken/2 days to be morally equivalent to the 8 heads of lettuce/day [END-CITE]There is no logical reason to believe that plants have any sentience. But even if God came down and asserted that plants were even more intelligent and aware than humans, then your argument is still 100% false. Killing plants to feed to chickens so humans can eat chickens results in 10x more plant death than simply killing plants for humans to eat.

[Mavericgamer]

Only if they eat food that humans can eat. This is why I prefer cows, because their food is never eaten by humans. I am under the impression that many chickens eat seeds. I know that wild chickens eat insects (which is either just as bad or not so much) In any case, the point isn't it being true or false: my point is that making the leap from "animals feel pain" to "animals feel suffering" is unfounded, just like the leap from "some plants feel sensations" to "plants feel pain" There is no evidence that chickens or cows are self-aware.

[Celda]

[STA-CITE]>Only if they eat food that humans can eat. This is why I prefer cows, because their food is never eaten by humans. [END-CITE]Huh? Cows need to eat some sort of plants if you want to raise them for humans to eat. These plants must be killed for the cows to survive. Therefore, your fallacious argument that not eating meat is just as bad as eating meat, since a vegetarian diet still results in plant death, is completely invalid. [STA-CITE]>In any case, the point isn't it being true or false: my point is that making the leap from "animals feel pain" to "animals feel suffering" is unfounded, just like the leap from "some plants feel sensations" to "plants feel pain" [END-CITE][STA-CITE]>There is no evidence that chickens or cows are self-aware. [END-CITE]I am sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about. Your statements are completely false, and your arguments are logically invalid.

[Mavericgamer]

I am sorry, but you've made no coherent argument, your statements are completely unfounded, and your arguments are non-existent. You clearly want to argue from a platform of being right without the burden of having to actually prove a single thing, so you're just saying that other people are wrong.

[Celda]

LOL, I already explained how your comments were incorrect. For instance, your claim that eating meat is no worse than eating plants, since both result in the deaths of living entities. Eating meat results in exponentially more death, since plants must die to feed the animals. Even if those plants are not eaten by humans, it is still death of living beings. Sorry, your claim that I have not made any statements is an obvious lie.

[MindReaver5]

1/3 of a cow is.... A lot. It's almost even alot you might say.

[Mavericgamer]

I'm a big guy. I also live in a city. Cows are like up-scaled cats, right? :)

[MindReaver5]

Dude... A quick Google search says cows weigh between 1000 and 1800 pounds, and about 60% of that makes it through as meat... You may be a big guy, but I don't think you're downing 200+ pounds of meat per day... Are you?

[Mavericgamer]

I.... I plead the fifth?

[MindReaver5]

... I'll allow it. Lol

[FarkCookies]

I really like your comment, you make a strong point, but that part about carrot is ridiculous. Carrots don't have nerve system at all. And it is sufficiently studied to know what systems do they have.

[Mavericgamer]

We know what systems they have, and a carrot is possibly a bad example, but many plants do have a distributed nervous systems. What I'm basing my conclusions about eating vegetables on: * We only experience our own personal sensation * We infer other human sensation based on others' communication and seeing how their pain/pleasure acts like ours * We infer animal experience based on their mimicking the expressions that we see on other humans when they experience their sensations * Plants lack the biology to express as animals do, and have a different nerve structure so that we can't accurately measure these things even with modern tools * Some plants, however, can mimic some of the traits that animals exhibit when experiencing the pain sensation (ferns tensing up upon a pin-prick) From this, I infer that plants with a distributed nervous system may experience pain, at least to some percent of an animal's ability to experience pain, even if the biology of the plant doesn't allow it to express that. Further, I infer that we are more likely to overlook that fact since we are not 100% sure what we're looking for. The fact that some plants both react to a pain stimulus and that same stimulus gets suppressed when an anesthetic is introduced seems particularly strong evidence that plants with a distributed nerve system can feel some non-zero amount of pain.

