I personally have trouble with the idea of hunting or ranching sea mammals or primates. Not my style. My subjective cafeteria line gets drawn just north of cows&pigs. Ranched ones. (Dogs and cats, properly prepared, are still okay.)I also prefer not to eat the slower invertebrates - abalone, octopus, Maine lobsters (shame, those are sooo good)
As for being food for other, higher life forms - it's been that way for a long time. It's taken us this long to unseat tigers and saltwater crocs as the tops of their local food chains. And only a belated sense of aesthetics is keeping us from extinking their collective butt.
Having read Dave Brin's and Greg Bear's science fiction, I see much wisdom in being scared of (alien) other, higher life forms. I think this Carl Sagan trip of beaming our vital stats into space from Arecibo is just plain stupid. Okay, you're a sheep in the valley of wolves, and you just invented the megaphone. What do you do?
Eating the neighbors. I could go a ways with taht... but I'll save it for later. Another day, another barbacoa.
Anyway, I think what got me going was the loaded question about "permission". Whom would you ask, if not yourself? |
