>people on the internet act like Kuru is some sort of divine punishment that strikes down all those who dare consume the flesh of their fellow men and proof that cannibalism is objectively abominable on an instinctual level according to the laws of nature themselves (and thus proof that modern morality just happens to be completely right about this one thing)>read up on it>in reality it's only been known to have ever affected one tribe in New Guinea, no cases of it or anything similar have ever been reported in other places with endemic institutional cannibalism like the Americas, Oceania, Africa or even the rest of New Guinea, nor in any of the situational instances of it all over the world throughout history>said new guinea tribe just as likely originally got it from eating some prion'd jungle pig or some shitHeh, you can tell humanity desperately seeks the comfort of objective morality sometimes
>>18450611Oh well looks I'm going to eat you then anonOM NOM NOM UwU
Isn't there zero risk of that if you don't eat the brain?
>>18450611I am genuinely disappointed that it's no longer possible to travel and participate in a traditional cannibal feast. That must have been an interesting experience.
>>18450611I mean in fairness there is evidence that endemic prion disease may be a common side-effect of cannibalism. Though of course you'd expect it to be more common if it was in any way normative.
If you're killing enemies in battle anyways, why SHOULDN'T you use their meat and eat them?
>>18450615
>>18450876This desu. It's wasteful not to. Cannibalism is green and eco-friendly.
>>18450636Kuru is one example of many different prion diseases you can get from eating contaminated meat. Actually the reason we probably don't have a more elaborated database of prion diseases associated with cannibalism is because most cannibalistic societies wiped themselves out well before we knew what prions were, either from prion diseases or the other obvious drain on human life associated with cannibalism.
>>18452461They didn't wipe themselves out. Cannibalism is widely (if poorly) recorded in large parts of the world and was deliberately stamped out by foreigners most of the time.
>>18452462Mortality and replacement rate are hard facts, anon. You can ignore them if you'd like, but that's why people like you don't make important decisions.
>>18452462And technically speaking, Europe used to be a cannibal society until very recently. Medical cannibalism.
>>18452462I should also say I am talking about society at a certain scale. What happens in smaller nomadic and tribal communities is mostly irrelevant to the argument I am making, and those are the examples you talk about. Any complex, organized society that has been cannibalistic to some extent had it more as a ritual or ceremony, usually for the deceased, and I don't think we have any examples of human livestock. The scale is the crucial part here, as that's where you might see some quantifiable viral element emerge with prions, but I have a suspicion this isn't really about cannibalism and prion diseases. Either way I would find an insecure cannibal to be far worse than a simple barbarian that eats the heart of his enemies because it sounds cool. The latter has at least some sort of internal logic, the former is trying to negotiate more with himself than anyone else, and the former will eventually cross a threshold he cannot come back from.
>>18450620That was never the case in the past either. Cannibalism was almost always a ritual practice. Most often it was funerary cannibalism, meaning that tribes would eat their dead, so most likely only tribe members could participate. Less commonly it was part of som kind of human sacrifice ritual, which meant that the select people would eat human flesh, e.g. priests or warriors to gain the strength of a slain enemy etc. Again, not something a random traveller could participate in.There are no credible records of any society that ate people just because they liked it, or where human meat was just a normal part of the diet, or anything similar, where an outsider could just wander in and try it. Cannibalism was either done during famine or it was a ritual for the community. One exception may have been China, at least based on the novel Water Margin, where cannibalism seems to be common in the criminal underworld, so your best bet to eat people would probably be to become a Chinese bandit.
>>18452467I'm not going to debate the undisclosed figures inside your head, and neither is whatever version of me you have invented.>>18452536Your arguments are hopelessly jumbled. You seem to be attempting to attack purely dietary cannibalism but also dismiss all instances in which it happens. You first stated that "most cannibalistic societies wipe themselves out" but upon challenge narrow your scope down to "complex, organized societies" (and by this I assume you mean urban) which as you say never practiced cannibalism for merely alimentary reasons(Marvin Harris aside), so your argument is pointless. As for human livestock, of course not, it's basically impossible in a narrow conception of the idea. There are cases of humans being 'hunted' as game, though. As for the prions, as bizarre as it may sound the Fore were slowly developing resistance to Kuru, and similar resistances to prions can be seen in genomes all around the world, possibly indicating cannibalism used to be more widespread and it was certainly not an extinction level threat.But it is no wonder humans often append special meanings to cannibalism. After all, humans are pre-disposed to think of themselves as special, so it follows that the act of eating a human must also be quite special.
>>18452559Mortality (i.e cannibalism) would, in the event of widescale adoption, most likely cause a replacement rate below a certain threshold, this necessarily causes collapse. I'm not sure why human livestock is an impossibility in your mind, or why the idea is too narrow a conception, we have plenty of examples of slave societies which were not so far off. As for your point on prion resistance, I don't think I need to tell you why that's a half measure at best. I think it is probably not a stretch of the imagination to assert that cannibalistic societies were usually either annihilated or died off themselves, in fact to my knowledge many pacific islander peoples have stories about this exact thing. They coincidentally live in a region where some sort of dietary or necessity-based cannibalism would be at least somewhat environmentally encouraged. >But it is no wonder humans often append special meanings to cannibalism. After all, humans are pre-disposed to think of themselves as special, so it follows that the act of eating a human must also be quite special.My point is this special quality we append to cannibalism is not an accident, and that you could fairly easily attribute it to a deterministic influence of interactions between cannibals and non-cannibals, and more pertinently, the survival and dominance of the latter.
