
The Case Against Octopus Farming - laurex
https://issues.org/the-case-against-octopus-farming/
======
DoreenMichele
Something I don't see mentioned is biomagnification. One reason we eat
herbivores instead of carnivores is because the higher up the food chain you
go, the more you are exposed to a concentration of heavy metals, pesticides,
etc.

It's a good argument for eating less meat overall, one vegetarians seem to
never make. In a world full of unprecedented levels of relatively new toxic
compounds, eating less meat is a good defensive move, especially so if you
have health problems.

I'm really picky about meat quality. In situations where my choice is
something with low quality/highly questionable meat or a vegetarian option, I
typically go with the vegetarian option.

Though be forewarned: It's a dietary path that gets you equally harassed by
vegetarians and the meat-and-potatoes crowd, which can be incredibly
aggravating and feel like the harassment is unceasing.

~~~
vegetablepotpie
As a vegan this is an argument that I’ve made before unsuccessfully. When I
start talking about trophic levels people’s eyes gloss over and they behave
confused and disinterested. I think the reason for this is that most people
don’t remember high school biology.

Now if you were to talk about ethics THAT gets a strong reaction simply
because it’s much more intuitive and relatable. People’s responses can be
receptive, antagonist, dismissive etc. but they certainly won’t be falling
asleep in front of you.

~~~
NikkiA
As a non-vegan* that has in the past greatly enjoyed calimari (and octopus),
I've long felt that it presents me with an ethical dilemma because of how
intelligent octopus, and to a lesser degree, squid, are. However, birds have
incredibly dense brain matter compared to most other land animals, so if I
start worrying too much about ethics in eating meat, I know I'd have to cut
out far more than just the intelligent molluscs, and the whole thing is
awkward.

Most people don't like that awkwardness, so it's not surprising that you get
pushback.

~~~
inflatableDodo
>I know I'd have to cut out far more than just the intelligent molluscs, and
the whole thing is awkward.

I ended up just cutting out farmed meat in the end. As far as meat goes, I can
eat what I kill. Apart from if someone has already got me food and didn't
know, as to turn that down seems both a waste and kind of rude.

~~~
asark
> I ended up just cutting out farmed meat in the end. As far as meat goes, I
> can eat what I kill. Apart from if someone has already got me food and
> didn't know, as to turn that down seems both a waste and kind of rude.

Pretty common rule for mendicant Buddhists, as I understand it. No meat is the
general rule, _but_ if you go a-begging and someone gives you meat, _and_ you
don't have reason to believe they killed something (or had someone else kill
something) specifically for you, then you're good to eat it (or even obligated
to).

~~~
valarauko
To expand on your point, Theravada Buddhism allows monks to consume meat with
those caveats.

------
xrd
This article is partially about the impact on marine ecosystems, so don't
avoid reading it if you think it is all about ethics, which is what the
majority of the comments here mention.

~~~
camillomiller
If you put a sentence like this in such an article you beg to be bashed on
your ethics:

"Given their exceptional abilities, one might ask whether humans should be
eating octopus at all, but here we want to raise a different ethical
question."

So we can eat stupid animals, but not the more intelligent ones, right? That's
absolutely logically and ethically bonkers to just write this down as if it
were a common piece of shared knowledge and give it for granted.

~~~
kaitai
You're being downvoted, but I agree. If you search the word "intelligent" in
this page, it is used as a reason not to eat things. It's fine if one makes
this a foundation for one's ethics of death, but one must be clear that it
_is_ and that it's only one way to look at things. Moreover, one should be
clear that using intelligence as a reason to justify or avoid eating an
organism leads to the problem that then an assessment of intelligence is vital
for decision-making -- and if we happen not to understand an organism's
intelligence, then we risk making the "wrong" decision out of ignorance. It
can also lead to an essentially eugenicist view in which people as well as
other organisms of lesser intelligence are viewed as less valuable. To be
clear I'm not saying anyone here is a eugenicist: I'm saying that in history,
eugenicists have taken this view.

Ranking animals by intelligence is not the only way to decide your ethics of
consumption. If I want to look close to home, I can consider the ethics of the
First Nations people who have lived in the area I now live in. They have a
sophisticated ethic of consumption that does not rely on intelligence-ranking.
Or we can look at other points of view that privilege the land and its health,
and direct decisions from there.

Blindness about our assumptions and hypotheses doesn't help the conversation.
Let's set out our axioms.

