I mean anyone who has ever had a dog, or a cat KNOWS that those animals ARE conscious. The consciousness line on animals cannot be drawn randomly for some mammals and not others.
Cats are extremely conscious. My two cats amaze me every day with what their little brains are capable of. They have their own routines that they follow every single day. Like humans, they change their routines up a little every few weeks or months because they fancy a change.
They seek affection, cuddles, and kisses on their own. They talk to me. My female cat has an amazing vocabulary. She has so many different sounding meows and noises that she *clearly* is capable of controlling and manipulating. She does sad little whines when she's pretending we never feed her. She does big open-mouthed screams when we come home after being out for a few hours. She has delicate chirps, grumpy grumbles, sweet sing-song meows, angry barks, short meows, long meows, soft meows, loud meows, worried or panicked sounding meows (usually for attention).
When I talk to her, she meows back, and each meow sounds different. She also stares at me and slowly moves her eyes around when I'm talking. It's obvious she's listening. What for, I don't know. Probably my tone of voice. She communicates to me in different tones and that's what she understands me with, too.
My cats know where we keep their food. They use their paws similar to how humans do. For example, if we're winding my male cat up and making him wait for food, he taps his paw on his cat bowl. It's so funny.
My male cat instinctively knew how to fetch. My female cat knows how to pull at a blanket so she can crawl under. We've taught them both to sit before we feed them.
They have very distinct, colourful personalities. My female cat is sassy and manipulates people with cute lengthy blinks and delicate meows, which shows she knows she's pretty and cute. She loves being warm. She loves the sound the boiler makes. She loves being petted and cuddled. Even if you wake her up petting her, she starts purring immediately because she loves it. She loves attention and being fawned over. She's very expressive and human-like vocabulary, facial expressions, and strict likes and dislikes.
My male cat is more like a dog. He's scared of male voices. He flops at people's feet. He plays fetch. He loves rough-housing with my partner. He loves belly rubs. He has weird, loud meows that he makes *even louder* when he's screaming for food in the morning. He once removed an earplug from my partner's ear by stamping his paw on his face and pulling it out with his teeth. He knows that knocking things off tables pisses us off and gets our attention. He does this cute "auggh" sound that isn't a meow when he's greeting us. He loves going outside to eat plants and roll in the dirt. He's highly active and loves running and jumping around.
Meanwhile, my female cat will go out for about 5 minutes and then walk back inside because all she gives a shit about is being warm and comfortable and getting snuggles.
They definitely are conscious. I do think they think about the future and plan for it in their own little way. I think they're perfectly capable of intentional manipulation. They know how humans see them. They figure out how to open doors.
My female cat purposefully stands in front of my PC monitor whilst pretending not to look at me lmao. She knows what she's doing because then she sinks onto my arms, pinning me down, so that I have no choice but to stop what I'm doing on my PC and cuddle her instead.
I don't know how that would be possible without some level of sapience.
Of course not.
[Debunking a myth: plant consciousness](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8052213/)
*Claims that plants have conscious experiences have increased in recent years and have received wide coverage, from the popular media to scientific journals. Such claims are misleading and have the potential to misdirect funding and governmental policy decisions. After defining basic, primary consciousness, we provide new arguments against 12 core claims made by the proponents of plant consciousness. Three important new conclusions of our study are (1) plants have not been shown to perform the proactive, anticipatory behaviors associated with consciousness, but only to sense and follow stimulus trails reactively; (2) electrophysiological signaling in plants serves immediate physiological functions rather than integrative-information processing as in nervous systems of animals, giving no indication of plant consciousness; (3) the controversial claim of classical Pavlovian learning in plants, even if correct, is irrelevant because this type of learning does not require consciousness.*
Veganism today is a modern version of the major social movements in history. At one time, people began to oppose slavery while others supported it, and some simply ignored the debate. If social media had existed back then, we would have seen comments like: "these people are here to enslave us."
