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A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

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61–70 of 212 posts

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#61

The older I get, the less I want anything sentient on my plate.

The older I get, the more I have the sense (both intuitively and through evidence) that I'm far more like the animals I've eaten than I am unlike them. That sense has become more and more attuned, and it has gotten to the point that I don't see animals as food anymore. They're just a different kind of people trying to survive. Since I don't actually need to eat them to survive, it seems akin to murder to consume them purely out of pleasure. That would have sounded crazy to me once, but not at all these days.

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#62

The older I get, the less I want anything sentient on my plate.

The older I get, the more I have the sense (both intuitively and through evidence) that I'm far more like the animals I've eaten than I am unlike them. That sense has become more and more attuned, and it has gotten to the point that I don't see animals as food anymore. They're just a different kind of people trying to survive. Since I don't actually need to eat them to survive, it seems akin to murder to consume them…

I recommend the book Tender is the Flesh, I think you’ll love it

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#63
post #57
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious, is this just edgy humour, or is there any culture that regularly eats cat?

Is it really any different from any other animal? So why would it not have possibility to be on plate? After all one of my life bucket lists is to taste as many species as possible...

This is exactly why I don't want to eat them. As an animal, yes, I can identify that they are in fact like other animals; they are like me, for instance. I don't want to eat things like me, because I don't want to be eaten. That's why it's not possible to put a cat on my plate. That logic goes both ways, and the variables in the equation are values-based.

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#64
post #57
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious, is this just edgy humour, or is there any culture that regularly eats cat?

Is it really any different from any other animal? So why would it not have possibility to be on plate? After all one of my life bucket lists is to taste as many species as possible...

No, and tbh, I don't want us to expand our horizons of what sentient animals we find ok to eat.

(I say this as someone who is not a vegan, or vegetarian)

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#66
post #52
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I on other hand am still saddened at this age that I can't get dog or cat meat here...

I'm genuinely curious, is this just edgy humour, or is there any culture that regularly eats cat?

Some countries do eat cat and dog yes. I'm on South Korea, and I could try dog meat if I wanted as there are some places cooking it.

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smarter then dogs. The criteria for edibility is mainly ugliness vs. Cuteness. Octopuses are recently getting more media attention with that movie about the diver that made friends with one so they are getting cuter. Try farm raising and eating baby penguins you'll get the same reaction even though penguins are dumb AF. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

You bring up a good point about penguins. They and chickens are both birds, so why are we finally eating chickens but not penguins? Cuteness definitely plays a role.

Because penguins can't be kept where most humans live due to temperature.

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#68

Not trying to be a SJW but a drove an 18 wheeler for a year and would pick up meat from slaughter houses and the way they treat those animals is god forsakenly bad.They put hundreds of chickens in a room and spray water with electrical current into it. The cows would come in on trucks just terrified with the walls covered in their own feces. Not even going to get started on the conditions in which they are raised. It…

Capitalism isn’t unique by any means in that correct observation

Currency abstracts abuse into a neutral system of value and capitalism/industrialism enables this at a massive scale.

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up a good point about penguins. They and chickens are both birds, so why are we finally eating chickens but not penguins? Cuteness definitely plays a role.

Because penguins can't be kept where most humans live due to temperature.

It's ok. It can be like wagyu. Imported fresh baby penguin meat straight from the north pole.

Re: A seafood firm wants to farm octopus. Activists say they're too smart for that

#70
post #37

They're probably smart enough that we could train them to farm each other . Split them into two groups, give them limited food, and make them duke it out in underwater coliseums. Winners get to raise the next generation, losers become sushi :( Hell, attach some livestreaming, raise some money, sic a few LLMs on them... we can probably learn to talk to them in a decade, teach them to ride dolphins, then invite them on…

I’ve seen videos that show frightening intelligence. The biggest limiting factor is that they don’t live very long… 2 years is well past Middle Aged. I’ve read reports of pet octopi that are so curious they climb out of Their tank to explore or be nearer their owner… and can’t get back in, which is fatal on a fairly short time frame

The Seattle aquarium had a weird issue with fish going missing for some time (weeks? Months?), the culprit was their octopus letting itself out at night and returning before morning.
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