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Default Would you like to be eaten?

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 10:09:59 +0000, Martin Willett > wrote:

[...]
>We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
>which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin.


· Since the animals we raise for food would not be alive
if we didn't raise them for that purpose, it's a distortion of
reality not to take that fact into consideration whenever
we think about the fact that the animals are going to be
killed. The animals are not being cheated out of any part
of their life by being raised for food, but instead they are
experiencing whatever life they get as a result of it. ·

>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.


Maybe they'd kill us as vermin.

>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?


Human.

>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.


Pigs are omnivores. I'm not even sure if they can digest celulose,
but I doubt it. Chickens are omnivores. And it's the omnivores like
chicken, turkey and pork that can really screw you up if you eat it
undercooked. I'm guessing because of similarity in digestive systems
or something like that, but never have heard anyone say anything
about it.

[...]
>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.


It's impossible to know if God does not exist. It doesn't matter if
he does not exist either...it only matters if he does. Merry Christmas.

>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.


How about rishathra?

>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


I would expect beings with such technology to be able to produce
pretty much whatever kind of food they want without having to grow
it, or if not quite to that extent at least be able to produce food they
can live and thrive on that way. So far I can't help but think they
would treat us pretty much as a curiosity or something, unless they
wanted to exterminate us in which case I don't believe they would
have much trouble. It's not like we could do anything to defend
ourselves from much of an attack from space. All they have to do
is stand back and throw a few rocks at us, or put something between
us and Sol.