Maneater

got kind of the vibe. I hear that song on a picture kind of like Miami Vice type situation where they're hunting down this woman who is on the loose and killing and eating men and kind of like a black widow cannibal fashion, and only two men hall and Oates one mustache can bring her down exactly detectives Holland Oates on the case. I think it was more like she's a gold digger, She's going to run through all

the men. But we could take the whole the skew on it that she was a flesh eating woman rampaging around the social circles of humans. Okay, all right, I like that interpretation. Now, for anyone who's thinking about turning off the podcast right now, let me assure you this

is primarily not an episode about cannibals. This is this is when we when we say man eater, we're bringing to mind the the jungle man eater, the uh, the idea that there you have animals out there that may turn man eater or animals that are in and of

themselves man eaters. Uh. And it's a it's a term that carries a lot of weight because as humans, we generally like to think that we are in a safe area, that we have not only reached the top of a food chain, but we have removed ourselves from the food chain entirely. We've we've achieved liberation from from that particular structure. Yeah, we've talked about this before. Louis c. K has a bit about how humans really take for granted the fact

that we are out of the food chain. But as we read in the listener emails last week, there's one person who dared to ask the question, could you have a sudden blood luss when it comes to humans? Could you get a taste of it and want more? Yeah? And and to what extent is that just sort of you know, human self obsession to think that we just were so tasty, like we're we're off the menu item.

And we are so delicious that if that if a tiger or a lion, or a chimpanzee or any kind of creature that dabbles and meat eating at all or to get a taste of us, then there's no way they could go back. They would just have to be man meat all the time. Cut it up for me, put it on my plate. That's all I'm gonna eat until you take me down inhala bullets. Wow, So you're saying, could there be some sort of sea change that all

of a sudden put us on the menu. In other words, these animals wouldn't go into their restaurant and have some sort of code word in order to bring this delicacy of humans about all of a sudden, We would just be on the menu all the time. We would be

the other white meat. Yeah, I mean. And as we're gonna discuss here, there are situations where something does occur, or or a few different things occur that that seemed to flip a switch in a predator that make it go from from just it's normal dietary practices to becoming a man eater to to preying on humans um exclusively.

But to what extent is it a thing? To what extent is it us over reacting because because man eating is uh, it's such an a loaded idea because it just digs into our primal fears and into this, uh, this situation of prey and predator that we again largely like to think that we have achieved liberation from that. We're you know, we're able to distance ourselves from predators, were able to protect ourselves, and we're generally really smart prey. We're generally not a good prey and mostly mostly um.

But but genuinely speaking, we're an intelligent, large creature that that's not worth the effort of hunting. But if we are in the wrong place at the wrong time, all of a sudden, it becomes a very precarious event for us. Yes, so we should probably kick off by talking about shameless man eaters. And I think that the best example of

shameless man eaters are the nile crocodiles crocodia. Yes, you guys, these guys, if we if we had like our ring here in the right corner, you'd have a nile crocodile wing and sometimes as large as sixteen hundred pounds in twenty ft long. Now for for everybody that resides outside of the United States. I'm talking about seven dred and thirty kilograms and six meters long. Yeah, and these and basically sub Saharan Africa is just lousy with these things.

They're they're they're everywhere and uh, and they are indiscriminate in their diet. So so there's not a situation of, oh that that crocodile, that that nile crocodile went man eater, it developed a taste for human blood. No, the crocodile is game for whatever it can get its jaws round.

And since human beings often live in for close proximity with these creatures because because the river is their habitat and the river is light, if you are somehow hacking out an existence for yourself, then you are depending on the river for water, for food, for laundry, two children play in the water, etcetera. That the chance is going to come up for a crocodile to snack on a human. And it's it's hard to put an exact number on this, but it's estimated that upwards of two people may die

each year from nile crocodile attacks. Yeah, so imagine yourself at the Nile River at the banks, you're washing your clothes and all of a sudden you are pitted against this animal that is camouflaging itself in the water effortlessly, just waiting right up to you, undetected. And they have these incredibly fast reflexes, and you know, surprise attacks are their purview, So you really don't have a chance in

