Moral and Ethical Question for all

a reply to: SLAYER69

What would be our Moral and Ethical right to consume lower forms of life for our very Human 'Protein' necessity?

Personally, as long as colonization was approached from the perspective of minimum environmental impact, consuming lower forms of life on a new, uninhabited planet would be totally acceptable and in keeping with what would naturally be required to sustain life - based upon how flora and fauna functions on Earth.

I think that in my life time, I will see humans begin to be 100% sustained by pharmaceuticals and artificial meats/foods/sustenance, I read the other day about meat being grown in a lab.

a reply to: SLAYER69

If you're going to eat other beings, why is "location" a significant factor in the decision of which ones to eat and which to leave alone?

"Wait you can't eat THAT being?"

"Why not?"

"Well, because it's over there. It's immoral to eat a being that is in that region of space."

a reply to: SLAYER69

To answer your question i am going to spin it if that's OK.

Say WE were that Hypothetical planet and some species has just turned up, to potentially eat us!

My thinking getting back on topic, if you try to farm it and it constantly tries to fight back / escape, like say "The Great Escape" or Escape from Colditz, digging tunnels or making gliders etc, i would consider them intelligent enough to understand what the situation is, i would therefore let them "off" and not eat them.

If however they were dumb, like our cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and allowed themselves to be farmed, transported to slaughter without a fight i would say, fair game ..... eat em, provided they were not toxic of course

CbG

If evolution is natural and shaped our current means of how we sustain ourselves, how is it disgusting, morally wrong, or against the natural order.

If earth is bring visited regularly:
One, we will be hard put to find a planet not already exploited.

Or

Two, the universal community sure in the heck probably will not let use recklessly exploit planets.

I wish people would use common sense and stay in the context presented here on ATS.

Assuming we dont have means to bypass the alien food chain all together, and feeding is needed, I would think it would be best to study each animal for self awareness. those self aware animals are a no go. abundant non self aware animals..lets cook em up
But we need to also improve our technique to measure such things. seems manta rays may have some sentience for instance.

I would hope the debate is simply academic by the time we reach that point and we can simply create any food out of simple elements found in dirt and a nano-replicator. If not..well, end of the day, humans are, for humans, the priority and you must eat to survive.

a reply to: corblimeyguvnor

'Spinning it is ok"

I'm a meat eater. No, if, ands or Buts, I'm a product of my heritage/lineage.

Until then. I crave Meat.

Which by the way isn't just because I'm a male with muscle mass, I'm a Homo Sapien which has a brain that dominates my protein intake.

originally posted by: BiffWellington
a reply to: SLAYER69

If you're going to eat other beings, why is "location" a significant factor in the decision of which ones to eat and which to leave alone?

"Wait you can't eat THAT being?"

"Why not?"

"Well, because it's over there. It's immoral to eat a being that is in that region of space."

I think because maybe after tens of thousands of years of studying and genetically altering our food animals to serve us and be ultimately just human food (the milk cow didn't exist thousands of years ago, that is the product of generations after generations of selective breeding to become more docile, fat, and ultimately just a foodsource for instance). an alien creature may be sentient and we simply are unaware of how it is communicating and the like early on.
Here on earth, we know our animals to an extent, we know what creatures have complex social patterns (dolphin) and which animals are basically moving meals (fish).

a reply to: SLAYER69

If all the conditions for food were met there regarding atmosphere and proteins etc then surely we would already have a gene bank of animals from Earth, and would make our own farm, right? That would be pretty much a prerequisite for starting life out on another planet I reckon.

If we start with the idea that it is ok to just eat other lifeforms from other planets then we could hardly complain if the aliens came here and ate us, but we definitely would complain, wouldn't we?

I can't help but wonder, if it would be wrong to do there, would it not be wrong to do on our own planet also?
by colonizing another world, we would be inserting ourselves into their biosphere regardless of weather we eat their critters or not and there's been many a science fiction show where explorers and settlers of new world have run into sentient lifeforms without recognizing them for what they are. to me, it is better to assume that every habitable planet is habited! by asking the question your are, I believe you are acknowledging the fact that we are really into the wrong by inserting ourselves into this world to begin with, unless invited to do so.

but, I am kind of made with different beliefs than most. I believe that the basics of "intelligent life", what is needed for it to come into being is present in every significant sized rock in the universe. that those basic building blocks are capable of forming a lifeform that is perfectly capable of surviving on those rocks, although they just might not be in a form that we recognize, and that the it is the natural order of things for those lifeforms to develop into an intelligent form... although again, not necessarily something that we would recognize as such. so I assume that all the planets are already "owned" by somebody...

a reply to: SLAYER69

Reminded me of this

To add some may not like genetics involved but consumers of alien planet foods without years of field research involved to test the effects upon the consumers may alter themselves unknowingly...

a reply to: Jonjonj

Interesting twist.

Should we introduce our own 'Lower Life forms' into the new biosphere for our own needs....


?

originally posted by: SaturnFX
an alien creature may be sentient and we simply are unaware of how it is communicating

I'd argue that the same goes for all life on Earth.

a reply to: SLAYER69

Once we can explore the cosmos what would be the point of settling on a planet with life already and disrupting its ecosystem with our invasive society? We can easily just harvest life-less planets for resources and materials. There would be FAR more of them anyways.

Plus there is a possibility that we wouldn't be able to consume these lifeforms anyways due to DNA incompatibility. Thus it would seriously inhibit any cases to be made for hunting them for sustenance.

a reply to: SLAYER69

As long as we isolate it sure. Think small island in the middle of an ocean somewhere.

Alien abductions of and supposed Human experimentation on, are at the root of this query.

We, With our collective 'Dominate' atttude about life here on Earth seem to recoil at the idea that 'We' are just something to be toyed with by those who supposedly look upon us as just another 'Life Form'

Yeah, we presently dominate Earth but there is the Karma aspect.

What goes around, comes around?

Do onto others as we would have them do onto us?

I find it ironic the food chain of vegetarians ties up huge tracks of land that takes away the habitation of the animals they claim to protect. On the other hand, hunters want healthy groups of animals to hunt. Which food supply chain is the most limiting to local wildlife?

a reply to: SLAYER69

I don't believe in Karma.

But I do believe in not being a hypocrite.

Fact is, if an Alien race comes here and needs is for sustenance then we've got little moral high ground to say "oh well I'm sentient, I can communicate with you and fear death"...


To which they'd probably say "so can all the animals you slaughter in the millions on a daily basis, you just aren't sentient enough to comprehend their communicative process, now get into my human sized wok".

I'm absolutely stumped on this one. Yes, it would be okay as long as they were not humanoid, then no, no, it would be terrible, so yes, no, I don't know. : (

a reply to: SLAYER69

Is it ok to insert ourselves into it?

That really woulld be my primary concern. I'd probably vote "no" and suggest that until such time as the biologists have figured out the food chain, that humans rely on food stuffs they raise themselves. Even that would be dicey; we'd have to be careful about what we introduce into the environment.

Maybe the first and best rule would be like the Doctors..........First, do no harm.