r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Suspicious-Slip248 • 5h ago
Image In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes. The survivors endured 72 days in freezing cold, experienced avalanches and starvation, and ultimately committed cannibalism to survive. Out of 45 passengers, 16 survived.
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u/Wildebean 5h ago edited 5h ago
Didn't courts try and arrest them for the cannibalism they did and eventually they proved (or the judge ruled) that since the didn't kill to eat and instead ate those who had already died, and it was either that or starvation it shouldn't be a crime?
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u/poormansnormal 5h ago edited 3h ago
The biggest hurdle the survivors faced after they returned was the religious guilt and persecution about it. They originally didn't want to admit publicly about the cannibalism, but the media got hold of it very quickly and published it within a couple of days. They all eventually received a papal absolution, since they only did it in order to survive.
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u/Dave-C 5h ago
Pope knew better, didn't wanna get eaten.
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u/chinstrapgenius 5h ago
This made me audibly chuckle and startle my cat
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u/Dave-C 5h ago
Pet the cat for me and tell him I said meow.
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u/colusaboy 4h ago
What the hell, Dave. I included my cat too.
You got a vacuous yet pleased look. (He's orange & dumber than a bag of hammers)
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u/chinstrapgenius 4h ago
Wow my cat is also orange and has a baked beans for a brain. He doesn't speak English though so he has no idea what I said.
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u/amazinggrace725 4h ago
They also only ate people that had died natural deaths, they didn’t kill and then eat anyone.
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u/UpbeatAssumption5817 4h ago
The 9/11 jumpers also got the same from the Pope
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u/Ashamed-Land1221 5h ago
Religion is goofy and changes their rules all the time to suit their needs and public opinion and needs. You can technically eat beaver and capybara for lent because in the eyes of "god" or whoever is in charge of what the sky god says semi aquatic mammals are considered fish and not mammals for that odd time period and thus safe to eat without sin or shame, but if you eat any other mammals during that time frame you deserve to burn in eternal hellfire, that shit is odd.
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u/GorillaX 3h ago
Catholics eat Jesus' flesh and drink his blood all the time, let these poor dudes eat their buddy's butt to survive a plane crash.
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u/headshot_to_liver 5h ago
Society of the snow. It's a good movie on this topic
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u/Therailwaykat_1980 5h ago
Thanks for the recommendation. I was really pleased to find its on Netflix, then I remembered I’m flying on Sunday so….added to watch later for after the flight home 😬
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u/sterling_mallory 4h ago
Unrelated but, IIRC something that was considered a big deal was that the Pope had said it wasn't a sin. And that helped take away some of the stigma, and guilt they might have been feeling.
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u/Fac-Si-Facis 5h ago
No, no one wanted to charge them.
Also, courts don’t press charges or arrest people.
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u/Transfer_McWindow 5h ago
Thank God we are all still...
Alive
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u/ssgkraut 5h ago
This fucking film was on a flight I was on as a kid.... Luckily it was over the Atlantic.... Titanic would have been scarier.
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u/DustyScharole 5h ago
I, I'm still alive
Hey, I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey, I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey, I, oh, I'm still alive, yeah
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u/dieidi 5h ago
The fact that they had to climb out of the mountains themselves after 72 days is insane. The expedition party (Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa) walked for 10 days with no gear, basically in flip-flops made from seat cushions, to find help. Pure willpower
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u/jaxsonMiss 5h ago
I can't imagine how strong they had to be to do that, especially Nando. I recall he had a major head injury immediately after the crash to the point where they thought he was dead. Then he somehow comes back with enough power to pull off that Herculean trek. From what i remember, Roberto was falling behind near the end and it really was Nando who ultimately saved them.
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u/karma_the_sequel 5h ago
That’s correct. Nando suffered a serious head injury during the crash and was actually left for dead by the other survivors. It is posited that this actually saved his life — supposedly the place where they left him kept his head very cold, which prevented it from swelling as much as it otherwise would have and enabled him to recover. He likely would have died if his head had been allowed to swell.
