The moral priorities of the average American
1mon 17d ago by sh.itjust.works/u/Ragdoll_X in aboringdystopia from sh.itjust.works
Most noteworthy for me is the fact that more Americans think that porn (52%) and homosexuality (39%) are wrong than spanking children (23%) and being ultra wealthy (18%).
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https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/19/what-do-americans-consider-immoral/
Wow. Does this really wanna tell me that roughly every 2nd US-american I would in the US of A is a cult-loving, children-spanking, homophobic, misogynistic silly shitstick of an excuse for a decent human being? Explains the "president".
Did I mention: wow?
Can only hope this is some totally stupid agenda-pushing crap, and only 20 people were interviewed. In front of some church or so.
I can guarantee you the people who voted these things as being "morally wrong" only believe it's wrong if someone else is doing it
I think hypocrisy is somehow implied with the top3 "immoralities" here.
Especially homophobia. I always had the suspicion, that the graph, that shows "volume and intensity of voicing of anti-gay-sentiment" on the x-axis, and "actually being closeted gay themselves" on the y-axis, is a very straight line in a 45Ā° arc of both.
Actually, it's the other way around. Gayness (the sexuality) doesn't cause homophobia. Being homophobic causes you to have a fetish for gay stuff. These homophobic politicians being caught on grindr aren't actually gay, they weren't born gay. The fact that they see sex with men as wrong caused them to want it. They're in it for the taboo.
That sounds too specific IMHO. I would say they're born gay, but the people they surround themselves with say "gay is bad", so they're ashamed to come out. And to not be "caught" they fight it very loudly, so everyone can see how not gay the, are. Because only super straight guys fight the bad evil gays.
Fuck a dude just because it's forbidden? Unless you're somehow into guys, this would still be pretty meh.
All sex is pretty meh for conservatives. At least the men they fuck are having fun. It's more pleasurable to fuck someone who likes your cock than someone who's disgusted by your existence like their wives are.
Lol, OK...fair point š
We surveyed 3,605 U.S. adults from March 24 to 30, 2025. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the CenterāsĀ American Trends Panel (ATP). This report also includes findings from a separate ATP survey of 8,937 U.S. adults conducted from May 5 to 11, 2025.
I have never met anyone who is a member of the āAmerican Trends Panelā. (Or a Nielsen family for that matter). But somehow, these mysterious people with 2.5 kids and a dog represent āUS Americansā.*
*As a pageant contestant once described us.
I personally know at least one family who is a Nielsen household. Youāre asked to keep your participation confidential which is probably why you donāt know anyone doing it.
I did 3 years of Nielsen surveys before I moved last. I didn't recall secrecy being pushed that hard.
Can I talk about being in a Nielsen panel or survey?
No. Once you begin participating, we ask that you do not share that youāre part of Nielsen research. We ask that you do not discuss your role with people outside of your household, including on social media websites, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This helps keep our research as independent as possible.
It's been more than 9 years now. I feel like nobody cared enough to even ask.
Are they married with kids? Iāve always wondered if Nielsen ever tracks what single people watch, or college kids, or unmarried gay people. Doesnāt seem like it.
Itās a retired couple with adult children who donāt live with them.
Well that explains all the NCIS spinoffs. š
I tracked for neilson when everyone in my household was single. Me, my mother, my aunt.
My family was a Nielsen family for a while back in the 1990s. Our parents basically only let us watch Sesame Street and a few other PBS shows. One of my friends was sort of alarmed, almost offended by this situation, like of all the people Nielsen should be seeking data from, how could it be us?
I filled out one of their little surveys. I got paid 20 dollars or so.
Thanks for killing my hopes that it was just 20 people. I didn't wanna read the footnotes š
Pew research isnāt a small organization.
I'm from a MAGA cult fake hypocrite 'Christian' family like this.
That I've had to ghost to the point they likely think I am dead, to finally stop their abuse and escape their dysfunction.
Been trying to explain the level of moral depravity of the average American for around 25 years now... most people acted like I was being hysterical, untill very recently, when we elected basically the AntiChrist, certainly a insurrectionist rapist corrupt traitor conman, twice.
Beyond 1/3 of the country openly and obviously being duplicitious anti-democracy theocrat bigots... almost everyone else just acted like that was fine, at every level of society, interpersonal to institutional, for my entire life.
We, as Americans, deserve this.
Everyone else does not.
Oh sweet (non-religious) jeez....yes, the american average numbnut probably deserves that. But the poor fucks like you, being open-minded in such a ...well...that must really hurt, especially if it's the own family that's like that. As I always say: cut out toxicity in your life, no matter if it's family or not. I simply couldn't deal with such people. I only like to surround myself with people I like and respect.
So, my condolences that you have to live there AND in such a family :( And yeah "christian" is almost always synonym for "xtreme hypocrite"
Unfortunately, it's a pretty solid methodology (speaking from experience). That said, you must understand that the average person is religious and poorly educated.
Actually quite a few of these "morals" aren't even uniquely American, except for maybe the billionaire one. You'll probably find an interesting mix of bad takes in most countries, even in well educated European countries. There are 8 billion people on this planet and a ton of them are just terrible.
I won't argue with your closing sentence. Not at all. And sure, every country has a mixed bag of no-nos. But this fundamentally Christian shit is probably a usa-signature of which I'd be highly ashamed if I had to live there.
I can't say for any European country, not even my own, but I'd guess we aren't that horrible with "morals". Well, at least i hope so.
I'm thinking of South American, African, Middle East and some South/South East/Central Asian countries, which is a mix of poverty and/or religious factors (for quite a variety of factors). There are countries where pornography, homosexuality, gambling, etc, are just illegal on religious morality grounds. And don't get me started on la chancla!
As for Europe, I'm curious. I think it'd be better, on average, but a lot of the same moral roots exist there so who knows. Although I bet Finland is swell; they somehow keep being labeled the happiest county and these things are correlated, lol.
Oh sure, the combination of poverty and religion is the worst breeding ground for disturbed "morals".
I would surely say it's much better in EU in general. And yeah, even we Germans look up to the Nordic countries like FI, NO, S. If I could stand the languages (they just sound horrible to my ears) I would've emigrated long ago š
I also imagine some Asian countries to be much better (in the context of this discussion, not generally). Not the Islamic ones, obviously. If I could even dream of learning the language I'd be gone to China or maybe even Japan ...
75% of Americans think hitting children is chill???
A ton of cultures do, unfortunately. That said, it's also just bad parenting because (1) kids model behavior, so they will "punish" other kids physically and (2) punishment is one of the least effective forms of power, often producing public compliance but not private acceptance.
Just an fyi in case you need that in you back pocket when someone tries to argue in favor of hitting kids.
I think we should start hitting these people if they misbehave. After all they think it's the right thing to do.
NB: This is not meant seriously, I don't condone hitting anyone.
The vast majority of people still believe in archaic and draconic bullshit because it is "tradition", even to the point of ignoring all scientific evidence supporting the contrary perspective.
I was visiting the head office of a California-based company that I worked for, and my colleagues (mostly left-leaning) were moaning about a proposal to make it illegal to hit children. After 15 minutes I couldn't keep my mouth shut and said, "I think a society should protect those least able to protect themselves." There was a lot of backpedaling, but also a few people explaining how it was totally necessary that they hit their children for reasons.
I didn't have children at the time, but my step-daughter (now 20) and son (now 17) were never punished with violence, so it is possible for sure.
I can sort of understand the logic, even if I disagree with it:
If a child does something that could potentially have lethal consequences, a verbal warning might not be enough for them to understand the severity of what they did.
That is, of course, the only reasonable situation I can think of in which spanking is acceptable.
Verbal warnings are not less efficient than violent punishment. It's the contrary. If the child understands why they should not do something, they respects the rule more than if they just fears the punishment. And children understand a lot of things, if explained clearly.
Also: if a child only refrains from doing something because they fear possible consequences they'll happily do it in situations where they don't have to be afraid of being found out. So if the only thing preventing your child from chewing on high voltage cables is the threat of violence your child will get themselves electrocuted once they're out of your eyesight. (Yes that's hyperbole, but you get the point.)
I dont think thats hyperbole. kids are maximally curious, and telling them not to do something without helping them understand why is basically telling them to do it. threatening violence as punishment is just saying do it when I'm not around. once the idea is in their head they will want to know why not, what would happen, and the only recourse you've given them to resolve their curiosity is to do exactly the thing you told them not to do. honestly I think just not mentioning it would be better than telling them dont without any justification.