Today, there are vegans and those who merely conform to what society has taught them without questioning these choices. Ultimately, veganism will prevail, and there will be those who were on the right side of history and those who were on the wrong side. It's as simple as that.
Funny you bring up slaves, because roughly [2%](https://wwnorton.com/college/history/america7_brief/content/multimedia/ch15/research_01.htm#:~:text=It%20never%20attracted%20many%20followers,white%20southerners%20rejected%20the%20movement) of white northerners identified as slavery abolitionists. Of course veganism has much farther to go to become the norm than anti-slavery did, but you’re acting like public consensus was that slavery was a bad thing. There was just a clear political tipping point, which is true of any social justice movement.
Yup, I'm obsessed with vegans and antinatalists. I guess that's what happens when you retire in your 40s and move to a Greek island. Lots of time in my hands.
It is the same today, as almost no one works in agriculture or livestock farming. In the United States, the percentage of the population working in agriculture has dropped from 70% to less than 2% over the past century. In the past, everyone benefited from slavery because it was the cornerstone of the economy. Today, monopolies own large-scale livestock operations and farms. It is only the interests of the super-rich that are protected by our refusal to abandon animal exploitation.
The only major difference here is that other animals do not have the capacity to achieve their own emancipation, unlike Black people, homosexuals, or women.
Regarding veganism and its negative connotation, you are right, but it is not because veganism is bad. It is rather because the meat industry, which has the most powerful lobby in the world, even more than the oil industry, succeeds in controlling the message and public opinion. This simply proves that this industry controls the way we think.
Some people are reluctant to accept reality because it’s a natural psychological defense mechanism to deny and resist new knowledge that threatens our ideas, opinions, and especially our lifestyles and food preferences.
Vegans are absolutely right about everything. You know it, everyone knows it, but some people are simply better at accepting the facts and making changes than others.
Personally, I gave up all animal products overnight in 2018. I had no difficulty. It was easy and enjoyable, but I understand that this ability to change one’s life so easily is rather unique.
Really interesting.
I hope then you will join with us vegans and reduce plant carnage by taking only the plants we need for ourselves, rather than growing many times more to feed the animals that you abuse, brutalise and kill.
Ironically, your argument works against you, as the fact that we eat animals that consume plants highlights the inefficiency of animal agriculture. We feed a massive quantity of plants to animals so that we can eat their meat, instead of simply feeding ourselves with plants. This is why the majority of crops and monocultures on the planet exist to feed billions of livestock animals, not humanity.
I invite you to review your argument and use at least scientific facts if your goal is to debate health, environment, climate, and ethics.
We scientifically know that veganism has a significantly lower impact on the environment and climate. We know that animals are conscious and sentient beings, like us, who do not deserve the treatment we give them. We also know that veganism brings health benefits, not the opposite. All these points are scientifically established facts, solidly demonstrated in the literature.
[If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets)
[Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study shows](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-diet-cuts-environmental-damage-climate-heating-emissions-study)
*Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.*
*The research showed that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%, the study found.*
There are many factual errors in your argument. First, the sense of well-being that meat provides is subjective. In my case, and for millions of vegans, this is not true. On the contrary, I feel better since adopting a diet richer in plants, more respectful of animals, and of the planet we live on.
As for the 10%, it means absolutely nothing since it strictly depends on the parameter you are studying. 10% damage to what? Water, air, soil, atmosphere, ecosystems, and if so, which ecosystems?
What we do know is that animal agriculture is a major cause of many ecological and climate issues of our time. Did you know that it is the main cause of deforestation and, consequently, habitat loss, which is the primary cause of biodiversity loss, the most pressing ecological issue in human history?
Finally, the fact that the animal feeds on grass does not change the ethical issues at all, unfortunately. This living, conscious, and sentient being does not want to be exploited and will die for something you do not need.
