brocolli's right to life

S

spacemanspiff

czar of things
Registered Senior Member
Plenty of people think it is wrong to kill an animal for any reason. But what about other living things? what is the key difference between plants and animals that makes killing one for food ok or not ok.


it is suffering? we can kill animals with out suffering.

is it consciousness? if so I'm wondering how you can tell that animals are self aware and plants are not. is a chicken really self-aware?

is it that animals are so damn cute? i know some damn ugly animals;)


aparently plants lives mean nothing while animals lives are important. I'm wondering if there is a reason for this.
 
for this to work u would have to prove that plants are alive in the same sense as animals... and that they also experience pain.. if you can't prove that, then there is no emotional factor workin here... if someone successfully proved that plants feel pain and its wrong to eat em, what the hell are humans gonna eat? no plants and no animals... maybe the hardcore scientists know that plants experience pain but dont wanna let it out cuz it might cause chaos... groceries abandoned.. :D

on a serious note... as i said before... there has to be a 'pain' factor as an initial argument bcuz vegetarians do argue more than just the brutality of killing... they get all environmental on you and throw arguments of biodiversity and blahh blahh blahh..
but overall a great topic..
 
why is pain a factor? he already said it's quite possable to kill animals painlessly. A steel rod is injected into cows heads for instance, they don't feel a damn thing.

Would you be more impressed if maybe a tomato screamed in pain?

I think that what it comes down to, is that a cucumber doesn't have big baby seal eyes to look at you with.
 
To me pain is the factor and endangerment, I don't think plants feel pain but they could, actually I remember a teacher told me flowers scream when you pluck them when I was a kid but she was probably just crazy. Hopefully.
Mystech, you are right that most people only care about things that look appealing to them. I know heaps of people that want to save something cute but think all of some ugly animal like the crocodile should be killed. Retards I like to call them.
All I like to see is the eco-system running smoothly which requires everything alive and working within it. I only hate the way humans inflict pain because the way we do things is always so unnatural and evilishly bizarre and I imagine it to be very emotionally traumatic for the animal.
The other day I was watching the original tarzan movie. The way they thought about animals back then was horrific. A woman was playing with lion cubs and saying how cute they were and just then the mother showed up, a man ran over and shot the lion mother and the woman said "thank you ever so much" like it was the right thing to do. Damn people back then were dumb, I'd love a time machine just so I could go back and punch them in the face. And the worst part was they obviously really shot a lion for the movie. To see an animal like the lion get shot is very disturbing, it was never designed to get shot and it becomes apparent when it happens. It leaped into the air as if trying to escape the bullet in it, it spun around in a confused struggle for survival, usually its agility can get it out of pickles even if only for a while but there was no escaping the bullet and it eventually lay down to die, it was unnatural and wrong. The dumb bitch should have got torn apart for playing with its fuckin babies if it was real life and this was only a shitty fuckin movie and they would have released a lion from a cage seconds before it got shot. I hate humans.
 
A steel rod is injected into cows heads for instance, they don't feel a damn thing.
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how is that painless? a rod goin in da head? im not arguin with ya, but humour me...
 
Originally posted by sycoindian
how is that painless? a rod goin in da head? im not arguin with ya, but humour me...
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Its funny I litterally just saw this procedure take place half an hour ago on tv(some mad cow disease special) and I got to say it really does look painless. I've seen a cow get shot before and it quivered on the ground a little, but this thing litterally knocks them out cold straight away. No quivering, they simply hit the ground dead in less than a split second.
 
No quivering, they simply hit the ground dead in less than a split second.
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just bcuz it was a split second doesnt mean there wasn't pain felt in that much time... its relatively less, but its still pain...

okk..back to the main topic... as i said, ud have to prove that plants are alive in the same sense as animals.. its not how easily we can kill animals without pain, they are obviously way more alive than plants.... so unless, someone can prove conclusively that plants are alive, there is really no argument.. im not just askin from an obvious perception point of view... just prove that they are living creatures... i can already see wat argument im gonna get...
 
i'm sure you saw this coming

"they are obviously way more alive than plants.... so unless, someone can prove conclusively that plants are alive, there is really no argument.. im not just askin from an obvious perception point of view... just prove that they are living creatures... i can already see wat argument im gonna get..."

