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Is an Octopus Too Smart For Us To Eat?
An anonymous reader writes: The New Yorker is running a piece on the ethical dilemma we face when considering octopus intelligence alongside our willingness to eat them. "Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars, guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstrate personalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink to throw off predators, but even more impressive is the masterfully complex camouflage employed by several members of Cephalopoda (a class that also includes squid and cuttlefish)." While humans eat animals ranging widely in mental faculties, the octopus remains one of the smartest ones we do consume. And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive. As our scientific understanding of intelligence grows, these ethical debates will only come into sharper focus. Where do we draw the line?
How is that different from a skunk spraying? Or millipedes, or the bombardier beetle?
its about cuteness.
Dog & cats = too cute to eat
cows & chickens = not so much
rabbits & horses = somewhere in between
Octopuses arent cute... so its okay to eat them.
What makes "people" (by which I gather you mean humans) special so that you won't eat them? I see two possibilities. One, that you don't want to pick up the various parasites and diseases that a human can have. Second, that you might think that for whatever reasons it is better on principle to have a living human than a few tens of kilograms of protein.
The latter is what provides the ethical argument for treating anything that we can consider "near" human as human for various purposes such as whether to eat them. If we're so considerate of ourselves that cannibalism is usually considered a grievous crime, then maybe we should be a bit more considerate of animals that approach us in intellect.
Self-preservation. We are people, hence by social contract we (no longer) eat each other. That way each of us can feel safe that others will not consume him. We consider people who violate that rule criminals or insane and deal with them appropriately.
There is no such social contract with animals. We can eat them and they, occasionally, eat humans too.
Oh, really?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
...not to eat any animal that specifically asks me not to.
While carrion technically is any decaying meat that is no longer inside of a living animal, its definition is certainly restricted when talking about carrion eaters,(scavengers). Decay is retarded in aged meats by not allowing natural agents in that would start the normal decay process. Otherwise all meat eaters would be classified as carrion eaters as the instant the chemical signals for life stop, the meat becomes carrion. And they don't age most beef to give it any sort of 'carrion tang' they do it to break down the callogenic fibers that hold the meat together and give it a less tough texture. Any noticeable flavor only comes long after the time limits they put on most meats you can buy in the USA. I used to hunt deer and spent extra money to have some of it aged, and unless you dry age for a long time the taste is pretty much the same as straight out of the animal. Only its lack of toughness is noticeable. That's also why you only find high end places, (that charge considerable amounts of money), selling anything with any sort of aged flavor.