>>18452559>>18452569The real issue is economics. Large-scale cannibalism would just be very inefficient since slaves are an extremely valuable commodity, but if people started eating them, they would lose much of their value. If a society keeps slaves, they can be used to farm and raise livestock to feed the slave owners better. That way, they would be more complient too, human livestock would need to be guarded 24/7 since they would always want to run away or rebel. So, even more resources would be wasted. This basically ensures that human meat would always be at best a luxury commodity.The only somewhat surprising thing is that there have never been large-scale societies that ate people who died of natural causes, or utilize bodies in other way, like fertilizer. An even tribal societies that ate their dead did it in ritualized ways. There seems to be an innate instinct in humans to treat the dead with respect. What form respect takes varies by culture, it could even mean eating them, but it seems to exclude utilitarian use. Arguably, contemporary society is the most utilitarianly cannibalistic society. We reuse organs for transplantation, use human cell samples or even whole body parts for medical research etc.
>>18452569There are several examples of societies where cannibalism (in many forms) used to be widespread and normative which went on just fine. And in urban societies such as China (non-medical) cannibalism remained an occasional occurrence for a long time, though not for reasons of pleasure. Human livestock (assuming that by livestock you mean keeping animals in pens or captivity to eat) isn't, logically or even physically impossible, but the development of the practice is practically impossible because they are not cost effective compared to other animals: Slow breeding rates, identical food requirements to those of the husbandmen, ease of escape and subsequent hardships to prevent said escapes among other things I may not even be thinking of make the development of such a practice impossible. As for narrowness, that was exactly what I was talking about, human livestock can exist if you widen your horizons a little. >. I think it is probably not a stretch of the imagination to assert that cannibalistic societies were usually either annihilated or died off themselves,Except all the irrelevant and very dismissable examples of this not happening. Prior to the runaway expansion of European civilization destroying all others, I mean.>They coincidentally live in a region where some sort of dietary or necessity-based cannibalism would be at least somewhat environmentally encouraged.And where it was widespread and well documented.>>18452578To be frank I don't know what you are even trying to say anymore.
>>18452593>Except all the irrelevant and very dismissable examples of this not happening. Prior to the runaway expansion of European civilization destroying all others, I mean.I get it now, you have turned a new leaf on cannibalism to own the chuds. The pacific islander people I mentioned seemed to have developed, independently from Europeans, a distaste for cannibalism. I'll try and find the exact people I am talking about, iirc they were in the Philippines, but fret not as their stories about cannibals predate their colonial period. >To be frank I don't know what you are even trying to say anymore.That wasn't me
>>18452593I can't find the people I was referencing, but I'm sure there are thousands of brown cultures which have decided, independent of European intervention, that cannibalism doesn't fly. I should reiterate that I was fairly certain human livestock did not exist, not only for the reasons you listed, which are mostly equally applicable to slaves as well, but also because a society which organized itself enough to keep human livestock would be incapable of allowing itself to also consume them in large quantities. As for ceremonial endocannibalism and medical cannibalism, I think those are different enough from exocannibalism to not carry the same weight in informing our ethical understanding of cannibalism today. It's still a stupid idea for obvious reasons in a modern context, but that isn't really applicable in a historical example.
>>18452596You don't get anything. Stop making wild assumptions, you don't know me. The Philippines, iirc wasn't particularly known for cannibalism. More of a Borneo or Polynesia thing. And I don't know exactly where you got that I think sentiments against cannibalism cannot arise independently. I only mentioned european civilization because its conquest of the world verifiably was the catalyst for many of these practices ceasing all around the world. Practices that otherwise seemed to be completely sustainable in their social conditions.
>>18452608>which are mostly equally applicable to slaves as well,No actually, you can make slaves work. Which you can't do with people you intend to eat. The reproduction/growth rate of humans is only a problem if you intend to eat them (Nine years for reproduction, double that just for a fully grown escape prone pig is a bad investment).>but also because a society which organized itself enough to keep human livestock would be incapable of allowing itself to also consume them in large quantitiesThat is essentially just your opinion. The chance of such a scenario has never manifested and likely never will. Whatever lets you sleep at night, moralityboy.
>>18452635>Whatever lets you sleep at night, moralityboy.Real society is when you regurgitate a 19th century critique of Bavarian Catholics and try to explain why it's so totally ubermensch for 4chan anons to ignore the voice in their head that tells them not to eat people. Genius! Why didn't I think of that?
>>18452640Astounding refutation of the voices inside your head. Maybe if this topic made you less uncomfortable we'd have a better discussion. But rest assured that the voice in your head is universal and the supreme being inscribed your values into the fabric of reality for the sake of your peace of mind. Go write me a refutation in your substack.
>>18452651I'm actually a projecting cannibal. I see, makes perfect sense really. In all honesty, do you think there is some sort of threshold of brown-ness where eating people becomes okay through some absurd moral relativism and ethnographic revision? Do you think that the same things which made Europeans and most other people fear/hate cannibalism were somehow not present in these cultures? If so why does it only seem to happen on remote Islands, desperate circumstances and specialized ritual contexts? It's almost like there is some overarching sense, determined by experiences humans had in the past, that gives anyone a strong natural aversion to it. You'll notice this is one of the few sentiments that actually qualifies for this, we can justify doing almost anything else to other humans, but for some reason cannibalism is quite difficult. Is it a narcissism of the human spirit that induces this aversion, we somehow hold humans in too high a regard? I'll concede that my position might be a little bit post-hoc, but yours is reaching levels of just-so that should not be possible.
>>18453224I quite literally never implied you were a cannibal. Much less a projecting one. I stated that it made you uncomfortable because you fell, on your own accord, into a ridiculous whirlwind of trying to prove or disprove ...something about cannibalism. As for everything else you wrote, the version of me in your head can answer those.
>>18452551Also sub-Saharan Africa. Some groups there ate people because of culinary preference.
