I think it would less a question of maturity and more of acceptance of societal values.

Fundamentally eating meat is a behavior our societies want to preserve; setting exceptions gives some leeway and carve safe spaces, while also making the rule more powerful.

For instance settings pets as off limit make it clearer that non-pets are for consumption. Farmers can spend time and develop attachment to their cows, understand they're not inherently different from dogs or ferrets in intelligence or conscience, but we've made it clear it's ok if they end on our plates. Wherever the line is drawn (conscience ? cuteness ? % of DNA close to us ?) doesn't really matter I think, as long as the impact is not critical to our economy or society.

To go to darker places, it's the same kind of logic used centuries ago between christians and "pagans" ("they have no soul", it's ok to kill/enslave them)

I don't know if there's a word for it besides the adjacent "speciesm" but the clumsy word "desentientize" popped up in my head as an ethical corollary to "dehumanization".

> It was always possible for me to perceive sentience, feelings and emotions from a variety of beings

My mom has always had this ability. We had some horses in a pasture behind our house, and one day we noticed most of the horses had been removed and only one remained. My mom could instantly tell that the one remaining horse, named Pete, was sad to be alone. "Pete is so sad, she's all alone" my mom observed while we were looking out the window. Literally, not 5 seconds later, a couple of horses came walking out from behind a shed in the pasture. I laughed and teased my mom. I guess Pete wasn't as sad and alone as she thought.

In other words, how do you know you're perceiving the feelings of animals correctly?

I think this is the point you're making, but this isn't "perceiving sentience" (whatever that means), it's literally just projects your thoughts and emotions onto an anthropomorphized version of whatever animal you're looking at. Which is the same thing the GP was/is doing, but they haven't "matured" enough cognitively to realize it yet.

let's elaborate on your standard here:

I'm GP and I never mapped human emotions to other species. Amongst many species I see this with, I looked at cephalopods and can see sentience. This was unrelated to me consuming them, they taste yummy and there are plenty of them.

So with your standard, I was wrong and my inferior brain was anthropomorphizing, until a greater consensus was suddenly reached from researchers and governments that makes me right? I mean its not something I was advocating for, its just surprising to me how many weren't perceiving this at all. Like when you find out that some people don't have visual dreams, or find out that you're the person that doesn't have visual dreams and everyone else wasn't speaking in hyperbole and actually have a different experience.

this reminds me of a small fish that used to visit me during my dives, it would take me to things he found, bottles, coins, shells.

was not the first time it happened because the same fish with the same markings (im quite sure of it) would visit me.

so im thinking what is going on here? how is it that a fish is able to recognize me in my gear and comes to me in the same vicinity?

it appears to be communicating too by leading me to stuff he finds. it lets me even pet it which it seems to enjoy.

again i dont know what its thinking but from these actions one might strongly conclude that there is some sort of sentient mutual awareness and that its able to engage in both recognition, my presence and subtle communication (by showing me treasures he find)

I guess my point is perceiving feelings is not limited between two humans only (obviously super tough with text alone, it is something else.

I'm often confused by this as well, it's always been fairly obvious to me that other animals are sentient just like us (why wouldn't they be, their physiology is similar, they're descended from common ancestors).

Modern factory farming doesn't sit well with me, but I still fairly comfortably eat higher welfare (free range, from reputable brands) or self-caught/hunted meat.

It bewilders me that someone would eat meat their whole life without ever thinking about this, and then one day suddenly go "ohhh, maybe this is bad".

Predators eat their whole life without wondering where it came from or what it implies about the world. It seems like the base state for every living individual, and is the most natural thing in the world. I think this is an important distinction to make, because if you don't make it you end up expressing contempt for those who don't think more widely rather than admiration for those that do.

Operative word being predator. People eat meat and most can’t stand the sight of animals being slaughtered in the method they currently are.

Predators also put themselves at risk often, fail often, etc.

Factory livestock is very much removed from this.

I think the 'is meat ethical' conversation is a different conversation from 'is the meat industry ethical'. I'd like to think that even if every slaughterhouse in the land closed up shop people would still be nuanced enough to realise that hunting and fishing are in a different league altogether.

You have to keep in mind that having easy access to meat without hunting is a recent thing relative to history.

