Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, wasn't a stuff about your mind?
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. I
Speaker 1: was I was just about to say, what comes to
Speaker 1: mind when I say the word man eater? Oh? Comes,
Speaker 1: she's mad? H Now? Was she actually a man eater?
Speaker 1: Was she out of control cannibal in that? Because that's
Speaker 1: got kind of the vibe. I hear that song on
Speaker 1: a picture kind of like Miami Vice type situation where
Speaker 1: they're hunting down this woman who is on the loose
Speaker 1: and killing and eating men and kind of like a
Speaker 1: black widow cannibal fashion, and only two men hall and
Speaker 1: Oates one mustache can bring her down exactly detectives Holland
Speaker 1: Oates on the case. I think it was more like
Speaker 1: she's a gold digger, She's going to run through all
Speaker 1: the men. But we could take the whole the skew
Speaker 1: on it that she was a flesh eating woman rampaging
Speaker 1: around the social circles of humans. Okay, all right, I
Speaker 1: like that interpretation. Now, for anyone who's thinking about turning
Speaker 1: off the podcast right now, let me assure you this
Speaker 1: is primarily not an episode about cannibals. This is this
Speaker 1: is when we when we say man eater, we're bringing
Speaker 1: to mind the the jungle man eater, the uh, the
Speaker 1: idea that there you have animals out there that may
Speaker 1: turn man eater or animals that are in and of
Speaker 1: themselves man eaters. Uh. And it's a it's a term
Speaker 1: that carries a lot of weight because as humans, we
Speaker 1: generally like to think that we are in a safe area,
Speaker 1: that we have not only reached the top of a
Speaker 1: food chain, but we have removed ourselves from the food
Speaker 1: chain entirely. We've we've achieved liberation from from that particular structure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before. Louis c. K has a
Speaker 1: bit about how humans really take for granted the fact
Speaker 1: that we are out of the food chain. But as
Speaker 1: we read in the listener emails last week, there's one
Speaker 1: person who dared to ask the question, could you have
Speaker 1: a sudden blood luss when it comes to humans? Could
Speaker 1: you get a taste of it and want more? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and to what extent is that just sort of
Speaker 1: you know, human self obsession to think that we just
Speaker 1: were so tasty, like we're we're off the menu item.
Speaker 1: And we are so delicious that if that if a
Speaker 1: tiger or a lion, or a chimpanzee or any kind
Speaker 1: of creature that dabbles and meat eating at all or
Speaker 1: to get a taste of us, then there's no way
Speaker 1: they could go back. They would just have to be
Speaker 1: man meat all the time. Cut it up for me,
Speaker 1: put it on my plate. That's all I'm gonna eat
Speaker 1: until you take me down inhala bullets. Wow, So you're saying,
Speaker 1: could there be some sort of sea change that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden put us on the menu. In other words,
Speaker 1: these animals wouldn't go into their restaurant and have some
Speaker 1: sort of code word in order to bring this delicacy
Speaker 1: of humans about all of a sudden, We would just
Speaker 1: be on the menu all the time. We would be
Speaker 1: the other white meat. Yeah, I mean. And as we're
Speaker 1: gonna discuss here, there are situations where something does occur,
Speaker 1: or or a few different things occur that that seemed
Speaker 1: to flip a switch in a predator that make it
Speaker 1: go from from just it's normal dietary practices to becoming
Speaker 1: a man eater to to preying on humans um exclusively.
Speaker 1: But to what extent is it a thing? To what
Speaker 1: extent is it us over reacting because because man eating
Speaker 1: is uh, it's such an a loaded idea because it
Speaker 1: just digs into our primal fears and into this, uh,
Speaker 1: this situation of prey and predator that we again largely
Speaker 1: like to think that we have achieved liberation from that.
Speaker 1: We're you know, we're able to distance ourselves from predators,
Speaker 1: were able to protect ourselves, and we're generally really smart prey.
Speaker 1: We're generally not a good prey and mostly mostly um.
Speaker 1: But but genuinely speaking, we're an intelligent, large creature that
Speaker 1: that's not worth the effort of hunting. But if we
Speaker 1: are in the wrong place at the wrong time, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it becomes a very precarious event for us. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we should probably kick off by talking about shameless
Speaker 1: man eaters. And I think that the best example of
Speaker 1: shameless man eaters are the nile crocodiles crocodia. Yes, you guys,
Speaker 1: these guys, if we if we had like our ring
Speaker 1: here in the right corner, you'd have a nile crocodile
Speaker 1: wing and sometimes as large as sixteen hundred pounds in
Speaker 1: twenty ft long. Now for for everybody that resides outside
Speaker 1: of the United States. I'm talking about seven dred and
Speaker 1: thirty kilograms and six meters long. Yeah, and these and
Speaker 1: basically sub Saharan Africa is just lousy with these things.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're everywhere and uh, and they are indiscriminate
Speaker 1: in their diet. So so there's not a situation of,
Speaker 1: oh that that crocodile, that that nile crocodile went man eater,
Speaker 1: it developed a taste for human blood. No, the crocodile
Speaker 1: is game for whatever it can get its jaws round.
Speaker 1: And since human beings often live in for close proximity
Speaker 1: with these creatures because because the river is their habitat
Speaker 1: and the river is light, if you are somehow hacking
Speaker 1: out an existence for yourself, then you are depending on
Speaker 1: the river for water, for food, for laundry, two children
Speaker 1: play in the water, etcetera. That the chance is going
Speaker 1: to come up for a crocodile to snack on a human.
