The real problem is that nearly all seafood is unsustainable. Even when using euphemisms like 'farms' make us thing it's somewhat contained to one place and we just throw them some food pellets manufactured from vegetables in another factory. The reality of salmon farms for instance is that for every 1kg of farmed Salmon it takes 20kg of wild fish to feed them to maturity.
It really depends. The Hawaiians farmed fish several hundred years ago. They built structures (loko i'a) that encouraged certain fishes to congregate and fed/protected them. The caveat is that the fish primarily ate algae and plankton so it is considerably easier to feed the fish.
This 20kg figure sounds wildly inaccurate. Fish feed is in general 75% plantbased. It is also very efficient (in terms of conversion rate to growth). Could this 20kg figure be decades old?
Also the non plant parts of it could be fairly efficient too. e.g see black soldier fly farming for fish feed. Not that that is a 100% answer for all feed for seafood farming, but interesting options abound.
Personally though, Octopi are too smart for me to eat. I'll always pass on it now.
This seems to be a very generalized statement when there is a lot of variation to consider. There are 33,000 fish species, some being specialized feeders of algae, to 100% live fish, all designed for processing each food differently. Are you speaking on a specific fish that is commonly "farmed"?
I could see Salmon needing this 20kg and not even contain the quality fats they get in the wild, resulting in a lower quality food on top of being more impactful to the environment.
In the 1970's I went on a field trip to a trout farm in New York (USA, obvs.). They fed plant food pellets to this giant whirling silos of fish. Not sure if salmon can eat plants but trout sure can. Of course, that was the 70's, and just one fish farm.
The Feed Conversation Rate for fish is between 1.0 and 2.0kg of feed to produce 1kg of fish. For salmon this is 1.2 to 1.5kg. They are replacing the wild fish with alternatives and additives that are more sustainable.
So if algae feed smaller fish, the smaller fish feed salmon, and the salmon feed humans, to double our salmon, we'd need 20 units of smaller fish and 200 units of algae (edit: oops, math is hard).
That's a lot. Climate change can increase algae productivity, but not by that much unless we want to barbecue the world. Of course there are other avenues (like simply harvesting more of it, or growing crops in areas of land/ocean not suitable for other uses). But there are always knock-on effects too, like algae blooms can be poisonous or deplete nutrients in an area.
The on-land agricultural revolution and improved/modified genetics gave us access to much more edible food, but a lot of that is only 1-2 trophic levels (we eat grains directly or feed grains to livestock that we then eat). The ocean tends to have a lot more layers, and is also not as easy for us to till and fertilize, and not all of it is equal... much of the edible parts are concentrated in certain areas, with a lot of empty water in between.
In general we probably shouldn't be hunting apex predators in the ocean anymore than we hunt them on land. It took 'em millions of years of evolution to reach a relatively stable carrying capacity, but we can drive them to extinction in a few years.
But, hell, realistically there's probably no stopping any of this. One day our kids will read about whales alongside dodos in the history books =/
That's not a reasonable way to think about it in this context. If a small fish eats algae that is poisonous to us, it's likely able to metabolize the poison and not itself be poisonous to its predators or to us.
The whole too smart thing seems so arbitrary to me.
Like this animal can solve a puzzle thus it can't be farmed. The other animal can't. But if we scare/hurt them they both react in fear/pain.
IQs are we talking here? Suduko? Puzzle? Open a door? Use a tool? Care for its youngs? Stand under roof when it rains?
I can wrap my head around both stances (eat animals freely or full veg only)...bit this arbirary line in sand approach I struggle with. May as well go with an arbitrary "this one is cute so we won't eat it" approach
I feel like we've got the technological capability to steward wildlife populations to the point that we can all eat animals that live wild. It would be a big transition but it would be great for the environment.
> People arguing that would be happy if no animals were farmed at all.
This. It's a propaganda angle to try to get non-activists to support their group's demands by adding a spin to their claims that makes it more engaging.
The same blend of propaganda also includes things like showing a picture of a pig showing only its eyes, devised to underline their similarities with human eyes. They then proceed to draw a parallel between slaughtering pigs and humans. Another take is portraying cattle as pets, and you wouldn't kill your own pets now would you?
In the end it's just propaganda to try to convince non-militants to unwittingly support a cause. It doesn't matter if it's arbitrary or outlandish. The goal is to sway you to do the militant's bidding.
Quite odd to label people trying to end horrific violence as "militants"...
And is it really outlandish to want to stop hurting animals that really are similar to cats, dogs and yes, us humans, at least as far as the ability to perceive pain and basic emotions. Perhaps the propaganda is actually that it is okay for non-human animals to endure horrific suffering, just so that some humans can spend a few minutes "enjoying" the taste of their flesh or breast-milk.. (the production of which also requiring huge amounts of plant-based feed, which significantly contributes to deforestation & methane emissions)
I can't agree with that when we're reaching into the 70% overweight/obese in the US, I personally don't believe in the "let people do what they want" until it means "and let them bear the consequences by themselves", we're all collectively paying the price of these choices
I’d be curious what legalizing weed has done to the number of people who tried it for the first time or went from non use to occasional use. I say this because the addiction/safety/outcome of many of these “harder” drugs means that a short dalliance could lead to faster addiction etc. There would be a knock on societal effect if there was an uptick in use, and NA etc are not that effective %wise for people to hop-on hop-off. By this measure, alcohol is just as bad, and while prohibition didn’t stop the flow for those seeking it and increased the safety risks from bootlegging, I wonder if a better example is to look at a country with strict historical prohibition which relaxed those rules (can’t think of an example).
They're probably smart enough that we could train them to farm each other. Split them into two groups, give them limited food, and make them duke it out in underwater coliseums. Winners get to raise the next generation, losers become sushi :(
Hell, attach some livestreaming, raise some money, sic a few LLMs on them... we can probably learn to talk to them in a decade, teach them to ride dolphins, then invite them onto land to manage other livestock, or fight on UFC...
