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In a similar question if we were to offer them beef knowing it was distantly related to us how would you feel about them eating it?

In a similar question if we were to offer them beef knowing it was distantly related to us how would you feel about them eating it?

(post is archived)

[–] • 5 pts

I have no idea what alien meat would contain and would probably die of some disease I have no immunity against because I'm not from their planet. You ever read Aurora?

[–] • 0 pt

Have not read it, I was thinking more about the moral aspects of it rather than hard science fiction, but I still like the answers. Would your answer change if you knew 100% it would not hurt you?

[–] • 1 pt

I'd try it why not? I've eaten exotic food before. I don't see a problem with it.

[–] • 0 pt

Pretty much the same here, if they offered I would give it a shot.

I will add Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson to my list of science fiction to read but I do have a few things before it on the list.

[–] • 1 pt

If it tasted good I wouldn't care

[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

Never break bread with thine enemy unless you have a knife under the loaf.

[–] • 1 pt

I will not take their hot beef injection, no.

[–] • 0 pt

Horseshit,soiboi's like you would be begging for it.

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

No I would not. I don't know what it is made of (the life on their planet could be silica based for example), and I don't know how that would interact with my body if ingested.

Assuming they got here, they are probably smart enough to know if they could ingest beef, so I'd be fine offering it to them and finding out if they accept or not.

[–] • 0 pt

Ok good answer, now if you knew 100% that it would not hurt you in any way or have any long term effects?

[–] • 1 pt

I would need to find out more about the beings offering this food. Where they come from, what their society is like, what their intentions are etc. By "not harm me" will it have any other side effects like render me unconscious so they could do experiments on me and return me "unharmed". Maybe get some of it to a lab first or see how it goes if a Terran predator of similar weight a human consumed this meat.

[–] • 0 pt

You are going pretty deep into it nice. I like the idea of wanting to know their societal structure around it.

When I asked the question I was picturing it as a near exact copy of the relationship we currently have with beef, a creature of similar biology we raise for food. (I like eating beef the thought just popped into my head)

So it would be like a dinner party where we had an interstellar pot luck.

[–] • 1 pt

Oh for sure. Hell, I'd eat the aliens if they were into cannibalism. Maybe that's how they make friends.

[–] [deleted] • 1 pt (edited )

I don't think it would be a good idea. If the alien life evolved completely independently, even if it was DNA and carbon-based, the problem you run into is one of chirality. All life on earth makes molecules with the same chirality (which is different for different molecules, but is consistent for each molecule). The chirality of the alien proteins being different from ours means it's unlikely we could make use of them in our digestion system, or worse, the alternatively-handed molecules would be poisonous to us. Remember Thalidomide? Only one of its chiral forms causes birth defects.

Here's an article that explores the other possibility--of aliens landing on earth: https://medium.com/predict/aliens-could-starve-to-death-on-earth-8c2d12200229

[–] • 0 pt

I agree. I think it would be not safe regardless of the intention of the alien. We would experience kuru and the laughing death would be the least of it.

[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

Aliens are probably enlightened enough to know they aren't very special, and that most life essentially lives by the death of some other living thing. We can only hope they believe consciousness to be as important as we do in deciding which animals to eat.

[–] • 1 pt

Yes I eat tacos.

[–] • 1 pt

Any meat from their planet is 'distantly related' to them. I'd feel the same as eating cow.

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