Speaker 1: And it's it's hard to put an exact number on this,
Speaker 1: but it's estimated that upwards of two people may die
Speaker 1: each year from nile crocodile attacks. Yeah, so imagine yourself
Speaker 1: at the Nile River at the banks, you're washing your
Speaker 1: clothes and all of a sudden you are pitted against
Speaker 1: this animal that is camouflaging itself in the water effortlessly,
Speaker 1: just waiting right up to you, undetected. And they have
Speaker 1: these incredibly fast reflexes, and you know, surprise attacks are
Speaker 1: their purview, So you really don't have a chance in
Speaker 1: one of those situations. And you can see why just
Speaker 1: in this sub Saharan Africa and and the Nile that
Speaker 1: something up to two hundred deaths a year occur because
Speaker 1: of these crocs. Now that humans and crocodiles ever live
Speaker 1: in harmony, I mean this is not an animal that
Speaker 1: it is just overflowing with intelligence and uh and social
Speaker 1: adaptability with with with non crocodile species. Yeah. Actually, um,
Speaker 1: if you look at the case of one place in
Speaker 1: western Africa, it's called Bazul, where one hundred Nile crocs
Speaker 1: reside along with humans and what I would say is
Speaker 1: relative harmony. You can see that this community regards Nile
Speaker 1: crocs as sacred and they think of these crocs is
Speaker 1: is having a link to survival and welfare in the seasons, right,
Speaker 1: so they routinely sacrifice chickens to these crocodiles. So in
Speaker 1: a way, it's a kind of a domestication, right because
Speaker 1: they're they're giving them an animal, and they're keeping them
Speaker 1: fat enough and full enough that they're not going to
Speaker 1: be tempted as often by that that human snack that's
Speaker 1: washing it's it's clothes in the water. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: has been going on since the fourteen century. So um
Speaker 1: in some cases, as we'll discuss later on, with other animals,
Speaker 1: there's this possibility that not only this act going on
Speaker 1: is sort of routinizing it for the crocs, but maybe
Speaker 1: it's a learned behavior through generations of these crocs, you know,
Speaker 1: because that what instantly ticks off of my mind when
Speaker 1: I think about that is I think about the alligators
Speaker 1: here in the United States, And what do they always
Speaker 1: tell you about alligators. Do not feed the alligators because
Speaker 1: with other wild animals, you start feeding them, they start
Speaker 1: associating a human presence with food, which is generally not
Speaker 1: a good idea because again, one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: humans are so good at largely avoiding uh consumption by
Speaker 1: a predator is that we keep our distance from them.
Speaker 1: We know not to go and mess with the bears,
Speaker 1: and the bears by and large don't want to mess
Speaker 1: with the humans. But when you start confusing the equation
Speaker 1: by having a gift of sacrificed chicken or a delicious
Speaker 1: garbage can involved, then it starts bringing these two species
Speaker 1: closer and closer. And they're both very dangerous species in
Speaker 1: their own way, so when they meet, uh it, it
Speaker 1: might not be pretty. And the thing is though, in
Speaker 1: in this area of western Africa, you may not have
Speaker 1: the choice to keep your distance, so your water source
Speaker 1: is probably going to be the same as these crocs,
Speaker 1: So it would make sense that you would create this
Speaker 1: sort of symbiotic relationship with a croc. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: suggest that everybody hearing I didn't go out and start
Speaker 1: doing that, because you know, by and large we have
Speaker 1: the ability to keep our distance. But yeah, this, this
Speaker 1: is what you see when when two species are or
Speaker 1: cohabitating in the space on a very intimate terms, all right, now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to killing and eating humans, uh, there
Speaker 1: is one type of human that is clearly the best snack,
Speaker 1: the best meal, and that is the child. Uh. Children
Speaker 1: are of course smaller humans. They are largely uh stupid
Speaker 1: er humans. When it comes to surviving on their own,
Speaker 1: and they don't have as much experience they you know,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna really be able to punch a bear
Speaker 1: in the nose. They're they're slower, they're easily distracted. Firstance,
Speaker 1: I took my son out on the belt line today,
Speaker 1: which is this like running walking bicycling strip here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: formerly a train track, A really nice environment, but it
Speaker 1: was hard to get him to walk uh ten feet
Speaker 1: without stopping to stick to poke sticks through the fence
Speaker 1: to try and pick up dog crap or two. And
Speaker 1: then occasionally he would see somebody running and run himself.
Speaker 1: Now there were no tigers or bears or coyotes or
Speaker 1: wolves or anything like that on the belt line, but
Speaker 1: if there were, they would have easily seen. This is
Speaker 1: the kid. We're gonna try and eat these large adult runners.
Speaker 1: And they're too fast, they're too wary. Some of them
Speaker 1: are on bicycles. I'm not messing with that. But this guy,
Speaker 1: he is short, he is stubby, and he keeps stopping
Speaker 1: to mess with things could eat him up in a heartbeat.
Speaker 1: Like I like to joke to my wife that if
Speaker 1: he were out in the wild, even like squirrels would say, hey,
Speaker 1: I could eat that guy, Maybe I should get a
Speaker 1: taste in here. All of a sudden, you have like
Speaker 1: twenty squirrels marching towards your son exactly. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the economic value of eating um a toddler is just
Speaker 1: it should be obvious to anything in the animal kingdom,
Speaker 1: and a number of predators do pick up on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's why we have so many fairy
Speaker 1: tales that are these cautionary tales really for children, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to wolves, right, yeah, I mean just
Speaker 1: think of the wolf in nursery stories. Uh and and
Speaker 1: in myths as well. But a little red riding hood.
Speaker 1: You know, she's just minding her own business and this
Speaker 1: wolf is going to eat her in the woods. It
Speaker 1: also goes after her elderly grandmother as well. Uh and
Speaker 1: and then there are other stories like this three Pigs.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just it just goes on and on.
Speaker 1: We just have this this cultural idea of the wolf
Speaker 1: as this predator that's roaming out on the edges of
Speaker 1: our human world and is going to be eager to
Speaker 1: creep in and steal our children or even eat us.
Speaker 1: I mean, look look at some of the films we
Speaker 1: have of out there in which the wolf plays a
Speaker 1: very nefarious role. There's the the Liam Neeson movie The Gray,
Speaker 1: about Liam Neeson punching a bunch of wolves as they
Speaker 1: try to eat him. So culturally it is woven in
Speaker 1: our fabric. We are frightened of wolves. They are the Boogeyman.
