Cannibalism, could you or wouldn't you

Would I eat human flesh in a situation like this, from a person who had died of "natural" causes anyway ?

Definitely yes...I can barely imagine what it would be like to be in a situation like that, but for me its an overwhelming yes

Peace

MMMM!! Fillet de granny's buttock.. with fava beans and a nice chianti Arggghhhh

He he. the mind boggles.


Honestly,when starvation and dehydration starts to overwhelm,I don't think there's anything much the will to survive won't overcome.

I just tried live insects and worms a week ago as a 'taster' for a survival scenario. yukk..
The idea of human fleshcooked medium/well done over charcoal was quite appealing after that.
Meat is meat.

after not eating for a few weeks your frontal lobe starts to shut down with your moral choices and personality.
everyone turns into cannibals in the end.

unfortunately, even if we want to say no we wouldnt, the brain changes when you are in a state of all-out hunger and dying. your thinking completely changes, simplifies, and your inhibitions go right out the window.

do you think anybody really enjoys the idea of eating their friend's body? I know theres a couple cannibal freaks out there, but thats a given..

so you are brought into this delusional state where you are dying so what are you going to do? you've already caught and ate every rat on board?

who likes the idea of eating rats?



edit: wait wait, this is good.

i sat back and tried to decide, human muscle tissue or rat flesh, which would i pick if i had the choice without having to kill anyone.

and its a tuff one, i almost picked the human muscle. :X which would you prefer? grilled fresh on the fire lol. a raw piece of thigh muscle or a bicep, skinned, would look alot like a piece of steak meat. the rat on the otherhand, you're going to have to pick its' little bones of every last internal organ and scrap of muscle.

wait wait wait.

giant cockroaches (alive), rat flesh, or human muscle tissue?

this is a preview of the hell preparatory class im offering this fall. im joking, really.

[edit on 10/14/2007 by runetang]

i think the british skeletons they found with the army clothing still on them from the red coat days up in Canada are pretty damn creepy, when they tried to go through the northwest passage, which is now open due to global warming for the first time in recordable human history, congrats everyone.

[edit on 10/14/2007 by runetang]

reply to post by runetang


Well, let's consider the rat thing.

I could quite easily see eating rats. You'd have to ask yourself how much different a rat would be than a squirrel, both being rodents, and I've eaten LOTS of squirrels (looks around guiltily). Grant you, a squirrel is a vegetarian and a rat might not be, but once they're on a stick, they'll all look the same.

Originally posted by Kr0n0s

That is one of the main reasons why that nobody should ever resort to cannibalism.

Once a civilized group of people morally sink that low then the rest of their principles go flying out the door.

I don't think that the "slippery slope" thing applies in a case of eat-your-dead-or-die-yourself.

The survivors of the Donner party weren't depraved, immoral cannibals for the rest of their lives. When they got back to civilization and regular meals they were ashamed of what they'd done. Any normal person would be.

Morality has no place in starvation in the wilderness, unfortunately. The reptile brain takes over and does what it has to do to ensure survival.

And morality does not come from the reptile brain.

reply to post by Tom Bedlam


Exactly..
Rats/ Squirrels/ Big fluffy Wabbits.. It's just a state of mind..
You are taught that rats are disgusting disease ridden creatures but how are they different to the others?

Part of our education/indoctrination is what meat is good and bad..including human flesh.
Given enough time you can 'unlearn' what you have been taught.

I had fresh snails from a farmers field.. pretty yukky but used to pay over the odds for escargo and oysters in the M.E

reply to post by JimmyCarterIsSmarter


The situation was if you were in a survivalist situation, there is no specified number of people that make up a situation like that.
Besides I was only giving you a fraction of the moral issues regarding eating another person to survive.
Just think of the situation that I described. The group eats one person that died naturally but then everyone gets healthy and no one else dies.
In a persons mind theyve arleady done something thats about as bad as it gets so they would have no qualms about killing someone for their next meal.
So instead of having a group that sticks together and works together, for the sake of survival, you now have a group of paranoid people that are suspicious of each other, this causes a whole new set of problems.
Even some animals wont resort to cannibalism, regardless of how hungry they are..
We're supposed to be better than animals.. some of you are just sick.

[edit on 10/14/2007 by Kr0n0s]

reply to post by cheeser


Not true.. There have been many, many people who were in a situation where they had to make choices of eat a friend or starve and I would have to guess that the majority of people chose to starve, or try very hard to find other sources of food, rather than eat a person.
IF this were not the case then you would hear a lot more about cannibalism in the news and history.
It does seem that most people in survivalists situations that have the chance to, choose NOT to eat another person.

I guess it just comes down to, hunger,(of course) disgust,(getting past the sickening feeling) Morality and principles and your very own conscience, could you live with yourself and that decision.
When I think of a scenario, where I would be faced with this decision, there is one story that keeps coming to mind. Its a story written by Edgar Allen Poe- The Tell Tale Heart

Seriously

[edit on 10/14/2007 by Kr0n0s]

Although I'm not a cannible I'd eat human if I needed to. I'd eat it if I were starving. Can't be far removed from bad fatty pork at a low budget chinese food joint.

I'd eat another person if I were starving (I've eaten worse ants, snake etc, just not bugs like spiders or roaches)or to make a point. Seriously. If I were in prison I'd take a chunk out of another inmates arm and I'd make a show of it too. Then again if I were in prison I'd also pretend to fight with my imaginary friend bruce, or would pretend to maturbate to livestalk or something to keep people away from me. maybe just punch the cells' cinder block wall all day to look crazy. Bet nobody would mess with me for being that crazy. Also, if I were a warrior or something and I killed the enemy's head hancho I'd eat his heart right infront of his troops. sends a message you know. It's just meat. regardless of the source.

