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It strikes me as rather bizarre to oppose eating octopus because they are "too smart", but to continue to eat other animals because they "aren't smart enough".

It strikes me as rather bizarre to oppose eating octopus because they are "too smart", but to continue to eat other animals because they "aren't smart enough". That's a really arbitrary line to draw. An analogy I like to use is that there presumably could be aliens out there that would like to eat humans. You could imagine said aliens landing on Earth and trying to eat us, and even imagine some argument among themselves that humans aren't smart, and thus can be eaten - something that we'd all obviously find issue with. Now obviously animals cannot think of or cannot communicate with us that they do not want to be eaten the same way we could with another species, but I believe part of the responsibility of having any kind of power (whether intellectual or otherwise), is to take the utmost care of those who are somehow weaker than you. To do otherwise is to take advantage (might makes right), and that notion is disturbing. In those terms, I have a very hard time justifying raising, keeping, and killing (and in most cases causing incredible suffering) to animals purely for our pleasure, when it is both entirely possible and likely more efficient for us to not eat them. Basically, the only reason we eat animals today is because we've always done things this way. I do not mean to be offensive, as putting it this way suggests that those eating animals are wrong or doing evil, but instead I just think it is one of the many little things that we as society and individuals do without much thought.

riquito 12y ago
We are animals that eat animals. You are putting too much thought into it.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthechef 12y ago
  Exactly. That topics like these receive any attention is ridiculous. It shouldn't come as a surprise to us, however, that a topic so empty has appeared in what amounts to a lifestyle magazine run by first world, white, upper middle class slackers disconnected from reality. And perhaps most amusing of all is that these are exactly the same kinds of people that are pro-choice. There's something wrong going on here, some state of stunted development. These are exactly the kinds of people who blather on about "speciesism" but fail to understand that there's a seething sanctimony to their moralizing. The official message is "we're no better", but the very idea of speciesism is speciesist and incoherently so. "We, the great moral humans, are better than these other animals for we do not behave as they do. Where they would have no qualms about eating us or any other animal, we, the morally superior, do not." I suggest the author be shipped promptly to the third world, some war zone in Africa suffering from famine, without resources, without her Lexus, her cashmere turtle necks, and her credit cards, and be put in a position where she must learn resourcefulness and survival or perish. Heck, if we put all of our limp-wristed, hipster millennials through that kind of experience, there might be fewer hipsters. Reality is the greatest teacher. Eat the damn octopus.
- xiaoma 12y ago
  When the question is a moral one it's no more sufficient to say, "We are animals that eat animals," than it is for an executioner to say, "We are people who kill people." You're not putting enough thought into it.
  - bane 12y ago
    And I say it's not a moral question. Disprove me rationally, down to the axioms.
    - meowface 12y ago
      What are you saying is not a moral question? Eating meat, or killing animals? It's pretty obvious that eating meat in isolation poses no moral issues, but wouldn't you say any process that involves the killing of organisms generally invokes moral questions?
      - bane 12y ago
        > but wouldn't you say any process that involves the killing of organisms generally invokes moral questions? No. The key word is "any" and morality is not universal nor always appropriate. 90% of the world doesn't have a single moral question about swatting a mosquito, and almost no Vegan feels the need to ponder the morality of killing kilogram after kilogram of plant matter or harvesting millions upon millions of yeasts for a single meal, or ponder the holocaust of deaths they cause through the simple act of breathing. Basic life processes are not moral or immoral. Drawing a circle around one and claiming it's some grand moral issue is silliness. For example, follow me on this alternate reality philosophical thought experiment. You have to breathe, yet we kill millions of microscopic organisms with every breath, we diminish global O2 availability for our fellow Oxygen breathers, we each increase CO2 by about a kg per day (over 7 billion kg per day or over 2.5 trillion metric tons per year for all of humanity!) further exacerbating global climate problems, and on and on and on. This is a more important moral question than what we eat. We can always grow new plants and animals to replace the ones we've eaten, but our atmosphere is finite. Our breath is detrimental to each other and it is our personal responsibility to do whatever it takes to minimize our breathing and maximize the availability of Oxygen to our fellow living creatures: we must minimize movement, sleep as often as possible, avoid cardiovascular exercises, come up with diets that either reduce O2 absorption or reduce Carbon exhaustion, and so on. Among "Sippers" as we're going to come to be called, heated debates break out whether suicide is a good O2 maximizing choice or not since it will end all breathing. Opposing arguments center around the increase in animal activity as the body decomposes which would bring further imbalance to the atmosphere. Radical Sippers will stage walk-in protests at health clubs and jogging trails to keep people from the immoral acts of cardiovascular exercise. Health forums will be full of angry fellow Sippers trying to turn people away from the ghastly "Nazi"-like organizations called "Jazzercize" and other similar immoral activities "breathers" do. At the extremes, the "Ethical Atmosphere Users" (EAU) will become a potent and radical organization seeking to stop uncaring breathers wherever they can, marathons, public parks and pools, lamaze classes, sometimes with shenanigans sometimes with violence. We'll go through a dark period where an ultra-militant splinter group of the EAU called "The Inhalers" will bomb a handful of health clubs after hours. The accidental death of a treadmill repair person working late will bring swift police action and put an end to group. Years later, a calmer, gentler ex-Inhaler will recount his troubled youth after becoming a national radio news announcer and promote tree planting and phytoplankton cultivation in personal ponds as a saner, safer alternative. Entire libraries of Sipper literature will be written focusing on the time-graph [1] of global O2 Content in Earth's atmosphere, pointing out the responsibility of each of us to ensure as much Oxygen for the next creature as possible and how over the last 100 million years the global O2 percentage appears to have gone down and how, when we look in the fossil record during times of high Oxygen content, we find flying insects the size of Eagles...proof that Sipping is the only moral life choice for all people of conscience. That time series graph will become a de facto symbol of the international Sipper movement. A different hard-line faction will splinter off and rebadge themselves "Sippists" and claim that any unnecessary breathing is deeply immoral and that Sippers don't go far enough. They insist that a minimum of 16 hours a day of sleep is required to minimize personal O2 consumption and that people of good moral principle should be sleeping round the clock. They organize hibernation retreats where groups of Sippists will rent a mountain cabin and take sleeping pills and sleep as much as is biologically possible in order to absolutely minimize their breathing. A handful of post-child Sippists have been sleeping since 1982 when the "Group of 12" started the "Eternal Slumber" movement. Posters of the group's leader, nicknamed "Sandman" and one of his followers "Rip" can be found in every Sippist center and most of the community Sipper co-ops around the world. Clearly this is a silly example, the truth is that morality has nothing to do with breathing. It's not applicable and is irrelevant. The same for eating. There are of course moral consideration about what you provide for others to breathe (no poison!) and about how you provide yourself with food to eat, but what you eat in and of itself has no moral quality whatsoever and I'd go so far as to say that attempting to apply morality to eating is foolish from the start.
talkingquickly 12y ago
I'd agree that the line in this case seems to be quite arbitrary but I'd respectfully suggest that it's not fair to say individuals whom eat meat having not given it much thought. Although that may be true for some people, myself and many people I've talked to have given it significant amounts of thought and simply not found a sufficiently compelling argument against it. It seems unfair to suggest, and apologies in advance if this wasn't the intention of your comment, that people who eat meat automatically do so due to lack of thought rather than having considered the options and positively chosen it as a course of action.
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  I did not intend it that way. If you, or anyone else has really thought of the matter and are satisfied (I genuinely would like to hear the reasons), that is quite different than doing something just because that's what everyone else does. What I intended to convey was that as a society, except for people who either are or are portrayed as extremists, eating meat is not even given a second thought. Every other ad on TV is of a delicious burger. Entire shows and channels are based on our ability to prepare meat in delicious ways. Hell, I live in Texas, and one of the many things people think of when they think of the state is our BBQ. In this kind of culture it is inevitable that many people will go through their lives without for a second even considering what it would seem is an important ethical issue. Like I said, I don't mean offense, and it is unfair (and not my intention) to say that those who do eat meat haven't thought about it. It's just that people do need to think about it.
  - talkingquickly 12y ago
