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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?
Is where I draw the line..
That's all that matters.
We eat them, and if they're so smart why don't they defend themselves?!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
... what about bush meat?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Captain America says that babies test best.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... how does smart taste?
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.
After all were smart, were hot and where the party of the planet.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Maybe on Mars.
Is there a secret New Yorker colony on Mars that I'm not aware of? I woke up late today.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If we stop eating octopus because they are smart, should we eat dumb humans?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
"And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive."
unless humans destroy the environment an octopus survives in.
I'm not an expert, but assuming octopi are that intelligent based upon brain size might be a false assumption. Their brains may be large to support their chameleon skin systems. Octopi are smart, but they don't have long life spans, advanced language or tool use as far as I know.
I do think everyone should take whales off the menu.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Article is up for 20 mins, and no Kang and Kodos or Kent Brockman quotes yet. Thread starter. Bump.
In front of the sushi bar, of course.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
what a pointless comparison - eat vs no eat based on intelligence. Since canabolism exists, everything else is on the menu.
You never know where that idiot has been and what he got himself/herself into.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
As a vegetarian I find the whole debate about which animals people should eat and why both amusing and slightly disturbing.
I think pretty much any place you draw the line of what life to eat or not eat is arbitrary, since anything past self-preservation comes down to whatever beliefs or influences or ethics you choose; and that choice is always based on some foundation that is either arguable or inscrutably whimsical.
My own rule is that if I'm not comfortable at least with breaking down (aka, butchering) an animal -- or at least the idea of it, since it's not like I buy my cows whole -- then I'm not going to eat it. For whatever reason, the last time I was prepping octopus I didn't feel right about it and I realized it was the last time I was going to eat them. It was probably because I'd become more curious about them, but at the time it was much more visceral. It sucks since they're unique and delicious when done right; it wasn't long before this that I had a grilled octopus from a place on the Upper East Side (maybe 75th and Columbus) that was something of a revelation.
They're one of the few species i dont eat on purely ethical grounds. Cats and dogs I wouldn't eat on nutritional grounds, or other higher-order predators for that matter, but I guess that could be argued to be another sort of ethical reasoning.
A few years ago I saw a YouTube clip of a scuba diver whose camera was literally stolen by the octopus he was filming, who then proceeded to taunt the diver and make him give chase to wrest it back from the cephalopod. Holy shit! I thought, that sea creature is trolling this guy! And with that i decided i would no longer eat them. "Ability to troll" may not be a very scientific (or very high for that matter) bar I guess, but it apparently is mine. YMMV. Damn shame too, as i used to love eating them.
"And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive." As the epidemic of destructive feral pigs around the world demonstrates, pigs born in human captivity unfortunately have no problem surviving on their own.
Just eat with a marinara sauce and the stupidity of the tomato will even it out.
Simple rule. Never broke it.
I'm guessing it tastes much like a bicycle.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... I mean... bacon? So... the calamari aren't getting off that easy.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
is probably fair game. Doesn't mean everyone is going to want to eat it...at that point it's personal preference (or what you're used to/were brought up with).
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
Really. What's the fuss? We eat enough intelligent animals as it is. And it shouldn't really be a criterion. Do lions care if a hyena crosses their path and ends up lunch? Are cheetahs bothered if antelopes are almost as clever? Give it a rest. You'd probably eat me if our plane crashed in Andes and your life depended on it. Which is not to say I am even as intelligent as an octopus, but hopefully you see the point.
How about the kind of camouflage of the mimic octopus where they literally take on the shapes of other animals... Not so "low level" if you ask me.