I've never spanked my children but if you've never thought that spanking a child might be a good idea then you don't have kids. Those little shits don't understand empathy or anything else that you're appealing to when you say violence is never the answer. Being desperate to find a solution to their behavioral problems is totally understandable.
I have children and I'd lie if I said that occasionally they make me angry, and sometimes very angry. But I'm the adult, they're not, hitting them will teach them absolutely nothing. You won't teach them empathy showing that you have none for them when you're angry.
You've successfully described why I don't spank them and articulated that you understand the impulse so... Thanks for agreeing with me in the weirdest way possible I guess
If you recognise the urge and haven't followed through, I assume you wouldn't call it "morally acceptable", but it really sounded like you were agreeing with that position originally.
I think it's understandable that people feel that spanking is fine and it isn't surprising to me at all. I don't feel the same but it's not a shock to see that like the original comment I replied to
If thatās what you meant to say, youāre extremely bad at expressing it. After all, you wrote this:
... if you've never thought that spanking a child might be a good idea then you don't have kids. Those little shits don't understand empathy or anything else that you're appealing to when you say violence is never the answer.
Thatās exactly the opposite of the comment you were replying to. Youāre not saying that parents sometimes get angry, but that they consider violence to be a solution. Thatās not the same thing!
A āgood ideaā is not a bad impulse, it's a good idea.
You mean children can make you mad? Yes, of course. But never ever ever have I thought this, and I would treat anyone with suspicion who does (even if they don't act on it). Lousy parents. Poor children!
For the safety of your children, please fucking educate yourself away from this draconic perspective.
Being desperate is no excuse to abuse children.
Edit: who is the dumbass that downvoted me for saying not to abuse children? Fix yourself.
dude what???? can we ban this dude from parenthood and all fertility clinics
Ok so a third of people think voluntary assisted dying is wrong but two thirds of people think the death penalty is totally fine.
The fuck is wrong with people?
Alternate headline: "Americans objectively bad at morality across the board"
Bonus headline: "Don't spank it, hit your kids instead"
Alternate headline: "Don't spank it, spank your kids"
Americans objectively bad at morality across the board
Pull spanking to 100% approval and weād get ourselves in gear
It's the same with death as it is with milk and corpse pleasure. People think consensually drinking your partner's breast milk is wrong, but stealing a cow's breast milk is fine. People think eating an animal's corpse for some family friendly fun is absolutely fine, but having sex with the corpse of your friend who signed a consent waiver before death should be a crime.
Im gonna get back to you when ive processed this.
I'm mostly asexual but I would sign a consent waiver to let a necrophile fuck My corpse if it were legal and if I knew any necrophiles.
I'm not convinced most necrophiles are as much into the whole consent thing.
People think consensually drinking your partnerās breast milk is wrong
Wait, they do? Why? What could possibly be wrong with that?
The idea of a consent waiver for post death sex is... A strange, uncomfortable thought. At the same time, I cannot really see any moral problem with that, per se. It's kind of in the same category of being in a relationship with a sibling with no intention of getting children. Strange, slightly uncomfortable to consider, but hard to see any actual moral problem with it.
Murder animals at scale in the most horrid conditions? 4%
Watching consensual videos of naked people? 54%
Truly a moral dystopia
That is a separate issue from just eating meat in general. We are completely capable of having ethical production of meat and other animal products.
The problem isn't the consumption of meat but the needless waste encouraged by the capitalist system that necessitates the unethical overproduction of it.
I used to agree with you, but then I went to r/vegancirclejerk and heard the classic joke "We just barbecued up the family dog for Christmas dinner. He was well loved, he had a happy and healthy life. So it's ethical to eat him."
Now I think the only ethical way to enjoy meat is with consent. Like in The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe.
The restaurant at the end of the universe has genetically engineered animals that want to be eaten. I donāt know if that is consent but itās definitely unethical. Imagine genetically engineering woman to want to sleep with you. Creepy af.
The Dish of the Day is engineered not only to want to be eaten, but also to be intelligent enough to express informed, non-coerced consent. It can speak, it can understand the concept of mortality, it knows exactly how it will be cooked and which parts of its body will be used for which items on the menu. It has a complete understanding of the situation and is very happy to be eaten. If you don't want to eat it, it will be disappointed. Nothing bad will happen to it if it does not agree to be eaten, it wants to be eaten of its own free will.
It's an ideal ethical situation. The Dish of the Day hasn't been coerced, abused, tricked, or taken advantage of. The only room for ethical objection is in the breeding process, but I'm inclined to trust that the breeding was more or less ethical, given the great ethics of the parts we actually see. That's inductive reasoning, but it's the best reasoning we have on that process.
Okay? And? I had rabbits and pigs as pets. We ate them when their time came. What's different about it being a dog? Dogs are no more special than any other animal just because we have an arbitrary emotional attachment to them.
As long as the animal was given a good life and, when time came for slaughter, they were killed in an ethical manner then there is no moral or ethical issue.
Humans are omnivores. We eat other animals. It is no more unethical than if any animal eats another animal.
You're right, dogs are no more special than other animals. Hearing that simile made My heart realise it's wrong. For My head to realise it's wrong, I had to accept that killing is usually very painful, and most humans, if given the power to kill for profit, will optimise the ethics out of the process.
I make exception for traditional Indigenous Australian hunting practices. Indigenous Australians have a social system to ensure the killing of animals is done ethically and humanely. You see, if you want to hunt an animal, you need to get permission from the person whose totem is that animal. That person considers that animal their siblings, their family. Their duty is to hold sacred knowledge about that animal and to monitor the populations. And they can't eat their totem, because that's cannibalism. That person has the authority to say when you can hunt their totem, and how many you can kill. They can't profit from the killing because they can't eat their totem. So the system has checks and balances to prevent corruption. I'm okay with meat eating within that system because it controls against the consequences.
But the white capitalist system has no controls, it just causes suffering. So I'm not okay with traditional European methods of husbandry and slaughter. I might reconsider after capitalism is overthrown.
So you agree then with my original point that the ethical question lies with the production of animal products and not with the consumption of animal products? Glad that's settled then.
Yeah, I judge people for eating meat because it's symbolic of support for factory farming. It's the same as how I judge people for reading Mein Kampf (outside of an academic context), even if they pirated it.
That is an incredibly shortsighted view to blame the consumer instead of the producer. It's incredibly lacking in class consciousness. It is in no way "symbolic support" of factory farming. People need to eat and are constrained by the society they live in. Do not blame the victims of society for needing to participate within it in order to survive. Focus your blame onto those actually doing the harm.
Reading Mein Kampf doesn't mean you support what is said by it. It is actually beneficial to have read it so you can better understand the argument of your opposition to dismantle it when arguing against them. Again, your take on this is shortsighted and arbitrarily judgmental.
Edit: people downvoting have no understanding of the concept "no ethical consumption under capitalism".
"No ethical consumption under capitalism" is not an excuse to engage in avoidable, harmful consumption.
Wasn't that pretty much the exact logic used by a bunch of slaveowners? "I oppose the institution of slavery, but it's a systemic problem. Sure, I could free my own slaves, but that wouldn't really fix anything." Surely there's a line to be drawn somewhere.
Also, "blaming the consumer rather than the producer" seems like a very backwards way of applying class consciousness. The consumer generates the demand. If a farmer, the worker who produces the meat, quits his job, the demand will still exist and will likely be filled by someone else. But if the consumer quits demanding it, then it'll cause production to be reduced.
Of course, there are larger systemic solutions that we ought to look at, but that's not either or, any more than it would be either or to criticize a slaveowner for not freeing their slaves while at the same time calling for systemic change.
That's a disingenuous comparison that doesn't take into account class based analysis of the two situations. Consumers, who are of the working class, do not have direct control in how their meat was produced. They can only indirectly make choices based on what is available and accessible to their circumstances. They don't own the farm and ethically sourced meat is usually prohibitively expensive to many consumers. The slave owner is an OWNER, with direct control over the labor practices, who directly makes the choice to employ slavery or not. The slave owner is the one who controls the production so the responsibility lies with them.
Don't buy into the myth of supply-demand. If you quit buying the meat, the capitalists will still sell to those who support the harmful treatment and just have the difference subsidized like they currently do. Supply-demand logic puts the responsibility on the consumer; it is propaganda by capitalist owners to shirk off their responsibilities for producing ethically and sustainably. Just because a demand exists doesn't necessitate that others labor to fill that demand. Only because we exist in capitalism that incentivizes the pursuit of profit above all else does it justify that kind of logic because a demand unfulfilled is one that hasn't been exploited for profit. If workers owned the farms, and decided to only produce ethically and sustainably, then people who demand more than what is available can go shove it or start hunting for themselves.
