Is an Octopus Too Smart For Us To Eat? 481
An anonymous reader writes: The New Yorker is running a piece on the ethical dilemma we face when considering octopus intelligence alongside our willingness to eat them. "Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars, guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstrate personalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink to throw off predators, but even more impressive is the masterfully complex camouflage employed by several members of Cephalopoda (a class that also includes squid and cuttlefish)." While humans eat animals ranging widely in mental faculties, the octopus remains one of the smartest ones we do consume. And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive. As our scientific understanding of intelligence grows, these ethical debates will only come into sharper focus. Where do we draw the line?
People (Score:5, Funny)
Is where I draw the line..
How about clones? (Score:2)
Captain America says that babies test best. [youtube.com]
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Meh... It's merely some guy's idea what human flesh tastes like based on stuff he read from questionable sources.
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Meh... It's merely some guy's idea what human flesh tastes like based on stuff he read from questionable sources.
My brother-in-law told me it tastes like pork. He calls it "long pig".
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so just another chicken burger then?
with extra fatty sauce, of course.
Re:People (Score:5, Funny)
Don't be so quick dismissing tasty humans!
They breed like rabbits and many are about as intelligent as an octopus.
Re:People (Score:5, Funny)
Although some aren't capable of opening jars.
Re: People (Score:3)
Re: People (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot... where anon coward blatant religion-baiting gets +1 Informative
Damn right, that should have been modded insightful.
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Um, you might want to take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org] .
Mrs. Vassilyev is said to have given birth to 69 whelps, and of course, there is Ismail Ibn Sharif who sired 860!
Re:People (Score:4, Insightful)
The latter is what provides the ethical argument for treating anything that we can consider "near" human as human for various purposes such as whether to eat them. If we're so considerate of ourselves that cannibalism is usually considered a grievous crime, then maybe we should be a bit more considerate of animals that approach us in intellect.
Re:People (Score:5, Insightful)
Self-preservation. We are people, hence by social contract we (no longer) eat each other. That way each of us can feel safe that others will not consume him. We consider people who violate that rule criminals or insane and deal with them appropriately.
There is no such social contract with animals. We can eat them and they, occasionally, eat humans too.
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Self-preservation. We are people, hence by social contract we (no longer) eat each other. That way each of us can feel safe that others will not consume him. We consider people who violate that rule criminals or insane and deal with them appropriately.
There is no such social contract with animals. We can eat them and they, occasionally, eat humans too.
This.
You can even extend this to why we don't eat cats and dogs. Dog owners don't want their neighbors to eat their precious family pet, and nobody want such a mess in society. These are self preserving rules of our society, and not things based on some fancy individual reasoning. Note that in not so ancient time [wikipedia.org], people did eat dogs in most Europe, but that was before dogs were common pet.
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Wait, can you clarify? (Score:3)
In the US, most smart animal shelters carefully review who is adopting to make sure the adopter is not using the shelter as a meat supplier. I happen to be a dog lover and find it offensive, but I understand it is cultural.
Wait, can you clarify?
Which kind of dog lover are you?
Do you find it offensive that people eat dogs, or do you find it offensive that animal shelters prevent themselves from being used as suppliers?
Most animals? (Score:4, Informative)
Social contract? What a load of crap. Most animals do not eat member of their own species. Do you you think it's because they also have a "social contract"?
I think you have never owned chickens, gerbils, rats, mice, hamsters, and never read about sand tiger sharks, polar bears, spiders, parasitic wasps, or tiger salamanders.
All of the listed animals eat their young. I guess the ones that get eaten don't have opportunity to sue for "breach of social contract"...
Re:Most animals? (Score:5, Informative)
This subthread is really about eating their own species. Chimps [animalplanet.com] have been observed doing so and it's common knowledge that lions will kill and eat offspring that isn't theirs. Just killed (wah) your first two points.
But to continue: wolves [wolfsongnews.org] will, polar [bing.com] bears have been photographed doing so and brown [proboards.com] bears will. We've now covered four main groups of large land mammals.
It is very common in fish, most all carnivorous insects will and has been mentioned, birds will, although it's usually the squab that gets it.
To quote wikipedia "Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded for more than 1500 species." In other words, many species absolutely will kill/eat their own.
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Perhaps not. But the fact that pretty much every culture on Earth is descended from cannibals if you trace their history back far enough suggests that it might be. Anti-cannibalism seems to be a cultural thing and, like monogamy and not shitting wherever you happen to be standing, is probably an adaptation to the pressures of building a stable high-density population, aka "civilization". That is to say it's a social technology adaptation, rather than a genetic one.
Re:People (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, if I saw human meat at the butchers, and it was properly inspected to be free of diseases and medication, I would not have any problem with it.
i really don't understand taboos. I understand morality, and the need for us not to harm members of our herd, but if a healthy person dies in an accident, that's logically no different than a deer that's been shot.
