I used to love eating octopus, but since I've learned so much about their intelligence, I have not been able to bring myself to do so, anymore.
I have the luxury of choice. There are many, in this world, that do not.
I have the luxury of choice. There are many, in this world, that do not.
cruelty_cow = IntModifier * Animal_Intelligence /(AmountOfProvidedMeat/Deaths) * FrequencyOfEatingThisAnimal
Solve for:
Min (cruelty_cow + cruelty_pig + cruelty_octopus + ...)
Where AmountOfProvidedMeat > NeededMeatForHealthyDiet
And Cost * AmountOfProvidedMeat < Food_Budget
I've generally found that maximizing on Fish, Chicken, and Cow (in that order) seems to be the best bet. I tend not to touch veal, lamb, or octopus.
If you refuse to eat even humane veal (free to roam and milk-fed), then IMO you should refuse dairy entirely.
It might also be worth considering that the entire concept of humane dairy is questionable. It depends on separating mothers from calves, and either eating the latter or weaning them at far too young an age, or both. Cows are dumb, but they're not that dumb, and more importantly they are prey mammals with strong "familial" instincts. The process is fundamentally at least somewhat cruel.
The human body is an amazing thing that is simultaneously a fucking pain in the ass. There is no "one truth" for food.
I begrudgingly agree.
Intelligence is just one thing we can consider when deciding what's morally acceptable to kill and consume. Genetic proximity to humans clearly matters to many people as well: lots of people stick to seafood and/or poultry despite the fact that octopuses and some birds can be quite intelligent.
Sociability could be a third factor. Pigs are smarter than dogs, cows are smarter than horses, but we choose not to eat dogs and horses because they more readily comprehend and obey our commands, enabling us to connect with them on a basic social level.
Sure, but it's pretty obvious that fish and chicken are very stupid animals, and those mammals are much smarter, so I'm not sure that genetic proximity is as important as you think it is. Octopuses are the only real standout here: they really are quite intelligent, which is even more remarkable because they're invertebrates. And yes, some birds are quite intelligent (like crows), but we don't eat those types of birds (probably because they're just not very good as food).
>cows are smarter than horses, but we choose not to eat dogs and horses because they more readily comprehend and obey our commands
Who's "we"? Horsemeat is very easy to find in restaurants here in Japan. It's not bad if cooked properly, but it's a lot like deer meat. Deer are pretty stupid too (probably about as smart as cows), but they aren't normally eaten either, and it's because most people just don't like the taste that much (it's "gamey"), and it's difficult to cook. Cows taste better than horses because they have a lot more fat.
Also, octopuses have been mentioned here many times, but in the US they aren't a terribly popular food item, whereas here in Japan they're very common (along with squid). So differing cultures and culinary traditions I think have a lot to do with it too, just as with horses above.
Does "smartness" carry inherent moral worth? That would be an interesting principle to hold, given what it might entail for humans.
Well that seems to be the assumption in this discussion thread.
>That would be an interesting principle to hold, given what it might entail for humans.
If you're implying that stupid people should be used as food, that's already been addressed elsewhere in this thread: cannibalism is very rare among other animals that are much stupider than us, and for good reason: there's a big risk of disease (such as prion diseases).
However, if we were visited by aliens that found humans tasty, the morality of offering up our stupidest members of society as food for them might be an interesting argument.
"Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world."
Now, you still might think that not being born at all is a better alternative, of course. I'm only pointing out it's a different dilemma.
We don't look at human life in that lens, it's a whole can of worm, but we can agree that ending someone's life is viewed separately from whether that person could have not existed in the first place.
Probably right (about the relying part), but eating octopuses is fairly common around the Mediterranean, at least the West side of it. Most restaurants have at least one item on the menu involving octopuses in some form or shape./
This short lifetime combined with their intelligence does raise the question how far an octopus could get if it were able to reach our age. Would they continue learning and adapting, leading to a race of superintelligent molluscs or would they plateau in their first year and just coast along?
Why shouldn't we eat _you_ then?
in germany there was a case of cannibalism many years ago where a guy known by the name Armin Meiwes slaughtered and ate another guy called Bernd-Jürgen Armando Brandes. never got the panic around it given that the whole deal was consensual. other than that you know yourself that society comes up with rules to ensure its stability and survival. eating each other wouldn't fly well from that perspective.
If you remove intelligence (or something quite similar) as the criteria, what do you have instead?
<check-mate/>
There is also don't mess with the effectively most powerful species on the planet whose members have collectively decided that (for somewhat principled reasons) none of them should be eaten.
Any parasite, bacteria, virus, and especially prions spread much much more easily the closer the food is to your own biology.
Cannibalistic tribes have had issues with this in even the recent past.
It took them some work to undo the indoctrination. Middle-school me wasn't sure if that was right. But empathy is actually an involuntary instinct in most humans, and I think Lowry was right in that most people will find such things "evil" when faced with the its reality.
Of course in real life there are places and situations where it is normalized to harm children. E.G. Currently unfolding with Sean Combs. But anybody outside those situations rightfully considers that disgusting and aberrant on finding out, and those inside it find ways to bury and rationalize their discomfort and end up traumatized for it instead of actually thinking it's good.
Either way, analogy is not false equivalency. And neither are OP's moral decisions an indictment of your culinary preference, nor does your culinary preference have any bearing on OP's morally motivated decisions.
So this adds another layer of wtf.
Doesn't really help moralize human behavior though.
Breed octopuses, take the dead males who succesfully bred, and offer their meat with zero harm to the animal.
As for the female octopus trying to eat the male octopus, did I ever tell ya the one about my ex wife? Huh? Huh? crickets
When “cooperative,” they are your best buddy.
When “competitive,” you are fresh meat.
And you can’t tell when they switch.
But how it plays out, from humans where the male can provide more by continuing to live and "hunt/protect/teach"-- but at the risk that the "hunt/protect" might end his life, to spiders where (some species) the male gives his body to provide nutrition for the child,
well, who am I to say which is more moral?