one of those situations. And you can see why just in this sub Saharan Africa and and the Nile that something up to two hundred deaths a year occur because of these crocs. Now that humans and crocodiles ever live in harmony, I mean this is not an animal that it is just overflowing with intelligence and uh and social

adaptability with with with non crocodile species. Yeah. Actually, um, if you look at the case of one place in western Africa, it's called Bazul, where one hundred Nile crocs reside along with humans and what I would say is relative harmony. You can see that this community regards Nile crocs as sacred and they think of these crocs is is having a link to survival and welfare in the seasons, right,

so they routinely sacrifice chickens to these crocodiles. So in a way, it's a kind of a domestication, right because they're they're giving them an animal, and they're keeping them fat enough and full enough that they're not going to be tempted as often by that that human snack that's washing it's it's clothes in the water. Yeah, and this

has been going on since the fourteen century. So um in some cases, as we'll discuss later on, with other animals, there's this possibility that not only this act going on is sort of routinizing it for the crocs, but maybe it's a learned behavior through generations of these crocs, you know, because that what instantly ticks off of my mind when I think about that is I think about the alligators here in the United States, And what do they always

tell you about alligators. Do not feed the alligators because with other wild animals, you start feeding them, they start associating a human presence with food, which is generally not a good idea because again, one of the reasons that humans are so good at largely avoiding uh consumption by a predator is that we keep our distance from them. We know not to go and mess with the bears, and the bears by and large don't want to mess

with the humans. But when you start confusing the equation by having a gift of sacrificed chicken or a delicious garbage can involved, then it starts bringing these two species closer and closer. And they're both very dangerous species in their own way, so when they meet, uh it, it

might not be pretty. And the thing is though, in in this area of western Africa, you may not have the choice to keep your distance, so your water source is probably going to be the same as these crocs, So it would make sense that you would create this sort of symbiotic relationship with a croc. Now, I don't suggest that everybody hearing I didn't go out and start doing that, because you know, by and large we have

the ability to keep our distance. But yeah, this, this is what you see when when two species are or cohabitating in the space on a very intimate terms, all right, now, when it comes to killing and eating humans, uh, there is one type of human that is clearly the best snack, the best meal, and that is the child. Uh. Children are of course smaller humans. They are largely uh stupid

er humans. When it comes to surviving on their own, and they don't have as much experience they you know, they're not gonna really be able to punch a bear in the nose. They're they're slower, they're easily distracted. Firstance, I took my son out on the belt line today, which is this like running walking bicycling strip here in Atlanta, formerly a train track, A really nice environment, but it was hard to get him to walk uh ten feet without stopping to stick to poke sticks through the fence

to try and pick up dog crap or two. And then occasionally he would see somebody running and run himself. Now there were no tigers or bears or coyotes or wolves or anything like that on the belt line, but if there were, they would have easily seen. This is the kid. We're gonna try and eat these large adult runners. And they're too fast, they're too wary. Some of them

are on bicycles. I'm not messing with that. But this guy, he is short, he is stubby, and he keeps stopping to mess with things could eat him up in a heartbeat. Like I like to joke to my wife that if he were out in the wild, even like squirrels would say, hey, I could eat that guy, Maybe I should get a taste in here. All of a sudden, you have like

twenty squirrels marching towards your son exactly. I mean, you know, the economic value of eating um a toddler is just it should be obvious to anything in the animal kingdom, and a number of predators do pick up on that. Yeah, And I think that's why we have so many fairy tales that are these cautionary tales really for children, especially when it comes to wolves, right, yeah, I mean just think of the wolf in nursery stories. Uh and and in myths as well. But a little red riding hood.

You know, she's just minding her own business and this wolf is going to eat her in the woods. It also goes after her elderly grandmother as well. Uh and and then there are other stories like this three Pigs. I mean, it just it just goes on and on. We just have this this cultural idea of the wolf as this predator that's roaming out on the edges of our human world and is going to be eager to creep in and steal our children or even eat us.

I mean, look look at some of the films we have of out there in which the wolf plays a very nefarious role. There's the the Liam Neeson movie The Gray, about Liam Neeson punching a bunch of wolves as they try to eat him. So culturally it is woven in our fabric. We are frightened of wolves. They are the Boogeyman.

