Saturday, November 25, 2023

The Conspiracy Mindset of PETA


Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, PETA engaged in one of the things they are very good at - Outrage Porn.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_porn

And since this is on social media, it naturally got the desired reaction.  The knee jerk emotional response, outrage from PETA critics, outrage from animal rights activists, and the millions of views that go with it.

It’s only natural that with humans being terrible long term companions that people project their empathy on the beloved pets.  Cats and dogs have much more genuine responses to stimulus.  Take care of them they are fun.  Abuse them and they aren’t fun.  And there’s PETA right at the forefront of the fight to insist that you are a bad person for deciding to have a different idea of what is appropriate for your diet.

The cartoon displayed was community noted on Twixter with a message regarding how in the wild turkeys are way more like tiny little dinosaurs than a calm farm raised animal waiting to be slathered in gravy for your holiday meal.  They eat frogs, lizards, mice and stuff too small to defend itself or too slow to escape.  The real reason turkeys wouldn’t do this to humans are the lack of opposable thumbs and intellect necessary to hire gun lobbyists.  Nothing ruins Thanksgiving more than a pissed off turkey with an assault rifle.  This was substituted out (although amply screenshot before the change) to a message about how stress can lead turkeys to cannibalism.  Pack enough AR-15 deficient turkeys in a small space, they will freak out and eat each other.  Which is the way that community notes on Twixter (don’t) work now.  The first was decidedly a “PETA are assholes” message.  The second gives fuel to the outrage porn as the cognitively challenged start associating human cannibalism with turkeys freaking out.

Financial profit is the main motivation for outrage porn, not the actual outrage.  That’s a stepping stone along the way.  And the money itself is just a stepping stone to food, so PETA has a (turkey) leg up on the competition.  As animals are both pets and food, or both, they get to play the hypocrite game on a regular basis.  The story of Mary Beth Sweetland is well known.

https://humanewatch.org/person/mary_beth_sweetland/

Animal testing leading to the insulin that keeps me alive is ok.  My mission is too important.  That mission is to stop animal testing for medical advances, because screw you other diabetics, you aren’t me.  Hypocrisy is one of the big red flags for conspiracists.  It’s ok for me to be critical of others lack of Christian values as my re-election is coming up.  At the same time as my messy divorce because I was sleeping with my yoga instructor.

I was about to call them our turkey friends, but let’s change that a bit.  Like our turkey pet wannabes that can’t stop acting like idiots and won’t cuddle, humans do not do well in close spaces with lots of other humans.  My favorite outrage porn evangelicals are complaining about the migrants messing things up in town.  And there are lots of good points made that are not based in conspiracy thinking.  Parks are cluttered with tents.  Migrant cars are blocking street cleaning.  Videos have been made showing the slow reaction to the interruption of the established citizenry’s lives.  And yes, they have been eating each…er…these videos don’t mention anything but the valid points.

But in the meantime, the other YouTube content is complete and utter conspiracy rubbish.  Embellishing with completely meaningless “symbolism” and ritual sacrifice content.  And a daily message of requests for donations to support…tomorrow’s production of outrage porn.

PETA’s core message predates the internet and social media.  So they have the other (turkey) leg up on internet grifters.  A head start.  And they used that, even if inadvertently to train the new wave of grifters.  Because what’s a good story about an unrelated topic if you can’t drag autism into it?

https://time.com/2798480/peta-autism-got-milk/?amp=true

In the eternal war between logical reasoning/critical thinking and people believing stupid shit, stupid shit is winning.  People would rather be pissed off than enlightened.

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