    To use a contrived but parallel example, if I were to suggest that "we should not use walking as a method of moving around" I'd expect the onus to be put on me to explain why this was a good suggestion. So if accept that from an evolutionary perspective it's "natural" for human beings to eat meat and therefore the onus tends to be one people suggesting we shouldn't to demonstrate a solid argument against it then I don't think that's a bad thing. If of course you don't agree with the evolutionary part then that's a fascinating argument in itself! I could not agree more that people should question norms. The more "obvious" a viewpoint is considered by most people, the more important it is to question it and the bigger the potential benefits from doing so. But my intuition would be that whether or not to eat meat is actually one which is questioned fairly often, at least in western society. It's a friendly debate which I'd estimate I encounter at least every month or so between either myself or friends with other friends who are vegetarians. But having heard a multitude of arguments against eating meat, I've not yet heard one which (ethically/ subjectively or economically) in my opinion stood up to scrutiny. Now people working 8 - 8 in jobs they hate, that's a norm I'd like to see questioned more!
bch 12y ago
>Now obviously animals cannot think of or cannot communicate with us that they do not want to be eaten the same way we could with another species That's not obvious. The will to live is strong everywhere, and that cows don't speak "human" isn't to say they don't have a will to live (not be eaten). Nor that we can't speak "alien" any sign that we don't have a will to live (not be eaten). This all reminds me of: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
baddox 12y ago
> It strikes me as rather bizarre to oppose eating octopus because they are "too smart", but to continue to eat other animals because they "aren't smart enough". That's a really arbitrary line to draw. Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. Besides, I don't know of a compelling ethical argument for why it's worse for one to eat things that are perceived to be more similar to oneself. There seem to be obvious evolutionary arguments for why such taboos would develop, but that's not a sufficient argument in my opinion. > Basically, the only reason we eat animals today is because we've always done things this way. That's a bit oversimplified, because it implies that the genesis of humans (or their ancestors) eating animals is simply arbitrary, an accident of history. But it's pretty clear that eating animals provided some massive advantages over not doing so, and later domesticating animals for consumption even more so.
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  > Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. Is this an argument for or against eating meat? I have seen some stuff on how plants have some form of "intelligence" (or more accurately as you put it, reactions to stimuli), and I could see how that could be used to justify eating meat as well. I'm being dense here, but hoping to understand your point better. > That's a bit oversimplified, because it implies that the genesis of humans (or their ancestors) eating animals is simply arbitrary, an accident of history. But it's pretty clear that eating animals provided some massive advantages over not doing so, and later domesticating animals for consumption even more so. Yes, eating meat was incredibly important for us to develop both physically and as societies. It would be rather foolish to condemn people for eating meat thousands or even hundreds of years ago. It's just when you are at the point when pretty much everyone (or at least pretty much everyone reading this) has access to relatively cheap quality vegetables, we are at a different point.
  - pc86 12y ago
    > > Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. > Is this an argument for or against eating meat? I took it as an argument against using "intelligence" or "likeness" as any sort of measure upon which to base the decision of what to eat on.
NhanH 12y ago
A bit of a rambling, since I'm basically just thinking out loud. We'd all obviously find issue with being eaten not because we think it's unethical that the alien wants to eat us (it's unlikely that the ethics question would even come up), but because we don't want to die, as an individual and as a species (I'm trying to say that it's NOT obvious that the issue we would have with such a scenario would have anything to do with ethics, not to make a judgement whether it's ethical or not). And so your argument looks like it's saying "we don't want it to happen to us, therefore it's unethical (for anyone to do that to us, or for us to do that to others)". I know you probably doesn't mean it that way. Now, whether it's ethical to eat meat itself. As someone else have mentioned, I've always wondered where do you draw the line? Pigs and cows seem obviously out of the questions, but how about cockroach, caterpillar, corepod, hydra[0]? Event certain plants do sense distress signals when they're being attacked. Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise? Additionally, even if it might be just historical accident that we have a heavy meat-eating society, and another society that starts out without ever using animal products can advance to where we are right now and have a perfectly functioning society, it doesn't mean that it's ever feasible to actually switch to such a no-animal product society. In our terms, that would be a switch from not just from one programming language to another, but probably from silicon-based chips to germanium-bases chips. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  > We'd all obviously find issue with being eaten not because we think it's unethical that the alien wants to eat us (it's unlikely that the ethics question would even come up), but because we don't want to die, as an individual and as a species (I'm trying to say that it's NOT obvious that the issue we would have with such a scenario would have anything to do with ethics, not to make a judgement whether it's ethical or not). And so your argument looks like it's saying "we don't want it to happen to us, therefore it's unethical (for anyone to do that to us, or for us to do that to others)". I know you probably doesn't mean it that way. I am no philosopher, so I'm sure there are many holes in my argument. :) > Now, whether it's ethical to eat meat itself. As someone else have mentioned, I've always wondered where do you draw the line? Pigs and cows seem obviously out of the questions, but how about cockroach, caterpillar, corepod, hydra[0]? Event certain plants do sense distress signals when they're being attacked. That's a really interesting question. I learned recently that some vegetarians consider it acceptable to eat oysters because they don't have a central nervous system. Indeed, this whole argument is about "drawing the line", and it is rather complex and interesting. > Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise? Additionally, even if it might be just historical accident that we have a heavy meat-eating society, and another society that starts out without ever using animal products can advance to where we are right now and have a perfectly functioning society, it doesn't mean that it's ever feasible to actually switch to such a no-animal product society. In our terms, that would be a switch from not just from one programming language to another, but probably from silicon-based chips to germanium-bases chips. You are right that it would take a massive shift, and whether or not it is actually possible is a valid question. Thing is, humans have dealt with massive changes in the past, so if we really wanted to, it seems possible. We aren't really trying, at this point, though.
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Here's a line that's pretty clear: does the creature itself care if its cohort are eaten? That is, why should I protect say dolphins, if other dolphins make no effort to protect their own? This means, for octopuses (octopi as a plural is incorrect; its Greek not Latin) its probably ok. They are born alone, are loners and meet others of their kind only to mate. So snack away! I used dolphins in my example because of a curious behavior seen at an annual dolphin slaughter. The Japanese annually net dolphins in a bay where they like to congregate (the dolphins, not the Japanese). Every year some dolphins escape the net. The next year, the dolphins return en masse. Why? Didn't the dolphins that escaped give some alarm - "Aliens with catchy stringy things will entangle you and drag you up to the bright place if you go there!" No, they apparently don't. Either because they don't communicate very well (which speaks poorly for their intelligence), or they just don't give a damn about other dolphins. Either way - dolphins pass my snack test. Even some of the dolphins that escaped, return the next year. Why? Maybe they like it! Maybe its some rite of passage to run the gauntlet, risk capture in the bay of death! Like some Klingon warrior ritual or something. Then hey! we're just doing our part! Or, far more likely in my opinion, they're just not very smart.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Here's a line that's pretty clear: does the creature itself care if its cohort are eaten? That is, why should I protect say dolphins, if other dolphins make no effort to protect their own? This means, for octopuses (octopi as a plural is incorrect; its Greek no Latin) its probably ok. They are born alone, are loners and meet others of their kind only to mate. So snack away! I used dolphins in my example because of a curious behavior seen at an annual dolphin slaughter. The Japanese annually net dolphins in a bay where they like to congregate (the dolphins, not the Japanese). Every year some dolphins escape the net. The next year, the dolphins return en masse. Why? Didn't the dolphins that escaped give some alarm - "Aliens with catchy stringy things will entangle you and drag you up to the bright place if you go there!" No, they apparently don't. Either because they don't communicate very well (which speaks poorly for their intelligence), or they just don't give a damn about other dolphins. Either way - dolphins pass my snack test. Even some of the dolphins that escaped, return the next year. Why? Maybe they like it! Maybe its some rite of passage to run the gauntlet, risk capture in the bay of death! Like some Klingon warrior ritual or something. Then hey! we're just doing our part!
lightblade 12y ago
This reminds me of HG Well's Time Machine where it explored the theme of one human species eating another human species.

