Growing up on a farm taught me that animals are absolutely able to think and learn. Not in the same way as humans, but I'm fully convinced there are degrees of consciousness.

Watching new calves play in spring meadows is one of the most purely joyful things you can ever see. They have best friends and will avoid playing with other calves until their friend comes to play with them.

Thanks for this memory. I had similar experience watching spring lambs and swore off mutton/lamb/etc same day.

I swore off lamb after trying to make a couple lamb stews. It is clearly an acquired taste if that.

See, I never swore off beef, even with that. I took it as a reason to make sure they live their best lives, and to do my best to ensure that their deaths are as quick and painless as possible. I understand the hypocrisy or whatever that might be, but beef has kept my family out of bankruptcy when full time job income has not. I do apologize and thank every animal, for whatever that's worth. It doesn't feel great, but such is life.

Not to go full-PETA, here, but I think there's a pretty decent chance that in 300 years you and your family and this comment will be looked back on like how we now look back on remarks about chattel slavery.

Or that cows can quickly determine when an electric fence isn’t working and rampage a winter feed paddock in an hour.

Cows seem to inherently know when it's down, and choose rainy nights exclusively to go on a tear around the neighbor's fields instead of my own.

We had pigs for one terrible year. Pigs know when the electric fence is down because the sociopaths regularly push each other into it. I think they do it to a) test the defense and b) because they're bastards that enjoy watching other creatures suffer.

I hate pigs entirely, by the way. We raised them for one year and decided they weren't worth the hassle. They're the worst.

Dangerous too. Pigs and bulls, not worth the risk.

Give me a dumbass sheep any day over something that with chase you from one side of a paddock to the other trying to kill you the whole time.

> degrees of consciousness

Societal dogma aside, I think this probably applies to all critters, including within species, including us.

There’s a part of me that speculates that the kashrut laws are meant to rule out eating the most intelligent animals (pigs, cetaceans, cephalopods).

Interesting! I'd never thought of that.

Still, though... bivalves?

I think shellfish was more unambiguously a food safety thing

Fair.

I had a college professor who steadfastly believed that pork was a no go because pigs get sunburned. Not because they're resource and time intensive. Not because they're intelligent and weirdly similar to humans.

Sunburns.

I have no idea

Animals also grieve and mourn their dead, much like we do.

They are fellow sentient beings capable of experiencing pleasure, pain, fear, and forming social bonds. It's a lot of why I take issue with anthropocentrism, and think factory farming is an absolute tragedy. It's the industrialized denial of a meaningful life and one of the biggest examples of human cruelty.

I want to live, and think others do too- so Life must have some kind of Greater Meaning. Yet, almost everything else seems to prove the opposite based on how fragile life is, and how little things change when one is lost.

> Yet, almost everything else seems to prove the opposite based on how fragile life is, and how little things change when one is lost.

What a sad way to view things

That's a very pessimistic was to view things, I think.

We're only given one chance; rich, poor, all of us. One shot. You have to try to do the best with what you have.

Nothing changes when you have a big loss, only if you let nothing change. My grandpa died at 102. He and Grandma raised me and were my rocks throughout my entire life. Grandma died when I was a teenager, and I only used that to become more sad and selfish (like a teenager). Looking back, the choices I made would've made her sad for me. When Grandpa died, I chose to use his memory to do good things. Now I volunteer with multiple organizations related to aging farmers. I gather stray old people from the area for weekend and holiday get togethers.

Things changed, and my life improved because of my response to loss. The memories are hard, but they're made easier in a community of people who can share them with me.

I think the point is, can a farm animal do this?

> When Grandpa died, I chose to use his memory to do good things. Now I volunteer with multiple organizations related to aging farmers.

If this is what gives life meaning in the universe, you can’t deny that we’re snuffing it out at an industrial scale.

Do you still live on a farm on in a city? Here in the suburbs, something is making animals "less smart". Every neighborhood has signs about missing pets. I suspect it also affects people too. Why get a pet when everyone is too busy to take care of it?

Maybe they run away exactly because they are smart.

Missing pets are because people don't spend enough time with their animals to form a pack attachment (for dogs) and cats just don't give a shit.

