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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

#221

Post by lanevorockz »

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…

At this point, I find it remarkable that people use the term “found studies” as anything but self selection. You can prove anything including that the earth is flat and that video footage in the moon landing is fake.

Don’t forget that the ancient alien theory is a phd research with published papers

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

#222

Post by omoikane »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #85
monkeybutton wrote: post #6

Octopi I understand, but lobsters? They have less than half the nervous system of an ant [1]. Are individual ants sentient and worthy of legislating over? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of...

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…

See also the alt text for this comic: https://xkcd.com/928/

Spoiler for the bit referenced in the alt text: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/928:_Mimic_Octopu...

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

#223

Post by crehn »

musingsole wrote: post #135
crehn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they experience pain and fear, like [...] probably also many plants Out of curiosity, do you have any data to share that supports your perspective?

Yeah, their observations of their behavior over a history of catching and eating them. Oh, you mean tabular, quantitative data? Come off it.

> their observations of their behavior over a history of catching and eating them

Perhaps "data" is too analytical; I'm interested in how plants convey pain and fear.

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

#225

Post by twhb »

colechristensen wrote: post #119
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…

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…

Personally I don’t believe in “plural”. If there’s more than one of something I just say it: “I went to the aquarium and saw octopus octopus octopus. I’d tell you what I saw around the anthill outside, but I’m not sure you have the time.” :)

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

#226

Post by adriand »

glenstein wrote: post #134
adriand wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not because we are humans and therefore more valuable to each other I value my children more than I value your children, but you will likely disagree with my assessment, even though it isn’t unexpected. And I would have to admit my assessment is not objective. > Never mind the fact that we have consciousness and ego and complex nervous systems, whereas lobsters do not. That’s how speciesism works: we try to find so…

>because they lack X they are not worthy of consideration. It’s okay if they suffer. This is precisely the same logic that was used to justify slavery, for example. Wowzers, this is the most strawmanny characterisation of this view I think I've seen outside of scifi villains in B movies. I don't think the most charitable view is that species "deserve to suffer." It's that they have different capacities for suffering,…

It’s one thing to prioritize saving children from a burning building but not mice, and another to justify one’s decision to do so based on the neural complexity of children compared to mice. I don’t think killing a mouse is the moral equivalent of killing a child, but that’s me making a value judgment. I don’t need to cite a scientific (objective) criterion for this, such as how many neurons a child has, or whether or not it is conscious or has an ego (if such a thing is even scientific).

Suggesting that I’m saying species ought to be treated “equally” is the real straw man argument here (although I don’t feel you’re arguing in bad faith, for the record - I can see how my comments may be taken that way). I don’t believe species ought to be treated equally but rather that we ought to give all species consideration.

It’s curious that this view is considered so extreme by so many, while the treatment we inflict on living beings, which is often extreme to the point where “torture” is an accurate description, is generally ignored.

As an aside, we treat jellyfish far better than the way we treat the billions of mammals currently trapped in the dystopian hell of factory farming.

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

#227

Post by webmaven »

wincy wrote: post #51
systemvoltage wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually insane that there is so much violence in nature. Every minute, there are millions of living things dying – many with unimaginable pain. The evolutionary engine is absolutely merciless. If I want to be terrified, I think what if we, instead of at the top of the food chain, were just second. It terrifies me to no end.

I get more freaked out about thinking of falling into the atmosphere of Jupiter, just falling and falling and falling, eventually getting crushed. Or maybe a giant tentacle grabbing me, being pulled into some unthinking Cyclopean maw lurking just under the big red spot... The entire rest of the universe is even more terrifying if only because it's so much more inhospitable to life.

> [...] Or maybe a giant tentacle grabbing me, being pulled into some unthinking Cyclopean maw lurking just under the big red spot...

Any tentacle or maw belonging to a jovian lifeform would be about as substantial as a... well, let's just say that the image of a jellyfish trying to eat a crab comes to mind. The jellyfish doesn't fare too well.

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

#228

Post by Gwarzo »

drekk wrote: post #74
AussieWog93 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

What's done to pigs, chickens, and cows is a terribly low bar to clear. I suppose lighting an ant on fire with a magnifying glass isn't cruel because it happens quickly. Personally how quickly an innocent being capable of suffering and happiness is killed doesn't factor into whether I call it cruel. Morality might be subjective, but the alternative requires accepting that needless, preventable death and suffering is…

Killing animals for food is neither needless, preventable or causing of excessive suffering by default.

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

#230

Post by willis936 »

bumby wrote: post #202
willis936 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lobster being boiled behaves the same way a cow or dog or human behaves when being boiled. Seems strange to make the cutoff for acceptable treatment based around a wishy-washy ill-defined notion of "Can this thing that is very different than me feel pain? I promise I am not biased by the fact that I have vertebrae."

How is being derived from current understanding of biology wishy-washy? Reaction to stimuli and pain are different phenomena. If you’re stance is “we just don’t know for certain so it’s better to be conservative” that’s fine, but that uncertainty shouldn’t be conflated with actual reason when it’s just based on wishy-washy anthropomorphism.

Your claim of lobsters not being able to feel pain is wishy-washy because it's a convenient assumption based off of an oversimplification. "Invertebrates don't feel pain because they lack the specific machinery mammals use to experience pain". If you just stop there then yes, it does seem silly to worry about a thing that doesn't exist. However, what I've seen of the models suggests that we are far away from being able to confidently say we have a complete model of a lobster's nervous system.
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