Speaker 1: So imagine you live in Reserve, New Mexico. Okay, I
Speaker 1: just imagine you're here in New Mexico and your child
Speaker 1: is waiting for the bus, but instead of throwing rocks
Speaker 1: or playing chase, the children are huddled in wood and
Speaker 1: mesh cages meant to keep them safe from any wayward
Speaker 1: wolves that happened by this is just such a fantastic story.
Speaker 1: I mean, especially once you start getting the details. And uh,
Speaker 1: in in this case, we got the details from the
Speaker 1: article do kid cages really predict children from wolves? By
Speaker 1: Jeremy Berlin and he and he talks to an expert
Speaker 1: on wolves. He specifically, he talks to Daniel McNulty, a
Speaker 1: wildlife ecology professor at Utah State University. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: a guy who's been studying wolves in the Alsto National
Speaker 1: Park for past eighteen years and he askin said wolves
Speaker 1: eating children at bus stops. Is this really a threat?
Speaker 1: And he says, of course, it's not a threat, like
Speaker 1: there are so few examples of wolves attacking humans in
Speaker 1: the wild. For starters, Yeah, he says, a child in
Speaker 1: a rural area is more likely to be hurt or
Speaker 1: killed in an accident with an off road altering vehicle
Speaker 1: or in a with an encounter with a feral dog
Speaker 1: or hunting accident. And there are very few instances in
Speaker 1: North America have wolves hurting anyone, let alone children. And
Speaker 1: the reason why people are up in arms in this
Speaker 1: area is because in smaller subspecies of the gray wolf
Speaker 1: called the Mexican wolf was reintroduced in the area. It's
Speaker 1: a protected species. And so on one hand you have
Speaker 1: you have governmental bodies saying, don't hurt the wolves. They are,
Speaker 1: they're endangered, they're protected, leave them alone. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, we have this primal or almost i'm all
Speaker 1: fear of the wolf. We have certainly had experiences of
Speaker 1: wolves praying on livestock and beloved pets, and so you
Speaker 1: have you have this tug of war here and also
Speaker 1: probably a little bit of political manipulation as well, where
Speaker 1: people are saying, Oh, well, if you're gonna protect the
Speaker 1: wolf and we can't shoot the wolves, then I guess
Speaker 1: we'll have to put our children in shark cages at
Speaker 1: the bus stop exactly, because otherwise the wolves would just
Speaker 1: sweep in and just eat all of them every morning. Yeah.
Speaker 1: McNulty said that he thought that this was probably a
Speaker 1: publicity stunt by people who felt like their rights were
Speaker 1: being infringed on upon the government, particularly since the e
Speaker 1: p A was had something out there to actually have
Speaker 1: tighter restrictions here on the Mexican wolf. So again, the
Speaker 1: idea is that there may be some groups that are
Speaker 1: fueling this fear, which is sort of an ancient fear
Speaker 1: ingrained in us against wolves. Well, let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: You have you have, you have a daughter. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine taking your daughter to a bus stop to to
Speaker 1: await the school bus since telling her, listen, honey, everything
Speaker 1: is gonna be okay today. However, we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: put you in a cage as you wait for the
Speaker 1: bus because wolves may come for you and try to
Speaker 1: eat you. No, I can't. I can't imagine like putting
Speaker 1: her into what amounts as a chicken coop really if
Speaker 1: you look at these structures and telling her that there's
Speaker 1: this this fear that she should, you know, really be
Speaker 1: keyed into. I mean, can you imagine what that's doing
Speaker 1: to a kid's psyche. That's it's just not healthy. I mean.
Speaker 1: And and also it again, it fosters this idea that
Speaker 1: the wolf is a threat that needs to be eradicated,
Speaker 1: when in reality, if you encounter wolves in the wild,
Speaker 1: it's generally going to be a very a very calm situation.
Speaker 1: They're gonna see you, they're gonna take off because you're
Speaker 1: just not a prey animal to them. Yeah, McNulty says.
Speaker 1: They don't have supernatural powers. They can't jump over mountain ranges,
Speaker 1: they can't bring down a moose with a single bite
Speaker 1: to the neck um. They are constrained by their morphology, right,
Speaker 1: So they're going to go after something that is mall.
Speaker 1: They're going to go after a rabbit or something that
Speaker 1: is easy prey. They are generally frightened of humans. So
Speaker 1: to sum it all up, yes, it's there's a small,
Speaker 1: small chance that wolves would prey on a human child,
Speaker 1: but but generally it's not something to worry about. Certainly,
Speaker 1: nothing to worry about at the bus stop. Um. But
Speaker 1: of course the child would be an irresistible meal to
Speaker 1: uh to any number of other predators, uh, interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: including the champ to the chimpanzee, which I found horrifying. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and I think that's because you know, when you think
Speaker 1: about chimps, you think of them as these playful creatures,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, even when you hear accounts of
Speaker 1: them killing each other, it's disturbing when when they start
Speaker 1: eating other primates, which they do, yes, or rather monkeys,
Speaker 1: that's that's when it starts getting a little weird for
Speaker 1: the human observer. But certainly they eat a lot of meat,
Speaker 1: I believe, if I remember correctly, the chimpanzee is only
Speaker 1: surpassed in its meat consumption by human beings when compared
Speaker 1: to other other species. So we can't so we can't
Speaker 1: really judge. I think it's what you're saying. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we we have. We get kind of weird
Speaker 1: about eating things that look too much like us for
Speaker 1: the most part. But but they have no such qualms.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this is about context, right, So
Speaker 1: what sort of food sources are available, what else is
Speaker 1: going on in the ecosystem, and we're going to discuss
Speaker 1: a little bit more about this some other species that
Speaker 1: we should really keep more worried about when it comes
Speaker 1: to man eating. Right after we cutis great, all right,
Speaker 1: we're back lions and tigers and bears. Oh my, Yes,
Speaker 1: particularly lions and tigers. These are the big cats are
Speaker 1: among the best examples of of man eaters that we
Speaker 1: can you can really focus in on, and particularly when
Speaker 1: you're looking at the situation of an animal turning man
Speaker 1: eater and try and and just trying to to figure
Speaker 1: out what is that, what is happening at that pivotal
Speaker 1: moment when this animal changes from something that lives outside
Speaker 1: of the human scope to a creature that is praying
Speaker 1: exclusively on humans. Yeah, and before we talk about some
Speaker 1: of the circumstances that would drive man eating and lions,
Speaker 1: let's just discuss really quickly that the population of African
Speaker 1: lions is in decline while the human population, of course
Speaker 1: is on the rise. You have to factor in the
Speaker 1: loss of habitat and human encroachment, and then you begin
Speaker 1: to see this picture emerging of how humans and lions
Speaker 1: are meeting far more than they ever did in history.
