@niplav I agree with the idea that eating bugs is technically not their goal, because it looks like these people are some species of utilitarian. The problem with utilitarianism, though, is that its idea of happiness is completely hypothetical; it can be a smokescreen for introducing all sorts of policies that probably aren’t the most optimific, but are simply more convenient for stakeholders and/or the government: hence why utilitarians often do argue for things like eating insects or socialism. There are an infinite number of ways to “optimize happiness”, and the choice of a particular one is determined by elite interests–so it’s disingenuous for utilitarians to claim that their proposed solutions are in any way objective or empirical.

Also, subordinating the needs of the individual to an imaginary, impossible metric of “net happiness” is insect-like in the sense that it tends to oppose the very extremes that are an important part of the human experience: failure, suffering, great men of history, heterodoxy, etc.

“Don’t want to eat the bugs? Well, everyone else does, and it’s the best available way of increasing net happiness–I have scientific studies to back me up. So enjoy your cockroach milk.”