I did. :cold:

THe best reason to never cannibalize is simple, INFECTION.
This is why handlers of the dead or morticians were classed among the unclean in many cultures as illness they contracted from these dead tended to kill and spread from them.
Many who did anatomical dissection of dead humans in the "Renaissance" died from illnesses contracted from these "stiffs" as well.

again as it has been said before, MOST of the time

Because all the other food in the Wasteland are perfectly safe and don't give you rads. Yep.

In the Book of Eli the protagonist encounters cannibals and frowns upon them. Probably because he thinks they'll kill him, but maybe because he follows the Bible he thinks its unethical. Or both.

My gripe with the Cannibalism Perk in F3 wasn't the karma loss for eating bodies (it's only -1 karma, no big deal, and probably fitting because it's kind of like stealing), but it's the major negative reactions of the NPC's when they see you eating.

It is wrong and disgusting but if the situation, eg. starvation called for it then even a wrong decision if made for the right reasons can be a good decision. Sadly there was allot of cannibalism in ww2, the main accounts were in the worst battles - Stalingrad and the pacific. Its difficult to read about and makes you feel repulsed but put yourself in their shoes, they were fighting fiercely, malnourished, had dysentery, trench foot, malaria (in the pacific) they were slowly and painfully dieing and in desperate need of food and in the end it affected them mentally and they chose to do something that in their right mind they would never have done but they did it and it saved their lives.

Just my 2 c.

peace-

Ronin82

As the guy said in Alive; "...only if you promise to clean your plate."

If it's because of a horrible case of the munchies (you've got plenty of other food), then it's bad. IF you're starving to death and have nothing, then it's okay. Everyone saying that it's bad. Starve yourself for a couple weeks and you'll eat anything. You can literally get hungry enough to eat anything.

Actually in RL chimpanzees have been know to murder and eat other chimps from other tribes so why wouldn't deathclaws eat another deathclaw if it were starving, or radroaches and so on. Ya eating a human is gross but in times of low food such as the "siege of stalingrad" cannibalizm was know to run rampant through all sects of society. So while it may be morally wrong the human instinct to survive will at times overlook morals. Also on a side note they should have just left a bunch a blood and bones where the body had been instead of making it disappear.

Actually, I think it was more along the lines of infection in the Book of Eli. They check to see if his hands shake in a couple of situations, which is supposed to be a sure way of determining who is a cannibal in that movie. When he meets the old couple, the shaking of the woman bringing in the tea confirms the suspicion they are cannibals. It is likely the cannibals in the Book of Eli become infected with some sort of a disease passed on directly through cannibalism.

Really, that isn't unique either. In real life, similar things have been known to occur. Usually, cannibalism leads to transmissible neurological disorders (which is probably what leads to the shaking of the cannibals in the Book of Eli). I'm not going to go through every example of this, as I don't know them all. Think of things like mad cow disease and things along those lines. Mad cow disease is transmitted from cow to cow, with the primary or only transmission being through feed with contaminated cow meet in it.

Cannibalism as the only way of survival... I guess I could overlook it. Personally, I'd avoid it out of both morals and interest in my own long term health. I'd rather quickly die of starvation than slowly die of some untreatable neurological disorder caused by cannibalism that has also forced me into isolation by becoming an outcast in society for my actions.

^ Well dying of starvation isn't that slow. It'll last a week or something. Unless you end your life with a gun if you have one.

And that starvation period will usually be relatively short-term. Will you endure having a couple of steak-sized "Strange Meat" just to get over that period, and after that never resort to cannibalism again?

I'm speaking in relatives. Dying of starvation would almost certainly be quicker than dying of an untreatable neurological disorder.

As you pointed out, suicide could be the great equalizer between the two, allowing you to end it at a time and in a manner of your choosing. The problem is, with a neurological disorder, you might lose the ability to function before you decide to go through with it. Starvation, at least you will be able to end it at the end of your tolerance no matter what is going on.

No, I wouldn't endure having any 'Strange Meat' or anything else just to survive. Really just not who I am. Besides, if you know what to look for, there are plenty of things you can eat in the wild.

Granted, this is just speculation on my part and a decision being made outside of the situation I'm speaking of. If I was hungry enough, and in a situation where that was the only option, who knows? Maybe I would change my mind in order to survive. Couldn't really say; however, being well fed definitely doesn't make the idea of cannibalism agreeable.

Agreed, many things may seem repulsive now when you aren't in a desperate position. And remember, suicide is an option only when you absolutely know that there is no hope for rescue. What if you have no idea when rescue will come? Rescue may be minutes away after you pull the trigger. Also something to consider.

I've read the book, but not seen the movie. Yeah, if you're starving and you can only survive by eating a human corpse, it's okay. But hunting humans for food is not cool. In the book version of "The Road", there were people who had children for the sole purpose of eating them upon birth, that seems wrong to me (also stupid, as the woman would have had to nourish the baby while carrying it).

If a lion takes over s pride he will kill any cub that is not his. It's a way to make sure your own survives. Many many animals do that and will eat their own.
If I'm hungry I'm eating, I don't care what it is as long as it doesn't kill me.

Well maybe its because we treat other humans as relative equals. We eat beef, but we dont interact with cows everyday, and even people who may interact with cows a lot would probably not feel anything wrong because the cow is just not treated as an equal, we dont have conversations with cows, our friends are not cows.

When one eats a human, then a human becomes food. Thus every person that they see could just be a snack if they were dead. For anyone who owns a dog, would you eat dog meat? Its like acknowledging that your dog is an animal to be killed for food, not a companion. I dont know if someone sane could just be fine with eating human meat and then casually interact with humans, because now they are not just there as companionship, but if need be, for sustenance.

I'm sure if a a big enough group got together, they would pool their resources to gather some food.

If things got dire enough, things would turn south.

Ever seen 'Alive'?

i wouldnt say evil as much as "frowned upon"

you do what you have to do

One thing that game and movie makers tend to miss is that there are basically two forms of cannibalism - internal to the community and external. The classic, scary cannibals you see in most movies are the second kind. They are communities who eat their enemies. Here is not simply for food, but as a show of intimidation and force. Where the internals have an entirely different rationale. For them, eating the members of their group who died (note they do not murder them first just to eat them, when someone dies naturally they do it) is a way of keeping their spirit within the community. In essence their ancestors live on through them, and eating their body is a physical symbol of that spiritual bond.

There is of course a third type, that of those not from cultures that normally practice cannibalism, but only do it in extremes, like with the Donner Party, etc... But that is not an example of a cannibalistic culture, but rather simply one of people being pushed to survive in extreme circumstances.

Survival of the fittest, I say.

I think he wants us to discuss the ethics not the health risks.

Its fine in my book, as long as you didn't kill them yourself(well the situation of the person you killed or what you did would vary this as right or wrong). Like that Rally's commercial 'You Gotta Eat!'

In some tribal cultures it is acceptable, also how some conduct funerals. They believe burying their families' bodies in the cold eath is wrong while making them apart of themselves through body and spirit or something of the like is the right way to go. ( I just realized Sub Rosa just said this.......)

But I would avoid it altogether if I had a choice. But I would feel no moral loss through it, it would be very disgusting though and as said I would eat anything before I ate my own kind but I would not feel evil for doing it.

I think getting infected with prions or some other deadly bio-hazard tops all questions of morality.

If you kill the person and eat him that's really bad. The person before they die says "it's ok buddy you can eat me to live" is not so bad.

Like radroach meat is any safer.