Of course, diagnosing from early stories is kind of a silly pursuit, but the real point is that the only person who thought he was transformed into a wolf was the sufferer. Some of them died when people complied with their wish to see if they actually had a wolf's pelt inside their skin.
I recommend listening to that linked talk, if you have the time.
]]>Some of them have been exported to France for various reasons (like playing a giant Easter bunny) and have evolved to eat cows instead of humans:
http://scarygoround.com/sgr/ar.php?date=20080422
Others were illegally imported into the U.K. after having already evolved into yak eaters:
http://scarygoround.com/?date=20100927
Yes, the wild yaks of the Canadian tundra!
]]>"It immediately popped into my head that the US would be a MUCH better place for a few vampires to hide out. "
True. A place in serious chaos has major advantages (and disadvantages).
The other good place for a vampire is some stable and quite evil system, where the vampire has enough influence to keep the system from destroying him, while the system feeds him victims.
]]>If you're going to allow that, then why not Harold Shipman?
]]>Many vampire stories were unclear about whether death was required for feeding or was just excess on the part of the vampire. I think that greatly changes the nature of the problem.
Absolutely requiring the deaths of two humans per year puts a real wrinkle on things. We live with this in the abstract right now. In the west our food and clothes and doodads are all the result of what is effectively slave labor. We all live in Omelas. But there's a difference between abstractly knowing that there are probably Chinese children dying from heavy metal poisoning and personally tearing out their throats to drink their blood.
If I were placed in the position of being an obligate vampire, told that the only two choices were killing to live and dying, I'd ask if there might not be a third option. This feels like the crisis of capitalism to me. "Man exploits man and you're either the exploiter or the exploited. There is no other way!" Or is there?
]]>They're all small invertebrates, but in the water there are lampreys and hagfish.
And the very frightening candiru.....
]]>My thinking on this is that meat is a cheap (in America) way to ensure complete nutrition. I'm living in the world I'm in. I think most meat animals don't have much future, so killing them is acceptable. That extreme utilitarian thing: it's what they're good for. But, I would prefer that they not be tortured. While they will not miss golden years they never knew they had, they will know pain.
I could get nicer meat, but factory farm meat is much cheaper than free range health food beef that lived well until the axe quickly fell, but the latter is still available. Why don't I eat only the latter? Because it would be weakening myself relative to those who don't care. It is never right for the good guys to weaken themselves for being good. On the other hand, regulation of factory farms to make them more humane would be fine with me, even if it made meat more expensive for everyone together.
Also, beef is actually better than chicken because one cow provides a lot of meat with its life compared to a chicken. And the flavor is meatier.
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