>I'm often confused by this as well, it's always been fairly obvious to me that other animals are sentient just like us (why wouldn't they be, their physiology is similar, they're descended from common ancestors).

Exactly, I'm not sure how anyone who's spent any time around animals could come to a different conclusion. I definitely think people who aren't willing to do the slaughtering themselves have no business eating meat too for that matter. My first ever job was on a meat and fish counter and the amount of people who couldn't stomach seeing a fish get gutted or a steak cut off a sirloin joint because 'it looks too much like an animal' was really shocking. I'm a meat-eater myself, but to deny the inherent violence in a carnivorous diet as those people do is just objectively incorrect in my opinion.

One perspective: The universe is indifferent to your ethics and whether they are self-consistent or inconsistent. Choices "matter" insofar as they have observable effects that somebody cares about, but ultimately all morality is constructed.

And so, why not a draw a line here, or over there, or instead way out there?

Another perspective: people are not indifferent to the set of ethics their community subscribes to. Ethics help form a common understanding about what it means to be a part of a community. Sure, morality is constructed and observable choices matter more. But morality is an aspect that separates humans from "beasts". Ditch morality and some get that much closer to considering atrocities -- e.g. enslavement of weaker groups, authoritarianism over entire populations -- because after all, "the universe is indifferent to your ethics [...]".

> why not a draw a line here, or over there, or instead way out there?

Do people who are sensitive to/ take into consideration the pains of weaker beings sound/feel like a pleasant group to be a part of? And yes, there are trade-offs.

> But morality is an aspect that separates humans from "beasts".

Over the course of human history, claims of moral superiority habitually accompany great atrocities. Give me a humble ethics which seeks to change that which can be observed, while not claiming absolute righteousness.

This type of moral relativism is what leads to world wars, at which point people come back to their senses and proceed to behave, until the next generation comes along to repeat the same mistakes.

I hold the opposite perspective: world wars are brought about by those who are convinced that there is only one correct moral system — theirs — and who therefore have no compunction about inflicting it on others.

The belief that the no moral system is objectively correct, and yet choices matter because they have tangible effects, inoculates against dehumanizing those who do not share your ethics.

Logical fallacies are why I dislike talking to people. The point of view you expressed is not opposite from mine, as you can have multiple moral systems that can live side by side without issues. My original idea is that some moral systems are bad (in regards to those "tangible effects" you mentioned), and your assertion induces the idea that all moral systems are more or less the same.

> Logical fallacies are why I dislike talking to people.

Well, I admit I'm finding the exchange increasingly unpleasant as well. I'd like to think that if we were speaking in person with the benefit of tone of voice and body language it would feel less combative.

There does seem to be significant overlap in how we both allow for multiple moral systems. We appear to differ on what leads to world wars.

It's not a novel idea. Isn't it just a fatalistic coloring of ethical relativism? I personally subscribe to the idea that moral truths can be discovered from principals we can derive on inspecting our own preferences and experiences. We can than radiate that practice out to uncover more, and it historically happens by dint of physical/genetic proximity, eg prioritizing the wellbeing of family and friends and so on.

An interesting aspect of the internet is that it makes the determinant lines fuzzier and clearly arbitrary. Objectively, why would the life of a child in one country matter more or less than one from the other side of the planet? It's completely arbitrary, but the entrenched human social structures have been built around physical proximity and so we end up donating money to feed a relatively healthy child instead of donating to the distant one on the verge of dying from malnutrition.

> Isn't it just a fatalistic coloring of ethical relativism?

To me, "the universe is indifferent" is ethical relativism but not at all fatalistic. If there is no deliberate outside guidance, then we are free to construct an ethics by "inspecting our own preferences and experiences", as you put it. Isn't that liberating and wonderful? Doesn't it allow for creativity and constant rejuvenation?

However, I distrust your labeling of those discoveries as "moral truths". Is there one objectively correct philosophy of octopus farming?

I agree in regards to the universe's indifference! Cradling that understanding had a big part in my conclusion of moral objectivity. The freedom I gained from that is what allowed me to discover what I know now.

