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Is it ethical to eat fish?
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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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Why do you think they do not apply?
Some reasons why I think they apply:
I eat fish so I am not playing the guilt game, they're just the ethical considerations I can think of.
Counterpoint: we really don't know how much self-awareness fish have versus the mammals that the OP seems to be referring to. Call it gross anthropocentrism, but most people respect the lives of non-humans in terms of intelligence. Pigs are pretty well understood to he intelligent and are probably conscious of what's going on around them. Some shrimp? Maybe not.
This doesn't really address the meta concerns w/r/t procurement in your comment, but if I had to choose between a plate of fish or a plate of pork, this would be my thought process.
We do know octopi, for example, can solve complex puzzles
Just to be the super-nerd, octopus is not a regular latin word.
I think it is actually a greek loan word in latin.
So the plural is either octopodes to follow the original greek or octopuses in regular english.
The correct plural is whatever word you say that people understand as meaning more than one octopus. That's how language works.
If enough people make a language mistake, it becomes a rule.
I mean I get your point and for all intents and purposes I don't even necessarily disagree.
I just wanted to add this little factoid, since I think using "octopi" instead of the at least equally as correct "octopuses" shows that one tries to follow the etymology of the word.
And if you try to do that, the etymologically correct plural is "octopodes".
Then again I hesitated even answering you, since I am by no means one of those weirdos that has a problem with language changing.
For all I care we can talk about octopussies and octopiarians or whatever, but as someone that had to learn latin as a child, the use of octopi just kind of itches my brain.
But it is all good, I get what you are saying and my first post was never meant as a negative critique of OP and more as a fun fact.
That's true, and a lot of westerners take issue with octopus as food
'Octopi', interestingly enough, is a result of people assuming that the word 'octopus' comes from Latin because it ends in -us, which would mean that the correct plural drops the 'us' and replaces it with an 'i'. But, trickily enough, it does not come from Latin; it comes from Greek. As a result, if you're trying to be super technical, the correct plural would instead replace the 'us' with 'odes'--octopodes.
Of course, almost nobody actually uses that term unless they're doing it for fun. The most commonly used, correct plurals for octopus are 'octopuses' and 'octopus'.
I hope you enjoy that little tidbit as much as I did when I learned it.
@ozymandias117 octopuses can also teach puzzlesolving to others and also display altruism.
They will also punch fish they hunt with if they are frustrated with them, which is hilarious.
@Chuymatt totally hilarious!
When I first saw footage of them hunt that way I thought it was an equal partnership like fish have with eels, but the punching makes it clear that's not how the octopus sees it.
They also are very good with olives and potatoes
The Octopuses solving puzzles is actually overblown a bit. I used to work in an aquarium and had to teach an octopus to open a jar to get its food out. They can do this, but they're not that smart so you need to break it into tiny steps. Even 'your food is inside the jar' was a difficult lesson.
@PP_BOY_ but more and more research is showing us that fish are smart.
E.g goldfish driving "cars" around in a room, the research on those fish that choose eels to hunt with and communicate via gesture, etc
It's not that they don't apply to us, it's that they don't apply to many vegetarian cultures. I remember a lesson in history class about how, when Buddhism arrived in Japan and preached against meat consumption, fish were so ingrained in Japanese diet they had a literal revolution to keep fish on the menu. Not just the stereotypical things like sushi, but I guess they like fish so much they'll eat dolphins (which their cuisine has always considered "fish"), which to me is equal in gravity to cannibalism, this coming from someone who doesn't necessarily like them. Because if an animal is mindful enough to engage in diplomacy, why the hell are we eating them?
Sometimes this "except you" attitude is also applied to insects, though that seems to be less culturally specific. If people need to for some reason reconcile vegetarianism with needing meat, I don't understand why they don't do the obvious thing and just separate meat of animals killed in cold blood from other meats.
Sushi as we know it is actually relatively modern. The Japanese made a few exceptions to vegetarianism mostly out of practicality. For example, birds were also not seen as animals.
Somewhat related to this, there was an emperor who died of beriberi because apparently all he ate was polished white rice.
I think this kind of example is interesting as it demonstrates how much of a person's values and ethics are determined by cultural factors.
I've always been fascinated by cuisine as a part of culture and your demonstrated overlap of cuisine and ethics is another fascinating aspect to ponder.