So if I bought a shirt made from cotton picked by slaves, that would've been perfectly fine? If I buy chocolate harvested with child labor, or blood diamonds, that's all fine?
This whole production-focused morality is entirely self-serving and has nothing at all to do with class consciousness. Many people involved in the meat industry are workers just trying to make a living. You just don't want to deal with the inconvenience of these issues yourself.
Donāt buy into the myth of supply-demand
Even if it's theoretically possible to create a system that doesn't depend on supply and demand, it is very much a thing in the world we actually live in.
and just have the difference subsidized like they currently do.
Complete nonsense. If they could just "get more subsidies" whenever they felt like it, they'd get them now, until they couldn't get anymore. Which is... where we're at. This is magical thinking.
If workers owned the farms, and decided to only produce ethically and sustainably, then people who demand more than what is available can go shove it or start hunting for themselves.
Even if one particular worker-owned farm decided to do that, it wouldn't change anything. The consumers looking for cheaper meat would simply go to the farms willing to use harmful treatment.
Why does that logic only work one way and not the other?
Go read the other thread where I've already typed my opinions over the topics discussed and also maybe try reading theory. You'll learn a thing or two about the reductive-ness of arguing over individual action of consumers instead of placing the blame on
If you think focusing on the owners and how they control the means of production is not based in class consciousness you're not worth talking to.
Consumers, who are of the working class, do not have direct control in how their meat was produced.
Sure they do. My meat was not produced. You have this power too.
Disbelieving that consumer demand influences production is a wild take that doesn't absolve you of responsibility for that which you consume.
Not understanding that production induces demand is something that people who have never read theory or studied economics fail to comprehend.
You didn't consume meat. That doesn't change the fact that meat was produced and has gone to waste. Happens every year. Look into food waste statistics. Yet somehow the companies that know they are just throwing products in the trash still overproduce and come out making profits off of it. You'll never change the system by focusing on inconsequential, individual action. The only way to solve the issue is to take control of the system first.
Quit it with your misplaced blame. The responsibility lies with the ones who own the means to which the product was produced. Ya know, the whole "means of production" thing? Maybe learn about it and the fundamentals of how it works instead of gobbling up capitalist propaganda that lies about how it works to shift the blame onto consumers.
This sounds incredibly naive. But ill bite, where can i read about how production is entirely unswayed by demand?
it will be interesting reading how doubling of halfing consumption will have zero effect on an industry despite countless examples of the opposite occurring in real life
Regardless, the issue of meat isnt a problem with the system, since there's no ethical consumption of meat. Unless you propose taking over the means of production to burn it down.
Kropotkin's "Conquest of Bread". Start there. And FYI, I never said it is entirely unswayed by demand, only that demand does not influence it in the way that capitalist realism propaganda of supply-demand makes it appear to.
There are ethical methods to the production and thus consumption of meat. They do exist. So piss off with this claim that there is no ethical consumption of meat. There is nothing inherently unethical about the consumption of meat. Humans are animals and part of the wider ecosystem and our consumption of meat is just as ethical as when any other animal consumes another for its sustenance. The issue is entirely with the system and how it incentivises certain methods over others due to arbitrary societal structures.
Thanks, ill have a look.
it feels like youve backpedaled. Consumers /do/ influemce production, just not as much as you think I think they do.
To match your tone, piss off with thid claim that unnecessary killing is ethical. "animals do it, and we are animals, therefore its ethical for is to do" is a lazy argument that doesnt stand up to 20 seconds of thought.
Just because you didn't understand the original argument doesn't mean the clarification of misunderstanding means I'm backpedaling.
People need to eat and animals are food. Get over yourself with your arbitrary moral judgements.
I'm vegan. I can't eliminate My unethical consumption, but I can reduce it. I can make better choices. They might not be good choices, but they're better than just participating in the system.
I'm also making an effort to use Indigenous bush medicine in consultation with the local Indigenous clans. I've consulted with the totem holder about the plant I use for My allergies. That way, I'm not engaging with capitalism at all to treat My allergies. I'm using the traditional communist economy. Medicine literally grows out of the ground for free all over the place, and all I need to use it is knowledge and respect. Knowledge and respect are free!
And how you personally choose to reduce it is your prerogative. Regardless, you cannot eliminate it entirely so you should not be arbitrarily judged for the ways you do or do not limit yourself.
As well, it is great that you have the opportunities to choose alternatives but you also need to realize not everyone has those opportunities or the disposition to utilize them so they also should not be judged for that. Knowledge is free but the education to know how to appropriately and effectively use that knowledge without inadvertently harming yourself is usually not free barring extenuating circumstances, such as yourself having a local indigenous clan willing to teach you. Medicine grows out the ground but so do poisons and many medicines are also poisonous if prepared improperly.
If people have the opportunity and ability to utilize alternative, ethical sources then, by all means, they should do so but I'm not going to sit and arbitrarily make judgement about someone outright if they don't. I don't know them, their capabilities or circumstances.
Fair point but I want to offer a correction. We don't have tribes where I live, we have clans. Tribes and clans are different. Tribes have a chief, clans are governed by consensus. That's how it was explained to me by My Indigenous teachers, the words are likely different in other countries.
Also, I consider a person's disposition within their control. If someone doesn't know the issues with meat, that's fair. But once they've had a decent conversation with a vegan like Myself, it comes down to their willingness to learn. A vegan diet is pretty cheap. Bread, potatoes, rice, noodles, pasta, all the cheapest foods are vegan. I know what poverty is, I've been homeless. I had to eat meat when I was homeless because it's what they served at the shelter. I let My ethics wane for survival. But they waxed again when I got back on My feet, and I feel entitled to judge anyone who has it better than Me, had a chance to learn the facts, and isn't vegan. Which is most people in My country. At a certain point, ignorance becomes a choice. We've all got rectangles in our pockets containing the sum of knowledge.
Apologies, my assumption is that tribes/clans is synonymous enough to be used interchangeably but with that explanation I'll change it.
True, but my opinion is that if you are not directly doing the harm, then the degree of separation from the act of harm is entirely arbitrary per individual. I'll only judge someone for the harm they directly cause. The root of the problem is still the system, not the consumers within that system who have little to no power to directly influence it. The animals have already been killed in unethical fashion. Letting their body rot on a shelf instead of it being nourishment for someone is far more disrespectful towards the animal that had to die. We all have only so much we can do before we make concessions for convenience and how each individual decides that is up to them so long as they do not directly commit harm in doing so.
Like, even if it doesn't sell, there are still enough people that do not even object to the horrible treatment of these animals that companies, through the capitalist system, will just mitigate the impact on their profits by having it subsidized. They already account for waste, so they will simply adjust to it. There are also plenty of arguments against agricultural practices to how many of these vegan alternatives are produced themselves that you're not actually mitigating harm, you're just choosing a different product that was produced through equally harmful and unethical practices.
So, no, none of us are able to judge the other because, at the end of the day, we still exist in the capitalist system unless you and the community which produces your goods is entirely self sustaining and independent of the capitalist system. So we shouldn't waste our time judging each other and instead focus on building and providing these alternatives to people within our local communities, through intensive and organized labor action, where we actually have the ability to control and affect it.
And those rectangles of knowledge have just as much misinformation as they do information and the majority of people do not have the education or cultural upbringing to influence their perspective of said (mis)information needed to be able to accurately tell the difference.
They already account for waste, so they will simply adjust to it.
They will adjust to it by making less. Because that's how price signals work! This is extremely basic economics.
When people stopped buying pet rocks, did the company continue making them? Are there still as many pet rocks being made today as there were in 1975, and they're just piling up in a warehouse somewhere, as they get bigger and bigger subsidies from the government? You know as well as I do that's not how anything works.
There are also plenty of arguments against agricultural practices to how many of these vegan alternatives are produced themselves that youāre not actually mitigating harm, youāre just choosing a different product that was produced through equally harmful and unethical practices.
And those arguments are nonsense. Producing meat means growing vastly more food to feed to animals which you then eat, so even if growing vegetables was comparable in harm to the meat industry, it would still be more ethical to be vegan because less food would have to be grown.
If you honestly believe they will just make less the. You have clearly never read an ounce of theory. Your methods have been written about in theory time and time again by many authors of leftist literature and all state that it is reductive and counterproductive. That's absolutely not how prices work. That's capitalist propaganda telling you that's how prices work so they can shirk off their responsibilities of being the ones who set the price in the first place.