So imagine you live in Reserve, New Mexico. Okay, I just imagine you're here in New Mexico and your child is waiting for the bus, but instead of throwing rocks or playing chase, the children are huddled in wood and mesh cages meant to keep them safe from any wayward wolves that happened by this is just such a fantastic story. I mean, especially once you start getting the details. And uh, in in this case, we got the details from the

article do kid cages really predict children from wolves? By Jeremy Berlin and he and he talks to an expert on wolves. He specifically, he talks to Daniel McNulty, a wildlife ecology professor at Utah State University. Uh, this is a guy who's been studying wolves in the Alsto National Park for past eighteen years and he askin said wolves eating children at bus stops. Is this really a threat? And he says, of course, it's not a threat, like there are so few examples of wolves attacking humans in

the wild. For starters, Yeah, he says, a child in a rural area is more likely to be hurt or killed in an accident with an off road altering vehicle or in a with an encounter with a feral dog or hunting accident. And there are very few instances in North America have wolves hurting anyone, let alone children. And the reason why people are up in arms in this area is because in smaller subspecies of the gray wolf called the Mexican wolf was reintroduced in the area. It's

a protected species. And so on one hand you have you have governmental bodies saying, don't hurt the wolves. They are, they're endangered, they're protected, leave them alone. But on the other hand, we have this primal or almost i'm all

fear of the wolf. We have certainly had experiences of wolves praying on livestock and beloved pets, and so you have you have this tug of war here and also probably a little bit of political manipulation as well, where people are saying, Oh, well, if you're gonna protect the wolf and we can't shoot the wolves, then I guess we'll have to put our children in shark cages at the bus stop exactly, because otherwise the wolves would just sweep in and just eat all of them every morning. Yeah.

McNulty said that he thought that this was probably a publicity stunt by people who felt like their rights were being infringed on upon the government, particularly since the e p A was had something out there to actually have tighter restrictions here on the Mexican wolf. So again, the idea is that there may be some groups that are fueling this fear, which is sort of an ancient fear ingrained in us against wolves. Well, let me ask you this.

You have you have, you have a daughter. Can you imagine taking your daughter to a bus stop to to await the school bus since telling her, listen, honey, everything is gonna be okay today. However, we're gonna have to put you in a cage as you wait for the bus because wolves may come for you and try to

eat you. No, I can't. I can't imagine like putting her into what amounts as a chicken coop really if you look at these structures and telling her that there's this this fear that she should, you know, really be keyed into. I mean, can you imagine what that's doing to a kid's psyche. That's it's just not healthy. I mean.

And and also it again, it fosters this idea that the wolf is a threat that needs to be eradicated, when in reality, if you encounter wolves in the wild, it's generally going to be a very a very calm situation. They're gonna see you, they're gonna take off because you're just not a prey animal to them. Yeah, McNulty says. They don't have supernatural powers. They can't jump over mountain ranges, they can't bring down a moose with a single bite

to the neck um. They are constrained by their morphology, right, So they're going to go after something that is mall. They're going to go after a rabbit or something that is easy prey. They are generally frightened of humans. So to sum it all up, yes, it's there's a small, small chance that wolves would prey on a human child, but but generally it's not something to worry about. Certainly,

nothing to worry about at the bus stop. Um. But of course the child would be an irresistible meal to uh to any number of other predators, uh, interestingly enough,

including the champ to the chimpanzee, which I found horrifying. Yeah. Well, and I think that's because you know, when you think about chimps, you think of them as these playful creatures, and uh, you know, even when you hear accounts of them killing each other, it's disturbing when when they start eating other primates, which they do, yes, or rather monkeys, that's that's when it starts getting a little weird for

the human observer. But certainly they eat a lot of meat, I believe, if I remember correctly, the chimpanzee is only surpassed in its meat consumption by human beings when compared to other other species. So we can't so we can't really judge. I think it's what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, I mean we we have. We get kind of weird about eating things that look too much like us for the most part. But but they have no such qualms.