I’ve seen videos that show frightening intelligence. The biggest limiting factor is that they don’t live very long… 2 years is well past Middle Aged.
I’ve read reports of pet octopi that are so curious they climb out of
Their tank to explore or be nearer their owner… and can’t get back in, which is fatal on a fairly short time frame
The Seattle aquarium had a weird issue with fish going missing for some time (weeks? Months?), the culprit was their octopus letting itself out at night and returning before morning.
I recall another story featuring an octopus bred for intelligence who manages an octopus-only landing vehicle on Titan or something, she smuggles her babies up and then they reproduce in the habitat and...I can't recall how it ends!
> Winners get to raise the next generation, losers become sushi :(
If I'm not mistaken, in Spain some bullfighting events that involve matadors killing bulls for entertainment also end up supplying the dead bulls to local restaurants to serve them to tourists.
"It's a tough meat," says Anta. "We cut the meat ourselves, then cook it with red wine overnight, and then it's stewed for four hours before we can serve it."
Interesting, but I bet it’s no bull when they say el toro is tough. I don’t know the average age of the toro but generally you don’t want the animal to be full of adrenaline and flight/fight hormones as it makes the meat taste weird and tough. At least that’s what it says in our homestead books.
Not trying to be a SJW but a drove an 18 wheeler for a year and would pick up meat from slaughter houses and the way they treat those animals is god forsakenly bad.They put hundreds of chickens in a room and spray water with electrical current into it. The cows would come in on trucks just terrified with the walls covered in their own feces. Not even going to get started on the conditions in which they are raised.
It made me really cut down on my meat eating and pay the extra for local farm raised meat.
Im not even against eating meat! I just think the mass industrialization of slaughter is messed up.
If you look at almost every menu though its like 90% meat so the amount of meat we consume on America is remarkable.
Capitalism is really good at hiding horrible abuse of people and animals behind a veneer of civilization and the abstraction of a blameless neutral currency.
Unfortunately, your local farm raised meat might still go to that big slaughterhouse. It's expensive for small farmers to run their own on-site USDA inspected slaughterhouse. Also, the chickens you eat are still likely suffering for much of their lives even if raised on a local farm. The best thing that could happen to broiler chickens is for them to go extinct.
You bring up a good point about penguins. They and chickens are both birds, so why are we finally eating chickens but not penguins? Cuteness definitely plays a role.
For some reason I think penguins would taste very rich and gamey. I think I'm imagining this due to their cold resistance implying large amounts of fat. Anyone know?
That's the practicality for why thing are the way they are.
My argument is about starting up a baby penguin slaughterhouse in the north pole right now and how much activist resistance you will get versus a crocodile meat slaughter house in Florida.
My only rationale for why it's OK for me to eat pigs is that the pigs would definitely eat me if the opportunity arose, and in this respect they are different from say, cows, or indeed octopuses, which show no inclination to consume human meat.
If you (as sometimes happens to farmers) drop dead in a pig sty after not long the pigs will eat you because you're food and they're hungry.
This argument has appeared multiple times in this thread, and I'm genuinely curious: if pigs' behavior demonstrates to you that their status is low enough to warrant their treatment, why does adopting that behavior seem like a reasonable reaction? Or would you find a pig killing and eating a human to be a morally neutral incident that, while maybe not preferable, has no ultimate weight to consider?
Not low enough, high enough, the pigs, are much closer to me than to say a tree. Of course a pig killing and eating a human is morally neutral, I'd put it in the same bucket as a human falling off a step ladder, I have no reason to believe that the pig thinks humans are moral actors it should consider in a system of ethics.
Pigs are not more intelligent than dogs. That's flat out misinformation, and you are propagating misinformation, i.e. spreading a myth every time you repeat that false information.
I don't think I'm being rude, although I don't have a lot of patient for people that willfully spread misinformation.
Maybe, just maybe, do some more research other than believing what the first link in your Google search results brings up.
One source has been posted thus far, and it contradicts what you've said. In fact, the entire first page of Google's search results for "pigs vs dogs intelligence" brings up nothing to support your point. (Low-quality sources, but again, it's currently low-quality vs no-quality.)
It's (IMO) somewhat rude to demand compliance without supporting your position.
> One source has been posted thus far, and it contradicts what you've said.
That source is hardly credible now, is it? As far as I'm concerned I'm treating it with the respect it warrants.
> Low-quality sources, but again, it's currently low-quality vs no-quality.
The key is, as you say, low quality sources. It's a bunch of corporate blog posts trying to get clicks perpetuating a myth, just as corethree is so proud of doing.
> It's (IMO) somewhat rude to demand compliance without supporting your position.
I can see that. But, if we agree that an onus is on those who make a claim to support it, I don't think we should consider copying and pasting whatever link comes up first from a google search as supporting it.
The real issue here is that it doesn't particularly make sense to directly compare pigs and dogs like this at all. They have different kinds of intelligence, both of which are still being studying, and both stronger in areas where the other might be weaker or not have a showing at all.
That's why I'm not just providing a single source - because there isn't one, not that wouldn't be as low quality as what corethree provided making me a hypocrite. It's a complex issue that requires explanation and citations from multiple papers, and I didn't see corethree's post as being worthy of the effort that would be required in such a reply.
I will make the final notes that as far as I know we don't have evidence of pigs being self-aware while we do with dogs [0] and no pig has ever accomplished anything even close to what some of the world's smartest dogs have been able to [1][2].
I'm open to the possibility that pigs might be smarter than dogs, but I've seen no compelling evidence to support that claim at all. Just gullible people perpetuating the first thing they read.
> Thank you for posting sources, you should have done this in the beginning.
It wasn't for you. Instead of saying I should have done that in the beginning, really, you should have done so since you made the claim, and you should have done the bare minimum research to realize your claim was bullshit and not perpetuate it.
