4 ms·

agreed. no more octopus with potatoes for me. they are too clever. I will just eat the potatoes.

by lorenzosnap 10y ago

TurboHaskal 10y ago
I suddenly feel the need of reserving a flight to Galicia after reading your comment.
vinchuco 10y ago
You're assuming potatoes aren't clever too (albeit obfuscated in some way or over a larger time scale )
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  Yes potatoes are as intelligent over the course of a year as an octopus is in a few seconds. But that means killing and eating a potato plant is morally more equivalent to beating and detaining an octopus for a little while than killing and eating one.
  - vinchuco 10y ago
    That's a big assumption .
    - erikpukinskis 10y ago
      What is?
- mrec 10y ago
  "Even a potato in a dark cellar has a certain low cunning about him which serves him in excellent stead. He knows perfectly well what he wants and how to get it. He sees the light coming from the cellar window and sends his shoots crawling straight thereto: they will crawl along the floor and up the wall and out at the cellar window; if there be a little earth anywhere on the journey he will find it and use it for his own ends. What deliberation he may exercise in the matter of his roots when he is planted in the earth is a thing unknown to us, but we can imagine him saying, 'I will have a tuber here and a tuber there, and I will suck whatsoever advantage I can from all my surroundings. This neighbour I will overshadow, and that I will undermine; and what I can do shall be the limit of what I will do. He that is stronger and better placed than I shall overcome me, and him that is weaker I will overcome.' "The potato says these things by doing them, which is the best of languages. What is consciousness if this is not consciousness? We find it difficult to sympathise with the emotions of a potato; so we do with those of an oyster. Neither of these things makes a noise on being boiled or opened, and noise appeals to us more strongly than anything else, because we make so much about our own sufferings. Since, then, they do not annoy us by any expression of pain we call them emotionless; and so qua mankind they are; but mankind is not everybody. From Samuel Butler's Erewhon. (The same chapter that inspired the eponymous Butlerian Jihad in Dune, incidentally.) I don't agree with the conclusion here, and I doubt Butler did either, but the whole book is a great read. [1] http://www.online-literature.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/26/ http://www.online-literature.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/26/
  - virtuabhi 10y ago
    Can I present a perspective to distinguish between potato and animals, so we can decide what to eat or not? Personally I have found it be quite useful. I hope some SW engineers can relate to it. "Sadhguru: Now, if you eat a mango, this mango becomes a woman in you. If I eat a mango, the same mango becomes a man in me. If a cow eats a mango, the same mango becomes a cow in the cow. Why is this happening? There is a certain information or software in you – whatever you eat it transforms it into a woman. If I eat, it transforms into a man. If a cow eats, that becomes a cow. So every life is happening the way it is happening because of a certain dimension of information or in modern terminology, let’s call it software. There is a certain software, which is an arrangement of information. Now, the idea is to eat as simple a software as possible. If you eat that kind of life, which is a very simple software, your ability to override that software and make it entirely a part of you is very good. As that software gets complex, more and more complex, your ability to integrate it goes down. So, especially if it’s a creature which has some sense of thought and emotion, if it has emotion, then you should not eat it. This is the understanding. An animal, which has any emotion, displays certain emotions… especially if it displays emotion which is near to human emotion, you should not eat it because it will not integrate itself. That animal nature will start manifesting itself." - From http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/video/basis-for-beef-ban/ http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/video/basis-for-beef-ban/
    - louthy 10y ago
      This is one of those standard sanctimonious vegan arguments. With no basis in reality. This isn't a perspective, it's just nonsense.
      - virtuabhi 10y ago
        Perspective is a point of view. This perspective definitely has no basis in hard science (as of today) but is not "nonsense". To decide whether to eat an animal or not is an ethical/moral question (unless the animal is poisonous). This model allows you to answer that question. Also models like this are quite common, for example - karma, meditation, etc. And, this idea is in Western civilization too. Look at the origins of the phrase - "you are what you eat".
terryf 10y ago
Maybe that's exactly what they want you to think and they really are just out to get the potatoes, which they don't like!

agreed. no more octopus with potatoes for me. they are too clever. I will just eat the potatoes.

