Skip to main content

star trek - Why would Vulcans be vegetarian in an era with replicators?


Most vegetarians on Earth abstain from meat because of the treatment of animals as a result of mass proceessing. However in a universe with replicators, there is no ill treatment. A replicator simply aligns the molecules in such a way as to create a version of the food.



No animals were harmed in the replication of this cheese burger.




The proliferation of replicator technology has probably made the use of real livestock all but extinct. Additionally given the nutritional advantage of meats being a complete protein, it doesn't seem logical to arbitrarily deny that source of food.


Why are Vulcans (or anyone) vegetarians in the Star Trek universe?



Answer



Pre-continuity split, 'Star Trek' (2009), Vulcans were culturally vegetarians. This was not a religious choice; it was a cultural one. The move toward a vegan lifestyle was part of their overall tenet of abstaining from acts of violence and the embrace of logic as a preeminent lifestyle.




  • The leader and creator of the logical tenets Surak (as presented in Diane Duane's Spock's World) which states: "Ideally, do no harm... As far as possible, do not kill. Can you return life to what you kill?"




  • While Spock was seen to eat meat when he was trapped with Zarabeth, 5,000 years in the past in the TOS episode, All Our Yesterdays, his choices for food were both limited and in this case, it was logical that he eat meat if he were to survive.





  • He indicated there was a change in his mental state when processed into the past, which might have accounted for his desire to eat meat and enjoy it. It was mentioned the device would transform the participants into being suited for survival in the periods they were sent to.






As far as replicated meat goes, I suspect each culture's approach to the status of eating meat would be based on how or why that culture chooses not to eat meat in the first place.




  • Many of Earth's religious cultures forbade the eating of certain meats because they were potentially unclean or dangerous if not properly cooked. After a time, the reason may be lost to antiquity and simply be part of the religion.





  • If a space-faring culture found itself presented with meat that was made from the replicator's transformation of biomass, free of contaminants, it would have to decide if this would violate its tenets of meat consumption and the rationales for not eating meat in the first place.




  • If human religions were any indication, I would suspect religious reasons for not eating meat would continue even in an era where meat was nothing more than a synthetically created, mathematically modeled, series of constructed proteins designed to resemble meat.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...