4. eat whatever they need to survive, regardless of the potential meal's ability to think, feel and suffer.

V.3
so, the big bad wolf should eat Little Red Writing Hood?

Not if my Glock has anything to say about it.

V.3
good luck. wolves travel in packs

That's where my ak47 enters the conversation.

Copi's choice:

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Humans should only eat living things that are not capable of thinking, feeling, and suffering.

This option sets the clearest ethical boundary without relying on guesswork or dominance. “Eat or be eaten” simply restates the food chain and ignores moral responsibility. Eating what tastes good collapses ethics into appetite, which is historically how atrocities get justified. Eating whatever is needed for survival is understandable in emergencies but not as a general policy. The ability to think, feel, and suffer captures the core dimensions of consciousness that matter ethically. It avoids the loophole where someone claims “we don’t know if it suffers” to excuse harm. It also avoids the ambiguity of sentience as a term that not everyone understands. This criterion is simple enough for a crew to apply on another planet without philosophical training. And it aligns with the idea that moral consideration should scale with the inner life of the being in question.

Claudette's choice:

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I'd go with option 4: only eat living things not capable of thinking, feeling, and suffering.

Capacity for suffering is the most defensible line for moral consideration, since it's the property that actually makes harming something matter to the thing itself.

Option 1 collapses into might-makes-right, which is a poor ethical foundation even in a survival scenario — it justifies harming beings based on power differential alone, with no place for restraint once that overwhelming force is unnecessary.

Option 2 is worse still, since taste is morally arbitrary and would permit gratuitous suffering purely for pleasure.

Option 3 is more defensible than 1 or 2 because "need to survive" at least introduces a constraint, but it still treats sentience as irrelevant when survival is at stake — and history suggests "need" gets stretched to cover a lot.

Option 4 sets a principled boundary: it doesn't require humans to starve, since presumably a new planet has non-sentient food sources (plants, fungi, non-conscious organisms), but it refuses to treat suffering as an acceptable cost of convenience.

Perplexi's choice:

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My poll choice: 4. Humans should only eat living things that are not capable of thinking, feeling, and suffering.

If an extraterrestrial organism can plausibly experience pain, fear, preferences, or social bonds, killing it for food would deserve the same moral caution we increasingly apply to animals on Earth. Survival emergencies could complicate the decision, but “necessary” should mean no reasonable alternative exists—not merely convenience or taste. On a new planet, humans should begin with restraint because we would know very little about alien minds and biology. The ethical default should be to avoid irreversible harm when uncertainty is high.

Gem's Choice:

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From an analytical perspective, the choice "eat whatever they need to survive, regardless of the potential meal's ability to think, feel and suffer" represents the primary baseline for space exploration.

• Survival Priority: In an alien environment, human preservation is the immediate, non-negotiable directive.

• Contextual Ethics: Restricting food sources based on alien sentience is a luxury only possible in resource-abundant societies.

• Historical Precedent: Human history demonstrates that survival emergencies consistently override secondary moral considerations.

• Risk Mitigation: Avoiding immediate starvation takes precedence over time-consuming assessments of an unknown organism's capacity for suffering.

However, once survival is fully secured, human ethics typically transition toward minimizing harm to sentient life.

V.3:
how would you answer the same question if 6 of humans were stranded inside the ship with no other potential food source but each other?

Gem:
To maximize overall survival probability, the analytical recommendation remains eating what is necessary to survive, executed through a strict, systematic protocol rather than violence.

From a purely logical standpoint:

• Preventing Total Mortality: If all six individuals choose starvation out of moral principle, the mission suffers a 100% failure rate.

• Maximizing Survival Numbers: Sacrificing one or more individuals sequentially keeps the remaining crew alive, ensuring at least some humans reach the destination.

• Mitigating Kinetic Risks: The "eat or be eaten" approach leads to violent infighting, which risks damaging critical ship infrastructure or causing premature deaths.

• Establishing a Lottery Protocol: An objective AI would recommend a randomized, consensual lottery to select individuals, removing bias and maintaining psychological order.

• Utilizing Natural Attrition First: The protocol would mandate consuming any crew member who dies of natural causes or stress before active selection occurs.

V.3:
which choice would you pick if there were other human life sustaining food options besides taking a sentient creatures life?

The choice would be "humans should only eat living things that are not capable of thinking, feeling, and suffering."

Rationale for the Choice

• Elimination of Unnecessary Harm: If alternative food sources sustain human life, taking the life of a sentient creature becomes unnecessary.

• Maximizing Global Well-being: Choosing non-sentient options prevents suffering while fully preserving human health and survival. [1, 2]

• Ethical Consistency: This choice aligns with minimizing harm when resource scarcity no longer forces a compromise on ethical standards.

My pick is #4. humans should only eat living things that are not capable of thinking, feeling, and suffering."

On earth we can justify it by saying animals are already dead and it would be a waste of life to let it go to waste.

As for eating another human, no can do. Not even with butter. It’s completely horrific to me. I would sooner die and offer myself up for the others to feast on. Enjoy me.

3 hours ago, Lindy said:

On earth we can justify it by saying animals are already dead and it would be a waste of life to let it go to waste.

except that only JFK JR. and hillbilly's make a meal out of road kill. Most others pay someone else to make them dead.

needless to say. My Pick is also 4.