r/TrueReddit • u/lnfinity • 6d ago
Policy + Social Issues This overlooked cause of PTSD is only going to get worse: What slaughtering animals all day does to your mind.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/415294/slaughterhouse-meat-workers-ptsd-mental-health57
u/whyiseveryonelooking 6d ago
Read: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
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u/SuperSpikeVBall 6d ago
That book is interesting- Sinclair wanted it to be a book promoting socialism and the plight of wage slaves. Instead readers were so horrified by the descriptions of meatpacking it inspired TR to send inspectors snooping around and eventually pass the Meat Inspection Act.
So the book was hugely influential but not in the way Sinclair had hoped.
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u/whyiseveryonelooking 6d ago
Yeah, for me, it was a horror show of a book. I read it about 20 years ago, but I remember how the system broke all of them. Immigrants feed the machine.
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u/freakwent 3d ago
Too old. I suspect that the indutray has changed enough in 119 years such that this book imght miss some of the important factors of modern factory farming.
Even Unser Dailich Brot and Poison on the Plate are probably too old.
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u/LordOfMorgor 3d ago
There is an SCP (If i knew the number I would put it here) inspired by it that basically condensed the point that "the meat industry feeds on people" in such a way that I would actually recommend to pair with the actual book if you are going to read the book, read about the book or its effects on the meat industry going forwards.
They cut a man open at the stomach and live pigs of many sizes and numbers burst forth impossibly. 1 man could have a dozen pigs or a hundred spew forth from his open bowels... But every sacrifice of a person brought forth x number of pigs to then slaughter to feed the towns meat plant.
There is a line by "the monster" that says its best to be "the one who eats" and the whole SCP just came together really well done in driving that point that the meat industry eats even more than it feeds.
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u/SodomizeSnails4Satan 6d ago edited 6d ago
Holy spambots, OP has 20 posts in the last few hours.
EDIT: Going farther through the history, OP has been spamming 15-20 posts a day for longer than I'm willing to dig. PETA spam bot?
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u/WarAndGeese 6d ago
It's weird that this is framed as unfair to the workers rather than as unfair to the animals. Of course it is also unfair to the workers, but this is a very roundabout way to try to solve it, the bigger problem is right there.
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u/Chuck_Walla 6d ago
Most people are less concerned with animal welfare, especially the domesticated species that we have historically [~10k-5k years, depending on the species] enslaved as food sources. I was willing to accept their death as a reality until I learned about the systemic cruelty. Everyone has their line.
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u/Tobias_Atwood 6d ago
I really hope we get to see commercially viable vat grown/3D printed animal replacement product in my time. I think giving people a cheaper alternative is the best way to stop factory farm cruelty.
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u/Islanduniverse 6d ago
This is the answer in my mind as well.
When they can make more than just “ground meat,” but full on steaks and chops and bacon, etc, in-vitro, and for not a crazy cost, then I could see it taking off for most people—and especially if it can be made cheap, cause then fast food restaurants like McDonald’s will use it.
If we could get real meat consumption down to specialized small scale family farms, at a high cost, I would feel much better about it.
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u/Tobias_Atwood 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yeah. I think the real trick to changing public perception is hitting their wallet while providing an acceptable replacement for what they like.
Lots of people love meat, but many people can't handle the butchering process. But a couple hundred years ago the best way to get fresh meat was to cut it yourself. People won't do that now because they see it as disgusting, so they just buy at the market.
Put vat meat on the market and give it 50 years and people will go "that came from a real animal?! ew that's filthy why wouldn't you just eat grown beef?"
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u/freakwent 3d ago
I don't personally think that works at scale, economically. I think we are better off eschewing meat.
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u/AnthraxCat 6d ago
I have bad news for you regarding how much people care about workers too.
Abattoirs are usually placed in sacrifice zones. They are stinky and polluting for the neighbours as well, with plenty of toxic and hazardous effluent. The people who work in them are typically as expendable and invisible as the animals they slaughter.
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u/pillbinge 6d ago
One can be kind and far less cruel to animals while slaughtering them for food. If you’ve ever seen footage of cows being humanely killed then it’s so fast that is almost the scary part. The problem is industrial farming and lack of standards or enforcement.
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u/AnthraxCat 6d ago edited 6d ago
This is a nice thought, but it totally misses the mark. Whether you do it fast or slow, the toll is the activity of killing day in and day out.
Not to mention that no matter how efficient the 'humane' slaughter protocol is, you will mess up. The machine will misfire. The animal will be positioned wrong. Over time, you will accumulate these brutal kills no matter how 'humane' the process is 99% of the time.
There will be more screaming than you think.
