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I think that many people would care, they just aren't aware. How many people know, or even want to know, where their meat comes from? Factory farming is very mu

I think that many people would care, they just aren't aware. How many people know, or even want to know, where their meat comes from? Factory farming is very much an inconvenient truth.

drenvuk 8y ago
I only have possibly skewed anecdata for this claim but of the people who I know have seen factory farming investigation videos only two are vegetarians and the rest of them (20+ easily over time) have used it as a joke topic while eating meat laden meals together. This is from college 10 years ago until now. I think sharing these articles helps, maybe it will spur someone into making some new animal-cruelty-free foods but if the intention is to stop most of us from eating meat I doubt it will work.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- orblivion 8y ago
  Can you help me interpret these jokes between you and your friends? "Boy this steak sure tastes good because that cow was suffering" This sort of callousness is a common theme. Is this the form the jokes were taking? I'd understand if it were making fun of the animal for getting killed so long as it was humane, and people who worry too much about them. I'd understand the idea of "yeah I know it's bad, what am I going to do. It tastes good". I could understand making fun of an exaggerated claim of suffering. I could understand making fun of trying to avoid killing in the world which is probably literally impossible. But I can't understand making fun of real suffering, and furthermore making fun of people who care about it. I don't think they're actually sociopaths but I don't understand how else to interpret what they're expressing here. If the answer is "hey don't take it seriously, you were a jackass in college too" - fair enough, but you brought this up as an example of the general population just not caring enough. Maybe your friends actually made these jokes to deal with their discomfort with those videos? And yes for disclosure, I'm a vegetarian myself.
  - toothbrush 8y ago
    I guess i don't have a hard time believing the parent. I can imagine some college-aged youngsters projecting machismo/signalling to their social group and not yet having the maturity to reflect on their actions, indeed especially in the context of changing social norms and how they'd be perceived 50 years down the line. In university i had numerous flatmates or friends-of-flatmates who, upon discovering i'm a vegetarian, would appear to take delight in smugly telling me about how they would eat an extra steak on my behalf, or perhaps explaining some graphic detail about animal cruelty. I learned to be unflappable and simply leave the conversation at that point so as not to reward them with an emotional reaction, but all i'm trying to say is, i can totally imagine what the parent poster talks about. Thankfully though, these days i am blessed to have friends and colleagues who are both more self-aware and creative in the ways they crack jokes :).
    - orblivion 8y ago
      Me too, I've experienced that before, and I see signs of it online today by post-college aged people. I'm just trying to sort out the difference between being too uptight and pointing out what their jokes are really implying. It's like "Okay, you're making fun of me for worrying about something you think is silly. That's fine. But what exactly are you saying in response? You _don't care at all_? Are you telling me that you're a sociopath?" It's the particular formulation of _some_ of these jabs that get me. Even if they say something like "the cow was stupid anyway om nom nom" _that's different_ because at least they're not necessarily in favor of torturing the thing, and they give a reason why killing it humanely is different from killing a human humanely.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    The exact nature of the jokes isn't clear, but I'd say your last guess is the most likely: papering over one's own cognitive dissonance with dismissive "humor" is a pretty natural tactic.
    - orblivion 8y ago
      Which tells me that these videos are indeed hitting the target, if eventually.

I think that many people would care, they just aren't aware. How many people know, or even want to know, where their meat comes from? Factory farming is very much an inconvenient truth.

drenvuk 8y ago

I only have possibly skewed anecdata for this claim but of the people who I know have seen factory farming investigation videos only two are vegetarians and the rest of them (20+ easily over time) have used it as a joke topic while eating meat laden meals together. This is from college 10 years ago until now. I think sharing these articles helps, maybe it will spur someone into making some new animal-cruelty-free foods but if the intention is to stop most of us from eating meat I doubt it will work.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
orblivion 8y ago
Can you help me interpret these jokes between you and your friends? "Boy this steak sure tastes good because that cow was suffering" This sort of callousness is a common theme. Is this the form the jokes were taking? I'd understand if it were making fun of the animal for getting killed so long as it was humane, and people who worry too much about them. I'd understand the idea of "yeah I know it's bad, what am I going to do. It tastes good". I could understand making fun of an exaggerated claim of suffering. I could understand making fun of trying to avoid killing in the world which is probably literally impossible. But I can't understand making fun of real suffering, and furthermore making fun of people who care about it. I don't think they're actually sociopaths but I don't understand how else to interpret what they're expressing here. If the answer is "hey don't take it seriously, you were a jackass in college too" - fair enough, but you brought this up as an example of the general population just not caring enough. Maybe your friends actually made these jokes to deal with their discomfort with those videos? And yes for disclosure, I'm a vegetarian myself.
- toothbrush 8y ago
  I guess i don't have a hard time believing the parent. I can imagine some college-aged youngsters projecting machismo/signalling to their social group and not yet having the maturity to reflect on their actions, indeed especially in the context of changing social norms and how they'd be perceived 50 years down the line. In university i had numerous flatmates or friends-of-flatmates who, upon discovering i'm a vegetarian, would appear to take delight in smugly telling me about how they would eat an extra steak on my behalf, or perhaps explaining some graphic detail about animal cruelty. I learned to be unflappable and simply leave the conversation at that point so as not to reward them with an emotional reaction, but all i'm trying to say is, i can totally imagine what the parent poster talks about. Thankfully though, these days i am blessed to have friends and colleagues who are both more self-aware and creative in the ways they crack jokes :).
  - orblivion 8y ago
    Me too, I've experienced that before, and I see signs of it online today by post-college aged people. I'm just trying to sort out the difference between being too uptight and pointing out what their jokes are really implying. It's like "Okay, you're making fun of me for worrying about something you think is silly. That's fine. But what exactly are you saying in response? You _don't care at all_? Are you telling me that you're a sociopath?" It's the particular formulation of _some_ of these jabs that get me. Even if they say something like "the cow was stupid anyway om nom nom" _that's different_ because at least they're not necessarily in favor of torturing the thing, and they give a reason why killing it humanely is different from killing a human humanely.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  The exact nature of the jokes isn't clear, but I'd say your last guess is the most likely: papering over one's own cognitive dissonance with dismissive "humor" is a pretty natural tactic.
  - orblivion 8y ago
    Which tells me that these videos are indeed hitting the target, if eventually.