• queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    13 days ago

    I’ve had someone try to tell me that plants feel pain and scream when they die.

    Okay dawg, but I know I’d rather mow my lawn than mow over a field of pigs.

    • lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      I’m not entirely dismissive of the argument. I do think it has a point. Why do pigs get to live? Because they look vaguely like us? Fuck you wheat! You eyeless, legless monstrosity! I don’t care how much you enjoy swaying in the wind and basking in the sun. You’re literally toast!

      Everything wants to live and is afraid to die. But I do agree dying screaming pigs is much more unsettling than millions of wheat stalks getting slaughtered by a combine.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        13 days ago

        The logical next question becomes: why do you get to live? Everything wants to live and is afraid to die. You aren’t special.

        This line of argumentation leads to nihilism at its conclusion: nothing matters, everything is permitted, kill whatever you want.

        • Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net
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          12 days ago

          That’s a simple minded misunderstanding of nihilism. It is not a license to just do whatever with no consequences or consideration.

          Nothing matters, because there is no such thing as divine law or morality, so it doesn’t matter what you choose to matter to you. That’s entirely your opinion to have and dictate your life around. We are free to shape our own reality and morals.

          You’re right. We aren’t special in the grand scheme. Humans are just another animal in the ecosystem. But I am me and I choose to care about myself, so I choose to care about whether I live or die.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            12 days ago

            You’ve stopped short of engaging with the actual problem: why should I choose to care about whether you live or die?

            • Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net
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              12 days ago

              No, I fully engaged with it. You just don’t have the logical ability to figure that out so let me explain it simply for you…

              That’s entirely up to you to decide. No one can make that decision for you. If you’re that shitty of a person then that’s for you to choose to be.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                12 days ago

                Maybe it’s different for you, but people don’t always choose to care about things. Rather, it is something that happens to us, so I don’t choose to care about the screaming and bleeding of pigs as I run them over with a lawnmower. It’s forced on me by my empathy, it was never a choice. I suppose I could choose to care about the grass, but it doesn’t happen on its own.

                That’s why slaughterhouse work is associated with higher rates of self harm, violence, addiction, alcoholism, overdose, abuse, depression, and suicide. Slaughterers don’t choose to care about the animals they kill, it just happens to them. Sometimes they become so psychically wounded that they stop caring, but after that they lose the ability to care about anyone else either.

                Neither do I choose to care if you live or die. It just happens. Unfortunately.

                I do choose to block you, though, because you’re going to hurt me again if I don’t. I wonder why you chose to hurt me?

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        12 days ago

        thats why they are hidden in farms, or areas which are controleld by republicans who made laws against filiming thier animal cullings/killings.

    • ziproot@lemmy.ml
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      13 days ago

      You also save plants by eating plants directly instead of indirectly via animals