My basic formula for moral truth is: starting from a non-maladaptive state of mind, would I prefer to have or recoil from 'X' experience? With that in mind, could I reasonably conclude that sentient others around me would arrive at the same conclusion as me? How about strangers? Other animals? An extraterrestrial? A synthetic being? Humans in a million years?

If my chain of reasoning doesn't break at any point as I expand the set of sentient beings to check against, then it is likely that I now have clear guidance on engaging in actions that produce experience 'X'.

Here is an example: Should I break my friend's arm against his will? I would not want that to happen to me. Most people I know prefer not to have their arms broken. My dog would not want that. A cow would not want that. A fish would not want his tail snapped off. People in the future won't want their arms broken if it feels how I imagine it feels. I don't imagine that a sentient robot would like its gripping mechanism broken. Whatever sorts of appendages extraterrestrials have, they probably don't want to lose the ability to use them.

I can then extract the generalizable term from "I shouldn't break my friend's arm against his will" to, "I shouldn't hurt sentient beings when it's counter to their overriding preferences."

It now follows that if I were able to poll every sentient creature through all time (sentient according to a rubric), I would expect the majority to share the uncovered preference or aversion in question. I now have a positive statement about morality that is universalizable, apparently akin to Kantian philosophy, which I have some bare surface knowledge of.

The exercise seems pretty robust to me insofar as language and idea-derived conclusions hold up. For example, culturally dependent preferences, idiosyncrasies, aesthetic preferences, etc, fail the test easily.

Thanks, I thoroughly enjoyed your reasoned example!

> starting from a non-maladaptive state of mind

This stage-setting phrase seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because of course "I should not break the arm of X" is situational: under certain circumstances, such as defending yourself or something you care about, you absolutely should break the arm of an adversary if necessary.

Fully exploring the space of possible situations to find a "truth" is at least difficult and maybe impossible. I speculate that the theoretical limit you could approach is the scientific approximation described by Karl Popper, and explored by Thomas Kuhn in _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_, which means that you're never completely certain and your model is still subject to paradigm shifts. But because ethics is squishier than falsifiable scientific propositions, it will be hard to asymptotically approach that limit.

This is why a lot of the discussion about octopus farming has left me cold: many ethical propositions are being presented as absolute truths, but are almost certainly situationally incomplete. (What is sentience? What is pain? To what degree can we practically spare sentient creatures from pain? Under what circumstances does minimizing pain backfire and increase it in the end? And so on.)

I was talking about three letter acronyms being taught in American schools that many of the people in this industry support (obviously not all) to align with their political biases to put downward pressure on wages but I will be honest here and say

I have no fucking clue what you are talking about.

It's definitely a cultural reaction but I think it has to do with our place in history, being so far removed from the means of production of so many goods we rely on that we can only think of them in abstract terms of how they came to be.

People always say "If you knew where that burger came from, you wouldn't be eating meat." Yet here we are eating meat, having been knowing exactly where it came from and in fact doing it personally ourselves for millions of years of hominoid evolution right up until we developed our modern grocery model. It seems its really like, if you initially don't know where the burger came from, but are then are told where it came from having no firsthand experience previously, then you might not be eating meat anymore.

My take is that they're related because a being's ability to experience sentience, and especially suffering are ethical grounds to not breed them and inflict unnecessary suffering through harsh captivity and slaughter.

So for you, is that something that extends to all farmed animals then?

Its not possible for me to tell if thats been your stance on everything like farming chickens and salmon, or if you were one of the people that just found out Octopus' are smart and made a line there, or another group or individual with a unique opinion

there are some observations and personal dietary choices I can be sympathetic towards, I just don't know which one I'm hearing at the time and when it comes to Octopus or the animal-of-the-month I find people not being able to articulate their new opinion at all, but being shocked that the listener (me) isn't automatically on board or making a line at sentience.

If you're asking a personal question like I think you are: for me the courtesy of non-violence extends to all beings capable of suffering and with a preference to live. For a good read on the ethics of eating animals I'd recommend Peter Singer's 'Animal Liberation'

You're aware that plants fill both those criteria: (a) capable of suffering, and (b) a preference to live?

What do you eat?

Interesting, could you share your sources showing plants are capable of suffering and can indicate preference?

I eat many things, but nothing from animals :)

> making that a line in the sand on whether they will farm/consume a being based on that.