> Unfortunately I don't like your attitude nor do I care about this topic enough to follow through. No offense.
> As a result I will not be following your sources and I will be ending this conversation. Thanks again.
That's fine. I don't really care about any of that. Instead I will just ask that you try to do better in the future and not perpetuate misinformation due to laziness.
Please don't respond to my thread nor impolitely reference me or accuse me of things if you're going to post things that aren't for me. I already stated this conversation is over. Walk away now. Do not respond me.
But you're talking shit about me under my thread which my comment is the parent to my face. You're starting shit. I've literally told you I don't appreciate your attitude and you're still starting shit.
I have done nothing wrong. You may disagree with me but disagreement isnt an offense and your actions in response are uncalled for. I'm not walking from this thread. This topic was started by me so I stand my ground.
You're the party starting shit and in the wrong. You're the one that needs to stop.
Common courtesy is not to run your mouth on the Internet because your shielded by anonymity. Treat the situation like real life. I am looking you in the eye in front of your face and politely requesting you to Walk away now.
You can choose to be an ass and continue acting rude by not walking away. That's your right. But just imagine what that would entail if you did that in real life. Unfortunate that real consequences aren't enforced on HN. This thread getting flagged already is a big indicator that you crossed the line.
> But you're talking shit about me under my thread which my comment is the parent to my face.
So what? I said you were perpetuating a myth and you were. It still not 'your' thread, what kind of childish nonsense is that?
> I've literally told you I don't appreciate your attitude and you're still starting shit.
Because I don't care what you think at all. I was talking to someone else and you decided to insert yourself because of this mistaken belief that it was 'your' thread. Most ridiculous thing I've seen in quite some time.
> I'm not walking from this thread. This topic was started by me so I stand my ground.
This is honestly hilarious. Walk, don't walk, I don't really care. But you have no ownership of the thread or right to tell me to stop replying. Go touch grass.
> Common courtesy is not to run your mouth on the Internet because your shielded by anonymity.
I made valid criticisms. You made a claim, only lazily supported it with a low quality tabloid article, defended perpetuating a false claim and refused to change your stance after I attempted to educate you. That makes you willfully ignorant, and I have no time for you. I will keep replying to you until this conversation runs its course though due to nothing else than curiosity.
> Treat the situation like real life.
In real life I'd ask you not to perpetuate myths or spread misinformation, and call you out if you tried to defend doing so with a crappy blog article as your source.
> You can choose to be an ass and continue acting rude by not walking away. That's your right.
And you can continue coming back trying to claim ownership of the thread and needing to have the last word because I called you out for laziness and intellectual dishonesty.
> But just imagine what that would entail if you did that in real life.
The same result? You complaining and being upset I dared to call you out?
> This thread getting flagged already is a big indicator that you crossed the line.
Actually the comments where I correct you and call you out are upvoted and not flagged at all.
I haven't crossed a line. I told you you were wrong, dismissed your low quality source, asked you to stop perpetuating misinformation, and then in response to someone else provided sources to show just why you were wrong and perpetuating misinformation.
You then tried to claim ownership of the thread and order me to not comment any further which is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen on HN.
Look. You can admit you were wrong and that you were perpetuating misinformation and just move on, or you can keep needing to have the last word and coming back and trying to defend your behavior be talking about how 'rude' I was, but the more you do the latter, the worse it reflects on you.
>So what? I said you were perpetuating a myth and you were. It still not 'your' thread, what kind of childish nonsense is that?
Please do not say things like that here. It is "my" thread. I opened the topic for discussion. You are free to comment but taking it over with bullshit like this is rude. It is mine in this sense. Do you note how I didn't insult you here and you used the word childish? You need to walk away again.
>Because I don't care what you think at all. I was talking to someone else and you decided to insert yourself because of this mistaken belief that it was 'your' thread. Most ridiculous thing I've seen in quite some time.
If you don't care what people think. You don't belong here. It's actually against the rules here to be rude and say things without care. You'll actually need to leave this entire forum should you continue.
>This is honestly hilarious. Walk, don't walk, I don't really care. But you have no ownership of the thread or right to tell me to stop replying. Go touch grass.
I know you don't care. I'm telling you now, not appreciated at all to laugh in peoples faces and be rude.
>I made valid criticisms. You made a claim, only lazily supported it with a low quality tabloid article, defended perpetuating a false claim and refused to change your stance after I attempted to educate you. That makes you willfully ignorant, and I have no time for you. I will keep replying to you until this conversation runs its course though due to nothing else than curiosity.
You made a counter claim with zero support. Then you purported to cite sources that offered zero information on pig intelligence vs. dog intelligence. Just a bunch of articles and Wikipedia on dog intelligence and how great it is. Everybody knows Dogs are intelligent.. but more intelligent then pigs? You offered nothing. I never said dogs were stupid, your evidence only serves to disprove a point I never made. A bunch of useless off topic evidence that goes nowhere. The point is this: Pigs are more intelligent then dogs.
Additionally all your sources were just as casual and weak as mine. Random internet articles and wikipedia. None of it strengthened your argument because it was both off topic and the same level of quality as my evidence.
Overall your argument was weak and you not only were rude but you violated your own tenets by offering weak and irrational arguments. You even claimed that "you could" accept the fact that pigs were intelligent.
Hey take a look at this, or don't it doesn't matter at this point:
It's the only scientifically peer reviewed paper offered so far in this thread. The highest offer of available empirical evidence which you repeatedly failed to offer. It didn't need to be offered but since you wanted to go to war on this, I offered it. It describes intelligence tasks where pigs beat dogs. There's more on this topic, it's not well researched but the available evidence points to pigs overall being smarter. You can try to argue against the only scientific article here if you want but there's a salvo of other research studies ready to fire on you once you're done. The popular "myth" perpetuates itself on actual scientific studies which you were unaware about.
