Many species are not cannibals, humans (usually) included. But why is that? Really, if you're are freshly dead, where's the logic in me not cooking and eating you? It provides a meal, saves money, and saves arable land. Do our emotions get in the way of what is logical in this case, or am I the only f*cked up one here?

Depends on how they died;

A bloody car crash NO
Due to a virus or bacteria NO
Old age NO
Cancer NO

See there's lot of ways a person could die that even if you were a cannibal you wouldn't want to eat. People often don't just drop dead in a convenient to eat way. I suppose this is why so many cannibals murder people, or perhaps I'm giving sick fucks too much credit and they just enjoy the kill as well.

Edited 1/8/2016 22:13:14

What if we had flesh donors? People can be organ donors, so why not flesh donors?

That could work but then again who is in a position to donate flesh? Mostly the undesirable to eat ones.

(We are talking about people signing up to be ate after the die naturaly right? Or sign up to be euthananised?)

Yes.

you could have like people farms and grow and eat them like cows...that would be good.

Hindus don't even eat cow flesh...0% chance human flesh would be alright. If all life is created by the hand of God, by eating another being we are killing God's creation and thus God himself.

But what if the meat is already dead jai? Also, why wouldn't you eat a cancer victim Luna? Last I checked cancer wasn't contagious via consumption?

Hmm

Natural disgust like smelling rotten food or seeing lots of sick.

'well he's completely fucked, he has a tumor in his liver and brain but on the bright side his leg looks tasty. Tuck in.'

^ just feels wrong you know.

Edited 1/8/2016 23:44:42

just feels wrong you know.

Which brings me back to my question: Is our emotion getting in the way of logic?

Perhaps?

But I don't Think cannibalism creates any net gain for a society.

What positives does it provide anyway? Megre unsustainable food supply's that require a lot of effort to prepare. (what if the family want the body, who prepares the body for eating ect)

Edited 1/8/2016 23:58:13

Humans taste like pork.

I'm in for cannibalism. I always wanted to taste human meat.

The problem is that even I have standards. I'm not going to eat a freaking human alive. Keyword: alive.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks about this kind of stuff, I was starting to feel like I'm crazy. For instance, have you ever tried to configure the perfect murder, or how to brutally take over the world? Or thinking if Hitler's actions were successful throughout the world, would we be in a better scenario, where everyone is the same and there is no physical reason to hate?

Eating any part of a human brain can give you a disease that destroys your brain. This has been documented among cannibal tribes and cows that eat eachother (mad cow disease).

A MGSB says above, it's been proven and documented the cannibalism affects the brain badly. Even though they may not go on rages, technically all cannibals are insane/mentally ill because of it.

If you've ever seen a chicken fed it's own kind, or cows, they go nuts because of it. Therefore it'd be a horrible idea to eat our own kind because of the physiological factors.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks about this kind of stuff, I was starting to feel like I'm crazy. For instance, have you ever tried to configure the perfect murder, or how to brutally take over the world? Or thinking if Hitler's actions were successful throughout the world, would we be in a better scenario, where everyone is the same and there is no physical reason to hate?

Yes to all of them, actually. Which is scary.

A MGSB says above, it's been proven and documented the cannibalism affects the brain badly. Even though they may not go on rages, technically all cannibals are insane/mentally ill because of it.

Ummm... Cows and chicken are both herbivore. I think there's a second reason there.

The problem is in eating the brains, indeed.

And mad cow disease is caused by a prion...

Many species are not cannibals, humans (usually) included. But why is that?

Ignoring humans for the moment, one of the reasons most animals avoid cannibalism is that whatever parasites or other diseases may be infecting the eaten animal will easily infect the cannibal since they are the same species. A parasite or disease evolved to a specific host species will naturally already be evolved to infect any cannibal of the same species. But they won't be as capable of infecting a predator of a very different species. So, basically, cannibals tend to acquire any sicknesses their victims have. Recent research has confirmed this hypothesis: http://biology.cos.ucf.edu/hoffman/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/PfennigHoHoffman1998.pdf

The same is true for humans: Human cannibals tend to acquire various diseases, a prominent example being the disease called Kuru (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29) which is kinda like Mad Cow Disease for humans (though Mad Cow Disease is also dangerous for humans, too, not just cows).

So, the basic explanation is an evolutionary one: a lot of the time, being a cannibal is bad for you.

On the other hand, in many species, cannibalism can be good for the cannibal, especially under certain kinds of circumstances. For example, in some species of insects (such as the preying mantis) and spiders (famously the black widow spider), the female eats the male after mating, as a kind of macabre 'wedding dinner'. There are other examples of cannibalism being an evolutionary 'good thing' at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism_%28zoology%29.

In humans, however, in *theory*, you could avoid most diseases by cooking. Kuru and other prion-based diseases are notoriously difficult to destroy by simple heat, though. However, if you *could* avoid something like Kuru, then *in theory*, you could make a case that some forms of human cannibalism could 'make sense' as you do in the OP.

But when you get down to it, I believe that we probably have an innate revulsion to cannibalism, which would come from our long evolutionary history *before* cooking with fire was available to us, which was only in the neighbourhood of about 200,000 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans), which is a very short time in terms of evolution.

Some cultures, in certain conditions, have overcome this revulsion, and cannibalism is accepted (usually not for regular meals, though, more of a ritualistic kind of thing). But these are relatively rare.

Another thing that we probably have an innate revulsion to is incest, which is also known to cause disease (genetic diseases in offspring), and which many other animals also avoid. Similar logic applies as to why we might have this revulsion.

But also by a similar logic, you might be able to make a case that, like cooking for cannibalism, use of birth control could make incest 'make sense' in some circumstances.

Not to say that making these arguments won't earn you some scornful responses and/or shunning, though.

If all life is created by the hand of God, by eating another being we are killing God's creation and thus God himself.

Plants are alive too. Even as a vegetarian or vegan, you're still killing your (imaginary) God's creation, and thus your (imaginary) God himself.

Unless you were to synthesize amino acids, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids and eat those components directly (known as an 'elemental diet', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elemental_diet), you literally cannot survive without killing other life. Good luck with that.

Edited 1/9/2016 06:17:41

Last I checked cancer wasn't contagious via consumption?

Some cancers can be contagious. A contagious cancer is devastating Tasmanian Devils (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease).

If you cooked it, though, thereby killing the cancer cells, it would not be contagious. But prions can't be killed (since they are not 'alive' by our usual definition of the word), and are notoriously resistant to heat, so watch out for that Kuru (see above).