As far as I can tell, the only way morality truly pertains to eating human meat is in how it's obtained, not in the basic act of eating it. In the end, it's the same kind of meat as from any other living thing, and most of us don't feel too torn up over eating other creatures.
However, problems can arise in how you actually get that human meat. If you go out and kill another human being for their meat, you're a murderer. If you carve up a corpse you've found but had no hand in making, you're "defiling the dead".
It's very clear why the idea of killing a human for meat sets off tons of mental alarms for most, but the only real ethical issues we have over actually eating human meat seem to come from our social nature and our religious practices. Considering just how finely-evolved we are for social life, the idea of walking up to your recently-deceased-of-natural-causes neighbor's corpse and ripping off a chunk to eat is freaky as hell to us, due to the cognitive dissonance between the mental observations of "intelligent being I have feelings towards and who has feelings of its own" and "mindless hunk of edible matter". Even though it really is just an insignificant wad of flesh and bone in reality, our brains are so used to seeing it move and assigning meaning to it that treating it as a object rather than an intelligent being is unfamiliar and difficult.
I'm willing to wager that a lot of religious practices regarding proper burial and/or disposal of the dead stem from this mind-fuckery, as an attempt to avoid having to deal with it entirely. Due to agriculture as well, we're almost never desperate enough to need to eat each other, unlike most animals who live day-to-day. As a result, it's easier for us to treat our kinds' corpses as sacred artifacts of the lost than it is for us just hunker down and enjoy the free food while it's still hot.
Really, the main problem we have with eating human meat, assuming it somehow comes from a willing human or one killed by natural causes rather than slaughtered, is that it fucks with the social processes of our brain pretty hard. If you disguised it as veal, I'm willing to bet the average person wouldn't notice or care until specifically told, since it's just an edible object at that point. When you point out that it came from the remains of a guy named Bob, however, it's no longer an object, but instead it's "Bob". The same social processes that have made us so powerful have also subtly screwed us to a tiny degree, although I'm sure most people would agree that it's not by any means a big loss.
This whole thing also helps to explain the standpoints of vegetarians and/or vegans (I tend to get them confused, sorry) on a scientific level, since they see "Bessie" rather than "beef", or "Porky" instead of "pig meat". Perhaps vegans originate from a malfunctioning/hyper-functional set of social processes, perceiving other species with the same social filter as their fellow humans.
I love vsauce, all of his videos are so informative
This is still grossing me out though
Man, just watching this makes me feel uncomfortable.
[QUOTE=TurboSax;43625850]As far as I can tell, the only way morality truly pertains to eating human meat is in how it's obtained, not in the basic act of eating it. In the end, it's the same kind of meat as from any other living thing, and most of us don't feel too torn up over eating other creatures.
However, problems can arise in how you actually get that human meat. If you go out and kill another human being for their meat, you're a murderer. If you carve up a corpse you've found but had no hand in making, you're "defiling the dead".
It's very clear why the idea of killing a human for meat sets off tons of mental alarms for most, but the only real ethical issues we have over actually eating human meat seem to come from our social nature and our religious practices. Considering just how finely-evolved we are for social life, the idea of walking up to your recently-deceased-of-natural-causes neighbor's corpse and ripping off a chunk to eat is freaky as hell to us, due to the cognitive dissonance between the mental observations of "intelligent being I have feelings towards and who has feelings of its own" and "mindless hunk of edible matter". Even though it really is just an insignificant wad of flesh and bone in reality, our brains are so used to seeing it move and assigning meaning to it that treating it as a object rather than an intelligent being is unfamiliar and difficult.
I'm willing to wager that a lot of religious practices regarding proper burial and/or disposal of the dead stem from this mind-fuckery, as an attempt to avoid having to deal with it entirely. Due to agriculture as well, we're almost never desperate enough to need to eat each other, unlike most animals who live day-to-day. [B]As a result, it's easier for us to treat our kinds' corpses as sacred artifacts of the lost than it is for us just hunker down and enjoy the free food while it's still hot.[/B]
Really, the main problem we have with eating human meat, assuming it somehow comes from a willing human or one killed by natural causes rather than slaughtered, is that it fucks with the social processes of our brain pretty hard. If you disguised it as veal, I'm willing to bet the average person wouldn't notice or care until specifically told, since it's just an edible object at that point. When you point out that it came from the remains of a guy named Bob, however, it's no longer an object, but instead it's "Bob". The same social processes that have made us so powerful have also subtly screwed us to a tiny degree, although I'm sure most people would agree that it's not by any means a big loss.
This whole thing also helps to explain the standpoints of vegetarians and/or vegans (I tend to get them confused, sorry) on a scientific level, since they see "Bessie" rather than "beef", or "Porky" instead of "pig meat". Perhaps vegans originate from a malfunctioning/hyper-functional set of social processes, perceiving other species with the same social filter as their fellow humans.[/QUOTE]
That was a mindset Humans had [I]way[/I] before agriculture, in fact it's documented that Homo Heidelbergensis (predecessor of the Neanderthal) practiced ritualistic burial (complete with artifacts buried with the remains) anywhere from 600,000-1.3 million years ago.
[QUOTE=Loriborn;43625248]Again, I would never eat human bits ever, but I see nothing disgusting once you get past the "ew" factor. As long as no one is getting hurt, and everyone involved is knowing about it, there really isn't a problem.
Meat is meat, there really isn't anything more to it.[/QUOTE]
Except, in order to actually eat "human bits", you kinda have to cut something off, now don't you? If you want some kind of real substance than there isn't very much you can do to make it completely hurt-free.
So, yeah, its pretty morally reprehensible. I mean, fuck, veil itself, which is baby cow, is a bit fucked up to some people. Sure its subjective, but it's a good enough reason.
I mean, would you like to eat pieces of your mom?
Don't eat people because then you get laughing man disease and die.
When you are cooking human, an invaluable resource is "To Serve Man". It's sitting on the self with all the other cookbooks here. I love it.
Can't listen to the part describing the texture and taste, gets me feeling sick to my stomach.
he forgot to mention that kenny hotz from kenny vs spenny also ate someone's placenta on his new show Triumph of the Will
he also ate a tooth and a little bit of skin
i've eaten at least 12 people
i was chewing gum while i watched this
Nah, no one knows the song.. God damn it.
soo gay
I got weird looks from friends and teachers because I told them how to prepare human meat and what the side effects were.
[QUOTE=RG4ORDR;43630054]I got weird looks from friends and teachers because I told them how to prepare human meat and what the side effects were.[/QUOTE]
Can't possibly imagine why.
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