>Look. You can admit you were wrong and that you were perpetuating misinformation and just move on, or you can keep needing to have the last word and coming back and trying to defend your behavior be talking about how 'rude' I was, but the more you do the latter, the worse it reflects on you.
I'd rather have the last word. I'm human just like you. I was too lazy to actually dig through the internet to actually find you the raw science behind it. But you pissed me off enough to make me spend the effort.
I'm not even making a pathetic effort to sort of worm my way into being right. It's a given that my point is much more obviously the higher supported theory here. A casual google search confirms it ALONG with the science.
You were being manipulative with your arguments and you know it. Weak sources and a weak thesis as well. You got upvotes only from people who didn't follow a single one of your sources. And you stated you're "I'm open to the possibility that pigs might be smarter than dogs" which is lol. It just shows you couldn't find anything definitive. Such are harsh way to bring the hammer down on me when you're "open" to me being "right".
Do you do this kind of thing in real life? Like when you're not sure about something and someone makes a claim about it, you just attack them out of nowhere and demand solid proof when you're wishy washy about it yourself. Hey it's fine to disagree, maybe next time just say, "I'm not sure there's enough science that confirms that for sure" rather then declaring it a "myth" and then being "open" about it later.
Look man, when I say pigs are smarter then dogs I say it like any human says it. With just a vague knowledge of the science without a hard "absolutely" "100%" pigs are smarter. Any rational human will know that and not rudely just proclaim it to be a myth. The science shows evidence that pigs are smarter. It's not overwhelming evidence but it points to the fact that it is the most likely truth. That level of evidence enough for casual conversation which is what's going on here in this thread which you failed to be socially aware about.
Tell you what. You may be open to me being right, but I'm not open to you being right. I claim there is much more science demonstrating pigs beating dogs on intelligence tasks then there are dogs beating pigs. I'm not wishy washy about shit here.
Now throw in your next wall of text and we can continue on this until you run out of things to say because I'm not just right. I'm obviously right. You're the one trying to scaffold the evidence into a shaky foundation for your claim. Good luck.
Anyway, the main faux paus here isn't "not doing research" or flawed citations or anything like that. You've done plenty of that despite your hard ass claims to the contrary. The main problem here is you're not acting civil. You're acting rude. And you've stated you don't care.
That is Against the rules here and I'm sure if any admin saw you talk this way repeatedly without care you would be banned.
I admit I am defending my last word now. But prior to this I was not defending my last word. I was making a statement. A statement saying I find your attitude offensive and I don't like to converse with you at all and I wanted to set the tone that it must end. That was the point. If it looks bad, so be it, but I did not act with malice which is contrary to what you did here.
This is honesty funny, that you've written this much.
Well, let's get into it!
> Please do not say things like that here. It is "my" thread.
No, it bloody well isn't. The sooner you can accept and understand that, the happier you might be.
It is astounding to me that you don't understand how ridiculous your claim and behavior is in this regard.
> You don't belong here. It's actually against the rules here to be rude and say things without care. You'll actually need to leave this entire forum should you continue.
Again with giving orders that you have no place to give.
> I know you don't care.
Then stop wasting your breath?
> You made a counter claim with zero support.v
You made a bullshit claim with no support at all. You just copypasted the first link you found. That doesn't count as supporting your argument, buddy.
> Then you purported to cite sources
That you thanked me for providing lol. Then you said you don't care enough about the topic to actually look into them. Except now you're in this bizarrely insecure trap of needing to have the last word and not be wrong, so here you are, trying to dispute them.
> since you wanted to go to war on this
I didn't want to go to 'war', lol. It's fascination how you see this interaction. I just called you out for being wrong and not doing any research and perpetuating misinformation, and well, you didn't take that well. You still can't accept it.
> I'd rather have the last word.
Yeah, you've made that clear lol.
> I'm human just like you.
You're also deeply insecure unlike me.
> But you pissed me off enough to make me spend the effort.
Nah. You're still just copying and pasting things without understanding them. The first comment that you previously thanked me for still applies and your paper doesn't dispute anything I've said.
> I'm not even making a pathetic effort to sort of worm my way into being right.v
That's literally all you are doing.
> It's a given that my point is much more obviously the higher supported theory here.v
I mean, tell yourself whatever you need to to avoid taking an L, I guess.
> And you stated you're "I'm open to the possibility that pigs might be smarter than dogs" which is lol. It just shows you couldn't find anything definitive.
Because unlike you I can handle being wrong, but evidence and consensus does not support that point.
> You were being manipulative with your arguments and you know it.
Not remotely.
> Weak sources and a weak thesis as well.
No, my view is the consensus view, actually. Your view is the one perpetuated by people who believe the first thing they read.
> You got upvotes only from people who didn't follow a single one of your sources.
I got upvotes from people who actually read what I wrote and understood the reasoned argument that was made.
> Do you do this kind of thing in real life? Like when you're not sure about something and someone makes a claim about it, you just attack them out of nowhere and demand solid proof when you're wishy washy about it yourself.
When someone is lazy and spreads misinformation I certainly try to gently correct them and if they want to be stubborn, I might try to embarrass them to put them in their place, sure.
> Look man, when I say pigs are smarter then dogs I say it like any human says it.
Not just any humans, but the types of humans who just believe whatever they read first and then defend it because they don't like to be wrong, and then might write long essays of nonsense when if they had just spent 5 minutes of research initially it all could have been avoided.
> The science shows evidence that pigs are smarter.
lol, no, it doesn't. Sigh.
> Tell you what. You may be open to me being right, but I'm not open to you being right
Or to rephrase, you're not open to being wrong. That's been your problem from the start.
> Now throw in your next wall of text and we can continue on this until you run out of things to say because I'm not just right. I'm obviously right.
lol, again, tell yourself whatever you need to avoid feeling like you lost.
> Anyway, the main faux paus here isn't "not doing research" or flawed citations or anything like that. You've done plenty of that despite your hard ass claims to the contrary. The main problem here is you're not acting civil. You're acting rude.
