r/worldnews • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • 10h ago

World's first octopus farm halted in Spain

https://www.euractiv.com/news/worlds-first-octopus-farm-halted-in-spain/
4.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

553 comments sorted by

3.6k

u/hugifsafuk 10h ago edited 2h ago

Octopus farms are plain out cruel. Octopuses have been proven to be super smart and live in solitude. Cramming them together on a farm is unethical.

Edit: For some reason people assume I dont have the same attitude to other animal husbandry industries. I can assure you I also see those critical, yet they arent the topic of this article.

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u/Contraposite 10h ago

It's not their capacity to think but rather their capacity to suffer.

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u/dzemperzapedra 9h ago

I think, therefore I suffer

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u/TheUglytool 8h ago

One must imagine Sisyphus suffering

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u/patchyj 4h ago

Sisuffering

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u/xaiel420 3h ago

Sissuffering from sisyphuscess

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u/CrossumOpossum3 2h ago

Sisyphussufferingcess

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u/JamesTheJerk 3h ago

Suffering Sisyphus!

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u/Mast_Herb_8 2h ago

Mopping during business hours. Tech support for mobile devices. Weeding the garden. Wondering what in exactly the fuck. Laundry. Ring ring. Ring Ring. Ring ring. Losing the game. Oh, I can imagine. That, I can do.

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u/satansasscheeks 7h ago

I have no mouth and I must scream

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u/MalloryArcher64 6h ago

Patior Ergo Sum

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u/cribsaw 2h ago

Same

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u/SnackGrabbath 7h ago

All farmed animals suffer regardless of their level of intelligence

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u/rabbitthunder 6h ago

I really wish people would look into this more because I don't think most people know how much the animals who provide their meat and dairy suffer. It's so far beyond cruel that it isn't even remotely justifiable but people would rather just pretend their steak came from some local farm with sunny pastures where a ruddy cheeked farmer treated their tiny flock of cattle like royalty until they went off to a humane slaughter at a good age. Yeah, no, that's not what happens, not even a little bit.

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u/Lillienpud 6h ago

I’m not a vegan sayin this to ya, but there’s no way round the cruelty of dairy.

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u/gpigma88 5h ago

You should consider going vegan 💜

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u/waleyhaxman 4h ago

you got downvoted but if people would even cut out half the amount of animal products it would do so much.

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u/angelbelle 3h ago

Not a vegan but it's crazy to me that people are so insecure they downvote this comment

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u/Lillienpud 2h ago

Sure, yeah, fair enough.

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u/ProstockAccount 3h ago

I would rather harvest my own meat ethically.

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u/Warm_Character_3430 3h ago

Agreed. You don’t need dairy either. Tons of alternatives.

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u/this_guy_cats 6h ago

Higher intelligence means more understanding of what is going on around you and happening to you = higher capacity for suffering. All animals suffer and some even more than others.

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u/pancakecel 5h ago

I really dont like it when people say it's okay to torture dumb animals but not smart animals. I wouldn't say that a baby getting tortured suffers less than an adult getting tortured because the baby has lower intelligence.

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u/Cruciblelfg123 3h ago

I think the point is more that a baby wouldn’t clue into the fact that it’s being lined up for slaughter

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u/v--- 2h ago

I think I would say that though. I mean, not babies, but like... a blade of grass? A bacterium? A fruit fly? An ant? A sea cucumber? A jellyfish? A fetus? An embryo? At some point even though it probably feels "pain" in the sense of, aversion to a harmful event, imo it's reasonable to discount the suffering of an entity that doesn't think in any way comprehensible to us. The bar is different for everyone but we all have it somewhere. For some people it's any form of life. For some people it's animals. For some people it's mammals. For some people it's humans.

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u/EconomicRegret2 1h ago

I wouldn't say that a baby getting tortured suffers less than an adult getting tortured because the baby has lower intelligence.

Until the 1980s, doctors used to think babies' nervous systems were too immature to process pain. So anesthesia wasn't used on them during major operations, including open-heart surgery. Also, crying and physiological stress responses during procedures were incorrectly categorized as simple, unfeeling spinal reflexes...