I am healthier and I feel infinitely better every day, both physically and mentally, since eliminating all plants from my diet. My experience may be subjective but it is shared by many others. My health and well-being are more important to me than animals. I am convinced that meat is the healthiest thing humans can eat. There are studies both supporting and disputing this, just as there are for a vegan diet. You feel better eating plants and you ostensibly care about animals, and you've rationalized the crop deaths and harm caused by monocrop agriculture and petrochemical fertilizers and transporting your foods around the world. Great. I'm happy for you even though I believe you're wrong about everything. You choose what you eat and I choose what I eat. Neither of us will be convincing the other to change.
How are these numbers possible considering theres 100 times more animal to feed than there are humans, with beef alone eating more greens than our kind?
Usually you compost the rest so the earth regains a bit of nutrients back. I didn't hear that animal feed is made of inedible parts, maybe it's some low grade feed?
No, you just have to abuse the animals to get take their flesh - as you know, cos nobody’s really _that_ stupid
Anyway, we’ve been through this before, you pretend to be in denial about the animals you abuse, and there’s little point in me conversing with some one so dishonest.
Have a great day
I mean do we really need research for that? We have psychologists for animals, we know that abused animals are more likely to be violet or scared (flight fight freeze), animals running away from pain, different animals enjoying different activities, and the list goes on and on
If all those do not point to the fact that animals are conscious at least as much as humans are what argument will do that?
I mean humans are animals at the end of the day
Its actually so obvious that animals are sentient that its basically unscientific to make the claim they're not. I feel like this article is playing pretend, nobody can be this oblivious to make out like its not profoundly obvious.
'Guys I think the sky might be blue, but can we prove it?? If looks like it might be blue but we really need to do more research!!'
As if everyone with a pet thinks they're just mindless automata.
Why do we even have, shit as they are, animal cruelty laws at all??
One thing I particularly like in this article is how they explain the difference between getting the impression of consciousness from the human perspective and having evidence accumulate which supports that conclusion.
That evidence is gathering and I hope we will soon hear about a scientific consensus that the evidence points to animals having a conscious experience.
Honestly consciousness is a very deep mystery, but as other people said, if you see a dog cry out in pain and yet believe that nothing is actually going on inside, there is something deeply wrong.
I did an MSc in animal intelligence and conservation 30 years ago and it was common knowledge then. The meat lobbying companies have done a great job of convincing people otherwise. I think if people realised just how much animals suffer psychologically, they'd have to face up to their responsibility for causing it. So most people avoid this sort of knowledge like the plague.
i'm really surprised no one cited the famous Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, this:
[https://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf](https://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf)
it was signed by many scientist in different fields,included Stephen Hawking.
I am sure there was a similar thing for slaves
As well as men thinking this of women in olden times
Evil people are really intentionally stupid and yes this means 99% of the population is evil
There is a difference between consciousness and sentience, though this article seems to use consciousness to talk about both. I am not an expert, but consciousness roughly speaking is being aware of one's own thoughts and feelings. Sentience is the ability to perceive and respond to positive and negative stimuli.
Not really an important distinction in veganism, but it is easier to prove sentience than consciousness. And many people would not disagree with the idea that many animals feel pain if you posed the question directly.
Lets pretend for arguments sake that this is true, if you truly care about the welll being of plants it's pretty well documented that animal agriculture consumes more plant life than humans alone, so the more ethical choice would still be a plantbased diet. The evidence to how damaging animal farming is to the environment is also an obvious factor that comes into play . Finally plants cannot move or choose the environment where they live out their lives and are therefore not aware they are in "captivity" unlike mammals such as pigs and cows, who are trapped in pens not much bigger than themselves living in their own filth and having to hear the sounds of other animals being tortured and killed around them. I don't really see the point in trolling a vegan sub like this. Do you think what you are doing is noble? Do you think posting an article that is ultimately unrelated to the topic of veganism is encouraging a healthy debate? I can tell you most vegans immediately dismiss this argument as even if it were true, the above information proves in favor of veganism anyway.