Or. . . The encroachment of suburbs in currently rural areas means coyotes and pets come in contact. . .

Also I still live on the farm. And animals here can be dumb as hell as well. Our neighbors miniature donkey regularly escapes, just to get his head stuck in the fence trying to get to his food trough from the outside.

What is your definition of “conscious” here? Like it has thoughts and feelings?

I promise this isn’t a trap, it’s just my curiosity as a “flexitarian”. What (mostly) keeps me from eating animals is my mind wandering sometimes when making a protein choice about how they ended up there, wherever I am, not by choice.

Are you vegan?

Goats are just as tasty if you raised them, IMO. Maybe even tastier.

By "tastier" do you mean more physically pleasurable because you could ensure the animal's good health, ethically preferable because you could ensure a (mostly) good life, emotionally enjoyable because you can fondly remember interacting with them, or something else?

I mean the goats I have today I only have because we bred them to be useful to us, and that being neurotic about the food we eat rarely helps any living thing.

Of course I treat my goats well, and I love them. But this doesn't factor much into the ethics of why we eat them in the first place. If I didn't eat them they wouldn't exist. The entire problem is close to nonsensical.

I'm still not sure how that makes them "maybe even tastier" when you raise them yourself?

> If I didn't eat them they wouldn't exist.

Does that mean that if I bring something into existence that anything I choose do to it is therefore ethical, or is eating special? (To be clear, I think there are a number of solid arguments for eating animals, I just don't think that's one of them.)

You can’t avoid the reality that’s your life depends on something else dying. Either plant insect or animal

How and why you draw the line on what is acceptable to kill is mostly arbitrary

I’d argue a mushroom or a bee are more “conscious” than most chickens

Chickens are very intelligent, it just happens that most people ever see chickens in overcrowded small spaces where they behave idiotically. So would you if you would be in the same situation.

I kept chickens for a while and it was very clear that they'd be more than happy to eat us if able to.

I kept chickens for 15 years (mostly free-roaming in my backyard, unless there was a fox lurking, so not in overcrowded small spaces) and I disagree. To me they seemed pretty stupid, and pretty mean to one another

We've had a small amount (just 3) with plenty of space and it was fun to observe them, all sort of interesting behaviors.

My favorite thing is them cooperating against a common enemy (a dog that was eating their food sometimes, which we've tried to mitigate but not being much successful).

Then once they had a discussion in the opposite corner about the problem and launched a stealth attack, covering themselves behind the trees while approaching the dog without the dog knowing it. Then once close enough they attacked from behind, the dog squeaked, more from the surprise than pain and since then the dog never touched their food again and avoided them.

You think that a mushroom is more capable of intelligent thought and emotion driven decisions than a chicken?

lmao

Maybe you should learn about what a mushroom is

Three and four are both non-zero numbers. Zero constitutes the absence of value. Therefore, three and four are of the same value.

You see the problem here, right? I'm not saying that fungi have not be recorded as having potential intelligent thought. I am saying that in no world is their capability for intelligence remotely comparable to that of a creature with a fully functioning brain, especially a bird. Having the ability to react to your environment does make you AS or more intelligent than other things that can also do that...

EDIT: I'm using intelligence and consciousness interchangeably here when I don't necessarily mean to, but my point stands.

>>You can’t avoid the reality that’s your life depends on something else dying. Either plant insect or animal

There are more nuanced ways of thinking about this. A good example is Jainism's version of vegetarianism which requires paying attention to what one consumes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism

"Jains make considerable efforts not to injure plants in everyday life as far as possible. Jains accept such violence only in as much as it is indispensable for human survival, and there are special instructions for preventing unnecessary violence against plants."

I am not a vegan, but many of my meals are vegan. Most of my meals are vegetarian, but I do eat meat. I do not eat pork, octopus or goat.

I also keep my dietary preferences very low key. In a social setting, if I accidentally eat something I try and avoid, I don't make a fuss.

Out of curiosity do you extend this to gelatin? My daughter has recently take a stance against pork. She doesn’t make a fuss, just doesn’t eat it or gelatin because of the prevalence of pork bones used to make it.

