If a vegan eats a venus fly trap?

If a vegan eats a venus fly trap, are they still a vegan?

At what point in the circle of life can a person claim to be a vegan? Everything eats something, plants have always fed off of animal byproducts (animals predate plants in terms of evolution).

So, planet earth, with a atmosphere almost completely formed from billions of years worth of farts, who’s oceans are permanently piss soaked, and the dust is heavily twinged by organic substance… how many degrees of separation from the first act of consumption does one have to be to qualify as a bona fide vegan 9human or any other life form at that).

Also, on a cellular level, does veganism exist? Does the cells comprehend an difference when it’s vegetable matter being digested or ripped apart over any other kind of cell? Could a vegan morally and ethically only eat say… a leg of a still living goat, and be a vegan for not taking a life, if the digestion track doesn’t notice a real difference in terms of digesting it? The goatleg doesn’t have a soul, or a intellect… pretty damn plant like in many respects?

Great post. I’ve always thought that the vast majority of vegans are more motivated by other things than the “benefits” that veganism allegedly provides.

In the end, more of the time we’re all just eating shit, or what used to be shit at some point in time.

Vegans don’t eat animals or dairy products. Venus fly traps are neither animals nor dairy products. It’s pretty straightforward.

On the other hand, I think it’s impossible to not cause harm to animals, if we are to eat and survive. Any gardener knows this.

Does that make the vegan lifestyle meaningless or absurd? Not at all. All people suffer in life, and will die. That doesn’t mean I should seek to cause others to suffer and die.

Hi Anon. Are you vegan?

Vegans eat stuff that I don’t.

I don’t eat anything with
hydrogenated fat. So I don’t
eat Coconut (if I do I get negative
repurcussions).
Safflower oil and any oil that
has been heated past its smoke point
will also bring about an immediate recurrence of
joint pain or scalp stinging.

And, of course, I eat plant only.

This choice is purely functional.
The idea is that proteins must envelope themselves
in fat in order to travel through the body. If there
is plenty of cow fat around, the BAD PROTEIN
(read: virus) hides in it to travel past body defences.

If the only fats floating around are the body’s
own cholesterol, and the virus tries to hide in them,
they signal the body defences, so the virus can’t
travel without being exposed.

john

Hi John. I’m not, but I don’t think veganism is necessarily misguided, either. I think the basic reasoning is noble.

In my case, it is totally selfish, I assure you.
No more pain.
john

How can a vegan still be a vegan if it eats something that eats something else that wasn’t dead when it got hold of it? Hence the venus fly trap. It’s all plant, I am sure on a molecular level (and even if not, let’s just pretend so for argument’s sake) no fly proteins are shared between plant and vegan… but none the less, the fly trap can’t live without the creature’s nitrogen. Your partaking in the killing of a creature for your consumption, while not violating a ‘plant only’ rule of consumption.

The rules of Karma are similarly structured in India. Not only the slaughterer and final consumer of the meat is the accurer of bad karma, but everyone involved in the process as well, be it a leather tanner or a saleman selling the belt, or a woman impressed with the man wearing the belt reinforcing the need for leather, and thus the slaughter industry. The means of punishment is exactly quantified to the number of hairs on the cow’s body equals numbers of years in hell (no word yet as to what happens if the cow is a French hairless breed, or if you shave it before hand).

Now it’s obvious much logic and be produced in this area. It’s been done before for cyclic karma, what about the circle of life and it’s mish-mash eco-sysem webbing left and right, up and down, in a causally confusing manner. Let’s get a little Gaia vs. Medea here in this debate.

Yes, everything is interconnected and you can’t extricate yourself from your context. People who think they can, whether overtly or subtly, are misguided.

But that doesn’t mean it’s ridiculous to be a vegan. It isn’t.

You’re using the same internet as rapists searching for their next prey. That doesn’t make you a rapist.

There is something flawed with your logic because I am a rapist. Please reconsider the syllogism and reapproach it once your able to account for this.

If a vegan eats a venus fly trap without a trapped fly, s/he’s still a vegan. On the other hand, if the vegan eats a venus fly trap with a trapped fly, is insect protein the same as meat protein? Could a vegan eat chocolate covered ants or deep fried beetles and still remain a vegan?

PS [size=50]Is this you, Lucus?[/size]

I call myself a vegan-plus, since I don’t eat any kind of
hydrogenated fats.

Occasionally, I
accidently eat something with lard or butter or
cheese or whatever, and I’ll get a faint reminder
of the sciatica I used to get. Or I’ll suddenly get
that stinging itch on my scalp that I used to have,
like, within minutes of eating transfat or animal fat.

I just look at it like- “Oops.” :-/

john

isn’t there a problem with humans eventually loosing some or eventually all their capacity in their immune systems to beat viruses. I mean if we are not exposed to viruses etc, in order for the body to learn how to fight them?

Just wondering.

Would it be safer for a Cannibal to eat a Vegan over a regular person? I hear there are brain diseases similar to dead cow disease. Maybe if they just focus on eating Vegans, they will be safe. Silence of the Lambs.

Mhhhh… but cows are vegans. And they get mad cow disease.

Yeah, but those cows were being fed cow.

In order to get a pound of cow, we feed it many many pounds of grain.
Admittedly, inferior grain (and sometimes, apparently, bits of dead cow),
but stil, lots of it. Also, the cows have to have a large area to live
on that could otherwise be farmed for something.

So, we give half our food to the cow and
half our land- hey- maybe the cow IS a diety that
has us in its thrall.

john

This is a stupid topic.

and you are a stupid philosopher, so it balances out in the end.