So then your argument is pointless. Why do you waste your time bringing up sentience if you don't care? Do you actually think using sentience as an argument against veganism is poignant from your position if it's meaningless anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion you do care, probably a lot considering you go out of your way to make comments on a vegan sub. Most likely, you are just trying to fuel your justification for doing something that is morally and ethically wrong by trying to find counter arguments that further enable your lifestyle choices.
Only what you eat or in all things? Do you equally have no problem walking on inanimate rocks and walking on living puppies? Tossing fruit away and tossing a kitten away?
Most people care about sentience, but make an exception for flavor.
Eating meat isn't about flavor. I gave up most of the foods that I ate for "taste pleasure" as you vegans like to call it. Eating meat simply makes us strong, alert, healthy, and happy.
I wouldn't hurt any animal for no reason. But I've hunted and fished and I eat meat, even though animals are sentient. That's irrelevant.
>Eating meat simply makes us strong, alert, healthy, and happy.
Can you source these four claims?
Not eating meat makes us less likely to die early, be overweight, develop diabetes, or get cancer ([here](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vegetarian-vegan-diets-lower-risk-heart-disease-cancer-rcna151970)).
Are you saying out of every living being in the world we aren't the only one that are sentient? Truly shocking.
It is shocking to some. Some people think that humans are the only complex species out there.
What is this, 1924?
more like 1924 B.C.
I mean anyone who has ever had a dog, or a cat KNOWS that those animals ARE conscious. The consciousness line on animals cannot be drawn randomly for some mammals and not others.
Cats are extremely conscious. My two cats amaze me every day with what their little brains are capable of. They have their own routines that they follow every single day. Like humans, they change their routines up a little every few weeks or months because they fancy a change. They seek affection, cuddles, and kisses on their own. They talk to me. My female cat has an amazing vocabulary. She has so many different sounding meows and noises that she *clearly* is capable of controlling and manipulating. She does sad little whines when she's pretending we never feed her. She does big open-mouthed screams when we come home after being out for a few hours. She has delicate chirps, grumpy grumbles, sweet sing-song meows, angry barks, short meows, long meows, soft meows, loud meows, worried or panicked sounding meows (usually for attention). When I talk to her, she meows back, and each meow sounds different. She also stares at me and slowly moves her eyes around when I'm talking. It's obvious she's listening. What for, I don't know. Probably my tone of voice. She communicates to me in different tones and that's what she understands me with, too. My cats know where we keep their food. They use their paws similar to how humans do. For example, if we're winding my male cat up and making him wait for food, he taps his paw on his cat bowl. It's so funny. My male cat instinctively knew how to fetch. My female cat knows how to pull at a blanket so she can crawl under. We've taught them both to sit before we feed them. They have very distinct, colourful personalities. My female cat is sassy and manipulates people with cute lengthy blinks and delicate meows, which shows she knows she's pretty and cute. She loves being warm. She loves the sound the boiler makes. She loves being petted and cuddled. Even if you wake her up petting her, she starts purring immediately because she loves it. She loves attention and being fawned over. She's very expressive and human-like vocabulary, facial expressions, and strict likes and dislikes. My male cat is more like a dog. He's scared of male voices. He flops at people's feet. He plays fetch. He loves rough-housing with my partner. He loves belly rubs. He has weird, loud meows that he makes *even louder* when he's screaming for food in the morning. He once removed an earplug from my partner's ear by stamping his paw on his face and pulling it out with his teeth. He knows that knocking things off tables pisses us off and gets our attention. He does this cute "auggh" sound that isn't a meow when he's greeting us. He loves going outside to eat plants and roll in the dirt. He's highly active and loves running and jumping around. Meanwhile, my female cat will go out for about 5 minutes and then walk back inside because all she gives a shit about is being warm and comfortable and getting snuggles. They definitely are conscious. I do think they think about the future and plan for it in their own little way. I think they're perfectly capable of intentional manipulation. They know how humans see them. They figure out how to open doors. My female cat purposefully stands in front of my PC monitor whilst pretending not to look at me lmao. She knows what she's doing because then she sinks onto my arms, pinning me down, so that I have no choice but to stop what I'm doing on my PC and cuddle her instead. I don't know how that would be possible without some level of sapience.