And a lot of this is about context, right, So what sort of food sources are available, what else is going on in the ecosystem, and we're going to discuss a little bit more about this some other species that we should really keep more worried about when it comes to man eating. Right after we cutis great, all right, we're back lions and tigers and bears. Oh my, Yes,

particularly lions and tigers. These are the big cats are among the best examples of of man eaters that we can you can really focus in on, and particularly when you're looking at the situation of an animal turning man eater and try and and just trying to to figure out what is that, what is happening at that pivotal moment when this animal changes from something that lives outside of the human scope to a creature that is praying

exclusively on humans. Yeah, and before we talk about some of the circumstances that would drive man eating and lions, let's just discuss really quickly that the population of African lions is in decline while the human population, of course is on the rise. You have to factor in the loss of habitat and human encroachment, and then you begin to see this picture emerging of how humans and lions are meeting far more than they ever did in history.

And of course attacks are on the rise. Yeah, and now there's some of some very key examples of man eating lions throughout history, and all of this certainly stokes the fires of our fear and our in our fascination with the idea of the man eating lion, but particularly the situation in evolving two lions named ghost in Darkness. Um, they unleash this harrowing string of attacks on Ugandan railroad workers.

Uh and uh. If you look at the older accounts of the Savo lions, they were saying that the lions flew something like a hundred and thirty five African and Indian railroad labors and sometimes dragging them from their tents while they slept. And you know, it all ends up escalating in the in the hunters having to go out and set in search of them. If you've ever seen the movie The Ghosts in the Darkness that has a

fictionalized account of this situation. But here's the thing. These lines are currently on view underneath the St. Louis Gateway Arch. If you go to the Gateway Arch and you go into the museum underneath it, you will see these lines and they are surprisingly small. Um, you see them, and you have you if you hear the story, you expect the giant lions that are just dripping with human blood, and they're there are a lot smaller specimens in your life.

So are these vampire lions that are existing to the centuries? No? No, no no, these are the actual lions were killed and stuffed and wound up in St. Louis, Okay. And it turns out, by the way that these lions actually did the lives of thirty five people that you know, hundred plus people. Uh. Still is nothing to sneeze at. Now this isn't the only story. There are various other accounts and um, and you know, I could, I could go into listing each of them connt by account, but they

all basically amount to the same thing. Suddenly a lion or even a group of lions begin praying on humans and then they don't stop until those lions are themselves put down. Um. There are a number of reasons for why this happens. One of the reasons is it could be passed down behavior. Yes, and there's a study of the subbo lions actually uh from the Chicago's Field Museum that discovered that generations of the same pride exhibited similar human eating tendencies. So the same pride had a higher

incidence of man eating. So that's and the idea here. But of course there's lots of different competing circumstances and reasons, right, I mean, one of the big ones is altered habitat induced prey switching. Now, this is a situation, uh that they should make a lot of sense, especially in light of of the reality of growing human populations and uh and at times shrinking uh prey populations in an area.

What ends up happening is you have alliance and they've they've lived in this area for generations and generations and generations. They've always prayed exclusively on this particular population of animals, and suddenly that prey population is affected by this human presence. Suddenly there's less for them to eat. What are they supposed to do? They're gonna do whatever they have to do to survive there. So they end up switching their

prey preference. They realize they can't uh you know, get this traditional uh you know, dear like gazelle like animal or whatever that they prey on. What are they going to turn to? Well, here are all these humans in their areas. So they end up making the switch, and there may be a sational things that end up um affecting that switch. For instance, what happens then if lions, uh, these same lions who are trying to figure out what they're gonna eat, what kind of prey they're going to

consist on? What happens when they come across the body of a dead human or or or even you know, a destigated grave of some kind, they end up trying the human flesh. It's just another argument in their favor of oh, well, these creatures seem to be uh as delicious as anything else I could eat and uh, and then then they seem to be everywhere, and then you end up with the eventual situation where they actually prey on a human, and in that they may learn, oh

well they're not that difficult to kill either. Well. Yeah, it really plays into the whole uh survival game that we've talked about before. You tried to conserve as much energy as possible and get as much energy as possible, right, And so if if a human presents him or herself as easy prey, either you know, just something that you stumbled upon them that's a dead body, or just is a smaller human being that's easy to take down. Well,