If you can say, "I have no problem killing things" and I see you killing animals yourself, then I will respect your decision to eat meat as a personal one. If you live with a double-standard, however, and will not kill animals yourself, yet do not consider it "wrong" to eat them, you live a life of inconsistent logic down at the fundamental level of basic survival. I became a vegetarian when my high school ceramics teacher told me about he became a vegetarian. He was on a vacation fishing salmon in Alaska, away from his wife and children. He caught a salmon too far upstream and its meat was squishy, and its head was ugly and twisted. Another fisherman told him why his fish looked so strange. The salmon develop this way as they enter the stream and undergo this transformation for a dual purpose: One, so that they can more effectively fight to reproduce and two, so that their body is already mostly digested, so that should they successfully mate, their body will be easier to eat for their yet-unborn children. The mothers do the same and offer their lives as well. As a father, the sacrifice of the animal struck him as something he would be willing to do for his own children. As a human, he realized that river-heads are where our species trap, for consumption, most of these animals. Exploiting their beautiful purpose, and only leaving as many as needed to ensure our free profit for next season's catch. If you want to point out that there have been no studies indicating that animals have what humans understand as "feelings" and reveal your hubris regarding the human perspective being the "absolute" one, then go right ahead. I choose to live in a world occupied by other living, breathing, thinking things, not a world inhabited by mindless and emotionless machines. What you eat is slain, dead flesh that lived with as much a purpose as we do.
Humans would easily fall into that category too. Can't issue a cease and desist when you're digesting nicely.
Man eats octopus, dolphin eats octopus, man eats dolphin. If an animal is not intelligent enough to avoid getting eaten, maybe it doesn't deserve any pity.
Disclaimer: I generally agree that octopi/pods, whatever, are intelligent. But:
"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
Out of all of those examples, I can only see one that's definitely a sign of real intelligence (opening jars). The rest all sound more like at least partly instinctual behaviours.
Guarding unhatched eggs for years certainly sounds less intelligent than stashing them away somewhere you've determined to be safe, and going back out to octopus parties.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
On a fundamental level, everything is actually part of one big organism, because where do you draw the line between where one organism ends and another organism starts?
For example, you could propose that if the nuclei of two atoms are further apart than x Angstrom (and the atoms are not connected through a "chain" of "close" atoms), those atoms are part of 2 different organisms. You can't choose x to be zero (this would be nonsensical) so how would you choose x? Clearly the question itself is nonsensical and the concept of "different organisms" actually does not exist.
The fact that there is no strong neurological connection (chain of strongly interacting atoms) between your brain and the brain of a (random) octopus, doesn't mean that you're two different creatures. On a fundamental level you should be considered as being one.
Hence eating octopus (or in fact anything) is like eating yourself.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Chew air is human...
rewriting history since 2109
I think the line is: "what has an octopus ever done for you?" Not much, by most reckoning.
Octopuses have a relatively short lifespan - only up to 5 years, and as short as 6 months for some species - which is far shorter than the natural lifespan of most of the other animals we consume. Males die shortly after mating, and females die shortly after eggs hatch. So most of their life cycle simply revolves around reproduction (more like an insect or fish in that regard), so it's not like they are happily frolicking around in the sea until mean humans come and end their long, happy existences. Also, their "intelligence" is rather relative. A bigger factor is what they sense and what causes them fear, pain and suffering - these are things that humans can empathize with and thus a bigger factor in whether or not we feel sorry enough for them not to eat them (and I believe the answer to that is solid no, as pigs, etc, are far easier to empathize with than an octopus, and yet most people have no qualms about eating pork).
Better known as 318230.
but octopus is just gross
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
The Wikipedia entry on Meat lists the commonly consumed mammals. Curiously, only dog meat has a nutrition label.
I am pretty sure your local butcher would NOT appreciate you printing up some of those labels and leaving them around his store...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
But they are definitely too chewy. Carry on, my eight-tentacled friends, you're safe with me.
Interesting demonstration of lack of scientific understanding. Evolution is NOT a law never mind a natural law. It is merely a good idea. Don't worry, evolution will not effect you. You are merely the effect.
I've had octopus a couple of times. Tends to be a little chewy. I'll stick to ahi tuna (maguro and toro), yellowtail, scallops, freshwater eel (unagi), surf clams, etc. Still haven't had enough to drink to try sea urchin. Just something about the appearance and texture.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Social contract? What a load of crap. Most animals do not eat member of their own species. Do you you think it's because they also have a "social contract"?