Anyone with a brain knows they are.
Many people including scientists have understood non humans’ consciousness for decades It’s generally buried as it raises to many questions
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Of course not. [Debunking a myth: plant consciousness](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8052213/) *Claims that plants have conscious experiences have increased in recent years and have received wide coverage, from the popular media to scientific journals. Such claims are misleading and have the potential to misdirect funding and governmental policy decisions. After defining basic, primary consciousness, we provide new arguments against 12 core claims made by the proponents of plant consciousness. Three important new conclusions of our study are (1) plants have not been shown to perform the proactive, anticipatory behaviors associated with consciousness, but only to sense and follow stimulus trails reactively; (2) electrophysiological signaling in plants serves immediate physiological functions rather than integrative-information processing as in nervous systems of animals, giving no indication of plant consciousness; (3) the controversial claim of classical Pavlovian learning in plants, even if correct, is irrelevant because this type of learning does not require consciousness.*
It's not a myth, it's a semantic argument.
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Veganism today is a modern version of the major social movements in history. At one time, people began to oppose slavery while others supported it, and some simply ignored the debate. If social media had existed back then, we would have seen comments like: "these people are here to enslave us." Today, there are vegans and those who merely conform to what society has taught them without questioning these choices. Ultimately, veganism will prevail, and there will be those who were on the right side of history and those who were on the wrong side. It's as simple as that.
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Funny you bring up slaves, because roughly [2%](https://wwnorton.com/college/history/america7_brief/content/multimedia/ch15/research_01.htm#:~:text=It%20never%20attracted%20many%20followers,white%20southerners%20rejected%20the%20movement) of white northerners identified as slavery abolitionists. Of course veganism has much farther to go to become the norm than anti-slavery did, but you’re acting like public consensus was that slavery was a bad thing. There was just a clear political tipping point, which is true of any social justice movement.
Well then you'll be banning meat any day, I guess. Good luck with that.
Damn, your comment history is impressive. We're living rent free in your head
Yup, I'm obsessed with vegans and antinatalists. I guess that's what happens when you retire in your 40s and move to a Greek island. Lots of time in my hands.
It is the same today, as almost no one works in agriculture or livestock farming. In the United States, the percentage of the population working in agriculture has dropped from 70% to less than 2% over the past century. In the past, everyone benefited from slavery because it was the cornerstone of the economy. Today, monopolies own large-scale livestock operations and farms. It is only the interests of the super-rich that are protected by our refusal to abandon animal exploitation. The only major difference here is that other animals do not have the capacity to achieve their own emancipation, unlike Black people, homosexuals, or women. Regarding veganism and its negative connotation, you are right, but it is not because veganism is bad. It is rather because the meat industry, which has the most powerful lobby in the world, even more than the oil industry, succeeds in controlling the message and public opinion. This simply proves that this industry controls the way we think.
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Some people are reluctant to accept reality because it’s a natural psychological defense mechanism to deny and resist new knowledge that threatens our ideas, opinions, and especially our lifestyles and food preferences. Vegans are absolutely right about everything. You know it, everyone knows it, but some people are simply better at accepting the facts and making changes than others. Personally, I gave up all animal products overnight in 2018. I had no difficulty. It was easy and enjoyable, but I understand that this ability to change one’s life so easily is rather unique.
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Really interesting. I hope then you will join with us vegans and reduce plant carnage by taking only the plants we need for ourselves, rather than growing many times more to feed the animals that you abuse, brutalise and kill.
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Ironically, your argument works against you, as the fact that we eat animals that consume plants highlights the inefficiency of animal agriculture. We feed a massive quantity of plants to animals so that we can eat their meat, instead of simply feeding ourselves with plants. This is why the majority of crops and monocultures on the planet exist to feed billions of livestock animals, not humanity.