there you go. You can conserve your energy and get a quick meal out of it at the same time. And another situation with lions that can lead to this man hunter button getting you know, ticked off in their brain is uh is when you have an old or an injured lion. So it's very similar to the altered habitat induce prey switching situation. So like suddenly they've gone from this life where they're they're praying exclusively on this animal or this group of animals, and now they can't

because they're getting old. Maybe they can't they can't run down their prey like they used to, or they're having problems with their teeth, they can't. They can't necessarily kill and chew like they used to. Yeah, I mean you think about when you go to the dentist and you have a tooth apsessor, you have dental work done, you don't go home and eat like a chicken thigh. You

probably eat some mac and cheese. Right. Yeah, Well, we've talked about the advantages of human cooking before, and you know what a what an enormous technological achievement that was for our species. One of the achievements there is that Suddenly it means that if you don't have teeth to chew your food anymore, that there is a way, you know, you can you can cook things down, and in addition to that, you can also chop things up, and in

doing so, bad teeth is not a death sentence anymore. Yeah, and so if you think about humans versus say, zebras, then all of a sudden, humans on the menu look a lot more like mac and cheese to an animal with really bad teeth. You don't. We don't have tough hides to tear through, right, So you know, that's that's another idea of where you have a circumstance where humans might be the better choice here the other white meat.

But of course, there is not one overriding theory here about why lions in particular go after humans from time to time. Um. Actually, History Stuff has a really great discussion of the Savo lions. It's a December sixteen episodes, So if you guys want to learn more about that specific instance, check that out. Because there's no there's there's not really one reason that people can out along for

for why this happens. Yeah, If anything, it seems like, there are probably a few different a few different of these factors are playing in to to any given man hunter situation, but it does seem to be the trend that once that want that, once that little switch is flipped over in the brain, Uh, they tend to go

for the human flesh. But then, but then part of that too is that is that we have such a stigma about man eaters and such a fear of it, and then we have this idea in our head that, oh that that that line has become man eater, it must be put down. Uh. So you know that that that The answer then is in kind of in the question there. Well, right now today there's actually a news item that in your India there is a man hunt

right now for a tigress that is going on. This is a tigress who reportedly has taken nine human lives in the last forty five days, and so you have really this frenzy uh going on to to take this one tiger down. Yeah. Ti beers are definitely another big area of where we see the man eater of effect coming in into practice and and generally speaking the same reasons a plot, but with the added caveat that sometimes you have. There is a theory that mistaken identity plays

a role as well. They have been tests that have shown that a tiger will stalk a group of people bending over to cut grass, and it possibly the angle of the person, you know, the fact that they seem like they're smaller and more compact. That may mean that the tiger is misinterpreting what kind of animal they are. I see. So with the genes that I have that have like a little gazelle face on the foot, I

should stop wearing those out in the wild. Well, well, I don't know, if it has the face on it, maybe you'd be okay, because remember people with the masks in the back of their head, so that the tiger, you know, doesn't think that it's sneaking up on you.

That's right, because the idea here is that with a tiger, or we've talked about this with bears too, is that certain types of bears that you don't want to appear as though you are overly excited or you are a prey that would be frightened of this animal and start running and flailing about. And if you have this mask on, it makes it look as though you are not actually

retreating from the animal. It's interesting the emaion fleeing because I've also read accounts where you have areas in India where they don't really have a problem with tigers attacking people unless they're on bicycles. Something about the speed with which the human is moving may click something off and the tigers said, they think, oh, well, that's that's prey fleeing from me. I should run it down. That just

happens in my neighborhood with dogs. Now again, think back to those reasons we listed for lions, and you can pretty much apply all of those t tigers as well. There's an estimated sevent tigers left in the wild in India. Meanwhile, the human population in India is is over one point to three seven billion people. So again you have you have these wild tigers and they're inevitably going to run into people and sometimes it's just gonna it's gonna basically

be accident. What happens when when when a tiger just happens across a human. It might be an old tiger it's forced out of it's the previous area, a young tiger that's off it's out in search of its of an area to call its own. And and indeed, those are the two types of tigers that typically wind up in these violent altercations, the young tigers and the very