But everyone is drawing that line somewhere, mostly unconsciously. Surely nobody minds eating bacteria and fungi (else you couldn't live), but most people wouldn't eat a dog - so there is a line. But where? (in this case, the somewhat arbitrary definition of sentience, I guess)

It wasn't until someone mentioned that many animals (and all mammals) talk to their babies just like we do that it rung home for me.

Its unclear to me. Some variants of hinduism have embraced this for ages.

The underlying belief of vegetarianism in this culture is that animals are kin and eaten only when survival is on the line. When there is choice (and there almost always is) you choose not to eat meat.

The part that I've found newly confounding is the 'thinking' of plants. Can't square that one. Thankfully there are a few studies debunking anything along the lines of sentience:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28875517/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w

The "thinking" aspect of plants might be reclaimed in respect of the overall foundations of mother nature's connected biodiversity.

As the maker of the octopus doco put it, the "giant biological mind". This interview is cued up at the point he mentions that: https://youtu.be/oyBqZ-_5B_8?t=587

I think he makes a good point, it's a good reminder.

It's a distraction when the argument becomes "plants can't think like humans". But why should plants need to think like us to be protected or respected? The point is, humans are crushing those precious ecosystems, all because individual plants can't think and fish have no feelings.

Money. Acknowledging that beings have feelings, a sense of self, and a will to live can complicate things. It gets in the way of making money. People in general tend to prioritize profits over people. Not always, but much of the time.

That's why the love of money is the root of all evil.

Humans project a lot of sentience when it isn't there, so I don't think it's so simple. There's certainly a cultural component too.

In case it wasn't obvious the studies and this article is being written by people in the West who do not consume octopus. These articles almost always seem to derive to us-vs-them narrative, the idea that the West is somehow the forefront of moral novelty and the rest of the world is behind.

When the irony is that the same random argument applied towards Octopus can be done on just about any sentient beings like cow and pigs. As a german, my understanding of Western narratives are almost always aimed at patting themselves on the back.

I still remember Western media going in to overdrive to condemn masks during the onset of the pandemic, deriding Asian countries practice of wearing masks when you are sick as some sort of a backward psuedoscience.

Let's just call this article what it is: To reassure non-octopus eaters on their superior moral creed and a license to preach this narrative to people who consume octopus, namely Asian and European countries.

Already the comments on reddit are poking fun at Asian countries for eating octopus when in fact its Western Europe that consumes the largest amount. Octopus isn't just that delicious as a sashimi in large amounts.

As a European, I think you're wrong on several levels.

> When the irony is that the same random argument applied towards Octopus can be done on just about any sentient beings like cow and pigs.

Or like humans! It doesn't take a PhD to figure out that animals are biologically very similar to us and that they're likely sentient and intelligent. As far as I'm concerned, the burden of proof is on anyone claiming otherwise. We share so much biology with animals (this is proven, not conjectured) but you're trying to tell me that somehow it's just humans who are sentient and feel pain? Then prove it.

> Let's just call this article what it is: To reassure non-octopus eaters on their superior moral creed and a license to preach this narrative to people who consume octopus

Doesn't mean they're wrong.

> These articles almost always seem to derive to us-vs-them narrative, the idea that the West is somehow the forefront of moral novelty and the rest of the world is behind.

That may be the case sometimes, and their patronising tone irks me as well, but that doesn't mean they're wrong about this topic. Also, they're not the first ones to voice this idea, not by a longshot. So feel free to decouple your annoyance at "the West" (by which I assume you mean the Anglosphere) from what we can assume to be true until proven otherwise (animal sentience).

Do you actually believe that you would be able to enjoy the same level of human relationships with an octopus? How about a cow? Or a coackroach? You can attach romantic feelings towards anything since if you were so traumatized by having destroyed an sentient thing for your own benefit you would simply not allow yourself to exist.

I did not engage with your comment further since it signaled the same amount of moral depth like someone who will claim that homeless meth addicts are humans too and they will invite them to a warm dinner with your family.

I seriously somehow doubt that octopus is a hill that animal activists will die on seeing they failed to stop the whaling industry or a certain anti-oil virtue signaling girl with parents who work for the EGR industry who successfully convinced a bunch of people buy EVs.