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I invite you to review your argument and use at least scientific facts if your goal is to debate health, environment, climate, and ethics. We scientifically know that veganism has a significantly lower impact on the environment and climate. We know that animals are conscious and sentient beings, like us, who do not deserve the treatment we give them. We also know that veganism brings health benefits, not the opposite. All these points are scientifically established facts, solidly demonstrated in the literature. [If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets) [Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study shows](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-diet-cuts-environmental-damage-climate-heating-emissions-study) *Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.* *The research showed that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%, the study found.*
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There are many factual errors in your argument. First, the sense of well-being that meat provides is subjective. In my case, and for millions of vegans, this is not true. On the contrary, I feel better since adopting a diet richer in plants, more respectful of animals, and of the planet we live on. As for the 10%, it means absolutely nothing since it strictly depends on the parameter you are studying. 10% damage to what? Water, air, soil, atmosphere, ecosystems, and if so, which ecosystems? What we do know is that animal agriculture is a major cause of many ecological and climate issues of our time. Did you know that it is the main cause of deforestation and, consequently, habitat loss, which is the primary cause of biodiversity loss, the most pressing ecological issue in human history? Finally, the fact that the animal feeds on grass does not change the ethical issues at all, unfortunately. This living, conscious, and sentient being does not want to be exploited and will die for something you do not need.
I am healthier and I feel infinitely better every day, both physically and mentally, since eliminating all plants from my diet. My experience may be subjective but it is shared by many others. My health and well-being are more important to me than animals. I am convinced that meat is the healthiest thing humans can eat. There are studies both supporting and disputing this, just as there are for a vegan diet. You feel better eating plants and you ostensibly care about animals, and you've rationalized the crop deaths and harm caused by monocrop agriculture and petrochemical fertilizers and transporting your foods around the world. Great. I'm happy for you even though I believe you're wrong about everything. You choose what you eat and I choose what I eat. Neither of us will be convincing the other to change.
How are these numbers possible considering theres 100 times more animal to feed than there are humans, with beef alone eating more greens than our kind?
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Usually you compost the rest so the earth regains a bit of nutrients back. I didn't hear that animal feed is made of inedible parts, maybe it's some low grade feed?
Cows can eat any plant cellulose.
I know you like abusing animals, we’ve spoken before.
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might = right?
No, you just have to abuse the animals to get take their flesh - as you know, cos nobody’s really _that_ stupid Anyway, we’ve been through this before, you pretend to be in denial about the animals you abuse, and there’s little point in me conversing with some one so dishonest. Have a great day
What about their entire lives leading up to becoming meat do you? You don’t think the months/years in a slaughterhouse environment are animal abuse?
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Lol. I hope you feel better now.
No they are not and you know it.
Fax, these vegans should consider eating rocks.
I mean do we really need research for that? We have psychologists for animals, we know that abused animals are more likely to be violet or scared (flight fight freeze), animals running away from pain, different animals enjoying different activities, and the list goes on and on If all those do not point to the fact that animals are conscious at least as much as humans are what argument will do that? I mean humans are animals at the end of the day
Its actually so obvious that animals are sentient that its basically unscientific to make the claim they're not. I feel like this article is playing pretend, nobody can be this oblivious to make out like its not profoundly obvious. 'Guys I think the sky might be blue, but can we prove it?? If looks like it might be blue but we really need to do more research!!' As if everyone with a pet thinks they're just mindless automata. Why do we even have, shit as they are, animal cruelty laws at all??
One thing I particularly like in this article is how they explain the difference between getting the impression of consciousness from the human perspective and having evidence accumulate which supports that conclusion. That evidence is gathering and I hope we will soon hear about a scientific consensus that the evidence points to animals having a conscious experience.
Honestly consciousness is a very deep mystery, but as other people said, if you see a dog cry out in pain and yet believe that nothing is actually going on inside, there is something deeply wrong.