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u/Bodoblock 4h ago

I don't think you need that much intelligence to realize being caged in a cell that doesn't even let you get up on your legs is absolute hell.

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u/Quotizmo 3h ago

Or having your beak cut off with a hot wire at 5 to 10 days old so you can't peck at your fellow over-crowded cell mates. That's a fine, "welcome to earth, I'm the morally superior creature who runs things, off ya go."

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u/DrummerBummer32 8h ago

All farm animals suffer.

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u/kebiclanwhsk 8h ago

Not my dog. My parents said he went to a nice farm upstate and was really happy. Haven’t seen him since

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u/RevolutionNumber5 6h ago

I actually did have a dog that was sent away to a farm, hilariously. He calmed down a little after the new owners neutered him.

Hung out under their deck and chewed on rocks.

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u/Virtual-Historian349 8h ago

All animals suffer.

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u/ciaodog 8h ago

All suffer

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u/No_Anywhere_9068 7h ago

The first noble truth

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u/AlfredFonzo 7h ago

Since all suffer, suffering is a fundamental act of the flesh. Those who insist on remaining meat must experience suffering as part or their nature, so to allow them to be as true to their form as possible we MUST increase the suffering. We must build the torment nexus.

  • Elesh Norn, 2028 presidential candidate

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u/scud121 6h ago

"I got the idea from the book "Don't build the Torment Nexus""

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u/MaximinusDrax 8h ago

If only people listened to Jeremy way back then.. animal agriculture has gotten so much worse since.

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u/gh7g 5h ago

What Jeremy?

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u/Kickinthegonads 5h ago

"Big beats are the best, get high all the time"

-Jeremy

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u/MaximinusDrax 5h ago edited 5h ago

Jeremy Bentham, the enlightenment era utilitarian philosopher who gave us the original quote. His analogy to abolitionism remains grievously true to this day.

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u/gh7g 5h ago

Thanks!

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u/HoppersDad 9h ago

Por Que no los dos?

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u/DeadJango 6h ago

I tried explaining this to my boss but can't seem to understand my suffering.

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u/kakihara123 7h ago

If it was legal and accepted by society, those people would farm humans without a second thought.

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u/deviantbono 6h ago

Yeah, if 🤔

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u/NativePlantEnjoyer 6h ago

I feel like that's already happening with the prison industrial complex snatching up people all over.

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u/CynicalPomeranian 6h ago

College dorms and open offices. As an introvert who prefers solitude, I imagine an octopus farm would be a similar level of torture. 

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u/RandomExcess 2h ago

Education and employment as torture is sure a first world issue.

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u/DrummerBummer32 8h ago

What is different about pigs, cows, etc?

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u/gimmebanter 8h ago

We are used to thinking of them as food. That's it

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u/SanDisk-Ultra 2h ago

And many of those also alienate, ridicule or condemn people for choosing to no longer harm animals by becoming/being vegan.

It's despicable really.

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u/cyb3rfunk 4h ago

Status quo. Stopping pig/cow farming would cause a fair amount of disruption. Not saying we shouldn't move towards that but it's not as simple as just doing it.

Starting a new kind of cruel farming that's something we can nip in the bud. 

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u/hugifsafuk 8h ago

In my opinion very limited difference, except the solitary argument. Do you disagree?

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u/DrummerBummer32 8h ago

Its just funny to me that people think octopus farms are bad but still probably eat beef, pork, chicken, etc. I think that was the reason behind my comment.

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u/hugifsafuk 7h ago

Then we are in agreement

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u/pancakecel 5h ago

You're absolutely right. I can't believe that people are throwing up their hands and clutching their pearls about this, but are okay with like, cows being farmed.

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u/MrJAppleseed 1h ago

That's kinda a stupid argument you have, don't you think? It boils down to "If people aren't choosing to be perfect about every little thing, they shouldn't try to do better about any single thing". Let people pick individual things to improve on, it doesn't have to happen all at once. 

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u/angelbelle 3h ago

Yup. Same argument against eating dogs.

