141–150 of 212 posts
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 recall another story featuring an octopus bred for intelligence who manages an octopus-only landing vehicle on Titan or something, she smuggles her babies up and then they reproduce in the habitat and...I can't recall how it ends!
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Cats will do this too; do you support eating house cats?
I think cats would taste awful but if other people want to eat cats I have no objection that wouldn't just as well apply to my consumption of pork.
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Sorry, my use of "intelligent" here was imprecise. They can clearly learn, but seem much less intelligent than other animals that we commonly eat, and not anywhere close to the same level of intelligence of animals that we generally do not eat, such as great apes, elephants, and whales.
Some octopus species use rudimentary tools, which would put them ahead of elephants and whales in at least that aspect.
I don't think it's reasonable to draw an arbitrary line while farming other animals is allowed. We have and do eat octopus, and that isn't changing. They're more likely to go extinct if unfettered consumption isn't offset by farming.
Further, sometimes salmon escape the farm in waters where they are not native. In effect, letting tens of thousands of an invasive species loose.
I'm sure some salmon farms are sustainable, but the reputation for industrial fish farming has gone to crap.
An octopus farm probably would not allow each individual to have their own little home and space to search for and collect shiny rocks. Industrial farming of animals tends to not go very well in the long run.
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The question the turning test was posed to solve is when does a sufficiently smart computer become sapient. What on earth is your "standard" definition of sapience?
> The question the turning test was posed to solve is when does a sufficiently smart computer become sapient. Yes, but it's a test for humans to interpret and judge. What kind of nonsense is it to think it should be used for an animal? A possibly sentient computer is going to be programmed to communicate in one of the human languages for obvious reasons, and animals don't have that luxury. I can't see why you would t…
Hilariously, this is the result I get from Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sapience did you even look?
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> The question the turning test was posed to solve is when does a sufficiently smart computer become sapient. Yes, but it's a test for humans to interpret and judge. What kind of nonsense is it to think it should be used for an animal? A possibly sentient computer is going to be programmed to communicate in one of the human languages for obvious reasons, and animals don't have that luxury. I can't see why you would t…
Yes, we are homo sapiens, sapience is fundamentally a human question. This is why we even care about it in the first place: it boils down to "are some animals human too?" That's why we care about it so much. Hilariously, this is the result I get from Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sapience did you even look?
No, it isn't. The word may stem from using humanity as a baseline, but it isn't limtied to humans at all.
> Hilariously, this is the result I get from Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sapience did you even look?
Yes, in the past. It's perfectly relevant. The definition redirects to wisdom and sagacity. I'm going to quote from the wiki entry[] on wisdom to demonstrate why the definition is precisely apt.
> Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act productively using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight.
These are generally the traits we find correlated to animals that we consider to be sapient, self-aware and capable of metacognition, e.g. elephants, chimps, crows, parrots, etc.
The whole too smart thing seems so arbitrary to me. Like this animal can solve a puzzle thus it can't be farmed. The other animal can't. But if we scare/hurt them they both react in fear/pain. IQs are we talking here? Suduko? Puzzle? Open a door? Use a tool? Care for its youngs? Stand under roof when it rains? I can wrap my head around both stances (eat animals freely or full veg only)...bit this arbirary line in san…
People arguing that would be happy if no animals were farmed at all. The opposite argument is equally dumb, you wouldn't legalize crack because beer is a drug and beer is legal
This. It's a propaganda angle to try to get non-activists to support their group's demands by adding a spin to their claims that makes it more engaging.
The same blend of propaganda also includes things like showing a picture of a pig showing only its eyes, devised to underline their similarities with human eyes. They then proceed to draw a parallel between slaughtering pigs and humans. Another take is portraying cattle as pets, and you wouldn't kill your own pets now would you?
In the end it's just propaganda to try to convince non-militants to unwittingly support a cause. It doesn't matter if it's arbitrary or outlandish. The goal is to sway you to do the militant's bidding.
The whole too smart thing seems so arbitrary to me. Like this animal can solve a puzzle thus it can't be farmed. The other animal can't. But if we scare/hurt them they both react in fear/pain. IQs are we talking here? Suduko? Puzzle? Open a door? Use a tool? Care for its youngs? Stand under roof when it rains? I can wrap my head around both stances (eat animals freely or full veg only)...bit this arbirary line in san…
People arguing that would be happy if no animals were farmed at all. The opposite argument is equally dumb, you wouldn't legalize crack because beer is a drug and beer is legal
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…
If I'm not mistaken, in Spain some bullfighting events that involve matadors killing bulls for entertainment also end up supplying the dead bulls to local restaurants to serve them to tourists.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/01/746659693/th...