plants do all the things required to be defined as alive. grow, reproduce, ect. does anyone actually thing plants are not alive? ask a biologist. there is a huge different between a plant and a rock.

are they alive in the same sense as animals? i don't know. what do animals do that is so different that warrants special protection. is it because they intereract with humans, because they are more like us than plants. it's really not that obvious that animals are "way more alive". there are plants that move around and eat animals, there are also animals that just sit there much like some plants.

maybe this is really all about certain living this being "more like us". I've notticed that the animals that are more taboo to kill and eat are often the ones that humans feel they have a bond with or something like that. at this point i'd like to reference an episode of Ally McBeal(didn't see that coming did you)

this guy makes a huge stink because this restaraunte serves him horse. he claims that horses are a noble beast and that killing a horse is wrong, but killing cows is somehow different and not so bad. sounds slightly illogical to me.

this is what i think is going on here. there isn't really a good ideological reason to not kill animals but to kill plants. but there maybe some sentimental and/or pragmatic reasons.

ps: remember when i say kill i mean for food only.
 
there are these people that cannot feel pain (because of a disorder). Is it ok to kill them?
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ur draggin an entirely different issue here spurious... maybe there are cannibalistic societies that might engage in that behaviour.. i wouldn't really know... if a society thinks its ok to kill humans to consume em, then they might consider killing off humans with disorders to eat em cuz they wouldn't feel pain.. its a totally different topic...

plants do all the things required to be defined as alive. grow, reproduce, ect. does anyone actually thing plants are not alive?
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but do these physical processes contribute to being considered 'alive'? to be alive u wud have to have an awareness of the surroundings and to be able to constitute urself as 'living'.. there is no form of intelligence that is exhibited besides the basic behaviour needed for survival.. that is true in even carnivorous plants... its not like they're truly plotting to catch insects or watevah.. they have mechanisms that trap other creatures which they consume... also to be aware of the outside activity, you would need a form of intelligence which would mean a system that can think.. like animals n humans have.. the brain... in plants its just a reaction to a certain stimulus... that doesn't necessarily mean they're alive just bcuz they are responsive...

are they alive in the same sense as animals? i don't know. what do animals do that is so different that warrants special protection. is it because they intereract with humans, because they are more like us than plants.
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it doesnt necessarily have to do with human interaction.. i've known ppl who love their greenhouses more than human beings... its just that animals exhibit a sense of intelligence even tho how minute it would be compared to humans.. plants dont..

there are plants that move around and eat animals
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there are plants that move around on outta their own volition? can u gimme a reference to that... id be interested in checkin it out..

I've notticed that the animals that are more taboo to kill and eat are often the ones that humans feel they have a bond with or something like that.
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of course.. animals that ppl have a certain personal, religious connection to will be taboo to eat... ppl wont normally eat dogs in n.america, but in south east asia they are consumed... in france u got frog legs... of course some stuff ppl dont eat cuz it doesnt appeal to their taste buds... i have a hard time with eatin goat liver cuz i dont like the taste... there are always gonna be certain animals in diff cultures that ppl wont eat due to personal reasons beyond just their taste buds...

at this point i'd like to reference an episode of Ally McBeal(didn't see that coming did you)
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i dont watch that show... but i obviously get ur point...


this is what i think is going on here. there isn't really a good ideological reason to not kill animals but to kill plants. but there maybe some sentimental and/or pragmatic reasons.
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from a vegetarian point of view, there is good reason to consume plants over animals based on the reasons i gave besides the usual 'killin is horror' reasoning...
 
Originally posted by sycoindian
how is that painless? a rod goin in da head? im not arguin with ya, but humour me...
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Dude, it's like being shot in the head, the death blow is dealt so quickly that there's nothing but of a fraction of a second between the infliction of the wound, and death, there isn't even time to feel the pain, you're just gone!
 
