Philosophical Questions: Intelligence

[ysabetwordsmith]

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

I'm dropping in a different topic today. Recently I posted an article and a video about a cow performing versatile tool use.  It turns out that cows also have prehensile tongues, and having a manipulatory appendage correlates with both tool use and intelligence.  Does this information change how you feel about cows?  How they should be treated?  Your choices to use cow products such as milk, meat, and/or leather?  Why or why not?  Discuss.

Comments

Well...

[dialecticdreamer]

My initial reaction is overwhelming relief that I've largely cut beef out of my diet. (The exception is a pack of cheapo hotdogs for nostalgia reasons less than once per year, and that may become once every two years soon.)

I cut octopodes from my diet more than a decade ago (close to two), when their intelligence and tool use was first coming to general attention. Because the food wasn't as regularly on my plate, there's no lingering memory of the taste, and it was dead easy to substitute a different seafood in dishes where the octopus was traditional. No, it's not authentic, but I also care not at all about that.

Cows using a flexible appendage for manipulating a tool is EXACTLY the idea brought the octopus research to my attention in a sustained way. I'd posit that the animals share key factors with human thinking because of that tool use, but in different ways than mammals with near-hand appendages, or crows.

Which shatters, burns, and buries the ashes of the theory that "humans are the only species which uses tools." I haven't even LISTED all of the animals that should have been included!

If tool use is a criteria for near-human intelligence, then we are at the dawn of a whole different comparison between humans and another species that we are supposed to share the planet with.

The odds of the cattle industry changing in response to this study (or a thousand more like it) are vanishingly small.

But, just because there is beef in the grocery store, I don't have to buy it. That's the decision that every individual has to make.

That decision won't be made in a vacuum.

Pricing NOW is pushing beef into the range of "luxury goods" for many families. That's only going to get worse as the consumer interest decreases, accelerating the shift away from beef in favor of smaller, more sustainably raised food animals. (Chicken and, for those with no religious restrictions, pork.)

Land use to raise cattle is also expensive, adding to the price per pound at the grocery. It's even more obvious in restaurants.

But, it's NOT going to keep people from eating beef. (That's without taking into account a religion which specifically promotes beef centrally in the diet, and which says that vegetarianism and veganism are "unhealthy".)

If I could wave a wand and change American laws to suit me on the matter... I'd make laws enforcing the best quality of life and goo nutrition for the animals. That's it. I can't bring myself to legislate someone else's dietary choices.

Even if I dislike the choice, animals do not have EQUAL rights to humans, which means that mitigating the harm done is the best of a bad lot of choices.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> My initial reaction is overwhelming relief that I've largely cut beef out of my diet. <<

That makes sense.

>> If tool use is a criteria for near-human intelligence, then we are at the dawn of a whole different comparison between humans and another species that we are supposed to share the planet with.<<

We can hope.

>>The odds of the cattle industry changing in response to this study (or a thousand more like it) are vanishingly small.<<

Directly, sure. But that industry depends entirely on consumers. If they make different choices, then other people will quit raising cows and go find some other way to make money. The dairy industry is already shrinking, partly due to people choosing plant milks over cow milk.

>>Pricing NOW is pushing beef into the range of "luxury goods" for many families. That's only going to get worse as the consumer interest decreases, accelerating the shift away from beef in favor of smaller, more sustainably raised food animals.<<

That's true. I'd like to see rabbit used more. I'm also seeing more interest in eating cuy, a larger meat breed of guinea pig.

>>I can't bring myself to legislate someone else's dietary choices.<<

That's good, because people have many different needs.

Re: Well...

[dialecticdreamer]

I'd like to see nutria and alligator move farther and farther from the bayous as middle class cuisine choices, rather than being treated the way that rabbit and pigeon were (poor food), in lieu of restaurants taking REAL poor food like oxtails and charging exorbitant prices for them.

The plating is NOT more important than the actual recipe, yet it has a disproportionate influence on pricing.

On the vegan side, I'd like to see more done with seaweed as a daily condiment, rather than "strictly Asian" marketing and recipes.