Speaker 1: And of course attacks are on the rise. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: now there's some of some very key examples of man
Speaker 1: eating lions throughout history, and all of this certainly stokes
Speaker 1: the fires of our fear and our in our fascination
Speaker 1: with the idea of the man eating lion, but particularly
Speaker 1: the situation in evolving two lions named ghost in Darkness. Um,
Speaker 1: they unleash this harrowing string of attacks on Ugandan railroad workers.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. If you look at the older accounts
Speaker 1: of the Savo lions, they were saying that the lions
Speaker 1: flew something like a hundred and thirty five African and
Speaker 1: Indian railroad labors and sometimes dragging them from their tents
Speaker 1: while they slept. And you know, it all ends up
Speaker 1: escalating in the in the hunters having to go out
Speaker 1: and set in search of them. If you've ever seen
Speaker 1: the movie The Ghosts in the Darkness that has a
Speaker 1: fictionalized account of this situation. But here's the thing. These
Speaker 1: lines are currently on view underneath the St. Louis Gateway Arch.
Speaker 1: If you go to the Gateway Arch and you go
Speaker 1: into the museum underneath it, you will see these lines
Speaker 1: and they are surprisingly small. Um, you see them, and
Speaker 1: you have you if you hear the story, you expect
Speaker 1: the giant lions that are just dripping with human blood,
Speaker 1: and they're there are a lot smaller specimens in your life.
Speaker 1: So are these vampire lions that are existing to the centuries? No?
Speaker 1: No, no no, these are the actual lions were killed and
Speaker 1: stuffed and wound up in St. Louis, Okay. And it
Speaker 1: turns out, by the way that these lions actually did
Speaker 1: the lives of thirty five people that you know, hundred
Speaker 1: plus people. Uh. Still is nothing to sneeze at. Now
Speaker 1: this isn't the only story. There are various other accounts
Speaker 1: and um, and you know, I could, I could go
Speaker 1: into listing each of them connt by account, but they
Speaker 1: all basically amount to the same thing. Suddenly a lion
Speaker 1: or even a group of lions begin praying on humans
Speaker 1: and then they don't stop until those lions are themselves
Speaker 1: put down. Um. There are a number of reasons for
Speaker 1: why this happens. One of the reasons is it could
Speaker 1: be passed down behavior. Yes, and there's a study of
Speaker 1: the subbo lions actually uh from the Chicago's Field Museum
Speaker 1: that discovered that generations of the same pride exhibited similar
Speaker 1: human eating tendencies. So the same pride had a higher
Speaker 1: incidence of man eating. So that's and the idea here.
Speaker 1: But of course there's lots of different competing circumstances and reasons, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the big ones is altered habitat
Speaker 1: induced prey switching. Now, this is a situation, uh that
Speaker 1: they should make a lot of sense, especially in light
Speaker 1: of of the reality of growing human populations and uh
Speaker 1: and at times shrinking uh prey populations in an area.
Speaker 1: What ends up happening is you have alliance and they've
Speaker 1: they've lived in this area for generations and generations and generations.
Speaker 1: They've always prayed exclusively on this particular population of animals,
Speaker 1: and suddenly that prey population is affected by this human presence.
Speaker 1: Suddenly there's less for them to eat. What are they
Speaker 1: supposed to do? They're gonna do whatever they have to
Speaker 1: do to survive there. So they end up switching their
Speaker 1: prey preference. They realize they can't uh you know, get
Speaker 1: this traditional uh you know, dear like gazelle like animal
Speaker 1: or whatever that they prey on. What are they going
Speaker 1: to turn to? Well, here are all these humans in
Speaker 1: their areas. So they end up making the switch, and
Speaker 1: there may be a sational things that end up um
Speaker 1: affecting that switch. For instance, what happens then if lions, uh,
Speaker 1: these same lions who are trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: they're gonna eat, what kind of prey they're going to
Speaker 1: consist on? What happens when they come across the body
Speaker 1: of a dead human or or or even you know,
Speaker 1: a destigated grave of some kind, they end up trying
Speaker 1: the human flesh. It's just another argument in their favor
Speaker 1: of oh, well, these creatures seem to be uh as
Speaker 1: delicious as anything else I could eat and uh, and
Speaker 1: then then they seem to be everywhere, and then you
Speaker 1: end up with the eventual situation where they actually prey
Speaker 1: on a human, and in that they may learn, oh
Speaker 1: well they're not that difficult to kill either. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really plays into the whole uh survival game that
Speaker 1: we've talked about before. You tried to conserve as much
Speaker 1: energy as possible and get as much energy as possible, right,
Speaker 1: And so if if a human presents him or herself
Speaker 1: as easy prey, either you know, just something that you
Speaker 1: stumbled upon them that's a dead body, or just is
Speaker 1: a smaller human being that's easy to take down. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go. You can conserve your energy and get
Speaker 1: a quick meal out of it at the same time.
