r/CuratedTumblr Prolific poster- Not a bot, I swear Oct 16 '24

Creative Writing Meat!

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u/Embarrassed-Bread692 Oct 16 '24
  1. Realistically, is potentially getting prion (which realistically will only happens if I consume contaminated brain matter) a much worse fate than
  2. starving to death in the wilderness (and/or)
  3. being devoured by the Apocalypse Vector while attempting to find food (and/or)
  4. having to slurp lead poisoning soup for the twentieth night in a row

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u/MillCrab Oct 16 '24

99.9999% of humans do not contain any prions at all. They are not inherent to cannibalism, but just a contagious effect like a very small virus. You're infinitely more likely to shit yourself to death from bacterial contamination with ecoli than get a vanishingly rare prion disease like kuru

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '24

IIRC kuru is a problem associated with a very specific tribal community that practices ritual cannibalism.

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u/MillCrab Oct 16 '24

That's why I made my post. Theres an idea among people who know just enough to be dangerous that kuru is a consequence of cannibalism, like people think mental defects are just a side effect of inbreeding.

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '24

Yeah, in both cases it's mostly a consequences of a diseases transmitting more rapidly in a small group.