Nah. The only issue that started all this what you adorably think is a 'war', is you perpetuating misinformation and being called out on it. That's it. And I wasn't rude, I was direct, and your ego didn't like that.
> That is Against the rules here and I'm sure if any admin saw you talk this way repeatedly without care you would be banned.
You've honestly been much ruder, barking out order and trying to claim ownership of the thread, which is just sad and ridiculous.
> I admit I am defending my last word now.v
Well you already did earlier, but it was obvious from the start that you were this type of person.
> But prior to this I was not defending my last word.
Sure. Whatever you say.
> If it looks bad, so be it, but I did not act with malice which is contrary to what you did here.
I didn't act with malice I just pointed out you were wrong, that's it.
Anyway. As amusing as this is I don't have the energy for another wall of text so I might make one more reply, maybe, and then I'll let you have the final word so you can feel like you won and this horrible ordeal you are putting yourself through will be over.
You called me adorable, you laugh in my face and make dismissive comments. These words are stated by you to start a fucking war. Any reasonable person can see this.
And your counterpoint isn't even charitable. Just a statement of "you're wrong" without concern to my offered evidence, no counter evidence from your end and specifically twisting and picking out specific quotes and pieces to respond to while ignoring the entire paragraph. Manipulative and Classic malice. There's really no point in saying any of this. You know it, your actions are fully intentional.
You're literally the definition of a malicious person.
> I'll let you have the final word so you can feel like you won and this horrible ordeal you are putting yourself through will be over.
Thanks. But you didn't need to say this right? What's the point? Again, malice is literally the only reason. Either way. Finally you are walking away.
> These words are stated by you to start a fucking war. Any reasonable person can see this.
Eh. Is it a war if only one side thinks so and is fighting, and the other is amused?
Your other reply was deleted - I wonder what horrible things it said?
> And your counterpoint isn't even charitable.
It was a nuanced reply explaining the current consensus position and why the idea that pigs are smarter than dogs is a myth, but you have overlooked and dismissed it because you are viewing it through a very limited binary of right or wring, winning or losing.
If 'winning' a silly discussion on an internet forum means such a big deal to you, then I think you need to reevaluate your priorities and do some self-reflection.
> You're literally the definition of a malicious person.
Nah. All I did was tell you you're wrong and call you out for it, and then you got all defensive and uppity after claiming you provided a source and continued to, and still continue to falsely claim you are correct. Why? Because ego. Nothing to do with me being 'malicious'.
> Thanks. But you didn't need to say this right? What's the point? Again, malice is literally the only reason.
Highlighting your need to have the last word because you equate it with winning. This behavior/need of yours isn't exactly knew to us who have been around for a while now.
> Either way. Finally you are walking away.
After this reply I sure am :)
You're going to come back and have the last word because you need to. I hope it fills whatever voids or gives you satisfaction enough to distract from whatever issues are bothering you.
I'm going to ask that in the future you do as I originally asked and do a little more research and not perpetuate misinformation. I know you are going to need to respond with some retort so you can gain what you think is ground, something about not being 'malicious' or whatever, and that's fine. Say what you need.
But even if you can't admit to it or want to act dismissive in your reply, I hope you will do what I ask upon reflection - please don't perpetuate misinformation knowing, due to ego or any other reason. It can be very harmful.
I won't be replying again, and would ask you never reply to me again or initiate a discussion with me, as I prefer not to interact with people who act as you do.
Anyone wrestling with these issues could usefully read Animal Liberation by Pete Singer. He delves into many varieties of abstinence from speciesism (as he calls it).
There's something I don't really understand in this discussion, and though it looks like it's already been flagged, I suppose I'll try my luck anyway.
The question "is it ethical to farm octopus?" sounds to me a little like the question "should we allow primates to vote?". Obviously, we allow some primates to vote. "Octopus" does not describe a single species, or a single genus, or even a single family, but in fact an entire order of animals. "Primate", as you might recall, is also an order. I.e. we should expect the octopodans to be roughly as diverse, behaviorally and anatomically, as the primates.
So: what gives? How can we generalize the observations of one or two kinds of octopus to hundreds of distantly related species?
“The Thing cannot be described - there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled.
If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.”
I visited an experimental octopus farm in Hawaii once, expecting to come away feeling guilty about eating octopus since I had heard so much about how smart they are. It ended up having the opposite effect, since I learned that they only live 2 years and aren't social creatures. This is opposite of every other intelligent creature that we know of, and so I'm extremely skeptical of claims of their intelligence. They might show sophisticated behavior, but so do a lot of insects like ants and we know they aren't intelligent.
EDIT: sorry, when I say intelligent, I mean as intelligent as animals that we generally do not eat. I believe they are less intelligent than livestock, but can learn behaviors like most animals.
Not all "intelligent" animals are very social. Adult ravens, for example, tend to prefer being solo or at most in mated pairs (not a hard rule). Hell, many humans prefer being alone much of the time. Some dolphin individuals prefer the company of humans to their own species: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6349760/
>This is opposite of every other intelligent creature that we know of, and so I'm extremely skeptical of claims of their intelligence.
Octopuses can demonstrably learn: scientists put food inside a pot with a lid and gave the pot to an octopus. If my memory doesn't fail me, in the first attempt the octopus took 2 hours to open the lid and in the second one it took 5 minutes.
Sorry, my use of "intelligent" here was imprecise. They can clearly learn, but seem much less intelligent than other animals that we commonly eat, and not anywhere close to the same level of intelligence of animals that we generally do not eat, such as great apes, elephants, and whales.
> They can clearly learn, but seem much less intelligent than other animals that we commonly eat,They can clearly learn, but seem much less intelligent than other animals that we commonly eat,
What?
You think an octopus is less intelligent than a cow, chicken or fish? Really?
