I’d like to know how many people would eat human meat if it was not so taboo to eat human meat.
In other words: If there were no taboo against eating human meat, how many people would eat it?
From what I remember of the bite of finger, it had a white meat taste. Sort of like pork-turkey… I guess kinda like a hot dog (only it had no salt on/in it beyond the sweat that was on the hand).
I do think that human meat would stack up against Pork and Turkey as a delicious meat. Maybe if we ate condemned criminals. They would spend their time in prison before their execution fattening up. (OK, I realize that I am getting really out-there morbid now).
Cannibalism is a subject that fascinates me though. I have often wondered about fantastic settings in which the only thing that existed to eat was other people. Say, a planet in which there existed no other life forms at all. No plants, microbes, animals, etc. The Planet would have water, or maybe springs that had a liquid that contained nutrients that weren’t in human meat… And, it would have people. So, the people would be the only things to eat, and the only things out of which tools could be made.
I do actually have a series of stories based upon this premise written. It was an interesting thought experiment to think about the types of cultures that could arise to deal with such a dilemma. And, if the inhabitants didn’t know that any other life existed, (and had some cultural memory of the expression You are what you eat) then they might consider it a horrid idea to eat anything but people (should they eventually discover that other people from other planets eat dumb animals and plants that cannot even think.
If You are what you eat, then eating a stupid immobile plant or a flatulent stupid bovine would seem like the ultimate in self-condemnation.
I have often wondered about fantastic settings in which the only thing that existed to eat was other people. Say, a planet in which there existed no other life forms at all. No plants, microbes, animals, etc. The Planet would have water, or maybe springs that had a liquid that contained nutrients that weren’t in human meat… And, it would have people. So, the people would be the only things to eat, and the only things out of which tools could be made.
Isn’t that the Short Story where the first two Superluminal astronauts arrive at a planet that contains a giant ocean and just one island, that is surrounded by a dark black line.
The dark black area turns out to be algae and people’s remains, and a crowd of people wander the island’s coast eating either the algae or each other.
I don’t see a very large similarity (but then I am looking at it from much more information about the place than you), as those people had no real developed culture or solitary food source. I was surprised to read it when I did, because it did come close to my idea (I first thought of this idea in 2nd grade when we had a nutritional lecture: “You Are What You Eat”). I spent three weeks wondering when the cafeteria was going to start serving people. I figured “I am a person. If I am what I eat, then I must eat people to continue being one.” The teacher had to call my parents when I asked her directly about when we would start eating people or, if “This was only something grown-ups did.” My mother did her normal “How could you do this to me?!”, and my father did the “Look what you’ve done to your mother!”
The Culture that I envisioned was large and highly populous, and the whole point of life was to eventually be able to give your meat to your family (although, many children are eaten if they don’t live up to standards). They build cities out of mud and bone, and use glass for some tools (created by burning bone and intestinal gasses created in special people who are nothing but huge guts. These people also produce other chemicals in different metabolic processes, but the point is that a whole class of person exists that is nothing but a chemical factory. These people usually have most of their cortex removed as well, so they are basically vegetables. They use the neocortex of these people as artificial memory devices).
There are other groups on this imaginary world as well, who are much less “Civilized” and predatory. They all live under ground in tunnels that are constantly being dug so that the people on the surface cannot locate them and exterminate them (as they upset the status quo of the surface civilization).
The “Planet” also have a rather unusual topology. From the surface of the planet, it is an infinite plane that continues on in all directions (except for up and down. Down leads back up, and up leaves the surface in a physical as well as temporal direction). There is an event horizon around the planet (it looks like a planet from outside this event horizon), that, once penetrated, reveals the planar surface that is directly below the point of contact of the event horizon. So, there are an infinite number of such surfaces on this planet.
But, you are correct. It does have a few similarities to Bordered in Black
A better way to have said that would be
In other words: If there were no taboo against eating human meat, how many people would eat it?
From what I remember of the bite of finger, it had a white meat taste. Sort of like pork-turkey… I guess kinda like a hot dog (only it had no salt on/in it beyond the sweat that was on the hand).
I do think that human meat would stack up against Pork and Turkey as a delicious meat. Maybe if we ate condemned criminals. They would spend their time in prison before their execution fattening up. (OK, I realize that I am getting really out-there morbid now).
Cannibalism is a subject that fascinates me though. I have often wondered about fantastic settings in which the only thing that existed to eat was other people. Say, a planet in which there existed no other life forms at all. No plants, microbes, animals, etc. The Planet would have water, or maybe springs that had a liquid that contained nutrients that weren’t in human meat… And, it would have people. So, the people would be the only things to eat, and the only things out of which tools could be made.
I do actually have a series of stories based upon this premise written. It was an interesting thought experiment to think about the types of cultures that could arise to deal with such a dilemma. And, if the inhabitants didn’t know that any other life existed, (and had some cultural memory of the expression You are what you eat) then they might consider it a horrid idea to eat anything but people (should they eventually discover that other people from other planets eat dumb animals and plants that cannot even think.
If You are what you eat, then eating a stupid immobile plant or a flatulent stupid bovine would seem like the ultimate in self-condemnation.
Larry Niven, “Bordered in Black”. Sort of.
Isn’t that the Short Story where the first two Superluminal astronauts arrive at a planet that contains a giant ocean and just one island, that is surrounded by a dark black line.
The dark black area turns out to be algae and people’s remains, and a crowd of people wander the island’s coast eating either the algae or each other.
I don’t see a very large similarity (but then I am looking at it from much more information about the place than you), as those people had no real developed culture or solitary food source. I was surprised to read it when I did, because it did come close to my idea (I first thought of this idea in 2nd grade when we had a nutritional lecture: “You Are What You Eat”). I spent three weeks wondering when the cafeteria was going to start serving people. I figured “I am a person. If I am what I eat, then I must eat people to continue being one.” The teacher had to call my parents when I asked her directly about when we would start eating people or, if “This was only something grown-ups did.” My mother did her normal “How could you do this to me?!”, and my father did the “Look what you’ve done to your mother!”
The Culture that I envisioned was large and highly populous, and the whole point of life was to eventually be able to give your meat to your family (although, many children are eaten if they don’t live up to standards). They build cities out of mud and bone, and use glass for some tools (created by burning bone and intestinal gasses created in special people who are nothing but huge guts. These people also produce other chemicals in different metabolic processes, but the point is that a whole class of person exists that is nothing but a chemical factory. These people usually have most of their cortex removed as well, so they are basically vegetables. They use the neocortex of these people as artificial memory devices).
There are other groups on this imaginary world as well, who are much less “Civilized” and predatory. They all live under ground in tunnels that are constantly being dug so that the people on the surface cannot locate them and exterminate them (as they upset the status quo of the surface civilization).
The “Planet” also have a rather unusual topology. From the surface of the planet, it is an infinite plane that continues on in all directions (except for up and down. Down leads back up, and up leaves the surface in a physical as well as temporal direction). There is an event horizon around the planet (it looks like a planet from outside this event horizon), that, once penetrated, reveals the planar surface that is directly below the point of contact of the event horizon. So, there are an infinite number of such surfaces on this planet.
But, you are correct. It does have a few similarities to Bordered in Black
Wow. Did elements of this appear in your mind during one or several bad trips?