Pet rocks are not a necessity like food and are not comparable in the slightest. People don't need pet rocks. People need food, and as long as people need food, capitalists will sell what is edible and control the markets to where they will always ensure they are profitable because they control the means by which these necessities are produced. They already subsidized the agriculture industry to keep their products profitable for business owners of these factory farms. It will be incredibly naive to believe that they won't just do more of the same of what they are already doing to ensure their control over the markets.
If we got rid of meat and went entirely vegan without ending capitalism, the capitalists will just overproduce your vegan products with unsustainable practices and literally nothing will be solved. We will still be destroying the environment in the endless pursuit of profits and any waste will just be balanced out. They already own the land. They will use the land if there is even the chance they can make a profit on it. Changing what they use the land for changes nothing except now people get to feel morally superior having denied the people access to animal products. So yea, we won't be directly killing them anymore but we will still be burning their house down and they will die regardless as a result.
But whatever. You want to continue justifying your arbitrary judgment of the working class and misplacing blame away from the owners of industry, go ahead. Continue beating each other up over insignificant individual action so you can feel morally superior to someone else instead of focusing on class based action to take back the means of production and providing alternatives (actual alternatives to access these things, not just substitutions for those things) to each other without judgment of how they get through this dystopian society.
I'm done with this argument.
Again, you're making this a false dichotomy. We can go vegan and fight capitalism at the same time. Avoiding unethical products and encouraging others to do the same is in no way an endorsement of capitalism.
Even if we overthrew capitalism, either we would have to keep factory farms going or we'd need a drastic reduction in meat consumption. Because they don't just do cruelty for shits and giggles, they do it because it's efficient.
You go ahead and tell yourself whatever lies you have to as you run from the truth. Fucking, Reaganite supply side "class consciousness."
Even if we overthrew capitalism, either we would have to keep factory farms going or weād need a drastic reduction in meat consumption. Because they donāt just do cruelty for shits and giggles, they do it because itās efficient.
You're the one making the false dichotomy between "keep factory farms" and "going vegan". There is in fact a middle ground you are ignoring.
Yes, they do it because it is efficient for making obscene profits for the owning class. Once the working class has control of production we will no longer be constrained by arbitrary concerns about efficiency for the sake of producing obscene profits. We overthrow capitalism and change our methods of production away from factory farming to more ethical and sustainable models because we will then have the control and authority to do so. Ecological science proves that this is entirely possible. We simply do not currently employ these practices because of the interests of capitalists blocking their accessibility through their control over our societal structures and the means of production.
Please, for the sake of our collective future, read theory.
Once the working class has control of production we will no longer be constrained by arbitrary concerns about efficiency for the sake of producing obscene profits.
That's not how any of this works. Remove money from the equation: factory farms produce more meat per labor hours. If you're not reducing meat consumption, then you're calling for a massive increase in the amount of farm labor.
We overthrow capitalism and change our methods of production away from factory farming to more ethical and sustainable models because we will then have the control and authority to do so.
How? You gonna force people to work on these farms? How are you gonna get that labor?
We simply do not currently employ these practices because of the interests of capitalists blocking their accessibility through their control over our societal structures and the means of production.
I think you don't understand what the word "efficiency" means.
Please, for the sake of our collective future, read theory.
I do. What theory is it that will provide me with a convincing argument for why it's actually perfectly fine for me to buy chocolate harvested with child labor? Be specific.
Atlas Shrugged?
Just because a demand exists doesn't mean we need to fulfill that demand
Yes, it is the most efficient per man hour it isn't the only method available that can fulfill our needs while also being ethical and sustainable. Once we, the working class, control the means of production, we can choose scientifically proven alternatives that are both sustainable and ethically while also providing more than enough to meet our needs because we now have the authority and control over our means
How will I get people to work on farms? I don't need to convince them. Those who want to work on farms will labor to do so because they know we need food and, if we want a functional society at all, other people also need food so they will labor as needed to produce that food along with others in their community who willingly choose to labor so in ways that meet their needs while also being ethical and sustainable in their methods because they have the authority and control over the means of production to be able to do so with nothing incentivizing them to needlessly over produce. Remove money from the equation and we are no longer burdened by the interests of profit that necessitates the need for unsustainable production.
That's basic anarchist theory. Read Kropotkin.
And to your strawman argument:
Do people want chocolate? Yes. Has chocolate been produced and resources consumed for its production? Yes. Does the person in question have access to ethically produced chocolate? We don't know their individual circumstances so the benefit of the doubt will say no for sake of argument. Does not buying the chocolate change the fact that a child labored for its production? No, it just means they don't get chocolate while the chocolate and resources/labor goes to waste and the shrink is written off through taxes and insurance. The capitalist still wins and you've done nothing to change things. Congratulations.
If your argument ever is necessitated with "if only everyone suddenly just stopped doing X" your argument is shortsighted and lacking in effective praxis and just an attempt to gain an arbitrary feeling of moral superiority to boost your own ego in the fact that others aren't choosing to behave exactly the way you do. It's reductive and counterproductive trying to shame people over insignificant, miniscule personal choices in how they find what little enjoyment they can in this dystopian, capitalist society they have no individual power to change.
No. I don't have to be specific for the argument that I am making. Your lame attempt to appeal to specificities is just you trying to avoid engaging with the point by attempting to dictate the scope of my argument so you can pick apart the vagaries of how specific my hypothetical would be to make my argument fit your narrow, arbitrarily defined requirements. So quit making up strawmen and try having a class based analysis over the systems that dictate the circumstances in which situations take place in. If you'd actually read theory, you know how to.
I'm done talking with someone who clearly doesn't understand shit. If you have read theory you didn't understand it.
Jesus Christ. Actually justifying buying products with child labor. No wonder anarchism is so popular with Western "leftists."
Just because a demand exists doesnāt mean we need to fulfill that demand
So then, much less meat gets produced, which means much less meat gets consumed, which means, people will have to make major changes to their dietary habits. And given the unlikeliness of convincing everyone of cutting out the vast majority of meat from their diets, those of us who actually understand that situation should probably just cut it out entirely.
Fuck off simpleton.
You don't understand jack shit and it's readily apparent.
Lol.
If only I read theory, I'd understand how much the children yearn for the mines.
What incredibly self-serving bullshit. The fact that you call yourself a leftist disgusts me. You're a consumer and nothing more. Everything else is just to justify your habits.
While you are right, it is still not possible to produce meat ethically in the quantities we need it.
We absolutely can. Ethical and sustainable practices are possible. Once workers control production, those who do the labor can choose to stop laboring if we start to become unsustainable.
People can't consume what isn't produced. People will make due with what is available thanks to our innate bias towards convenience. Those who desire it as to produce it themselves will already be doing so and they will only produce so much. Without the need for profit driving them, they will have no incentive to employ unethical nor unsustainable methods and do needless labor just to fulfill people's gluttony. In a leftist society, they will produce it as they are most comfortable in doing so (from each of their ability) and the product will be equitably distributed through different systems of collective ownership as dictated by that community (to each of their need)
If they run out of meat, too bad. Laborers will tell people to wait till we can get more in an ethical and sustainable way or get to hunting it yourself, because they collectively control the land and resources from which it is produced and won't be quick to agree to let a few individuals force them to be wasteful with those resources or labor on their behalf against their principles without good reason. The rare few who do decide to go hunt it would be statistically negligible.
If every store ran out of pork due to a mass shortage, most people wouldn't start going try to hunt boar to eat pork. They would just get something else and deal that there is a shortage.
We absolutely can
People can't consume what isn't produced
?
What's the confusion? We can produce ethically and sustainably. This is a fact.
People cannot consume what isn't produced. This is also a separate fact.
Put them together with an understanding of logic, as explained, and you'll see that if we control the production then we control the rate of consumption.
So you are saying we cant produce ethically with the rate of current consumption?
No. You're flipping the logic to suggest that consumption controls the rate of production. You didn't understand what I said at all or didn't read it.
I'm saying that with the current system which dictates the incentives behind production is causing us to over produce through unethical and unsustainable methods and people are simply consuming what is available, because people need to eat and they can only eat what has been produced. That is a physical, material limit of life. If society was restructured to where the workers owned the means of production and the profit incentive was done away with then the rate of consumption would logically have to be lower as a result, because people physically cannot consume what isn't produced.
