Yes, you’re correct but that’s why I said it was a “working” definition. When you’re a botanist (like many of my former professors) you still use the word vegetable in discussion. They would often teach us about local plants with indigenous uses using plain language like “the Chumash used the leaves of this plant as an important part of their vegetable intake”, rather than using some clinical term like “edible plant matter” or whatever.

I was only saying in these contexts, they definitely wouldn’t describe fruits as vegetables because fruit are a specific thing to a botanist. They definitely wouldn’t describe fungi as vegetables because they are also a specific thing to a botanist (not relevant 😂)

So in a scientific setting the word vegetable is still used, but it is mostly defined by what it’s not!

Great post, with one caveat

the closest thing to a definition we have for “vegetable” botanically is “literally all plant life and maybe also some fungi,”

I got my degree in Ecology and Evolution, and we always used a similar working definition but it was “edible parts of a plant which are not fruit.” So basically botanically, stems, roots, leaves, flowers, and all subvarieties of those are vegetables. Fruits are fruits. Fungi are fungi.

Wordle1478 5/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨 
🟩⬜🟩🟨🟩 
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 

I’m not saying I necessarily agree with it, but I believe the intention is basically as a deterrent. If you cause $5000 worth of “damages” to someone and they have to sue and win, and the most that can happen is $5000 of repayment, you’ve basically created an incentive to try to get away with stuff - the worst case scenario would be paying what you owed anyway. If you might have to pay $175k for making 5k, it might make you think twice about taking that chance.

Now the real conversation is actually about whether those kinds of negative incentives are actually related to the decision to commit a crime. I don’t have any solid evidence but my gut tells me no - people who are going to commit a crime usually assume they are going to get away with it, don’t factor potential outcomes into their risk assessment, or don’t have any risk assessment at all.

Yes!

In fact you could do one better - it doesn’t need to make a profit, just break even, so you could either have lower prices, helping the community save money, or higher wages, helping the community spend money. But since it helps most people instead of a few people, it’s bad according to capitalism.