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World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

reuters.com

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Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#251

Post by hackernewds »

FiberBundle wrote: post #214
philipswood wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some stage my son was wilfully damaging plants. As part of the discipline to make him stop I showed him videos of plants sped up. It becomes a bit harder to deny that they aren’t the inanimate objects we perceive them to be because they are slow when you see them react to stimuli and they show what seems to be intent. Although it certainly isn’t a consensus opinion there is a real possibility that (given that the…

> Although it certainly isn’t a consensus opinion there is a real possibility that (given that the nervous system specialises what normal tissues can also do) plants are considerably more “conscious” than we give them credit for. Yes, that is a possibility, but it's also an entirely ridiculous argument to make to argue against veganism. If you want to argue that the nervous system is just a more specialized version o…

one could argue the need to displace grazing landmass, that could support free-range animals, with endless fields of low-throughput vegetables that need more land and water per capita-calorie/nutrient is far more damaging to the planet.

https://www.paesta.psu.edu/podcast/how-much-water-does-it-re...

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#252

Post by hackernewds »

ornornor wrote: post #225
ComputerGuru wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> though I eat a lot of eggs and some dairy still. See, I feel like this just erodes from your argument. There’s not necessarily any trauma at all to the chickens or the cows involved in the production of eggs or milk. Trying to group that with the consumption of meat feels just very irrational.

Yes there is. Egg farms grind male chicks alive. They burn off the tip of the hens beak without anesthesia (which we know is high in nerves) so they don’t fight each other in captivity; which they don’t do nearly as much in nature because surprise surprise they’re not as stressed. Hens laying eggs every single day of their lives (because they’re taken away daily) live much much shorter lives and develop physiological…

you're generalizing quite a bit here, perhaps driven by emotion. it's possible given the movement for compassion for animals to purchase local, free-range, cruelty-free sourced eggs at any decent grocer.

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#253

Post by croes »

chunkyslink wrote: post #246
croes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not always possible to get all the nutrients you need without animal products, either because they are not available or because the price is too high.

Absolute nonsense. There are over 80 million fit and healthy vegans worldwide. Processed food weather it is vegan or carnist is always more expensive but fruit, vegetables, lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, grains etc are all actually very very cheap compared to meat and diary in a western diet.

Maybe you should leave your bubble, there are parts of the world where food is still hunted and vegetables are more expensive

https://www.indy100.com/news/inuit-hunting-vegan-arctic-indi...

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#254

Post by atdrummond »

hackernewds wrote: post #245
atdrummond wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's part of it but he had an ability to break locks and dismantle constructs with ease. I realized after a while he paid immense attention to how we installed every new addition to his habitat and then would seemingly aim to deconstruct our creations using the knowledge he picked up from our installation work. I truly am in awe of these creatures, especially after one of the long time Shedd workers told me that th…

That's fascinating. Would love to hear about what kinds of contraptions you made that were breakable, given I'm struggling to imagine how you couldn't conceive of a way to keep said octopus trapped. How difficult can it be?

As noted above - you leave the tiniest hole and they'll escape. Or we might be trying to confine him to a portion of the habitat for a certain purpose and he would break his way out of his "sub-domain".

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#255

Post by machiaweliczny »

AngryData wrote: post #116

To me the most important questions are, does living a farm style life cause them undue distress and harm, and will they realize they are on a farm instead of just some weird octopus community. For example, the cows I own I can keep on my land and they are perfectly content to munch grass around the different pastures throughout the year as they are rotated, and have free clean shelter in the barn and free hay in the…

Once head transplant works we will have this dilemma for human clones as shown in “Island” movie.

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#256

Post by ornornor »

hackernewds wrote: post #252
ornornor wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is. Egg farms grind male chicks alive. They burn off the tip of the hens beak without anesthesia (which we know is high in nerves) so they don’t fight each other in captivity; which they don’t do nearly as much in nature because surprise surprise they’re not as stressed. Hens laying eggs every single day of their lives (because they’re taken away daily) live much much shorter lives and develop physiological…

you're generalizing quite a bit here, perhaps driven by emotion. it's possible given the movement for compassion for animals to purchase local, free-range, cruelty-free sourced eggs at any decent grocer.

