this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
423 points (96.7% liked)
"Quotes"
144 readers
140 users here now
Say things that aren't your words.
founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I never thought about it that way. There's nothing physically stopping cannibalism, so it's horrifying to us due to almost ubiquitous social pressure.
So clearly we have the capability to make these changes and society just doesn't see it as important. Maybe that should give me hope but honestly this just makes me more disgusted.
There isn't exactly a physical/psychological base drive to eat other people though. People desire sex. They do not generally desire eating someone, and are generally well fed. If you took a sample of everyone who has ever been starving to death, I think you would find a much higher preponderance of cannibalism.
Not disagreeing necessarily, just pointing out that there is a slightly different reason for the two things happening.
I agree, you see cannibalism at higher rates with starving people. However, there's literally no one who is dying of horny.
Hypothetically, if we were able to get the same level of repulsion in people, to the act of SA, then there'd essentially never be a scenario where an urge - strong enough to overcome that repulsion - could come about.
Oh, there could very well be a base drive for cannibalism. We can test ancient archaeological sites for cannibalism. When humans eat other humans, it leaves distinct traces in human waste that can be preserved in the fossil record. You can tell what an ancient human ate by analyzing their fossilized poop. And cannibalism was very common in pre-history, in societies all over the world. We're all descended from cannibals.
Worse still, it wasn't usually about food. It was usually done for power, war, dominance, and religious reasons.
Most of cannibalism throughout human history was not due to hunger. The Aztecs didn't build a skull pyramid because they were a bit peckish.
You don't feel an urge to just take a little nibble?
Armie Hammer has entered the chat