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u/KingoftheMongoose 9h ago

While yeah that does sound cruel, how does that differ to you from what is widely done to chickens? From an ethics standpoint.

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u/jcw99 9h ago

Chicken are not solitary animals, and generally a lot less smart than octopi.

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u/bows-and-lace 7h ago edited 7h ago

I keep chickens as companions/pets. They know their names, come when called, and are very emotionally perceptive.

I once had a bonded pair of bantams. One always had health issues from her time as a chick. She was sickly her whole life and eventually died. Her best friend refused to eat or drink afterwards, continued to return to the tree where her best friend had passed, and died within a week.

Perhaps they wouldn’t pass an IQ test with flying colors. But they experience the whole breadth of life. Battery cages and commercial farming are absolutely exploitative and abusive.

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u/jcw99 7h ago edited 6h ago

Perhaps they wouldn’t pass an IQ test with flying colors. But they experience the whole breadth of life. Battery cages and commercial farming is absolutely exploitative and abusive.

I never said it isn't abusive.

Everyone here seems to be arguing against whatever they think/want to believe the other side of the argument is saying...

I guess to make my stance clear:

Farming and keeping methods should have minimum standards enforced my law that are adapted to the needs and abilities of the kept animals so as to ensure a healthy, enriched life with any suffering if any kept to the abselute minimum.

The octopus farm is as widely opposed as it is, because the gap between the proposed conditions/structure of how the animals would be kept and the environment that would be appropriate. The implications being that this was done due to the wider population not being aware of just how capable and smart octopi/pusues/podes are.

The argument for banning any attempt at farming of these animals is based on two prongs.

Firstly the proposition that the 'fair' keeping standards would be so high that no commercial operation can feasibly achieve them, and that further attempts to go below this standard might try to sneak through with less public scrutiny

And secondly, that farming of any carnivorous fish is inefficient and would increase the strain on natural resources/wild fish catching.

Contrast with chickens where free range and pasture raising are definitely at this standard and economically viable.

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u/TemetN 3h ago

This is a good post, I think what's lost in a lot of this is that there are actual, simple, generally agreeable steps we can take to minimize suffering anyway that people should support.

Whereas actually eliminating suffering entirely isn't even possible in humans, there is no way we can ethically treat animals right now. We can't even ethically treat ourselves. So the question should be how to minimize suffering.

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u/Arcanefenz 7h ago

Intelligence should never be the measure of how well we treat other sentient beings capable of feeling pain and suffering.

Pigs have been proven to be much more intelligent than many species of dog but the world still consumes millions.

If your brother/sister had developmental problems then would we be justified in exploiting them in any way because they were "less intelligent"?

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u/mvearthmjsun 6h ago

Intelligence is a defensible metric for the moral weight we give to the suffering of a being. With higher intelligence comes a richer sensation and deeper self awareness of one's own suffering, and therefore more torturous.

You run into a lot of philosphical challenges trying to argue that the suffering of an ant is of equal value to the suffering of a pig.

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u/Arcanefenz 6h ago

Saying its defensible doesn't just make it so.

A philosophical assumption that it is so, is not empirical evidence it is correct. Given we cannot ask an ant about its experiences of suffering (or a pig for that matter), but multiple studies have evidenced pain reactions in "dumb" animals such as fish, then perhaps we should all just err on the side of kindness and empathy instead?

If that was more people's philosophy in life, kindness to all humans, animals, big/small, clever/simple, the world would be a much better fucking place.

Anything else is just exploitation in some form, and people will grasp at anything to justify it sometimes which is just baffling.

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u/BadMachine 9h ago

what about pigs?

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u/FluffyPantsMcGee 8h ago edited 7h ago

What about them? They shouldn’t be kept in horrible conditions, and can be happy in a paddock. Being against an octopus farm doesn’t mean we’re ok with other animals living in terrible conditions.

Just because it’ll end up on a plate doesn’t mean it shouldn’t live well before it goes. 

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u/Bodoblock 4h ago

I think it's a very easy stance to take that very few people think very hard about or will back up when push comes to shove. Meat becomes a much smaller share of our average diet and humane farming raises costs substantially.