Speaker 1: And another situation with lions that can lead to this
Speaker 1: man hunter button getting you know, ticked off in their
Speaker 1: brain is uh is when you have an old or
Speaker 1: an injured lion. So it's very similar to the altered
Speaker 1: habitat induce prey switching situation. So like suddenly they've gone
Speaker 1: from this life where they're they're praying exclusively on this
Speaker 1: animal or this group of animals, and now they can't
Speaker 1: because they're getting old. Maybe they can't they can't run
Speaker 1: down their prey like they used to, or they're having
Speaker 1: problems with their teeth, they can't. They can't necessarily kill
Speaker 1: and chew like they used to. Yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: think about when you go to the dentist and you
Speaker 1: have a tooth apsessor, you have dental work done, you
Speaker 1: don't go home and eat like a chicken thigh. You
Speaker 1: probably eat some mac and cheese. Right. Yeah, Well, we've
Speaker 1: talked about the advantages of human cooking before, and you
Speaker 1: know what a what an enormous technological achievement that was
Speaker 1: for our species. One of the achievements there is that
Speaker 1: Suddenly it means that if you don't have teeth to
Speaker 1: chew your food anymore, that there is a way, you know,
Speaker 1: you can you can cook things down, and in addition
Speaker 1: to that, you can also chop things up, and in
Speaker 1: doing so, bad teeth is not a death sentence anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so if you think about humans versus say, zebras,
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, humans on the menu look
Speaker 1: a lot more like mac and cheese to an animal
Speaker 1: with really bad teeth. You don't. We don't have tough
Speaker 1: hides to tear through, right, So you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: another idea of where you have a circumstance where humans
Speaker 1: might be the better choice here the other white meat.
Speaker 1: But of course, there is not one overriding theory here
Speaker 1: about why lions in particular go after humans from time
Speaker 1: to time. Um. Actually, History Stuff has a really great
Speaker 1: discussion of the Savo lions. It's a December sixteen episodes,
Speaker 1: So if you guys want to learn more about that
Speaker 1: specific instance, check that out. Because there's no there's there's
Speaker 1: not really one reason that people can out along for
Speaker 1: for why this happens. Yeah, If anything, it seems like,
Speaker 1: there are probably a few different a few different of
Speaker 1: these factors are playing in to to any given man
Speaker 1: hunter situation, but it does seem to be the trend
Speaker 1: that once that want that, once that little switch is
Speaker 1: flipped over in the brain, Uh, they tend to go
Speaker 1: for the human flesh. But then, but then part of
Speaker 1: that too is that is that we have such a
Speaker 1: stigma about man eaters and such a fear of it,
Speaker 1: and then we have this idea in our head that,
Speaker 1: oh that that that line has become man eater, it
Speaker 1: must be put down. Uh. So you know that that
Speaker 1: that The answer then is in kind of in the
Speaker 1: question there. Well, right now today there's actually a news
Speaker 1: item that in your India there is a man hunt
Speaker 1: right now for a tigress that is going on. This
Speaker 1: is a tigress who reportedly has taken nine human lives
Speaker 1: in the last forty five days, and so you have
Speaker 1: really this frenzy uh going on to to take this
Speaker 1: one tiger down. Yeah. Ti beers are definitely another big
Speaker 1: area of where we see the man eater of effect
Speaker 1: coming in into practice and and generally speaking the same
Speaker 1: reasons a plot, but with the added caveat that sometimes
Speaker 1: you have. There is a theory that mistaken identity plays
Speaker 1: a role as well. They have been tests that have
Speaker 1: shown that a tiger will stalk a group of people
Speaker 1: bending over to cut grass, and it possibly the angle
Speaker 1: of the person, you know, the fact that they seem
Speaker 1: like they're smaller and more compact. That may mean that
Speaker 1: the tiger is misinterpreting what kind of animal they are.
Speaker 1: I see. So with the genes that I have that
Speaker 1: have like a little gazelle face on the foot, I
Speaker 1: should stop wearing those out in the wild. Well, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, if it has the face on it,
Speaker 1: maybe you'd be okay, because remember people with the masks
Speaker 1: in the back of their head, so that the tiger,
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't think that it's sneaking up on you.
Speaker 1: That's right, because the idea here is that with a tiger,
Speaker 1: or we've talked about this with bears too, is that
Speaker 1: certain types of bears that you don't want to appear
Speaker 1: as though you are overly excited or you are a
Speaker 1: prey that would be frightened of this animal and start
Speaker 1: running and flailing about. And if you have this mask on,
Speaker 1: it makes it look as though you are not actually
Speaker 1: retreating from the animal. It's interesting the emaion fleeing because
Speaker 1: I've also read accounts where you have areas in India
Speaker 1: where they don't really have a problem with tigers attacking
Speaker 1: people unless they're on bicycles. Something about the speed with
Speaker 1: which the human is moving may click something off and
Speaker 1: the tigers said, they think, oh, well, that's that's prey
Speaker 1: fleeing from me. I should run it down. That just
Speaker 1: happens in my neighborhood with dogs. Now again, think back
Speaker 1: to those reasons we listed for lions, and you can
Speaker 1: pretty much apply all of those t tigers as well.
Speaker 1: There's an estimated sevent tigers left in the wild in India. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the human population in India is is over one point
Speaker 1: to three seven billion people. So again you have you
Speaker 1: have these wild tigers and they're inevitably going to run
Speaker 1: into people and sometimes it's just gonna it's gonna basically
Speaker 1: be accident. What happens when when when a tiger just
Speaker 1: happens across a human. It might be an old tiger
Speaker 1: it's forced out of it's the previous area, a young
Speaker 1: tiger that's off it's out in search of its of
Speaker 1: an area to call its own. And and indeed, those
Speaker 1: are the two types of tigers that typically wind up
Speaker 1: in these violent altercations, the young tigers and the very
Speaker 1: old tigers. Yeah, and if you look at this current
Speaker 1: case in Pichnore, India, that you do see habitat loss
Speaker 1: playing into this idea that it is the meeting season
Speaker 1: right now in the winter. And what happens is that
Speaker 1: you have older tiger says that are moving along the
Speaker 1: younger I think that when they turned three years old. Uh,
Speaker 1: the younger female tiger says, out of the pride and saying,
Speaker 1: go off on your own and create your own. So
Speaker 1: that's creating more stray tigers out there in the wilderness
Speaker 1: who are coming upon people. It's also worth pointing out
Speaker 1: that a tiger usually makes one large kill every week,
Speaker 1: and so, uh, the map here is that since India
Speaker 1: has se hundred or so tigers, that's more than eighty
Speaker 1: five thousand kills in a year. But we're not experiencing
Speaker 1: anywhere near that number of of of deaths among humans
Speaker 1: at the hand of tigers. Less than eighty five people
Speaker 1: are killed or injured accidentally or otherwise in a year
Speaker 1: by tigers in India. So many more pittent times that
Speaker 1: die from the snake bites, rabies, uh, you name it.