I've actually heard several different women try to argue that if a man even just looks at pornography it somehow counts as "cheating". They were all quite upset when no one agreed with them but seemed unwilling to change their opinion. They did not appreciate my laughter but in all fairness I genuinely thought they were trying to make a joke
I had a gf like this, caught me looking at the fappening pics. Said I was cheating... Bout 3 months later I found out she'd been taking dick from 2 different dudes for more than a year. People will do anything to feel superior to others.
Apparently there are a lot of SWERFs (Sex Work Exclusionary Radical Feminists)
AKA fake feminists
It isn't just swerfs, it's mostly just insecure people
People have different comfort levels with these things. If some women donāt want their partner watching porn, thatās fine, we shouldnāt mock them for that. Of course if their partner disagrees with this stance they are free to try and persuade or leave or whatever. But thatās a personal issue for them to sort out
Edit: you guys are literally downvoting me for saying women are allowed to have preferences
We really should mock it because that is a toxic and controlling behavior which shows a lack of emotional maturity.
You're being downvoted for enabling and making excuses for toxic behavior by trying to mask it as a simple preference like preferring blonde over brunette.
By this logic you could say all monogamous relationships are toxic. As long as both parties are consenting participants to the arrangement then I don't see what the issue is
Personally, I do believe monogamy is toxic by being an extension of centuries of toxic cultures having influenced human society conditioning us against polyamory. Humans historically practiced polygamy until arbitrary religious and socioeconomic beliefs began to influence our society, teaching us to be ashamed of our natural behaviors.
But that is much deeper issue with society at large which is neither here nor there.
If someone doesn't like their partner doing something that is harmless and not affecting them in the slightest, then they need to practice some introspection into why the actions of others that do not directly affect them or harm anyone else bothers them so much and sort that out for themselves to become emotionally mature instead of trying to control the behaviors of others.
Also, my logic makes allowance for monogamy. In a monogamous relationship, going outside of it as one would in a poly relationship comes with the risk of STDs, which directly affects the other partner, so it makes it their business who their partner sleeps with to be able to have informed consent if they want to continue being in a sexual relationship with the individual.
Yeah they can have their stance. Good luck finding a partner, but there is nothing wrong with the belief.
In some cultures this would not be a niche belief and it will be easier to find a partner that shares these values
Upon consideration, I wish everyone well. I hope any such person finds their person if they look, and I hope they make each other happy.
Turned off by couple of the comments
Regardless of whether it happened, the idea of laughing at someone for such a boring* opinionā¦ one can use their words and tell the person you find it difficult not to perceive their statement as absurd (which is why you probably want to know a bit more and ask about their logic, or youāve already moved on to a new subject or person).
*Maybe if they talk about, say, lizard people laughing would be expected?
Haah. What if you watch porn together. Does that count as an orgy?
More people thinking homosexuality is wrong than the fucking death penalty...
...or eating meat ! it's mindblowing
edit looks like 4 people among us think homosexuality is worse than eating meat
It makes sense that in the country were Death Penalty is considered less morally wrong than Viewing Pornography or Homosexuality, most people support (or at least don't care about) Israel mass murdering children for the "crime" of being born Palestinian.
That moral priority alone says that for most Americans, life is less sacred than what people do with their sexy bits alone or with consenting adults.
No wonder America keeps making war and killing millions.
Prudism is a blight that rots the fabric of society.
Prudism by itself whilst bad isn't all that bad.
No, the Evil part is the Love For Ending The Life Of Other People.
Prudism alongside this is just hypocrisy - after all, unless one is reading a very, very special Bible, Christ said "Turn the other cheek", not "Hang them by their neck until they're dead".
yeah prudism is that bad. its not as if these people are content to be uncomfortable with sex in their own life and leave it at that, they have to force their beliefs on everyone else too. no one has any right to control the consensual relationships of anyone else, but these cunts feel like they do.
No it's pretty fucking bad and mentally damaging. That's how you end up with sexually repressed lunatics who lash out because they lack the emotional maturity to handle their biological urges.
the palestine/gaza conflict has been going on for decades, it dint affect people at the voting polls since the past few elections, even the bush wars wernt even quesitoned that much by the public. likely due to copaganda/military propaganda shows and movies.
Most nuanced take, clearly based upon a deep understanding of American culture and politics. We are all just bad people who love war and genocide. There isnāt one party that gave all the power to check the president away and let him do whatever he wants, and there arenāt protests with millions of people regularly happening because we all love it.
Last I checked Ds and Rs support Israeli genocide. Or if its too recent for you just rewind and you will find obama droning down whole wedding parties because someone didnt support US hegemony (aka was a "terrorist"). Of course Bush committed war crimes all throughout the Middle East too. Voting Blue harder isn't going to fix your problems
Spare me the "American-style simpleton-politics for people who have no clue how real Democracy looks like" bullshit - the last guy which was of the "other side" in your hyper-reductive 2D fake-democracy theater system was sending 2000 lb bombs (which the American Military itself won't use because of their high collateral damage) to Israel to blow up high density neighborhoods of residential apartment buildings with.
There were no big demonstrations against it.
Same thing back when Obama was blowing up weddings and killed so many innocents that he changed the definition of "enemy" to be any male between the ages of 14 and 60 so that the numbers didn't look so bad.
There were no big demonstrations against it either. Hell, plenty of American mindless tribalist followers of that "side" of America's Theatrical "Democracy" still laud Obama as a great man and a great president.
The reason why there are big demonstrations against the current one is that he's doing in America the shit that the others mainly did or supported abroad, so now people who weren't suffering when Biden's 2000lb bombs were hitting Hospitals in Gaza and Obama's drones were blowing up families attending weddings, are suffering, so its only now that they demonstrate,
Little brown kids being mass murdered was fine for most Americans as long as they themselves were ok.
America is a country were "I'm alright Jack" is the most important "Moral" "compass" for most people, possibly one of the worst in that regard.
Imagine being this much of a ninny
Democrat party agress with republicn party on like 90% of bills, you just only hear about the 10% they pretend to fight about
2/3 think being extremely rich is not a moral issue,
and almost 2/3 think homosexuality is.
40% is closer to 1/3 than 2/3, but your point still stands. The fact that 40 think homosexuality is morally wrong is nuts. It's that damn religion thing.
I wasn't talking about the "morally wrong" statistic.
Only 37% rightfully think it's not a question of morality at all (because WHY WOULD IT BE? It's not a choice you can make!).
So 63% think it is a question of morals, which is what I meant by "almost 2/3".
Appreciate your clarification, and I probably agree with you.
I mean, some people think that pineapple on pizza is morally wrong. š
This stood out to me as well. We might be fucked
It's almost as if the country that was settled by all the outcast religious weirdos from Europe, somehow ended up with twisted religious morals.
Now, my ancestors were horse thieves, and not particularly religious.
Porn ranks higher than abortion? What?
Thinking contraception is moraly wrong ranks higher than being a vegetarian. The whole thing is bonkers.
Not surprised considering the roots of American culture stem from the Puritanism and Protestantism; those roots run DEEP
Yeah I ha e no idea.
I don't think either are fundamentally immoral, but I can conceive of a greater number of scenarios where the creation of pornography, and therefore its consumption, would be wrong. Actors who are coerced into porn, or who later regret their appearance but can't withdraw consent. Porn industry taking advantage of underage or underprivileged people. Pornography addiction, or using porn to avoid coping with real world interpersonal issues. Those are just off the top of my head.
Again, I don't think porn should be illegal, not by a long shot, but it's got a few more entanglements that I might take issue with than abortion, which 9999 times out of 10,000 should be nothing more than a conversation between a patient and their doctor.
All of the things you mention are of course horrible. None of them are pornography.
The US population has some messed up opinions
When I'm her death, and suffering intolerably, it's immoral for me to check out 2 weeks early? They'd rather see me continue suffering
A fetus has a genetic abnormality that will ensure the child will suffer for years and then die a horrible death? Sorry, abortion is morally wrong! The baby will have to suffer!
Come to think of it, most of these fucked up opinions are religion driven. Imaginary Jeebus said it was wrong, so that settles it!
Can't afford a baby? Doesn't matter, the baby must be born, it would be immoral to abort. Once the baby is born, though, fuck that baby, we don't care, we won't help you raise it you slut, you should have controlled those sinful urges!
The US is such a fucked up place
Would be interesting to see a comparison with other countries. Here in Sweden, it's illegal to spank children, and most people are OK with that, AFAIK. Abortion is also not frowned upon in any way. We would have wildly different results on this chart.
How hard is it to immigrate to Sweden (coming from the US)?
