Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by aziaziazi 530 days ago
> Just need more people to see things people see on a farm

There's many "educational farms" to show kids live farms animals and sometimes pick the eggs and milk a cow. I'm very confused about them: it's good to let urban kids see-smell-touch real farms animals. However they have nothing in common with modern farming, even the not-inhumane ones.

BUT telling a 6yo toddler "look that cute cow, this is where your morning milk is from" will engrave it deep in the way they see farming. One day or another they will learn about factory farming but what you learn at 16yo doesn't "engrave" as easy and deep as at 6. I mean yes you quickly understand that education farms are not the reality but it require a big mental shift to overcome the feeling that the milk you drink in the morning is from an inhumane famr, especially when everyone around keeps doing it (I don't blame them, it's cheap, easy, convenient, traditional, delicious, practical...).

Some schools or parents brings their child in real farms which is a bit better, but it still doesn't depict the reality for 99% of consumption (think gelatin candies, croissants, cakes, ice creams...).

For the courageous -- DONT SHOW THAT TO YOUR TODDLER (yet) -- 8 hours of pigs in a typical/normal gas chamber that probably will end up in soap/jelly/bacon. : https://www.farmtransparency.org/videos?id=hg8cyu393v

1 comments

When I was a small child in a rural environment, my uncle slaughtered a lamb for eating. It was a bloody messy hell. It was an eye opener but it didn't have the impact you think it had, if anything it desensitizes you. My uncle also showed respect and gratefulness to the animals and I also understood why we don't waste animal products.
I grew up doing a lot of diving, I'd put myself into the ocean, there were sharks and other dangers, but I caught my own fish and I never ever felt bad about it. I could selective take what I needed, I'd never take a mother / pregnant fish if I could help it. I could tell most of the time.

You also get to see how the wild world works, and most fish would prefer to be taken by a skilled spear fisherman than have their face mauled off by a squid, at least as far as I could tell.

Unfortunately we live in a world with 9 billion people on it, which means we don't have the room to grow and harvest all our own food. In my opinion, that's the issue. Sourcing all our food "ethically" is basically not possible.

I'd much prefer to be producing and hunting my own food.

Ok I admit all I write is only guess... in fact what you said makes me relate to some of my mother stories about her childhood. Thanks for remind me that.
I know someone who is hard core vegetarian because of impression from childhood, it all depends.

Maybe you see a normal farm and get to know the animals then see an actual factory where it is industrialized...