riquito 12y ago

We are animals that eat animals. You are putting too much thought into it.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bobthechef 12y ago
Exactly. That topics like these receive any attention is ridiculous. It shouldn't come as a surprise to us, however, that a topic so empty has appeared in what amounts to a lifestyle magazine run by first world, white, upper middle class slackers disconnected from reality. And perhaps most amusing of all is that these are exactly the same kinds of people that are pro-choice. There's something wrong going on here, some state of stunted development. These are exactly the kinds of people who blather on about "speciesism" but fail to understand that there's a seething sanctimony to their moralizing. The official message is "we're no better", but the very idea of speciesism is speciesist and incoherently so. "We, the great moral humans, are better than these other animals for we do not behave as they do. Where they would have no qualms about eating us or any other animal, we, the morally superior, do not." I suggest the author be shipped promptly to the third world, some war zone in Africa suffering from famine, without resources, without her Lexus, her cashmere turtle necks, and her credit cards, and be put in a position where she must learn resourcefulness and survival or perish. Heck, if we put all of our limp-wristed, hipster millennials through that kind of experience, there might be fewer hipsters. Reality is the greatest teacher. Eat the damn octopus.
xiaoma 12y ago
When the question is a moral one it's no more sufficient to say, "We are animals that eat animals," than it is for an executioner to say, "We are people who kill people." You're not putting enough thought into it.
- bane 12y ago
  And I say it's not a moral question. Disprove me rationally, down to the axioms.
  - meowface 12y ago
    What are you saying is not a moral question? Eating meat, or killing animals? It's pretty obvious that eating meat in isolation poses no moral issues, but wouldn't you say any process that involves the killing of organisms generally invokes moral questions?
    - bane 12y ago
      > but wouldn't you say any process that involves the killing of organisms generally invokes moral questions? No. The key word is "any" and morality is not universal nor always appropriate. 90% of the world doesn't have a single moral question about swatting a mosquito, and almost no Vegan feels the need to ponder the morality of killing kilogram after kilogram of plant matter or harvesting millions upon millions of yeasts for a single meal, or ponder the holocaust of deaths they cause through the simple act of breathing. Basic life processes are not moral or immoral. Drawing a circle around one and claiming it's some grand moral issue is silliness. For example, follow me on this alternate reality philosophical thought experiment. You have to breathe, yet we kill millions of microscopic organisms with every breath, we diminish global O2 availability for our fellow Oxygen breathers, we each increase CO2 by about a kg per day (over 7 billion kg per day or over 2.5 trillion metric tons per year for all of humanity!) further exacerbating global climate problems, and on and on and on. This is a more important moral question than what we eat. We can always grow new plants and animals to replace the ones we've eaten, but our atmosphere is finite. Our breath is detrimental to each other and it is our personal responsibility to do whatever it takes to minimize our breathing and maximize the availability of Oxygen to our fellow living creatures: we must minimize movement, sleep as often as possible, avoid cardiovascular exercises, come up with diets that either reduce O2 absorption or reduce Carbon exhaustion, and so on. Among "Sippers" as we're going to come to be called, heated debates break out whether suicide is a good O2 maximizing choice or not since it will end all breathing. Opposing arguments center around the increase in animal activity as the body decomposes which would bring further imbalance to the atmosphere. Radical Sippers will stage walk-in protests at health clubs and jogging trails to keep people from the immoral acts of cardiovascular exercise. Health forums will be full of angry fellow Sippers trying to turn people away from the ghastly "Nazi"-like organizations called "Jazzercize" and other similar immoral activities "breathers" do. At the extremes, the "Ethical Atmosphere Users" (EAU) will become a potent and radical organization seeking to stop uncaring breathers wherever they can, marathons, public parks and pools, lamaze classes, sometimes with shenanigans sometimes with violence. We'll go through a dark period where an ultra-militant splinter group of the EAU called "The Inhalers" will bomb a handful of health clubs after hours. The accidental death of a treadmill repair person working late will bring swift police action and put an end to group. Years later, a calmer, gentler ex-Inhaler will recount his troubled youth after becoming a national radio news announcer and promote tree planting and phytoplankton cultivation in personal ponds as a saner, safer alternative. Entire libraries of Sipper literature will be written focusing on the time-graph [1] of global O2 Content in Earth's atmosphere, pointing out the responsibility of each of us to ensure as much Oxygen for the next creature as possible and how over the last 100 million years the global O2 percentage appears to have gone down and how, when we look in the fossil record during times of high Oxygen content, we find flying insects the size of Eagles...proof that Sipping is the only moral life choice for all people of conscience. That time series graph will become a de facto symbol of the international Sipper movement. A different hard-line faction will splinter off and rebadge themselves "Sippists" and claim that any unnecessary breathing is deeply immoral and that Sippers don't go far enough. They insist that a minimum of 16 hours a day of sleep is required to minimize personal O2 consumption and that people of good moral principle should be sleeping round the clock. They organize hibernation retreats where groups of Sippists will rent a mountain cabin and take sleeping pills and sleep as much as is biologically possible in order to absolutely minimize their breathing. A handful of post-child Sippists have been sleeping since 1982 when the "Group of 12" started the "Eternal Slumber" movement. Posters of the group's leader, nicknamed "Sandman" and one of his followers "Rip" can be found in every Sippist center and most of the community Sipper co-ops around the world. Clearly this is a silly example, the truth is that morality has nothing to do with breathing. It's not applicable and is irrelevant. The same for eating. There are of course moral consideration about what you provide for others to breathe (no poison!) and about how you provide yourself with food to eat, but what you eat in and of itself has no moral quality whatsoever and I'd go so far as to say that attempting to apply morality to eating is foolish from the start.