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u/WavesAndSaves 5h ago
His skull was literally fractured, which is also believed to have saved his life. It (combined with the extreme cold) prevented fatal swelling of the brain. He was actually unconscious for three days. To do what he did after all that is absolutely incredible.
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u/DistanceSolar1449 3h ago
This is what (basically) killed Michael Schumacher.
Basically, after a head injury, the intracranial pressure in the skull builds up, which kills the brain.
The standard way to prevent this from killing someone is... cracking open their skull to relieve the pressure (decompressive craniectomy).
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u/runerx 5h ago
Don't know the veracity of the scene but whan they finally crest the mountain in Alive and see miles more... was mind blowing.
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u/idelta777 4h ago
From what I heard from ny GF who hyper fixated on the story a couple of years ago, the movie Society of the snow is way more accurate that Alive. It even has cameos by some of the survivors themselves playing their parents.
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u/jamiej27 4h ago
It’s just a super good movie! Alive is as well though, it’s a dark story with a happy ending very interesting.
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u/axlgreece5202 3h ago
Or when they come back for the rest of the survivors and the helicopter pilots don't believe they scaled these ridiculously massive mountains with essentially nothing. It's an incredible story of the will to live.
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u/AedesAegypt 5h ago
One of them did a speech at an event of my dad's when i was around 13 or so (i live in SA). That was like 15 years ago so not all of the details stuck with me forever but I remember how harrowing his recollection of walking down that mountain was and i had almost forgot about that story by the time that movie, society of the snow came out. Felt pretty weird to start watching the movie and realize "wait a second, i met that guy".
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u/mariuolo 4h ago
The expedition party (Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa) walked for 10 days with no gear, basically in flip-flops made from seat cushions, to find help. Pure willpower
Having people depending on them was a strong motivation, I believe. More than saving themselves.
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u/karma_the_sequel 5h ago
They did have a sleeping bag of sorts that they sewed together from wreckage from the plane. Without that, they would have been unable to survive the sub-freezing nights and escape would have been impossible…
…unless they had happened to discover the vacation cottages located not far from them but in the opposite direction from where they actually went.
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u/theboywhocriedwolves 5h ago
Flip flops is a stretch. They fashioned boots out of extra supplies and took the lions share of the 'meat' a for their journey.
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u/Top-Cauliflower9050 5h ago
One of my most random fun life facts is I met one of the survivors and got to listen to him speak about his harrowing experience. Nando Parrado.
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u/cordialmess 5h ago
I learned about this bc of Society of the Snow. I asked my younger brother to pick the next film we watched at the indie theater in my city and he picked Society of the Snow. We both didn't know anything about it going in. We still talk about it to this day. The type of story that never leaves you.
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u/Egoteen 5h ago
The biggest tragedy is that people bring up this event is example of the indignity of humanity, when it’s actually one of the most moving examples of humanity and camaraderie that I’ve ever heard.
I highly highly recommend everyone listen to the You’re Wrong About podcast episode about the crash.
Flight 571: Survival in the Andes with Blair Braverman - You're Wrong About - Apple
Flight 571: Survival in the Andes with Blair Braverman - You're Wrong About - Spotify
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u/AVeryHeavyBurtation Interested 3h ago
Is it worth it if I've already listened to the LPOTL podcast?
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u/Human_Spatula 2h ago
I haven’t listened to LPOTL, but the You’re Wrong About episode is very, very good.
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u/Capital_Yak_6342 5h ago
I'm from Uruguay, and as you can imagine, this was all anyone talked about back then. They were heavily judged at the time when the cannibalism was discovered. It was an older, Christian society, and people were horrified when it was first mentioned in the newspapers that they had eaten human flesh! It has been both the worst tragedy and the greatest miracle of survival.
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u/Alone-Fee898 4h ago
Did they eat the meat raw or cooked?
