Agriculture = plant abuse

[S.A.M.]

With all the information we're uncovering about plants e.g. how they move to higher altitudes to maintain their environment with climate change, how they respond to stimuli and may even have feelings which they communicate to each other, does this imply that agriculture is a form of plant abuse? Is the factory farming of plants ethical under these considerations?

What do you think?

 

[baftan]

I wouldn't directly call it "plant abuse" as we have domesticated the plants that we consume, we don't bother wild plants so often. If this is an abuse, it has roots in agricultural revolution of 10 000 years ago, we haven't invented this regime recently. What we largely consume (wheat or rice) have since become our slaves. We simply don't give a toss about their feelings. Until the day we manage to develop an alternative and artificial -non alive- food sources, these basic plants will remain as our slaves, unless we sophisticate a brand new way of existence that does not depend on food consumption.

Of course, our new slaves would also be harvested in such a fashion that this would be read as "abuse of atoms". A box of thinking chocolate: Where does an abuse start (plenty) and where does it end (none)? What is our responsibilities towards nature if nature doesn't have any responsibility in our affairs? Is our survival more important than anything else? If our current dependencies are damaged, do we have an alternative methods to survive?

Current agriculture policy can be defined as land, atmosphere or fresh water abuse due to its industrial methods and increase in global demand for food. If we don't control any of these excessive numbers, planet will not be able to respond. Thanks to modern science, we now know that everything has an incapacity level. Reality in its highest form.

What about "rights" of nature? Well, there is only once known source of what is called "rights": Humans. Therefore, if "we" define nature, plants, atoms etc. have some "rights", they will have it (although they don't actually care); otherwise they will not have any "rights".

 

[Cifo]

In a true sense, plants are alive, respond to stimuli, show some sort of intelligence, reproduce, defend themselves, grow, move, etc; however, they do these things on such a expanded time scale that's hard for us to perceive. They are obviously a life form.

 

[cosmictraveler]

does this imply that agriculture is a form of plant abuse?

No, not necessarily because through agriculture there are actually more plants being produced, better types of certain plants being made and plants being relocated all over the world where they would never have been found before. They have become stronger , healthier and sometimes bigger through various chemicals and fertilizers they are given in some instances. Variations of plants have also been made which might not ever have become possible through their own way of life. While it may be true that some are mistreated they seem to have their own way of getting back at humans through giving humans hives, scratches and making humans have bloating and gas. Some can even cause death amongt humans who do not know how to treat them when they are eaten.

 

[jmpet]

As a vegetarian, I consider the entire plant kingdom my food source. No bad feelings either.

 

[lightgigantic]

With all the information we're uncovering about plants e.g. how they move to higher altitudes to maintain their environment with climate change, how they respond to stimuli and may even have feelings which they communicate to each other, does this imply that agriculture is a form of plant abuse? Is the factory farming of plants ethical under these considerations?

What do you think?

Depends whether one determines all feelings to be on filtered through the same level of consciousness.

 

[James R]

I'm not touching this thread with a barge pole.

 

[birch]

it depends upon the plant. for instance, fruit trees produce the fruit without any harm to it's life. it's mean to be given. it's like expressed milk.

 

[S.A.M.]

I'm not touching this thread with a barge pole.

don't worry about it. its a thought experiment.

it depends upon the plant. for instance, fruit trees produce the fruit without any harm to it's life. it's mean to be given. it's like expressed milk.

I don't know that, are there any trees that drop fruit before its overripe? Does the tree feel bad when you pluck its fruits and eat them? They are kinda like the kids of the trees yes? If someone were to pluck your "fruit" would you be okay with it because you were going to give them up eventually anyway?

 

[Gustav]

a tree bears fruit to coax us humans into an insidious form of slavery. it makes us unwitting participants in its bid for world domination. a utterly inimical symbiosis of sorts. there seems to be an implicit consent on the part of the tree as it prepares and packages its happy meals in captivating colors, aromas and taste

/witless slave mode

we disperse their seeds in return. a myriad of insects do the same with pollen acquired by feeding on the nectar found in flowers

Evolving together: the biology of symbiosis

 

[Mr MacGillivray]

Agriculture is plant genocide.

They are chopping down belgium sized pieces of rainforest every year in indonesia to make place for palm oil farms, so the European union can make their heavily subsidized biofuel deadlines.

Doesn't matter that a gigantic amount of greenhouse gasses is released each time a piece of rainforest is burnt/chopped down.

Never mind that there isn't enough land any more in indonesia to feed its own population to insure the production of palm oil.

Never mind that the rainforest and the people dependent on it are raped/ and stolen from by massive corporations, protected by the indonesian army and government officials.

That Obama asshole said Indonesia was an example to the world, but if that is the example I hope the world is heading for a nuclear war soon.

 

[Tiassa]

Thoughts at twenty past four in the morning

I don't know that, are there any trees that drop fruit before its overripe?

Well, sure. Wind and rain, among other things, can knock fruit from the tree, and this is evolutionary, too.

But Huxley wrote, in Jesting Pilate, of a situation in India in the 1920s. I believe the issue was described to him, though he might have actually witnessed it.

But, basically, the belief on eating cows at the time permitted their consumption under dire circumstances if the animal died of natural causes—e.g., no slaughter. So poor farmers would do things like huddle the animals together in the barn and then turn them out into the weather once they were sweaty and warm in the hopes that one would catch ill and die.

