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[KaguroDraven]

Pets: People don't like other people trying to eat their companions.  It won't catch on.

This makes for great cross-cultural fun when one region's little pet is another region's tasty dish.

Though not a 'pet' persay America, and alot of other countries, have this with India over cows. Still I know there are people who eat cats and dogs, daily even, they are plentiful and would make a decent source of food, one that's easier to feed than cattle too. Doesn't mean I'd ever eat my cat or my dog.

[Jackrabbit]

Wasn't there a nasa experiment at a space lab concerning vat-grown meat? They cultivated cow muscle cells in vitro, and then fried it....


PD: found it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat

And, ironically, I agree with PETA's offer wholeheartedly and think it's a great idea. But not because it'll stop cows being slaughtered but rather we can slaughter a lot of them and the methane levels will be cut right back. Also, of course, it'd stop what is undoubted cruelty in some sectors of the food industry.

[Muz]

I love the idea of animal's rights activists, but PETA has really bad implementation. It's always a problem when you try to force your morals on others to look good.

[DJ]

Screw in vitro meat, if nothing died for my steak than it's not really a steak.

[lordnincompoop]

I love the idea of animal's rights activists, but PETA has really bad implementation. It's always a problem when you try to force your morals on others to look good.

Not just morals, either.

They piss me off to no end.

[Bardum Idith]

Screw in vitro meat, if nothing died for my steak than it's not really a steak.

Hah! Dozens of soybeans died for my tofu steak

To the topic:
I'm quite unsure what to think of those PeTA-guys. I basically agree with the idea of animal rights, but don't support some of their practices like the excessive pet euthanasia.
Also some of their campaigns are just plainly stupid.
Seriously, Sea Kittens! That's not a name for fish, that's a catsplosion counter-measurement!

[Frajic]

Screw in vitro meat, if nothing died for my steak than it's not really a steak.

Hah! Dozens of soybeans died for my tofu steak

To the topic:
I'm quite unsure what to think of those PeTA-guys. I basically agree with the idea of animal rights, but don't support some of their practices like the excessive pet euthanasia.
Also some of their campaigns are just plainly stupid.
Seriously, Sea Kittens! That's not a name for fish, that's a catsplosion counter-measurement!

You just got sigquoted.

[Nivim]

Sapience is sorta fuzzy.

I just realized a horrible pun. It's a few science fiction books that focus almost entirely on the definitions and implications of sapience.

Antimatter is a type of matter, so it does not count.
Maybe.

  Remember, anti-matter is just like normal matter except the charges are reversed. The (anti-)electron cloud has a positive charge instead of a negative charge, and the (anti-)protons have a negative charge instead of a positive charge. The neutrons are actually different as well, but it's a difference that may only be described with any accuracy in the language of math.


 On the topic of conversation, it's good to know that such confused opinions are still around, since I'll presumably have to deal with them antagonistically at some point.

 Intelligence (of any variety) exists in steps; you need a floating point integer (0.24, 24.98, 7.021, 90.1), not a boolean (1, 0), to begin quantifying these steps. We already have identified many signs that may suggest what relative numbers we could assign to each individual of each species.
 One of those signs mentioned here was the individuals reaction to a mirror (...), and whether or not they understand they perceive themselves and not another of their species. Humans tend to ~score high in this test; parakeets fail it almost every time.
 Another sign of intelligence is the [MEMORY_LOST] test, where you are offered a choice of 3 doors (or cups) and told (truthfully) that behind one of them is a prize, behind the others, nothing. When you make a decision, the teller opens one of the other doors (picks up one of the cups) and asks you if you want to stick with your decision or switch to the other remaining door (cup). Humans tend to fail this test about 70% time, while pigeons tend to succeed about 60%. (I found this puzzle on the xkcd forums, found the research on it afterwards.)
 In the above, what answer would you pick?

 It is true I'm totally skipping the "morals" part of this discussion because those things are usually insane and a pain to quantify.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Are guinea pigs intelligent?  I vote no.  When I was a kind we had to take care of these two guinea pigs for someone once.  They were the long haired kind so if you put them down on the floor and looked away from a bit if you'd looked back and they'd moved somewhere else the only way to tell the head from the ass was to nudge them enough to make them get out of the way.  One time one of them decided to crawl under the stove and proceeded to step in a sticky mouse trap and freak out dragging the thing around with it and getting itself more stuck in the process.  I think we had to give it a big of a haircut.

[Nivim]

Are guinea pigs intelligent?  I vote no.

  NOT BOOLEAN!
 It is not yes or no. And if you encountered something like that enlarged for you, without ever hearing about it before, you'd probably panic long enough to get yourself royally stuck too. Now if the guinea pig does it again...

[Eugenitor]

Cavies are extraordinarily stupid. They're not like rats. Your average cavy isn't going to get used to humans picking it up, nor even recognize the sound of your voice. You can't train it to do anything except wheek loudly when it hears a plastic bag. They're really just very well-evolved digestive tracts with some other organs on top.

[FuzzyZergling]

What is a cavy?

[Eugenitor]

This link may prove of assistance.

[Bardum Idith]

Cavies are extraordinarily stupid. They're not like rats. Your average cavy isn't going to get used to humans picking it up, nor even recognize the sound of your voice. You can't train it to do anything except wheek loudly when it hears a plastic bag. They're really just very well-evolved digestive tracts with some other organs on top.

Being easy to tame is not intelligence. Common definitions for intelligence include things like problem solving, learning and communication, which guinea pigs are capable of (of course far less that humans).

It's not unlikely that guinea pigs recognize the person who feeds them, greeting him/her by wheeking. They communicate mainly through different vocal sounds like that.
Also guinea pigs, like rats, can learn to find ways through complex labyrinths and remember them for several months.

[Kagus]

I've never gotten along particularly well with guinea pigs.  They look neat, but they're slippery little bastards and they don't seem to care about biting anybody and everybody.  Rats I can see getting along with, because they're clever little gits and seem a fair sight more interesting than bloody guinea pigs.  Never had much experience with them though, just had a couple crawling on me at a science fair.


I've also never gotten along particularly well with most birds.  All the parrots I've known have been ornery buggers.  I've met a couple non-parrots, and they seemed fairly decent, including a parakeet that would run straight at you and then tuck its head in so it could have its neck scratched.

And if you didn't scratch it properly, or for long enough, or in the right spot, he'd bite you.  Crazy little nutter.


Again, I can sort of see getting along with crows and ravens because they're remarkably intelligent.  African Grays are fantastic mimics, but from what I can recall they're not really that bright.  There was Griffon who learned what all the words meant, but otherwise it's just mimicry.

Crows and ravens, on the other hand, have exhibited complex problem-solving behavior that even a few humans I know wouldn't have been able to figure out.  Now that's something worth being fascinated by.