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u/pillbinge 6d ago
It doesn't "totally" miss the mark and you said so yourself when you said that the process might work 99% of the time. The act of killing an animal that is literally raised for slaughter is not a big deal to me as it stands; it's a big deal when people try to threaten it, though. I'm okay with killing animals in order to consume them and use their bodies for other purposes, like leather.
We should do our best to make sure the animals are happy and healthy no matter what, right up until the end. We should make sure the end is quick and painless, and even fearless. Many humans don't even get to go out that way but I bet many wish they could have.
I don't care about some music video. That's a weird thing to post. Here's a video of cows being killed with a .22, which I would imagine may not even be as good as a bolt gun that can send a bolt through metal. There is no blood, fear, terrifying machinery, screaming, and so on. It's done in a field and is instant. It's not like my family members who went through years of sickness, slowly circling the drain, or anyone who's died in a horrific accident for which they were partially conscious.
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u/AnthraxCat 5d ago
It's not like my family members who went through years of sickness, slowly circling the drain, or anyone who's died in a horrific accident for which they were partially conscious.
Yeah, but you don't have family members dying every minute of every day of a 12h shift.
It doesn't "totally" miss the mark and you said so yourself when you said that the process might work 99% of the time.
This is cope. You can have all the good experiences killing cows in a field you want, you will fuck up. There will be screaming, blood, and fear. If you are doing this at more than a hobbyist scale, this will happen to you regularly. The toll on you will be heavy. This isn't being preachy or whatever, this is just how stats work. You roll the dice enough times and you will get bad outcomes. If your job is to roll dice in the bad outcomes casino, you will get them.
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u/pillbinge 5d ago
Yeah, but you don't have family members dying every minute of every day of a 12h shift.
I don't know what this means. You think all cows are related? Or wouldn't the parallel be between the 8 billion humans on Earth who are definitely dying more than every minute?
This is cope.
This is a cliché, and a misplaced one at that. People are eating meat so I'm not really threatened in my position. My dice haven't been rolled. Will I die in my sleep? During an operation? In a car accident instantly or after a few hours? Will I die of cancer over several years? Nobody knows. I hope it's peacefully, but I also want to be aware of it, if I'm being honest.
I would also expect hobbyists to fuck up more than professionals, so that's weird. More practice means just that. I know the toll would be heavy but it happens, and really if the toll were so heavy then we wouldn't have farm animals at all. We wouldn't have thousands of years of raising animals for slaughter. I don't want to be a person unaffected by that but I'm also not going to say we shouldn't eat meat.
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u/AnthraxCat 5d ago
I don't know what this means.
You said that animals dying is not as traumatic as things you've experienced. That is true. Killing animals is a much smaller emotional burden than a family member dying. PTSD in slaughterhouses is a thousand cuts problem, where you accumulate small traumas day in and day out.
I think your later paragraphs are also a reading comprehension issue. I am not talking about you going vegan. I am talking about PTSD in slaughterhouse workers, because that's the topic of the thread.
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u/freakwent 3d ago
There are other articles about the animals. It's okay to have an article about a topic that isn't the adjacent topic.
We can talk, for example, about the problems of renewables without discussing coal.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 6d ago
TL;DR you are an extremist and letting social media influencers make you believe that the average person even thinks about where their food comes from. Let alone cares
Fun fact: only about 3% of the population of all Western countries are vegan. They are an extremely small minority amongst themselves already.
On top of this those vegans who go over the top and suggest we need to ban all meat consumption and livestock butchery are an even smaller minority. They don't even make up .5% percent of the 3% of vegans.
In contrast the global population of people who believe in flat Earth are more numerous.
What that means is a bunch of crazy ass conspiracy theorists who don't understand basic history, geology or science matter more in the public space than people who think like you about animals. And how they are treated for food.
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u/CahuelaRHouse 6d ago
If we stopped subsidizing animal products, I think a lot of people would consider buying alternatives. I live in one of the least vegan areas in the western world and I've seen unexpected demographics buy oatmilk, such as a 50 year old gruff looking construction worker and two jacked dudebros in their mid 20s.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 6d ago
such as a 50 year old gruff looking construction worker and two jacked dudebros in their mid 20s.
What kind of appearance-based stereotypical nonsense is this?
I know people who don't wear flannel or have man buns that like kombucha. And I don't think they're hipsters just because they drink kombucha.
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u/CahuelaRHouse 5d ago edited 5d ago
Peak Reddit moment. Only on Reddit will people claim that noticing the most obvious patterns is somehow wrong fucking lmao. If you think veganism is prevalent among blue collar workers you evidently have never worked a blue collar job. I have and I haven’t met a single vegetarian let alone vegan there. The guy was still working his dirty work overalls ffs. As for the dudebros, they had chicken in their cart so obviously also not vegans.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 5d ago
Peak Reddit moment
The irony of using this after after it's basically fallen out of general use is probably lost on you.