[FarkCookies]

Reaction to external stimulus is not sign of pain. Even nerve system is not enough for pain to exist. You don't provide any single respectable scientific source on the fact that some plants have nerve system. And that they can experience pain. You can't just infer *a priori* that plants can feel pain just like that. Edit: I can easily make a robot that can fake pain even better then some animals (insects for example). There is even no consensus [[1]](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1sgfcg/do_insects_and_other_small_animals_feel_pain_how/), [[2]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_invertebrates), [[3]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_crustaceans) about every animal and you are discussing pain in plants for real.

[Mavericgamer]

In reply to the edit: Yes, I could do the same. I could also do a "football/soccer flop" and fake pain when I'm not in it. I could even make the robot do that for important things like when it was detecting structural damage, because if you can invoke empathy, it is an important survival trait. But at that point, philosophically, isn't it just that we have created a being that can feel pain?

[FarkCookies]

Not by any meaningful definition of pain. You equate pain and response to negative stimulus.

[Mavericgamer]

What else is pain than a response to a negative stimulus? I believe that is the *only* meaningful definition of pain.

[FarkCookies]

Ah it is cool then. Your rules, your game.

[Mavericgamer]

I'm making logical leaps, and I'm aware of that. Part of it is that I'm making the same logical leaps that people who say that animals are feeling suffering are making, just larger and more obvious. [Here they talk about some studies](http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants) about plant intelligence. To quote: [STA-CITE]>The new research, he says, is in a field called plant neurobiology — which is something of a misnomer, because even scientists in the field don't argue that plants have neurons or brains. [END-CITE][STA-CITE]>"They have analagous structures," Pollan explains. "They have ways of taking all the sensory data they gather in their everyday lives ... integrate it and then behave in an appropriate way in response. And they do this without brains, which, in a way, is what's incredible about it, because we automatically assume you need a brain to process information." [END-CITE][STA-CITE]>And we assume you need ears to hear. But researchers, says Pollan, have played a recording of a caterpillar munching on a leaf to plants — and the plants react. They begin to secrete defensive chemicals — even though the plant isn't really threatened, Pollan says. "It is somehow hearing what is, to it, a terrifying sound of a caterpillar munching on its leaves." [END-CITE]So, yes, I am making a lot of assumptions about the plants being able to experience pain, but there isn't *no* evidence for it, and it is *certainly* as big of a leap for someone else to say that because a brain and neurons don't exist, pain can't exist. EDIT: reworded a couple of things in the first paragraph.

[jabrodo]

[Source for plants being anesthetized and reacting to 'pain' stimuli.](http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/web/video/titles/12151/do-plants-respond-to-pain)

[Mavericgamer]

Thanks for that; I was searching national geographic plant pain and getting nothing; mixed up smithsonian and nat geo for whatever reason.

[FarkCookies]

Yes, we can assume that nerve system and some sort of nerve center are absolutely required for pain. The whole notion of pain is basically "what and how we feel". There are discussions about some animals not really feeling pain despite having nerves. Pain is basically a function of nerve system, it is not a thing on it's own. You compare lack of evidence with abusing terminology. Unless we have a clear definition that plants feel pain it is safe to assume that they don't, it is not leap, it is scientific skepticism.

[Mavericgamer]

As far as animals are concerned, nerves are required for a sense of *touch*; we *know* that is what nerves do. If they were *actually* required for *all tactile sensation*, if they were *the only way touch happened*, the Mimosa would be impossible, as it would have no way of actually *being stimulated by a tactile sensation* since it has no nerves or neurons, but *that is exactly what it does*, so we know that they have *some mechanism* to experience tactile sensation. Given that prior, and given that pain is a specific type of tactile sensation, it is completely within bounds to say that plant pain is possible.

[FarkCookies]

No, pain is not a specific type of tactile sensation, it is special type of stimulus [[1]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain#Nociceptive), [[2]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noxious_stimulus). "Intensive" theory, that a pain signal can be generated by intense enough stimulation of any sensory receptor, has been soundly disproved. [[3]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain#Theory)

[ZippityZoppity]

What about Option 4: You hate animals and you want to see them killed. View. Changed.

[Anticarnist]

Shall we rule out sociopathy/psychopathy?