Speaker 1: But again, the idea of an anna of a predator
Speaker 1: praying on humans, it's an idea that just resonates so
Speaker 1: strongly with this and just drives the fear. I mean,
Speaker 1: we just mentioned the story out of India, uh and
Speaker 1: in there are many cases, you know, certain of some
Speaker 1: of our listeners are gonna be more tied in two
Speaker 1: news out of India uh than other listeners. But I
Speaker 1: imagine for a lot of people, like that's gonna be
Speaker 1: the only news you hear out of India this week
Speaker 1: is that there's a man eating tiger on the loose.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how far it resonates, because that that
Speaker 1: that is is is scary and and uh and and
Speaker 1: sort of boggles your imagination and makes your your your
Speaker 1: mind run wild no matter where you are. And they
Speaker 1: of course, of course that would seize your imagination and
Speaker 1: you would stay indoors um. In terms of the United States,
Speaker 1: the real problem is a dog, spider or some other insect.
Speaker 1: And according to CDC statistics of the one thousand, nine
Speaker 1: eighty nine Americans killed by animals between nine and two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. Most of those deaths are attributed to dogs, insects,
Speaker 1: and spiders. So again you have to scale the things
Speaker 1: that are imaginary, those imaginary threats with what is actually
Speaker 1: happening at the time. Um out in the wild. Now
Speaker 1: it's it's a great thing. You mentioned dogs, but because
Speaker 1: of course with with dogs and and in some of
Speaker 1: these cases we might be talking about dogs that are
Speaker 1: a bit wild, but for the most part we're talking
Speaker 1: about the domestic dog and all the complications that come
Speaker 1: along with that. And we could do a whole podcast
Speaker 1: on this, and we probably should, about what happens when
Speaker 1: we have animals that are no longer wild, they have
Speaker 1: become domesticated, or they are kept in some sort of
Speaker 1: you know, zoo type habitat, you know, totally reduced habitat,
Speaker 1: totally unnatural living situation. What does that do to the
Speaker 1: animal's mind, even if they are kept in uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in relatively comfortable care, discounting abuse and UH and and
Speaker 1: other harsh realities of domestication and animal imprisonment. Well, probably
Speaker 1: one of the best examples of this can be found
Speaker 1: in the Blackfish documentary, which talks about Tillicum who is
Speaker 1: a killer whale, an orca and um and actually documents
Speaker 1: the three killings of humans by Tillicum. Yes, and it's
Speaker 1: worth it's very important to note here that there has
Speaker 1: never been a confirmed case of an orca killing a
Speaker 1: human in the wild. You've had situations where sailors have
Speaker 1: fallen directly into into the orca pods and they've emerged
Speaker 1: without any harm. And uh so the so the idea
Speaker 1: that that they're killing people in captivity, that instantly raises
Speaker 1: some questions about, well, what is it about captivity that
Speaker 1: is that is making them do this. The interesting thing
Speaker 1: about this too, is that they're not eating them, so
Speaker 1: obviously they're not doing this as a source of protein.
Speaker 1: They're doing this most likely as particularly when you look
Speaker 1: at this case of Telecom as a byproduct of zukosis.
Speaker 1: And if you look at Telecom, he was an organ
Speaker 1: that was separated from his mother at a young age
Speaker 1: and then shipped off to Ceiland in British Columbia to
Speaker 1: perform for audiences, where he was kept in what amounted
Speaker 1: to a lightless floating twenty by twenty eight foot shed
Speaker 1: and shed that again had no light coming in. And
Speaker 1: we're talking about being kept in that shed for upwards
Speaker 1: of fourteen hours overnight. In addition to that, because he
Speaker 1: hadn't been properly socialized, and kind of because he was
Speaker 1: a little man on the totem pole, he was the
Speaker 1: subject of a lot of aggressive acts by other orcas
Speaker 1: that he was either mating with or performing with. So
Speaker 1: even by the time that he was moved over to
Speaker 1: sea World and given you know, more room to be
Speaker 1: in and probably better um, you know, living quarters, he
Speaker 1: had already began to exhibit signs of zukosis. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it basically comes down to the fact that that in
Speaker 1: the orca you have an intelligent social creature. And if
Speaker 1: you take that intelligent social creature out of the wild
Speaker 1: and put it in an enclosed environment that is it's
Speaker 1: not even a slice of its natural world, you can
Speaker 1: end up with metal suttress. You can end up with aggression,
Speaker 1: and then it's going to manifest itself at times and
Speaker 1: potentially fatal encounters with the human captors. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: If you look at this documentary, you get more information,
Speaker 1: more end up information about these three killings. And one
Speaker 1: of the killings was just one person who broke into
Speaker 1: the holding area and UH, and they found this guy
Speaker 1: naked and um dead the following morning, so they're not
Speaker 1: entirely sure what happened UM. But the other two killings
Speaker 1: happened with trainers, and in one of those instances, you
Speaker 1: you can see the film footage on this, the trainer
Speaker 1: has not rewarded Tillicum for Um performing a certain trick
Speaker 1: because she just didn't see it. She was talking to
Speaker 1: the audience, so she assumed he hadn't done it, so
Speaker 1: she didn't reward him with the fish. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that that might have set off her eventual death
Speaker 1: with him pull him pulling her under sort of retribution
Speaker 1: for not realizing that, you know, he had done the trick.
