Giving the alien race such a specific need as eating human flesh seems more like a rather blatant weakness. Honestly, the more interesting alien species (to me) is the one that doesn't need humans for any sort of nourishment or anything at all, and rather, sees us as a threat that needs to be put down. The original Mass Effect trilogy of games did "big bad" aliens right. So did Dead Space (although the alien in Dead Space was more like an alien bacteria). That's not to say that H.G. Wells' portrayal wasn't magnificent, but the alien's innate weakness (their lack of knowledge regarding the diseases on earth) is a bit weak. Having an enemy that kills itself, especially if they're a vastly superior species in terms of intelligence and technology, leaves a bittersweet taste in the mouth, and it has the strong feeling of a deus ex machina.
From the same brain, H.G. Wells' Time Machine relays the story of Earth splitting into two species: the Morlocks and the Eloi. The Morlock live underground, toil, and eat the Eloi. They almost seem to do it for sport though. Curious angle: aliens that deplore the consumption of animals (including humans). The way that the human race is evolving indicates a future in which vegetarianism is far more prevalent. We often assume that alien races are far more advanced. Also, interesting side effect of cannibalism: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/10/brains-helped-papua-new-guinea-tribe
What if it works like an opiate? Aliens addicted to humans? Humans release certain chemical depending on how they are killed, pheromones, adrenaline, dopamine. Why Your Brain Loves Chocolate http://www.scilearn.com/blog/why-your-brain-loves-chocolate
In Damon Knight's story, To Serve Man (if you don't know who that is or you never read the story, go to YouTube and type in "It's a cook book!") the Kanamut cure all human ailments, neutralize all weaponry, and increase food production. They essentially turn Earth into a sustainable farm. We never learn much about the aliens except that they like to leave their books lying around. But someone else said, "we only eat animals that are stupid, like cows." And there are cultures who worship cows and other cultures who eat animals we consider to be members of our families. But those animals evolved on earth and our bodies allow us to gain nourishment from them. Yet there also things our bodies cannot eat that other earthbound organisms chow down on every day, like rotting carcasses, wood pulp, and feces among other things. If we allow for the idea that Kanamut consider humanity worth the expenditure of resources and time to cultivate and harvest humanity and create a continuous supply line, then it's just as possible that their bodies have evolved to take nourishment from many sources not of their own world.
Still more efficient to just eat pigs... like, a pig farm of similar size would be way more sustainable than a human farm, regardless of quality, could ever be.
We could eat worms but we choose to feed them to the fish. We could also eat grain but we feed that to a cow to make the meat and the milk tastier.
And come to find out bread isn't all that healthy to us, either. I'm just saying that to us an alien's reasons for doing something doesn't necessarily have to make sense to us because we still can't explain most of the stuff we do. As for neurobiology, there are aspects of life on this planet we haven't nailed yet and so the idea of a nonhuman entity finding humans a nubby treat isn't so far fetched.
We substituted grain for grasses in the diets of our livestock (in America). As for grains for us, they were the basis for civilization. Look back to the history of the Fertile Crescent, where humans began growing and harvesting grain crops. It's intertwined with the development of the human species. The reason why we say it's "not good" is because of the serious modifications we have done to wheat and other grain crops through genetic rearrangement and additions. I would say that alien species (under the assumption that they are more evolved than us) abide by a diet that does not include slaughter. Merely for the sake of climate sustainability on their home planet. If again we assume that they are more evolved than us, they would likely not use violent means of cohersion when visiting our planet.
If you take humans are a paradigm almost certainly not ... the more technologically advanced we get the more inventive ways of killing each other we create - from clubs, to swords, to guns, to bombs, to drones, microwave weapons , rail guns and so on. A peaceable alien race that comes into contact with us is likely to get slaughtered.... whereas a more advanced race with weapons might have peaceable intentions but that'd last right up to the point where we started shooting at them
@Aardvark I'm not sure what you mean by "more evolved". There isn't any goal or pinnacle in evolution. The changes it brings about are just adaptations to the environment. So an alien species might have been evolving for longer, and might be better adapted to its environment, but those adaptations might result in them being more violent than humans. It would depend entirely on the environment in which they evolved.
