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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

#321

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

deanCommie wrote: post #294
post_from_work wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>And they'll ask us uncomfortable questions we won't have good answers for. Didn't you know about the health risks at the amounts you were consuming? Yup. Didn't care. Bacon-wrapped filet mignon tastes THAT good. Some things are worth the risk. Like driving too fast, riding motorcycles, or skydiving. >>>Didn't you know about the carbon footprint? Same answer here... >>>Most importantly, didn't you have ample eviden…

Not today. I guess I should have been more clear I'm speaking about the Western World. In 50 years, consumption of animal meat will be like caviar+cigarettes+segregated bathrooms are today in the Western World. The rest of the world? Too many variables, depends a lot on climate change.

There won't be a "Western World" in 50 years.

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

#322

Post by ShinTakuya »

nemo44x wrote: post #151
adamcharnock wrote: post #4

Even as a meat eater I’m pretty shocked that this recognises them as sentient and yet does not ban their slaughter (aside from boiling them alive etc). Maybe I’ve read too much science fiction, but eating sentient beings seems Bad.

I disagree. So long as we don’t torture them I see no problem in consuming other creatures. “One bad day” is a good guideline for how animals should be harvested for food. So long as they aren’t in physical pain during their life, I don’t think animals really care or even understand their situation. For instance, a bunch of cattle don’t wonder about how their lives would be better if they were free range. They just l…

Pigs are known to pretty commonly work out why they're being raised (to the point that they get distressed as other pigs get taken away and work out when it's their turn).

That said, I don't particularly think we need to stop besides for environmental reasons. The ideal solution will be when we can grow "test tube" meat of comparable quality to existing meat.

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

#323

Post by emptysongglass »

rlonn wrote: post #316
emptysongglass wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…

I admire the jainist (?) philosophy of not killing, but it does seem incredibly impractical, to the point of being stupid even. How do you avoid killing mites on the ground when you go out for a walk?

I agree that the Jainist philosophy is impractical: the essential difference between the Jainist philosophy of non-harm and the Buddhist is one of intention.

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

#324

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

ornornor wrote: post #292
AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your definition of speciesism, you are doing exactly what you accuse your-defined "speciesists" of. You are manufacturing ("try to find some") a definition of speciesism to paint other-people as the bad guy. Your comparison of their actions with slavery is just to demotivate any response. In animal kingdom, animals kill each other ruthlessly. African dogs and other animals eat their prey from back-to-front while t…

> In animal kingdom, animals kill each other ruthlessly Not that long ago, humans routinely tortured, killed, raped other humans sometimes even just for fun (and in some places of the world very much still do). Humans (as a species) are destroying their ecosystem past the point of no return, putting their very existence in question. These two things can also be interpreted as lack of self awareness or any other prope…

> Humans (as a species) are destroying their ecosystem past the point of no return, putting their very existence in question.

I strongly disagree. We have more food than ever before. More clean water than ever before. More safety and prosperity than ever before. More innovation than ever before.

As for our ecosystem, humanity has solved any and every calamity ever before. And we will solve this one as well.

Don't get me wrong - we should not take climate change lightly just because of the belief that we will solve it. We should take it seriously and tackle it head-on, but with the belief in our ability in problem solving and innovation. We cannot solve a problem if we believe that humanity is going to destroy itself.

>These two things can also be interpreted as lack of self awareness or any other property you deem worthy in a living being, thus making them inferior to another species.

I don't understand this sentence. Can you clarify?

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

#325

Post by BarryMilo »

emptysongglass wrote: post #307
tagrun wrote: post #288

Not trying to argue it's OK to subject animals to unnecessary pain (it shouldn't be!), but from a pure logical consistency standpoint, are there many non-sentient animals? Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?

According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…

As a Buddhist myself... The Buddha did not have pets. That doesn't mean we can't have them, but having them implies that sometimes we can't act according to our values.

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

#326

Post by ComputerGuru »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #310
shkkmo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human fetuses become sentient sometime between 8-30 weeks (depending on who you ask and how they define sentience).

> 30 weeks 30 weeks?? Obviously these people never experienced pregnancy. It's ridiculous that we argue about lobster intelligence when most people don't even know the basic facts about their own human biology. (Another common and ridiculous meme is the "pregnancy after having sex once" idea.)

> Another common and ridiculous meme is the "pregnancy after having sex once" idea.

Are you suggesting the odds of that are so low that they’re laughable? Because they’re not..

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

#327

Post by Wohlf »

glinkot wrote: post #318
nemo44x wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. So long as we don’t torture them I see no problem in consuming other creatures. “One bad day” is a good guideline for how animals should be harvested for food. So long as they aren’t in physical pain during their life, I don’t think animals really care or even understand their situation. For instance, a bunch of cattle don’t wonder about how their lives would be better if they were free range. They just l…

The idea that they wouldn't exist if not 'made for food' sounds like a pretty anthropocentric view, what do you base that view on? Aren't cows competing in the same genetic race for survival every other species is? They certainly aren't like a fruit that's designed to be appealing for consumption - except perhaps for the selective breeding we've done since domestication.

Because dairy and meat cows literally would not exist if not for human consumption, their evolution and continued existence is not natural. Their wild cousins is a different story though.

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

#328

Post by mellavora »

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…

Perhaps so, but fortunately the plural of applepus is applepi. If you are lucky, it has a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

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

#329

Post by frutiger »

systemvoltage wrote: post #84
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want to be terrified, consider the possibility that most animals have no idea what a food chain is. So by extension - if in fact we weren't at the top of the food chain, would we even know?

Extending it further – what are the things that we currently do not understand well but its understanding would lead to panic of the scale we've never seen?

Cancer?

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

#330

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #326
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30 weeks 30 weeks?? Obviously these people never experienced pregnancy. It's ridiculous that we argue about lobster intelligence when most people don't even know the basic facts about their own human biology. (Another common and ridiculous meme is the "pregnancy after having sex once" idea.)

> Another common and ridiculous meme is the "pregnancy after having sex once" idea. Are you suggesting the odds of that are so low that they’re laughable? Because they’re not..

There's only (approximately) two days a month when a human female can get pregnant. It's not about frequency or intensity, rather it's mostly timing. (And sperm quality, but that's another thing people have no clue about.)
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