Octopus farming in the U.S. would be banned under a new bill in Congress | Hacker News Reader

Octopus farming in the U.S. would be banned under a new bill in Congress

npr.org

35 pointsgeox18 comments

> There are no current reports of plans for an industrial octopus farm in the U.S.

I heard of someone training Pacific Tree Octopi to pick cherries; but i don't suppose that's technically "industrial".

I think its referring to the farming of octopus not farming done by octopus.

I'd be surprised if they could get that to work. They're pretty proficient with apples as long as there's a catcher, and that's the primary goal, but cherries are small and no one wants slimy or bruised cherries.

tbh. given the high intelligence of Octopus and they capabilities to seemingly have quite "sentient" emotions do we really need to eat them as delicacy

(But also this argument is a losing one for most not vegetarians, because in difference to what is often believed both cows and pigs are also relative intelligent. Like if I remember correctly cows are roughly as intelligent as a 7 year old kid.)

> ... roughly as intelligent as a 7 year old kid.

Maybe a 7 month old, but surely not a 7 year old.

nop definitely not month at most I'm oft by one or two years in my memory, cows are really intelligent they just miss stuff like hands, or a more articulated language allowing them to better utilize their brain etc.

Sentience is a very low bar for animals

People often mean sapience when they say sentience

Sentience is irrelevant. Deliciousness is the only relevant metric. Being able to provide a quick, relatively painless death is a bonus but not a requirement.

That's what I say when I'm out hunting humans TBH

You do you, but disease vectors are much higher in your own species and as near as I can tell from the literature we taste like pork, so the risk seems unwise vs octopus that occupies a much more unique flavor and texture category.

“Scientists have proven octopuses are complex, intelligent creatures who can feel a full range of emotions,"

These animals get a lot of hype for their intelligence lately, but surely cows and horses are more intelligent, yet still farmed and eaten.

Sentience should not be the criteria for whether it is OK to farm an animal. Why do people still think it is?

What should be the criteria?

I don't know.

Sentience seems like a weak argument though. If in the far future we encounter aliens with superior intelligence, would that make it OK for them to farm us?

Well we have sentience, so it would be consistent if I accepted the sentience criteria and also answered "no" to this question. Maybe the issue is the concept of sentience is poorly defined. I think of it as synonymous with "having qualia", i.e., having subjective experiences.

Yours is my go-to thought experiment for why some arbitrary intelligence bar doesn't give us lease to eat animals. That and the even more obvious, can I eat really dumb people?

Likely smarter than most in Congress

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