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They're Made out of Meat

terrybisson.com

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Re: They're Made out of Meat

#121

Post by mechanical_fish »

simias wrote: post #67

It's quite a fun read but I don't understand why the author chose the word "meat". I mean, if for those aliens human biology is so weird and foreign, how could they have a concept of meat? Or meat flaps? That seems to imply that they're familiar with non-sentient meat, but what would that be? And if those aliens are so different from us they probably don't have the same concept of food as we have, so it wouldn't make…

It's a story about squick. The aliens aren't merely having trouble grasping the concept. They are revolted by the concept.

Indeed, as you've noticed, their revulsion appears to be the thing which prevents them from getting the picture. It's not as if they haven't seen meat. They've even seen intelligent creatures that are almost entirely meat. That's all part of the joke. If these aliens could get past their squick they'd be clever enough to understand squishy brains, but they can't.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#122

Post by sjs382 »

eterpstra wrote: post #3

http://thetruthpodcast.com/Story/Entries/2012/3/20_Theyre_Ma... An excellent podcast/radio adaptation, along with an interview with Terry Bisson

Good thing I did ctrl+f before I posted this. This radio-drama interpretation is awesome.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#124

Post by kamaal »

Also see, The Black Cloud - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud

One of themes explored in science fiction often is the possibility of we coming in contact with life forms so different we wouldn't comprehend the very nature of it.

If all the singularity, AI stuff ever comes true. Some day it will hardly make sense for any of us to even live inside a biological body.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#125

Post by mechanical_fish »

tspiteri wrote: post #9
pdkl95 wrote: post #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ The short-film adaptation of this was very well done. The David Lynch-influenced directing style worked well.

To me, it doesn't work at all. The whole point is that they are not-meat talking about meat . In the sketch, they look very meaty indeed, and their speech sounds like flapping meat, so that it does not work at all.

The core of the story is that the aliens can't accept the notion of a meat-based lifeform.

The idea that they might not just be wrong, but also in serious denial, is a cute twist.

Have you really never encountered an intelligent lifeform made entirely of meat who insists, often furiously, that an intelligent lifeform made entirely of meat is impossible? Because they're not exactly an endangered species around here.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#126

Post by apalmer »

markyc wrote: post #70
roc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know dolphins and whales speak and think. We are not "all over it". We could barely agree to a modest effort to reduce incidentally slaughtering some in our quest for other fish. We can not remotely agree to stop* directly slaughtering others. If an alien race looked at us the way we look at dolphins, whales, or even primates -- we'd be damn lucky if they simply turned around and went home. *edit: forgot "stop"

we can't actually talk to dolphins can we? they're not trying to reach us and learn from us, and "swap ideas", as far as we know and yet we still try to understand them and talk to them if a dolphin was to one day utter: "hey guys, let's chat. let me tell you about my world, and you tell me about yours" - I think it would be all over the news, not glossed by like "pff.. stupid animal trying to think"

Oddly enough these kinds of justifications are exactly what the aliens were doing in the story... just goes to show.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#127

Post by [deleted] »

shangxiao wrote: post #111
tehmaco wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search turned up this: http://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/57702943181/mikhailvladimir...

There’s mounting evidence that our primitive ancestors would hunt large prey simply by following it at a walking pace, without sleep or rest, until it died of exhaustion; it’s called pursuit predation. Basically, we’re the Terminator. Isn't that how the bushman in The Gods must be Crazy hunted his prey?

[deleted]

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#128

Post by mankyd »

tspiteri wrote: post #9
pdkl95 wrote: post #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ The short-film adaptation of this was very well done. The David Lynch-influenced directing style worked well.

To me, it doesn't work at all. The whole point is that they are not-meat talking about meat . In the sketch, they look very meaty indeed, and their speech sounds like flapping meat, so that it does not work at all.

I simply assumed that they made themselves look like the locals. It doesn't mean that they are actually made of meat or see themselves as having any other resemblance to the humans.

To give a silly analogy, imagine we visit the world of the Smurfs together. We both paint ourselves blue to fit in, but then you tell me: "they're made out of cake frosting". I'm going to give you quite a strange look when you say that, regardless of the fact that I'm painted blue.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#129

Post by ekidd »

Zikes wrote: post #81

This reminds me of a proposition put forth once (I think on tumblr of all places) that while humans are normally considered a "baseline" species in sci-fi, what would a sci-fi universe look like where humans were the superbeings? There were dozens of replies along the lines of: "I heard humans can survive losing a limb! Or even multiple limbs!" "Their strength and tolerance for gravity far exceeds our own!" "When one…

One of my favorite SF stories flips this premise: What if human beings were the wise, moral, responsible galactic elders? And we discovered low-tech aliens who observed:

- "Humans have such good self-control! They can resist cannibalism and murder so easily!" - "Humans live for more than two years!" - "Humans have time to learn more than a thousand words!" - "But when you get right down to it, humans are remarkably dumb and unmotivated, compared to us."

…and most importantly:

- "Hey, can we get some life extension technology? If we lived longer, we could totally have an engineering degree by age 6."

Vernor Vinge, "Original Sin." http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Stories-Vernor-Vinge/dp/0312...

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#130

Post by doughj3 »

Zikes wrote: post #81

This reminds me of a proposition put forth once (I think on tumblr of all places) that while humans are normally considered a "baseline" species in sci-fi, what would a sci-fi universe look like where humans were the superbeings? There were dozens of replies along the lines of: "I heard humans can survive losing a limb! Or even multiple limbs!" "Their strength and tolerance for gravity far exceeds our own!" "When one…

There was a recent prompt[1] in /r/writingprompts similar to this recently.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2csvwk/wp_an...

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