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World’s first octopus farm stirs ethical debate
- miguel_rdp 5y agoOn a very lateral note, pulpo a la gallega is made with boiled, not seared, octopus
- gerdesj 5y agoI shall instruct my octopodal mates to avoid hot baths and go for the incineration option instead. This is a tricky one. Where do you draw the line as an omnivore?
- kelseyfrog 5y agoSomewhere before primates.
- mdale 5y agoTimes you wish you could double up vote :)
- Larrikin 5y agoAnything tasty that won't make me sick
- asdff 5y agoIf its been distributed here, prepped, and offered for sale, I might as well eat it since its there anyhow. Better conditions for animals will come from legislation and not consumer choices.
- sweetheart 5y agoYou don’t think individuals collective buying habits influence macro trends in supply?
- nefitty 5y agoI do. I would like to know what you think. My understanding of the mechanism is probably oversimplified.
- asdff 5y agoI think when it comes to meat its more of a tragedy of the commons issue, and the most effective way to get something done is to encourage my representatives to support legislation that helps these animals versus holding my breath and waiting for the world to wake up and choose logic. Keep in mind this is a society that have many who, when shown that smoking causes lung cancer, continues to smoke. After COVID and seeing the worldwide idiot brigade come out of the woodwork from that, I'm even more cynical, and more certain that there are just too many idiots on this planet to just expect consumers to one day wise up and start doing things differently.
- sweetheart 5y agoBut we can do both: personally abstain to inform the market of changing preferences, and lobby the government to introduce new laws and reorganize subsidies. It’s not one or the other. There is no reason to wait to stop eating animals unnecessarily
- sdeframond 5y agoYep. And this oil has been refined already, might as well burn it now. That plane will fly with or without me in it. /s Except the providers actually adjust to demand. If the products are not sold, they will make less of them. I can't remember the name of this particular fallacy.
- bmitc 5y ago> "For now aquaculture is the only available option." Wrong. I've stopped eating octopus. Of course, we can't stop eating every animal, even many that obviously feel distress and emotions, but we really need to draw a line on reducing and making sure that we raise or naturally hunt animals in a humane as possible way. Octopus is one I've taken a line on. Others still weigh on me. "Aquaculture" is being billed as the solution to ocean food and even as "green" and "sustainable", but it's going to be just like or worse than the Green Revolution, which continues to strip land of diversity and nutrients. Humans are hell bent on destroying this planet. Why do humans have a complete lack of an ability to say "stop, we're not going to do this anymore". Instead, we somehow view continuous growth and consumption as the only available option. It makes no sense.
- nefitty 5y agoI commend you for your decision. I want to add that framing my ideas about animal suffering in an elastic way makes it easier for me to make incremental changes. An animal is either alive or dead. Maybe eating vegetarian once a week will save a life down the line. I urge everyone to resist the all-or-nothing approach, especially on such an important aspect of our ethical choices. No one's perfect, not even the vegan straight edge kids on Instagram who sneak a chicken nugget when no one's looking.
- eindiran 5y agoThe point of reducing your consumption is that the demand for animals is lower, so they aren't born in to lives of non-stop suffering.
- causasui 5y ago> I urge everyone to resist the all-or-nothing approach There is no other moral stance where someone could reasonably say this. Veganism is a moral stance the same way as "racism is bad" and "abusing my spouse is bad" is a moral stance. No one would ever say "I'm trying to limit kicking dogs to just Tuesday-Sunday". > vegan straight edge kids on Instagram who sneak a chicken nugget when no one's looking. You're projecting. Veganism is _not_ a diet.
- nefitty 5y ago> Last year, researchers at the London School of Economics concluded from a review of 300 scientific studies that octopus were sentient beings capable of experiencing distress and happiness, and that high-welfare farming would be impossible. I don't understand how someone can decide to ignore that in an effort to make money. I fear that if we don't more quickly move the Overton window on the suffering of sentient creatures, we may suddenly find ourselves with synthetic sentient life devoid of protection under the law.