But taboos are hard to break. You won't even find horse meat in the US because it's taboo. The reasoning usually boils down to "it's a horse!", and it surely would be "It's a human!" too.
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What makes you think murder is evidence against animal instinct? Lots of animals kill members of their own species - it's an extremely effective way to eliminate both personal threats and those genetic undesirables who might otherwise contaminate your downstream gene line. Also a pretty natural outcome of a fight serious enough that neither side is willing to back down.
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Not stealing food when you aren't hungry doesn't mean you have higher morality than someone who does because he's starving. The circumstances aren't even remotely the same, so the choices aren't comparable.
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We're also so considerate of ourselves as to intercede if other humans are in jeopardy. Even if it's an overpopulated area, we confer humans with individual importance, unlike with, e.g., endangered species where we only seem to care if they are fulfilling their ecological niche. If the ethical dilemma includes whether or not to eat octopi but not whether or not to intercede when octopi are, e.g., about to be eaten by a shark, then at the very least I see that as a philosophical inconsistency.
Perhaps that
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Re:People (Score:4, Informative)
we are not carrion eaters
Yes we are. There is a lot of evidence that ancient humans ate carrion. Even today, most meat is aged [wikipedia.org] before it is sold, because humans prefer to taste a bit of a carrion tang. Fresh meat doesn't taste as good to us.
Disclaimer: I am a vegetarian.
Re:People (Score:4, Insightful)
While carrion technically is any decaying meat that is no longer inside of a living animal, its definition is certainly restricted when talking about carrion eaters,(scavengers). Decay is retarded in aged meats by not allowing natural agents in that would start the normal decay process. Otherwise all meat eaters would be classified as carrion eaters as the instant the chemical signals for life stop, the meat becomes carrion. And they don't age most beef to give it any sort of 'carrion tang' they do it to break down the callogenic fibers that hold the meat together and give it a less tough texture. Any noticeable flavor only comes long after the time limits they put on most meats you can buy in the USA. I used to hunt deer and spent extra money to have some of it aged, and unless you dry age for a long time the taste is pretty much the same as straight out of the animal. Only its lack of toughness is noticeable. That's also why you only find high end places, (that charge considerable amounts of money), selling anything with any sort of aged flavor.
Re: People (Score:4, Informative)
Ugh. Not only not aged properly, but overcooked. Gross.
The proper way to order a steak is "scare it with a flashlight", but only after it's been properly dry aged.
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Cannibals obviously don't draw the line there. Of course from a disease prevention basis, it's frowned upon. I'd eat non-toxic aliens that were smarter than humans if tasty, affordable, nutritious and convenient to prepare. Other beings on this planet happily eat humans regardless of whether we're more intelligent or not. What does intelligence of food have to do with sustenance? I've never heard of such a debate.
Re:People (Score:5, Funny)
Sue: "That croc was going to eat me alive."
Crocodile Dundee: "Well, I wouldn't hold that against him. Same thought crossed my mind once or twice."
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Lifeboat Sketch (Score:5, Funny)
As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the R.A.F. who now suffer the largest casualties in this area. And what do you think the Argylls ate in Aden? Arabs?
Yours etc. Captain B.J. Smethwick in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
Clearly not... (Score:4, Funny)
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We eat them, and if they're so smart why don't they defend themselves?!
Considering the stupid and corrupt dirtbags that we elect to rules over us, who are we to question the intelligence of cephalopods?
They *do* defend themselves! (Score:3)
We eat them, and if they're so smart why don't they defend themselves?!
They *do* defend themselves!
They open sacrificial jars of food for us to eat instead!
Re:Clearly not... (Score:4, Funny)
Would you initaite interspecies contact with a species that wonders whether you go with white wine or red? Would you invade a world where the inhabitants are as likely to reach for a jar of brown sauce as a weapon? Omnivorism - keeping Earth first contact free for over 500,000 years.
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The rest of the conversation ... (Score:2)
... what about bush meat?
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Eating bush meat is not advised. [slashdot.org]
Or fucking it. [youtube.com]
Re:The rest of the conversation ... (Score:5, Funny)
If it's trimmed nicely, I don't mind.
Wait, are we talking about the same thing?
I don't know... (Score:3)
A Smart? (Score:3)
I'm guessing it tastes much like a bicycle. [youtube.com]
Cloud of in ink == advanced intelligence? (Score:3, Insightful)
How is that different from a skunk spraying? Or millipedes, or the bombardier beetle?
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Its not about intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
its about cuteness.
Dog & cats = too cute to eat
cows & chickens = not so much
rabbits & horses = somewhere in between
Octopuses arent cute... so its okay to eat them.
