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Comment by ndsipa_pomu | Hacker News Reader

> At some point - we have to eat something that is alive.

Not necessarily as we could wait for living things to die naturally and then consume them (maybe becoming fungus-like in the process). For livestock, that could possibly create a loophole of farms having conditions that cause a premature death.

With plants, there's the option of following fruitarianism and just eating plant material that falls off such as fruit. (Fruit is unusual when it comes to being consumed as it arguably "wants" to be eaten so that the parent plant can better distribute its seeds). There's problems with following such a fruit heavy diet though and I don't think it's a good idea by itself.

Alternatively, we could go the Soylent Green route?

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> With plants, there's the option of following fruitarianism and just eating plant material that falls off such as fruit. (Fruit is unusual when it comes to being consumed as it arguably "wants" to be eaten so that the parent plant can better distribute its seeds). There's problems with following such a fruit heavy diet though and I don't think it's a good idea by itself.

I guess this is why it's so complicated (and you can't get off the scale). From the perspective of the fruiting plant - I agree with you, it doesn't mind if you eat some fruit. From the perspective of each seed, they'd probably rather you didn't.

And interestingly - if we're willing to go multi-body (since we're admitting that eating fruit is bad for some seeds, but possible advantageous to the species as a whole) I think you'd have to make the same argument for herd animals: It might be bad for a single deer to be eaten, but it's pretty good for the herd if someone happens to remove the weakest single member every now and then.

Anyways... I'm rambling at this point. Not sure why you're getting downvoted but long story short: I hope people acknowledge and respect the things they eat (plants, animals, or other), I'd love to see us move back a step from the automated and industrial production methods we're using right now (Both animals and plants - monoculture crops are a real ecosystem killer) and work to make food something that is local and folks can connect with.

> From the perspective of each seed, they'd probably rather you didn't.

I recall that some seeds are designed to pass through the mammalian digestive system and thus get deposited with some fresh manure in which to grow. Maybe they enjoy the experience.

> you'd have to make the same argument for herd animals: It might be bad for a single deer to be eaten, but it's pretty good for the herd if someone happens to remove the weakest single member every now and then.

That's a good argument for free ranging or wild animals, but it's more complicated with farmed animals. If we breed animals just to eat them and select for the traits we desire, then it could be considered bad for that species although it certainly increases their numbers.

I don't particularly disagree with you.

I just think attempting to apply a moral imperative to how species happen to have adapted to their niche is hard.

Rabbits work around their prey status by rote production - which means if nothing eats them, eventually they go through a large starvation event once they hit the carrying capacity of their habitat.

Chickens are arguably one of the most successful species on the planet right now.

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I am in favor of free ranging animals, I agree that breeding animals moves them more into a niche that requires humans to exist - but I'm not convinced that's bad for them as a species (at least not as long as humans exist, and as a human that's my current preference with some admitted bias).

I think globally - monoculture crops are often also a huge risk, and find that they are destroying other animals indirectly (decimating the population of insects, small mammals, and birds in the area).

So I think the problem is hard, and that responsible stewardship likely means less industrialization in agriculture across the board (both plant and animal) and more local production of food. Intentional hunting grounds reserved for wild populations like turkey and deer (at least in my area) are very much a part of that, so I'm also with you on wild animals when it makes sense.

> Chickens are arguably one of the most successful species on the planet right now.

The dinosaurs didn't die out, they just got a lot smaller.

The plant matter of a fruit is still alive, though. At some point you're drawing an arbitrary line that separates the living things that are okay to eat from those that are not.

That depends on the definition of "alive". Fruits don't respire which a lot of definitions include. And yes, it's going to be an arbitrary line.

Perhaps not the fruit as a whole, but the individual cells certainly do.

Going to the cellular complicates matters. That'd probably mean that you'd have to wait for fruit and veg to go mouldy before eating it and then do we consider fungus to be alive?

Like I said, arbitrary lines. The only way to sidestep it completely would be if you could directly synthesize sugars, lipids, and proteins. Then you could sustain people killing-free.

It's not whether they're alive but if they can suffer.

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