The mushrooms are quite different from the slime molds, even if the humans, the mushrooms and the slime molds are much more closely related between themselves than any of them is related e.g. to the plants.
Like most animals, the slime molds have retained the primitive way of life of the eukaryotes, i.e. they have mobile cells that can hunt, catch and ingest other living beings.
The mushrooms, like the plants and a few other groups of eukaryotes, have reverted to a way of life similar with that of the bacteria, i.e. they have developed a rigid cellular wall, which protects their cells, but which prevents the movement of the cells, so they can no longer ingest anything else but small molecules, so in order to eat they must secrete into their environment enzymes that will digest their food outside their body, resulting in small molecules that can be absorbed.
Like most plants, most mushrooms cannot move, they achieve the equivalent of very slow movements by directed growth. The exceptions are the few carnivorous plants and the few carnivorous mushrooms, which have traps for their victims having a relatively fast action, caused by various kinds of springs.
The slime molds move around and catch and eat their prey, behaving like giant amoebae.
The eukaryotes with mobile cells, without cellular walls, have visible reactions to whatever they sense in their environment, e.g. by pursuing what they want or running away from whatever may be dangerous.
Those like the plants and the mushrooms are also likely to have various sensors, but any reactions are too slow to be perceptible at the human scale of time.
So the slime molds and various mobile unicellular eukaryotes, like the ciliates (some big ciliates are as big as some very small multicellular animals, like the rotifers, and there is little difference in behavior between them), can be considered as higher in a scale of sentience than the plants and the mushrooms.
I am not sure how smart they are, but since they have arms and are able to manipulate their environment (in human-like ways) to a degree that basically no other sea creature is capable of, they can come across as being far more intelligent than is possible for a fish for example. Every time I see a discussion of their intelligence they are doing something like opening a jar with food in it. Even a dolphin can’t do that, but that has more to do with anatomy than brainpower.
Give this a watch, friend, and tell me after if they’re still like insects. There’s a lot of intentional life in those 2 years. TLDR - director spent every day in the water with an Octopus in a nearby lagoon.
They are absolutely intelligent, there is no question. I've owned several. The way they can earn to communicate and solve puzzles puts them in the same category as crows, apes, elephants dolphins, etc.
Not to be low-effort, but you know Soylent Green is people, right?
I always was a little mystified at their choice of name over at the actual Soylent meal replacement company. And their choice to feature their green Soylent product as the main banner on their webpage.
It is; they even made a limited edition joke product that leaned all the way in called "Soylent Green - as good as humanly possible". I love sharing them on hiking trips although they are more funny than tasty.
NO, but it reveals what wild octopus have to put up with. Humans eating a few is like, a drop in the bucket.
Worry about something that matters. Like, to the octopus. Likely growing up in a safe well-supplied gentle pool without fear might even appeal to them.
Btw you just gave an excellent defense of why it's ok to eat dolphins. They don't care, it's business as usual for them.
When I was growing up, my mother worked at a dolphin rescue center. I spent a whole lot of my early childhood there.
Some dolphins would be make friends with specific other dolphins, and enemies out of others (bullying / attacking) and needed to be kept apart. Not all of them would actually recover enough to live to old age.
I distinctly remember times when a dolphin had a friend die, they would display what I would consider depression symptoms. Not wanting to play with toys, less interest in eating, way less activity in general.
Truly, when I read "too smart for that", my mind went to "too smart to be kept in a farm", and "they're going to find creative ways to escape". And down that path lies a supermax masquerading as a farm...
I don't think it's reasonable to draw an arbitrary line while farming other animals is allowed. We have and do eat octopus, and that isn't changing. They're more likely to go extinct if unfettered consumption isn't offset by farming.
Salmon farms turn out to be bad news. Profit motive has them being packed in, the "run-off" is too concentrated and poisons the surrounding water. The fish themselves are unhealthy and their meat bad.
Further, sometimes salmon escape the farm in waters where they are not native. In effect, letting tens of thousands of an invasive species loose.
I'm sure some salmon farms are sustainable, but the reputation for industrial fish farming has gone to crap.
An octopus farm probably would not allow each individual to have their own little home and space to search for and collect shiny rocks. Industrial farming of animals tends to not go very well in the long run.
Those are very good points, and totally agree that large-scale farming today of nearly any food source is perverted to the point of being awful. I'd like to see a balance between clear regulation for humane treatment of animals _before_ abuse becomes rampant, and security for new food sources to be developed as we inevitably need them in the future.
We know that octopuses and many other animals are intelligent. We don't know for certain if anything nonhuman is sentient. Scientists and activist groups have been designing frameworks for sentience and tests to measure it.
This paper [1] (about crabs, but discusses octopuses) has a very interesting section talking about defining and measuring sentience. It was used to support a recent bill in the UK [2] attempting to reduce cruelty to sentient animals. Octopuses measured very high in their testing.
Right. Maybe it is hard to prove, but the choice to eat them is a life-or-death decision. I am going to opt for tofu. Given that "sentience" is roughly the ability to have feelings, it seems very hard to believe most animals are not sentient. Spend a day with a cat or on a farm and you will witness emotions. Do octopuses have feelings? The paper is pretty confident: "There is very strong evidence of sentience in octopods". It seems likely to me that animals that are distant from humans are harder for us to understand, but still sentient.
For that matter, I don't know that any human besides myself is sentient. You could all be philosophical zombies. Science fundamentally can't answer this question, since sentience (i.e. experiencing qualia) is a subjective, first-person phenomenon, and science can only test objective, third-person reality.
Technically, all animals are sentient, and many plants are too. Sentient means capable of responding to sensation. Sapient means what Issac Asimov incorrectly called sentient. I can't even tell what that first footnote is trying to prove: sentience is provable with much less than their criteria, and actual sapience requires much more (turing test if you're easy about it, turing test referring to a shared manipulatable world if you buy Davidson's arguments)
> We know that octopuses and many other animals are intelligent. We don't know for certain if anything nonhuman is sentient.