I would LOVE to see sustainably raised NUTS come down below prime rib cost per pound. NOT nut milks, but the actual nuts. Finding more UNSALTED if roasted and straight up RAW nuts would be lovely, too.

One factor DRIVING the nut milk and plant milk industry is that they get so MUCH MORE product per pound of raw nuts (or raw oats, etc.) that the profit margins are practically four lane freeways.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I'd like to see nutria and alligator move farther and farther from the bayous as middle class cuisine choices, <<

Agreed. I love alligator, but it's expensive this far north. It tastes nothing like chicken, but quite similar to frog which I also enjoy.

>> restaurants taking REAL poor food like oxtails and charging exorbitant prices for them. <<

Yeah, that's a problem.

On the vegan side, I'd like to see more done with seaweed as a daily condiment, rather than "strictly Asian" marketing and recipes.

Well ... I like nori. The one time I saw seaweed salad at an Asian buffet, I tried it, but it was inedibly salty. :( I'd like to try the seaweed-based rice seasoning, but every version I've seen was plastered with warnings about lead and mercury. The problem with seaweed is that the oceans are now so filthy that many foods from them are no longer safe to eat.

>>I would LOVE to see sustainably raised NUTS come down below prime rib cost per pound. NOT nut milks, but the actual nuts. Finding more UNSALTED if roasted and straight up RAW nuts would be lovely, too.<<

Agreed. Raw ones are often available at health food stores.

>>One factor DRIVING the nut milk and plant milk industry is that they get so MUCH MORE product per pound of raw nuts (or raw oats, etc.) that the profit margins are practically four lane freeways.<<

That's true.

Re: Well...

[dialecticdreamer]

Around here, the same product, in the same packaging, is 20-30% MORE when sold in a health food store. Bob's Red Mill oatmeal springs to mind as an egregious example. I can't afford to spend almost $9 per lb. for rolled oats!

So, price is THE factor when I'm trying to make a small improvement to my diet. Local availability is more about the price, so the question not "Is this sold near me?" but "Is this sold near me at a price that I can afford?"

One thing driving the decline of organ meats on American tables is exactly the same kind of effects from environmental pollution. In addition, NOT selling organs for human consumption, but shifting it into the stream for pet food manufacture, hides the climbing levels of mercury and other trace metals, in particular, in stockyard animals which SHOULD NOT be facing the problem.

Have eggs come down to anything even CLOSE to the prices before that massive cull and shortages?

Re: Well...

[thenorthener2050]

"I'd posit that the animals share key factors with human thinking"

check out "ett liv blir till" by lennart nilsson

when we are in utero we at one stage look like pigs

so we have evolved from them, the monkey theory is a hoax

we have 1 single gene from monkeys and it is the blood group variation rh+

for rh- they are not rhesus monkeys in any ways

all africans know we arent monkey as well talk to 1 and youll see

and they know of 1000 of lands beyond the ice wall

[thenorthener2050]

the reason europeans have beige skin is because 1 single person got a gene to be able to drink lactose as an adult, then it spread. so we had an easy way to get nutrients and protein without much effort. everyone had a cow back in the days. same goes for wheat, when we refined it we got much lighter skin. people around the mediteranian have green tinted beige skin because theyve eaten and drank and rubbed their skin with olive oil for so long it go into their genes. africans evolved from cockroaches there was a hitech nuclear war only a few 100 years ago. thats why they are so strong. they can eat raw amanita without flinching they just get stronger from it. they can throw you across the room. kill a person with bare hands in platemail armour. they are stronger than nuclear weapons why they nuked japan and not africa. and if they would nuke africa again nothing would happen to them, thered surely be a locust swarm all over america eating them alive. not just "you will eat ze bugs", but ze bugs will eat you. anyway i love bug potatoe chips i grow new appendages from them. though when they added gasoline and lighter fluid to them they started tasting majorly gross lol. acidtrips i carry her joy with me :) <3 hope youre ok miss pigfae 🧚🐽