Cannibalism. Another way to survive.
Perhaps the 2 brothers were smart and better at surviving than others. How long are you going to starve, before you start eating other people?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
(1rst being Sex Crimes: Like child molesting and rape)
I think hunger leads to cannibalism. It's been proven again and again.
But ya, as long as we are well fed, its not an option.
As for hurting my group. I decided in the meat locker. When i got the chanse, those brothers would get it. And ya, it was the easiest decisions i made in the game so far. Killing both of them.
Here's the thing, though. The St. Johns were on a goddamned farm. It was established they had milk, butter, bread, cheese, and vegetables. They clearly weren't in danger of starving, even if they didn't resort to cannibalism.
One cow can only produce so many proteins.
For 2 men and a fat lady it wont be enough.
I can understand the need, the desperation that people drive to eat humans.
But I think the most important thing is, even in that situation that we need to keep some humanity in an already F*** up world.
It is different when someone sacrifices himself for the group, and killing people.
That just makes you a murderer.
But what is humanity?
How hungry will you become, before humanity goes out the window?
And in TWD. Where zombies go after every living animal, not just humans..
I just wonder what happens to zombies in sub-zero temperatures.
Til I starve, killing other humans to eat them makes you a murderer.
Also in real life survival situations it doesn't happen, unless volunteered.
We are not like that.
Zombies in sub-zero temps freeze and can't move in the Walking dead universe, I think.
I can sympathise with the people that the film 'Alive' is based on. Plane crashed into the Andes(I think?) They resorted to feeding on already DEAD passengers to stay alive until rescue arrived but the St. John situation is a totally different scenario.
The St John's actively set bear traps to catch humans and even have the audacity to claim they only eat people who would of died anyway! Mark is very unlikely going to die of an arrow in the shoulder! The farm seemed to have plenty of crops anyhow,turn veggie for gods sake!
That's actually not true. In most cases, they aren't willing at all. Like the case with the Escaped Convicts in Australia, so many lost at sea. (Typically at sea it was the first idiot to drink sea water.).. It's typically Murder, no matter how you slice it.
Then why are they sitting in Georgia?
Head for Canada should be priority number 1.
Better hunting as well.
Yep. It's hard to imagine killing someone to eat them.
Eating someone who has died. Disturbing. But i wont say i wouldnt have done it in a situation like the one in alive. At the end you have to choose. Die or eat a person. I just hope i never have to make that choice.
Convicts who commit crimes, yeah I'm not surprised, don't think they have high moral standards either.
Bottom line it is not done, there will always be exceptions.
You can't really say it's "not done", while in the same breath saying there's exceptions.
As pointed out, it commonly occurred at sea, particularly during the 1800's and earlier (prior to instant communication and quick, fairly reliable rescue); e.g. Richard Parker was killed and eaten by the surviving crew when they made the assessment he wasn't going to make it anyway (he was one of those idiots who decided to drink seawater). By the time they decided to do the deed, the guy was supposedly unconscious, meaning he not only didn't give consent, but couldn't.
Granted, they were found guilty of murder afterward, but public opinion was actually on their side in this instance - if I recall correctly, their death sentence was ultimately commuted to six months imprisonment.
Regardless, the idea is that it simply isn't done... and it quite clearly is.
This ^^^ Plus, people were so horrified at what the convicts did they said they lied. They didn't get punished for it from what I recall, because no one believed them. Essentially they thought even convicts weren't capable of it.
As someone who's faced the idea of starvation personally, and the things I've done. (Begged neighbors for scraps, eaten out of places I would normally never go to or touch), plus my understanding of the human Psyche, leaves me with no doubt that it's nothing abnormal under those stresses.
you and I got different morals then.
With exceptions I ment that referring to RL survival situations.
That it does happen is an exception and so not common.
I think I remember seeing a history program about the cannibalistic convicts.
Did two of them make a deal to kill the others one by one and eventually when they were the only ones left, one of them killed the other and ate him?
I also remember reading about a captain and some of his crew in the 19th or 18th century being shipwrecked, and while they made their way to land in a small boat decided to kill and eat the poor cabin boy to survive :eek:!
I saw that program as well once.
