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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..
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?"
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.
In front of the sushi bar, of course.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
As a vegetarian I find the whole debate about which animals people should eat and why both amusing and slightly disturbing.
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.
You mean like buffalo and wild boar?
I'm guessing somewhere between plenty and a hell of a lot.
The key word is "dependent". Panda is dependent on humans to survive. Pigs... nope.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"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.
Their neural anatomy is also radically different from us vertebrates. That makes comparisons almost meaningless.
Their brain is a toroid. The esophagus goes through the hole in the middle. Mollusks are weird.
After all were smart, were hot and where the party of the planet.
Oh the irony
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Lab experiments have shown that they can measure things, and that they can learn by watching another octopus do something ONCE (gee, wish we were as good).
Does this mean that they're too intelligent to eat? Perhaps the solution is to cross them with chickens - then everyone gets a drumstick.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
If it's trimmed nicely, I don't mind.
Wait, are we talking about the same thing?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I recall an article about a aquarium that had a big tank of cuttlefish installed. Then every night one cuttlefish would disappear and no-one could figure out who'd come and steal cuttllefish, so they stuck some night-vision camera in and waited.
An octopus in a tank across the walkway would pop out the top of its tank, shimmy across the floor, up the side of the cuttlefish tank, grab one, eat it and then retreat back to its tank. I figure anything that figure out that its human keepers had put a fresh source of food for it across the hall is intelligent enough to not be eaten. Incidentally octopi are intelligent enough to take the trapped crabs and lobster from traps.
but hey, human eat fucking everything, destroying the environment it lives in as we all know nothing is more important than our bellies, and the profits made from selling it for other people's bellies.
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"...
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 wouldn't necessarily rank whales higher (or lower) than octopi. As we've learned from corvids (crows, jays, ravens), absolute brain size and organization isn't a particularly good indicator of intelligence. Crows (who have brains the size of a large peanut) score very similarly to great apes.
I totally agree - crows blow my mind. They have complex language, tool use and family units similar to ours.
My opinion about whales was based upon an experience I had several years ago in Maui. A baby whale and then mother slowly came out of the water 6 feet away from our boat and I looked those whales in the eye. There was obvious curiosity and intelligence there.
Its hard to imagine eating something like that. It for me borders on cannibalism.
Greed is the root of all evil.
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.