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Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

bbc.com

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Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#11

Post by lhorie »

zepearl wrote: post #6

Japan is probably the only country that keeps suprising me and is often (in my eyes) absolutely contradictory - I love many of their animes, some of their movies (e.g. the old samurai classics, "I am a hero", etc) some of their music (I listen from time to time to "J1 radio"), but at the same time e.g. some other animes really go over my thresholds, they have the problem with child prostitution, keep fishing anything…

I mean, in the US, you have creationists and you have Silicon Valley. People are different everywhere. You just don't hear about strange curiosities from Brazil or Tasmania because journalism about Japan is more mainstream.

Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#12

Post by chrischen »

foobiekr wrote: post #9
ppseafield wrote: post #3

One of the reasons I went back to being a vegetarian (and then became vegan) was a video of something like this. I was so creeped out. I haven't gone back.

Not a vegetarian but needless cruelty is repellent.

If you watched the video they explain that the animal’s brain has already been removed, so anything after that is not felt by the squid.

Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#13

Post by drak0n1c »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #4

There’s something particularly unedifying - for me, at least - in making a dead animal 'perform' for you before you eat it. I was surprised the bbc adopted such a neutral tone on this one.

I see it as edifying - a creative and insightful display of biological and chemical reactions. No different from the pyrotechnical demos or frog dissections used to spark curiosity in children.

Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#15

Post by drak0n1c »

zepearl wrote: post #6

Japan is probably the only country that keeps suprising me and is often (in my eyes) absolutely contradictory - I love many of their animes, some of their movies (e.g. the old samurai classics, "I am a hero", etc) some of their music (I listen from time to time to "J1 radio"), but at the same time e.g. some other animes really go over my thresholds, they have the problem with child prostitution, keep fishing anything…

Those are not necessarily opposites. The centuries of various forces, traditions, and habits are what insulates them from western homogeneity. That is what enables them to produce artifacts that seem to be out of the norm to a western observer.

Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#16

Post by subjectsigma »

zepearl wrote: post #6

Japan is probably the only country that keeps suprising me and is often (in my eyes) absolutely contradictory - I love many of their animes, some of their movies (e.g. the old samurai classics, "I am a hero", etc) some of their music (I listen from time to time to "J1 radio"), but at the same time e.g. some other animes really go over my thresholds, they have the problem with child prostitution, keep fishing anything…

*anime

Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#17

Post by crocodiletears »

zepearl wrote: post #6

Japan is probably the only country that keeps suprising me and is often (in my eyes) absolutely contradictory - I love many of their animes, some of their movies (e.g. the old samurai classics, "I am a hero", etc) some of their music (I listen from time to time to "J1 radio"), but at the same time e.g. some other animes really go over my thresholds, they have the problem with child prostitution, keep fishing anything…

I think a lot of the confusion around Japan's culture often stems from the fact that from the outside, to casual observers, they seem so culturally integrated with the rest of the world; yet don't seem to have assimilated many (if any) of its social norms.

The reality is, Japan is a net cultural exporter, and seems to have gone out of its way to prevent contaminating its social identity with foreign imports. Needless to say, the country has been heavily influenced by the brands it's imported, and the processes of technological/financial exchange abroad. But the nation itself has broadly kept its interactions with the outside world professional, or one-sided.

Attempting to measure the nation (honestly most east-asian nations) with the metrics of progress we would we would use for more culturally integrated countries will always be confounding. They represent a parallel civilization that refuses to be subsumed by western thought in the way many less geographically defensible/isolated and technologically developed societies inevitably have been.

As a result, their social development will never quite adhere to the broad trends that more westernized societies seem destined to follow.

Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#19

Post by JeremyBanks »

funkaster wrote: post #7
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #4

There’s something particularly unedifying - for me, at least - in making a dead animal 'perform' for you before you eat it. I was surprised the bbc adopted such a neutral tone on this one.

It's both a matter of taste and a cultural thing. The first time I was in Seoul, a friend of mine took me to a place where they served "live octopus" with raw meat + raw egg yolk. It was extremely delicious, the raw octopus legs where still moving and twisting (just like in this example it was just nervous endings activated by chemicals in the food), they even wrapped around the chopsticks. The octoups + the yolk + r…

Can any moral issue be ignored by calling it a "cultural thing"?

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

Re: Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’

#20

Post by driven20 »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #19
funkaster wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both a matter of taste and a cultural thing. The first time I was in Seoul, a friend of mine took me to a place where they served "live octopus" with raw meat + raw egg yolk. It was extremely delicious, the raw octopus legs where still moving and twisting (just like in this example it was just nervous endings activated by chemicals in the food), they even wrapped around the chopsticks. The octoups + the yolk + r…

Can any moral issue be ignored by calling it a "cultural thing"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

I mean if you eat chickens...You're supporting the practice of throwing male chicks into the blender.
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