I think you have never owned chickens, gerbils, rats, mice, hamsters, and never read about sand tiger sharks, polar bears, spiders, parasitic wasps, or tiger salamanders.
All of the listed animals eat their young. I guess the ones that get eaten don't have opportunity to sue for "breach of social contract"...
We eat them, and if they're so smart why don't they defend themselves?!
They *do* defend themselves!
They open sacrificial jars of food for us to eat instead!
but octopus is just gross
Try it raw on rice (sushi style). You'd be surprised how good it tastes with soy sauce and wasabi. The texture is a little chewy which puts some people off.
Never thought I'd like escargot but had enough to drink one time and I've been hooked ever since. Who woulda thunk that snails make a great vehicle for garlic and butter?
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
it's not just that their cute. Their Pack animals, and they integrate into my pack as something useful. Even a cat is useful if it's eating the mice in my barn that would otherwise be chompin' on my grain. Horses can be ridden. Rabbits, otoh, are fair game (pun intended).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the R.A.F. who now suffer the largest casualties in this area. And what do you think the Argylls ate in Aden? Arabs?
Yours etc. Captain B.J. Smethwick in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
Have gnu, will travel.
...not to eat any animal that specifically asks me not to.
I won't eat octopus, because chewing on octopus is like chewing rubber tubing. It is not a pleasant experience.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Disclaimer: I am a vegan and all carnivores are morons.
Wait, doesn't that make octipi morons? Logic breakdown, never mind, carry on. :-)
But seriously, don't let me catch you eating one, I'll kill you...
Can't wait to get my fill of Eloi!
out of a piece of volcanic glass or flint and use it to open a vein it specifically targetted, is off the menu. Otherwise, it's on the menu.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I have some other ones though. I have two criteria and I employ some highly specious logic to justify eating whatever I want.
The first criterion is whether something seems really stupid.
The second criterion is whether something would eat me if it could.
Chickens fail both tests. Cows only fail one, but I still eat them.
Chickens and cows can both be cute, depending on your point of view. But nom nom nom.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously, rights of an individual animal can wait. We need to first sort out rights of individual humans and plight of animals as species. Once we do, we'll be much more morally qualified to judge these other issues.
As animals get higher up the food chain we seem to find them less appetizing. Perhaps because they start to seem more like us in terms of their intelligence, social structure and behavior.
Not so "low level" if you ask me.
No one did.
I'm sorry.. does getting spanked sting your delicate little behind?
I think your explanation is perfect. The whole premise of this article is kinda insulting in an egghead sort of way, subversively using octopus intelligence as the standard for what we should be allowed to eat. Since most people could probably do without eating octopus, they are hoping people will agree with them. Then by this relatively low standard, they can decide what else you should be allowed to eat. Certainly not pigs, probably not cows, maybe chickens, but I'm sure there will be a lively debate about 'chicken intelligence.' The bottom line is to prevent animals from getting eaten by humans. I think in that context it should sound pretty silly since plenty of animals get eaten in the wild.
Except humans are obligate omnivores. *Some* members can survive in a subsistence mode on vegetable matter, but others cannot and many cannot do so long term in a healthy manner.
Any zoology grad student can point at our tooth layout and explain to you exactly why animals develop that incisor / eyetooth / bicuspid / molar order, and it's not for chewing leaves. It's there because our bodies, by and large, have a dietary requirement - driven by nutritional and physiological requirements - to tear and consume animal proteins. There is simply no getting around it.
Pigs will revert to hairy wild boars within a couple generations in the wild. Judging by how they're considered pests throughout most of the US and are Freetown hunt (bounties, even), I'd suspectmost of what else you've ridden for factuality as well.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
We empathize with that which we perceive to be like us. People who look and act like me from my tribe? The halest, heartiest of the bunch, worthy of respect and honor. People who don't look like me but act like me... still, hearty mates. Animals which have emotions like me? Puppies, dogs, cats? Can't hurt them. Chickens? Well... they seem to be pretty different. They're okay to eat. Cows. Wow they're dumb and utterly unlike me - they're okay to kill. Fish? Utterly unlike me. No question, okay to kill. Octopi... wait, you're telling me they're like me? Hmmm, let me consider this.