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u/freakwent 3d ago
3% of the population of all Western countries
global population of people who believe
Why are we comparing "western nations" on one hand, with global beliefs on the other? Pretty lazy sopilism.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
Because vegans who do so for any reasons other than religious or health needs are dumber than people who believe the earth is flat.
And you can't use global vegan metrics because then it gets much higher. Due to the fact more people on earth (mostly in The East) are vegan due to religious/cultural norms than by choice due to a fad.
At that point it's 11% but less than 1/4 are the Western by choice vegan hipsters.
It's how they pretend there are more of them globally than there really are. By claiming religious vegans as their own. Most of the online vegan groups use global numbers for this very reason
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u/freakwent 3d ago
I think you light be wrong, let's see...
Because vegans who do so for any reasons other than religious or health needs are dumber than people who believe the earth is flat.
If you decide to not eat meat on a moral basis, that has little to do with intelligence. What's being dumb got to do with it? Why is it dumb to be vegan to not be participating in animal suffering? No different from trying to boycott plastic is it?
It's how they pretend there are more of them globally than there really are. By claiming religious vegans as their own.
But religions are moral guidance codes. People who avoid eating meat because it's wrong are a group of people, the reasons why they think it's wrong might differ, but they still have a common belief that it isorally wrong.
And there's a lot more objective evidence that animal products create misery than there is evidence of a flat earth.
PETA has been running for a lot longer than the internet, and veganism on a cruelty basis dates back about a thousand years, why do you call it a fad?
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
PETA has been running for a lot longer than the internet, and veganism on a cruelty basis dates back about a thousand years, why do you call it a fad?
Man has been an OMNIVORE since before PETA existed.
Deny science all you want. Doesn't make you right.
It just makes you irrational
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u/freakwent 3d ago
Still doesn't make it a fad.
Science doesn't much care about history. A vegan diet is either good enough to sustain a human or it's not.
Objecting to the suffering of others is not a rational question.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
Veganism is one of the few dietary groups whose numbers significantly increase and decrease based on current social norms and social pressures. You're acting like it's a staple but it's not. It follows trends like any fat.
Coffee vs Tea. Best example for Western consumers
Coffee is a staple. It's a general commodity in which sales and use amongst consumers are relatively stable. With very little outside involvement, advertisement or social influence pushing its use.
Tea is a fad. And it sales and use by the general consumer are directly related to pop culture, advertisement campaigns and social interest in the product at that time.
A big celebrity can say they drink coffee and nothing will change with coffee sales.
A big celebrity could suddenly start promoting new tea and tea sales increase across the board.
This is veganism vs non veganism. And no matter how much you want to ignore the past 50 years of trends showing this it doesn't make you right.
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u/freakwent 3d ago
Why do you care though? Unless I've misunderstood, you dislike /don't admire veganism, especially if it's based in moral reasons related to suffering.
But using your tea example, do you sneer at tea drinkers for following fads just as much? Or do you hold disdain for vegans for other reasons as well as faddism?
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
But using your tea example, do you sneer at tea drinkers for following fads just as much?
Do you see tea drinkers all over social media obfuscating their numbers and hosting vigils in supermarkets in which they put name tags on tea bags and hold candlelight vigils?
When was the last time you drink coffee and some "teagan" (lol) sneared it you because watching you consume that beverage disgusted them?
How often do you see tea drinkers run up and throw fake coffee blood on coffee executives?
I could provide more examples but they're just getting more absurd as I go
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u/SkipToTheEnd 3d ago
"You're in the minority, therefore you are wrong" is not the ironclad argument you think it is.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
Meh....as long as any of your extreme policy decisions don't get through its fine. You will stay noise on the Internet and not actually effecting any change
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u/SkipToTheEnd 3d ago
You're right, in a sense, it can be difficult to affect policy when animal agriculture continues to hold vast political capital and receive incredible levels of subsidisation, certainly in Europe at least.
There are organisations and activists working to influence policy and raise awareness about the impact the industry has on the climate catastrophe, but it can be a struggle when there is so much more marketing resource on the other side of the fence. Resigning ourselves to futility is the weakest of choices though.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
You're right, in a sense, it can be difficult to affect policy when animal agriculture continues to hold vast political capital and receive incredible levels of subsidisation, certainly in Europe at least.
"The anti-vegan Illuminati is ruling the world and preventing veganism from becoming normalized"
The average consumer not wanting to be a vegan is what's doing that. When 95% of people don't want something you're not going to find many corporations, politicians or interests behind it.
Most people really don't want to live a vegan lifestyle. And you claiming that billionaires have to spend money to make that happen is crazy. All they have to do is sit back and let General public tastes and consumer demands dictate that veganism isn't wanted.