You are mixing up terms. All animals are sentient. Not all animals are intelligent. Only very few animals appear to be sapient. Octopuses are certainly one of the few animals that appear to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
The confusion is how Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 determines this, with the wrong definition of sentient to determine legalities, even seeing news articles describing it as so, for example https://www.gov.uk/government/news/animals-to-be-formally-re...
The lay definition of sentience involves the ability to respond to stimuli, as you point out, but people involved with animal rights activism use the term sentience to refer to the capacity to suffer, which implies a sense of self.
Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge- reasoning, problem solving, etc. This is readily observed in many experiments with octopuses.
> but people involved with animal rights activism use the term sentience to refer to the capacity to suffer, which implies a sense of self.
Yes, I always have had a problem with that. They use it incorrectly, and most don't even consider the idea of a sense of self as relevant, only the ability to suffer, although the latter is only relevant in the context of the former IMO.
> Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge- reasoning, problem solving, etc. This is readily observed in many experiments with octopuses.
Intelligence can be a property of 'dumb' systems though, e.g. slime mold and plants.
Octopuses don't just exhibit intelligence, but rather metacognition. They can think about themselves in relation to their environment and manipulate their environment to suit their needs, willfully and deliberately, and not in any replanned way.
They also are capable of mental time travel, the ability to beware of and plan for the future, not in an instinctual way such gathering nuts but on a short term basis in reaction to their environment and stimuli.
There are very few animals who exhibit these traits, and these traits are generally a strong indicator of self-awareness and intelligence to the level of at least a toddler.
Octopus' sapience is absolutely not beyond a reasonable doubt: many consider passing the turning test, or an even stronger form thereof to be required for sapience
The question the turning test was posed to solve is when does a sufficiently smart computer become sapient. What on earth is your "standard" definition of sapience?
> The question the turning test was posed to solve is when does a sufficiently smart computer become sapient.
Yes, but it's a test for humans to interpret and judge. What kind of nonsense is it to think it should be used for an animal? A possibly sentient computer is going to be programmed to communicate in one of the human languages for obvious reasons, and animals don't have that luxury. I can't see why you would think a Turing test would be relevant to a discussion of animal sapience at all.
> What on earth is your "standard" definition of sapience?
Yes, we are homo sapiens, sapience is fundamentally a human question. This is why we even care about it in the first place: it boils down to "are some animals human too?" That's why we care about it so much.
Yes, in the past. It's perfectly relevant. The definition redirects to wisdom and sagacity. I'm going to quote from the wiki entry[] on wisdom to demonstrate why the definition is precisely apt.
> Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act productively using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight.
These are generally the traits we find correlated to animals that we consider to be sapient, self-aware and capable of metacognition, e.g. elephants, chimps, crows, parrots, etc.
I wonder if its easier to grow octopus flesh vs meat. Meat has the issue of all the blood vessels and stuff, but my off the head take seems that octopus might avoid that sort of issue?
Yeah, I went to a Korean place serving "live octopus." They bring it out and cut it up with scissors in front of you. The individual pieces of tentacle continue to move and flex. If you don't chew them real good they will try to suction to your throat (and possibly choke you to death). Turnabout is fair play, I guess
The older I get, the more I have the sense (both intuitively and through evidence) that I'm far more like the animals I've eaten than I am unlike them. That sense has become more and more attuned, and it has gotten to the point that I don't see animals as food anymore. They're just a different kind of people trying to survive. Since I don't actually need to eat them to survive, it seems akin to murder to consume them purely out of pleasure. That would have sounded crazy to me once, but not at all these days.
I also have grown more attuned to the fact that humans are just another animal, but in practice this has put me more at ease with eating meat as we are omnivorous predators in the food chain.
I am much more aligned, however, with sustainable harvesting (hunting) than industrial farming these days. There is nothing natural about the modern slaughterhouse.
For what it's worth, I was once a serious meat-eater and couldn't imagine life without it. In a way it was part of my identity. I was the one people wanted to cook meats for holidays, I liked curing meats and making sausages for charcuteries, always smoking things, making elaborate broths and other animal-based preparations, fishing, hunting. Now I couldn't care much less. Something I was certain was true turned out to be patently false, and being on the other side now it's hard to imagine having the same belief again.
I'm not trying to overtly convince or coerce you here. I wish I'd more seriously considered the possibility of changing sooner, though. I suppose I maintained my status quo a little lazily for quite a long time despite caring about the possibility of change.
Having said that, the change you've already made makes an enormous difference in the scheme of things. Christ, I remember having meals where I would eat almost exclusively meat. Like an entire chicken after lifting weights or running particularly far. Totally excessive and bizarre in retrospect. Anyone eating moderately as you described has already shifted towards something resembling sustainability; it isn't really a problem in the scheme of things.
I think I almost could be if the biomass of harvestable prey hadn't reduced so dramatically while the number of potential hunters has increased proportionately, if not more. Spearfishing is actually what lead me to give up the pursuit of sustainable hunting. No matter how ethically and fairly I try to harvest, I will only be contributing to the toll which is already countless orders of magnitude beyond something sustainable. In a sense, I was viewing my contribution to the problem too much as my own contribution rather than as part of a whole which is already far too excessive.
It's a tragedy of the commons. Wild land is too disrupted, oceans polluted and over-fished, and yet farming is too disgusting to contemplate supporting either. The best contribution I can make is to relieve pressure on the system and encourage others to consider doing the same (if they appear interested in listening, that is).
Even so, I'm grateful there are people out there who are willing to consider hunting as an alternative to farming. There are opportunities to hunt over-populated species which are harming ecosystems, for example, which at least has something of a positive impact on the places where the hunting occurs. Wild pigs and deer are common examples in North America. I can't bring myself to do it though, as I'm an invasive species not much unlike the pigs or deer.