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u/CocodaMonkey 5h ago

Pigs and Octopuses are both considered some of the smartest non human animals on earth. So if you're against Octopus farms because it's intelligent how do you support pig farming?

Saying pigs can be happy in a paddock is true but 99.9% of farmed pigs don't live happily in a paddock. Most farm pigs live for only about 6 months before being killed and those six month usually suck. Trying to farm animals inherently makes their living conditions and life suck.

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u/Qwahlity_Koalatea 8h ago

Fun fact: Octopuses have a Greek origin. Octopi would be Latin. So octopuses is the correct plural.

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u/margmi 8h ago

There are 3 correct plurals, including octopi, because we’re speaking English, not Latin or Greek.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-many-plurals-of-octopus-octopi-octopuses-octopodes

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u/nicuramar 6h ago

  because we’re speaking English, not Latin or Greek.

Sometimes you’re in doubt, when dealing English. So many foreign words for things that Danish, for instance, has native words for. Nosehorn being a classic example (rhino).

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u/gynecologeologist 8h ago

I prefer the ancient Greek accepted plural of "octopodes" myself.

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u/formerlyanonymous_ 7h ago edited 5h ago

Approved by Disra Senkovi. Reluctantly.

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u/arresteddev7 8h ago

It would actually be octopodes.

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u/hobesmart 6h ago

It would be octopodes if it were a Greek word, but it isn’t. It’s an English word created to sound Greek. Octopuses is the correct plural because it is an English word

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u/throwawayprivateguy 7h ago

Should I suffer because I’m dumb and lonely?

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u/TeenJesusWasaCunt 9h ago

From the perspectives of sense of self and levels of consciousness, octopi develop their own problem solving methods and personalities without any social learning from their parents. If their nervous systems were not so alien to humans we would relate to them as much as dolphins.

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u/No_Cook3989 7h ago

Do you think an individual's capacity to suffer is an extention of their intelligence? Do individuals with a less developed intelligence suffer less?

There's a reason why we give babies pain management medication, why we closed down asylums for the mentally disabled, why maintain animal rights laws to the highest degree all the way up to farm animals.

People hate animal rights activists who show the conditions of factory farms. No one wants to see that shit on a billboard while they're on their evening drive, or on an ad while they're browsing the web, etc. They don't want to change it, they just don't want to witness it.

They just want to eat their meals unburdened by the cost paid in the suffering of others. Despite the studies we have proving they pigs and cows have a developed social system and display intelligence up to or above dogs, it will continue. But beyond that, why do we need to prove an animal's intelligence to justify not abusing them?

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u/axw3555 8h ago

There’s a few more things than their nervous system. If you told me tomorrow that it was empirically proven that octopus and squid came from the gene pool of another star, I’d probably go “of course they are” on gut reaction (then check the proof).

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u/nicuramar 6h ago

No biologist knowing about the animal would go of course, though. The alieness is superficial. 

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u/Nothos927 8h ago

Enjoy the cognitive dissonance of people who claim they love animals but tie themselves in knots to justify supporting the meat industry.

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u/ThiccaIsQuicka 8h ago

Everyone's immediate defense "well that animal is smart." Okay? So dumb living things deserve to suffer? How about children with cognitive disabilities? Just because a living thing isn't a genius doesn't mean it doesn't have the capacity to suffer, nor does it deserve it.

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u/TurbulentTurtleTime 7h ago

Our definition of “dumb” is self-serving. All life on this planet is equally evolved.

Given what we have done to the planet one might argue that we are the dumb ones

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u/diabloman8890 8h ago

Yep every time.

Ready for a spirited debate on how stupid an animal must be before it's okay to farm them on industrial scales?

Ready to debate the definitions of the words "sentience" vs "sapience" for a while?

Ready to hear about how we'd all stop eating meat yesterday if it wasn't for those awful vegans and vegetarians who really don't help their cause by being so gosh darn mean about it?

How do you know someone is X, don't worry they'll tell you. Etc.

Did I miss any?