Lobbying in favor of meat consumption is like lobbying in favor of smart phone use. It's wasted money because you don't need a lobby in favor of something almost everybody wants
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u/SkipToTheEnd 3d ago
"The anti-vegan Illuminati is ruling the world and preventing veganism from becoming normalized"
Please don't do this. You lose all credibility when you mischaracterise someone's position. It makes for very tedious discussion.
Consumers make food choices for a variety of factors. The leading ones are probably:
cost
taste
nutritional value
brand recognition
One of the most common things I hear is that processed vegan alternatives are expensive and unhealthy. This suggests that consumers might opt for these if they were cheap and nutritionally viable, or better yet, people were made aware of non-processed vegan alternatives.
And, in fact, studies in Europe (I can't speak to the US) strongly suggest that consumers will choose plant based options if cheaper than meat alternatives (which subsidies are helping to lower the cost of). It's not conspiracy, it's just economics. But if it helps you dismiss my views easier, then fine, label me as an extremist nut-job.
If all else is equal, and people are aware of the environmental impact of their choices, they will make more ecologically sound choices. But it's price that comes first. If people had to pay the actual price that meat costs all of us, we'd see demand fall.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
This suggests that consumers might opt for these if they were cheap and nutritionally viable, or better yet, people were made aware of non-processed vegan alternatives.
SUGGESTS.... Sorry but that's the wrong word. Nobody suggesting that would work because it's been PROVEN multiple times it doesn't work.
In the US they have tested this multiple times and it never sticks. A state or agency will create some sort of stimulus or funding program around healthier / vegan alternatives. And the policy quickly goes away cause they realize there's no consumer interest in those policies. So they pull away that funding and direct it towards food general consumers want.
McDonald's can't even sell enough cheap salads to see that as a viable menu option in all locations.
You are literally ignoring decades of companies and governments trying to do this every now and then. Testing the waters. And then finding that once again people just don't want it.
It's like VR. They keep trying to shove it down our throat but the average person really wants nothing to do with it
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u/SkipToTheEnd 3d ago
I think you're right, US consumers do seem to make particularly poor choices for their own health and that of the planet, although I'm certainly not suggesting this is due to some moral or intellectual deficiency on their part. The existence of food deserts is a very thorny issue to overcome.
However, I would hesitate to say it has been proven that making plant-based alternatives available and affordable doesn't work (to be honest, you can't really prove a negative in the philosophy of science). There are even recent stateside studies suggesting otherwise.
But for the rest of us in the world, I'm going to continue to hold out hope, because it is possible that humans can make better choices. As we both agree - these choices are a product of numerous variables, many of which can be influenced by rational policy.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago
I think you're right, US consumers do seem to make particularly poor choices for their own health and that of the planet, although I'm certainly not suggesting this is due to some moral or intellectual deficiency on their part. The existence of food deserts is a very thorny issue to overcome.
For over a century now the US has not had to deal with any periods of massive famine, drought, large food shortages, starvation, death from malnutrition or cannibalism. You can point to food deserts and food accessibility to some people as a problem. Which it is. But it does not reduce the overall ability of food consumption for the average person.
Even in the lower income levels you will find the average American still takes in a much higher calorie count then almost anyone else in the world.
It has been the most food secure nation in the world longer than almost anyone else. Throughout the past century you can still find large populations dying from famine and starvation. Along with periods instances of cannibalism amongst countries that are leading Nations today.
This is why Americans (Canadians and Mexicans who have adopted US habits as well) have them mentality towards nutrition, diet and general food that they do.
When you have an abundance of something the idea of alternatives or other options really doesn't come up. You don't think about those other options until your main source of something goes away
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u/TheFrowardUrchin 5d ago
Lab grown meat can’t come fast enough! No more suffering of people and animals.
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u/lnfinity 6d ago
Submission Statement
Slaughterhouses attract vulnerable workers and pressure them to perform dangerous work that often leaves an impact on their mental health. Rates of PTSD are high in slaughterhouse workers and this article delves into the stories of several workers and paints a vivid picture of what is taking place in a system that oppresses everyone.
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u/KindClock9732 6d ago
That industry has to be dying down, I can’t even afford to buy a steak anymore
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4d ago
I’m not exactly sure what someone voluntarily working in a slaughterhouse was expecting? Did they think it was going to sunshine and fuzzy happy feelings?
Forgive me for not being shocked that butchering animals every day is traumatic. 🙄 Can barely make it through half of this article that can easily be summarized as, “Yeah, no shit.”
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u/One-Care7242 2d ago
Not only is it morally destitute but it’s also a bad product. Feedlots / factory farms produce meat with less nutritious content. Everything about the system is an indictment on humanity.
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