Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

lse.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 704 posts

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#521

Post by Borrible »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #477
Borrible wrote: post #196

I sense a new and creative way to annoy the EU and especially the French fishing industry boiling up. Who really cares for Hank, Jaques and Bob... Can't remember, is there a red herring in 'Finding Nemo'?

I was looking for this type of analysis. Part of me wonders whether this was the true motivation for Brexit.

For me it was a gamble gone bad. But based on a deeper shift in global power politics, also regarding the relationship of the USA and Europe.

Great Britain had to decide between a deeper loyalty to the USA or the EU.

I don't think the Brexit was planned to be successful. It may have been planned to be a tool to recalibrate the relations to the EU and got out of hand, Wizard's Apprentice.

They probably thought they could deepen the relationship with the USA in the coming Cold War with China and still reap the benefits of the EU without the annoying parts.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#522

Post by francisofascii »

ArchD wrote: post #474
lelanthran wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't needlessly torturing them? Seriously, you cannot see the difference between a person who delivers a single killing blow and then eats the animal and one who watches it boil to death over 20m or so? "Getting joy from inflicting pain" is very different to "killing for food".

Lobsters & crabs are risky to eat unless they are very fresh (i.e. they have not been dead for too long). If you buy a dead lobster and then cook it, you have much less assurance about when it died hence the freshness than with a live lobster. If you buy a live lobster, how are you going to practically kill it before boiling it? Try to penetrate the hard shell to impale the brain using a layperson's skills and equipm…

>> Lobsters & crabs are risky to eat unless they are very fresh

Maybe another good reason to...not eat them as much.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#523

Post by ben_w »

akagusu wrote: post #509

while crabs and others will receive more welfare protections, people (as citizens, workers and consumers) are getting your protections slowly removed, one by one, bill after bill, staying at the mercy of corrupt politicians, ruthless employers and greedy corporations. How long to a human being is worth less than an animal?

Do you mean in general, or do you mean like a return to owning slaves, anti-miscegenation laws?

In the latter, I’d say there’s a roughly constant probability density function over 50-year bucketed time periods.

In the former, why do you imagine humans would switch to becoming worth less than animals?

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#525

Post by ben_w »

anhner wrote: post #514
akagusu wrote: post #509

while crabs and others will receive more welfare protections, people (as citizens, workers and consumers) are getting your protections slowly removed, one by one, bill after bill, staying at the mercy of corrupt politicians, ruthless employers and greedy corporations. How long to a human being is worth less than an animal?

It already is in the eyes of some extremist vegans. (see the "never touch anything animal related for whatever reason" crowd but who then go on and drink gallons of cashew milk from farms of abused workers)

I get the impression that’s more of a lack of awareness of the higher-order consequences than direct value judgements.

I see that in a lot of other cases.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#526

Post by dTal »

stickfigure wrote: post #428
omnicognate wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean by "interestingly complex". To say we are nowhere near understanding the nervous systems of fruit flies would be a massive understatement. Even for C.Elegans, for which we know the complete connectome and much more besides (and which has a thousandth of the number of neurons a fruit fly does), we're not close to explaining (or simulating) the behaviour of the animal in terms of the properties o…

Are you suggesting I should feel bad about squishing fruit flies?

Why do you squish fruit flies? They're harmless,

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#527

Post by SyzygistSix »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #317

Yes ,don't cook lobsters alive I would say. Most animals can definitely feel pain, maybe even insects. Don't cause them unnecessary pain. It's pretty said that the so called most intelligent animal species needs laws to understand that.

But they taste good with garlic butter.

That is both true and an incredibly lame argument when I write it out. I have strong feelings about octopuseses and the people who eat them for entertainment. I wish we knew how sentient and pain-aware lobsters are.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#528

Post by SyzygistSix »

mypastself wrote: post #453
wruza wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How not causing pain to animals when cooking them relates to intelligence? I suspect that my comment can sound blunt to you, so let me explain. When a human wants to eat something, their goal is not only to eat, but to do that without harming their emotional state. E.g. if I (or anyone) wanted to eat badly and catched an animal, I wouldn’t boil it alive, because it would scream of pain and hurt my mental state. But i…

Presumably, intelligence entails understanding that suffering can take forms other than the immediately obvious ones, and taking steps to minimize it if possible.

Intelligence is required for the first part. Compassion and empathy is what is required for the second.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#529

Post by valenaut »

Lhiw wrote: post #449
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "feel" part probably can happen only in the sufficiently large brain, and lobster most likely don't qualify. This seems pretty arbitrary. As a vegan I draw the line at plants vs animals and while it is hard to live in industrialized society without harming animals, it’s easy for me to see how dropping a lobster in a pot will cause the animal to suffer. I’m doing just fine simply not eating them. Why do mental g…

As a vegan how do you reconcile the thousands of insects and field animals that get culled during harvesting those lentils? I don't really have a problem with vegetarians but I do struggle to understand the lines they seemingly draw at random. Minimising harm should be a given for all but that doesn't rule out all meat eating that veganism somehow does.

Eating farm animals requires you to grow 9 times as many crops to feed them as if you had just eaten the crops directly, since only about 9% of the food they eat is converted into edible flesh.

So even if you take this argument seriously, the insects and field animals are better off if you grow fewer crops, which you accomplish by directly eating the crops you grow, not feeding them to livestock.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#530

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

_wolfie_ wrote: post #390
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you see the mites, though? The monks had a kind of sieve to filter out small animals from drinking water. There is a famous story when some of them developed extrasensory perception and realized the water they had been drinking contains millions of tiny beings invisible to the naked eye. They went to the Buddha and asked what they should do. The Buddha answered, if you cannot see them, that is fine. I like this s…

What did the monks who could see them do though? Died from thirst?

Sorry I wasn't clear. If you can see them with your physical eyes, you should take reasonable care not to kill them. If you can't see them with your physical eyes but with extrasensory perception, it does not matter in the context of this particular precept (of taking life).
Post reply on HN