We sound nearly identical, though I may consume more dairy and fish than you.

Thank you for responding also. I felt like you were someone who had similar values just through the subtext of your response and I was curious if we aligned.

Consciousness is a spectrum.

Even if that were true, how could you possibly know it?

Observing animals' behavior (in the wild and through experiments like the one here) and studying how their brains work to see that they often have the same kind of mental features as us (including whichever you'd classify as consciousness) - just at varying degrees of sophistication.

Some would argue that "consciousness" is something non-physical that has no impact on the physical world, and so is not physically detectable or responsible for any behavior, but I feel then it inherently cannot be whatever we mean by "consciousness" that we're directly aware of and talking about in the physical world (because that itself is a physical impact).

... with insects on the low side, humans are mid, and dogs are top

Dogs are on top but just below cats haha

Maybe it is the same level of consciousness but different physical limitations? Simply imagine being locked in in an insect body with different perception and abilities, and a wiped memory.

Then maybe orcas are much more conscious than us?

I love bees and ants, but I love bees the most. I would recommend people to study the behavior of bees and ants. Additionally, honey, propolis, etc. are super healthy, and we can thank bees for that.

Not that I want to curb your enthusiasm for bees, but…

I recently read that honey bees in particular get the most attention from humans lately, so they are kept in high numbers.

This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators, which hurts ecosystems more than it helps.

Why would what you said curb my enthusiasm for bees though?

Can you provide me more specifics on this by the way?

> This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators, which hurts ecosystems more than it helps.

What are those adversarial effects, what other pollinators, and how does it hurt the ecosystem more than it helps?

I do not mind bees having kept in higher numbers, and beekeepers can do it anywhere without affecting the ecosystem, I believe.

I am no expert at all in this topic! So please take this with a grain of salt. I just have the feeling (maybe wrongly) that the love and focus for bees is having detrimental/ unwanted effects on the ecosystem.

Here some more articles / discussions:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505552

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44792207

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668879

My love for bees is more about their behavior (similar to how I find ants fascinating), and their "products" that is honey, propolis, beeswax, and so on. I am simply fascinated by their behaviors, and propolis is very healthy!

that read like "source please" then "sauce is yummy"

I am not sure what you are trying to imply.

If you are referring to what I asked: "What are those adversarial effects, what other pollinators, and how does it hurt the ecosystem more than it helps?", then all I have to say about it is that I am just genuinely curious.

I have always been enamored with "social" insects like bees, wasps, and ants. I _loved_ SimAnt as a child.

It also blows my mind that I utterly balk at eating insects but bee vomit is totally cool.

Oh my, I just looked for a screenshot of SimAnt. I remember this game, too! I have played it for some time, too. :)

You can play it in a browser: https://archive.org/details/msdos_SimAnt_-_The_Electronic_An...

Oh cool! I am doing the tutorial and it told me to click on "MAP" which I did, and then nothing happened. :( Any ideas?

Did it say to click on map or Window menu -> map?

https://i.imgur.com/LbCx8jQ.png

Window menu -> MAP, so I assumed it was "MAP". Where is the "Window menu" exactly?

It's at the top of the game window: https://i.imgur.com/xqh2rrY.png

Oh, that! Thank you!

SimAnt and SimEarth were my faves as a kid!

Why won’t you let „the ecosystem“ decide that on its own ? It’s much older than you and you are not its lega guardian. If the ecosystem (of which we are a part) decides it wants more honey bees than that’s what it shall get.

The same reason you bandage a stab wound instead of letting the body decide what it wants.

It doesn't want anything or have the ability to choose its responses to changes. Which is exactly why we are the legal guardians of natural ecosystems, by the way - have you not heard of lands and waters protected from certain human activities? The fact that we don't currently stop ourselves from propogating honeybees into ecosystems that can't fit them is not an indication of anything except our failures.

The idea that ecosystems naturally balance themselves is a pervasive myth.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/balan...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature

>It’s much older than you and you are not its legal guardian.

A fair few cultures believe they are. NZ recognises the Whanganui River as having legal personhood.

If we're a part of the ecosystem, then deciding to be honey bees' legal guardian _is_ the ecosystem deciding that on its own, no?

