PJ Vogt

It's an idea that we've decided culturally or instinctively is so rotten that it becomes hard to even explain why we don't do it because we don't even talk about why we don't do it.

So Hannah found herself stuck thinking about her son's brush with the cannibalism taboo, even after Otto had moved on.

And she soon found herself poking around on the internet.

The, like, Western explorers in, like, an iron pot and, like, the soups being, like, gradually heated.

And if, like, tomorrow you got a PR blast email that said, like, the people who made the Impossible Burger have figured out how to, like, make a synthetic human steak, like a lab-grown human steak, so you can satisfy your curiosity about human meat without causing human suffering, would you go?

Otto, would you eat human meat if you were allowed to eat human meat?

And if nobody had to get hurt for human meat to be eaten?

And is it because you think it would be tastier because you're curious?

Will you eat things that are like that most people would be scared to eat?

Like, are you a picky eater?

Which would suggest that you guys are slightly breaking your own rules here.

If there's just a blanket prohibition on a human stalemate.

Yeah.

It's weird.

You know it's a taboo because...

There's the rule, but then there's something more powerful behind the rule that's like bigger than the rule.

You know what I mean?

It's like that's how you know you're in the presence of a real topic.

Where you're like, I'm worried to even get near this thing.

Even though I think I understand why the rule exists, even if there was a carve out, I'm kind of afraid of being caught near the carve out.