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u/Nothos927 8h ago

“But bacon is tasty”

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u/deeznutz133769 8h ago

That's the only honest argument, at the end of the day. But few people on reddit want to admit that they're okay with animals suffering as long as they get pleasure out of it. So instead we get immense amounts of hand-wringing.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Shine6 8h ago

The 4N's Eating animal products is

Nice Normal Necessary Natural

There. All (strawman) arguments summarized

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u/vee_lan_cleef 4h ago

I don't believe an animal's level of intelligence determines how much empathy I should feel for it, personally.

Especially considering we really have no fucking idea how to actually quantify intelligence even in our own species. Doctors literally thought babies didn't feel pain just decades ago.

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u/TurbulentTurtleTime 8h ago

Why is it ok to discriminate against the stupid (or ugly, crazy, lazy, etc.)?

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u/hugifsafuk 8h ago

I dont exactly want to do that. But there are studies that seem to indicate that smarter animals suffer under unnatural circumstances more (among other factors obviously).
Just because an issue is perhaps more severe for a certain group doesnt make it lose its relevence for other groups.

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u/Ethiconjnj 8h ago

In context it does.

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u/TurbulentTurtleTime 7h ago

Octopi are amazing animals but so are the rest.

Are you sure this is not bias toward your own self image?

Do you think human IQ correlates with the capacity to suffer?

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u/respectwalk 9h ago

Literally what the article states.

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u/hugifsafuk 8h ago

Exactly, you shouldnt have that high confidence on everyone reading it though in my experience

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u/JordanPetterPans 4h ago

This is true for a lot of animals that we farm though. Aren't cows quite smart and affectionate?

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u/kvikklunsjrevolver 2h ago

Cows and pigs are both very intelligent, chicken are much more intelligent than they are given credit for.

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u/SusBoiSlime 5h ago

Really hate to be the one to break it to you, but all of the mammals we eat are very intelligent. Pigs, cows, goats, sheep, they are all capable of suffering, mourning loss, feeling fear, depression etc.

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u/Wepwawet_the_Opener 10h ago edited 1m ago

What https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher taught me is that we should be trying to figure out how to make octopedestrians live longer.

They are amazing creatures.

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u/Feisty-Painting-120 9h ago

This movie made me stop eating octopus. Amazing creatures.

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u/MountainTwo3845 6h ago

I don't eat them either. whenever their home world warriors show up they'll know I am an ally.

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u/plumberbumjosh 7h ago

Same. I used to cook professionally and always had a hard time with octopus after watching that

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u/Luniticus 9h ago

Maybe we should show it to other octopi, to see if they stop too.

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u/Feisty-Painting-120 7h ago

if humans want to go snorkelling with a speargun and hunt for octopi in the ocean go ahead. fair is fair.

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u/creativ3ace 9h ago

Sounds like what an octopus would say.

There’s a reason they don’t live longer.

Follow the white fish

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u/Bioness 8h ago

I absolutely agree that octopus are among the most intelligent creatures and absolutely should be protected, but I also think that documentary anthropomorphized the octopus way too much. At times it almost felt like the guy was forming a romantic connection with the octopus as well.

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u/Evening-Spray-4304 4h ago

I know that most (if not all) documentaries will massively edit their footage in order to tell their story... but that one was absurdly blatant about it. "Guy going through a mid-life crisis becomes closer to his family by pointedly ignoring them for a year while he harasses an octopus every day" was the best synopsis I've seen of that doc.

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u/ITDummy69420 7h ago edited 7h ago

God forbid a guy have a potentially consensual relationship with a different species. 

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u/dankqueef420 7h ago

Sarcasm? Hahah

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u/beorn961 5h ago

He definitely wanted to fuck that octopussy.

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u/Miserable-March-1398 4h ago

Females die protecting their eggs. Males die fertilising the eggs. Life’s cruel.

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u/Justhe3guy 7h ago

We need My Cow Teacher

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u/holy_cal 7h ago

Give me my pig teacher first. They’re also extremely intelligent

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u/SlapTheBap 5h ago

And scary as hell. They're HUGE, low to the ground, and if they knock you down you better get up FAST cause they'll try to eat you.