- jodrellblank 5y agoIs it not clear that cows experience distress? And we farm and eat those. Or is this conclusion that octopuses experience distress and other animals are p-zombies which only react in a way that looks like distress but might be emotionally neutral inside?
- nefitty 5y agoI mean specifically octopods, considering this is the first farm. It means someone really went out of their way to get past historical momentum to be the first to create this process. The worst part is that it will be easily replicable. That's really sad. I feel sympathy for these poor creatures.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoI think the point is to start somewhere and nip this one in the bud.
- adolph 5y agoYes, Temple Grandin’s work to reduce animal distress is very important. Grandin also developed an objective, numerical scoring system for assessing animal welfare at slaughtering plants. The use of this scoring system resulted in significant improvements in animal stunning and handling during slaughter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin Edit for quote format
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- KerryJones 5y agoI've had several people in my life tell me after more intense studies of octopi they refuse to eat them. While I've seen a couple of documentaries on the subject, I won't profess to know as much, but the essential argument has been that they're extremely intelligent, emotional animals. It's akin to eating a dog or cat (which might be acceptable in some parts of the world, but pretty shunned in the west). It's convincing enough for me, I also stopped eating octopus. A soft start if you want to research, Netflix currently has "My Octopus Teacher" streaming.
- pranith 5y agoEven cows are extremely intelligent and emotional animals. Did you stop eating them?
- lisper 5y agoPigs and chickens too.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- silisili 5y agoI'm not joining in on the ethics of meat eating debate at all, but as someone who's lived around chickens a good chunk of life, calling them extremely intelligent would be...a stretch. Pigs though, definitely. Highly underrated animal.
- giantg2 5y ago[flagged]
- aurizon 5y agoIt is interesting that Octopi die after laying their eggs - a 1-1.5 year lifespan in most, a little more in the large ones. I makes me curious if octopi went through a period of overpopulation(for their niche) that lead to many starvation - abundance - starvation cycles until gene smarts capped their life span - else we be up to our gunwales with long lived octopi they breed very prolifically... a die young cycle.
- willcipriano 5y agoYou'd think being able to lay eggs twice would be a massive advantage for a individual set of genes.
- aurizon 5y agoYes, octopi are smart as well as prolific, with multi seasonal reproduction they would suffer extinction through over population. Even 2 seasons is a lot of new larvae in the seas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#:~:text=Octopuses%20have%20a%20relatively%20short,lifespan%20is%20limited%20by%20reproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#:~:text=Octopuses%20ha....
- wubbert 5y agoI swear I've read articles with this exact same title several times over the years, but I can't seem to find any on Google.
- honkycat 5y agoBy all accounts octopus intelligence is extremely overblown. And "sentience" is an extremely low bar. Compare the intelligence of a cow or pig or similar mammal to an octopus and the mammal will DESTROY the octopus. We tolerate farming these animals. Much to our own detriment in terms of health, and nutrition, and environmental impact, land usage, and water usage. Plus there is the problem of breeding MRSA. Plus they are horrible for our gut bacteria. Also they are sentient, intelligent creatures we subject to horrific environments. Keep in mind, I say this as someone who is NOT a vegan. But I digress... Not to say octopus are not charming animals, and you should support eating and farming them. I just think it is a bit hypocritical to allow the farming of other sentient creatures.
- sweetheart 5y agoWhy not just go vegan if you believe all that?
- bastawhiz 5y agoIt's possible to point out contradictions of beliefs without having those beliefs yourself.
- sweetheart 5y agoSure, but what’s stopping you from holding that belief then?
- bastawhiz 5y agoApathy? Lack of motivation to take personal action?
- sweetheart 5y agoYou should try it. I started out without giving two shits about animals. Now it’s the thing I feel most strongly about, and it has given my life much deeper meaning and direction. Maybe you’ll feel the same!
