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[2013-Jan-25] Chimps

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:01 pm
by ReasonablyDoubtful
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2867#comic

This comic brought to you by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, AKA the Become a Vegetarian, You Stupid Jerk Committee.

Clearly, plants aren't conscious because they only communicate via chemicals, not sound.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:51 pm
by Peon
ReasonablyDoubtful wrote:Clearly, plants aren't conscious because they only communicate via chemicals, not sound.
Are you sure? There aren't any plants at all which respond to vibrations in their environment?

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 7:00 pm
by tapps
I used to come to SMBC because it was a smart, irreverent webcomic. Slowly, slowly, slowly it has become preachier than even viruscomix. If I was not already in the habit of reading SMBC I would never have started.

And what the fuck is this? I have to know the author's wife's name to post? If he one of those people who gets used to little kids on the internet riding his dick and goes nuts and tries to pontificate on the nature of being every 5 damn seconds?

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:57 pm
by a guy passing by
This one was lame. Who thinks syntax is a necessary condition for consciousness? A lot of people think (or used to think) chimps' inability to use syntax shows they don't have LANGUAGE, but that's not the same as not having consciousness. And who separates self-awareness from consciousness? If something is self-aware in the sense of having a first-person perspective and distinguishing itself from other things in its environment within that perspective, then it is conscious in at least a minimal sense.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 1:16 am
by Mark v1.0
Peon wrote:
ReasonablyDoubtful wrote:Clearly, plants aren't conscious because they only communicate via chemicals, not sound.
Are you sure? There aren't any plants at all which respond to vibrations in their environment?
I think he was joking about the "clearly". What is a natural sound? Only thing I can think of is a strong river or waterfall that makes sound naturally and constantly.

"Twenty years ago just uttering the words behavior and plants in the same sentence would have resulted in scientific excommunication!” Cahill insists. “And that’s because for a long time, I think, we were hung up on the fact that plants are sessile, they don’t move, or at least we don’t see them move. And because of who we are, I think we’ve always equated behavior, even intelligence, with movement.”
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episod ... viour.html

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 1:26 am
by Mark v1.0
ReasonablyDoubtful wrote: AKA the Become a Vegetarian
A happy life and a quick death is what I ask for in what I eat, and of myself.

Pigs are not having a happy life confined in stalls and a cement floor 24/7. I still got to eat though.
http://www.helpthepigs.ca/

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:14 am
by ReasonablyDoubtful
Mark v1.0 wrote:
ReasonablyDoubtful wrote: AKA the Become a Vegetarian
A happy life and a quick death is what I ask for in what I eat, and of myself.

Pigs are not having a happy life confined in stalls and a cement floor 24/7. I still got to eat though.
http://www.helpthepigs.ca/
You could always buy from farms that pasture feed their pigs or cows or chickens or whatever else you eat. In spite of what militant vegans and vegetarians will tell you, there is meat out there that doesn't come from factory farmed animals.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:19 am
by ReasonablyDoubtful
Mark v1.0 wrote:
Peon wrote:
ReasonablyDoubtful wrote:Clearly, plants aren't conscious because they only communicate via chemicals, not sound.
Are you sure? There aren't any plants at all which respond to vibrations in their environment?
I think he was joking about the "clearly". What is a natural sound? Only thing I can think of is a strong river or waterfall that makes sound naturally and constantly.

"Twenty years ago just uttering the words behavior and plants in the same sentence would have resulted in scientific excommunication!” Cahill insists. “And that’s because for a long time, I think, we were hung up on the fact that plants are sessile, they don’t move, or at least we don’t see them move. And because of who we are, I think we’ve always equated behavior, even intelligence, with movement.”
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episod ... viour.html
I was being sarcastic, actually. And I should point out that that link isn't working right now.

An interesting documentary about plant intelligence, if you prefer those to actual scientific papers on subjects, is Revenge of the Plants. Good luck finding it, though.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 12:50 pm
by abowden
I don't think Zac is vegetarian, i think this applies to animals with a somewhat measurable intelligence that emotions and thought. I also thinks he eats some of those animals, and isn't trying to say don't eat meat, just trying to say that were not as special as we think we are.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 1:53 pm
by nobody
Zach is a vegetarian

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 4:13 pm
by GUTCHUCKER
Some people don't eat meat because they can't process it or don't like the taste.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 4:28 pm
by nobody
and do you think Zach, the man who chooses to grow his hair and then cut it and give it to charity, is one of those who didn't make an ethical choice?

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 12:52 am
by Peon
How is becoming a vegetarian making an ethical choice? Plants are just as alive as animals. We must consume dead life to survive and there are no ethics involved in choosing which type of life we wish to destroy for our continued survival.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 4:11 am
by Kimra
Fruitarianism the real ethical choice.

Re: 2013-01-25 Chimps

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:43 am
by noone
Peon wrote:How is becoming a vegetarian making an ethical choice? Plants are just as alive as animals.
Vegetarians make their choice based on sentience, or the capacity that animals have to 'experience' pain. Plants, on the other hand, are not sentient.