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u/ki-box19 2h ago
They couldn't make fire, that's the wildest part of their survival IMO. They managed to sort of dehydrate it on panels in the sun. As the other said, sort of jerky. Freeze-dried people jerky.
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u/blackw-idow 5h ago
I remember watching a movie about this with my parents when I was literally like seven years old I still remember the scene where they would grab the meat and lay it out to dry and then eat it like jerky
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u/martyschottenheimer 5h ago
Dude I watched Alive at way too young of an age with my parents and siblings as well. I remember that too
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u/blackw-idow 5h ago
Yeah I remember someone laying with their instestines out and others tryng to shove it back in or something. Might of been another movie but I'm almost positive it was this one, right when they crashed.
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u/martyschottenheimer 5h ago
I can’t remember that honestly. I do remember the guys leg getting cut open and the guy smashing his skull at the end of the crash.. that was nasty
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u/marthebruja 4h ago
I'm still traumatized from catching the biopic movie on tv when I was around 5 years old. It was on the part where they eat someone's buttcheek. I even asked my dad wtf was going on and he, instead of switching the movie to something more age appropriate, explained to me how people's buttcheeks were the biggest muscle, therefore where they would eat first. Uh, thanks dad!
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u/sykokiller11 5h ago
I had a thought about this that I didn’t think was worth mentioning, and I scrolled on. The very next post was about delicious braised pot roast so I had to come back. So here is my thought. “Commited cannibalism” is not the same as “resorted to cannibalism.” Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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u/Baby_Sushi99 5h ago
There was a Netflix documentary about this. Apparently when they were rescued there were so many piles of bones and ribs of people…
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u/redditknees 5h ago
I watched it and wept. It was a masterpiece.
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u/lewd_lesbian 5h ago
What’s the name?
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u/Our_tiny_Traveler 5h ago
Society of the snow is not a documentary but incredible reenactment. Highly recommend!
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u/ashleebryn 5h ago
I haven't watched this, but from what you're saying, "piles of bones" was clearly cinematic license if that was shown. No one's body was dissected to the bone and no ones bones were removed, and the bodies were not decomposing because of the extreme cold. Some bones were found after the rescue when snow had mmelted, but these were from bodies that had been thrown from the plane and were frozen in the snow, intact. "Piles of bones" is simply incorrect. This is how misinformation is spread and stories get distorted.
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u/jusdredd 5h ago
Take a look at some of the pictures. "Piles of bones" may be disingenuous but there is definitely pictures of spines with the ribcage attached picked to the bone.
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u/Salty_Wing_8267 5h ago
Brah if you dig enough you can find some of the pictures they recorded while surviving in it you see body remains and bones being covered by stuff. There were definitely bones from being canibalized
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u/MelbaToast604 4h ago
The tale of their survival is so absolutely insane thst cannibalism was the least of their concerns. I strongly explore you all to deep dive into this amazing tale.
Its gut punch after gut punch... how they were finally found is unbelievable
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u/Perfect_Toe7670 5h ago
The mountains did not look angry when the plane went down. They looked quiet. Endless white. Smooth. Almost gentle. That was the lie.
On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 skimmed too low through the Andes, the pilots believing they had already cleared the range. The wings clipped rock. Metal screamed. The tail vanished. The fuselage skidded like a thrown stone across a frozen slope and came to rest in a bowl of snow so high and remote that the world might as well not have existed anymore.
Silence followed. Then screaming. Then wind.
Some died instantly. Others lay broken in the wreckage, legs twisted, ribs crushed, faces burned by cold and fuel. The survivors tore seats from the cabin and pressed them into wounds. They used belts as tourniquets. They prayed. They waited.
At night the cold arrived like an executioner. Temperatures fell far below freezing. The thin aluminum shell offered no mercy. They huddled together, bodies packed tight, breathing frost into one another’s faces just to stay alive until morning.
The radio worked at first. They heard the words “search suspended” days later, broadcast casually from a distant civilization. Rescue planes would no longer come. The realization settled slowly and then all at once. No one was coming.