~~~
carapace
You remind me of the old joke (based on a true story, I'm told):

As the New Guinea man said to the missionary, "If God didn't want us to eat
people He wouldn't have made us out of meat."

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slothtrop
As with everything, it depends.

[https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-
recommendations/groups/...](https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-
recommendations/groups/octopus?o=158579988,1386140647)

[http://seafood.edf.org/octopus](http://seafood.edf.org/octopus)

There are sustainable and unsustainable sources. The same is true of all
seafood.

The life expectancy of octopus is generally between 3-5 years, some live as
little as 6 months. The extent of their intelligence is unclear. At most we
have evidence that they have the capacity for long and short term memory.
Given the standard of intelligence for animals cultures otherwise consume,
this doesn't seem remarkable at all. To chase the ethical argument to it's
logical end, as one of intelligence is purported, the only ethical animal then
to consume is a non-sentient one.

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CamelCaseName
Here is a question I found myself asking:

Is it better for an animal to be farmed and eaten, or to have never been born
at all?

(Assuming we can farm them safely / humanely, even though the article suggests
we cannot do so yet)

~~~
cybersnowflake
Hypothetically, it could get to the point where it is more ethical to eat meat
than not to, ESPECIALLY if they are sentient in the way activists say they
are.

Lets say aliens came and offered you a deal. You can either not exist or live
a life of luxury with all delicious food and mates you want, then after 1000
years or so you'd peacefully pass away just like a natural death and you are
informed that they'd eat your body. I'm pretty sure quite a few people would
be open to this.The choice is even simpler with animals since from all
evidence they lack the capacity for existential dread.

Now tell, me what would be the most moral choice assuming chickens are
sentient? To indulge them to a pampered existence several times their natural
lifespan...and yes, at the end disposing of their bodies in the most practical
and beneficial way, its not like a chicken cares what happens to its mortal
shell in whatever poultry afterlife may exist. Or leave chicken minds to the
terror of being torn up by a fox in the wilderness or to never know the joys
of existence in the paradise future ethical meat farms may offer?

~~~
StavrosK
I'm not quite sure which of the two you're suggesting we do now. They neither
live in luxury nor their lifespan. Instead, they're basically tortured all
their short life before we kill them.

~~~
cybersnowflake
You don't have to torture animals to eat them. Assuming advances in technology
and energy we could get to the point where a hypothetical farmer could raise
animals in luxury. As tech increases the luxury will increase. If animals are
indeed sentient, farms would essentially transform into happiness factories
generating and funneling new minds into earthly paradise.

If your ethical code is a variation of 'reducing pain and increasing pleasure
for all sentient life' this would be orders of magnitude more good then the
Peta option of turning them loose to die in the wild or never exist. It would
be far more ethical than even artificial meat.

Heck from a strict cost/benefit analysis it may be one of the greatest moral
triumphs mankind has ever given the universe.

~~~
elliekelly
> Assuming advances in technology and energy we could get to the point where a
> hypothetical farmer could raise animals in luxury. As tech increases the
> luxury will increase.

Why would an industrial food processor care about how luxurious the sentient
inventory finds the warehouse?

~~~
ZeroFries
Consumer pressure

------
rdiddly
"... sentient alongside mammals and birds."

...which we farm and eat like crazy!

~~~
Pfhreak
Makes you wonder... should we?

------
xanth
> given that octopuses are carnivorous and live on fish oils and protein,
> rearing them risks putting further pressure on an already over-exploited
> marine ecoystem.

Inherently it’s no less ethical for us to eat them than it is for them to eat
fish. The conditions we keep them in and the impact on the wider environment
is seperate

~~~
Retric
We eat cows not wolves in large part because carnivores require vastly more
land for the same protean. This argument is about efficiency, though we also
eat carnivorous fish.

To simplify _The amount of feed needed to sustain and grow an octpus is three
times the weight of the animal itself_ where feed is delicious protein.