Yes exactly, doing nothing or doing something is the same.

We are part of the ecosystem. So any discussion we’re having is also part of being and operating in the ecosystem…

I guess it’s a fair point.

But then again, since as you argue (rightfully so!) that I’m also part of the ecosystem: me caring and expressing doubts is actually working as the ecosystem.

That’s how I’m being (virtually) a part of it.

European honeybees do not behave the same way as their native solitary counterparts. They gather honey by visiting every flower on a plant, then moving to the next plant. Native bees OTOH visit only one or two flowers per plant. So if imported honeybees outcompete natives (and studies show they do), it very much affects the viability of monoecious plants, which experience a drop in genetic diversity. I don't want to find out the long-term results of that experiment.

I don't think that's a reason to eradicate honeybees in the US or anything like that, but it does point to a misplaced focus on "just" solving colony collapse disorder while ignoring the plight of the native pollinators.

If you don't keep bees, or if you do but have a large enough property, you could put up a bee hotel. They can be bought or constructed pretty easily, and you'll get to see a wide variety of who's around your area!

https://bugguide.net/node/view/475348

I‘d give it a chance. After all it can’t be any worse than Seinfeld for Bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Movie

There’s something like four thousand species of bees native to North America [1], so while there are lots of reasons to be unenthusiastic about honey bees [2], that still leaves lots of room for bee related enthusiasm :)

[1] https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-role-native-bees-united-state...

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-...

Agreed! Bees are my favorite social insect (we share a love of hexagons, for one thing) and they seem to be especially intelligent.

The hexagon is the best-agon

This thread is awesome.

I had a miniature war with some wasps staking a claim on my porch

Let me say, wasps are incredibly endurant creatures. I have much respect for them.

Their architecture though... I have the remnants of their enclave. It is so stable and uniform and cozy.

I wish wasps were friends.

I love hexagons too!

Yellowjackets can go to hell though.

Well, kind of. :D Wasps do not produce honey, they just collect nectar and sugary substances for immediate consumption, and propolis is specifically a bee product made from tree resins.

That said, wasps are still quite intelligent for insects with regarding to spatial memory, individual recognition, learning, problem-solving, and social cognition. In fact, their intelligence is comparable to honeybees in many respects.

Contrary to popular belief, wasps are not mindless aggressors, their defensive behavior is calculated based on threat assessment. :)

> wasps are not mindless aggressors, their defensive behavior is calculated based on threat assessment.

Can confirm.

I had a yellow jacket infestation in my kitchen wall this fall. Every day I'd wake up to dozens of bees flying around my kitchen. But they didn't care about me, all they cared about was getting outside.

I probably killed 200-300 yellow jackets with a fly swatter over the course of 2 weeks. Somehow I wasn't stung once.

Them getting stuck inside your clothes and panicking is THE way to get stung in my experience.

I remember reading somewhere that bees have the highest cognitive abilities of all insects

Thinking of smart bugs, check out the portia (aka jumping) spider. They plan multi-step, out of sight detours to ambush prey, and demonstrate impulse control. They have specialized hunting techniques for different menu items, one such is mimicking specific prey items stuck on a web to lure various types of spiders out.

Insect wise, bees have to take the cake. Symbolic communication and counting, and now time. This all tracks for something that needs to share the location of food with the colony.

Nature sure is neat.

Interesting you mention jumping spiders, I just saw a rather interesting video talking about exactly this and includes some interviews with scientists involved in some of these experiments [1]. One interesting fact I learned is that they have a sense of numeracy, and can distinguish between one, two and three-or-more objects.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QF6kaOAuYg

If you read fiction you might find The Children of Time to be interesting. It follows the hyper accelerated evolution of jumping spiders to a sentient species that eventually has to coexist with humans. It leans on a lot of fact about jumping spiders and uses it as a jumping point to what their societies might look like if given the chance to evolve as the top predators.

Aaj, Children of Time reference! Always wondered why the author chose that specific species in his story, now it makes sense

This is also what upsets me most about habitat destruction (aka global warming). We're burning books (making species extinct) that we haven't even read yet.