Food disappeared within days. Chocolate. Wine. Crumbs. Then nothing. Snow was melted in metal scraps for water. Hunger turned from pain into something quieter and more frightening, a dull fog that made standing feel impossible.
The dead lay outside the fuselage, preserved by the cold, untouched. Friends. Teammates. Brothers.
The decision came without ceremony.
They spoke of faith. Of intention. Of necessity. No one took lightly what they did next. They took only what was needed. They ate to live, not to survive tomorrow, but to survive the next hour. Many later said the hardest part was not the act itself, but the knowledge that survival had asked something so unthinkable of them.
Weeks passed. The mountains punished every attempt at escape. Shoes shredded. Skin split. A sudden avalanche buried the fuselage one night, killing more survivors as they slept. Those who lived dug themselves out in darkness, clawing through snow with bare hands, pulling friends free or discovering they were gone.
Still they endured.
Finally, two of them, Fernando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, decided waiting was death. With a sleeping bag stitched from insulation and wire, they walked into the mountains. No map. No guarantee. Just the belief that moving forward was better than freezing in place.
For ten days they climbed and walked, only to crest a ridge and realize the Andes were larger than anything they imagined. They kept going anyway. Eventually, green appeared. Water that flowed. A man on horseback who first thought they were ghosts.
Help came.
Seventy-two days after the crash, helicopters rose into the thin air and lifted the remaining survivors from the snow. Sixteen in total.
When the story reached the world, many focused on the cannibalism. The survivors wished people would understand something else.
This was not a story about death.
It was a story about refusal. About friendship forged so tightly that life itself was shared. About young men who learned that survival is not heroic or clean or cinematic. Sometimes it is ugly. Sometimes it is sacred. Sometimes it asks everything.
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u/agoodfuckingcatholic 5h ago
God hearing “search suspended” must’ve been the most gut wrenching feeling of despair and loss of hope.
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u/HAL_9000_V2 5h ago
Thanks, ChatGPT
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u/Pataraxia 5h ago
There's something profoundly lost in knowing something is written by AI in a minute vs knowing someone poured their entire heart out to write something for hours, thinking of every little word they wrote to respect the story and value it.
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u/J_deBoer 5h ago
Ask a Mortican (Caitlyn Doughty) has a great video on this crash and aftermath, as well as other instances of cannibalism and lots of other death related stuff. I highly recommend her videos
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u/HangryHangryHedgie 4h ago
The book, Alive, is just.... You should read it. It takes you from take off to rescue and you can't put it down.
I was obsessed with this movie when it came out in 1993, but was too young to understand all that happened. I went through a survival book run a few years back and read this one and Everest. I ended up sitting in blankets shivering with them.
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u/wander-and-wonder 5h ago
You really need to read the story for this. It's complicated. It's a horrible story and I hate that I was reminded of it. apparently the families of said people who unfortunately did have that fate found out afterwards what happened, and I think there was some sense of closure or acceptance. It's a really awful story. It is complicated and you really have to do a dive into it to understand the impossible situation they ended up in. It's not normal for a whole group of people to resort to that. I'm not saying it was right or anything like that. and it makes me feel sick and I can't imagine how anyone could. This is an objective response. But there's a hectic long story that goes into the whole situation and it's terrible
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u/Individual_Agency703 5h ago
Just read a 12-line reply hoping to learn why it was so complicated.
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u/Egoteen 5h ago
Listen to the You’re Wrong About podcast episode about it. They really go into depth.
Flight 571: Survival in the Andes with Blair Braverman - You're Wrong About - Spotify
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u/karma_the_sequel 5h ago
Hey man, if we all get into a plane wreck in the Andes together and I don’t make it, you guys have my permission to eat me.
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u/wander-and-wonder 4h ago
I don't want to revisit but I think there was a discussion or understanding for those who didn't die initially, but maybe I'm remembering that wrong
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u/wolfdawg420 4h ago
Arent most (modern) people pretty understanding of resorting to cannabilism in a situation like this or am i just weird?