I don't get it. How does that capability make them "smart"? Mosquitoes secrete a deadening agent into your skin to give them a few seconds to eat. Maybe we don't eat mosquitoes because of their intelligence.
Many creatures, such as fish, can camouflage themselves. But fish are really, really stupid.
Apparently the author hasn't heard of wild pigs, which don't require human intervention to live. They are pretty good at opening containers or other enclosures, when there is something they want inside.
Dolphins, great apes, and humans can identify themselves in a mirror. Everything else doesn't know that itself is a thing so it's basically a really complicated set of reactive algorithms with no true consciousness.
An octopus is a highly specialized form of life with some impressive tricks. But that doesn't make it intelligent, just well-adpated to its environment. Nothing in TFA demonstrates even modest octopus intelligence, merely excellent specialization. The two concepts should not be confused with each other.
Humans evolved to be intelligent because their ancestors were generalists and social, and the right environmental factors forced adaptations that proved beneficial to survival. They lacked a high degree of specialization except in the area of physical endurance (not a lot of marathon runners in the natural world), and the only reason they survived was by learning how to think about cause and effect, and understand how other creatures around them thought (especially other humans). In order to hunt dangerous animals with limited physical traits, you need to coordinate an attack, which requires you understand what your hunting partners are thinking, and what they'll do next. Other animals will hunt in packs, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of thought or speculation involved, mostly trial-and-error learning and instinct. Humans are the only hunters on the planet that track prey by footprints (or hoofprints). Other predators will go after prey they can directly see, or smell, or touch, but we seem to be the only animals to have ever recognized that when another animal steps in the mud they leave an indentation that can be recognized and followed days or weeks after all scent of the animal has been blown away. Other animals can communicate, but humans seem to be the only ones to ever ask any questions. We don't just scream out into the world "I'm here!" or "There's danger!" or even "Hey I found food!", we also say things like "Why are the elephants all headed that way? Is there water over there?" and then try to find out. Elephants may remember where all the watering holes are, but humans entering a new area for the first time can find those watering holes by recognizing elephant tracks and imagining that elephants all traveling in one direction may be heading for water, without ever having even seen the elephants who left the tracks.
Once you start asking questions about the world, and trying to learn answers, that's when all the magic happens. In all our research of animal linguistics, we've never been able to find any non-human animals asking any questions. Chimpanzees can be taught enough sign language to understand and respond to questions, but they can't seem to form any of their own. Non-human animals are capable of learning from their experiences, but learning is not intelligence. Non-human animals are capable of exchanging information, but communication is not intelligence. Humans have the ability to consider the future and the past, form hypotheses, and question the nature of not only their own experiences, but those experiences of others. Intelligent animals can understand that a symbol, word, or hand motion can represent a specific kind of food. Very intelligent animals can chain together sentences like "Bob likes bananas." Only humans can say "Does Alice like bananas?" That may not seem so important, until you realize where that leads. "Bob likes bananas but Alice doesn't like bananas. Do bananas taste differently for Bob than Alice? Is her experience different than Bob's? Why is that? What is taste, anyway?"
What I do know is that octopuses don't ask questions, but they do taste delicious. I also know what taste is, and why people like different kinds of seafood, because I was smart enough to ask. I don't feel bad about eating octopus, and neither should you, but I can understand that your thinking on the subject may be different than mine. You're wrong, but I understand that some people other than me are wrong sometimes. An octopus would never even consider that your thoughts on a subject would be different than his.
Plants are intelligent too, by the way. Should we not eat them?
