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Comment by john-radio | Hacker News Reader

> I know they are very smart, but this fact doesn’t makes them less delicious to me.

There are lots of experiences that feel "delicious," but that doesn't make it moral to rip that experience for yourself out of the flesh of a sentient being. Maybe you consider cephalopods potentially sentient or maybe you don't, but the argument is "It's immoral to eat them because they can have thoughts and an internal experience, just like us," and "But they taste good" is not a counterargument.

> and millions of other people

That is also not any kind of an ethical defense of one's behavior.

> don’t feel any affection towards these cephalopods makes the argument of “farming octopuses is unethical […]” less agreeable.

One thing about logical reasoning - it doesn't really matter how "agreeable" its conclusion feels.

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> "It's immoral to eat them because they can have thoughts and an internal experience, just like us," and "But they taste good" is not a counterargument.

There is an implied "We are on top of the food chain" along with "they taste good".

There is some legitimacy to the idea that we should eat whatever we please because we are the apex predator. Ultimately market forces should align the price to equal the cost of framing / hunting. Additionally we have huge ethical problems in how humans treat each other we should work on before even worrying about an invertebrate's problems.

I don't actually hold those worldviews, but they are implied with the sentence "but they taste good"

> There is some legitimacy to the idea that we should eat whatever we please because we are the apex predator.

It's more like it's definitional of an apex predator that it eats what it pleases. It isn't a question of legitimacy.

> There is some legitimacy to the idea that we should eat whatever we please because we are the apex predator.

Many men are strong enough to forcibly overpower many women and therefore there is some legitimacy to the idea that they should rape whoever they please.

Might does not make right.

Shared morality makes right, but might makes right wherever a conflict of moralities cannot be resolved by shared ideals.

> Additionally we have huge ethical problems in how humans treat each other we should work on before even worrying about an invertebrate's problems.

The deep patterns of thinking underlying the mistreatment of humans and the mistreatment of other animals are the same to a large extent. It just needs contemplation to get to that.

Regarding the bit about "millions of other people", it's not an entirely unfounded argument. We are social beings and the vast majority of our behavior is driven by leaning on the thoughts and experiences and pressures of others. It is impossible for an individual to logically reason about everything, and even if it were, it's a bit self centered to always consider your own reasoning to be supreme and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. Unfortunately politicians and marketers take advantage of this social dynamic to mislead people but that doesn't mean that the wisdom of the group should be entirely thrown out.

To be specific to this particular issue, an example narrative to counter yours would be that the view of a single life and suffering is not taking into context the greater cycle of life in which we will be eaten by bacteria and in which a Jainist might find being eaten by a tiger a beautiful thing. We are base primates and are not so separate from the ecosystem and our drives as we'd like to believe. Now this is just an example of a reasoned counter argument that could possible underlie the collective subconsciously of the "millions", and isn't necessarily my own reasoning.

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