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Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

nytimes.com

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Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#151

Post by proksoup »

duaneb wrote: post #132
koolba wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you against eating all animals or is there a cut off point of intelligence after which it stops being okay? Most of what is/isn't acceptable to eat is based on history and popular socially accepted practices, not whether people think their prospective dinner is intelligent. Pigs are more intelligent than dogs yet the latter are not eaten in the western world and I wouldn't want to live in a world without the (del…

Try serving people Dolphin or Chimp and you find quickly there is a line for most people.

Try serving them a pig with the head still attached, similar reaction, next day bacon for breakfast. Don't want to think about that real animal stuff, I doubt the line has much to do with the intelligence of the species.

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#152

Post by bitL »

Zeeem wrote: post #144
threatofrain wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, morality is based upon a goal and the causal means by which we may have relation to that goal. For many, the goal is approximately similar, i.e., for humanity to prosper. I also think that morality becomes productive when consensus is achieved, even if it's approximate consensus. I don't understand why eating smart animals like cows or pigs has a substantive relationship to human prosperity, except with respec…

How about these premises: 1. Happiness/pleasure ought to be increased. 2. Suffering ought to be decreased. 3. The type of being experiencing these is immaterial. Why stop at humans?

That is nice until you observe what actually happens in the raw nature itself - I had a "joy" observing two crows killing a sparrow with the utmost cruelty, prolonging its suffering as much as they could, and then leaving it there without "eating" it.

We simply have to transcend nature if we want to feel good about ourselves. Maybe once we master technology, we can reprogram the mess of this Universe (at some point we will be dealing with pure computer science instead of physics, which will be just a consequence of some mathematical structures and algorithms running on top of them). I never understood why so many humans worship nature - nature is broken, it's like a fairly balanced pathological system, showing some wonders (Moon-Earth distance allowing total eclipses) as well as atrocities (basically all what is nasty about life itself).

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#153

Post by vadym909 »

hackbinary wrote: post #69
pera wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in the West most people don't even want to think about it.

Seriously? I think people in the west generally care more about animal welfare than in the far east. The UK has the highest animal welfare standards in the world. Sure there are people, farmers and pet keepers that do not obey the law, but in the main animals are very well taken care of.

A large majority of Indians are vegetarians and the rest only eat fish, chicken or goat. Cows are holy and worshiped!

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#154

Post by bitL »

bsder wrote: post #89
Falling3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In-vitro meat is looking like a more viable option by the day. And it has the obvious moral ground.

It also will have both a medical and commercial high ground. If you don't have all of the nasty digestion bits of a bird, you lost a lot of the nasty disease bits. If you only have the meat parts of the bird, you don't waste any growth resources on non-saleable parts of the bird.

In vitro meat would be great. Yet you still need to introduce a small number of pathogens to improve your fitness (your body needs to fight small battles all the time to keep in the top shape). Sanitized stuff brings you allergy and other fun, like inability to adapt to changing environment.

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#155

Post by peteretep »

Falling3 wrote: post #117
sarreph wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-vegetarian (for now), my standpoint is that I/we should try as hard as possible to ensure that the sourcing of food is sustainable, humane and ethical for the animals involved. In the usual agricultural animals this is usually straightforward and easy as a consumer — think organically-fed, free-range chickens. I agree with you that social norms (esp. in your dog/pig example) put irrational values on propensi…

So, if we're willing to grant that non-human animals are worthy of ethical consideration and accept that we don't need meat to be healthy or happy, how can slaughtering them for food be considered ethical? >In the usual agricultural animals this is usually straightforward and easy as a consumer — think organically-fed, free-range chickens. I'd counter that it's incredibly not straight forward for consumers. In the US…

    > how can slaughtering them
    > for food be considered
    > ethical
Humane slaughter that they don't see coming ... what's the issue? I would be more, rather than less, comforted to find out that one day I'll suddenly die painlessly, instantly and unawares, and am not too bothered if it's because someone plans to eat me

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#156

Post by hodwik »

Houshalter wrote: post #146
hodwik wrote: post #74

Just because something has complex self-preservation behaviors does not mean that thing is displaying consciousness. Complex behaviors are witnessed in insects and microscopic organisms, yet they have nothing like a brain. What's more, we're computer scientists. If anyone should be aware that something can seem intelligent without sentience it should be us. Who here hasn't explored chat bots or game AI mechanics? Yet…

There's no evidence yet that humans are sentient either. It's all wild speculation. Many complex behaviors observed in humans have been reproduced with very simple algorithms.

The simple difference being that we are humans, and can easily extrapolate to the rest of our species from ourselves.

As for other animals, I'm not so convinced that the same extrapolation stands.

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#157

Post by joshschreuder »

chris_wot wrote: post #137
_yosefk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm certainly against eating all animals alive . Not a complicated issue.

What's your position on lions?

Some people too, eat foods that I don't enjoy eating (eg. eggs), but I don't have a problem with those people.

You can be personally against something without boycotting whole aspects of your life (lions, other people, Lambda conferences)

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#158

Post by prawn »

hellbanner wrote: post #21
sarreph wrote: post #7

It upsets me to no end that we find evidence such as this piece that cephalopods are actually (relatively speaking) remarkably more intelligent than common wisdom pertains[0], and yet the culinary abuse and harm (i.e. 'live sushi/sashimi') of these creatures continues. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

So are you saying each lifeform should only eat what is dumber than it?

That would at least make camping a lot safer...

Re: Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

#159

Post by brahmwg »

pera wrote: post #42
MichaelBurge wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there's a way to chemically destroy part of their brain at birth, while using their body to grow meat tissue? Some ethicist should come up with an electronic controller that keeps the chickens or whatever alive by stimulating neurons like the brain would, but which clearly has no consciousness attached. Actually, this entire business of needing a whole chicken to make chicken meat seems inefficient. I wonder if…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat

Is in-vitro human meat considered cannibalism? What if the meat is synthesized from your own DNA? Self-cannibalism? Not asking you directly, just throwing the thought tangent out there
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