~~~
mc32
While some fish are vegetarians, are most fish pescatarians or omnivorous?

~~~
pvaldes
Trust me. We, sea farmers, would _love_ to breed only strictly herbivorous
fishes. Would made our life much, much easier and exponentially increase the
benefits. Feeding fishes is really expensive.

The small problem is that the taste of this fishes is plain awful and
_nobody_wants_to_buy_it_.

There are plenty of cow breams in the wild, but you rarely will find it in
your fish shop. And if you eventually find it, will be a really cheap product.
Try it. Most people will not buy it twice.

Investors aren't stupid. They risk a lot of their money and put incredible
efforts to breed carnivorous fishes for a logical reason. Everybody loves its
taste and are willing to pay good money for it!.

------
Pete-Codes
I already feel bad eating octopus nowadays but farmed octopus would be
horrible.

~~~
fredsir
Why do you eat octopus if you feel bad about it? Why not just don't do it?
It's not like you need to for survival.

~~~
Pete-Codes
I'm not perfect like you.

~~~
fredsir
Pobody’s nerfect, but you can improve.

------
bayesian_horse
Farmed insects have been proposed as a more sustainable alternative to fish
meal in aquaculture and poultry.

------
coldtea
> _Farming octopuses is not only unethical but deeply damaging to the
> environment, scientists say._

Err, isn't the former up to actual ethics, which vary from place to place?
Where do these "one size fits all" eating ethics come into place?

~~~
bovermyer
Ethics are completely arbitrary.

The article comes from a particular background. From said background, the
espousal of "unethical" is understandable.

Whether you consider the ingestion of octopus to be unethical or not depends
entirely on your own definition of ethics.

~~~
sabertoothed
> Ethics are completely arbitrary.

That cannot possibly be true if ethics is based on what causes suffering /
well-being.

~~~
vertex-four
At some point, ethics comes down to "whose suffering/well-being do you
prioritise when you're presented with a bunch of shitty options", and that's
where everyone eventually disagrees.

~~~
chibg10
I don't think this is actually true in the vast majority of day-to-day ethical
decisions, although there are cases where it's certainly true.

I'm fairly confident that many more unethical actions, even subjectively
defined (i.e. from each individual observer's pov), are the result of
ignorance and apathy than actual differences of opinion regarding ethics.

------
ericdykstra
I’m more worried about the genocide of species via chemical and plastic
contamination. There are apparently rivers so flooded with estrogenics that
fish can’t reproduce at a replacement rate, and need to be re-stocked by fish
farms. This is not sustainable.

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Deimorz
Blogspam, original is [https://issues.org/the-case-against-octopus-
farming/](https://issues.org/the-case-against-octopus-farming/)

~~~
dang
Ok, changed from [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/millions-of-people-
ea...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/millions-of-people-eat-octopus-
heres-why-we-probably-shouldnt). Thanks!

------
guessmyname
I eat Octopus because they are delicious, not because I think they are dumb. I
know they are very smart, but this fact doesn’t makes them less delicious to
me. Also, the fact that I _—and millions of other people—_ don’t feel any
affection towards these cephalopods makes the argument of _“farming octopuses
is unethical […]”_ less agreeable.

Many people in America eat cows, while they are considered sacred in Hinduism.

> _[…] Numerous videos on the internet of octopuses escaping from their tanks
> or stealing fishermen 's catches have fuelled a human fascination with the
> only invertebrate that the 2012 Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
> considers sentient alongside mammals and birds._

Mammals and birds, I hope everyone read that.

\---

People are going against my comment thinking I am on the wrong side of the
argument. And I feel like explaining my point of view even further will just
increase the anger in the people that already expressed their counter
arguments below. We will see if the public agrees with the thesis in this
article and changes their eating habits to protect one of the hundreds of
animals that are also considered sentient.

~~~
martimarkov
No it does not make more agreeable. We had slavery back in the day, in some
instances we still have it, but just because we have enough ppl doing
something does not make it more “agreeable”. Ethics is not something dictated
by a number of ppl sharing a belief.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>Ethics is not something dictated by a number of ppl sharing a belief.

