Or if you do want a manicured plot, just cut them with a lawnmower?

The bane of my young life was having the job of cutting the grass around the house - we lived in the country at the time and had about 1/2 an acre of lawn as well as fruit trees, plants, vegetables, etc.

We never considered using weedkiller - I just can't see the need. Isn't it just as easy to pull the weed out of the ground as it is to spray round-up on it and wait for it to die, before presumably anyway pulling the remains of it?

Ignoring the health implications completely, I can see some "value" of using round-up in a commercial environment where your dealing with 100s of acres or more but fail to see what benefit it provides in a domestic setting when the number of weeds is small enough that it would just takes minutes to remove them physically and toss them into a compost heap.

In my area, some weeds will absolutely take over and choke out everything else while also spreading throughout the neighborhood to the delight of all.

But roundup isnt much of an option when the weeds are next to the nice stuff. My compromise is to pull the weeds when I'm motivated to and call it a day.

We don't mow one part of our lawn and have sowed it with wildflowers) which some people might call weeds) to attract insects. Some wildflowers prefer poor soil, so my wife scythes it at the end of the season and removes all the cuttings. I'm hoping we might get some native orchids eventually.

I live in an extremely high wildfire risk area. I also have an extreme rodent problem. Keeping the vegetation low around structures is indicated.

I agree about with your claim, but the answer to your question is that “weeds” is a set of species that contains both invasive, ecologically harmful species, and crucial native annual and perennial forbs+grasses.

From the universalizability principle, if everyone merely let “weeds” propagate, because of the ecology of invasives that are in that set, we would be MUCH worse off for the next few millennia than we are now. Until the ecosystems healed and the “invasives” become “keystone species”. Not sure how long that would take but we won’t see it :)

Some weeds are quite unpleasant, such as sticker burrs. I'd rather not have a dog and children covered in those.

Some weeds can be damaging to property, trees, sidewalks, etc. or are poisonous.

It's not always about being annoyed by dandelions in an otherwise overly fussed over sterile lawn environment.

Pesticides aren't used to kill weeds.

Herbicides are useful, they certainly help prevent invasive weed species from taking over native plants and grasses. I'm Kentucky I'm always fighting Johnson grass, thistle and Japanese knotweed in my bluegrass

Sorry you think my Japanese garden is a hellscape.

Why is something someone else enjoys a "pesticide-ridden hellscape?"

How would you like me to come and pompously shit all over something you enjoy?

How about letting him do what he wants with his own land and not insulting his ideal home?