What can we do to stop aliens from eating us? How about swearing off
from eating meat?

There seems to be a common bit of vegetarian propaganda that goes
something like “if you eat animals how can you expect intelligent aliens
not to eat you?”

Let's think about this for a moment. We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin. Eating animals and
yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the grounds that we are sentient
animals strikes us as in some way a form of hypocrisy. It probably is.
So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin recognized by all sentient
lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely acting like hypocrites would
make us less attractive dinner table fare, wouldn't it? We would be less
likely to eat a “sinful” species that ate dung and its own young than
one that just ate grass, hung around in fields and went moo. Acting like
hypocrites would make us appear less tasty and nutritious. Acting like
hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we eat “wicked”
weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to “noble” animals
like deer and salmon?
Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?

Do we avoid eating all peaceful herbivores? Hardly! In fact if we can
see any patterns at all here it is that the more animals an animal eats
the less likely it is we will want to eat it ourselves. The only
carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish, animals
that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to redefine as
some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock are animals
that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't
change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be
a vegetarian.

We prefer to eat peaceful herbivores, we actively give preference to
those animals that eat a 100% pure vegetarian diet of grass. Why do we
assume that aliens will prefer to eat old, evil, bitter, twisted and
hypocritical animals like us rather than the nice innocent tender baa
lambs that we like to eat? It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

Why don't we eat carnivorous animals?

There is no reason why we don't eat carnivorous animals apart from the
fact that they are too expensive to farm economically. When dogs are
raised to be eaten they are not fed on meat, they are given the cheapest
food that will do the job, usually grain, vegetables and kitchen scraps,
just like pigs.

I read in a newspaper recently (or was it The Sun?) about a man who
regularly dines off roadkill. He made no distinction between herbivore
or carnivore and enjoyed stoats and weasels quite as much as squirrels
and badgers. His finest meal was roast labrador, which apparently tastes
just like lamb.

The only problem with eating carnivores is you have to avoid their
livers, which can contain dangerously high concentrations of vitamin A.
The higher an animal (and yes fish are animals) is up the food chain the
higher the concentration of poisons such as heavy metals the flesh may
contain. Certain chemicals such as DDT and PCBs also build up in bodies
and accumulate as you go up the food chain, the most effective way of
riding them from the body is to breastfeed...

If aliens did have a desire to eat people which people would they want
to eat?

It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out. Or a fully
qualified butcher. The best cuts would come from young people raised on
a pure Vegan diet, especially if they could be certified as Organic.
Aliens would give preference to young hippie and Goth chicks raised on
beansprouts, lentils and tofu not McDonalds and KFC. Card-carrying
members of PETA would fetch a premium price.

If you really want to avoid being eaten by aliens the best thing you can
do to ensure they don't fancy the idea of eating you is to eat meat,
ideally the meat and offal of diseased, evil, old, poor and hypocritical
aliens. Or failing that, sausages.

Being a vegetarian is as effective a remedy against hungry aliens as is
being a conscientious objector in the face of hordes of Nazis.

What does this aliens eating hypocrites argument remind you of? God?
Yes, we seem to be very good at inventing fictional entities which can
make the evil ones among us feel bad if only we can get them to swallow
a line of bull.

Are aliens likely to be able to eat us?

There is a fair chance that we will actually be poisonous to aliens, and
they could be poisonous to us. Elements that are rare on our planet tend
to be poisonous to us, for example heavy metals such as lead, uranium,
arsenic, cadmium, mercury and so on. They are poisonous largely because
we have not evolved to cope with them. There is a reasonable chance that
to aliens we will contain unacceptably high levels of elements that they
are not able to cope with even if they find our alien proteins and fats
attractive. We may be protected by traces of selenium, copper, chromium
or zinc which could be absent from their biological systems and so be
poisonous to them. Likewise they may have a biological system that
requires an element that we cannot tolerate such as arsenic or lead as a
nutrient. Perhaps alien children are told to eat up their vegetables
because they contain lots of healthy cadmium (essential for healthy
tentacles) while they would look on a Whooper, Big Mac or indeed a
McHuman with Cheese as loaded with quite deadly levels of poisonous
calcium and zinc and enough sodium to kill the Bugblatter Beast of Traal.


First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
posted by the author

--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org