Re:Its not about intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
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Starvation will also drive people to steal, murder, and renege on any oath. As such, a vegetarian's willingness to eat meat when starving is just evidence that the survival instinct will override any moral sensibility, not that deep down inside all vegetarians are really hypocrites.
So, we should not base laws on what people do when they are starving, but rather on what we think people should do when they are not starving. The fact that a starving person will eat an octopus is no argument for keeping that
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Re: Its not about intelligence (Score:2)
Octopuses arent cute...
Says you
Re:Its not about intelligence (Score:5, Informative)
Actually octopuses are cute, squids not so much, but still.
You can play with them like with a young cat. And yes, they are smart enough to leave an aquarium, cause random trouble and climb back in.
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Generally speaking, us in the west eat herbivores only. We don't tend to eat horses (knowingly, you never know what is in that cheap burger you bought) simply because they were more important as assets than food, and we seem to still have that cultural aversion to them.
rabbits are cute as anything, and yet they are a very popular source of meat for many rural peoples (urban ones, tend to eat those cheap burgers already mentioned). Cuteness doesn't factor into it, mainly because the meat in your supermarket
Should lions stop eating us (Score:3, Funny)
After all were smart, were hot and where the party of the planet.
Re:Should lions stop eating us (Score:5, Funny)
After all were smart, were hot and where the party of the planet.
Oh the irony
Pigs are dependent on humanity? (Score:2)
Maybe on Mars.
Is there a secret New Yorker colony on Mars that I'm not aware of? I woke up late today.
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Is that the one with the piece on the navel gazing back at you?
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Maybe on Mars.
Is there a secret New Yorker colony on Mars that I'm not aware of? I woke up late today.
Yes, much like cows. How many pigs and cows do you think there would be if we didn't raise them?
Re:Pigs are dependent on humanity? (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like buffalo and wild boar?
I'm guessing somewhere between plenty and a hell of a lot.
The key word is "dependent". [merriam-webster.com] Panda is dependent on humans to survive. Pigs... nope.
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How many pigs and cows do you think there would be if we didn't raise them?
What makes you think - as, admittedly, I am quite broadly inferring from the tone of your post - that the answer would be "none"?
I don't think we've managed to breed the urge to reproduce out of our cattle yet. They'd get by - perhaps not in as great numbers, but sheer numbers are not necessarily an indicator of future evolutionary fitness.
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Not so much 'none' as 'a whole lot less' (or maybe 'more likely to become extinct than they are now'), and much of the land they currently occupy would then be put to other uses.
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Pretty sure that the same argument can be applied to justify eating human babies.
...And that would prevent them from becoming a burden to their parents or country while making them beneficial to the publick. [wikimedia.org]
Not dependent on humans? (Score:2)
"And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive."
unless humans destroy the environment an octopus survives in.
Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
I do think everyone should take whales off the menu.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Their neural anatomy is also radically different from us vertebrates. That makes comparisons almost meaningless.
Their brain is a toroid. The esophagus goes through the hole in the middle. Mollusks are weird.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Lab experiments have shown that they can measure things, and that they can learn by watching another octopus do something ONCE (gee, wish we were as good).
Does this mean that they're too intelligent to eat? Perhaps the solution is to cross them with chickens - then everyone gets a drumstick.
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Intelligent octopus? Scientists are testing the brain-power of the mysterious and mythic octopus.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall an article about a aquarium that had a big tank of cuttlefish installed. Then every night one cuttlefish would disappear and no-one could figure out who'd come and steal cuttllefish, so they stuck some night-vision camera in and waited.
An octopus in a tank across the walkway would pop out the top of its tank, shimmy across the floor, up the side of the cuttlefish tank, grab one, eat it and then retreat back to its tank. I figure anything that figure out that its human keepers had put a fresh source of food for it across the hall is intelligent enough to not be eaten. Incidentally octopi are intelligent enough to take the trapped crabs and lobster from traps.
but hey, human eat fucking everything, destroying the environment it lives in as we all know nothing is more important than our bellies, and the profits made from selling it for other people's bellies.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't necessarily rank whales higher (or lower) than octopi. As we've learned from corvids (crows, jays, ravens), absolute brain size and organization isn't a particularly good indicator of intelligence. Crows (who have brains the size of a large peanut) score very similarly [nationalgeographic.com] to great apes.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
My opinion about whales was based upon an experience I had several years ago in Maui. A baby whale and then mother slowly came out of the water 6 feet away from our boat and I looked those whales in the eye. There was obvious curiosity and intelligence there.
Its hard to imagine eating something like that. It for me borders on cannibalism.
Kang and Kodos (Score:2)
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Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
With Kodos, the whole comments section would be filled only with Simpsons quotes.
Where do we put the line? (Score:5, Funny)
In front of the sushi bar, of course.