I didn't say it was morally justified, just that it took place. Regardless, considering the conditions in the Parker incidence (by the time they killed the guy, they'd already resorted to drinking their own urine), I wouldn't pretend to understand their mindset. From what I remember in my reading about that case, the court didn't even necessarily find that the act was unnecessary, just that necessity wasn't a defense (the public didn't exactly agree).
It's hard to say it's not common as a survival method considering you can just as well say things like starvation isn't common either, so determining its rate of "use" as a survival strategy would be hard to discern. Considering the "Custom of the Sea" (which did cover things like like drawing lots to determine a member of the crew to be killed and eaten by the rest), it does imply that the willingness to potentially kill and eat one another wasn't so rare, even if the act itself was.
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
There is more to it than lack of food, RESORT TO EATING PEOPLE! The way the St. John's went about it was especially vile.
They were not lacking food, just meat. They had an extraordinary crop of corn coming up, as well as a limited supply of milk which they could turn into butter and cheese. Plus, did you see the spread on the table? Mashed potatoes and green vegetables do not just spring up from nothing. They actively hunted people in the woods (and they knew they were, that's why the traps were altered to prevent people from being able to open them up). Also, they realized that they needed to keep people alive for as long as possible whilst "harvesting" their flesh, because once a person died the meat became "tainted" (and I'm guessing this means inedible). Even when we eat meat from animals, most of us agree that it's humane to kill it first.
This to me is SCORES different from say, eating already dead people, or people who are truly going to die anyway (although this is a slippery slope issue), in a situation where NOT eating them means certain death. I think it's also a little bit less deplorable if resorting to such methods is only a one-time choice - eat humans just long enough to be rescued/ reach land/ find non-human food. I don't know if I would try in this sort of situation, but the fact of the matter is that the evidence is there to suggest that people DO resort to this under extreme situations. Certain death has a way of motivating people into doing what they normally wouldn't in order to survive.
I don't think I would ever resort to murdering people to eat, though. A moral stand HAS to be taken somewhere with this issue. If we can't hold another person's life as sacred, and resort to seeing everybody as food, then the human race isn't going anywhere but extinct. Also, in a world in which the weakest gets eaten, there is always the strong possibility that someday, YOU will be the weakest.
My guess is that either the rabbit was already dead when the Walker got to it (incidentally, anyone else notice that Walker was wearing a Save-Lots shirt?), or the rabbit may have been caught in a snare or similar trap and simply couldn't escape. There seemed to be some expectation from Mark and Lee that they were going to find a potential meal there given the dialogue "what'd they get this time?" (which implies it's happened before). Mark seemed familiar with traps, such as the lack of release latch on the bear trap, and you'd want to supplement hunting with trapping anyway to maximize your chances of getting something.
While it's true you'd probably see an increase in animal populations eventually, it's still only been about three months since the apocalypse started, that's not really enough time for a new generation to be born, hit breeding age, etc.
Starvation is common, never watch the news? There are millions dying in Africa.
They aint eating each other.
All of what you mention are exclusives, eating other humans goes into out nature. Psychotically 90% cant handle that. It will never be a survival tactic.
It is as rare among people as it is rare to be a terrorist. I would think those numbers would be similar in terms of % when an event like TWD would happen.
Except there's a disconnect between "survival tactic" and "dying of starvation", the obvious being that by its very definition dying isn't a survival method.
Regardless, the idea that they're not eating each other is also sadly incorrect. There's been recently reported instances of cannibalism in multiple African countries. Just from memory, it was reported in the Second Congo War, and Liberia in particular had more than its fair share of documented cases. Even then, it's likely difficult to get a full picture of how often cannibalism truly occurs in the region simply because of how many people die there. In a region where atrocities and mass graves are a sad fact of life, there's probably less inclination to account for individual corpses or care what happens to said corpses.
It's kinda easy to say you'd die rather than do X, Y, or Z; but until your life's actually in danger, there's no way to guarantee it. It's easy to talk tough about it, but once atrophy starts setting because your body basically starts breaking itself down to try to keep you alive, etc. (not a painless way to go) there's no way to know.
I'd guarantee there's been more than a few cannibals that said or thought they'd rather die than eat another person until it actually was a literal "do or die" decision.
Il pass, I dont want to risk a form of mad cow disease.
As I said you must be 'mad' to eat human flesh.
This goes for every species that try to eat there own kind.
And the movie you mentioned earlier is actually based on true facts.