[ProjectShamrock]

[STA-CITE]> Shall we rule out sociopathy/psychopathy? [END-CITE]What about bees? Have you ever been stung by a bee while minding your own business because that buzzy idiot decided your hat was a good place to hang out or that your bottle of soda belonged to him instead and stung you for holding it? Bees are jerks, and enslaving them doesn't seem like such a bad thing, and I'll gladly eat their vomit or whatever honey is considered.

[slf1452]

Technically, it is another option. Albeit probably not very common.

[Waylander0719]

I mean, maybe you just hate those animals in particular, like you mom was trampled to death by cows, your father was eaten alive by pigs infront of you and well, fuck chickens those dumb birds are so tasty!

[fayryover]

lol, I normally hate the thought of killing animals but a coyote killed my cat and I now don't feel bad when I think of the neighbors hunting them.

[Mavericgamer]

This made me laugh more than anything thus far today, thank you for that.

[ZippityZoppity]

I demand vengeance against all pig-kind! Only then may my father rest in peace.

[ZippityZoppity]

Hmm maybe if it makes it easier for you. Although I can imagine someone that has empathy for humans but none for other animals.

[mrgoodnighthairdo]

I don't believe that's possible. If you can recognize the suffering of a human, surely you can at least recognize the suffering of another species of mammal.

[ZippityZoppity]

[What is it like to be a bat?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F) We can ascertain that mammals behave in a way which shows that they probably feel pain, but it's virtually impossible for us given our current understanding of the brain for us to determine that they suffer in human sense.

[mrgoodnighthairdo]

Empathy is the ability recognize and share emotion and feelings. Simply because I cannot know what it is to be a bat does not mean I cannot understand when a bat is, for example, suffering.

[ZippityZoppity]

This may be the case for you, but I don't think it's impossible to find a human which lacks empathy for animals but still maintains it for people. Why do you think that's not the case?

[mrgoodnighthairdo]

Do you understand what empathy is?

[ZippityZoppity]

Yes, can you answer my question?

[mrgoodnighthairdo]

Are you saying that it's possible to recognize emotion in humans but not in any other animal? Are there cases of this? Like, one might recognize fear in a human but not in a dog? Or pain in a human but not in a cat? Is that what you're saying? Anything is possible, I guess, but it doesn't really make any sense. Emotional responses in humans aren't that far removed from other mammals.

[NuclearStudent]

Personally, not really. I have a viscreal, emotional reaction when I hear or see horrific injuries or deaths from the news or see them in person. I only felt mildly disappointed when I saw a chicken crushed to death and it's entrails spilled upwards as it died. I would kill an animal again and again to watch it die, and jot down the exact time of cessation of brain function perfectly fine. Again, I would be somewhat annoyed if it made a mess and I would scoot back in my chair in response. I can look at a sausage and know perfectly well it was a gory looking thing covered in mucus chopped out of the gut of a creature that may or may not have screamed as it died, assuming that the bolt guns missed and the cow bled out more slowly. I have difficulty eating ice cream when I think about the man-minutes of human life a bite of ice cream is worth, and the people that statistically die along the supply chain just to made a few treats.

[Anticarnist]

Good point, although I regard that as speciesism. I do have a Christian friend who is extremely charitable. She's a carer, a foster mother and a complete romantic who writes novels about angels. She 's obviously an all-round good and kind person, but she eats meat. I rationalise this by realising that helping people is her passion, and perhaps her religion justifies a moral distinction between humans and non-human animals. Doesn't the Bible claim something along the lines of that animals were created for the enjoyment of humans (I haven't read it myself)?

[Yxoque]

Serious question: What are you doing about all the murder that goes on in nature? If killing animals for food is murder, than every predator is a murderer.

[Anticarnist]

A lion kills a gazelle because it needs to eat to survive. As humans, with a higher understanding for the suffering of others, and no real need to eat animals, eggs or dairy, we don't have to (in my part of the world at least). Also, if you don't like the idea of your cat being stabbed in the throat, how is that any different to the cow you pay to have stabbed in the throat when you purchase beef?