I like those points. I can see our species attacking incoming aliens. I've thought about that quite a bit. Aliens who have watched our civilization would likely think twice before making their presence known. Surely from a physical standpoint, but from a metaphysical standpoint, the convergence of physical and metaphysical could converge at some point. But here, I'm talking from a physical standpoint and evaluating the climate changes we humans are causing through the abuse of our environment. For the sake of our conservation, gentler "more eco-friendly" and more "peaceful" living is far more conducive to sustaining Earth's climate. There is a correlation between what we use and the climate. Correlation is not a factor unique to Earth.
Love this idea, because then the aliens could whine to each other about how guilty they feel, ie "I bought a box of a dozen humans today and ate the whole thing, oh I'm so bad, and I skipped spin class this week too."
The process of evolution isn't 'concerned' with the protection of the environment or the climate. It is simply the adaptation of organisms to the environment as it is currently. An organism which exploits the environment for its own benefit at the expense of that environment has still adapted successfully through natural selection. If the environment and climate change as a result of the actions of that organism, that will drive further evolution.
Or maybe human Neckbones are thought to be an aphrodisiac in the alien culture when powdered and inhaled ... in a similar sort of vibe to how people treat rhino horn.... "wow i did a whole line of human and now my tentacles are shivering with anticipation"
Absolutely, this is true. But with highly evolved animals that understand that their existence ends when the environment can no longer sustain them, climate takes a role. Part of adaptation has to do with the brain. If the brain is under immense pressure from a real or imagined threat (like the environment), that plays role in evolution. An alien race that recognizes that has incorporated environment into their variable of continued existence.
Agreed, humans are not the first creatures to massively alter the environment of the Earth and we won't be the last. About 2 billion years ago, a type of bacteria evolved that started to fill the atmosphere with an incredibly toxic and corrosive chemical: oxygen. This killed almost all life on earth and altered the temperature so much that the planet froze from pole to pole for a billion years. I would contend that evolution would tend to create violent intelligent creatures like humans almost exclusively. Humans evolved under incredibly stressful times. The human population dipped as low as 2000 about 100,000 years ago. Africa's climate changed and pushed us through an evolutionary bottleneck which dramatically increased our intelligence. Competition was the the pressure that caused that, and altruism and competition don't go together. Populations would explode otherwise, and degrade. It's a problem that humans haven't figured out and will have to in the next thousand years.
You're right. I'm just not sure we can talk about one species being more highly evolved than another. In fact, I would suggest that some simpler organisms are better adapted to their environment than more complex ones. But that doesn't mean they are any more or less violent. Spiders have, probably, no cognitive function - certainly none to speak of compared to humans. But they exist within a self-regulating ecosystem which remains balanced, and their behaviour is extremely violent. Humans on the other hand could be described as quite poorly adapted in some respects - we are not subject to many predatory concerns, live far too long, consume too many resources, and destroy areas of the environment en mass. The fact that we could choose not to do the latter but continue to do so kind of suggests that we're not adapting well to our changing environment. (Anyway, we're way off topic, and I think we do actually agree but are just wording things slightly differently )
But they weren't interested in eating us-just hunting us for sport. Have you se the Sci Fi Twilight Zone episode ""To Serve Man" ?
I met this guy in Miami who thought that Haitian immigrates were killing and eating people in that area. Weird idea!
Actually, we don't need aliens to eat us, there are human cannibals who have done so in the past and who are said to be doing so right now in certain parts of the earth. Then we have Earth predators such as the big cats, sharks, piranhas, who will make a meal of us if the opportunity presents itself. Also, keep in mind that there might be humans who might consider the aliens a tasty dish.
Humans as a food source would be pretty stupid. Note how other predators react: You can deter most predators from you simply by retaliation. Punching a shark in a nose or throwing a shoe at a crocodile. You're daft if you think you can hurt most predators with your fists, but the predator sees you as a potential danger. It doesn't know what you can do. We can fight back. Most prey does not. That's why we farm salmon instead of bullsharks and cows instead of bears. However, if the alien race has a much more gladatorial lifestyle, it would make sense if a "The Most Dangerous Game" sense.
When seeing the film predator at first I assumed that the ones doing the hunting were representative of their entire alien culture., Then I realized that they might just be an anomaly in their own cultures or at least a minority just as hunters are in ours. Also the possibility of them being an outlawed minority breaking their own laws. That concept has been depicted in some sci fi films.
Or maybe it's just really fancy, like the shark fin stuff everyone's talking about. It's not that humans taste good or are easily accessible, which for some reason makes them really fancy to eat.