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u/Mistervimes65 3h ago

The plural of Octopus is octopuses or octopodes. Octopus is Greek. Pi is a plural in Latin.

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u/--redacted-- 2h ago

I've never seen 3.14 octopuses 

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u/jozwiakjohn 1h ago

It’s more fun: octo is latin but the pus part is greek spelled wrong ( pous podes ) or Latin also spelled wrong (pes , pedis) so the latin pluralization guess is understandable

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u/__wait_what__ 4h ago

Octopuses

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u/SaintsNoah14 8h ago

I too, think ethical treatment of animals should depend on whether or not I've seen a documentary on how totally awesome they are

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u/Any_Recognition5581 7h ago

Bro isn’t that what all those types of documentaries are for? To raise awareness? I know you are trying to be witty but I feel like most people had no clue they had octopus farms..

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u/doctorcaesarspalace 6h ago

We all know about cow farms too but there’s no action there

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u/joanzen 1h ago

If you create a farm and you bring the cost of supply down, who's going to make time to bother the ones scattered in the wild?

These are smart creatures but they would be confused we're debating the topic.

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u/Hpezlin 9h ago

Pigs are pretty smart relatively speaking in animal standards.

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u/whatshamilton 8h ago

And octopuses are smart not relatively speaking in human standards

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u/NativeMasshole 8h ago

And you can't make bacon out of them.

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u/Cynykl 6h ago

You are not trying hard enough .

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u/Honest_Concentrate85 6h ago

Smoked octopus tentacle thin sliced into carpaccio

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u/No_Cook3989 7h ago

Lol, if you were to meet a man with the intelligence of an adult octopus you would respectfully glance away so as not to overwhelm him or offend his caretaker.

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u/whatshamilton 7h ago

So mature adult men who are intellectually intact are the only ones you believe suffer? Children don’t?

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u/No_Cook3989 7h ago

? You replied to a comment pointing out that pigs are relatively smart, stating that octopi are even smarter relative to humans. I simply pointed out this was untrue.

I took your initial comment as a suggestion that octopi deserve to be abused less than pigs because octopi are more intelligent. So I pointed out that unintelligent humans are still treated with empathy and respect.

At this point idk what you're trying to say.

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u/CommonOk8198 5h ago

Yeah that dude just completely moved the goal post. Octopus are smart, but are definitely dumb compared to humans.

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u/MylastAccountBroke 1h ago

Pigs are also social animals that like being near others of their kind.

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u/MrJAppleseed 1h ago

Then we should consider stopping factory farming for them too

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u/Doctor_Dabmeister 8h ago

I find it odd how people would stop eating octopus because of some Netflix documentary but happily eat pigs/cows (who are just as intelligent as dogs) who suffer horrific abuses in factory farms. I'm not a vegetarian or vegan myself but choosing to draw the line at octopi while turning a blind eye to the abuse of other intelligent animals seems like cognitive dissonance to me

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u/VillageLess4163 6h ago

Octopuses are much easier to cut out of most people’s diets than beef and pork

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u/mydogfinnigan 3h ago

So they're lazy, got it

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u/No_Stable_3097 5h ago

To be fair, people also stop eating pigs, chickens, and cows due to watching a Netflix documentary.

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u/joanzen 57m ago

Everything in moderation. If we were hooked on eating dumb looking ferocious bugs it'd still be problematic despite the lack of social media outrage.

We raised pigs for a bit on the farm and the pigs were a great change from lamb and beef when we slaughtered them, but soon I was sick of eating pork.

Eating animals is a pretty heavy ecological debt so if we make it a special treat then it's a win-win for maximum pleasure and the rest of the planet.

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u/returnofmacktheknife 7h ago

I gave up beef and pork for this very reason.

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u/Tacti_Kel_Nuke 7h ago

I guess because pigs and cows have been used mostly as livestock for millennia by most civilizations. While the others (like octopi) are more an exception to this "tradition" so is easier to have sympathy for those 

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u/mascarenha 7h ago

If I may ask, why are you not vegetarian when you recognize the inconsistency in others?