If you can get a job beforehand, not that difficult I think. I'm no expert in these matters though. However, over on Reddit there's a whole subreddit dedicated to it. Lots of good info there: https://www.reddit.com/r/TillSverige/
I honestly didn't realize that beating children was still so popular.
I realized some years ago that most Americans view "morality" as almost exclusively being about sex. Raising moral concerns about things like having a job where you build missiles to be dropped on schools is likely to be met not so much with disagreement as confusion, about how that could possibly be a moral issue if it's both legal and doesn't involve your genitals.
Religious people went on about "morality" as a way to groom people into sexual.shame, and then exploit it to control them. This country's eaders don't know.the first thing about real morality
"Religious" and its a protestant megachurch
Worst thing that happened to America was allowing the Puritans to leave in the first place. Should have just offed them all and nipped it in the bud. Would've saved a lot more lives
This graph encapsulates precisely why I've always felt disconnected from the culture around me.
My family's from the South. I have seen some shit you wouldn't believe.
But 4-in-10 finding homosexuality "morally wrong" is jaw dropping, to me. Another 23%, just "acceptable." In 2026?
WTF.
I thought homophobes were dying out, but apparently not.
Iāve felt Americaās moral bankruptcy my entire life
As a dane, this explains a lot with all the weird stuff you hear about the US these days.
More people think it's morally wrong to get a divorce than to have a billion dollars. Fuck me we're screwed.
this is what happens when you dismantle education. good job, conservatives. the collapse can't come fast enough.
I think Iām heading back toward gambling being morally wrong. I mean, itās not, but it can be self-destructive, and willingly work with immoral entities - most companies that profit from gambling are exploiting peopleās weaknesses to harm them. Thatās a whole lot of immoral all over a mildly amusing activity
It's not just damage. It seeds corruption, as is plain as day with Polymarket now.
I do believe it has crossed the line to "public hazard"
Imagine bankrupting a casino when most of your customers are addicts š
Gambling in the micro is not morally wrong. Games between friends with stakes and the like is perfectly fine.
Running a casino or sportsbook is almost certainly exploiting problem gamblers in a way that is unequivocally morally wrong.
At minimum online gambling should be outlawed. That whole industry seems to make the issue so much worse compared to how it was historically.
Gambling isnt morally wrong, but running a casino is. Corporations should be banned from any gambling related activity, that way if a couple friends want to play poker or make a small wager on a football game, no laws are broken government doesn't get involved. But at the same time by banning corporations you make it so that there's no casinos no tv ads and more generally no capitalist industry preying on gambling addicts.
Gambling is addictive and can ruin lives.
Addiction ruins lives, like practically everything that triggers dopamine, gambling can be very addictive.
Addicts are going to find an addiction, it's part of their wiring. You can change your addiction to another less harmful addiction, or rewire yourself with a lot of work.
Thatās not really true. Anyone can become addicted to something. Thereās not some āaddict wiringā that some people are born with and some arenāt. Obviously some things increase your risk factor for addiction, like having ADHD or a traumatic childhood, but even those are correlations, not causation.
Thereās not some āaddict wiringā that some people are born with and some arenāt
There absolutely is and you named three examples of it in this comment lol
That would imply that every ADHDer or trauma survivor is an addict. Again, correlation is not causation.
That's like saying not everyone with fair skin gets skin cancer. (And we're only talking about correlation here, nobody said anything about causation.)
The only thing worse than legal gambling is illegal gambling.
Addicts are addicts, they can't be helped and must help themselves. We all must learn to control our dopamine receptors, they are batshit crazy.
I donāt even know if thatās true in the same way that it is for a drug user. Making drugs legal and safe is a good for society. Making gambling legal has made society worse in terms of bankruptcies and financial stress.
Gambling addicts definitely need support but allowing problem gamblers to be taken advantage of is something that legal gambling does that legal recreational drug use does not
Wow people donāt realize how morally wrong it is to have billionaires. I guess weāre surrounded by morons
We really are a failed society aren't we?
I really don't understand how people can reconcile this kind of data with a positive opinion of humanity
40% of people saying 'spanking children is not a moral issue' is maybe the worst datapoint here. At least 4 in 10 people are fully just animals blundering around operating on instinct and following what feels good. And that's not even counting the other people whose idea of morality is just 'what is my visceral reaction' who had a visceral reaction.
"Don't think of them as human beings, think of them as Americans." - (Fallout quote)
This is why when people talk about AI not really being intelligent, but just glorified word association, I say, is that really any different from the average person?
Absolutely, sure AI makes mistakes if not outright hallucinations. But have you talked to any humans lately?
Its completely absur that assisted suicide (35%) is almost the same as the death penalty (34%)
Imprisoning, torturing, and killing animals = A-OK
2 consenting adults of the same gender having sex = whoa, too far!
I hope that anyone taking meaning or valuation from this data seriously looks into the methods and how fucked this whole survey process is (as you should with any data you're forming an opinion from). I'm kinda just sick and tired of crap like this being taken seriously as a true projection of a populace. I get that surveys are rough science, but the way it's disseminated through articles or comments is that it's gospel truth (pun intended).
What is the American Trends Panel (ATP)? (thank you @TragicNotCute@lemmy.world
Oversampling is used to study small groups, not bias poll results
Hilarious ass video showing their "science" - Methods 101: Random Sampling
When surveying small populations, some approaches are more inclusive than others
Interesting getting some downvotes with no comment pushbacks on the validity of their scientific process even with posting their methods. Is this just people upset that someone is challenging their beliefs that are being reinforced with the graphic but can't dispute any positives in their data collection process?
What is the problem with their methods? You can't just link to their methodology and be like, "See? They're full of shit!" I skimmed and nothing jumped out at me, so how would I go about evaluating or refuting such vague claims?
Because there's literally no argument here except a YouTube video. Wow, how credible.
Tell me, what I should dispute about a comment whose only argument is "pew is bad"?
The article does a nice job of breaking out who votes how and kind of helps you say "I see" as to why the results are skewed the way they are. We all know why: religion, with a sprinkling of old. So I don't necessarily doubt these results. America is the land of religion, and not just white evangelicals. Black religious folks absolutely don't like homosexuality. Muslims don't. Hispanic Catholics are very puritan. Jews are generally okay about this stuff.
But the common thread tends to be religion, and we have a lot of places of worship here. When you think about wealthy first world countries, America sits up high when it comes to religion, and how many people are religious. And while we've seen a decline, it's still a big population.
EDIT: I would also be curious to see who said porn is morally wrong, and still viewed it anyway. I think religion comes with this crazy amount of hipocracy, and not just hipocracy but this sort of uncertainty, and it's that whole fear of God thing.
Spanking the monkey is worse than spanking children?
Gays are about on par with atheism in rankings like this, I'm kind of surprised atheism wasn't on this list. But yeah it hurts seeing it. There are ways to cut the data that aren't so harsh, like support for rights can be there even if they're thinking we're gonna burn.
It's because of all the harm we innately cause to society and ourselves. Can you believe that 39% of people are forced to think about gay sex all the time? It's true and it's traumatic for them to have to figure out "which one is the man and which one is the woman" as well as the implications of how two or more people without penises can still enjoy each other behind closed doors in the privacy of their own homes. And on that topic, they once saw two women holding hands in public, and now their lives will be forever changed. Let's not get into the torture they endure from pronouns, forced trans for all, and gay people just existing.
Seriously, though. The number of people both offended by LGBTQ while also telling everyone they're "trying for a child" is way too high.
this the culture war bs conservatives are indoctrinated to be concerned with. notice how none of them even mentioning tax, public services, insurance , billionaires.
Fuck puritans.
Doggystyle
It makes me so mad how much worse alcohol is than weed and yet people think weed is morally worse, fml
ITT a good reminder that Lemmy is an echo chamber
I dunno it seems to match up with what most of my IRL friends believe in.
lemmy or the chart?
IRL trust fund pretend progressives match up with a lot of lemmy talking points.
but most normal working middle class people i know, are far more moderate and way less angry. because they are mostly focused on problems in their own lives and don't have time for agonizing about federal politics of the issues in other states that don't impact them. they are mostly interested in good economic policy, education, infrastructure, and corruption in their local/state politics because that is what impacts their day to day life.
the hot topics here, like palestine, trans rights, war in iran, are not something they really think about because it has nothing to do with them and is very abstract and distance from them. all the really know about this stuff is that weirdo angry people shout about it a lot on the TV/radio, and they think it's annoying and pointless because it has nothing to do with anything in their life and they are angry that all this nonsense is being shoved down their throats when they just want better schools and roads and job opportunities.