You can’t make eggs without killing male chicks, shortening hens lives, and killing them off. Free range, organic, local, or factory. The specifics of it may vary depending on the mode of production but not the reality: it enables animal exploitation and suffering.

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#257

Post by hackernewds »

nefitty wrote: post #195
glenngillen wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question and not an attempt to bait you, but curious why the latter is a ridiculous argument? I’ve not heard that argument, but I have seen the occasional piece of research pop up to suggest there’s more complicated communication or social structures in plants. Particularly fungi. I’ve no idea how true any of it is and what why more may learn about that in the coming decades. So while I personally don’t have…

I'm definitely open to discussing the possibility when it's with someone arguing in good faith. It seems like that's where you're coming from, so thank you. I won't bury the lede further. Plants can't experience pain, at least insofar as we conceive of it, because they don't have nociceptors that signal pain. Therefore, if they do have any sort of phenomenological experience, whether it would be recognizable to us or…

I think you're misplacing the reasoning for the pain argument as "they can't feel pain the same way mammals do" whereas the contending logical argument is actually "we should avoid eating plants for the same reason we should animals - that is, it would be against their desires". The plant reflex is an indication of the latter.

Else you could easily ethically qualify meat eating that is limited to the consumption animals killed while blinded and under the influence of anaesthetics.

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#258

Post by hackernewds »

cgriswald wrote: post #184
hansvm wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we draw on human comparisons, it's generally agreed that more deaths are worse than fewer, and I posit that the weight of a person doesn't factor into that calculus. If we assume that a given quantity of meat will be produced and that animal deaths are undesirable for analogous reasons to human deaths then it's perfectly natural to attempt to minimize deaths per pound.

You're not comparing humans to humans. You're comparing cows to (say) chickens. The underlying assumption then is that chickens and cows share the same experience of pain. That's not proven, seems unlikely to be the case, and is, in any case, currently unmeasurable.

why is the experience of pain the standard? would anaesthetics present an ethical conundrum

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#259

Post by teddyh »

Azek wrote: post #176
numpad0 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his claims is more like: a) eating animals is justified because we are omnivorous/carnivorous by nature, and, b) who fucking cares anyway. I don’t think it is “we don’t need ethics out there” as some might frame it. I’d say we all have this collective naive ethics that killing sentient animals leaves bad tastes in the mouth, and I’d love not having to feel or think about it, but that cannot immediately mean i…

So just because we're omnivorous and capable of eating animals, that justifies it? Most humans are also fully capable and arguably evolved to do things like steal and murder each other, are those also justified simply because we're capable? And on the second point, the existence of OPs article and the comments around this one indicate that some people do care.

The killing and eating of animals are not acts which belong to the category of acts needing justification. Stealing and murdering other people affects human society, so those require justification by the justice system. But many acts are not part of the human society, in that the acts don’t affect it. For example, if I sit backwards on a chair, that not a threat to human society, so it does not need justification. Some people like to imagine that such unconventional acts, which they deem “transgressions”, are somehow eroding society, and would like them to be abolished. The current trend in free societies is, however, to be more liberal in what they allow.

Re: World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate

#260

Post by ogig »

atdrummond wrote: post #218

I used to do research at the Shedd Aquarium. After watching a particularly clever octopus defeat every attempt to prevent him leaving his enclosure at night, I am absolutely confident that, just like certain aquatic mammals such as Orca whales, that we only devalue their intelligence because they were unfortunate enough to not be in a situation where they could develop significant tool use and the cultural artifacts…

> I did not eat octopus prior to this but I became firmly in support of encouraging everyone to avoid eating octopus and related creatures after this experience. Not only do I think they're immensely intelligent animals, I am firmly convinced that this particular specimen was smarter than a number of humans that I have met.

Where I live octopus is a very popular food, representative of our gastronomy. I love everything about eating it. But, as you said, the notion that these are highly intelligent animals has been creeping into me. I've also experienced over this last decade how much more intelligent birds are than previously thought, so I can connect the dots. Also, pigs.

Still, I might die with this moral debacle active, for much I want to respect life in general, I don't think I can give up the party surrounding octopus gastronomy. Time will tell.

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