this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 157 points 3 days ago (15 children)

Something smart enough to recgonize the people, what they mean, learn their schedule, and understand how to decieve them, is something that should not be kept in captivity for our amusement.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 86 points 3 days ago

A lot of animals are capable of learning. More importantly they’re capable of feeling. They should not be exploited in the same way that octopi should not be exploited.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Quite right, they should be given badges and guns.

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] snooggums@piefed.world 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Four. They need the others to move around!

They can walk on guns.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

And they do all that with a CRIMINALLY short lifespan. 😟

https://octonation.com/octopus-lifespan/

"For example, the Common Octopus, Mimic Octopus, and Blue-Ringed Octopus live for around 12 – 18 months whereas the Giant Pacific Octopus can have a lifespan of 3-5 years!"

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Every animal can react to their environment, including avoiding predators. Not all of them do it perfectly, but it is a basic survival skill for mobile life forms.

In the wild an octopus often hides in a tight space to protect itself and wanders out to feed, then returns to their safe location afterwards. They avoid predators while doing so. Lots of animals will be less active when predators are out and about, or will be active during times where it is more difficult for the predators to hunt.

Yes, an octopus is a very clever animal but really we should stop killing them because we are absolutely crushing their populations.

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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

And especially should not be farmed or eaten alive for clicks on youtube. We have made significant progress as a society reducing the barbaric practice of eating shark-fin soup and other exotic animal products, and made great strides in ending torturing sea mammals in amusement parks. We have to add octopus to this list of things we now know better about.

Octopus have feelings and are higher animals with unique personalities and ways of experiencing the world. They are curious, they are intelligent, they dream and seem to show emotions in a variety of ways.

And our last common ancestor didn't even have a backbone. This fact alone should amaze us and give us hope for the greater universe - that we can share so much with something so very distant from us gives hope that if we ever do contact aliens, we might share more than we think.

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[–] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Last time I went to the aquarium there was a specialist on reef ecology talking about all the different species of animals on display and a woman in the group behind me loudly exclaimed "Wait, fish are animals?" so I'm going out on a limb and stating that I believe there's a considerable amount of overlap between the smartest of their species and the dumbest of ours when it comes to intelligence.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I went to school with a girl who swore the Bible was written in English, not translated... 🙄

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

Dumb humans survive and are taken care of, dumb octopi dont survive. Most animals dont have the luxury of keeping every mutation and variation viable for survival.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 65 points 3 days ago

Multiple similar stories:

https://youtube.com/shorts/iork5qOyCNs

https://mishpacha.com/octopus-escapades/

My favorite is one who would squirt water at lights to turn them off.

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-36051623

[–] BogeyTheSwear@lemmy.zip 38 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)

If i was a multi Billionaire i would dedicate my vast wealth to building an Institute that breeds only the most intelligent octopi with each other.

They don't live so long, so generations go by fast. I bet we could speedrun evolution if we just put our money where our tentacles are.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I know that you mean well, but that is an extremely 'Evil Billionaire' thing to do

[–] Silic0n_Alph4@lemmy.world 28 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Perhaps, but one must consider BogeyTheSwear’s Cephalopod:

  1. It is inevitable that super-intelligent octopuses will evolve eventually.
  2. When they do evolve, they will inevitable consider humans to be delicious snacks.
  3. As intelligent beings, they will of course look kindly upon their creators - mythical or billionairical.
  4. Therefore, the only safe and rational course of action is to invest all of one’s energies into bringing forth these humanity-munchers with all due haste, so as to preserve oneself as a creator in their perfect eyes. Either working against their awakening or having nothing to do with it at all is ultimately condemning your bloodline for all eternity to be a nice little midnight snack.
[–] prex@aussie.zone 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 days ago

If you want to read a book about super intelligent cephalopods Children of Ruin the second book of the Children of Time book is interesting.

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[–] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 54 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I would believe it, those fuckers are smart and if they were social creatures I think they would be in competition with humans for the dominant species . This is an opinion of a person not super well versed on octopi so take this with a good size grain of salt.

[–] Sphks@jlai.lu 58 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Their lifespan is an issue. They live around 2 to 3 years before dying.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Also, the act of reproducing kills the mother. Basically starved to death protecting the eggs. No generational knowledge transfer.

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[–] baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 3 days ago (3 children)

there are social octopuses, like the larger pacific striped octopus. imo octopuses had 150 million years to rule the planet and they just weren't good enough. skill issue. us humans only had 2-4 million years. i'd say we're doing quite well comparatively.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 63 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Maybe their version of "rule the planet" involved mostly just hanging out in their den and thinking interesting thoughts.

[–] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 40 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yep they just hang out and do wtf they want to do. They're not going to work and having politics about whose turn it is to make coffee, or why Will should never have got promoted over Kay. Really they're the smarter species

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[–] scratchee@feddit.uk 55 points 3 days ago (3 children)

They ruled the planet for 150 million years and didn’t ruin the environment once ? What are they even doing?

We’re clearly superior, who else could speed run the mass extinction end game?

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

They ruled the planet for 150 million years and didn’t ruin the environment once ?

That's what Cthulhu wants you to think.

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[–] sudoshakes@reddthat.com 24 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Octopi if the base word was Latin. It’s Greek, so octopodes for plural. Technically.

Because English is a bastard if a language octopuses and octopi are fine too.

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[–] NaibofTabr 13 points 3 days ago

Fire is a major limitation.

[–] Saryn@lemmy.world 28 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Ah, so an octopus is overqualified for the position of US President. Good to know.

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[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If it was possible to start fire under water octopi would have tribal civilizations already.

[–] thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Did you know that the correct pluralization is octopuses or octopoda, not octopi? This is because the -pus ending in octopus to es from the Greek word for foot, not prom latin.

[–] Iunnrais@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

The correct GREEK plural, which would be used because the root of octopus is Greek, could be octopodes. However, in ENGLISH, people have started intuiting that words ending in “~us” pluralize to ~i, akin to cacti. So this isn’t about being a Latin rule, it’s actually an emergent English rule.

[–] ADTJ@feddit.uk 11 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Did you know that octopi has long been included in many dictionaries also?

Language is only half etymology and half vibes

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[–] Bysmuth@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago

After a little research it seems that "octopi" and "octopuses" have been so widely used and for so long, that dictionaries include all of them as correct. An article from merriam webster even pragmatically suggests referring to them as "octopodes" is less likely to be understood so stick with "octopi" or "octopuses". Also, it seems "octopodes" is the more widely accepted "correct" plural and "octopoda" refers to the genus.

But it's an interesting topic, i wish to subscribe to octopus etymology facts(or any interesting reads)

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

Octopodes only live a couple years, and thank god. They would be the menace seen in sailors' imaginations if they just kept growing and learning.

[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Makes me think of Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky. 😀

[–] fakeplastic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago (4 children)

We’re going on an adventure

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[–] Bysmuth@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

Did no one notice the giant puddle of water between the tanks?

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Octopus didn't memorize shit. They saw fish and went to get them. Security guard don't give a fuck about the fish tanks, they were at the gate all night.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Can confirm, have been a guard.

'Rounds' were check boxes on a piece of paper. TF do I care whether doors are secure, it's not my department store.

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[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 days ago

There are many documented Octopus escape/returns. But some of these details could be new/exaggerated.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

The simpler explanation seems to be that the guard was eating the fish, and blamed the octopus when people noticed something was amiss.

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago

I'm disappointed that this didn't appear in my feed adjacent to the "teaching an octopus to play piano" video for a nice screenshot.

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 12 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 18 points 3 days ago

octopi = 25.1327412287183

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