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"She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

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Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#31

Post by telesilla »

zilti wrote: post #25
telesilla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>treating animals well At any farm where animals are bred as commercial food sources we don't treat them with dignity. Another farm on the way - https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229233837/octopus-farm-spain...

There are lots of farms where animals are treated well and with dignity. At least over here in Switzerland. Source: worked at one, and saw a lot of them (my father worked as a vet).

Yes, I've also visited and lived on such farms. They are for small specialist production, I wouldn't say commercial. Great that you know more of them: it proves we can treat animals very well and still have (albeit at low quantity) meat production.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#32

Post by diggan »

colechristensen wrote: post #21
brookst wrote: post #13

I had a joyful experience at the octopus farm near Kona Hawaii (now sadly closed because they were even more sadly apparently not treating the animals well). With hands in the tank, I was able to play catch with a small plastic ball and a roughly 2 month old octopus. It was definitely catch — I could scoot the ball anywhere and the octopus would grab it and throw it back. Possibly a trained behavior, who knows? It wa…

One of the struggles with researching octopus intelligence is that they’re basically untrainable. They’ll do what you want them to if they’re interested but it’s quite difficult to get them to be consistently interested. In other words, it was probably fun for the octopus too.

> One of the struggles with researching octopus intelligence is that they’re basically untrainable. They’ll do what you want them to if they’re interested but it’s quite difficult to get them to be consistently interested.

One of my dogs is the same. She knows exactly what you want her to do, but if there is no rewards involved, it's impossible. But as soon as you hold a snack in your hand, anything and more is possible.

Maybe the scientists haven't found a good enough snack to give them?

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#33

Post by inglor_cz »

card_zero wrote: post #30
PeterisP wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems quite plausible that "boredom" is a mechanism that is required (or at least useful) for building high cognitive capabilities.

I don't exactly believe in it. I think one can only be bored by external forces, or some irrationality.

External Forces of Boredom would be a nice band name.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#36

Post by tomaskafka »

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #28
colechristensen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the struggles with researching octopus intelligence is that they’re basically untrainable. They’ll do what you want them to if they’re interested but it’s quite difficult to get them to be consistently interested. In other words, it was probably fun for the octopus too.

Sounds a lot like my daughter. And me if I think about it :/

Doing whatever she wants is a feature, not a bug :)

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#37

Post by wahnfrieden »

zilti wrote: post #25
telesilla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>treating animals well At any farm where animals are bred as commercial food sources we don't treat them with dignity. Another farm on the way - https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229233837/octopus-farm-spain...

There are lots of farms where animals are treated well and with dignity. At least over here in Switzerland. Source: worked at one, and saw a lot of them (my father worked as a vet).

Are they industrialized farms?

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#38

Post by Voultapher »

zilti wrote: post #25
telesilla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>treating animals well At any farm where animals are bred as commercial food sources we don't treat them with dignity. Another farm on the way - https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229233837/octopus-farm-spain...

There are lots of farms where animals are treated well and with dignity. At least over here in Switzerland. Source: worked at one, and saw a lot of them (my father worked as a vet).

Who are you fooling here? Yourself? Imagine your children being born into one of these farms. There is no self determination. Only because we are not overtly cruel doesn't mean we don't treat them like slaves. "Look at my slave, now that I impregnated her she gets to have a couple more square meter to walk around in until her children are taken away from her." Not all farms are equally bad, but there is no farm where if you applied the same treatment to humans it would not constitute human rights violations. You might argue non human animals are different, but why does that matter? Black and white people are different, why would that difference justify enslaving one group?

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#39

Post by short_sells_poo »

Voultapher wrote: post #38
zilti wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of farms where animals are treated well and with dignity. At least over here in Switzerland. Source: worked at one, and saw a lot of them (my father worked as a vet).

Who are you fooling here? Yourself? Imagine your children being born into one of these farms. There is no self determination. Only because we are not overtly cruel doesn't mean we don't treat them like slaves. "Look at my slave, now that I impregnated her she gets to have a couple more square meter to walk around in until her children are taken away from her." Not all farms are equally bad, but there is no farm where…

Are there bad actors in farming even in Switzerland? Sure. But the majority of the farms I've been to have treated their animals with respect and kindness. The cows actually spend most of their time out on the pastures grazing freely. They are only taken indoors when the weather gets too cold for them in winter. It's very far from what people picture when talking about industrial farming in the US. It is true that there's an ultimate cruelty to keeping farm animals: we do it so eventually we can kill and eat them.

So if you argue against all meat consumption by humans, then it is true: no keeper of animals can be considered "fit for keeping humans". Even a small farm purely for the owner's own consumption places restrictions on the livestock's freedom and ultimately keeps them so they can be eaten. Even animals that we keep as pets could be considered to live in inhuman conditions, because we restrict their freedoms.

Re: "She's bouncing the ball" – the uncanny way octopuses play

#40

Post by sweetheart »

zilti wrote: post #25
telesilla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>treating animals well At any farm where animals are bred as commercial food sources we don't treat them with dignity. Another farm on the way - https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229233837/octopus-farm-spain...

There are lots of farms where animals are treated well and with dignity. At least over here in Switzerland. Source: worked at one, and saw a lot of them (my father worked as a vet).

> There are lots of farms where animals are treated well and with dignity.

What practices are used that constitute good treatment with dignity? And what animals are you talking about, and producing what goods?

I ask because I find that most people who say stuff like this think that a dairy cow with access to open pastures is treated well, and with dignity, but then overlook the fact that the animal is routinely artificially impregnated, separated from their calf over and over and over again, and then killed at a quarter of her natural lifespan because her milk production is no longer economically beneficial to the company that "owns" her.

I'm not trying to say that that's the case here, just trying to get specific because I talk with a lot of people who say similar things as you, and I want to know if you're saying something substantially different or not.

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