TurboHaskal 10y ago

I suddenly feel the need of reserving a flight to Galicia after reading your comment.

vinchuco 10y ago

You're assuming potatoes aren't clever too (albeit obfuscated in some way or over a larger time scale )

erikpukinskis 10y ago
Yes potatoes are as intelligent over the course of a year as an octopus is in a few seconds. But that means killing and eating a potato plant is morally more equivalent to beating and detaining an octopus for a little while than killing and eating one.
- vinchuco 10y ago
  That's a big assumption .
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    What is?
mrec 10y ago
"Even a potato in a dark cellar has a certain low cunning about him which serves him in excellent stead. He knows perfectly well what he wants and how to get it. He sees the light coming from the cellar window and sends his shoots crawling straight thereto: they will crawl along the floor and up the wall and out at the cellar window; if there be a little earth anywhere on the journey he will find it and use it for his own ends. What deliberation he may exercise in the matter of his roots when he is planted in the earth is a thing unknown to us, but we can imagine him saying, 'I will have a tuber here and a tuber there, and I will suck whatsoever advantage I can from all my surroundings. This neighbour I will overshadow, and that I will undermine; and what I can do shall be the limit of what I will do. He that is stronger and better placed than I shall overcome me, and him that is weaker I will overcome.' "The potato says these things by doing them, which is the best of languages. What is consciousness if this is not consciousness? We find it difficult to sympathise with the emotions of a potato; so we do with those of an oyster. Neither of these things makes a noise on being boiled or opened, and noise appeals to us more strongly than anything else, because we make so much about our own sufferings. Since, then, they do not annoy us by any expression of pain we call them emotionless; and so qua mankind they are; but mankind is not everybody. From Samuel Butler's Erewhon. (The same chapter that inspired the eponymous Butlerian Jihad in Dune, incidentally.) I don't agree with the conclusion here, and I doubt Butler did either, but the whole book is a great read. [1] http://www.online-literature.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/26/ http://www.online-literature.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/26/
- virtuabhi 10y ago
  Can I present a perspective to distinguish between potato and animals, so we can decide what to eat or not? Personally I have found it be quite useful. I hope some SW engineers can relate to it. "Sadhguru: Now, if you eat a mango, this mango becomes a woman in you. If I eat a mango, the same mango becomes a man in me. If a cow eats a mango, the same mango becomes a cow in the cow. Why is this happening? There is a certain information or software in you – whatever you eat it transforms it into a woman. If I eat, it transforms into a man. If a cow eats, that becomes a cow. So every life is happening the way it is happening because of a certain dimension of information or in modern terminology, let’s call it software. There is a certain software, which is an arrangement of information. Now, the idea is to eat as simple a software as possible. If you eat that kind of life, which is a very simple software, your ability to override that software and make it entirely a part of you is very good. As that software gets complex, more and more complex, your ability to integrate it goes down. So, especially if it’s a creature which has some sense of thought and emotion, if it has emotion, then you should not eat it. This is the understanding. An animal, which has any emotion, displays certain emotions… especially if it displays emotion which is near to human emotion, you should not eat it because it will not integrate itself. That animal nature will start manifesting itself." - From http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/video/basis-for-beef-ban/ http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/video/basis-for-beef-ban/
  - louthy 10y ago
    This is one of those standard sanctimonious vegan arguments. With no basis in reality. This isn't a perspective, it's just nonsense.
    - virtuabhi 10y ago
      Perspective is a point of view. This perspective definitely has no basis in hard science (as of today) but is not "nonsense". To decide whether to eat an animal or not is an ethical/moral question (unless the animal is poisonous). This model allows you to answer that question. Also models like this are quite common, for example - karma, meditation, etc. And, this idea is in Western civilization too. Look at the origins of the phrase - "you are what you eat".

terryf 10y ago

Maybe that's exactly what they want you to think and they really are just out to get the potatoes, which they don't like!