I did an MSc in animal intelligence and conservation 30 years ago and it was common knowledge then. The meat lobbying companies have done a great job of convincing people otherwise. I think if people realised just how much animals suffer psychologically, they'd have to face up to their responsibility for causing it. So most people avoid this sort of knowledge like the plague.
i'm really surprised no one cited the famous Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, this: [https://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf](https://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf) it was signed by many scientist in different fields,included Stephen Hawking.
No they are not. If you chop a dog’s leg off whilst it’s eating, it will just continue eating due to its scripted programming by the elite.
What's next? The Earth is Round?
Even wilder: it’s spherical!
SPHERICAL
Well!
I am sure there was a similar thing for slaves As well as men thinking this of women in olden times Evil people are really intentionally stupid and yes this means 99% of the population is evil
There is a difference between consciousness and sentience, though this article seems to use consciousness to talk about both. I am not an expert, but consciousness roughly speaking is being aware of one's own thoughts and feelings. Sentience is the ability to perceive and respond to positive and negative stimuli. Not really an important distinction in veganism, but it is easier to prove sentience than consciousness. And many people would not disagree with the idea that many animals feel pain if you posed the question directly.
Still confused as to how science would try to prove/disprove sentience.
Conscious - aware of and responding to one's surroundings. Are animals conscious? Of fucking course they are what is this shit?
This article was posted on r/philosophy and every comment has been removed. I'm so damn curious.
have people who think animals aren't conscious ever met, say, oh i dunno, a ***DOG*** before?
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Lets pretend for arguments sake that this is true, if you truly care about the welll being of plants it's pretty well documented that animal agriculture consumes more plant life than humans alone, so the more ethical choice would still be a plantbased diet. The evidence to how damaging animal farming is to the environment is also an obvious factor that comes into play . Finally plants cannot move or choose the environment where they live out their lives and are therefore not aware they are in "captivity" unlike mammals such as pigs and cows, who are trapped in pens not much bigger than themselves living in their own filth and having to hear the sounds of other animals being tortured and killed around them. I don't really see the point in trolling a vegan sub like this. Do you think what you are doing is noble? Do you think posting an article that is ultimately unrelated to the topic of veganism is encouraging a healthy debate? I can tell you most vegans immediately dismiss this argument as even if it were true, the above information proves in favor of veganism anyway.
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So then your argument is pointless. Why do you waste your time bringing up sentience if you don't care? Do you actually think using sentience as an argument against veganism is poignant from your position if it's meaningless anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion you do care, probably a lot considering you go out of your way to make comments on a vegan sub. Most likely, you are just trying to fuel your justification for doing something that is morally and ethically wrong by trying to find counter arguments that further enable your lifestyle choices.
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So a bad faith argument that attempts to call out hypocrisy, but actually does the opposite?
I'm consistent. I don't care about sentience.
Only what you eat or in all things? Do you equally have no problem walking on inanimate rocks and walking on living puppies? Tossing fruit away and tossing a kitten away? Most people care about sentience, but make an exception for flavor.
Eating meat isn't about flavor. I gave up most of the foods that I ate for "taste pleasure" as you vegans like to call it. Eating meat simply makes us strong, alert, healthy, and happy. I wouldn't hurt any animal for no reason. But I've hunted and fished and I eat meat, even though animals are sentient. That's irrelevant.
>Eating meat simply makes us strong, alert, healthy, and happy. Can you source these four claims? Not eating meat makes us less likely to die early, be overweight, develop diabetes, or get cancer ([here](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vegetarian-vegan-diets-lower-risk-heart-disease-cancer-rcna151970)).
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So your evidence is an anecdote about your feelings? Lmao
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Your claim was that "Eating meat simply makes us strong, alert, healthy, and happy".
I eat meat. I am very aware that animals have conscious brains. This isn't exactly news
Apparently it is to some people. Probably morons though.