Nature is so fucking WEEEEIRD

If you look at the detail in the ghosty wasp, it’s clear that it’s just an edited image of a wasp pasted onto a fig

I went and looked that up on my own and I could've just clicked into the comments?!

nowhere as big as in this image

Yeah when they're alive, but everyone knows you grow larger when you become a ghost

Oh thank god.

I know commercial farming is usually terrible, but this bit just seems like a win

Everything we eat has allowable amounts of bugs, it's everwhere.

Its not 100% accurate. Some wasps get trapped, not all. And there exists a fig species that doesn't need wasps

I use them when I need to channel the ghosts of 1000 angry wasps.

I'm a vegan, although not super strict. But I knew some terror vegans who do not consider vigs vegan.

The definition of "vegan" differs. Like, I don't like products that had a nervous system. So technically I could eat oysters. But some vegans consider oranges not to be vegan because there might be an animal product in the pesticides used on oranges. Some claim they only use plant based products, but they get mad when I ask them about fungi, as their cell structure looks more like an animal cell than a plant cell (I love to make terror vegans mad).

Being vegan means you buy products which fit your idea of being vegan.

And sadly for some it means you need to be a fucking asshole to anyone you meet.

Idk isn't that like saying all animal pollinated plants are not vegan?

Vegetarian is fine, there is no flesh. Vegetarianism is typically a dietary restriction, rather than a philosophical one.

Vegan: it depends. Cultivating figs may be seen as expotation, like bee's honey is; regardless of the insect's actual life or wellbeing. Each individual person decides what counts as vegan.

I don't see the point in this level of specificity, because by eating anything at all you consume fungal spores, tiny mites, microbes etc. Plants are also alive. So there is clearly a line where life is permittably consumed.

If 'experiencing suffering' is that line, insects do not seem capable of it, only responding to basic stimuli. I once watched a one trying to eat its own partially severed head, turning it in its front legs while its mouth parts rapidly twitched. It evidently had no comprehension.

Most vegans do. The general idea is to avoid exploiting animals, but the wasps are living out their natural life cycle. There are a small number of people who do worry about preventing wild insect suffering but they're not concerned particularly with figs.

Vegans eat other foods that use fertilizer. Fertilizers could contain meat or meat byproducts... So....

Ethical vegans want to avoid suffering. If figs cause or experience suffering is a philosophical question.

I didn't read this.