The only thing that would be stupid is if I had to toss out unnecessary Warnings. I would Warn ChristianOverman, but referring to the topic as stupid could rightfully be taken by him as a personal insult since he created the topic. Thus, you are both guilty of an ad hom attack. Consider this an unofficial Warning.

Thank you. It’s taken as such.

But is insect protein the same as animal protein?

I thank you for your announcement of ad hom attacks. I also remind you ad hom isn’t a default incorrect mode of philosophical inquiry or is universally unsuited for debates… it would be a insult to darwin to assume this is the case, that we all suffer from psychological diseases and only those wise enough to know so are correct by using the correct methodology- which in itself is a massive ad hom attack of egotistical proportions unheard of otherwise in philosophy that most people using such attacks wouldn’t presume upon adopting themselves in the first point.

A personal attack have underlining motivations. It provides everyone in the group discussing a chance to pull back and evaluate the merits of it. Oftentimes the merits can be found correct, but it also enforces a counter question in and of itself- if the person that is the target of a ad hom attack is a part of the debate, and is worthy of being debated, it means either their opinion or their inclusion in the debate is worthwhile enough to be argued with or against… therefor the person has worth, and the weight of the discussion naturally needs to shift to that new gravitas.

The artificial imposition AGAINST ad hom attacks is a evil of philosophy, has no place in it’s modern usage, and it a archaic relic of scholasticism, and is used as a double standard almost exclusively today. Whenever it is enforced, we often see a void in the unbias of the moderator that sits opposite of the thought repressed.

We are a greedy and sneaky species, and even a chiarman using parliamentary procedure with the best intentions is going to be biased to one side over another for several reasons, and can and oftentimes do used force to subjugate and negate one system of thought over another. This is a anti-philosophical method, and cannot be accepted by civilized men. A lassie-faire approach to philosophy is BEST, especially when you the outsider was NOT invited into the discussion, much less to wield their power over others. Can we imagine what would of happened to philosophy if Socrates or Plato or Aristotle was under threat of some super-philosophical being informing them of what was fallacious in their thinking and threatened to silence them. Socrates was killed for this very reason. Yes, his state had laws, and he violates both the laws and the sentiment, but he upheld those of philosophy, and we now looking back at him know he was correct.

I ask for you to please let philosophy thrive, not to interfere with the free expression and evolution of ideas… there is a use for moderators in the form of spam bots and true trolling, but not this way. Never this way. It’s inexcusable and is shameful, and has no place in philosophy… nomatter what the rules or the past precident says. YOU OWN THIS MUCH TO SOCRATES. DO NOT FAIL HIS SPIRIT IN THIS REGARD IN SINNING AGAINST PHILOSOPHY AS THE ATHENIANS DID WHEN THEY GOT RID OF HIM.

Now back to the topic- no, a animal protein isn’t the same as a plant protein. Proteins vary significantly and each species uses different ones. Some in the thread make the claim on the basis of animal protein, so it’s a worthy subject to pursue. However, we get more out of animals than just proteins, and proteins in and of themselves do not imply a violent death.

I will give you a example:

Say you had a hunter gather population setting down upon the idea of domesticating cattle as ours did in the beginning in Mesopotamia. It doesn’t have a history of herding the animals, or of their upkeep, or when is best to eat them. They can just as easily choose to eat the cattle on the day they die, as any other, if the logistical requirements are met- and in many parts of the world, we can do just that. Over the course of 10,000 years, the animals could of been breed to have a short but natural life, to live grazing and die large and otherwise quite healthy at a somewhat predictable time- just as they now produce yound at certain times. Many sub-species could of been introduced, providing peaceful meat on the table. It would be a perfect tradeoff for the cattle- they would be protected and few by us, and die naturally, and we on the otherhand would still have the steak on the table.

I bring this up because the Dalai Lama eats yak meat. It’s not slaughtered. They started this methodology because the proteins couldn’t be found in tibet… they had to get it from animal meat, and once moving to india, they still see nothing wrong with non-lethal, natural death animal consumption. We know from animal husbandry as well as scientific breeding the genome is very responsive to breeding. It could of been done. We appear traditionally to of been to impatient to wait though, and grow cattle for slaughter quite young at a time of their lives that they wouldn’t otherwise die. It’s our shame, but not inherently a shame of eating meat, but rather in how we get the meat. Worms eat us.

We’ve had a lesson in the nature of philosophy, the ills of over-righteous coercive force and it’s counter productive use in philosophy, and a lesson in tibetian yak culture. All in one post. Too bad it couldn’t of just been the yak… but tyrants will be tyrants, the impulse is too deeply ingrained in us.

We never learn. How many philosophers were tortured and had their tongues cut out in antiquity by the local authorities? I remember reading one case where a philosopher was being tortured, and was told to have his tongue cut out… the philosopher bit his tongue off in spite and spit it out at the tyrant! That is philosophy. That is the very beating heart of our heritage… if you read this before a wrongful banning, remember that. No amount of authority or rules can take this away from us. PHILOSOPHY DEFIANT, PHILOSOPHY FOREVER, PHILOSOPHY FORWARDS, NEVER FORLORN!

Using my best Eric Idle voice, “Now, this is silly.” Cut shot to camera two to show John Cleese, doing his famous articulated marionette walk as he exits stage left.

I just thought this was too good an image to waste–so I used it. (Hee-hee, ha-ha, and giggle-giggle!) Enough frivolity! (mpff, gigg–mpff)

If I may… (sorry, I was about to laugh again–mpff–) Ahem…If I may iterate my question…

Is insect protein considered animal protein?