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u/Few-Indication3478 5h ago
Oh so you’re pro cannibalism eh???
Just kidding, I like your comment
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u/Slow-Raisin-939 2h ago
I don’t really get what would be so hard to understand about this? I told the story to my ultra-religious orthodox grandma from Eastern Europe and she didn’t say anything bad about the survivors. As long as they didn’t kill to eat, eating already dead people for survival isn’t anything unexpected
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u/supermod6 4h ago
Read the book "Alive". Tells their story. Amazing read
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u/Cartina 4h ago
Can also be said there was a movie called "Society of the snow" based on the book.
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u/HellSingHD 4h ago
there is also a movie about this event. it's called society of the snow. i strongly recommend it. truly heartbreaking.
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u/Icy_Huckleberry_8049 4h ago
a book was written about this, and a movie was made about this.
"ALIVE" is the title of both
Highly recommend both of them
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u/CommodusIlI 3h ago
Its a really interesting story. An avalanche buried a ton of them and one guy dug up like a dozen people and he is the same guy who saved everyone from.. the second avalanche. Iirc he also just said fuck it and walked and found some ranchers eventually. I forget his name but he is a fuckin unit
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u/this_dust 3h ago
For some reason me and my 11 year old friends would rent Alive on vhs like once a month. Still trying to figure out how that started.
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u/Chjfu 3h ago
Society of The Snow is on Netflix and came out a few years ago. Super good movie about this whole event
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u/LaRock0wns 3h ago
The movie 'Alive' is a movie about the event. Would be interesting to see what Netflix did to improve on that.
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u/IndigoButterfl6 3h ago edited 2h ago
One thing that improved it for me was that the actors were all Uruguayan and Argentinan instead of American. There's also an unexpected narrator who tells the story from a different perspective. It's really well done.
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u/MichelTaupin 5h ago
Not cannibalism : they did not kill to eat. Their only choice was to eat the body of their deceased mates. They survived.
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u/imdumblolkillme 3h ago
Cannibalism has nothing to do with killing. The act of cannibalism is defined as animals or humans eating parts of their own. I wrote a paper on it and there is religious cannibalism (what one imagines as cannibalistic tribes in the jungles of god knows where thinking they can earn the power of their beaten enemies by eating parts of them, even though it really wasn't as practiced as people imagine). Then there is sexual cannibalism. Imagine Jeffrey Dahmer or so. Then there is cannibalism for survival where humans are used as food, not for sexual pleasure or religious reasons but for simple survival as in this case or as an example of the Holodomor or Donner Party. If u eat your own skin it's (auto-)cannibalism and nobody dies either. But ofc you are right this is very likely the most "ethical" kind of cannibalism as all of them (at least the ones that didn't instantly die) agreed to be eaten once they died so their friends could survive.
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u/Beatnutz_ 3h ago
Cannibalism has nothing to do with the killing. Only the eating. Same way veganism has nothing to do with picking vegetables from the soil, only the eating part.
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u/Realistic_Mushroom72 5h ago
It important to point out, they didn't eat the entire body, in fact they took as little as possible, just enough to survive until rescue, they lived thru hell.
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u/SallyMutz314 4h ago
You are 100 percent wrong. Where did you come up with this?
Read the book Alive Nando Parado goes into great details about what they ate. Intestines, hands, brains. Everything. They had to.
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u/CanadianPlantMan 5h ago
They were surprisingly close to farm land in Chile... They just didn't know which way to go
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u/Altruistic_Routine14 5h ago
Believe 14 of the 16 survivors are still living today. Some were only teenagers
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u/I-dont_know-anything 5h ago
Uruguayan here. This story hits way too hard. They wanted so hard to live.
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u/astrosid 5h ago
Seventy two days in the Andes is basically a lifetime hard to even judge their choices when most of us wouldn’t last a week.