old tigers. Yeah, and if you look at this current case in Pichnore, India, that you do see habitat loss playing into this idea that it is the meeting season right now in the winter. And what happens is that you have older tiger says that are moving along the younger I think that when they turned three years old. Uh, the younger female tiger says, out of the pride and saying, go off on your own and create your own. So that's creating more stray tigers out there in the wilderness

who are coming upon people. It's also worth pointing out that a tiger usually makes one large kill every week, and so, uh, the map here is that since India has se hundred or so tigers, that's more than eighty five thousand kills in a year. But we're not experiencing anywhere near that number of of of deaths among humans at the hand of tigers. Less than eighty five people are killed or injured accidentally or otherwise in a year

by tigers in India. So many more pittent times that die from the snake bites, rabies, uh, you name it. But again, the idea of an anna of a predator praying on humans, it's an idea that just resonates so strongly with this and just drives the fear. I mean, we just mentioned the story out of India, uh and in there are many cases, you know, certain of some of our listeners are gonna be more tied in two

news out of India uh than other listeners. But I imagine for a lot of people, like that's gonna be the only news you hear out of India this week is that there's a man eating tiger on the loose. I mean, that's how far it resonates, because that that that is is is scary and and uh and and sort of boggles your imagination and makes your your your mind run wild no matter where you are. And they of course, of course that would seize your imagination and

you would stay indoors um. In terms of the United States, the real problem is a dog, spider or some other insect. And according to CDC statistics of the one thousand, nine eighty nine Americans killed by animals between nine and two thousand and eight. Most of those deaths are attributed to dogs, insects, and spiders. So again you have to scale the things that are imaginary, those imaginary threats with what is actually happening at the time. Um out in the wild. Now

it's it's a great thing. You mentioned dogs, but because of course with with dogs and and in some of these cases we might be talking about dogs that are a bit wild, but for the most part we're talking about the domestic dog and all the complications that come

along with that. And we could do a whole podcast on this, and we probably should, about what happens when we have animals that are no longer wild, they have become domesticated, or they are kept in some sort of you know, zoo type habitat, you know, totally reduced habitat, totally unnatural living situation. What does that do to the animal's mind, even if they are kept in uh, you know, in relatively comfortable care, discounting abuse and UH and and

other harsh realities of domestication and animal imprisonment. Well, probably one of the best examples of this can be found in the Blackfish documentary, which talks about Tillicum who is a killer whale, an orca and um and actually documents the three killings of humans by Tillicum. Yes, and it's worth it's very important to note here that there has never been a confirmed case of an orca killing a

human in the wild. You've had situations where sailors have fallen directly into into the orca pods and they've emerged without any harm. And uh so the so the idea that that they're killing people in captivity, that instantly raises some questions about, well, what is it about captivity that is that is making them do this. The interesting thing about this too, is that they're not eating them, so obviously they're not doing this as a source of protein.

They're doing this most likely as particularly when you look at this case of Telecom as a byproduct of zukosis. And if you look at Telecom, he was an organ that was separated from his mother at a young age and then shipped off to Ceiland in British Columbia to perform for audiences, where he was kept in what amounted to a lightless floating twenty by twenty eight foot shed and shed that again had no light coming in. And we're talking about being kept in that shed for upwards

of fourteen hours overnight. In addition to that, because he hadn't been properly socialized, and kind of because he was a little man on the totem pole, he was the subject of a lot of aggressive acts by other orcas that he was either mating with or performing with. So even by the time that he was moved over to sea World and given you know, more room to be in and probably better um, you know, living quarters, he

had already began to exhibit signs of zukosis. Yeah, I mean, it basically comes down to the fact that that in the orca you have an intelligent social creature. And if you take that intelligent social creature out of the wild and put it in an enclosed environment that is it's not even a slice of its natural world, you can end up with metal suttress. You can end up with aggression, and then it's going to manifest itself at times and

potentially fatal encounters with the human captors. Yeah, it's interesting. If you look at this documentary, you get more information, more end up information about these three killings. And one of the killings was just one person who broke into the holding area and UH, and they found this guy naked and um dead the following morning, so they're not

