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Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

smithsonianmag.com

81–90 of 195 posts

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#81
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat). octopus passing a intelligence test does not keep it above the fold, neither does cattle go below the fold because they don't clear the bar (surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.). sounds wrong when I type it out but that is just the truth. milk is actually more ethically wrong when you think about it (…

>eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat). I think this is very wrong. Doesn't account for when you don't have a choice, to be healthy. You need to eat more, you need to consider all possible situations, construction work people need to sustain all that physical labor somehow. It's a more serious chore to even attempt to build a non meat based diet, let alone sourci…

Verfiably false statement that you need meat to do physical labor.

Lazy statement that “sourcing” a vegetarian meal is difficult.

Eating less meat is better for your health and better for the planet.

The few exceptions I think worth noting are if you were born into and continue to live in largely/culturally hunter culture (Inuit, bushmen) or where you live is not sustainable for agriculture (Tibet.)

Most folks could just cook more rice, beans, greens and be fine.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#82
post #41

Reminds me of the children of time books - think it’s the second book with the octopus

the mountain in the sea is also a good read. focuses specifically on ingredient octopus, I didn't enjoy it as much as children of time but still an interesting read.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#83
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat). octopus passing a intelligence test does not keep it above the fold, neither does cattle go below the fold because they don't clear the bar (surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.). sounds wrong when I type it out but that is just the truth. milk is actually more ethically wrong when you think about it (…

>eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat). I think this is very wrong. Doesn't account for when you don't have a choice, to be healthy. You need to eat more, you need to consider all possible situations, construction work people need to sustain all that physical labor somehow. It's a more serious chore to even attempt to build a non meat based diet, let alone sourci…

Your excuse for participating in one of the most vile enterprises in human history, factory farming, is that it's too much effort to collectively figure out a less barbaric diet?

And literally no vegan has a problem with people who medically need to eat meet doing so. I own several cats, they are carnivores. The problem is scale: The fact that some people medically must eat meat does not give a free pass for apathetic barbarism to the rest of society.

Even collectively cutting out a single meat or dairy-based meal a week would contribute to a massive reduction in demand. You have no excuse. Use this energy to build a fairer world for all animals instead of using it to get defensive whenever someone brings up how massively inhumane modern factory farming is.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#84
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, so maybe think twice before eating one.

eating any meat is morally questionable. (I say this as a person who does eat a lot of meat). octopus passing a intelligence test does not keep it above the fold, neither does cattle go below the fold because they don't clear the bar (surprise, cattle are equally emotional, smart, curious etc.). sounds wrong when I type it out but that is just the truth. milk is actually more ethically wrong when you think about it (…

Yes I don't get it why milk is considered more ethically sound than eggs in my country. Milk is stolen baby food extracted industrially under not so nice conditions.

Precision-Fermented (animal-Free) milk does exist but it is not easily available.

Unfertilized eggs are products that come out anyway and cannot become a chick till it is successfully fertilized outside of the hen. Granted that these two are extracted industrially under not so nice conditions.

Waiting for good lab grown meat to become cheap.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how people justify (or not) whether to eat another animal.

Farm animals wouldn't even have existed in the first place if it wasn't for farming them. They wouldn't have experienced their life at all. I personally think hunting is horrible, that's going after something that is alive without you having a say in it. But say for farmed cows, living in a field for a while, that's better than not existing at all. You cannot judge if it's worth it from the cow's perspective, it got…

What's not existing like?

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#88
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, they have the highest ratio of brain-to-body-mass of any invertebrate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

Yes, so maybe think twice before eating one.

I heard this many times before, same thing with the pigs as well, which are another very smart species of animal.

Based on the same logic, is it ethical to eat a human if they are mentally disabled or not passing some IQ test?

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#89
post #86

What does it mean to “produce proteins with about twice their usual accuracy”? Smaller feature size, essentially?

No biological process is 100% precise. DNA copying being imperfect is the driver of evolution, which is the prime example of this. What I assume they're referring to is that their ribosomes just "make fewer mistakes" when creating proteins from mRNA.

These "mistranslated proteins" are normally infrequent and benign, and their material is recycled eventually. But that whole process wastes energy, so making a "better ribosome" makes all cellular processes more energy efficient and allows the energy budget to be reallocated.

Re: Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation

#90
post #73
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked study does show that correlation. But I personally believe it’s more of a second-order effect. Vegetarianism selects for openness and analytical/reflective thinking but the extra step to veganism selects for absolutism/purity and rigid category-based thinking. Reflective thinking and openness are definitely correlated to IQ so I believe the result in the article. The point here is to know your audience. Th…

> Vegetarianism selects for openness and analytical/reflective thinking but the extra step to veganism selects for absolutism/purity I don't follow how you conclude this at all. there is nothing to indicate this is the case.

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