If a group of people donated their bodies to cannibalism when they die for a group of cannibals to then consume them, I would have no problem with that. (I submit myself as an example of someone with moderate rather than extremely liberal views.)
I think the moral repugnance only comes in when people might be killed for food: the value of life and person-hood is so much greater than the value of an immediate meal.
Someone speculated earlier about a civilization of humans that had nothing to consume but other humans. Has it been mentioned yet that this population would shrink exponentially, because humans are heterotrophs, and there’s something like only 10% efficiency from one step in the food chain to the next?
That’s what was disappointing about The Matrix. If the aliens wanted to generate energy there would have been more efficient ways to do so (say, one which actually generated more energy than it required). I pretend the aliens were just farming CPU and the director got it wrong.
I think the moral repugnance only comes in when people might be killed for food: the value of life and person-hood is so much greater than the value of an immediate meal.
We already have moral repugnance towards the act of killing itself. I suspect that any feelings towards already-dead bodies exist independently of this. They may be rooted in feelings of disgust which evolved in part to protect from contamination (recently dead bodies can spread disease and also provide breeding ground for flies and parasites).
I don’t locate feelings of disgust. Perhaps we are just genetically or culturally different with respect to this sensitivity?
I recall when my parakeet died, I felt a sense of awe while holding the body; and a moral obligation to be respectful and careful with its body. I suppose I wouldn’t have enjoyed eating him, but only because I identified him as more of a person than food. If I thought he would have wanted me to eat him, I would. Except then I would worry about parasites, so I would have to weigh my wishes to make a symbolic gesture verses my wishes to stay healthy.
That was me who discussed a civilization that had nothing to consume but other humans. Thanks for bringing it up, but I had already dealt with that in the stories as soon as someone pointed out that problem when I was much younger (turned out to be easier to fix that I thought), but telling what the solution is would give away too much, and since I might actually be able to get these published now that cannibalism is not nearly so taboo as it was back in the 80s when I first tried to submit them (Zombie movies were not nearly so prevalent then as now). Once the solution is revealed… It makes for another grim and, some have said, twisted surprise.
I too have wondered about the whole matrix thing. There are some very good arguments against it, which I tend to give more weight to than the arguments in favor. Yet, the arguments in favor did not take into account the waste generated by the humans being used to support the generation of power, nor did they take into account any possible superconducting tech the AIs may have had. I cannot recall if any of them took into account that the AIs were also not using every human farmed as a battery, but were using many of the farmed humans as food for the living humans. There is also some evidence from the games that the AIs were also using algae as a supplement for the human batteries.
Also, on the point about people donating their bodies to cannibals when they die… I have often thought that it would be a horrible joke for some cranky rich old guy to play on his heirs to make them eat him if they wished to inherit any of his fortune.
Sod that, start a religion in which people have to symbolically eat your body and drink your blood once a week. Better yet, tell them that when they do it, it magically becomes the real thing!
If a group of people donated their bodies to cannibalism when they die for a group of cannibals to then consume them, I would have no problem with that. (I submit myself as an example of someone with moderate rather than extremely liberal views.)
I think the moral repugnance only comes in when people might be killed for food: the value of life and person-hood is so much greater than the value of an immediate meal.
Someone speculated earlier about a civilization of humans that had nothing to consume but other humans. Has it been mentioned yet that this population would shrink exponentially, because humans are heterotrophs, and there’s something like only 10% efficiency from one step in the food chain to the next?
That’s what was disappointing about The Matrix. If the aliens wanted to generate energy there would have been more efficient ways to do so (say, one which actually generated more energy than it required). I pretend the aliens were just farming CPU and the director got it wrong.
We already have moral repugnance towards the act of killing itself. I suspect that any feelings towards already-dead bodies exist independently of this. They may be rooted in feelings of disgust which evolved in part to protect from contamination (recently dead bodies can spread disease and also provide breeding ground for flies and parasites).
I don’t locate feelings of disgust. Perhaps we are just genetically or culturally different with respect to this sensitivity?
I recall when my parakeet died, I felt a sense of awe while holding the body; and a moral obligation to be respectful and careful with its body. I suppose I wouldn’t have enjoyed eating him, but only because I identified him as more of a person than food. If I thought he would have wanted me to eat him, I would. Except then I would worry about parasites, so I would have to weigh my wishes to make a symbolic gesture verses my wishes to stay healthy.
That was me who discussed a civilization that had nothing to consume but other humans. Thanks for bringing it up, but I had already dealt with that in the stories as soon as someone pointed out that problem when I was much younger (turned out to be easier to fix that I thought), but telling what the solution is would give away too much, and since I might actually be able to get these published now that cannibalism is not nearly so taboo as it was back in the 80s when I first tried to submit them (Zombie movies were not nearly so prevalent then as now). Once the solution is revealed… It makes for another grim and, some have said, twisted surprise.
I too have wondered about the whole matrix thing. There are some very good arguments against it, which I tend to give more weight to than the arguments in favor. Yet, the arguments in favor did not take into account the waste generated by the humans being used to support the generation of power, nor did they take into account any possible superconducting tech the AIs may have had. I cannot recall if any of them took into account that the AIs were also not using every human farmed as a battery, but were using many of the farmed humans as food for the living humans. There is also some evidence from the games that the AIs were also using algae as a supplement for the human batteries.
Also, on the point about people donating their bodies to cannibals when they die… I have often thought that it would be a horrible joke for some cranky rich old guy to play on his heirs to make them eat him if they wished to inherit any of his fortune.
Sod that, start a religion in which people have to symbolically eat your body and drink your blood once a week. Better yet, tell them that when they do it, it magically becomes the real thing!