entirely sure what happened UM. But the other two killings happened with trainers, and in one of those instances, you you can see the film footage on this, the trainer has not rewarded Tillicum for Um performing a certain trick because she just didn't see it. She was talking to the audience, so she assumed he hadn't done it, so

she didn't reward him with the fish. So the idea is that that might have set off her eventual death with him pull him pulling her under sort of retribution for not realizing that, you know, he had done the trick. And when you think about zukosis and you think about animals um having this sort of psychosis and having that level of sensitivity, then that's their life. Those for their life, and that becomes maybe a matter of life or death

to that orca. I mean, we don't know obviously, and I don't mean to anthropomorphizus here, but you can begin to see how something like this happens. Well, I mean, if anyone who's a dog owner out there knows, what do you tell a child about about the dog. No matter how family the dog is, you don't touch the dog wants eating because because no matter how domesticated the species, that there is that basic principle of life. Food is the is the most important thing, along with with mating

and reproduction, is a very genetic mission. Uh, you know, at heart of every creature, and if you interfere with that, potentially, you know, set off a string of events. Yeah, it's very true. Now let's just kind of shift a couple of degrees here, actually a lot of degrees, and talk about humans. And we're not going to go super into cannibalism here, but we're going to talk about this idea about whether or not humans could actually get a taste

for human blood. Yeah. We we mentioned at the beginning that there's a certain I get the sense that with the man man eater idea that there is this notion that, oh, humans are off the menu items and therefore we're the most delicious, and that if anything, we're to get a taste of us, then how could they resist eating us all the time. Uh. There's actually an an interesting argument that that that this this isn't the case with any

animal out there except humans. Of course, humans complicate the situation as always, because we're not just this uh, this this creature out there, uh, you know, living in an unconscious existence in the wild. We're very conscious. We we have these layers of culture and language in which which just completely complicate any and everything we do. And so

you do have situations, obviously where people turn to cannibalism. Uh. A lot of the time it's just for simple economic reasons, just like the rest of the world, a situation where cannibalism, an act of cannibalism, means survival in a bad situation. But then you have situations where people turn to cannibalism, uh due to uh well, for lack of a better word,

insane reasons. In two thousand and twelve, there were a spate of crimes that involve face fighting, dismemberment, and cannibalism, and in these cases, Karen Highland, she is a therapist at Summit Malibu Treatment Center in California, said cannibalism often begins as a fantasy which the person plays out in

his or her head. But when that person gets a taste for real, she says, you know, like the real, actual meat of the human, she says quote, the pleasure center of the brain becomes activated and large amounts of dopamine are released, similar to what happens when someone ingests a drug like cocaine. I gotta say my right now,

my eyebrow is dubiously raised. Yeah, it's again, it's I feel like it's important to again realize that with humans everything is is complicated because humans can have fantasies about doing something that they've built up in their mind for you know, a decade or more. They can they can just be totally enraptured, but by the idea of doing something humans unlike uh, you know, most of the animal world.

We have we have taboos, we have things that exist outside of what is accepted by our culture, and those things can become attractive to varying degrees. So you gotta take take that into account. And then if you're going to eat human flesh, and it's very basis, you're ingesting something. And if you ingest food, if you ingest uh, you know, beef jerky, or the face of somebody that you attacked on a on on the freeway, there is going to be a biological response to that. Your boy, you are

there is gonna be uh you know, are ingesting vitamins. Uh. There, you know your body is going to react. You're going to you're going to feel a certain amount of pleasure upon eating. I mean, that's just biology. And so you add that in with all these complicated layers of fantasy and and taboo and uh and sexual desire, and you're

gonna get some weird results. Well. So she's not calling out the habit loop, as we had touched on with Charles du Hick's research about how to make a habit, right, but she is touching on one of the things that makes a habit, and that's a release of dopamine. Right. And so that's the reason why a brain says me like, yeah, I want to do it again, but I just can't conceive of doing that one time. And all of a sudden you have this really robust neural pathway that's demanding

human flesh. I think that for me is the the leap in logic that's a bit difficult. Well, everything else I sort of understand. I just don't know that that one time would be enough. Um. And but she is equating it with cocaine and saying that, you know, the cutting of cocaine is very similar in the sense of planning for the killing and eating of someone. She's saying that it's the same sort of anticipation and you know this the same sort of uh real hook that's in

