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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Actually, no, it wouldn't, unless it was a scientist. You're not asking yourself why army ants live a nomad lifestyle, aggressively attacking all other ant colonies EXCEPT other army ant colonies. You don't really care. Scientists do that for you. And we're not that complicated to figure out.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

I was actually talking about more recent discoveries. Like this one. And we know for sure other animals suffer. So? Why should that be the criteria to define when killing is moral, and when it isn't? I'm not trying to convince you to start killing animals. I'm asking you to justify killing plants.

projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu

Plants can detect insect attacks by 'sniffing' each other's aromas

Plants have nowhere to run from their enemies - flying, crawling and jumping insects want to eat them alive. But plants are not defenceless. They deploy chemical toxins to deter insects. These can mak...

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Any suggestions? What's the most impressive, or the most impactful example? What left you thinking about it long after you finished reading/watching/listening?

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

You don't have to be moral to not abuse dogs. If you're a normal person you will have empathy for them automatically. Seeing any animal get hurt, will hurt you. Laws are there to stop someone without empathy from abusing animals. Morality is a fairytale we tell our children to make them act nicer.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

To be moral, one has to sometimes make hard decisions. Historically we as a species failed at that. Even the Catholic church had slaves. You're taking a system that we invented to deal with other people, that we can barely follow, and apply it to animals. Or plants. Or bugs. It's really pushing it.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

I feel just fine about my actions, and don't need approval from strangers on the internet. I gravitate to Utilitarianism, with a splash of Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB). Morality is something we invented in order to have a society. To deal with and convince other humans.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Something occurred to me. In the classic example of someone taking a bug apart, does your mind go to an adult doing it? Or a kid? Like burning ants with a magnifying glass... That's something I associate with kids.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

The sentience of other people doesn't stop us from doing horrible things to them, or allowing horrible things happen to them. And it's not that all people are monsters. At the end of the day we're monkeys with smartphones. And we only really care about other similar nearby monkeys. It's that simple.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Did you not see the "let's get stupid" part? if you do want to criticize at least get my argument straight. There's no difference between farming animals and farming plants. You eventually kill them on purpose. We like to use sentience as the line we shouldn't cross, but that's almost arbitrary.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

I have many arguments against Veganism, but I'm not here to argue against it. You can be Vegan all you want to. Have a blast. I'm here because SOME people who become Vegan become missionaries of a sort. SOME believe that it's immoral to eat meat, and so they need to preach. To convert. To shame.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Well, we are talking about Veganism here. You guys/gals live in La La Land, so I'm not ashamed of taking a ridiculous idea to a ridiculous conclusion. I don't really believe that. But thinking that if you succeed, you won't be harming anybody is also not true. This is not a win-win scenario.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Right now, you're harmless. Annoying, self-righteous, but harmless. And if you're saying you'll object to any political movement - I'll believe you. So let's play this out - you get enough support in your country to get lobbyists to push laws that will decimate meat farming. Will you oppose them?

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Of course. I agree with you. But you won't be able to convince enough people to stop eating meat, just like nobody can convince people to stop drinking alcohol. Logic and compassion won't work. The only way this movement will eventually achieve anything is using politics. Laws. Force.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

You'd have the same fears with any other industry. It might be justified, might not be. For example - truckers and self-driving vehicles. The difference is cigarettes kill you. In the case of farming animals - you're going to force people to give up something healthy, for "reasons".

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Farm animals die out in every country that follows this. They still live in others, and now black markets exist. More people are sick now, because supplements are expensive. There's no milk or cheese. Medicine is more expensive. Clothes are all synthetic. No harm done. I'm sure it's all worth it.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Let's see if it all adds up. Harm reduction is a worthwhile goal. You want to reduce harm. So you're aiming for millions of people to be out of a job. Either by outlawing farming of animals, or convincing the public it's evil to eat meat, leading to a boycott. Should they learn to code?

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I'm telling you that there is no right thing. That's something you and Catholics share - you feel guilty, so you make up stories and use whatever you can, virtuous or not, to justify them. That doesn't make it right. It makes you one sick puppy. You're your own worst enemy. You judge yourself.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I understand it. I'm also aware that it's a complete cop-out. Philosophy stalled a while back. Everything that has to do with life, sentience, consciousness or "soul" is still murky at best. You might as well sum it up as "If you're able to kill an animal, you get to eat it." It's not good or bad.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I don't care. I'm willing to pay to plant more, and I don't care about bugs. I also don't believe all that crap about plants feeling, or being sentient. The point of that is to show you that you're making decisions based on emotion. Not logic. Which is totally fine, but you need to own it.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I would say harm reduction means improving the lives of cows and pigs, not letting them die out because you think their lives suck. Who are you to judge? How many lives were/are saved by pigs alone? Medicine. Skin grafts. Trials. You're willing to give that up or make it even more expensive?

