[mihaic]

I like this story, but I never liked the wording "made out of meat", as if the word exists in a world without animals. I could have accepted "proteins", but that's not a catchy title.

[jvuygbbkuurx]

I think that is what makes it great, because it makes it sound absurd.

If it was just talking about carbon based lifeforms it wouldn't land the same way.

[post-it]

They are clearly familiar with meat-based animals:

> “That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”

> “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they’re made out of meat.”

And indeed sentient species that are partly made of meat:

> “Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”

> “Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”

[glenstein]

I get your point but I don't think that those quotes establish familiarity with meat based animals. Familiarity with animals would be something like "yeah, sure, we know about that planet with cows but this is something else entirely!" (Also humans wouldn't be so surprising if they knew about things like cows).

Their references are not to creatures that are meat through-and-through but fictional alien races that have a kind of incidental relationship to meat that doesn't establish meat-based cognition as normal the way that animals would.

[FarmerPotato]

You have to read the story in the original eshidilii. It just sounds so illogical in English.

[globular-toast]

The characters aren't speaking English. We are reading the author's translation into English and we have to trust the author's judgement.

Maybe this kind of thing isn't for you if the above is required explanation, though.

[whycome]

Maybe it’s lab grown in a future and not tied to animals in any way. Just for food.