- vmception 5y agoIt was always possible for me to perceive sentience, feelings and emotions from a variety of beings, I don't understand why grown adults are just reaching a cognitive maturity to notice that and making that a line in the sand on whether they will farm/consume a being based on that. These seem to be two separate things to me? Can someone shed light on both: a) why these are related concepts b) your journey to cognitive maturity to notice at all I really can't be the only one confused by this trend, this has got to be cultural as well
- awb 5y agoIt wasn't until someone mentioned that many animals (and all mammals) talk to their babies just like we do that it rung home for me.
- pempem 5y agoIts unclear to me. Some variants of hinduism have embraced this for ages. The underlying belief of vegetarianism in this culture is that animals are kin and eaten only when survival is on the line. When there is choice (and there almost always is) you choose not to eat meat. The part that I've found newly confounding is the 'thinking' of plants. Can't square that one. Thankfully there are a few studies debunking anything along the lines of sentience: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28875517/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28875517/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w
- exodust 5y agoThe "thinking" aspect of plants might be reclaimed in respect of the overall foundations of mother nature's connected biodiversity. As the maker of the octopus doco put it, the "giant biological mind". This interview is cued up at the point he mentions that: https://youtu.be/oyBqZ-_5B_8?t=587 https://youtu.be/oyBqZ-_5B_8?t=587 I think he makes a good point, it's a good reminder. It's a distraction when the argument becomes "plants can't think like humans". But why should plants need to think like us to be protected or respected? The point is, humans are crushing those precious ecosystems, all because individual plants can't think and fish have no feelings.
- AngryData 5y agoTo 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 winter. The only thing containing them is a thin strand of wire which they can (and have) easily walked through at any point in time without even trying, usually to reach an especially tall clump of weeds on the other side. For most of their life they are under basically zero stress due to protections from the environment and predators and have no desire to leave or look for more. They don't feel trapped and keeping them contained is more of a suggestion that they don't wander off and get lost. While at the end it sucks they will be distressed when loaded up in a trailer and taken down the road to the slaughterhouse, but they aren't thinking "Oh my god they are going to kill and eat me!",they are just bewildered by the wild experience of being driven down a road in a trailer, then let out in a new place with maybe some other cows around, and are instantly KOed when they are to be slaughtered. I would have very different feelings about it if they lived in shitty life trapped in a little cage always hoping and trying to find a way out, feared humans as they came around stealing their friends away from them at random times assuming they were being eaten. And I do feel that way about, and don't buy, a lot of factory meat for the contained caged lives they experience when there are known better, healthier, more sustainable, and more ethical ways of caring for farm animals that goes back thousands of years.
- gfody 5y agocan you really compare cows to octopuses? are there even wild cows?
- AngryData 5y agoThe wild ancestor of cows is extinct, so technically they would all be feral cows, but there are places where feral cows have ran around for a few generations alone that you might consider wild. However their extensive past breeding still brings into question their actual intelligence and cognitive abilities compared to their wild ancestor, most animals inadvertently are bred to be significantly dumber during domestication because they are the easiest to handle and control.
- crudolph 5y agoHonestly we need to quit pretending that we, as humans, are something special as compared to other omnivorous or carnivorous mammals. OK we have more gray matter comparatively but really that means nothing. Some cultures eat octopus, some eat dogs, some eat cats, some eat cows, and of course some eat humans. And some eat vegetation. Do you honestly think those cultures sit back and question what they are doing and if it is ok in order to survive?! I'm laughing at the responses to this post - sentience, history of eating octopi, god told me, etc.. as an excuse for why humans shouldn't eat octopus. Who really fucking cares. I can ramble on and debate all this until I'm blue. My goal is not necessarily to argue, but to light a spark.
- Azek 5y agoIs your point that the majority of people don't consider their own actions as moral agents so we shouldn't either? If you're browsing this website from a phone or computer you are beyond the clamber of mere survival. You have time for ethical reflection.
- numpad0 5y agoI 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 it is, like, can be proven logically wrong.