I'm willing to bet that YC is probably going fund a company that will be able to produce imitations of Crustacean meat once the narrative Octopus Lives Matter have disseminated into coastal cities.

> Do you actually believe that you would be able to enjoy the same level of human relationships with an octopus? How about a cow? Or a coackroach?

My enjoyment levels have nothing to do with the discussion. You're essentially using the same "we're superior to X" argument that has been regularly used for the entirety of human history to try justify what is morally unjustifiable.

> I did not engage with your comment further since it signaled the same amount of moral depth like someone who will claim that homeless meth addicts are humans too and they will invite them to a warm dinner with your family.

To me it seems you alternate between the "might is right" approach and "everything is the same, nothing matters" pseudo-nihilism. Funny you should talk about moral depth. I'm not trying to offend you but come on.

> I seriously somehow doubt that octopus is a hill that animal activists will die on seeing they failed to stop the whaling industry

Well, I'm sure in that particular instance there were also many people like you who at best mocked the entire effort and at worst did everything to oppose it for no good reason.

> When plants are usually cut, it emits a certain chemical as a warning stressor to communicate to other plants, who on a very slow time frame are just as capable of perceiving stressors and able to adjust their exposure to nutrients and sunlight in a matter very similar to animals.

> Yet because it is difficult to attach anthropomorphic qualities to it you are free to farm, destroy and eat, whom by all definition just as sentient as the mammals you describe.

The existence of an adaptive mechanism in an organism doesn't mean that any organisms that have such mechanisms are sentient to similar degrees. You're actually completely contradicting yourself here by first arguing that other animals are "less" sentient than humans (presumably because of the neurological complexity of our brains compared to those of other species) and then continue by claiming that plants are similarly sentient to mammals.

> The existence of an adaptive mechanism in an organism doesn't mean that any organisms that have such mechanisms are sentient to similar degrees.

If there is an intelligence behind such mechanism, it still would not fit your definition of sentiency correct?

How are you so certain that there isn't an intelligence to all living things, plant, trees, insects and animals? How can such intelligence not adapt to its environment and instruct its physical medium to change its behavior or rearrange itself spatial temporally to maximize survivability?

Is that not the definition of a lifeform? the drive to survive?

really bizarre you would limit your horizon here, is it to double down on your original argument that is in alignment with what the article is proposing and the rest of us are commenting at the irony of deciding what is ethically edible or not in a country where industrial scale farming of all things sentient?

Octopus is a pretty great cooked food, not as a sashimi. In Korean cuisine, at least, you find it stir fried, with noodles, in rice bowls, in soups...all sorts of things. There's several different kinds commonly eaten, from very small bite-sized to ones where a tentacle has to be cut into several bite sized pieces. It's often kept live until cooked, a practice that ensures both freshness and offended Western sensibilities at the same time.

All that being said, Octopus is also often found cuisines of Western countries that are coastal and some of the best I've ever had was in Greece and Mexico. I've also had it in Japan on a stick as a street food, fried in the Bahamas, grilled over a campfire in Italy, and a few other places.

In the U.S. I've only ever encountered it either at ethnic Asian or Greek places, or at high-end western dining experiences where the palettes are assumed to be more "adventurous". It's almost complete unknown as a food to most people and considered quite exotic and scary. But Americans are largely people who consider seafood to start and stop at canned tuna so...

> But Americans are largely people who consider seafood to start and stop at canned tuna so...

That isn’t very accurate. Coastal Americans have had plenty of seafood to choose from, consider when they would serve lobsters to prisoners. Alaska is full of seafood to the point that it is a staple (and considering many of the Inuit communities who have been on that diet for thousands of years). Just because the customs are different from other coastal communities in other countries doesn’t make America’s any less sophisticated.

Yeah, I'm being reductive. But my impression as an American is that you don't have to get very far from a coastal area for seafood to pretty quickly diminish on the plates of the average person...and there's a lot of the U.S. that is very far from any coastal area. In other words, it's not unusual at all to hear people say "I don't really like seafood" or will eat it very minimally like in fried fish sticks and tuna salad only.

And you can’t go very much anywhere in Greece or Japan and be away from the coast. What do you think they are eating deep inland in Russia, China, and Kazakhstan?