They want better schools and roads while voting down every millage because 'my taxes' and voting for people that are actively working to destroy public education.
Makes sense.
the hot topics here, like palestine, trans rights, war in iran,
Notably, none of those things are on the chart.
Not sure how you can use this chart to then project onto those issues.
Lemmy for sure. I feel like a lot of my friends are passionate about trans issues because they are trans, but most people I know generally have a pretty negative sentiment about the war on Iran. Oh and they all love to talk about the Epstein files.
A lot of my coworkers even have a soft spot for Linux. And it feels like half the people in my life are autistic, have ADHD, or both.
Lemmy doesnāt have an algorithm - it doesnāt have any particular content to force feed you in an attempt to keep you engaged. Youāre not being shown what you might like, you have to select that yourself.
i agree, its because lemmy is so small, and the platforms are so scattered between lemmy, piefed,,,etc. you will likely bump into the same category as people discussing no matter what.
Thanks for sharing, now I really want to go cry. I hate this country.
America is a fascinating place to me
Less people think being gay is wrong than having an abortion?
How progressive
Some of these percentages are really depressing.
Surprise parties
Magic tricks
Mine is based on the consent and consensus of the other sentient beings involved. For example, drinking alcohol around people who are cool with you being intoxicated, or doing it alone, is perfectly fine. Getting blackout drunk around people who do not consent to taking care of you is not.
All forms of hierarchical authority are never moral because they always violate consent and consensus. All governments, corporations, and organized religions are immoral.
Are non-human animals sentient?
Mine is a tad more complicated.
Make a list of all the possible ways to accomplish something that you can think, sort them from the ones that will benefit other living things the most, then the ones that will do the least harm to other living things, and at the bottom, the ones that will do the most harm to other living things.
When the harm is similar, put first within that range the ones that will do the least harm to those who are cloest to you.
Once you have the list, try to do what's at the top of the list. If you can't, move down the list until you can do what you need to do.
Would the most moral way to kill someone I personally don't like involve donating all their organs to hospitals? Would the most moral way to get a billion dollars be counterfeiting?
I think your system fails to address that some things are always immoral.
"until you can do what you need to do" adequately addresses both of your examples, nobody needs a billion dollars ever, you do not need to kill people who you personally find unlikable
By "need to do", are you referring to what one needs to do to survive? Who decides what is and isn't needed?
I decide
If you have to kill someone to get organs, that's lower in the list than getting organs from someone who is already dead. Getting organs if the family gives consent causes less pain than the organs being donated, so it goes higher on the list. So the most humane way to get organ donations goes to the top of the list.
If you counterfeit, you devalue the currency, and you cause harm to those who own that currency because they effectively lose wealth, so it's lower in the list than earning the currency.
What does that translate to in English?
Is it deceitful? Left. Otherwise: right
The US is cooked. Decades of press capture by right-wing billionaires, educational capture by religious zealots and defunding, etc.. none of this is accidental. Uninformed, uneducated, religious fundamentalists are easy to manipulate.
You could present these results as coming from a survey of any of the "shithole countries" (Haiti, El Slavador, Africa broadly) the US pedo in charge has turned his nose up against, and nobody would think the results are odd. But look at these comments - disbelief.
I do not watch much pornograpy, but this chart encouraged me to do so to distance from Americans more
Now, now, don't confuse "thinking watching porn is immoral" with "not watching porn."
Gambling at 50% "not a moral issue" is crazy
more Americans think that porn (52%) and homosexuality (39%) are wrong than spanking children (23%) and being ultra wealthy (18%).
Meanwhile extreme wealth and spanking were two out of the three (four with caveats) I saw that I thought were morally wrong.
Infidelity? Of course the worst thing someone can engage in, obviously.
Killing people for punishment with a a clear an obvious error rate that leaves innocent people murdered by the state? 'Well, you see..."
I would love to see how the abortion and death penalty categories overlap.
I get porn might not be healthy, especially porn addiction. But I do not get why it is morally wrong.
The industry is exploitative.
It's a good argument but somehow I suspect Americans find it morally wrong for other, less logical reasons such as religion or prudishness.
Good point.
i dont think this is what the graph is referring to though. its likely referring to people who view porn as immoral rather than exploitation, aka, conservatives are pretty much holier than thou when it comes to porn. also because are addicted to it.
That is not an argument against porn. You can always regulate it.
probably conservatives puritanical beliefs/mysogynistic beliefs woman/man should not be having sex but to make babies, but they criticize the men far less than women,.
Americans are hilarious š
they make me weep tbh
America Fuck Yeah!!!
I am very interested as to how they make these decisions. What framework leads them to believe these things? What is their reasoning here? I understand that it might not be reasoned, but if it is reasoned then it may be fascinating to know how these conclusions were reached.
I believe your morals are morally wrong.
Before you all get up in arms about this, just read the bottom left corner.
The source or conductor of the study?
Yes
Wish these examples had been ranked as well as asked individually. Like "place these in order from most to least morally acceptable". Cuz the death penalty and viewing porn are morally unacceptable to 34% and 52% respectively, but I think if you really wanted to know how cooked we are as a society, you'd wanna know what percentage think the latter is genuinely morally worse than the former.
Still interesting though. And, ya know. Horrifically depressing.
Whatās the difference between āmorally acceptableā and ānot a moral issueā?
some decisions do not have moral weight, they are simply preferences that don't reflect on a person's fundamental character. like whether you like spicy food, or the color of shirt you wear
A divorce could be seen as not a moral issue, but as bad for the kids for example.
I'd say there isn't a difference here, which is why they are both on the right side in the chart. The survey probably just had that option to appease people who have the opinion "but that's it's not a matter of morality at all!"
For example, in the question about homosexuality, one can think that being homosexual is a choice, which is morally wrong; a choice which is not wrong; or an innate thing and not a moral issue. Few people would would consider being black or left-handed a moral issue, but society is clearly undecided where homosexuality fits.
It's kind of shocking to me how many people do not consider beating their children to be a moral question, and suggests to me that a lot of respondents don't actually understand what morality is.
As a poly person, lol, and fuck those societal norms. Not to mention, itās really sad to societally pressure bi people into denying one whole half of their sexual identity :(
conservatives speak, all the morals they claim are immoral are exactly what they are hypocritically doing. cheating, pornography specifically gay/trans porn. this all mostly conservative priorities, its all culture wars as it has been. thier current issue is being anti-woke.
Many conservatives have been taught to hate themselves and that mentality has been so internalized they become angry at others for being unabashedly themselves instead of letting go of their misplaced shame.
Their minds are truly broken things.
This, on top of many others, shows how mind-bent in a bad way Americans are.
No wonder they have a shithead for "President".
These things make me wonder if some sort of bias is clouding my self judgement. Im against the death penalty, think abortions are a medical decision that one should make for themselves and dont think pornography or gambling is a moral issue, but a vice that should be managed carefully.
But apparently there is only a 50/50 chance of me being the above, and it throws me for a loop.
The submission says that this is a list of moral priorities, like itās a list of what the American people think is most immoral to least immoral.
But it sounds like the data is listing what things are most widely agreed on to be immoral, to least agreed upon. Which is not the same thing.
Based off of the answers for being extremely rich I have zero respect for what any of these people think.
Married people having an affair is not morrally wrong for 7% of the people?
Iām guessing that 7% of people have had an affair.
It highly depends on the exact wording of the question. It could have been worded to where it just asks that having partners outside of the marriage is morally wrong and if one is polyamorous then that isn't really something that would be considered immoral.
Tbf, there's a certain percentage of people who will deliberately give bad sounding answers to mess with surveys, so that might be an overestimate.
How is eating meat not morally wrong? Or not a moral issue?
Like genuinely does anyone understand how someone could think that?
It is wild to me that homosexuality is still a more contentious topic in this country than literal life or death policies with very real considerations of severe human suffering like the death penalty or access to euthanasia.
8% of people think contraception is morally wrong?!
Yikes - that's practically 1 in 12 people.
About 20% of Americans are Catholics, so that means that less than half of Catholics follow Catholic doctrine in this regard.
I think you'd be surprised at just how few Catholics follow this specific rule! According to the NCHS, 98.8% of sexually experienced Catholic women had used contraception at some point in their lives. ("sexually experienced" in this context means ever had vaginal sex, and the sample size was 10,122 people)
Here's the direct quote:
Across religious affiliations, 99.7% of women with no religious affiliation, 99.3% of Protestant women, 98.8% of Catholic women, and 97.6% of women affiliated with other religions had ever used a contraceptive method
None of this surprises me. Some of this is probably a uniquely American perspective with shitty American priorities (marijuana, death penalty).
