The first octopus farm – should it go ahead? | Hacker News Reader

The first octopus farm – should it go ahead?

bbc.com

14 pointsazalemeth15 comments

Octopuses have been around and intelligent around as long as trees have existed. Their cupreas blood chemistry is probably the genetic bottleneck that has prevented them from taking over the world. They can learn skills from the observation of other octopuses's behavior. The only time they don't attempt to eat each other on sight is when mating.

If souls exists, they probably have them.

They are also delicious.

Thus I am torn on the concept of eating them.

I'm raising pigs for the first time at home and I'm having a similar dilemma with the slaughter date just a few days away. They're like 300lbs dogs- playing with each other, running to me when I come out (although this might be just because I feed them most times I go out there), friendly with the kids.

I think it comes from a viewpoint that all death is bad and all life is good. something I think is probably pretty culturally specific and kinda ingrained in me since childhood. I was raised Catholic with everyone around me believing that after you die you go to Heaven, but still family members dying was a tragedy, instead of say, it being a celebration since didn't they just get into eternal paradise?

But death isn't bad. It's actually necessary for life to continue. The circle of life, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, all that stuff. From that point of view, eating other animals is nothing. It's an efficient, and delicious, way of surviving and passing on genes. We're not above nature. We're in a closed system here that we can't ever rise above. Although with that point of view stuff like climate change takes on a different meaning. If we can't rise above nature then climate change is a natural phenomena even though it's accelerated by humans. Just like the Great Oxidation Event.

We rotated our evolution from genetics to memetics when we started this whole society thing. Society, culture, cars, concrete, skyscrapers and the internet are all as natural as termite mounds are. We are part of nature not above it. We do have more power to steer the great wheel of nature than most animals, and we have the power to understand the responsibility that comes with it. So yeah, climate change and the Anthropocene extinction are natural events, but collectively working together and stopping or changing the outcome of those events has just as much potential to be "natural" too.

Can't you apply the same logic to humans? It's just the circle of life to use humans for your own purposes, whether for slavery or eating. We are just part of nature.

I'm not trying to justify not acting on climate change. That original comment is really just a snippet of some internal thought trains I've had with myself after we decided to grow some of our own food- where the price of deciding to be a meat-eater is not hidden behind some shrink wrapped plastic. Specifically the argument that eating meat is natural- well where do you draw the line between rationalizing our behaviors as being natural for some actions and trying to elevate ourselves above our primitive selves for others.

I'm not a philosopher or anything. of course slavery is bad- if slavery is natural and I'm against slavery, does that eventually lead to me having to be vegan in order to be internally consistent? Maybe, but I'm still not ready to give up meat.

My dad had a similar dilemma I think, though he'd never admit it. He even named and spoke with every single one.

He enjoyed raising animals, but in the end just sold them off at auction rather than slaughter them himself. We'd still eat meat, but presumably not what was raised. He claimed there was more money in it, but I strongly assume he just couldn't bring himself to kill the creatures he'd raised.

I raise meat. At small scales, I cannot afford to eat any of it if I want to make any profit. Agriculture is completely rotten due to regulatory capture by Big Ag.

Then don't slaughter them, because jesus christ you said yourself they're like dogs.

Why is a base desire like "deliciousness" such a primary and powerful force in your life that it overrides all other decision making? Are respect for other conscious beings and experiencing "deliciousness" really on the same level?

> Are respect for other conscious beings and experiencing "deliciousness" really on the same level?

It is almost like I am the result of a lot of selection pressure to perceive valuable nutrition as pleasant then be motivated to eat it. 9/10 mammals agree "If it tastes good, i'm gonna try and eat it"

I think life and consciousness are sacred. I also think eating other conscious beings is a critical step in concentrating nutrients to enable us and other highly conscious critters to exist. If only the smallest spark of "consciousness" is required to have such moral implications then I have bad news about literally all food other than fruiting bodies (they enthusiastically consent!). All other plants just scream via chemical messages you can't hear.

By default octopuses try and eat each other on sight too, I think they have established the precedent it is ok. Note that argument doesn't apply to most meat sources. Eating an octopus might be more ethical than eating a cow. Cows don't normalize eating cows.

This is not an argument for farming of octopuses. That is a different ethical dilemma than just eating them sometimes. I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't see factory farming as ethical for a LOT of reasons. Meat should be a treat not a staple.

> 9/10 mammals agree "If it tastes good, i'm gonna try and eat it"

Mammal behavior as an entire class is not a valid guide for our own behavior. Rape, murder, lack of cleanliness, stealing, and a host of other behaviors that most humans find abhorrent are common to most mammals.

> If only the smallest spark of "consciousness" is required to have such moral implications then I have bad news about literally all food other than fruiting bodies

There is no evidence that plants posess higher cognition or feel pain. Even if they did feel some modicum of pain, it doesn't lead to the conclusion that it's ok to arbitrarily cause any being to suffer, especially those that obviously feel tremendous pain and actively avoid your advances.

> By default octopuses try and eat each other on sight

So we define our own ethics and interactions with each animal based on how they treat each other? This is too relative and fraught with peril. We would never suggest that it's ok to hump dogs without consent despite them doing it to each other all the time.

I would hope that we as humans don't use the animal kingdom in general as our moral and ethical guidance, and rather use our higher cognitive abilities to make choices that reduce and eliminate unnecessary suffering.

> There is no evidence that plants posess higher cognition or feel pain. Even if they did feel some modicum of pain, it doesn't lead to the conclusion that it's ok to arbitrarily cause any being to suffer, especially those that obviously feel tremendous pain and actively avoid your advances.

Oh agreed. All consumption of organic material other than fruiting bodies is morally dubious. I'm looking forward to better meat-cloning bc cannibalism is the only way to truly ensure consent.

> I would hope that we as humans don't use the animal kingdom in general as our moral and ethical guidance, and rather use our higher cognitive abilities to make choices that reduce and eliminate unnecessary suffering.

Why not? Octopuses have existed and most likely have been intelligence and consciousness since around the time trees showed up. We are the ignorant newcomers to intelligence and consciousness in comparison. It seems overwhelmingly likely they know things we don't.

In the same vein, at some point you can't claim an animal is intelligent and conscious without holding it accountable. Sure plenty of animals do things we shouldn't emulate, but none are so close our peers. Octopuses are basically one inefficient blood chemistry away from full uplift. At some point we have to trust them to be behaving in accordance to their own moral code.

I've spent too many days in utter wonder at the hijinks of my local reef octopus population to ever consider eating them. They are truly wonderful beings whose antics are hilarious, witty and often times very exciting. They are curious, inquisitive creatures and our world would be a better one if we respected them more than we do, with our cuisines.

> The number of octopuses in the wild are decreasing and prices are going up. An estimated 350,000 tonnes are caught each year - more than 10 times the number caught in 1950.

I don't think people are going to stop eating octopus anytime soon. So wouldn't it be prudent to preserve the wild population as much as possible? It seems to me the only way to accomplish this is raise them in large quantities.

According to Wikipedia:

> Octopuses have a food conversion efficiency greater than that of chickens, making octopus aquaculture a possibility.

Ethically, no. They may be sentient and are definitely friendly, even in the wild.

Wild pigs are not always friendly, so I’m putting pork in the “one of us is eating the other” box. But it’s close.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com