talkingquickly 12y ago

I'd agree that the line in this case seems to be quite arbitrary but I'd respectfully suggest that it's not fair to say individuals whom eat meat having not given it much thought. Although that may be true for some people, myself and many people I've talked to have given it significant amounts of thought and simply not found a sufficiently compelling argument against it. It seems unfair to suggest, and apologies in advance if this wasn't the intention of your comment, that people who eat meat automatically do so due to lack of thought rather than having considered the options and positively chosen it as a course of action.

aaron-lebo 12y ago
I did not intend it that way. If you, or anyone else has really thought of the matter and are satisfied (I genuinely would like to hear the reasons), that is quite different than doing something just because that's what everyone else does. What I intended to convey was that as a society, except for people who either are or are portrayed as extremists, eating meat is not even given a second thought. Every other ad on TV is of a delicious burger. Entire shows and channels are based on our ability to prepare meat in delicious ways. Hell, I live in Texas, and one of the many things people think of when they think of the state is our BBQ. In this kind of culture it is inevitable that many people will go through their lives without for a second even considering what it would seem is an important ethical issue. Like I said, I don't mean offense, and it is unfair (and not my intention) to say that those who do eat meat haven't thought about it. It's just that people do need to think about it.
- talkingquickly 12y ago
  To use a contrived but parallel example, if I were to suggest that "we should not use walking as a method of moving around" I'd expect the onus to be put on me to explain why this was a good suggestion. So if accept that from an evolutionary perspective it's "natural" for human beings to eat meat and therefore the onus tends to be one people suggesting we shouldn't to demonstrate a solid argument against it then I don't think that's a bad thing. If of course you don't agree with the evolutionary part then that's a fascinating argument in itself! I could not agree more that people should question norms. The more "obvious" a viewpoint is considered by most people, the more important it is to question it and the bigger the potential benefits from doing so. But my intuition would be that whether or not to eat meat is actually one which is questioned fairly often, at least in western society. It's a friendly debate which I'd estimate I encounter at least every month or so between either myself or friends with other friends who are vegetarians. But having heard a multitude of arguments against eating meat, I've not yet heard one which (ethically/ subjectively or economically) in my opinion stood up to scrutiny. Now people working 8 - 8 in jobs they hate, that's a norm I'd like to see questioned more!