That’s not even getting into range. You won’t find lobster or octopus on the west coast unless it’s imported from a far away place. Better luck on the gulf coast, but you would have to be used to Cajun food (which is distinctly American with French influence) or Caribbean (ditto). Never try and Google Cajun and octopus together.

Meet more people?

The gross statistics back it up. The average American eats about as much seafood as the average Russian, which is surprising considering one has ample fisheries and coastal areas and the other doesn't. Both countries are about mid-line per capita globally at something like 20-30 lbs (9-13 kg) per person per year (vs 60-80 pounds (27-36 kg) for countries like Korea, Japan, etc.)

More detail, if you look by locale in the U.S. the average Midwesterner eats something like under 1/4th the seafood of their coastal countrymates. That's not 1/4, that's again less than 1/4th so we're talking from zero to 7.5 pounds per capita.

Since population distribution in the U.S. is heavily skewed towards the coasts, you can estimate that for example, the average of 20lbs per person per year is representative of the average coastal person. This means that the average Midwesterner eats less than 5 pounds of all types of seafood per person per year or about something like less than 1 small shrimp per day.

The thing is, modern logistics make it possible to eat fresh Sushi in the middle of Kansas. Being away from the coasts isn't really an excuse as the availability is or can be approximately the same.

*sources: something something forgot to copy paste use the google or DDG it's like 2 minutes of searching plus some math

> The thing is, modern logistics make it possible to eat fresh Sushi in the middle of Kansas. Being away from the coasts isn't really an excuse as the availability is or can be approximately the same.

Flash freezing is relatively new technology (I assume that’s what you mean by “fresh”). It is not surprising midwesterners go all out on sushi (the real kind, not Californian roles) just because the logistics are easier now. Food is local because it has been that way for the last hundred or so years.

Nah, by fresh I mean caught, loaded from a boat onto a truck with ice and driven to its destination.

The miracle of the National Highway System makes Boston to San Diego a 50 hour possibility. Surely the people of Springfield Missouri would be fine with iced, fresh, 20 hour old fish caught off the coast of Connecticut! You can get an entire boat of fish from the Gulf Coast to Kansas City same day by road.

Delaware to Louisville is what 8 hours? But why bother, fresh mussels from Lake Erie don't even have to leave the state, can by caught in the morning after breakfast and eaten for lunch a couple hours later.

The Highway System is almost a century old. That's a few generations time to change preferences.

Flash freezing is required by the FDA for eaten raw seafood no matter how fresh it is. It has been since the 90s I think. Flash freezing is used throughout the world on most seafood these days sans a few old school Japanese institutions.

Because everything undergoes flash freezing in the boat anyways, 8 hours or 8 days isn’t going to matter much.

Remove shrimp and canned tuna and the Americans are not even close anymore

> Just because the customs are different from other coastal communities in other countries doesn’t make America’s any less sophisticated.

On average it is less sophisticated though. Most coastal Americans (US) only consume a subset of the breadth of diversity of seafood available to them relative to many other regions of the world.

80% of America's seafood is imported, so it is not like Americans are producing. a lot of seafood along their coasts. The frozen tilapia we ate last night I think was from Chile. See: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/aquaculture/us-aquac...

Thats true, partially because of economics, but also because Americans' seafood palette involves farmed salmon, farmed tilapia and swai (not coastal seafood btw), etc. doesn't mean more diversity isn't available.

When you mention a quintessential US state I wouldn't arrive at Alaska or New Orleans

America is a huge country. Europe is huge as well, it’s not surprising that there are regional differences in our diet, and trying to generalize is always going to tick someone off.

From your comment one might be inclined to picture that Koreans add it into everything which they do no more or less than other countries that consume it.

You would have to specifically ask for this ingredient at a restaurant and it is only kept alive if it is prepared in a seafood restaurant specifically which they keep them alive and fresh to be consumed usually raw since its a bad idea to consume already dead raw fishes.

I guess what you wrote does a really great job of illustrating the subtle passive aggressive tones often used by journalists in the West to mock or bring their personal stereotype views of the world while virtue signaling, constantly thinking and telling others what a great, upright, outstanding set of moral upbringing you've had, will have as a result of the perceived quality of life you might be experiencing.