[Yxoque]

I'm slowly cutting down on my meat consumption, but the reasons are unrelated how I might feel about my pet being killed. I don't really see animals as big moral factors. If I had a cat and it would be brutally killed, I'd be sad because of the emotional connection, similar to how I would be sad if someone destroyed my childhood teddy bear. I don't feel sad about the cows being killed for my burger. (For several reasons that I don't want to get into here.) [STA-CITE]> A lion kills a gazelle because it needs to eat to survive. [END-CITE][STA-CITE]> As humans, with a higher understanding for the suffering of others, and no real need to eat animals, eggs or dairy, we don't have to (in my part of the world at least). [END-CITE]As humans, with a higher understanding for the suffering of others we should make sure lions no longer need to kill gazelles to minimize global suffering. Steps should be taken into this direction.

[Anticarnist]

Serious question: Would you find footage showing [the cruelty of the meat industry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDdlDYWG7no) distressing? (WARNING: graphic content). Or do you consider the suffering of other animals completely irrelevant? I'm just trying to see it from others' perspectives. Feel free to ignore this if this falls under the reasons you said you'd rather not get into). [STA-CITE]>As humans, with a higher understanding for the suffering of others we should make sure lions no longer need to kill gazelles to minimize global suffering. Steps should be taken into this direction. [END-CITE]Who knows, maybe synthetic meat will solve that one in the future! People are indeed working on it (not primarily for lions, but yeah haha)

[TheNicestMonkey]

[STA-CITE]>Good point, although I regard that as speciesism. [END-CITE]I don't think Racism implies psychopathy. You can be mentally normal and still harbor abhorrent ideas.

[ZippityZoppity]

I think it's fairly normal to be a speciesist. I want to make note that I'm not trying to argue from a point of naturalism in regards to what ought to be done, but that it shouldn't be that surprising when we encounter people that are that way. I mean hell, it's hard enough for many people to empathize with *each other*, and you're asking them to try to put themselves in the hooves of a cow? It's just beyond the scope for many people unless they seriously put the time in to think about it, and they've got their own lives to worry about. To address your last question, yes, the bible states that all animals were put on earth by God to serve man. There were rules against eating certain kinds, but overall the idea was that humans have dominion over all. In which case, there is no cognitive dissonance, but this would probably fall under your 2nd line of reasoning.

[Anticarnist]

[STA-CITE]>I think it's fairly normal to be a speciesist. I want to make note that I'm not trying to argue from a point of naturalism in regards to what ought to be done, but that it shouldn't be that surprising when we encounter people that are that way. [END-CITE]Yes, speciesism is indeed the norm and I appreciate you taking the time to comment. I asked this question so as to keep myself grounded in what other justifications my loved ones around me didn't have the same epiphany I did (as it may not necessary be the same reasons I had for not going vegan sooner). [STA-CITE]>I mean hell, it's hard enough for many people to empathize with each other, and you're asking them to try to put themselves in the hooves of a cow? It's just beyond the scope for many people unless they seriously put the time in to think about it, and they've got their own lives to worry about. [END-CITE]A very good reminder, thank you. Not everyone is as obsessed with philosophy, psychology and nature as I am, just as I don't concern myself with keeping extremely up to date on world politics and Amnesty International petitions. I'd still class it as option 3 though :P

[shinkouhyou]

I think restricting this concept to the meat industry limits us to a "vegetarian/vegan lifestyle vs. carnivore lifestyle" debate, when it's actually a lot deeper than that. I know, for instance, that components in my smartphone and laptop are made of minerals that were mined by slave labor in Africa. I know that the chocolates I love to eat contain, in all likelihood, cacao that was farmed by people living in truly deplorable conditions. I know that the medication I take was almost certainly tested on research animals who lived short, sad lives. I know that there's a good chance that the shirt I'm wearing was produced by underpaid, overworked labors who might have even been children. I know that the salad I'm planning to eat for lunch contains ingredients that were probably farmed in environmentally destructive ways that contribute to climate change. I know that my leftover Christmas cookies, made by my vegetarian mother, still contain eggs that probably came from a battery farm. I know that by purchasing my knockoff Keurig coffee from Wal-Mart, I'm supporting a corporation that exploits everything it touches. And that't the ethical weight of just the things that are in arm's reach of me! Aren't we all choosing Option 3 for most of the ethical conflicts in our lives? I think people quickly reach a point of ethical fatigue where they simply *can't* care anymore. A completely ethical lifestyle is probably not possible without completely rejecting the modern world. That doesn't mean I can't try to *reduce* my impact on the world... but I have to accept that I will *never* be able to fully live within my own values.