bch 12y ago

>Now obviously animals cannot think of or cannot communicate with us that they do not want to be eaten the same way we could with another species That's not obvious. The will to live is strong everywhere, and that cows don't speak "human" isn't to say they don't have a will to live (not be eaten). Nor that we can't speak "alien" any sign that we don't have a will to live (not be eaten). This all reminds me of: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

baddox 12y ago

> It strikes me as rather bizarre to oppose eating octopus because they are "too smart", but to continue to eat other animals because they "aren't smart enough". That's a really arbitrary line to draw. Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. Besides, I don't know of a compelling ethical argument for why it's worse for one to eat things that are perceived to be more similar to oneself. There seem to be obvious evolutionary arguments for why such taboos would develop, but that's not a sufficient argument in my opinion. > Basically, the only reason we eat animals today is because we've always done things this way. That's a bit oversimplified, because it implies that the genesis of humans (or their ancestors) eating animals is simply arbitrary, an accident of history. But it's pretty clear that eating animals provided some massive advantages over not doing so, and later domesticating animals for consumption even more so.

aaron-lebo 12y ago
> Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. Is this an argument for or against eating meat? I have seen some stuff on how plants have some form of "intelligence" (or more accurately as you put it, reactions to stimuli), and I could see how that could be used to justify eating meat as well. I'm being dense here, but hoping to understand your point better. > That's a bit oversimplified, because it implies that the genesis of humans (or their ancestors) eating animals is simply arbitrary, an accident of history. But it's pretty clear that eating animals provided some massive advantages over not doing so, and later domesticating animals for consumption even more so. Yes, eating meat was incredibly important for us to develop both physically and as societies. It would be rather foolish to condemn people for eating meat thousands or even hundreds of years ago. It's just when you are at the point when pretty much everyone (or at least pretty much everyone reading this) has access to relatively cheap quality vegetables, we are at a different point.
- pc86 12y ago
  > > Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. > Is this an argument for or against eating meat? I took it as an argument against using "intelligence" or "likeness" as any sort of measure upon which to base the decision of what to eat on.

NhanH 12y ago

A bit of a rambling, since I'm basically just thinking out loud. We'd all obviously find issue with being eaten not because we think it's unethical that the alien wants to eat us (it's unlikely that the ethics question would even come up), but because we don't want to die, as an individual and as a species (I'm trying to say that it's NOT obvious that the issue we would have with such a scenario would have anything to do with ethics, not to make a judgement whether it's ethical or not). And so your argument looks like it's saying "we don't want it to happen to us, therefore it's unethical (for anyone to do that to us, or for us to do that to others)". I know you probably doesn't mean it that way. Now, whether it's ethical to eat meat itself. As someone else have mentioned, I've always wondered where do you draw the line? Pigs and cows seem obviously out of the questions, but how about cockroach, caterpillar, corepod, hydra[0]? Event certain plants do sense distress signals when they're being attacked. Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise? Additionally, even if it might be just historical accident that we have a heavy meat-eating society, and another society that starts out without ever using animal products can advance to where we are right now and have a perfectly functioning society, it doesn't mean that it's ever feasible to actually switch to such a no-animal product society. In our terms, that would be a switch from not just from one programming language to another, but probably from silicon-based chips to germanium-bases chips. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)