Just Nooooooooooo bugs please. I ain't eating no arachnids or beetles. a earthworm or catapillar maybe.

I know I'm sick n crazy I'd eat another human being. really does our species really deserve to not be on the food chain just cause we think were special.



[edit on 14-10-2007 by BASSPLYR]

Ill eat anything if its got hot sauce on it

so yes id eat you if you died, and there was some hot sauce handy

i wonder if you will taste like chicken or bacon?..... leg anyone?

C'mon, how bad can human flesh be? I've often pondered over it. I've asked friends at parties about it as well, many rounds of laughter and more than a few shocked faces are the usual responses. Given the choice; between a rat, a handful of giant cockroaches, and a fully formed piece of flesh; I'll pick the human steak every time. Gasp! I'm not sure how this is a problem, morality wise. It's you're life versus a piece of meat, that just so happens to have been a human at one point in time. To each their own though. I've taken no offense and meant none.

Has anyone seen "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover"?

I'll pass myself but you can have the bone.

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
Although I'm not a cannible I'd eat human if I needed to. I'd eat it if I were starving. Can't be far removed from bad fatty pork at a low budget chinese food joint.

I know I'm sick n crazy I'd eat another human being. really does our species really deserve to not be on the food chain just cause we think were special.

[edit on 14-10-2007 by BASSPLYR]

For starters, i'll ask why you're making comparisions between human flesh and chinese food.

For my main course, i'll start with the beef - before i mentioned how the only examples in nature i could think of was of rival males eating the young or mothers eating runts, however there is a circumstance which i had forgotten; namely that of creatures that have been wounded in a 'survival' situation.

You won't find a group of predators feasting on an hungry, but otherwise capable member of the pack - the predators would wait for one of the pack to lose concuiousness out of weakness or some other possible injury; so in otherwords there is no civilised way that this has occured.

It's literally a case of survival of the fittest - the fittest being those most capable of survival.

What i don't understand is why people seem to think that if you somehow survived for longer than 3 or 4 weeks tops without food that rescue would EVER come about.

After a month of isolation, i'd imagine the search party would have been called off, in which case there will isn't any chance at all of survival anyway (p.s; the only real situation in which cannibalism would become an option for we omnivores would be out at sea or in an arctic setting - although possibly sub-terrainian as an afterthought).

Cannibalism on the mainland is pointless - just walk out your door and look at the lush greenery; you're surrounded by food, even if it doesn't come in packaging.

So the chances for any of us being in a situation where cannibalism is a real option is small, unless you're a freakin' idiot and don't know the first thing about survival.

Back to the main point though - And this is a serious point; Why should cannibalism be that important to me when i'm in a situation where i should have acknowledged that death is a distinct possiblity?

To meet with that kind of misfortune whilst being aware of the possibilities AND THEN consider cannibalism seems a little short-sighted; If one was aware of the various implications then one should have thought of that before setting out - and as has been said before; the human body needs water far more than it needs food (although granted we get some water from fleshy substances, provided the blood isn't cooked away); and using nature as an example of how cannibalism could occur the group will have likely used up their water supplies by the time the thought enters the opportunist's tiny, self-absorbed mind*.

Granted, however (i guess you could call this my pudding) - what cheeser said about the frontal lobe is probably quite true, and i suppose the question remains; What is it that makes us human?





*Of course, the opportunist might have been thinking about it all along.

[edit on 14-10-2007 by Throbber]

Only if they were good looking.

Well it can not be far from eating pork, occurs cook all the way.

When it comes to survival and the death, I go for the death body first, then perhaps my neighbor next if it looks real tasty

Is all about survival of the species, the fittest against the weakest.

At the risk of a warn for a one line post, or derailing the thread, I really have to share Hufu with everyone.

Too bad the manufacturer had to stop making it.

There's a blurb and picture here.

Originally posted by Sigfrodr
C'mon, how bad can human flesh be? I've often pondered over it. I've asked friends at parties about it as well, many rounds of laughter and more than a few shocked faces are the usual responses. Given the choice; between a rat, a handful of giant cockroaches, and a fully formed piece of flesh; I'll pick the human steak every time.

Gasp! I'm not sure how this is a problem, morality wise. It's you're life versus a piece of meat, that just so happens to have been a human at one point in time. To each their own though. I've taken no offense and meant none.

I work with food everyday. People would be surprised how much food is actually chemicals.

As for humans being a food source, it would provide the necessities needed to survive these types of circumstances.

If your starving your natural instinct, will take over, there would be no rationalizing or thought of the moral consequences. Just the basic need for survival would be all that mattered.

Would it be healthy to eat your mate?
If they consumed milk products there body would be filled with bovine anti-biotic and bovine growth hormones.
If they consumed Aspartame or any other artificial sweetener, there body would be filled with all sorts of cancer causing toxins.
If they were a veggen, there body would be filled with all sorts of modified gene crop experiments, Frankenstein foods.
If they ate anything our society produces look here food additives

Also eating your mate could be addictive MSG - Slowly
Poisoning America

There is a upside to all of this, if your party does become stranded and must resort to cannibalism, because of all the perservitives we ingest daily, the meat would last along time, and because of the artificial colors we ingest our food would just look yummy.

So being the cook, I will man the BBQ

I think the main hazard of eating your fellow-strandees would be Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

(As seen on the X-files )

And of course, another real issue is, anything the deceased had in terms of disease or parasites would just love YOU as well.

Thus my previous warning - it's not good to eat raw people. Cook it like it's bear meat.