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Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

lse.ac.uk

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Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#181

Post by imgabe »

adriand wrote: post #25
chrisweekly wrote: post #11

Crabs and lobsters are basically bugs, whereas an octopus is a creative, playful, intelligent creature with amazing capabilities. It seems strange to group them together.

I assume that Dr Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor at LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, and his team of scientists didn’t encounter this insightful perspective when they reviewed “over 300 scientific studies” in order to arrive at their conclusions… In seriousness though, this comment is a prime example of speciesism. Even if it were true that these crustaceans were “basically bugs” how doe…

Does being an “antelope” somehow justify being torn apart and eaten by a lion? Yeah actually, it does because lions eat antelopes and humans eat lobsters. Nature doesn’t owe any being an existence devoid of suffering.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#182

Post by onemiketwelve »

doctor_eval wrote: post #146
colechristensen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is English, not Latin or Greek. There’s no such thing as “correct” in language as long as you can be understood, especially for silly details like how to make a plural. You’ll find octopi in the dictionary because it is commonly used. Remember all words are made up anyway. If you’re not the editor of a publication making local standards for how you want to use language, it’s better not to correct people when the…

Yes. A dictionary doesn't tell you how to use words, it tells you how words are used.

dic·tion·ar·y /ˈdikSHəˌnerē/ noun a book or electronic resource that lists the words of a language (typically in alphabetical order) and gives their meaning, or gives the equivalent words in a different language, often also providing information about pronunciation, origin, and usage.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#183

Post by barsonme »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #126
inportb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does being a “bug” justify being boiled alive? It's quite a leap to go from "crabs and lobsters are basically bugs" to "being a bug justify being boiled alive." No. Please don't boil your arthropods alive. Kill your crabs and lobsters, swiftly, before cooking them. Be thankful for their sacrifice. I promise you it doesn't change the flavor or texture or nutrition.

"Kill your crabs and lobsters, swiftly, before cooking them" How do you actually do that? I mean it as a practical question

Stick a knife in the base of the lobster’s neck. Literally.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#184

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #61
adriand wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that Dr Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor at LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, and his team of scientists didn’t encounter this insightful perspective when they reviewed “over 300 scientific studies” in order to arrive at their conclusions… In seriousness though, this comment is a prime example of speciesism. Even if it were true that these crustaceans were “basically bugs” how doe…

>Does being a “bug” justify being boiled alive? I'm picking on your language choices rather than the overall point of your argument, but have you ever boiled a live crustacean before (and by this, I specifically mean fully submerging the animal under water that is under a rolling boil on a high-temperature flame)? They don't writhe in agony and try to escape; they die pretty much instantaneously (I'm talking no movem…

A quick search shows a lot of sites saying it takes about 3 minutes for death, though I don't know what the original source is. But that makes sense to me. I mean, how would boiling water cause instant death? Do you think if you were dunked in boiling water you would instantly die? Granted we don't have the same physiology as lobsters, but, what exactly is the physical mechanism that would cause instant death from 100°C water?

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#185

Post by ohyeshedid »

mduncs wrote: post #169
ohyeshedid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What metrics are you basing that first statement on?

Not the person you're replying to, but according to this site here [0], crustaceans make up $262M or 0.64% of the agricultural export for the UK. Not small, but certainly smaller than other agriculture sectors. [0] https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=81&product=und...

I don't know if using exports is anywhere near the industry totals.

According to NOAA, in regards to US totals[1]:

"Overall, the highest value U.S. commercial species were salmon ($688 million), crabs ($610 million), lobsters ($594 million), shrimp ($531 million), scallops ($512 million), and Alaska pollock ($413 million)."

[1]https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/american-seafood-industry...

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#186

Post by ofrzeta »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #126
inportb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does being a “bug” justify being boiled alive? It's quite a leap to go from "crabs and lobsters are basically bugs" to "being a bug justify being boiled alive." No. Please don't boil your arthropods alive. Kill your crabs and lobsters, swiftly, before cooking them. Be thankful for their sacrifice. I promise you it doesn't change the flavor or texture or nutrition.

"Kill your crabs and lobsters, swiftly, before cooking them" How do you actually do that? I mean it as a practical question

I don't know about crabs but there's something called "high pressure lobster" where the animal is killed very swiftly through very high pressure soon on the boat. While I am not sure about this is being more humane than throwing it in boiling water (cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29301843) there's also the question of keeping lobsters alive for a long time all the way from catch through the market while keeping their claws tied etc.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#187

Post by sfgweilr4f »

Igelau wrote: post #161
thelibrarian wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who says using the word “octopi” displays ignorance of three languages at once - English, Latin, and (ancient) Greek.

Eric Weinstein says some crazy stuff, but I remember hearing him once say that the best debate strategy for Republicans would be to mention the "noo-kyoo-lar" family, and let them correct you to "nuclear". Then you win because the other side looks like pedants and elitists. This "octopi" is definitely such a word.

Side note: all this off-topic pedantry about octopi vs octopuses is an old discussion already resolved. It is clouding discussion about what the full implications of what it actually means to treat octopus (ha!) as sentient.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#188

Post by ofrzeta »

robbrown451 wrote: post #172
phonypc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crabs and lobsters are basically bugs Not really. You might as well say humans are basically zebras.

"Bug," in its most common usage, is a large category that includes spiders, insects, and other arthropods. Crustaceans (which includes pill bugs a.k.a. roly polies) are arthropods. So I'm not seeing your zebra analogy.

It's more like saying humans are apes.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#189

Post by kortex »

Kye wrote: post #136
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Octopi is not the correct plural. Octopus is of greek origin, not latin. Thus, its greek plural is octopodes. And thus, since we don't tend to use greek plurals in english, the other proper plural is octopuses. Octopi is what's known as a hypercorrection. "A hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer wh…

I call them octopuppers.

Winner. This is one way to cut through the Gordion knot of this endless debate. I'll be calling them octopuppers henceforth.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#190

Post by Izkata »

sen wrote: post #140
monkeybutton wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating and instead of replying I've been reading about this and looking up words like cacti. For what it's worth, both plural forms for Octopus are in my phone's autocomplete dictionary.

The only real solution here is to make the official plural term be Octopises.

Seems to be missing the third plural, perhaps Octopodises
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