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
There shouldn't be too much debate, chickens are very smart. We used to raise them when I was growing up, and they seemed capable of rather complex deduction. They're basically little velociraptors, though they're friendly enough if socialized. We didn't eat them, but that's because they were egg-layers. It wouldn't have bothered me to eat them, regardless, but my sister treated them like pets and once we started having them she never ate chicken ever again (and has since become a vegan, ugh).
I've known a few cows in my day, too, and they're incredibly dumb animals. I don't think we have to worry about anyone making an intelligence argument for them. You're right about pigs, though.
Anyway, however intelligent our prey animals may be, we are so, so far beyond them that it really doesn't matter. Whenever somebody makes the intelligent food argument, I like to just point out that plants are smart too and anyone arguing that animals "feel pain" and "have feelings" should stop chowing down on their veggies if they don't want to look like hypocrites. The fact is that all life survives by destroying other life. Even those plants sucking down light energy from the local star are part of a cycle of life that depends on death, and plenty of plants murder other species or members of their own. Either deal with it, or stop trying to stay alive yourself.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Before you spout your nonsense about the moral high ground of vegetarianism, you might want to actually investigate the science of plant intelligence and social behaviors.
Plants, animals, fungus, that protozoa swimming in my drinking water, who cares? My life requires the death of other living things to continue living. It may be immoral to kill without purpose, but to kill in order to sustain one's own life is just what all life does, yes even the plants murder other life forms to survive either through competition or direct action.
I value my life greater than I do the life of an octopus. Why shouldn't I? Why should his short little life take precedence to my own? That octopus may be inconvenienced, but his species will go on because I'm smart enough to build rocket ships that will someday take some of his relatives along with me to colonize and terraform other worlds, thus saving his species from eventual extinction when the sun burns out or there's some other disaster on Earth. Whatever you may say about human behavior towards the natural world, the fact that we can offer this eventual colonial symbiosis greatly tips the scales in our favor as righteous dudes.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Someone recently pointed out to me that you can buy 'vegetarian water', which has all microorganisms filtered out so that you don't accidentally consume them. My immediate reaction was to wonder if we can persuade the people who buy this to stop breathing, as air also contains microorganisms, many of which are members of the animal kingdom...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The only line humans almost unanimously draw, is we don't each other. And that line is/has/will be crossed when necessary.
We eat whales, dolphins, monkeys, crows, all deemed intelligent. But they aren't like 'us' so they are fair game.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Its of course not a perfect measure, but the ability to communicate would probably be the easiest guidepost as to what we should/shouldn't eat. Language of some sort is required for a society/culture to develop and without society/culture creatures often act on a purely instinctual level. I don't think we have any concrete evidence of a non-human species on Earth having a language, the closest possibilities would be certain cetaceans. I am sure there are other guideposts (personality, intelligence, problem solving, etc) but communication should be the easiest to recognize.
Can we still catch them?
Some individuals may be too smart for us to eat, but the ones that end up in the fisherman's nets are obviously not too smart to be eaten.
If that's what their low-level circuitry can do, think of what their brains are about.
Their all intelligent, We as Human's are at the top of the food chain. I would eat none of these. Out on the Web I recently came across cricket sandwiches!
Apparently not, otherwise it would be eating us.
fresh and chopped up, with some olive oil, chili flakes, salt, charred over wood fire (quickly and lightly) with the marinade dabbed gently with decent (even semi decent or lots of rough) wine, is worth an afternoon well spent.... don't anyone dare tell me otherwise
Some egg laying related chemical change causes the female octopus to die after the breeding cycle is complete.
I have never heard of any of the many assorted species of octopi to be long lived - please correct me if another know differently?
If this process can be halted, there seem to be a number of species of octopus that might develop intellectually to rival man, since they already seem as capable as many lesser species like crows and monkeys - to a degree, as the life media differs so.
