My thoughts? If those hypothetical aliens did exist, I would tell them to go fuck themselves for being judgmental bastards. What right do they have to impose their inappropriate moral system on lifeforms in a completely different global ecosystem? Any moral system that is based on diet cannot be translated into that of an alien sentients system reliably.

I would recommend the alien species sauteed in olive oil. They have a light zesty taste.

It's not as evil as TC makes Marxism seem.

They already fuck themselves as part of their reproductive system.

@Ald, so the carnivores, being rather hungry, decided to grow hundreds of tonnes of plants and feed them to their captive life killing stock.

By going through the intermediary of the life-killers they use about 7 times the amount of plants to feed themselves.

I think such a system would be abhorrent to anyone who cares either about the number of plants killed or the number of animals grown in factory conditions to feed the top of the food chain...

@Thucy lol +1

I'm with Thucy - get the barby on!

@Imperator Dux, it is not so much the diet as it is the killing of lifeforms that proceeds the diet. How would we feel if we met aliens whose primary diet was humanoidal? It might take some effort to get past on both sides.

@Ora, gave you a +1 for that, I'll have to think on it. Most animals we eat do tend to be herbivores. Perhaps cultures where eating cats, dogs, snakes, and such would look better to the hypothetical aliens. Or even just those that primarily subsist on fish.

OP is right, serve me up some tiger meat!

In my head I'm playing an X-Files episode with Alderan apologizing to a huge talking plant for his tomato salad.

Many fish eat algea, a primitive plant form. Those that don't eat something that works it's way back down to algea. About the only things that don't eat algea several steps removed, eat plankton.

I think that the aliens would probably be disgusted and feel sorry for us. As we must subsist off other lifeforms while they are able to generate their own food via photosynthesis.

Chances are they would see us as a primitive savage species.

Vegetarians would rejoice the aliens as a new type of cuisine...

The main reason people would find this silly is because Plants are not conscious. There hypothetical aliens, being sentient, are abhorred by the practices - until they realize that their plantlike relatives are, in fact vegetables (by definition?) They do not think, but merely life because that is how their pre-defined bodies react to the world around them.

What if we met an alien life form that was nothing more than slabs of meat that grew, germinated, and reproduced? (ignoring the huge problems with a species like that). The result we face - are WE monsters for eating them? No, because even if they're alien, they're basically just plants. Even if they were mildly conscious (cow?) then we might still eat them without feeling the least bit worried.

All in all, OP, no, it wouldn't change anything.

If they were huge chunks of meant it'd change EVERYTHING. Hamburger buns would have to be made much bigger...

Plant aliens are evil!

Imagine we make contact with another alien lifeform. A lifeform that has abandoned its corporeal form and exists only as light and thought. What would they think of those savage plant aliens?

@orathaic: You are assuming that we separately grow and feed the animals we plan to eat (which humans admittedly do). What about primitive hunters, say, who hunt animals int he wild and eat them. They aren't killing plants to feed animals before eating them, in fact, their killing the animal will save several plants from being eaten in future.

LOL :)

"This is a carnivorous universe." - Carlos Cataneda

get real
imagine an alien specie who let theyr own specie die from hunger when there is plenty of food for all of them,but because of the stupid economical sistem they prefer to burn it.
1/3 of theyr world has more then enougth but 2/3 are terribly poor,hungry and sick
and if it is not enougth they also kill each other to get some source of energy that helps them keep theyr way of life without working to hard so they can spend most of theyr time on comunication.sorry but who cares what we eat?we are the most disgusting form of life at the eyes of any advance aliens who have the technology to get here

HANG ON, what if we got the huge meat slab aliens and the plant aliens together, and ate them in a delicious burger?

Preferably served with cheese aliens, mayo aliens, and pureed tomato aliens.

@Draugnar, yes, but I'm looking at this from a "least offensive" approach. Eating animals that eat algae is less offensive than eating more complex land based plants. And many fish eat other fish so eating those fish is even more removed, and as Manas indicates, eating those fish may protect the algae.

@damian, do we feel sorry for vampires who eat by sucking the life essence from other living beings? I agree with the disgust and viewing us as primitive savages.

@Rommeltastic, yes plants are not "conscious" or sentient, as far as we know. But if these aliens come from a background where killing anything else is abnormal, that distinction may not matter. Humans make that distinction as it makes it easier to be fine with killing and eating plants and other animals we think of as not being very intelligent. Also, I wonder how far we are from growing huge slabs of meat for the purpose of eating.

@Manas, a fair point but still pretty minor in that we do in fact grow plants for the sole purpose of feeding them to the animals we eat. The percentage of humans that subsist off of wild game has got to be pretty small these days, even in less advanced portions of the world.

@taos, why would I want to get real in a thread about hypothetical plant aliens? Besides, the alien species I've hypothesized, who thinks killing is abhorrent, may still view our process of eating as worse than our civilization letting people starve.

Damn, I'm getting hungry and my mouth is watering!

@manas, you said: 'What about primitive hunters, say, who hunt animals int he wild and eat them. They aren't killing plants to feed animals before eating them, in fact, their killing the animal will save several plants from being eaten in future. '

True, very true, but if you happen to assume for a moment that aliens which have managed to develop some form of interstellar transport don't have (at least the ability to) think in terms of systems, ie holistically, rather than reducing behaviour down to the individual concerned...

In which case you will still see this carnivore species as subsisting off the deaths of plants.

Of course i feel that taking this view would lead them to several other conclusions about us which messes up both of our arguements... alas, i fear, i've lost that train of thought.

ok, carrying on from that thought, but in reverse, if the aliens took a more reductionist approach, they might see us plant killing omnivores, and see the cells that make us up.

The best type of cell being the ones feed on their host until it dies and then quickly die themselves, the cancer cells which by their own sacrifice prevent further plant cells from being consumed.

I think this highlights my point about expecting either further reductionism or holism (?), why do we assume that these aliens would see things in the terms we are used to seeing them.... We're just ascribing our own individuality to these aliens... if they lived social like ants they might think or a city as the individual and not see the importance of the individual worker in the city compared to the overall health of the system...