Korean Job Discussion Forums

[flotsam]

[mateomiguel]

this thread is a candidate for the freakiest waygook thread.

[periwinkle]

Ah, some of us are just bored.... I've got 10 min to kill before I can leave work^^

[Shapur]

Apologies for this post. Both for the quality - I'm writing in a hurry and because the honesty is probably going to offend quite a few of you. (First post in a couple of years I think).
As a New Zealander, this topic is really very interesting to me.
New Zealanders for the most part don't like to talk about or even admit to it, but our country has a long, long history of cannibalism. When the 19th century Europeans wrote plays and cheap fiction about 'South Sea Cannibals' they were talking about us.
I know an awful lot about the history of my ancestors and unfortunately I'd have to say that cannibalism (among other factors in NZ's case-it's very complex), eventually leads to a complete societal breakdown. Cannibalism on a huge scale. Thousands of people, killed and eaten at once. Human beings viewed and treated as meat on the hoof. People hunted like deer. Entire peoples exterminated in genocidal, cannibalistic wars. Armies gorging themselves on human flesh until the stench of rotting corpes drove them into retreat....
These comments might sound like something out of the Apocalypse, but they are not mere hyperbole in the case of New Zealand. They are cold hard facts and not isolated incidents either. For most of the early 19th century they were regular occurrences in my country. And before any of you rednecks out there start feeling superior, both brown AND white NZers took part in cannibalism, freely, frequently, and in large numbers. It's horrifying but, fascinating in an extremely macabre and uncomfortable kind of way. (In particular because it REALLY challenges the assumptions of moral and cultural superiority that a lot of white New Zealanders have - either consciously or unconsciously - but that's a bit off topic, I could write a whole thesis on that one).
So to answer your poll - First off I would avoid eating people like the plague because of the above reason. Large scale cannibalism (I'm not talking about small scale, or ritualised cannibalism like in Papua new Guinea), eventually leads to a complete moral and societal breakdown. You don't value humanity anymore. People become food and any stranger you meet becomes a potential meal or a potential predator in the worst way imaginable. The very thought of trying to survive in an environment like that appalls me. And how could you ever go back to a "normal' society after something like that.
Secondly, and paradoxically I guess, I can honestly say that if it came down to being stuck on some kind of a desert Island with no possibility of getting fish or other sustenance, then I would kill people and eat them. But not the weakest or the fattest or anything like that. I would base it on the tried and true New Zealand cultural tradition of 'utu' - reciprocity. I would balance the people's perceived good turns against the perceived wrongs they had done me. Those who came out on the good or neutral side wouldn't be touched even if I was dying of hunger. However, those who came out on the bad side of the ledger would be killed and eaten without much regret at all. If I held up the darkest parts of my cahracter to the light, I can even say that I have the potential to take considerable vicious pleasure in it.... Not the killing or the cannibalism itself, but the vengeance of it. Cannibalism, consuming someone utterly is also the final and ultimate victory/insult, ....

[red dog]

[Shapur]

[Kwangjuchicken]

I wonder. Do people taste like, well, you know, me?

[Shapur]

[SPINOZA]

Excellent posts, Shapur.

One inaccuracy, however, is the view:

"I can�t think of any species that does it in the wild � kill each other, yes, but eat each other, no."

Some research reveals that it's prevalent in some insects, all the way up to advanced creatures like lions.

However, since humans aren't animals, so the argument goes, it means we shouldn't follow suit. Because humans have the capacity for moral and rational choice, that makes us somehow aloof to the animal kingdom, ruling out eating our own dead, even though there are excellent moral arguments in its favour, and even ruling out killing other animals for food. Complete rubbish in my view, of course, but that's not for exploration here.

What really matters is.....what do we taste like? I've heard comparisons to spam (ugh!), pork and Jeffrey Dahmer said salam gogi tastes "basically like beef". Chances are it'll have its own unique taste and be only vaguely similar to something else - like dog being broadly similar to lamb, but, really, tasting like....dog!

[pidgin]

Two cannibals are eating a clown.
One looks at the other and asks,
"Does this taste funny to you?"

[SPINOZA]

old. very old.

[flotsam]

[red dog]

Hi Shapur,

This is a good point, and a pretty noncontroversial argument in favour of vegetarianism:

[Shapur]

[Shapur]