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Comment by croisillon | Hacker News Reader

bees and hens don't produce "naturally" food for humans, they have their own use of honey and eggs

[addendum to people answering "bees don't produce for bears either" or "plants don't produce food for humans either" : that's a strawman, I merely commented the term "naturally produced honey and eggs"]

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Bees don’t survive in the wild where I am in New Zealand and there is no way they can eat all the honey they make, which is an average of 65kg more than they use, per hive. If they swarm, the swarms will die from varroa. Having the honey there weakens their hive as it’s too large an area to warm during winter. What’s the ethical thing to do?

The ethical thing is to halt the husbandry of farmed animals and let the bees die out naturally, so there is no longer a source of honey (except for that delicious beech honeydew, but I don't know if those insects can be farmed).

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1436-honeydew-ecos...

> The ethical thing is to halt the husbandry of farmed animals and let the bees die out naturally

What is it that makes the "natural order of things" better? Aside from our fantasies about not being animals, aren't humans part of the natural order, by definition? It seems like a deforested barren world would be more moral under this sort of reasoning?

I don't particularly agreed with the parent, but the honey bees in most places in the world are non-native species that are introduced to produce honey and pollinate large fields, orchards, etc. For example in the American Midwest we have European honeybees everywhere, and they displace native pollinators (bumble bees, native butterflies and skips, etc). All told it's not a big deal but I can see an argument for removing them where they aren't native.

I don't know the details of honey in NZ but I can imagine it's similar to cows overproducing (and endangering themselves with) milk: they have been bred to do that

My queens pick their mates and so do most - open mating is standard as artificial insemination is hard with bees. Bees are bred for certain traits but it’s a long way from the levels seen in diary for many reasons. A beekeeper can interfere, and often does if a colony is defensive or has poor brood. Productivity is harder to measure as the situation in a given hive can be markedly different across an apiary. Queen age, disease burden, hive site, equipment differences etc.

Most the control comes from killing the bad and reproducing from the good (and then hoping the queen finds good drones, avoids birds and finds her way home).

But neither do plants produce "naturally" food for humans. The produce it to reproduce and make the fruit delicios so animals eat it and transport the seed somewhere else to spread. Humans are very bad in spreading plants by means of eating and deposing the seed.

Plants that humans eat are literally some of the most widespread plants in the face of the Earth. Apples, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, soy, and rice are all massive successes for the plants in spreading, that doesn't even get into sugar producing plants. This started as humans eating and distributing seeds. Farming just made this process not need to involve eating. It's not just about delicious either. We eat some bitter and spoiled (butter, beer) foods for nutritional value.

Could this argument not apply to animals also?

Are chickens not the most wide spread birds? Sheep and cows the most widespread 'large' animals.

Even rats are doing as well as they are because of humans.

Yes I suppose you can reduce the meaning of life to successfully creating the next generation, that applies equally to humans and amoeba, but I would contend its too reductive.

Pulses are some of the best, nutrient dense sources of vegan protein. And they’re called pulses because they grow very quickly from seed to crop.

The thing is, the plants that exist naturally in the wilderness are not particular tasty, delicious, or even produce apreciable sized fruits/crops.

Almost all that you are eating are plants, taken from the wilderness tens of thousands of years ago, and genetically selected over hundreds of generations.

If you went back to eating the plants in the state they exist naturally in the wilderness, you would have a very hard time feeding yourself.

I wonder if anyone is advocating dumping vegans into the middle of the jungle so they can live naturally ... albeit briefly.

... but they are vert good at speeading seeds by other means.

BTW, vegetable farming, be it organic or conventional (especially conventionnel) isn’t exactly non-human animal friendly.

Exactly. Though it’s reasonable to make a distinction between plants and animals of course.

But still, veganism isn’t as clearcut as it would first seem.

Do bees produce "naturally" food for bears? Do hens produce "naturally" food for foxes?

I think the vegetarian argument is that while hunting may be natural for a lot of animals, including us, we have the possibility not to do it, so we should.

I don’t really agree, but it’s a reasonable stance.

I believe it's a bit more nuanced than that.

Most vegans I've spoken to believe that hunting is okay. If you have the callousness of killing a baby dear, then you 'deserve' to eat it. The problem comes from how modern meat is produced - in massive factories which provide just enough conditions for the 'meat' to get produced. Animal wellbeing is nowhere near the list of priorities.

Mark my words. Two hundred years from now, if there will anything left of this planet, we will be seen as retarded barbarians for what we are doing now to the animals and environment.

I don't think many hunters kill baby deer, and most hunting tags are for bucks, not does.

Newsflash: nothing in nature "produces" food specifically for another species/groups (with some exceptions)

The plant "doesn't want" to be eaten (except for fertilization purposes) any more than any animal who can become prey.

Actually many plants “manipulate” animals or insects to do their bidding through their produce. Many (all?) flowers exist to attract bees or birds to carry their pollen to other plants. Some even paste their pollen onto bees after trapping them into a sticky fluid. Fruit of course transmit seeds for plants. Those plants being cultivated in farms may not often have their seeds directly planted for the next generation, but their species is definitely assured to continue by their humans.

Agreed, but it still possible to have low impact on the pain of other organisms. Plants do not have a CNS like mammals do.

“Except for fertilization”

I would argue that to the extent plants want anything at all, it’s just that. Animals too, for that matter.

Humans don't subsist on vegan diets naturally.

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