aaron-lebo 12y ago
> We'd all obviously find issue with being eaten not because we think it's unethical that the alien wants to eat us (it's unlikely that the ethics question would even come up), but because we don't want to die, as an individual and as a species (I'm trying to say that it's NOT obvious that the issue we would have with such a scenario would have anything to do with ethics, not to make a judgement whether it's ethical or not). And so your argument looks like it's saying "we don't want it to happen to us, therefore it's unethical (for anyone to do that to us, or for us to do that to others)". I know you probably doesn't mean it that way. I am no philosopher, so I'm sure there are many holes in my argument. :) > Now, whether it's ethical to eat meat itself. As someone else have mentioned, I've always wondered where do you draw the line? Pigs and cows seem obviously out of the questions, but how about cockroach, caterpillar, corepod, hydra[0]? Event certain plants do sense distress signals when they're being attacked. That's a really interesting question. I learned recently that some vegetarians consider it acceptable to eat oysters because they don't have a central nervous system. Indeed, this whole argument is about "drawing the line", and it is rather complex and interesting. > Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise? Additionally, even if it might be just historical accident that we have a heavy meat-eating society, and another society that starts out without ever using animal products can advance to where we are right now and have a perfectly functioning society, it doesn't mean that it's ever feasible to actually switch to such a no-animal product society. In our terms, that would be a switch from not just from one programming language to another, but probably from silicon-based chips to germanium-bases chips. You are right that it would take a massive shift, and whether or not it is actually possible is a valid question. Thing is, humans have dealt with massive changes in the past, so if we really wanted to, it seems possible. We aren't really trying, at this point, though.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Here's a line that's pretty clear: does the creature itself care if its cohort are eaten? That is, why should I protect say dolphins, if other dolphins make no effort to protect their own? This means, for octopuses (octopi as a plural is incorrect; its Greek not Latin) its probably ok. They are born alone, are loners and meet others of their kind only to mate. So snack away! I used dolphins in my example because of a curious behavior seen at an annual dolphin slaughter. The Japanese annually net dolphins in a bay where they like to congregate (the dolphins, not the Japanese). Every year some dolphins escape the net. The next year, the dolphins return en masse. Why? Didn't the dolphins that escaped give some alarm - "Aliens with catchy stringy things will entangle you and drag you up to the bright place if you go there!" No, they apparently don't. Either because they don't communicate very well (which speaks poorly for their intelligence), or they just don't give a damn about other dolphins. Either way - dolphins pass my snack test. Even some of the dolphins that escaped, return the next year. Why? Maybe they like it! Maybe its some rite of passage to run the gauntlet, risk capture in the bay of death! Like some Klingon warrior ritual or something. Then hey! we're just doing our part! Or, far more likely in my opinion, they're just not very smart.

deleted 12y ago
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JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Here's a line that's pretty clear: does the creature itself care if its cohort are eaten? That is, why should I protect say dolphins, if other dolphins make no effort to protect their own? This means, for octopuses (octopi as a plural is incorrect; its Greek no Latin) its probably ok. They are born alone, are loners and meet others of their kind only to mate. So snack away! I used dolphins in my example because of a curious behavior seen at an annual dolphin slaughter. The Japanese annually net dolphins in a bay where they like to congregate (the dolphins, not the Japanese). Every year some dolphins escape the net. The next year, the dolphins return en masse. Why? Didn't the dolphins that escaped give some alarm - "Aliens with catchy stringy things will entangle you and drag you up to the bright place if you go there!" No, they apparently don't. Either because they don't communicate very well (which speaks poorly for their intelligence), or they just don't give a damn about other dolphins. Either way - dolphins pass my snack test. Even some of the dolphins that escaped, return the next year. Why? Maybe they like it! Maybe its some rite of passage to run the gauntlet, risk capture in the bay of death! Like some Klingon warrior ritual or something. Then hey! we're just doing our part!

lightblade 12y ago

This reminds me of HG Well's Time Machine where it explored the theme of one human species eating another human species.