- Azek 5y agoSo 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.
- exo-pla-net 5y agoThis isn't the first octopus farm. A farm in Southern California called OctoPets farmed octopuses 20 years ago, though only as pets, not for food. They shipped bimaculoides octopuses throughout the US, and you could buy one for $60 if memory serves.
- atdrummond 5y agoI 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 that said tool use and creation enables. In previous threads on this topic I don't think I've explained deeply why I find their defeat of our team so impressive. This research group contained a multidisciplinary set of scientists. I was the only member that did not have a PhD; almost every team member had completed at least one significant postdoc as well (think Stanford, UChicago, Caltech, prestigious national labs, etc). We had applied science and engineering talents in addition to pure science, so this wasn't a case of not being able to develop realistic escape prevention mechanisms due to the team being too theoretical. The longest we were able to stop this clever guy from escaping with one of our implementations was 4 days. He usually made us look like idiots the very evening after we installed our new prevention device. Not only this, the octopus made very clear that he had an extremely well developed memory. He clearly recalled his favorite scientist who hadn't visited in a few years when, as soon as said scientist entered the room, the octopus ignored the rest of us and followed him the entire time he would be in the room. He also became what I can only describe as depressed when that individual departed once again; this was a period of time when he stopped eating as much, moved much more lethargically, and his escape attempts were half-hearted - this was the period when he finally took more than one day to break our attempts at keeping him in. Further, he absolutely had a sense of humour. After seeing us crack up laughing at him wearing this plastic rings we had put in his tank as jewelry (we were setting up some sort of exam that I can no longer recall the purpose of) by placing them on his tentacles, he would do so every time we entered the room. Otherwise, he ignored the rings entirely when we were not present. 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.
- xattt 5y agoIf there will force to push for veganism, it won’t be PETAs approach of showing grotesque treatment of animals in factory farms. It will be death-by-a-thousand cuts from individual anecdotes of animals demonstrating human-like qualities.
- givemeethekeys 5y agoI watched an Anthony Bourdaine episode where he visited Japan and saw the live octopus that would later be slaughtered for his dinner. He was very excited by it. I looked at the same octopus and not once did the thought, "food" enter my mind. It's the same when I look at cows and chicken.. I don't think of them as food when I see them roaming about. On the other hand, when I see a fish, I do sometimes think, "food!". I think this would make for a good test when deciding whether or not you should eat a particular animal. When you look at it alive and roaming about, do you think "oh, thats food!". If not, then maybe you shouldn't eat it.
- Tepix 5y agoThe more you know, the less likely you are to think about animals as food, i reckon.
- harpersealtako 5y agoI find the opposite is true. Knowing a lot of hunters (and being one myself), I can say that they are intensely interested in their prey's thoughts, behavior, and feelings, certainly more so than the average person. I increasingly see a world where meat eaters want to not just know where their meat comes from, but know exactly what animal it is they're eating and exactly how it lived and taking personal responsibility for its death. You see more people doing things like buying shares of a cow (and even visiting the cow in person to see how it's doing), or raising chickens in their backyard, etc. in my country.
- renewiltord 5y agoIf you’re going to the Big Island, there is a little place where they let you play with octopuses. They’re figuring out how to farm that species there. You can feed them and stuff and you can play with them and they’ll touch you with their tentacles. Anyway, I found the whole operation quite interesting. They were trying to farm them to prevent them from being over fished in the wild. Interesting objective.
- hu3 5y agoThey would eat you if they could/wanted.
- Havoc 5y agoThe lines as to which animals are ok to eat seem somewhat arbitrary and ever changing to me. Either accepting it as a fact of life or not eating any at all seem like the only sound stances that don’t change with the way the wind blows
- beeboop 5y agoI don't eat octopus and I minimize my pork intake as much as possible. I know it's such an arbitrary barrier that pigs are my limit for how intelligent an animal can be before I decline to eat them, but I guess it helps reduce suffering a little at least.