this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
273 points (98.6% liked)

World News

52183 readers
3448 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive – and until now undocumented – knack for tool use.

Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker from a small town in Carinthia near the Italian border, keeps Veronika as a pet and noticed that she occasionally played with sticks and used them to scratch her body.

Word soon got around and before long a video clip of the cow’s behaviour reached biologists in Vienna who specialise in animal intelligence. They immediately grasped the importance of the footage. “It was a cow using an actual tool,” said Dr Antonio Osuna Mascaró at the city’s University of Veterinary Medicine. “We got everything ready and jumped in the car to visit.”

Veronika is far from making even misshapen tools, but her prowess in using them has impressed nonetheless. Over seven sessions of 10 trials, the researchers witnessed 76 instances of tool use as she grabbed the broom to scratch otherwise unreachable regions. Using both ends of the brush counts as multi-purpose tool use, the scientists say, which is extraordinarily rare. Beyond humans, it has only been shown convincingly in chimpanzees.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] RalfWausE@feddit.org 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

War.

You can absolutely respect an enemy while throwing all sorts of horrible stuff at them...

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In that case you are either on the defending side, in which case the harm is not unnecessary or you are on the attacking side, which I can see no respect in.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Lacking photosynthesis, we have to kill to eat. The fact that plants don't have faces and lack any common means of communication with us does not make them any less evolved than any other creature.

It is easy to think of them as inert objects that lack any sense of the world around them, but we already know that not to be the case. I think that understanding that makes it impossible to distinguish killing a plant or an animal. The best we can do is hold the lives we have to take in high regard by being humane, including to plants, and to avoid waste and frivolous killing.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I can't read this as anything but solipsism or maybe good old-fashioned intellectual dishonesty. We know that animals are capable of pain and suffering and we know that plants lack the prerequisites like a nervous system, as well as any evolutionary benefit of pain, because they cannot remove themselves from danger.

The position that causing pain or not causing pain is equal is just morally bankrupt.

Oh and even if killing an animal vs. killing a plant was morally analogous, it would still be better to eat the plants directly, since many more plants are harvested to raise a single animal than it would take to feed a human.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

It can be very lonely being one of the only "good ones" in the world. It may be wise to consider the possibility that fewer creatures will suffer overall if you can get some legal wins toward that end, and legal wins cannot be gained by a tiny group with no allies.

Calling out good faith points made by people that essentially agree with your premise as intellectually dishonest is false, combative, and discourages any meaningful coalition that can do something about your cause. Acting out in a bitter fashion makes you more alone and politically powerless.

[–] tar@lemmy.zip 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

cows mostly graze, but they're also fed things like corncobs and stalks. people can't eat those.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

cows mostly graze

Weather that is true or not aside: The point was that the other person doesn't see a moral difference between cutting a pigs neck open or plucking an apple from a tree.

[–] tar@lemmy.zip 0 points 19 hours ago

most people don't

[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I really don't understand the argument of saying plants are sentient in some way because they emit chemicals when harmed or recoil. My knee jumps up if I tap it with a hammer, my brain pulls my hand away from a hot stove before I can even register any pain, neither of those are "sentient" actions, that's just how the cells respond to stimulus, and that automatic response is because of natural selection, not sentient choices or sensations. It's like saying an auto-closing door is sentient and we ought not try to open it because whenever you try to open it it closes itself, so it "dislikes" being open.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I am not saying they are sentient. I am more saying that it is impossible to establish an objective valuation scale for the lives of creatures. You can choose whatever subjective one you want, but we can't lose sight of the fact that it is just our own, and even getting an army of like minded people doesn't make you any more objectively right or wrong.

The one I choose for myself is to do what I can to minimize the suffering of any living thing I can, and avoid excess consumption. Some others are more absolute, choosing to abstain entirely from any part of the meat industry until every part of it has its act together. Others refuse to eat anything but beans and leaves, leaving the most minimal environmental impact possible. All of those and any that avoid waste and needless suffering seem valid to me and not worth the division.