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I am reminded of this classic New Yorker cartoon caption contest winner:
http://personalshoplifter.com/... [personalshoplifter.com]
A fish saved my life once - i ate him (Score:2)
Vegetarian (Score:5, Interesting)
As a vegetarian I find the whole debate about which animals people should eat and why both amusing and slightly disturbing.
Re: Vegetarian (Score:5, Funny)
Hey guys I found the vegetarian.
Re: Vegetarian (Score:5, Funny)
Q:How do you know if someone is a vegetarian?
A: Don't worry, they'll tell you.
For me? yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
They're one of the few species i dont eat on purely ethical grounds. Cats and dogs I wouldn't eat on nutritional grounds, or other higher-order predators for that matter, but I guess that could be argued to be another sort of ethical reasoning.
A few years ago I saw a YouTube clip of a scuba diver whose camera was literally stolen by the octopus he was filming, who then proceeded to taunt the diver and make him give chase to wrest it back from the cephalopod. Holy shit! I thought, that sea creature is trolling this guy! And with that i decided i would no longer eat them. "Ability to troll" may not be a very scientific (or very high for that matter) bar I guess, but it apparently is mine. YMMV. Damn shame too, as i used to love eating them.
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They're one of the few species i dont eat on purely ethical grounds. Cats and dogs I wouldn't eat on nutritional grounds, or other higher-order predators for that matter, but I guess that could be argued to be another sort of ethical reasoning.
A few years ago I saw a YouTube clip of a scuba diver whose camera was literally stolen by the octopus he was filming, who then proceeded to taunt the diver and make him give chase to wrest it back from the cephalopod. Holy shit! I thought, that sea creature is trolling this guy! And with that i decided i would no longer eat them. "Ability to troll" may not be a very scientific (or very high for that matter) bar I guess, but it apparently is mine. YMMV. Damn shame too, as i used to love eating them.
Agreed. While I've never easten octopus, I have previously enjoyed squid, something I may re-consider. Arbitrary, perhaps - but they're personal standards.
Pigs don't really need us... (Score:3, Informative)
evens out (Score:5, Funny)
No eating of species capable of tool use. (Score:4, Interesting)
Simple rule. Never broke it.
Re:No eating of species capable of tool use. (Score:4, Informative)
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Misunderstand. Don't eat octopus. Uses tools. Also, aquatic lineage raises risk of being distant cousin. Bad for family gatherings.
We eat smarter animals all the time... (Score:2)
... I mean... bacon? So... the calamari aren't getting off that easy.
Anything that can be caught or farmed... (Score:2)
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On intelligence (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I generally agree that octopi/pods, whatever, are intelligent. But:
"Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars, guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstrate personalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink to throw off predators, but even more impressive is the masterfully complex camouflage
Out of all of those examples, I can only see one that's definitely a sign of real intelligence (opening jars). The rest all sound more like at least partly instinctual behaviours.
Guarding unhatched eggs for years certainly sounds less intelligent than stashing them away somewhere you've determined to be safe, and going back out to octopus parties.
Drawing the line (Score:2)
On a fundamental level, everything is actually part of one big organism, because where do you draw the line between where one organism ends and another organism starts?
For example, you could propose that if the nuclei of two atoms are further apart than x Angstrom (and the atoms are not connected through a "chain" of "close" atoms), those atoms are part of 2 different organisms. You can't choose x to be zero (this would be nonsensical) so how would you choose x? Clearly the question itself is nonsensical an
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Your sig doesn't match up with your post at all, you know.
um... (Score:2)
Lifespan (Score:2)
Octopuses have a relatively short lifespan - only up to 5 years, and as short as 6 months for some species - which is far shorter than the natural lifespan of most of the other animals we consume. Males die shortly after mating, and females die shortly after eggs hatch. So most of their life cycle simply revolves around reproduction (more like an insect or fish in that regard), so it's not like they are happily frolicking around in the sea until mean humans come and end their long, happy existences. Also
anything is good in garlic butter (Score:2)
but octopus is just gross
I heretofor vow... (Score:4, Insightful)
...not to eat any animal that specifically asks me not to.
We empathize with that which is like us (Score:4, Interesting)
We empathize with that which we perceive to be like us. People who look and act like me from my tribe? The halest, heartiest of the bunch, worthy of respect and honor. People who don't look like me but act like me... still, hearty mates. Animals which have emotions like me? Puppies, dogs, cats? Can't hurt them. Chickens? Well... they seem to be pretty different. They're okay to eat. Cows. Wow they're dumb and utterly unlike me - they're okay to kill. Fish? Utterly unlike me. No question, okay to kill. Octopi... wait, you're telling me they're like me? Hmmm, let me consider this.
I would not advise that. (Score:3)
You never know where that idiot has been and what he got himself/herself into.
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