Unless you believe ethics is given from some sort of higher authority, ethics
_is_ dictated by the number of people sharing a belief.

~~~
pavanky
I dont care who or what is dictating them, as long as they are consistent. If
someone is making the claim that it is OK to eat anything as long as they are
delicious, I want to know what their stand on cannibalism is.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
How about if someone makes the claim that their ethical framework is to try to
maximize pleasure and minimize suffering for humans. Therefore since eating
delicious animals brings pleasure to many humans, and does not cause suffering
for humans, it is a good thing.

~~~
lprubin
I think then the discussion would be around why only minimizing suffering for
humans. If minimizing suffering is a good thing, why is there not also value
in minimizing suffering for all beings that can suffer?

~~~
spdionis
Because there's no pleasure in that for humans?

Of course that becomes wrong if many humans embrace the idea that minimizing
suffering for animals is a good thing. At that point you would also be
increasing the humans' "moral/ethical pleasure" in a kind of self fulfilling
way. But there's no reason for this to happen except human hubris.

------
marble-drink
It's amazing to me that people can make the argument that it's not right to
eat something based on intelligence. We should give extra care to less
intelligent feeling beings, not less.

~~~
stronglikedan
I don't think we should farm them due to their intelligence, but I do eat wild
octopi _because_ of their intelligence. Octopi are serious dicks, so for every
one eat, I'm saving hundreds or thousands of other animals from their abuse.

~~~
rajlego
I’ve always found the intelligence criteria for eating for not eating animals
stupid (because I never thought of intelligence having relevance to ability to
suffer) but the social metric is an interesting way of looking at it. I don’t
think you can call socialness of a species something so related to the
intelligence though, there are highly solitary species that are still very
intelligent. Being kept in captivity would still be suffering for them, just
for different reasons. I think the suffering of all animals matters but if I
had to say between animals which one’s matters more I’m not sure I would
differentiate by more than lifespan.

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technothrasher
The title is misleading here. The article linked to (and the paper it
references) is talking about farming octopus specifically, not eating it in
general. In fact, the paper specifically states, "Given their exceptional
abilities, one might ask whether humans should be eating octopus at all, but
here we want to raise a different ethical question."

~~~
john-radio
It's not possible for you to eat them without farming them, as a member of
society in its current instantiation, so the title holds.

~~~
technothrasher
Huh? Almost no octopus is currently farmed. The vast majority of it is wild
caught.

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codesushi42
Takoyaki is delicious. But I don't know why the octopus can't be substituted
with squid.

~~~
GordonS
Octopus and squid have very different flavours. Octopuses also have a layer of
fat that squids don't.

~~~
codesushi42
Octopus and squid don't taste much different to me. And I definitely wouldn't
be able to tell the difference in takoyaki.

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sarcasmOrTears
We should move towards killing less animal, not more. Meat is necessary but
killing highly intelligent animals is not. If anything we should find a way to
create animals with no conscience/intelligence. A slightly sci-fi scenario for
now, but better than eating creatures that are as smart as octopuses.

------
erikig
I don't eat octopi, squid, nautili or cuttlefish because I don't want to be on
His bad side when Cthulhu returns. All Hail Cthulhu...

------
malvosenior
Counterpoint: Octopus is super delicious, especially when chargrilled. It’s a
traditional food in many cultures.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
So is shark fin soup, but that doesn’t excuse it.

~~~
codesushi42
I will attest that shark fin soup is not delicious. Nor does it taste like
much of anything.

~~~
pstuart
seconded.

------
calf
I wonder if since we really only eat the tentacles, which have regenerative
abilites, maybe they're easier to grow in the lab than beef or something.

Like, I get the argument that the authors (who are largely white and probably
didn't grow up eating cephalopods unlike in other cultures; honestly the
article is a bit tone-deaf in this respect) don't care for the loss of eating
octopus but their argument that this is unsustainable and counterproductive is
based on assuming current levels of biotechnology. Canada has already
permitted GMO salmon, and Canadian consumers seem to have have forgotten about
that.

~~~
arethuza
Octopus is a pretty common foodstuff in Mediterranean cultures - I've seen
people eating it in Spain and Greece.

Edit: I was never very keen on trying it and the one time I did I was rather
ill for a couple of days after.

Edit2: I've since learned how smart they are so I wouldn't dream of eating one
again.