Following such mindset I can see why somebody in the West might be construed as uppity and condescending, they are not able to see at all the bubble that they've constructed not through actually perceiving things as they are but how it makes you FEEL informed, intelligent, morally superior being that you believe yourself you are.

Which really leaves to little debate as to what the PURPOSE of these articles are: They are specifically brought to light to make the reader believe they are morally upright descent human beings that the rest of the world simply isn't.

THE question to ask here is why is the population constantly subject to such reminders through mass media and why is there so much deliberate and urgency that can't be found in other parts of the world?

Does it strike you that what we lack is probably what we are taught to believe as it would not fit with the reality that has been constructed in this country?

I think it's interesting that there are comments even here that say something along the lines of "once I learned that the octopus is capable of thinking I stopped eating them (even though I eat other animals much higher up the evolutionary ladder)".

What it says to me is that some people stopped eating them because it was surprising that octopuses have a complex sensory response system, because they never thought about it. But it's not surprising that a cow does so they keep eating them.

> once I learned that the octopus is capable of thinking I stopped eating them (even though I eat other animals much higher up the evolutionary ladder)"

Yes and this is exactly the issue here, that people in the world are increasingly incapable of being grounded in principle, its whatever in that moment is trendy to believe, do etc., through group thinking. Social media does a great job of trust in large numbers.

And going back to the original parent comment, this is largely cultural is it not? We are simply using the ideas that arise from one culture to impose it on the other only to be disappointed.

> What it says to me is that some people stopped eating them because it was surprising that octopuses have a complex sensory response system, because they never thought about it. But it's not surprising that a cow does so they keep eating them.

It is insane to me that the people arguing octopus lives matter essentially, are not seeing the irony of their reaction, that they would continue to tolerate the farming of foods that they regularly consume (beef, chicken) but not under the same amount of vigor and without the same level of virtue signaling attached with such dangerous thought exercise.

The craziest take away is that literally people will stop doing a behavior that is inconsistent with their own values, as long as they are made to FEEL informed. If the documentary was mostly powerpoint slides it is NOT possible to FEEL because it does not try to pander or manipulate the emotions of the audience.

The sad matter of the fact is that being informed with facts that you have to weigh yourself and reach your own conclusion is too difficult, (boring even!) that the individual living in the so called "First World" CANNOT/MUST NOT be burdened with because they are too busy with whatever ephemeral activities they are engaged in at any given time.

Remember! Original Parent noted eating octopus NEVER bothered him UNTIL he saw a Netflix documentary. Or one can reduce this to an outsider: Individuals in the West are increasingly growing dependent on for-profit motivated organizations to think and judge for them. The more obfuscated and difficult it is to follow the cui bono chain, the increasingly emotional and tribal they become. ex) If YC startup selling imitation crustacean meat was behind the Octopus Lives Matter, one would immediately deduce there are biases and conflict of interest and such narrative would lose credibility. However, if the distance between whoever benefits and the narrative is wide and uncertain (multiple beneficiaries) it becomes increasingly credible (must be of good non-profit social cause) and resilient against Truths that challenge it. Often explanations that deviate from the narrative are labelled with hostility and written off as conspiracy...

and on HN, such contrary views are quickly downvoted and censored outright.

The growth in octopus consumption is being driven largely by the USA. It's super healthy so I see more middle / upper class Americans eating it. Years ago it was a rare delicacy, now I can walk into most poke bowl restaurants in SF and get octopus. Tapas restaurants have become trendy as well.

I think the only time I've had octopus was when I tried Takoyaki a few times in Japan & Thailand. But honestly I found the diced octopus meat chewy and boring. Not very interested in it. As for health benefits? I doubt it.

It probably depends on what you compare it to. Same caloric amount of 80/20 ground beef? Octopus is almost certainly healthier. Vegetables? Unlikely unless you're really in need of some omega-3s or something.

I'm sorry dude, but you're the only one here talking about us-vs-them and about Asia, the West or whatever.

The article is about a farm in Spain in a region well known for it's octopus dishes. Not everything has to be about geopolitical ideologies.

We’ve felt morally superior for ages over the whole whaling issue.