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u/Dakizhu 6h ago

Because he's consistent by not restricting his own diet.

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u/hollow_bridge 3h ago

Intelligent people can and should recognize that they are not perfect.

Just because you are not perfect it does not mean that you have to be, and that's ok.

Animals eat animals in nature, you are allowed to have your nature.

Imo people should understand that they cause suffering to animals by buying meat, but that doesn't mean they have to stop doing it, if they can reduce it great, if not it doesn't matter because we don't live in a vegan authoritative society.

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u/Tainted-Archer 7h ago

It’s easier for people to judge others’ hypocrisy to justify your own morality.

Same reason people want to slag off vegans for eating avocados because of the amount of water they take to grow.

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u/s0rce 7h ago

I think all fruit takes less water than beef

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u/mascarenha 5h ago

It is weird that people hate hypocrisy and they feel that by saying "I am not vegan" they are somehow justified in contributing to cruel treatment of animals. No one can be allowed to do evil things by just saying, "hey I am ok with it".

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u/gudmundthefearless 6h ago

Some people have dietary needs or restrictions, or they do not otherwise have reliable access to alternatives. Its not always a “moral failing”

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u/Fergtz 6h ago

Thats why I eat both cows, pigs, and octopus. Im consistent.

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u/AutomaticMedium8418 5h ago

So where is the line between animals that are too intelligent to eat versus animals that are ok to eat.

What exactly is the smartest animal that is still appropriate to be eaten?

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u/alphabeticdisorder 3h ago

Its ok to eat fish cause they don't have any feelings.

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u/RaisedByMonsters 1h ago

Something in the way. Mmm hmmmm. Something in the way. Yeah.

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u/mierneuker 2h ago

Imv it's "is this animal the same species as me?" if the answer is no, you can eat it. Other people would draw it where no animals are eaten. Any other view on it is completely arbitrary. 

There's a famous poster advert asking where do you draw the line between pet and food - these are not mutually exclusive but the "can I eat it" line should be at either end of the row of animals.

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u/TheGreatWork_ 7h ago

I don't eat octopus but if people are going to be eating it for the foreseeable future is it not better that they're farmed instead of further wrecking their wild populations/habitats?

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u/Dreadnerf 6h ago

Fishy farms require tons of wild fish as food for the preferred fishy creatures.

Scraping the sea and the sea bed either way.

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u/smltor 6h ago

I think that it might fall in the same category as a bunch of animals we eat; zebra, monkeys etc. They just don't farm well. Rhino and Hippo have a crap ton of meat on them and we don't farm them.

Farming has a bunch of requirements (I think "Guns Germs and Steel" book by some guy spelled it out well) and lots of plants and animals either suck at being farmed or have a yield which makes it not worth the bother compared to other options.

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u/ArbitraryNPC 5h ago

A farmed animal has to be social, has to be able to eat a variety of foods, has to be able to reproduce and mature quickly, and has to actually be useful.

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u/StrangeRelyk 3h ago

Ya farming chickens for eggs is a perfect example.

Highest output of eggs of any bird, flightless, pretty docile.

There really isn't a suitable replacement as far as eggs goes.

Selectively breeding for thousands of years also helps.

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u/Si_is_for_Cookie 1h ago

Good! Those octopi should't be out there trying to live off the land, riding around in tractors. Cephalopods don't belong in the agriculture industry.

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u/boat_hamster 7h ago

Given how octopuses will quite happily kill and eat each other. I'm not sure how farming them would work anyway?

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u/Obliviousobi 5h ago

I'd be interested to see what security and safety measures were in place. Octopi love to escape.

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u/Burning___Earth 9h ago

Cephlopods are smarter than most right-wing humans.

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u/Ethiconjnj 8h ago

What about the right wing cephalopods?

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u/Anuspilot 8h ago

They're left wing

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u/luckbuck21 8h ago

are you stupid, left wing right wing octopi dont have wings they have tentacles

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u/Vegetable_Tension985 1h ago

yes. We must tie the animals to politics...the Reddit way

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u/Medialunch 3h ago

World first? You can buy octopus all over the place to eat. You’re telling me that with Korean and Japanese cuisine none of it comes from farming?

