• Question: The octopus is the most intelligent invertebrate - could it achieve world domination?

    Asked by biozak to Jack, Jon, Tom, Yalda on 19 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Jack Heal

      Jack Heal answered on 19 Mar 2013:


      No, I think humans have it covered in terms of intelligence (backbones aside), and the whole “can’t go out of water for long” thing will make it a struggle. They also don’t live very long – difficult to get the leadership structure to achieve world domination with such a short life-span.
      We’ll see though, maybe I’ll be eating my words at some point in the future. They can predict world cup scores, maybe they can take over the world. It’s a pretty big jump to make, that’s all I’m saying.

    • Photo: Yalda Javadi

      Yalda Javadi answered on 19 Mar 2013:


      I think it’s too spineless for world domination…

    • Photo: Tom Branson

      Tom Branson answered on 19 Mar 2013:


      As Jack said, maybe it could take control of the underwater kingdom. But I think we have enough power to stop them on land.

      Have you ever eaten Octopus? It tastes really nice, and remember if you don’t eat them then they might eat you.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 19 Mar 2013:


      No – all you need to defeat them is astro turf!

      We kept octopii at one of the aquariums I worked at and they liked to climb out of their tank. They weren’t so good at climbing back in though so would die on the floor. It turns out thought that they don’t like the feel of prickly things so we put astroturf around the top of the tank & they stayed in.

      It would be super easy to defeat them if they tried to take over the world – you’d just have to run up to them wearing astroturf gloves & they’d flee back to the sea.

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