Well, factor this in. There was a native American tribe near the Grand Canyon that used to hunt deer by running after it, until it finally succumbed to exhaustion and died... Maybe there were enough walkers in the woods that it'd simply ran too long, while eating and resting too little?
Yeah, when I run out of all food in the Oceanic, I'll remember that... Unfortunately for the St. Johns' victims, this is Merika!
I'm gonna have friends for dinner
I'm gonna get a couple of those, a couple of these
Things from the bushes and things from the trees
I think they're yucky, but I know they'll please
My friends for dinner
Friends for dinner
He just wants to have friends for dinner
He wants to have Army Girl soup
And Professor Stew
You won't think it's funny when he chews on you
That's not a very nice thing to do
To have friends for dinner
He can't eat vegetables, only meat
He'll munch and he'll crunch those little duck feet
If he just eats Kenny, wouldn't that be enough?
He would spit out Lily 'cause she's too tough
Friends for dinner
Don't wanna be friends for dinner
We'd rather sink in the mud
Fall out of a tree
Roll like a rock right into the sea
One thing we know we don't wanna be
Is friends for dinner
He'll gnaw your arm and he'll nibble your legs
If they had chickens we could all just eat eggs
He'll bite off your nose (That would hurt)
Kaatja Pot Pie and Duck for Dessert
Friends for dinner
Don't wanna be friends for dinner
Don't wanna be Clem A-La-Mode
Or Liver of Duck
I wonder if we taste good?
Yuck!
You know you've run out of luck
When you're friends for dinner
Friends for dinner
Just friends for dinner
Friends for dinner!
It's called "persistence hunting." The San people of the Kalahari Desert still practice it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o
Kuru, also referred to as the "laughing disease", comes from eating the brain... raw brain at that... and from the documentary I saw, they wait a specific period of time before even 'harvesting' the 'meat.' Perfect way to cultivate ehe prion particles.
Not justifying cannibalism.. just stating the fact that.. say for Mark in game.. eating his legs was probably the 'smart' way to go... if you're gonna eat a human I mean.
Personally... I wouldn't want to eat a human. They talk about all the additives and chemicals that they "pump" into beef, chicken and pork... just IMAGINE the chemicals you'd be ingesting if you ate a human!?
Nah.. I'll pass.. They're in the south.. agriculture is a definitely preferred way to go. The "apocalypse" hasn't been going on that long, a few months.. there is bound to be canned foods out there still...
And.. do you realize how many species on the planet practice cannibalism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism_%28zoology%29
In zoology, cannibalism is the act of one individual of a species consuming all or part of another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded for more than 1500 species. It does not, as once believed, occur only as a result of extreme food shortages or artificial conditions, but commonly occurs under natural conditions in a variety of species. Cannibalism seems to be especially prevalent in aquatic communities, in which up to approximately 90% of the organisms engage in cannibalism at some point of the life cycle. Cannibalism is also not restricted to carnivorous species, but is commonly found in herbivores and detritivores.
I was sure Kuru was from eating the brain. Of course you could get AIDs if you try eating Mark legs Rare if mark had AIDs. But I guess making your Mark Steak well done would save you from that...
I think the whole Cannibalism thing just makes people really squeamish. A lot of early Human Cultures practiced Cannibalism as well, it's not just animals. However, I think most people associate choosing cannibalism with Serial Killers, since, let's face it, Cannibal Culture died out. (Well, in the civilized world that is.) As such we see all Cannibals like the saint Johns, junkies just looking for their next fix. XD
Personally, I don't even care if they ate people without being hungry. It's the apocalypse and they had a heavy food demand from the bandits. I'm kinda like that, they can do their own thing until they hurt me or mine. Which they did... So... They all died. :cool:
As pointed out, Kuru occurred from eating the brain. It's also somewhat ridiculous to say "it's as bad as drinking salt water". In the earlier cited example of the Mignonette's crew, the guy who ended up dead was the one who drank sea water. By contrast, the guys who survived long enough to be rescued, put on trial, convicted, have their sentence commuted, etc.? They were the ones who ate him.
And to think with a bunch of California Libs they would of thought of that. Cali people are always doing some left field wacko stuff.
Hilarious! Somewhat frightening, however...
Could have SWORN the story was set in Georgia.. where MEAT is a huge part of the diet... could be mistaken tho.. right? :rolleyes: