PJ Vogt

The video had been included in the first trial, but this time the court looks at it and they say, yes, this is Germany's version of murder.

He's getting a life sentence.

But I think you could look at this and you could say what you're actually seeing is a country trying to decide, like...

What are the limits of things we'll allow consenting adults to do to each other?

And realize, like, oh, we definitely still have a cannibalism taboo.

So, okay.

So, on the one hand, it's like you're saying once you're dead, if some future society eats your corpse, it's, like, not the biggest deal in the world.

But you're also saying that, like...

if we have a feeling, like a moral intuition that cannibalism is wrong, we should probably follow that feeling and create laws around it.

You're both sides in cannibalism.

And I think the reason I like thinking about cannibalism as a taboo, even though maybe it's silly, is because it's the one where I'm actually most convinced that it might be natural.

I think Columbus informed the language we use for cannibalism and the cartoon images in our head we use for cannibalism.

But like...

I think it's a rule that as many different human societies could flourish and as many ways they could construct themselves.

Most of them, if they wrote down their taboos, which they wouldn't, but if they did, cannibalism was one of them.

So I think I just like thinking about it because it almost feels hardwired, but then you can also see where it's...

After the break, a mystery in Papua New Guinea that might make us question some of the things we're pretty sure we're pretty sure about.

The story of the foray.

Welcome back to the show.

We've reached our third and final story here, the funeral.