The co-founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX pleaded not guilty to a seven count indictment charging him with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.

An attorney for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said in federal court Tuesday his client has to subsist on bread, water and peanut butter because the jail he’s in isn’t accommodating his vegan diet.

  • dezmd@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    So you aren’t killing the plants and vegetables you eat as a vegan?

    Or you perceive no ethical quandaries about murdering plants?

    Or plants don’t count because they don’t have the same type of nervous system that allows us to communicate in an ethically direct fashion?

    Are trees ethically more important than plants you can ethically eat, thus perceived as more ethically protected under such auspices?

    And what’s your ethical stance on property development groups clear cutting small pine tree forested areas near existing residential/industrial/commercial zoned areas to create more affordable single family and multi-family homes for low income families?

    • BonfireOvDreams@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If I’m more specific, what Vegans care about is conscious experience. They don’t care if something is alive or has some form of reactive biological intelligence. Its not a loose definition of killing that’s the problem, it’s the killing of conscious beings.

      There is no scientific consensus as to the potential for consciousness in plants/trees. Almost nobody affirms that they are. You’ll find generally that when we discuss consciousness we describe beings with brains, or if we get in to gray areas, beings that at least have some form of nervous system. Since there is some level of brain plasticity, I tend to take the position that consciousness is an emergent property found in those with a nervous system at bare minimum, but absolutely and especially those with brains. That said, there are particular areas of brains that if compromised will show patterns of lost consciousness, but I just don’t affirm that those areas are entirely responsible.

      So if plants and trees are not conscious, and they don’t experience reality, and there is no subject, then there is no one to grant rights to. If we were talking about some random planet that had no conscious life on it, a planet that for some reason could never support conscious life but could support plant life, I would have no ethical quandary with a space fairing civilization taking all of those resources and leaving the planet with not but rock.

      The need for residential housing complicates the ethics of forest habitat removal but not by that much if we consider what a vegan world looks like. Roughly 37.5% of the world’s habitable land could be redistributed as that land currently is required for animal agriculture that otherwise wouldn’t be. Roughly the size of North America and Brazil combined. You’d have loads of land that could be reforested but also some land that could be reused for housing purposes. As for current reality, I think there’s a strong argument that group housing or apartment blocks would be far better for both people and the planet.

    • dx1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So you aren’t killing the plants and vegetables you eat as a vegan?

      Friendly tip to everyone on the internet. If you find yourself writing this, please shut the fuck up.

        • dx1@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Vegans are all well aware the philosophy is about reducing suffering for sentient beings. Nobody thinks “being alive” is an ethical metric. Rather, the bad faith argument about “plants feel pain” (which is absolute horse shit) is constantly spouted like it’s some kind of refutation of veganism. Not to mention this idiotic “cultist” slur that’s leveraged to make it seem like veganism isn’t the single approach that’s actually grounded in reality.

          • monarchsonvacay@adding.space
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            1 year ago

            And if that means brigading and defending pieces of shit who rob other human beings of their hard-earned money and has stolen billions of dollars, giving bad faith arguments, deconstructing justice as a fundamental concept and in general being a bunch of fucking cultists, who cares. You’ll happily accuse people who want to see people like him be punished, even in a court of law, of being subhuman savages while happily acting as if the ends justify the means to enforce your evil ideological bullshit. And who cares who is harmed by your words and actions? People don’t matter, animals do.

            • dx1@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, either that or it’s unnecessary to kill animals for food and clothes and shit and we just don’t do it. IDK what the hell you’re on about.