I wonder if there have been any training trials with octopi? I suspect there have been. some links
http://bit.ly/1yFZ4Vk
I think there is a need for some research into the life cycle to see what can be done?
prions, birth defects ... among others;
taboos are a pre-scientific (pre == before, NOT less than, scientific) method for cultures to maintain healthy community
wait 'til we start to recognize how intelligent plants, fungi and bacteria are, then we'll really have trouble deciding what to eat
to fork life is (simply) divine!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And if so, what would stop people doing the same?
Live from the field: Octopus just barely escaped being in our menu today, while ordering seafood in a right-next-to-the-sea tavern, outside of Nafplion, Greece.
Well, fact is, octopus IS really admirable animal, among other reasons for passing the mirror test. For the record, dogs typically do not pass the mirror test, ie. cannot consistently recognise themselves in a mirror. Octopus is surprisingly intelligent for an animal that is apparently primitive!
That being said, it's very tasty, too. I'll spare you the details of the great ways to cook it and prepare delicious dishes in the greek cuisine; for one, I have been catching octopuses, even before I was a teenager, in a traditional millenium-old underwater manner using just a harpoon. Big thrill for any young child.
However, there IS a problem with how we catch octopus and much other marine life: it is seriously important to avoid catching/capturing the young animals and only collect the individuals of some age, after having passed from breeding cycle. This is an increasing concern with many fishes, also, and we should all frown upon the practice of catching really really young fish, which is considered a delicacy in some places (Yes, I'm looking at you, South Italy). The sea needs to be respected and cultivated with more seriousness than it is currently done. Human population and technical know-how for fishing have increased in a way that is unsustainable: the sooner we understand it, the better. The sea could and would provide, yet not for the greedy...
I like to eat people who insert a possessive apostrophe when they mean to use a plural. Yes, that's right - I'm a grammar cannibal.
If octopi are not "too smart" to eat then perhaps infants, retarded adults, people in comas, and Alzeheimers patients are too stupid to deserve human rights?
Not to offend catholics, but...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
If belief is worth anything, there's a lot of cannibalism happening on Sundays...
In the US, most smart animal shelters carefully review who is adopting to make sure the adopter is not using the shelter as a meat supplier. I happen to be a dog lover and find it offensive, but I understand it is cultural.
Wait, can you clarify?
Which kind of dog lover are you?
Do you find it offensive that people eat dogs, or do you find it offensive that animal shelters prevent themselves from being used as suppliers?
Wait for the followers of Cthulhu to become smart enough to catch and eat us.
Fun fact: milions of Catholics eat Christ once a week during mass.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
IMHO it's barbaric for humans to kill and/or eat any sentient being. Maybe I bend the line at vermin in my house, but the poor souls are only taking advantage of my hospitality creating a hard-to-resist habitat for them. We're just fortunate we rose to the "top" of the food chain, and are too sick and poisoned by the toxic environment we created to provide tasty meals for alien visitors, perhaps.
I live near Puget Sound - the home of the giant pacific octopus. They are easily found for sale on the docks or at local fish markets. I learned about octopus intelligence over 20 years ago and so quit dining on it. I couldn't bring myself to eating a creature that is likely to be scentiant. (M.S. Biology)
The camoflauge part is bullshit too. it's not an advanced function. It's a very low level one that happens to work well, but is extremely low in the neural function, not even getting close to the brain.
Cephalopods have brains?
The list. Out of the millions of animal species in history... Top 12 Smartest Animals ever on Earth: 12. Portia Labiata Jumping Spider 11. Raccoon 10. Rats 9. Ravens & Crows 8. Dogs (namely, The Border Collie) & Cats (namely, The American Shorthair) 7. Rhesus Macaque Monkey 6. North Pacific Giant Octopus 5. African Grey Parrot 4. Elephants 3. Capuchin Monkey 2. Dolphins (namely, Bottlenose) & Whales 1. Apes (namely, Chimpanzee and Gorilla... oh, and i guess also those pesky ole humans). i didn't make it up. Google it. Dolphin research has shown that the creatures are more intelligent than chimpanzees, they recognize their reflections in a mirror, and can even think about the future. The scientists originally proposed the ten Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans two years ago at a conference in Helsinki. You can sign the petition at http://www.cetaceanrights.org/
So any life that does not experience pain using the same cell types and signals that you do is not really pain, huh? And any life that doesn't have a centralized brain, it's okay to cause damage to their bodies and kill them?