Speaker 1: And when you think about zukosis and you think about
Speaker 1: animals um having this sort of psychosis and having that
Speaker 1: level of sensitivity, then that's their life. Those for their life,
Speaker 1: and that becomes maybe a matter of life or death
Speaker 1: to that orca. I mean, we don't know obviously, and
Speaker 1: I don't mean to anthropomorphizus here, but you can begin
Speaker 1: to see how something like this happens. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: if anyone who's a dog owner out there knows, what
Speaker 1: do you tell a child about about the dog. No
Speaker 1: matter how family the dog is, you don't touch the
Speaker 1: dog wants eating because because no matter how domesticated the species,
Speaker 1: that there is that basic principle of life. Food is
Speaker 1: the is the most important thing, along with with mating
Speaker 1: and reproduction, is a very genetic mission. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: at heart of every creature, and if you interfere with that, potentially,
Speaker 1: you know, set off a string of events. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very true. Now let's just kind of shift a couple
Speaker 1: of degrees here, actually a lot of degrees, and talk
Speaker 1: about humans. And we're not going to go super into
Speaker 1: cannibalism here, but we're going to talk about this idea
Speaker 1: about whether or not humans could actually get a taste
Speaker 1: for human blood. Yeah. We we mentioned at the beginning
Speaker 1: that there's a certain I get the sense that with
Speaker 1: the man man eater idea that there is this notion that, oh,
Speaker 1: humans are off the menu items and therefore we're the
Speaker 1: most delicious, and that if anything, we're to get a
Speaker 1: taste of us, then how could they resist eating us
Speaker 1: all the time. Uh. There's actually an an interesting argument
Speaker 1: that that that this this isn't the case with any
Speaker 1: animal out there except humans. Of course, humans complicate the
Speaker 1: situation as always, because we're not just this uh, this
Speaker 1: this creature out there, uh, you know, living in an
Speaker 1: unconscious existence in the wild. We're very conscious. We we
Speaker 1: have these layers of culture and language in which which
Speaker 1: just completely complicate any and everything we do. And so
Speaker 1: you do have situations, obviously where people turn to cannibalism. Uh.
Speaker 1: A lot of the time it's just for simple economic reasons,
Speaker 1: just like the rest of the world, a situation where cannibalism,
Speaker 1: an act of cannibalism, means survival in a bad situation.
Speaker 1: But then you have situations where people turn to cannibalism,
Speaker 1: uh due to uh well, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: insane reasons. In two thousand and twelve, there were a
Speaker 1: spate of crimes that involve face fighting, dismemberment, and cannibalism,
Speaker 1: and in these cases, Karen Highland, she is a therapist
Speaker 1: at Summit Malibu Treatment Center in California, said cannibalism often
Speaker 1: begins as a fantasy which the person plays out in
Speaker 1: his or her head. But when that person gets a
Speaker 1: taste for real, she says, you know, like the real,
Speaker 1: actual meat of the human, she says quote, the pleasure
Speaker 1: center of the brain becomes activated and large amounts of
Speaker 1: dopamine are released, similar to what happens when someone ingests
Speaker 1: a drug like cocaine. I gotta say my right now,
Speaker 1: my eyebrow is dubiously raised. Yeah, it's again, it's I
Speaker 1: feel like it's important to again realize that with humans
Speaker 1: everything is is complicated because humans can have fantasies about
Speaker 1: doing something that they've built up in their mind for
Speaker 1: you know, a decade or more. They can they can
Speaker 1: just be totally enraptured, but by the idea of doing
Speaker 1: something humans unlike uh, you know, most of the animal world.
Speaker 1: We have we have taboos, we have things that exist
Speaker 1: outside of what is accepted by our culture, and those
Speaker 1: things can become attractive to varying degrees. So you gotta
Speaker 1: take take that into account. And then if you're going
Speaker 1: to eat human flesh, and it's very basis, you're ingesting something.
Speaker 1: And if you ingest food, if you ingest uh, you know,
Speaker 1: beef jerky, or the face of somebody that you attacked
Speaker 1: on a on on the freeway, there is going to
Speaker 1: be a biological response to that. Your boy, you are
Speaker 1: there is gonna be uh you know, are ingesting vitamins. Uh. There,
Speaker 1: you know your body is going to react. You're going
Speaker 1: to you're going to feel a certain amount of pleasure
Speaker 1: upon eating. I mean, that's just biology. And so you
Speaker 1: add that in with all these complicated layers of fantasy
Speaker 1: and and taboo and uh and sexual desire, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get some weird results. Well. So she's not calling
Speaker 1: out the habit loop, as we had touched on with
Speaker 1: Charles du Hick's research about how to make a habit, right,
Speaker 1: but she is touching on one of the things that
Speaker 1: makes a habit, and that's a release of dopamine. Right.
Speaker 1: And so that's the reason why a brain says me like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to do it again, but I just can't
Speaker 1: conceive of doing that one time. And all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you have this really robust neural pathway that's demanding
Speaker 1: human flesh. I think that for me is the the
Speaker 1: leap in logic that's a bit difficult. Well, everything else
Speaker 1: I sort of understand. I just don't know that that
Speaker 1: one time would be enough. Um. And but she is
Speaker 1: equating it with cocaine and saying that, you know, the
Speaker 1: cutting of cocaine is very similar in the sense of
Speaker 1: planning for the killing and eating of someone. She's saying
Speaker 1: that it's the same sort of anticipation and you know
Speaker 1: this the same sort of uh real hook that's in
Speaker 1: your brain and about what's about to happen. I feel
Speaker 1: like she might be chewing more than she bites off. Now.
