Fattening Up: Earth Is Space Australia/Humans Are Weird

prowls-analysis:

I just had lunch, and was considering having a cookie or three, and the thought occurred–what if other species didn’t have a built-in nutrition-storage system? Suppose their bodies have just so much of a reserve of energy, and if they don’t have food stockpiled when lean times arrive, well…

Then they discover Earth, and the concept of “fat”. An automatic system that in times of plenty, stockpiles fuel right inside the body, placing it in predesignated locations. And not only is it a hedge against lean times, the “fat” provides padding, insulation, AND it’s a natural flotation aid! What miraculous stuff! What an ingenious system! What an elegant solution to the threat of starvation posed by the Death World’s constant environmental fluctuations!

Then the aliens learn about the Western world’s obsessions and phobias and general social neuroses about fat. No matter how hard they try, they can’t make sense of it. To them, the fat-storage system is a miracle of biology. Yet another wonderfully bizarre element of life on Earth. Which is a planet that seems to go out of its way to find creative ways to kill its inhabitants. Earth is home to the Geology of Mass Destruction, the Climates That Want You Dead, the Diseases From Hell, and All the Murder Beasts. Yet instead of addressing any of those threats, humans decide to devote massive amounts of time, money, and the efforts of thousands of our brilliant, creative, fantastically adaptable minds to…defeating one of our own survival mechanisms.

Does Not Compute!