Michael Pollan

But we do, you know, we do this all the time.

And, you know, he was so wrong about this.

It's not funny, but we see things through an ideological lens.

you know, and it shapes what we actually see and hear.

And it changed the sound of those screams to him, to meaninglessness.

Yeah, and I talked to Stefano Mancuso about this and some other researchers.

One in particular believes, yes, we are causing pain to plants.

And his take was, but hey, that's just life.

You know, if we don't eat plants, we're down to salt, basically.

You know, if you give up on animals and plants.

Mancuso doesn't think so.

He thinks pain would not be adaptive to a creature that can't run away.

And the big fact about plants, of course, is they're sessile.

They're stuck in place.

They're rooted.

And that dictates everything about them.

And it's the reason why the language in which they work is biochemical, right?

They produce chemicals to protect themselves, to intoxicate, to attract, all different kinds of things.

So he says they're aware that they're being eaten.

They often don't mind.