But, without any other data from any other country there isn't any quantifiable context. This gets a good beat on America the nation, from one american to another..... but there's no clue about what priorites here are uniquely American vs just modern society/culture. There's literally no data being presented here to make that comparison. Like, poll a middle east country, and many will say it's immoral to be gay, way more immoral to watch porn. Poll India, and it'll be immoral to eat meat. Poll the UK, they probably have the same opinions on spankings, being rich....
Different countries have different, and arguably equally, stupid/fuckedup priorities. In that vein, anyone looking at this and going "omg, Americans are so dumb" is pretty fucking dumb. For all you know, your modern western country might have the exact same priorites, and be just be just as fucked up. There's no evidence here that proves/disproves that. So stay off the high horse.
But, without any other data from any other country there isn't any quantifiable context.
The studie in ops link touches on that extensivly.
It goes into great detail and is worth reading, It sets the topics from the picture into the context you are asking for. Two examples:
What about spanking my mistress?
People will just say whatever they think their peers want to hear. What people say doesn't tell you what they think or do.
Definitely more than 50% of people watch porn, despite this. A significant % of 'homosexuality is immoral' types have grindr accounts. Many women who say abortions are wrong also say their case was special and unique which makes it okay. That using marijuana one would definitely be higher before it become widely legal. Gambling too would've had more disapproval before private gambling rings were allowed to advertise at sport games.
These stats reflect public policy, rather than guide it (to a large extent) is my point.
The morality of consuming marijuana is proportional to its legality though.
I will say that it's highly immoral to consume marijuana of unknown source, or sourced from a drug cartel that assassinates people that get in their way of delivering marihuana to you.
But if the source of marijuana is just some tax paying dude that grows marijuana legally like you would any other crop, I don't see any moral issue.
At most you could argue "the resources to grow it could be spent on food", but that is true for literally every form of entertainment. And "but it is unhealthy, and then we all have to pay for your poor health choices", which is actually fair. But way more moral than the drug-cartel sourced one.
For alcohol is different though, since it directly causes antisocial behavior on the consumer. Consuming alcohol is as immoral as whatever immoral acts you do while drunk.
drug cartel that assassinates people that get in their way of delivering marihuana to you.
I don't think that was the reality of pre-legal weed, at least not much, at least here on the west coast. Most people i knew bought directly from harmless small scale operations or from someone who did. A lot of people worked chopping during harvest and got paid in weed.
Also i think large scale legal farms are much shadier and many have more connections to organized crime than you're considering.
Even if you the operators don't assassinate anyone, running illegal businesses will 99% of the time have other immoral side-effects. It's hard to keep an illegal business running while being 100% morally right.
If a farm has connections to organized crime, it's not growing it like any other crop.
I know people that grow normal crops, none of them have connections to organized crime.
I know thereās some clowns out there who think itās morally wrong as in āsinfulā but I do wonder if some of those were people worried about the murkiness of whether exploitation was involved in the making of some films.
Iām not against porn but I have heard the above argument, and those folks would be okay with, say, literotica and independent sex workers.
Eating a meal is morally wrong!?
Only if itās a succulent Chinese meal
*Meat
Eating a meal is morally meat?
That was a typo. I meant āmeeting a meal is morally wrongā
You can't get the American population to think "being rich" is morally wrong when even the language of the question doesn't even correctly define how that wealth was obtained.
An educated population would understand class conflict. But, even "being rich" is a horrible survey question. Yeah, you can't say "being bourgeoise" or "capitalist exploitation". But the survey at the very least should ask "being a billionaire". If the question was asked that way the results would definitely shift by at least 10% or more.
It also leans into the false premise that class consciousness is about hating "rich" people. It's not. Socialism isn't a poverty cult. It's about criticizing the exploitative systems that allow billionaires to exist. To critize the class structures.
I don't have an issue with abortion, but I do think it's insane how more people can view watching porn as bad and not abortions. I don't think either are wrong, but if someone has such a weird fundamentalist belief that porn is bad, how do they not think abortions are?
Some people see it as a form of cheating, others see it as exploitative or objectifying. Religion isn't the only reason a person might have a problem with porn.
Most people in porn do it willingly and are quite happy with it. I know several of them. I'm sure some people are forced but I'm sure it's not a large percentage and it shouldn't reflect on the industry as a whole (after all many types of labour have some forced aspects, remember the suicides in the Apple factories).
I don't care if people hate on porn but I do hate it when they force their views on me.
I'm just describing people's views.
I somehow read this for a second as "whether viewing pornography of having an abortion is morally wrong" and felt like I'd fallen into a different reality.
Abortion is a moral imperative in all cases where the pregnancy has not been explicitly planned for.
Eh, a consideration. There have been accidental babies that get raised well by decent enough people. (I'm one). I get what you're saying though. The option ought to be on the table and available for people, because a factor in people growing up to be shitheads is definitely parents who didn't want them.
That's very close to what I mean.
A surprise pregnancy doesn't imply a lack of planning and preparation. I don't mean that you need a nursery, diaper bag, a spot reserved in the local preschool. I mean that you have steady income, substantial savings, a mature mind. You don't need to delve into the precise specifics ahead of time, but you do need to have the groundwork laid before deciding how a new human should get their start in life.
What I am really saying is that "lack of preparedness" is a particularly egregious moral failing, comparable to child abuse or drunk driving. Abortion is the moral equivalent of calling an Uber or taking care of your designated driver.
some of these are "it depends". for example, using drugs like marijuana, alcohol, or participating in gambling isn't a moral issue by itself, but the industry that advertises and facilitates it is.
also, porn can be unethically or ethically sourced, so there I would hesitate between "not a moral issue" and "morally wrong"
I'm surprised by euthenasia, but also sad it's still that much frowned upon.
Perhaps people like people suffering for their own desire to keep them around.
Actually, looking at all responses, a lot of this moral compass points heavily toward favouring the suffering of others.
And somewhere way down at the merianas trench is trump trafficking and raping 13yos
According to this approach, I am a troubled individual. Not for the reasons one may think, more so the reasons that we donāt think the the way they do is proof enough that I am on the proper path. āBring it, I think I know what U got, Gonā finna find out what it is!ā
nah but like if you just run as a principled and scientific socialist you'd totally win, fuckin democrats
i am not going to prove this by doing it, because,
this is so fucked
I don't think this is a list of priorities like the title claims, it appears to be ordered by disapproval, unless I'm missing something.
From what I understand watching pornography is a more complex issue, and it depends on a number of factors.
96% of Americans apparently don't have an issue with killing and eating a living thing. Or paying someone else to kill a living thing so you can eat it. Or paying someone to pay someone to pay someone to pay someone to kill a living thing so you can eat it.
There will come a generation who have grown up knowing that meat eating without consent is wrong, and they will look at carnists the way we look at old timey slavers.
I donāt see the problem there. Humans are omnivores.
There will come a generation who have grown up knowing that meat eating without consent is wrong, and they will look at carnists the way we look at old timey slavers.
This is such a first world view.
Thereās currently no sustainable and/or affordable way for the average person to obtain all the nutrients they need from just plants. Palm oil or maize drive deforestation in a large percentage, and most people outside of developed countries have a hard time supplementing their diet without meat.
Plants take less land than animals, because animals are made out of plants. With animals, you have to grow the plants to feed them, and then grow the animals. Veganity is more efficient
We evolved to eat animals because they've done the work of processing the plants, which we're unable to do efficiently. So it's rather the opposite.
Look at the difference in bioavailability of heme iron vs trying to get iron from spinach or some other green leafy vegetables. We don't have to consider further confounders such as antinutrients since it just worsens the comparison.
These days we can just dig iron out of the ground, use it to make pots, and cook our veggies in the pots to get iron. We don't need animals anymore.
I see that you've not looked up what I've said at all. Have a good day.
This is painfully naive and inaccurate.
Following this reasoning, we should all be eating insects because, without them, most plants wouldnāt exist.
..but they have a problem with taking your own insufferable life or with abortion.
Sadly your optimistic view is very unlikely to happen. The world is getting dumber and dumber by the day. And considering this chart, I'd bet many muricans don't even know what meat is or where it comes from. Or even have time pondering about the morality of it while juggling 3 jobs to survive crippling medical debt.
How about all of it is none of your fucking business?
The huge acceptance of growing babies in a lab for money is very disheartening