So suddenly I have this image in my mind of a teenager stealing a car to "accidentally" run it into a tree and collect the fruit that falls.

I know, I know. Perverse.

But it's that time of morning, I guess.

 

[Stryder]

While plant's are indeed living organisms, the difference between them and an animal is they don't function based upon one centralised brain. This means that plants can have leaves removed without killing the plant, as for eating fruit... Darwin's Divergence would suggest if left to their natural devices, plants would compete for area to grow. In some respects removing fruits and plants thins out the overall competition.

One good thing about vegetarianism is that you are less likely to suffer serious diseases from your food source, to my knowledge there is no Mad Potato Disease or Carrot Flu. You are however open to toxicology and perhaps bacteria/fungi if you've left food sources to gain mold (Or a bit of both in the case of Ergot Poisoning)

That's however the main reason to stick to common plants that are already deemed edible.

 

[birch]

I don't know that, are there any trees that drop fruit before its overripe? Does the tree feel bad when you pluck its fruits and eat them? They are kinda like the kids of the trees yes? If someone were to pluck your "fruit" would you be okay with it because you were going to give them up eventually anyway?

uh, can you stop pretending to be dumb and over-reaching??

No, it's not like it's children and if it were the children would not be fruit but fly or run. they wouldn't just fall to the ground to rot/die, now would they? so in that sense, it doesn't matter if it's plucked early or it falls to the ground to be eaten as it will rot anyways. if it's eaten, it's just going through one more process. they are meant to be eaten and the seeds are then replanted!

DUH.

 

[nietzschefan]

We need a 2nd part to the quote (Blake, I think)"The worm does not hate the plow that cuts it..."

Me: "...The human does not hate the CO2 that chokes it."

 

[Pandaemoni]

With all the information we're uncovering about plants e.g. how they move to higher altitudes to maintain their environment with climate change, how they respond to stimuli and may even have feelings which they communicate to each other, does this imply that agriculture is a form of plant abuse? Is the factory farming of plants ethical under these considerations?

What do you think?

This is, I've always believed, the next step the vegetarian movement will take once we invent wholly artificial foodstuffs that are able to sustain us. At that point abiotarians will look down their noses at vegetarians and omnivores for eating formerly living beings of any kingdom.

For the moment, though, unless one is willing to die of malnutrition, plants and animals are definitely on the menu.

 

[lightgigantic]

I also don't think that hidden camera footage from an agricultural plant would be likely to warrant an adult content warning on account of the graphic nature (or agricultural plants supplicating the legislation of professional visitors - as in the case of vets who are called out to abattoirs - to strictly prohibit them from approaching media outlets with any sort of information pertaining to the goings on of the premises)

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

. . . . and may even have feelings . . . .

The article you linked to is about some wacky thing the Swiss are doing. These are the people who protect tax cheaters and outlaw minarets. Does anyone take anything they do seriously?

 

[S.A.M.]

The article you linked to is about some wacky thing the Swiss are doing. These are the people who protect tax cheaters and outlaw minarets. Does anyone take anything they do seriously?

There are some experiments with music and plants as well. Have you read any of the work conducted at the Bose Institute?

There is also the work of Cleve Baxter Backster*

Backster decided on impulse to attach his polygraph electrodes to the now-famous dracaena in his office, then water the plant and see if the leaves responded. Finding that the plant indeed reacted to this event, he decided to see what would happen if he threatened it, and formed in his mind the idea of lighting a match to the leaf where the electrodes were attached.

And that was when something happened that forever changed Baxter's life and ours. For the plant didn't wait for him to light the match. It reacted to his thoughts!

Through further research, Baxter found that it was his intent, and not merely the thought itself, that brought about this reaction.

He also discovered that plants were aware of each other, mourned the death of anything (even the bacteria killed when boiling water is poured down the drain), strongly disliked people who killed plants carelessly or even during scientific research, and fondly remembered and extended their energy out to the people who had grown and tended them, even when their "friends" were far away in both time and space.

In fact, he found, plants can react "in the moment" to events taking place thousands of miles away. And not only are they psychic, they also are prophetic, anticipating negative and positive events, including weather.

One of the most important things that Backster discovered was that, instead of going ballistic, plants that find themselves in the presence of overwhelming danger simply become catatonic! This phenomenon has posed endless problems for those researchers who, unlike Backster, do not respect the sentience of their subjects. Under such circumstances, the plants they are studying evince no reaction whatsoever. They simply "check out."

http://www.viewzone.com/plants.html

*lay source

 

[iceaura]

He also discovered that plants were aware of each other, mourned the death of anything (even the bacteria killed when boiling water is poured down the drain), strongly disliked people who killed plants carelessly or even during scientific research, and fondly remembered and extended their energy out to the people who had grown and tended them, even when their "friends" were far away in both time and space.

In fact, he found, plants can react "in the moment" to events taking place thousands of miles away. And not only are they psychic, they also are prophetic, anticipating negative and positive events, including weather.

Extended their "energy"? Read the intentions of conscious beings?

They can't even read the intentions of moths and beetles - reacting only to the actual damage.

Plants often reproduce by suicide, and by nature produce their fruit to be eaten, their nuts to be harvested and stored by squirrels for food, their wood to be burned, their leaf blades to be grazed, etc. Most have very short lives, and make many mistakes with regard to things like the weather - even the local weather, let alone the weather thousands of miles away - jsut as if they were simply growing and behaving blindly and unconsciously according to their nature.