I’ll ask you the same question, then. Does that mean the Futurama joke is completely nonsensical to you?
But it’s not the same thing. I’ve never heard anyone object to the idea of eating camel meat because of the camel’s intelligence.
I don’t think that’s true. Most people would simply view eating camels as strange, but wouldn’t find the idea repugnant in the way that eating a dolphin would be. Just something that they had never particularly thought about. More akin to what they would think about eating water buffalo, or yak. There wouldn’t be a huge outcry if camel steaks appeared in Safeway’s meat counter (or water buffalo or yak). At least not like the one that would happen if the supermarket started selling Flipper burger. It probably wouldn’t catch on, either, but not for reasons of moral outrage. More like bison hasn’t caught on - people have tried it, and decided they would rather eat beef.
And yet Japanese have no problem eating whale meat. They are certainly as aware as we are that whales are intelligent creatures. But they have a tradition of eating them (even if it’s not a long tradition) and so that trumps the ick factor. We eat pork without a second thought, and yet pigs are highly intelligent animals. I say tradition trumps scientific evidence of intelligence. We say that now about dolphins (that we don’t eat such intelligent animals), but that’s easy since we never ate them to begin with.
Do you have a cite that the average Japanese dude likes whalemeat? They don’t sell much of it there, it’s not all that common. Sure, some few do eat it and enjoy it, but over here in America some few like Rocky Mtn oysters too. Some Americans eat raw steak with gusto, and you can find it on a few menus- but very few menus. (I have seen it on two menus in the last decade).
It’s about as subtle as fart joke. Doesn’t take much to understand. I could do exactly the same joke with any species you choose and it woudl be just as funny. In fact some of mine are funnier IMO:
“Who wants pork?”
“Prok? But pigs are intelligent.”
“Not this one. He blew all his money on instant lottery tickets.”
“OK.”
“Oh, OK.”
“That’s different.”
“Good, good.”
“Pass the trotters.”
“Who wants chimp?”
“Chimp? But chimps carry AIDS.”
"Not this one. He always used condoms
“OK.”
“Oh, OK.”
“That’s different.”
“Good, good.”
“Pass the thumb.”
“Who wants lobster?”
“Lobster? But lobsters aren’t kosher.”
“This one is. He just bar mitzvahed”
“OK.”
“Oh, OK.”
“That’s different.”
“Good, good.”
“Pass the claws.”
The joke relies on telling us why the character objects and then ramming the point home with the double absurdity of anthropomorphism and the implicaton that eating a human with gambling problems would be acceptable. Unless you think that most peopel woild eat a human gambling addict the joke supports nothing.
The baleen whales are much less intelligent than pigs, and probably less intelligent than cattle. Your argument would seem to forece us to conclude that people would be happy to chow down on whale burger. I fiind that hard to believe.
I’m not sure what your point is.
The only way you could possibly say that primitive humans don’t generally eat predator species is if you really mean they eat it less by mass than prey species. Well of course that’s true. Even a primary predator will be outweighed by its prey by a factor 10. Unless HGs specifically hunted predators and ignored everything else they would always eat 10 times more prey than predators simply based on abundance.
The fact is that HGs show no particular selection against eating predators. They will eat predators just as readily as herbivores if they are just as readily avialable.
IOW humans generally eat whatever they find it easiet to catch. They gernerally don’t care where it sits on the food chain. They will generally eat predators just as readily as herbivores.
As long as he’s always used condoms.
Wouldn’t that make him rubbery?
Because a dolphin’s got personality, and personality goes a long way.
It is a culture thing. Dolphin never has been big in Western culture. Why? One reason is because we haven’t had to. There are more plentiful tasty things that are easier to catch/domesticate. Maybe the taste of it doesn’t justify the trouble in catching it. Why would another culture like to eat it then? The same reason that pet rocks got popular- somebody thought it was good idea at the right time and it caught on. I still haven’t figured out the David Hasselhof popularity in Germany (if that is in fact true).
Same reason people keep walking into spiderwebs?
mmmmm, raw steak with gusto.
No, that’s squid.
I had no idea Mahi Mahi was that pretty! I also didn’t know they were also called Dolphin. I think next time I’m at Red Lobster I’ll order Dolphin and watch everyone’s face. =]
I don’t know why this is an argument…
Here in modern western culture, our concept of meat or fish is wrapped in styrofoam and cellophane and the less connection to a living, breathing, shitting, screwing, thinking animal, the better. But less than a hundred years ago, if you could kill it, you’d eat it.
We’ve decided (here in Western culture, excluding those foul-breathed Scandinavians and such) that it’s OK to eat a pig, but not a dolphin. It doesn’t make sense if you try to analyze it; it just is. And, yes, it’s cultural. I blame television and excessive affluence.
If we become far less affluent and factory farms and cello-wrapped meat become scarce, you can bet your ass that we’ll be scarfing Flipper sushi with relish…OK, Wasabi.
There was a similar thread about dogs not too long ago.
One argument that caught my attention was that we wouldn’t eat carnivorous animals because they weren’t traditionally raised as food. If you raised a carnivore for meat, what would you feed it?
Why do dolphins get caught in tuna nets? They were eating the fish!
Anyhow, why wouldn’t we be eating our competition? Tastes bad?
Did sheep herders hunt and kill wolves?
Pigs seem to be the exception to all the rules. They are cute too.