Originally posted by sycoindian
just bcuz it was a split second doesnt mean there wasn't pain felt in that much time... its relatively less, but its still pain...

okk..back to the main topic... as i said, ud have to prove that plants are alive in the same sense as animals.. its not how easily we can kill animals without pain, they are obviously way more alive than plants.... so unless, someone can prove conclusively that plants are alive, there is really no argument.. im not just askin from an obvious perception point of view... just prove that they are living creatures... i can already see wat argument im gonna get...
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Well I think it's back to grade school biology class for you, if you don't know that plants have been proven conclusively to be alive in the same sense that animals are. They meet all the same scientific criteria that defines a living organism, and that's that.

I think the question that you are trying to make, is are they sentient.
 
I think the question that you are trying to make, is are they sentient.
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exactly... as i said in my post.. that's the main question... and i do know that plants are living creatures based on a certain criteria.. im just trynna make an opposing argument to have a good discussion.... im not against eating plants or animals.. i like both very much.. :)
 
what if we create a cow that cannot feel pain. Would it be more ok to kill it then?
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spurious... i dont really care if we do or if we dont... i dont mind slaughterin cows for eating purposes.. beef is tasty.. :D
 
Aldous Huxley

Disclaimer: I apologize for the length of this citation. Were there an e-text, I would point you to it.

Aldous Huxley, from Jesting Pilate (ca. 1926):
In one of the laboratories we were shown the instrument which records the beating of a plant's "heart" . . . . (The) minute pulsations which occur in the layer of tissue immeidately beneath the outer rind of the stem, are magnified--literally millions of times--and recorded in a dotted graph on a moving sheet of smoked glass . . . . A grain of caffeine or of camphor affects the plant's "heart" in exctly the same wy as it affects the heart of an animal. The stimulant was added tot he plant's water, and almost immediately the undulations of the graph lengthened out under our eyes and, at the same time, came closer together: the pulse of the plant's "heart" had become more violent and more rapid. After the pick-me-up we andministered poison. A mortal dose of chloroform .... The graph became the record of a death agony. As the poison paralysed the "heart", the ups and downs of the graph flattened out into a horizontal line half-way between the extremes of undulation. But so long as any life remained in the plant, this medial line did not run level, but was jagged with sharp irregular ups and downs that represented in a visible symbol the spasms of a murdered creature desperately struggling for life. After a little while, there were no more ups and downs. The line of dots was quite straight. The plant was dead.

The spectacle of a dying animal affects us panfully; we can see its struggles and, sympathetically, feel something of its pain. The unseen agony of a plant leaves us indifferent. To a being with eyes a million times more sensitive than ours, the struggles of a dying plant would be visible and therefore distressing ... The poison flower manifestly writhes before us. The last moments are so distressingly like those of a man, that we are shocked by the very spectacle of them into a hitherto unfelt sympathy.

Sensitive souls, whom a visit to the slaughterhouse has converted to vegetarianism, will be advised, if they do not want to have their menu further reduced, to keep clear of the Bose Institute. After watching the murder of a plant, they will probably want to confine themselves to a strictly mineral diet. But the new self-denial woudl be as vain as the old. (176-178)
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- Huxley, Aldous. Jesting Pilate: Travels Through India, Burma, Malaya, Japan, China, and America. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

I hate to dump and run, but I'm not sure what to add there. When I was a kid, I read somewhere that trees felt pain, emitting a common frequency called an m-wave when cut by an ax, saw, or otherwise. I cannot find any reference to it at present, so take that for what you will. I'm pretty sure it was a "Charlie Brown Book of Knowledge", with Snoopy and Woodstock as your guides to all manner of fascinating factoids for children six through ten or some such that I read it, but it's amazing how much of what we teach children in neat factoid-capsule form is actually balderdash, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the only person in the world who has ever heard of m-waves.

:m:,
Tiassa :cool:
 
Originally posted by sycoindian
spurious... i dont really care if we do or if we dont... i dont mind slaughterin cows for eating purposes.. beef is tasty.. :D
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I slaughter animals for the sake of science myself. That's even worse than eating beef that has been slaughtered by someone else.
I don't even do it for 'survival'. I do it out of curiosity...am i an animal?
 
Well, you definately are an animal, thats a no-brainer, a strange animal though, a relatively new animal with bizarre priorities.
 
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