your brain and about what's about to happen. I feel like she might be chewing more than she bites off. Now. I ran across another article that dealt with some of this title at A Beginner's Guide to Sexual Cannibalism by and Dr Mark D. Griffiths, PhD. And this season, but this is on Psychology Today, and they pointed and and I'm just gonna read you this quote from it, so that so that the reference that Mark Griffiths is making here,

uh you know it isn't overstated, he says. Leslie Hinsel, author of Cannibalism as a Sexual Disorder, says eating human flesh can cause an increase in levels of vitamin A and amino acids, which can cause a chemical effect on the blood and in the brain. This chemical reaction could possibly lead to the altered states that some cannibals have have claimed to have experienced. However, this theory has not

been substantiated by scientific evidence. Well, there you go. Yeah, I gotta say, but again, I you know, think to that time that you had, like a really delicious hamburger or some sort of a treat that you normally don't allow yourself, and how satisfying that food can be. It can't.

Food can be euphoric, like a really good piece of sushi are really you know, particularly perfect grapefruit there you can feel a sense of euphoria with your food just on its own, without layering in sexual fantasy and cultural taboos. So again, eating is a physical act that has an effect on the brain, even if you're not talking about cantalism. I just don't Yeah, I just don't see human meat

being a go to comfort food. I mean maybe And actually, if today's video game releases any indication it's a possibility.

There's a game called Tasty Tasty Grandpa that just came out. Yeah, this is gonna be an iOS two D quote eat em up that you can play on your your phone and various gadgets, um, and hopefully it will be available by the time this podcast goes lives because because it looks amazing, Uh, do a search for Tasty Tasty Grandpa and you can see the video clip Basically you start off as this as this baby and uh and what do you do to survive? Well, you have to eat those who are older than you to level up to

a different age group. And we're talking very cartoon cannibalism. It's just just you know, eat whole with no blood or bones or anything. Grows like that. Yeah, the background is an Elizabethan Theater carousel, so it's nothing to do morbid or anything. But the older user gets, the more younger people are out to get them. So then you have to try to survive cannibalism as well. Well. I feel like it's a perfect metaphor for life, especially if

you're if you happen to be in the media. Uh So, if you're doing a podcast, you start thinking, oh, man, look at the look at the playing field. We have all these young people coming up, and there's still old dudes out there that I want to take down and get their spot, you know. Well, as as far as exploring cannibalism through technology, I can't help but think about the singularity of course again when robots will be our overlords. And I think this is where I think cannibalisms and

humans may finally meet. As I envision these arenas where humans are ushered in along with sort of like half droid half animals and made to try to consume each other. WHOA, So you're saying that when the when the robots take over, yes, they will initiate gladiatorial combat between captured humans and cybernetic animals something like that, and they have to eat each other. Well, of course cybernetic animals, and how that's gonna work adjustive system.

But this is what's in my mind going to happen. I love how we discussed bringing up the Tasty Tasty Grandpa as a way to to ease out of the cannibalism discussion in the Lighter Territory to close out the podcast, and you you managed to grab the wheel and pulled right back around to post apocalypt gladiatorial battle between humans and cybernet animals. Yeah, I put us in the ditch, didn't.

But think about it, right, I mean at that point, at the Singularity, we will be striving for meeting in our life, right because computers will be doing everything, So this provides meeting in a way survival, Okay, I mean I'm not advocating that you've put the idea out there into the internet, which is kind of the mind of

our future machine masters. So when it does, when it when that, if it does happen, I feel like future generations can look back to Julie Douglas and say, she's the one who told the robots that this is what would help us out in the end. Oh my gosh, you're saying that when in the future I am staring into the eyes and the jaws of a wooly mammoth hybrid jaguar and meeting my death, that I should think my past self. Yeah, you have chosen the form of

the destructor, putting that into the stream of a robot consciousness. Okay, fair enough. So there you go. Eaters, the idea of the man eater, the reality of the man eat or what what may tip the scale in some cases for an animal and and make it go after human prey, either you know, just a little bit or exclusively. Yeah, a couple of things for you guys to percolate on.

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