> this has put me more at ease with eating meat as we are omnivorous predators in the food chain
I contemplate this at times too. It's not irrational at all. We are omnivores and we are part of the food chain, and there's nothing special about us in that regard.
However, since we're so dramatically over-populated compared to the species we eat (outside of farming, at least), it seems wise not to eat animals so often given that we don't need to and our impact on the food chain is significantly outsized compared to other species. It could be argued that we have something like a practical, moral, and ethical impetus to preserve the food chain such that we can now and in the future continue to sustain the food web we have such immense impacts on. Not only for the lives of the animals we eat and share the world with, but for the future humans of the earth as well.
Is it really any different from any other animal? So why would it not have possibility to be on plate? After all one of my life bucket lists is to taste as many species as possible...
This is exactly why I don't want to eat them. As an animal, yes, I can identify that they are in fact like other animals; they are like me, for instance. I don't want to eat things like me, because I don't want to be eaten. That's why it's not possible to put a cat on my plate. That logic goes both ways, and the variables in the equation are values-based.
Funny because those cats and dogs would happily eat you. Not in a "cats eat their dead owners sense" but in the sense that dogs and cats are pretty un-discerning when they are hungry.
The real reason to not eat cats and dogs is that they are mediocre food
This reads like an appeal to nature which isn't a compelling reason to change my behaviour.
There are people in this world who might steal from me or try to hurt me, too. My response wouldn't be to do the same to them; especially not proactively. I also know that a bear would eat me. Why would this mean I should want to eat it? It may not be discerning, but I certainly am.
My take is that the real reason to not eat cats and dogs is that they appear to have a relatable, sentient experience of the world — just as we do — and ending that for the sake of a meal lasting mere moments is an unthinkably awful thing to do.
That's pretty sickening, I hope you keep away from polite society for the rest of our sakes, and hopefully you won't have too much longer to pursue your bucket list.
All organisms interact with its environment collecting data and acting according, so they are all sentient. But there is more: Modern machines are also sentient.
Cars are aware of its own self. Know for example its own inner temperature. They know if they are too hot and warn us about it. Know if they are stopped or moving, and how fast. Know in real time the position of many of its parts and take delicate complex actions with this info.
Cars are also aware of the environment. Don't have eyes, but know if is dark or sunny. Don't have ears, but can echolocate. Don't have touch, but register the pressure of the air at real time, or react to our fingers on a screen.
They are as sentient as animals are.
If this proves something is that "sentience" was not used before, because is a term totally useless.
Should we jail somebody if it crashes a car "killing" it?
What if he/she scratches a key against a door, torturing the poor paint layer and creating a permanent scar?
The Wikipedia article on it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience) summarizes the situation well; philosophers use it consistently, but it seems that science-fiction writers got confused and hence the confusion in layperson usage.
> In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations. In different Asian religions, the word "sentience" has been used to translate a variety of concepts. In science fiction, the word "sentience" is sometimes used interchangeably with "sapience", "self-awareness", or "consciousness".
I actually got too tired to think about all this all the time. Unfortunately going fully vegan also gets more complicated. Being vegetarian seems to fit my laziness best at the moment. But alternatives are getting more and more convenient.
They are also great for finding out if a person is an extremist. Example, to find out if someone is infatuated with say Elon Musk. Just make the statement, "You know that an octopus has more brains than Elon Musk". Their emotions take hold and they will go off and as now they don't person so and so is smarter. Yet it is 100% true that an octopus as more brains than any living human. One for each tentacle and an main, 9 brains total. Where a human as one or two, depending whom you are speaking with. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/your-gut-second-brain
I wouldn't discard the alternative possibility that we should choose to ignore "activists".
After all, people may have a hidden agenda, conflicts of interest, or be simply a bunch of uneducated morons craving for attention. Why to choose them as figure of authority at the same level of researchers that proven real effort searching for truth and spent ten years acquiring real knowledge?
1) To start the science that they use is normally of subpar quality. Sometimes even fake.
I can't see why two decades of sociology articles about how playing violin to octopuses make them more lively, should count more than two decades of biology articles looking for cures again each octopus disease known and found by farmers. One of this approaches helped greatly to reduce pain in octopuses, the other just wasted our time.
2) They cherry-pick facts relentlessly.
Evidence that goes against their agenda are systematically ignored and the authors mocked. They have a tunnel vision about the themes or interpret the facts as is better for them. See point 1.
3) They pick random facts to push random taboos on some organisms, but declare other similar organisms moral to eat
Just because they rank lower in their personal preferences or cultures. Cricket pie anyone?
4) They attribute malice or incompetence to their targets by default
People trying to domesticate octopuses "moved by greed". Maybe they want to help alleviate famine? We don't speak about this. Only our acts are pure, they say, while keep asking for money.
5) As their science is weak, they are unable to foresee the holes in their plan, or the collateral damages of their acts.
6) Even worse, they know but choose to ignore the consequences
After researchers spend their time informing them again and again of the collateral effects that their actions will have, they proclaim that is for a bigger cause and couldnn't care less about the consequences. They act by a sort of pseudo-religious ideology with random dogmas that can't be changed a Milimeter, even after proven false. Check the history of grey squirrel in Italy, or racoons on Japan.
7) They never, ever, will offer help to fix their own ecological disasters
After they cause economical damages of millions of dollars and waste the time of everybody, then shrug and just change their target.
8) They are prone to be deceived and manipulated from outer agents with their own agendas, that treat them as disposable.
People "against oil", are happy to be economically supported by oil companies. Are we sure that this activists aren't funded by <nice company killing lots of wild octopuses> to boycott <evil company farming domesticated octopuses>? or by somebody aiming to gain time to build their own farms?. I wouldn't bet my money against this.
Yea, so, you do understand that your comment does a lot of those things it describes? The net effect is approximately the same as if you’d just say “I hate animal rights and I don’t care about any years of effort put in by researchers if the results don’t support my preferred outcome”.