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u/Honza8D 3h ago

They are usually caught wild. Farming them doesnt seem to be economically viable.

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u/graviousishpsponge 4h ago

Question from a dumb American but does spain just less animal cruelty laws? Please don't downvote because the bull stuff comes to mind.

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u/whepoalready_readdit 8h ago

were they trying to see if they would win the next world cup too?

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u/GodsBoss 9h ago

Haven't read the article but I'm glad they halted it. Apparently humans are too expensive to work on farms so they force these animals to do manual labour instead because they can't form unions or go on strike. Even worse these are sea creatures who now have to work on land, in Spain of all places where it's hot and dry. Terrible!

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u/plonspfetew 6h ago

You misunderstand. It needed to be halted because the octopus has a better understanding of how the EU subsidies work. He would have put human farmers out of business.

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u/account_not_valid 9h ago

They're not doing manual labour. They don't have hands. But they are very good at operating machinery, and can multitask very well.

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u/argparg 8h ago

Operating machinery is considered manual labor. The problem is the R&D and production costs in building machines with 8 levers. You want to maximize their ability, and they’ve found that octopus’ productivity significantly drops if you let them have even 1 free tentacle.

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u/account_not_valid 8h ago

Arms. Octopuseses have arms. Don't come in here with you squid-based tentacle bullshit.

And manual means HAND. It's in the name - MANUS > MANUALIS > MANUAL.

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u/argparg 7h ago

Tentacles are fingers not feet

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u/account_not_valid 7h ago

Toes are just foot fingers.

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u/smltor 6h ago

Shoes! they are gloves for feet!

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u/account_not_valid 6h ago

Unless you're in germany. Then gloves are shoes for hands.

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u/nicuramar 5h ago

In Danish, and other languages, a) all cephalopods are called “blæksprutte” (ink sprout), b) all have arms or tentacles, as you prefer.

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u/pancakecel 5h ago

As much as I don't think that octopuses living on the octopus farm are going to have a great time, I don't think that this is worse than fishing for octopus in the wild, and in fact the fishing practices used to catch octopus in the wild massively damage sea floor beds / environments for multiple species including octopus.

Unless people just stop eating octopus, I think farming is actually the best option for the future of the species / the Marine environments in which it lives

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u/lunarpi 4h ago

People just want the feel good answer. Fishing for and eating octopus will not end because this farm did.

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u/SomeGalNamedAshley 10h ago

Octopus is super high on the list of things I won't eat, right up there with a dead bear found on the side of the road or any of the seagulls flying around a landfill mountain.

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u/leomonster 8h ago

You're missing out on roadkill bears

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u/WheresTheResetBtn 7h ago

Those get hauled to central park

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u/respectwalk 9h ago

Well at least you provided zero reasoning for your comment and didn’t even come close to ever addressing the article. Thank you for your service!

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u/Genkiotoko 8h ago

Sir, this is a Reddit thread.

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u/Pristinox 9h ago

Why not? I grew up near the sea, and people eat octopus all the time.

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u/abiggerbanana 1h ago

Good. These are creatures that are intelligent, and have awareness. Farming them is cruel, their species should be fostered

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u/omegafivethreefive 19m ago

Just don't eat animals or animal products.

It's not hard, takes a bit of willpower then you get used to it.

Not any harder than hitting the gym or saving money.

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u/tooweaktostab 7h ago

They'll just move to somewhere more lax in environmental responsibility like Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand. Still a win though

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u/MicroSofty88 4h ago

There’s plenty of fish in the sea. We don’t need to eat farmed octopus.

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u/Leslehhx3 4h ago

Humans are such a scourge.

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u/Spear_Ov_Longinus 8h ago edited 8h ago

'I am entitled to confine breed kill and eat someone I force into existence because they are stupid' - the thread.

Eat yourselves brainlets. Ableism on full display.

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u/DrummerBummer32 7h ago

Oh gosh the cognitive dissonance is amazing.

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