[Scimitar66]

[STA-CITE]> I think people quickly reach a point of ethical fatigue where they simply can't care anymore. A completely ethical lifestyle is probably not possible without completely rejecting the modern world. [END-CITE]It seems as though we can all only choose and work towards one small change, and hope that we can collectively make a difference over the course of generations.

[ja1896]

This is a great answer, and I'd add that we have limited resources (time, energy money) to support causes we believe in while still treating ourselves as well as possible in life. Different issues are more or less accessible for different people to change. If I stopped eating meat, I wouldn't have enough food that I liked to eat. I couldn't do it, even if I wanted to. But I'm more and more conscious every year or conserving energy, and there are other ways I try to do my part. It's all about where you draw the line on what is important enough/efficient enough to change that it's worth taking action.

[VortexMagus]

This is how I feel about it. Every dollar someone spends crusading about the plight of cows is a dollar that could be feeding starving children in India. I know there are tons of endangered species and that we need to develop more ways to combat cancer, but maybe we should consider our priorities and consider first donating to orphanages in Romania or freshwater projects in the Sahara. Y'know, deal with the immediate problems like malnutrition or genocide before we worry about the inhumane suffering of cows.

[Anticarnist]

I see what you're getting at. It's easier to forget and ignore because there's too much injustice in the world if you tally it all up. I'd still consider what you described as being the third option on my original post, but it's a very detailed version of it that explains it well. [STA-CITE]>That doesn't mean I can't try to reduce my impact on the world... but I have to accept that I will never be able to fully live within my own values. [END-CITE]This would also be my reasoning if I were vegan but still wouldn't take a flight out to help build a school in Africa. It would also make sense if I was building a school in African but wasn't vegan. If I was doing absolutely nothing to aid any of the values I believe in, then it wouldn't make any sense however.

[shinkouhyou]

Yeah, I think there's just a limited number of things that people are capable of caring about at one time, and issues that are of personal relevance are always going to carry more weight. So while someone might take Option 1 on a personally significant issue that has a lot of meaning to them, the limitations of the human mind force them to take Option 3 on a whole lot of other issues. So somebody who takes Option 3 on a particular issue may not be making a true choice to *ignore* that issue. They're just prioritizing their mental resources. Without prioritizing those resources, there's a risk of "compassion fatigue," which you see frequently among people in empathy-intensive occupations (especially medicine, education, and other fields where issues outside the individual's control tend to produce strong feelings of frustration and futility). I do care about the welfare of food animals, and I do think that there are ways to produce meat in ways that are at least more humane if not more "ethical." I support these efforts when they're available. But I also think that the welfare of food animals is part of a much larger constellation of interrelated "food production issues" that involve everything from environmental impacts to worker safety to the corporatization of agriculture to government subsidies, and that without some major changes to those other "food production issues" then there probably won't be significant improvement in animal welfare. So to that end, it's good that people have different Option 1 priorities to attack the problems from multiple sides.

[KopiteSpartan]

You sir, are one articulate dude. Bravo.

[Anticarnist]

I thought they were too! What they said has actually allowed me to look at other points of view better and with less frustration :)

[Anticarnist]

Thank you, whilst my original view still stands, you've altered it in such a way that I now feel a little able to understand others better and in a less scornful light at least! =/= (EDIT: Did I do this symbol right? you're the winner btw) (EDIT 2: done!) ∆

[DeltaBot]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/shinkouhyou. ^[[History](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/shinkouhyou)] ^[[Wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltabot)][[Code](https://github.com/alexames/DeltaBot)][[Subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/DeltaBot/)]

[slf1452]

I think you need to edit your post, it didn't award a delta. Use the little box to the bottom right and check your comment. You will see the triangle if it works.

[Anticarnist]

Thank you so much! Can't believe I missed that bit :)