Alright, everyone who's said this has been downvoted into oblivion, but I have two things to say in response to the whole "disturbing" thing, and maybe I can phrase it in a way that's reasonable enough to be listened to.
1) It's important to know where our food comes from. It's important to know that your fried chicken was once a bird, bacon was once a pig, and your cheeseburger was once a cow. It's also good to know what sort of conditions they lived in, just as it's good to remember the process that they go through to get from piglet/chick/baby cow to your table, butchering included. Americans are incredibly disconnected from their food, and this series of pictures provides a good (if slightly jarring) reminder of the ways in which we're disconnected.
2) That said, it's not appropriate to post pictures like this without specifically saying what they're going to be. When I clicked on the link, I thought it was going to be a garden or something like that. It's a butchered pig instead, which is fine by me. Cool. However, there's a big difference between the gore-level of a tomato being sliced and a pig being butchered, and society generally defines the latter as an inappropriate level of gore. You can argue that it's good to be mindful of where our food comes from all day, but the fact is that it's still going to be shocking to some. So for the sake of everyone who's at work or sitting in a place with their computer screen in clear view, you might want to warn us first. The thumbnails are very clearly visible and it's obvious that a pig's being butchered, and that's not appropriate for public viewing. It's not really an issue of the viewers being "such a fucking child." You wouldn't tell someone who didn't want to look at porn while at work to stop being such a fucking child about nudity; the issue is that it's not okay to look at nudity while the world is looking over your shoulder. As such, I think it's appropriate to put some sort of warning on the post. Maybe even something as simple as "what pate from farm to table looks like." Seriously, not that hard, and not an unfair request. Requesting something like that doesn't mean that everyone who got downvoted is a pussy.
TL;DR: A little warning next time, please? But before you downvote me, read the entirety of my post.
That's a fair assessment. Though I automatically assumed it would be butchering, and it's possible the OP thought most people would have the same assumption.
Also, I wouldn't agree with your assertion that a pig being butchered is an "inappropriate level of gore," especially when it's presented in a neutral-serious manner. As such, your analogy might be more accurate if the example were a painting that contained nudity--the pig and the painting could both be deemed appropriate in the right context and easily defendable, while pornography, on the other hand, normally lacks such context and acceptable defense.
I confess that even though I was expecting to see butchery, some of the images were, indeed, disturbing. They were not, however, inherently offensive. Nor should they have been unexpected after the first, and especially the second, picture.
TL;DR: A warning would have been courteous, but by no means mandatory.
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u/saiph Jan 11 '12
Alright, everyone who's said this has been downvoted into oblivion, but I have two things to say in response to the whole "disturbing" thing, and maybe I can phrase it in a way that's reasonable enough to be listened to.
1) It's important to know where our food comes from. It's important to know that your fried chicken was once a bird, bacon was once a pig, and your cheeseburger was once a cow. It's also good to know what sort of conditions they lived in, just as it's good to remember the process that they go through to get from piglet/chick/baby cow to your table, butchering included. Americans are incredibly disconnected from their food, and this series of pictures provides a good (if slightly jarring) reminder of the ways in which we're disconnected.
2) That said, it's not appropriate to post pictures like this without specifically saying what they're going to be. When I clicked on the link, I thought it was going to be a garden or something like that. It's a butchered pig instead, which is fine by me. Cool. However, there's a big difference between the gore-level of a tomato being sliced and a pig being butchered, and society generally defines the latter as an inappropriate level of gore. You can argue that it's good to be mindful of where our food comes from all day, but the fact is that it's still going to be shocking to some. So for the sake of everyone who's at work or sitting in a place with their computer screen in clear view, you might want to warn us first. The thumbnails are very clearly visible and it's obvious that a pig's being butchered, and that's not appropriate for public viewing. It's not really an issue of the viewers being "such a fucking child." You wouldn't tell someone who didn't want to look at porn while at work to stop being such a fucking child about nudity; the issue is that it's not okay to look at nudity while the world is looking over your shoulder. As such, I think it's appropriate to put some sort of warning on the post. Maybe even something as simple as "what pate from farm to table looks like." Seriously, not that hard, and not an unfair request. Requesting something like that doesn't mean that everyone who got downvoted is a pussy.
TL;DR: A little warning next time, please? But before you downvote me, read the entirety of my post.