• mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    but we rightly don’t think eating them is justified

    That really depends on the society in question. Go look up “kuru” also known as “laughing sickness”. There’s tribes that historically ate parts of their dead relatives.

    That being said, for health reasons it’s a bad idea due to the spread of prion diseases. But the tribe didn’t know about that hence why it’s wasn’t taboo.

    And acceptable cultural practices around death vary wildly across cultures. Catholics used to think (and some still do) that cremation is an abomination. But for many cultures cremation is more the norm. Historically (though less so now) there were cultures that practiced sky burials, even though most people would find that horrifying.

    • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 days ago

      I more so meant the killing for consumption part. The cultures that did that were not exactly intentionally killing them to eat them like we are with non-human animals

      • qarbone@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        That’s because humans take too long to grow; they’re inefficient as livestock. 9 months to gestate a single baby that would take 16 to 18 years to get to adult size for harvest? The American South has already plumbed the depths of “humans as livestock.” It was just missing modern, industrial equipment.

        Humans are competing against: cows that get to adult size in 2 years and then you can milk or eat them, or pigs that give a whole litter of new pigs?

        If humans grew to adult size in like a year, prior to learning about the health risks, humans would definitely be farming other humans for food.

        People don’t think in terms of species, they think in terms of relations. That’s why some people feel worse for a dog in the pound than they do for the countless numbers facing genocides across the planet.

        • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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          2 days ago

          I think this is missing the point? None of that is a moral justification?

          The American South has already plumbed the depths of “humans as livestock.” It was just missing modern, industrial equipment.

          Which very notably become morally apposed by an increasingly larger and larger group at the time and we now think of horrific

          • qarbone@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Oh, I’m not morally justifying any “contrapoint” to your statement.

            If anything, I’m saying that the appeal to human morality is an unstable basis. Slaves weren’t freed because it was the right thing to do. And “we now think of [as] horrific” is a claim that needs qualification, if the rise is far-right ideology is anything to go on.

            Many things humans have done is for expediency, dressed up as something else. Livestock is expedient for food and clothing and all else, so the belief that those animals are the ones that it’s fine to eat gets draped over it all.