You must be okay with eating octopuses, then, since their brains are distributed throughout their bodies, instead of being wholly centralized. You're okay with eating plants, for sure, even though they're capable of communication using thousands of chemical "words" and have demonstrated the ability to learn, despite having distributed neural-like cell structures. You must be okay with eating Albert Einstein as long as you inject him with a paralytic first, too.
Intelligence and pain are both irrelevant when it comes to eating. I don't apply ethics to what I eat, that's the difference between you and I. I'm just calling you a hypocrite for claiming animals are somehow special when you reject the notion that humans are somehow special. The reality is we're all just life forms trying to survive. All of us (all life throughout the entire universe, that is, not just humans) should eat/absorb anything that is capable of providing us with nutritional value and is not a danger. I don't eat humans or monkeys because they can be dangerous to eat. I don't eat poison berries, either.
I apply ethics only to killing and mutilation. That's a separate issue. The fact that vegans won't drink milk from a cow that didn't hurt the cow to get, but happily live in wood houses in formerly-forested areas, I just have to laugh and shake my head. Living a life, as any species, involves causing significant amounts of other living creatures to die. Just accept it, and then try not to destroy too many other life forms without purpose. Kill out of necessity, to protect yourself and feed yourself, then minimize the rest of the damage you do whenever possible. That's ethics. Wasting food at a restaurant because you realize after it's been served that there's a little bit of cheese on it, that's the opposite of ethical.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Even in Japan, octopus meat is usually cooked (boiled) for sushi. The arms of the common octopus and the giant octopus (most common varieties for sushi) are edible raw, and are treated as a delicacy, but they are very chewy--you'd need to get a good sushi chef to slice it paper thin to have any hope of chewing it off. The Koreans do eat living octopus arms that are only chopped and not sliced, but they use a different, smaller species that isn't as well suited for sushi.
I didn't know that. The other items on the menu at our favorite sushi place are noted as being cooked (e.g., unagi, ebi) or lightly flamed (seared tuna, scallops if you ask for them that way) but otherwise raw. I just assumed that since the octopus wasn't noted as cooked, it was raw. Unlike most of the other items on the menu that I might see in a fish market, I've never been to a fish market that had octopus (cooked or not).
I enjoy learning and, especially, learning about the things I eat. Thanks. Also, something tells me that the octopus being boiled isn't going to make it acceptable to my friends and family who stick to cooked items on the sushi menu....
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
There are a _lot_ of animals that are tool users. Many of the tool uses are instinctual, some are learned, some are a combination. This is not a good criteria to use to determine who to eat and who not to eat.
A much better criteria is economics. This doesn't have to do with capitalism but rather what are the costs of production. How long does it take to get the food? How fast does it grow? What resources does it take? From this perspective there are some plants that are poor candidates because they grow so slowly and there are some animals (like pigs and octopuses) who are excellent candidates for eating. Humans aren't a very good candidate because the reproduce and grow so slowly. It is actually more economically efficient to raise mice than humans. Pigs are far, far better as are chickens, cattle and sheep, all of which can be raised on pastures that won't easily grow other human foods.
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Another way of looking at the question is to put us in place of the octopus. Imagine if the octopus had evolved several hundred thousand years further, becoming the dominant life form on a different planet, and chose to explore and colonize Earth. They may look on our people and cities like a bee hive or ant mount; intelligent as a collective but oblivious and insignificant as individuals. Smoking us out and sucking our honey (or worse) may seem completely ethical and moral to them. Our nukes could be their ink cloud, our cries of panic would be incomprehensible, and our futile efforts to escape their snares would be comfortably familiar and expected. What's considered "right" and "wrong" only has meaning if practiced and communicated by those with power, and for those whose minds work differently it often seems arbitrary.
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