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Something doesn't start or stop being ethical based on how it benefits you as an individual. Ethics are supposed to be based on something other than yourself. It's either ok to kill kids, or not. It shouldn't matter how it would benefit you. Get it? You're on the same shaky ground.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

If you didn't have access to plants, you would have no issues with eating animals. That's ethical egoism. It's moral because it benefits me. I'm the king of the hill. And in spite of that I choose to eat plants. That's how awesome I am. I'm doing the most ethical thing ever. Delusion.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Fine. Let's get stupid... Two can play that game. To grow one tomato plant you kill many many bugs. Sentient or not, you're snuffing out life left and right. Thousands. Millions. A genocide. You cram and abuse the plants. They live in horrible conditions, and get cut forcefully as soon as possible.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

It also causes all of them to live. The joke is that we wouldn't have pigs, if we didn't breed them for their meat. And when we stop eating them, they would become an endangered species. We breed more animals -> We plants more crops. More life. Not less.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

And personally, I don't see the harm in more animals and plants living and dying. That's what we humans do. We multiply. It doesn't matter that we know our kids will eventually die. That's part of life, and we accept it. As long as the animal lives a good life, and has a painless death, I'm fine.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I don't care what you told me about the origins of veganism. The phrase "It's moral to harm plants because we gotta eat something" is ethical egoism. There's no denying it. It can apply also to animals. You didn't pick mud to eat. Plants were an arbitrary choice. You just rank plants below animals.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

You kill bugs when you grow plants. Why not eat bugs and spare the plants? Cockroach farms are a thing. And if not cockroaches, whatever they eat. Eventually you'll get to something that doesn't feel pain. Maybe. I can just eat meat and be ok. Plant more crops to compensate. Circle of life. Simple.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I'm telling you, logic will fail you every time because we don't understand sentience. Because we can barely define life. You're having a hard time convincing people because for you It's obvious. You never truly questioned your own beliefs. You never had to convince yourself. You lack practice.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

When you breed more animals for consumption, you also plant more crops to compensate. You can grow more than needed. More plants will live. Not less. Your definition of harm reduction presumes plants can't feel, and when confronted about it you pivot to ethical egoism. That's a cop-out.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Then you suck at math. Don't blame me. Have a nice life.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Nope. Not If you use the number from the actual paper, which is not round. They round it up or down for articles. That 60.003 (or whatever it is) will change to 60.0029. Or something like that. It's a rounding error. Noise to be filtered out. Not significant at all. Not even worth reporting on.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

1. The longer the animal lives - the more plants it will eat. Killing the animal early will save plants. Hint - this is not logic. This is playing with poop. If plants can suffer, by your logic you need to save them. 3. "It's moral to harm plants because we gotta eat something." is ethical egoism.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I have 300 characters to works with. If it's not clear to you that there isn't one calculation that rules them all, you're the one not serious. I took the 60% emissions article sent here as an easy example. Figure out calories per person. Remove a million people. That 60% number won't budge.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Sure thing. There's no way to figure out how many people identify themselves as vegans. No way to figure out what percentage that is from all people. No way to check how a shift of a million people affect carbon emissions, for example. Because Google is not a thing. Have a nice day.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

1. You don't know if plants care how they are treated. If you're going by response to stimuli, it's not much different than ours. 2. If I breed a cow which doesn't care, would it be ethical to farm it? 3. Morality that depend on if it serves you is called ethical egoism. It's not awesome.

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Reposted by Cyb3rManiak

Jesse Makkonen @jessemakkonen.com · 21/07/2025

I self-published Without a Dawn in May. I made zero compromises, and I couldn't be happier how it turned out: store.steampowered.com/app/3145620/... 💛💚 Unfortunately, I've had very little luck with exposure, including the gaming press. 😩 #visualnovel #gamedev #steam

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Well, nothing I can do for ya there... Sorry. Run the numbers yourself. You'll see.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Although the sentence is technically true, moving a tiny rock changes the world in such a small way that nobody would ever notice. For all practical purposes it changes nothing. One, or even a million people turning vegan won't even register on the global scales. In any way. At all.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

No, I'm pretty sure I've got it right. There are people out there, that think them going vegan will change the world (gasp!). That's self-delusion. That's people who don't realize how insignificant they are, or just can't accept it. I would pity them, if most weren't so annoying and preachy.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I'd argue veganism is rarely a solution to anything. Maybe if you have diet issues. Maybe for space exploration. Other than that, it's just a personal preference. Sometimes, it's self-delusion. Same as recycling plastic, moving from a car to a bicycle, or intermittently turning your A/C on/off.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Then I would say most efforts should be pointed that way. Fix the cruelty. Figure out cheaper and more reliable ways. Pass laws. This is emotionally driven. Own it. People have emotions. They don't need to be tricked or shamed. Figure out a real solution. Going vegan is not a solution.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

And that would be an excellent argument if this discussion was about how to streamline the food industry, improve the world or fight climate change. But here it's used to validate an already reached conclusion. Animal farming is bad, and whoever supports it is immoral, and supports animal abuse.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Well, then it can be. No reason for it not to be. We're talking about money and better trained people. This is not rocket science. And if this conversation was about making the lives/deaths of animals better - I'm all for it. But it wasn't. It was go vegan, or you support animal cruelty.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

An alien more evolved than us might know that our inferior "sentience" is just an illusion. In its eyes humans, cows, and plants are just creatures with different defense and survival mechanisms. I can breed cows that don't feel pain. Can they be farmed morally? No? Then it's not a valid argument.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

So, you didn't bother to read anything else written in this thread. Although they don't feel "pain", they do have similar mechanisms for self-defense. Why is the pain mechanism in cows more or less important than the mechanism in plants? We still don't fully understand life.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I'm not saying it is. But just throwing out that the meat industry produces 60% of the total food production greenhouse gasses is not a smoking gun. It's very simplistic. By itself, it doesn't mean anything at all.

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Cyb3rManiak @cyb3rmaniak.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Oh yeah, you're now muted. Have fun screaming into the void. I bet you have a lot of smart things to say. Let it all out. Have fun with it.

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