Speaker 1: I ran across another article that dealt with some of
Speaker 1: this title at A Beginner's Guide to Sexual Cannibalism by
Speaker 1: and Dr Mark D. Griffiths, PhD. And this season, but
Speaker 1: this is on Psychology Today, and they pointed and and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read you this quote from it, so
Speaker 1: that so that the reference that Mark Griffiths is making here,
Speaker 1: uh you know it isn't overstated, he says. Leslie Hinsel,
Speaker 1: author of Cannibalism as a Sexual Disorder, says eating human
Speaker 1: flesh can cause an increase in levels of vitamin A
Speaker 1: and amino acids, which can cause a chemical effect on
Speaker 1: the blood and in the brain. This chemical reaction could
Speaker 1: possibly lead to the altered states that some cannibals have
Speaker 1: have claimed to have experienced. However, this theory has not
Speaker 1: been substantiated by scientific evidence. Well, there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta say, but again, I you know, think to
Speaker 1: that time that you had, like a really delicious hamburger
Speaker 1: or some sort of a treat that you normally don't
Speaker 1: allow yourself, and how satisfying that food can be. It can't.
Speaker 1: Food can be euphoric, like a really good piece of
Speaker 1: sushi are really you know, particularly perfect grapefruit there you
Speaker 1: can feel a sense of euphoria with your food just
Speaker 1: on its own, without layering in sexual fantasy and cultural taboos.
Speaker 1: So again, eating is a physical act that has an
Speaker 1: effect on the brain, even if you're not talking about cantalism.
Speaker 1: I just don't Yeah, I just don't see human meat
Speaker 1: being a go to comfort food. I mean maybe And actually,
Speaker 1: if today's video game releases any indication it's a possibility.
Speaker 1: There's a game called Tasty Tasty Grandpa that just came out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be an iOS two D quote eat
Speaker 1: em up that you can play on your your phone
Speaker 1: and various gadgets, um, and hopefully it will be available
Speaker 1: by the time this podcast goes lives because because it
Speaker 1: looks amazing, Uh, do a search for Tasty Tasty Grandpa
Speaker 1: and you can see the video clip Basically you start
Speaker 1: off as this as this baby and uh and what
Speaker 1: do you do to survive? Well, you have to eat
Speaker 1: those who are older than you to level up to
Speaker 1: a different age group. And we're talking very cartoon cannibalism.
Speaker 1: It's just just you know, eat whole with no blood
Speaker 1: or bones or anything. Grows like that. Yeah, the background
Speaker 1: is an Elizabethan Theater carousel, so it's nothing to do
Speaker 1: morbid or anything. But the older user gets, the more
Speaker 1: younger people are out to get them. So then you
Speaker 1: have to try to survive cannibalism as well. Well. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a perfect metaphor for life, especially if
Speaker 1: you're if you happen to be in the media. Uh So,
Speaker 1: if you're doing a podcast, you start thinking, oh, man,
Speaker 1: look at the look at the playing field. We have
Speaker 1: all these young people coming up, and there's still old
Speaker 1: dudes out there that I want to take down and
Speaker 1: get their spot, you know. Well, as as far as
Speaker 1: exploring cannibalism through technology, I can't help but think about
Speaker 1: the singularity of course again when robots will be our overlords.
Speaker 1: And I think this is where I think cannibalisms and
Speaker 1: humans may finally meet. As I envision these arenas where
Speaker 1: humans are ushered in along with sort of like half
Speaker 1: droid half animals and made to try to consume each other. WHOA,
Speaker 1: So you're saying that when the when the robots take over, yes,
Speaker 1: they will initiate gladiatorial combat between captured humans and cybernetic
Speaker 1: animals something like that, and they have to eat each other. Well,
Speaker 1: of course cybernetic animals, and how that's gonna work adjustive system.
Speaker 1: But this is what's in my mind going to happen.
Speaker 1: I love how we discussed bringing up the Tasty Tasty
Speaker 1: Grandpa as a way to to ease out of the
Speaker 1: cannibalism discussion in the Lighter Territory to close out the podcast,
Speaker 1: and you you managed to grab the wheel and pulled
Speaker 1: right back around to post apocalypt gladiatorial battle between humans
Speaker 1: and cybernet animals. Yeah, I put us in the ditch, didn't.
Speaker 1: But think about it, right, I mean at that point,
Speaker 1: at the Singularity, we will be striving for meeting in
Speaker 1: our life, right because computers will be doing everything, So
Speaker 1: this provides meeting in a way survival, Okay, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm not advocating that you've put the idea out there
Speaker 1: into the internet, which is kind of the mind of
Speaker 1: our future machine masters. So when it does, when it
Speaker 1: when that, if it does happen, I feel like future
Speaker 1: generations can look back to Julie Douglas and say, she's
Speaker 1: the one who told the robots that this is what
Speaker 1: would help us out in the end. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you're saying that when in the future I am staring
Speaker 1: into the eyes and the jaws of a wooly mammoth
Speaker 1: hybrid jaguar and meeting my death, that I should think
Speaker 1: my past self. Yeah, you have chosen the form of
Speaker 1: the destructor, putting that into the stream of a robot consciousness. Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough. So there you go. Eaters, the idea of
Speaker 1: the man eater, the reality of the man eat or
Speaker 1: what what may tip the scale in some cases for
Speaker 1: an animal and and make it go after human prey,
Speaker 1: either you know, just a little bit or exclusively. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a couple of things for you guys to percolate on.
Speaker 1: And if you want to find out more information, more
Speaker 1: stuff that we're putting out there in the universe and
Speaker 1: given to the robots, you can check out a little website.
Speaker 1: We have, yes, stuff to blow your mind. Dot com.
Speaker 1: That is the mothership. You will find all of our
Speaker 1: podcast episodes there, and I mean all of them, because
Speaker 1: you will find an incomplete catalog of our episodes on iTunes,
Speaker 1: on SoundCloud in other places. Those are great places to
Speaker 1: to check us out. But you want everything, you have
Speaker 1: to come to our website. This is how it is. Hey.
Speaker 1: You can also check out our blog posts. There are
Speaker 1: videos links out to our various social media accounts that includes,
Speaker 1: for instance, our Facebook feed or Twitter feed or tumbler feed,
Speaker 1: Google Plus. Uh, but check it out. There's a there's
Speaker 1: one in particular that you follow. We are probably doing
Speaker 1: something on it as well at this very moment, at
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