Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

This is a survey for an environmental & social charity & campaign group on people's attitudes to meat eating. You can get on it by clicking here.

It won't take long; there's about 10 questions, & I'd appreciate your time. Please answer seriously, it might be hilarious to click the first answer all the way through and although this will almost certainly make women (or men, up to you) the world over want to sex you due to your obvious social dominance, you won't be helping me with my research.

Thanks. <3

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

I ticked the 2nd answer for nearly all of them, but that's because that was my honest answer :(

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

What up foo

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Assess how strongly you would respond the following arguments

1) Astronmers prove that a comet will strike the earth in two years and eliminate all life unless every person in the UK has sex with an 8 year old child.

would make me have sex with an 8 year old child
doesnt bother me
would me think about having sex with an 8 year old child
would make me less likely to have sex with an 8 year old child




What do you expect to learn from this sort of "what would you do if the world was completely different to how it is" reasoning? :/

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

a lot of times i do want to eat more meat just to spite vegetarians, I'm also thinking of a campaign of unneccesary cruelty towards animals, for similar reasons.

also, vegetarians, please explain to me why we have these?

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

There is an important choise missing

Something like "it bothers me, but not enought to change my habbits"
"it doesn't bother me" and "it might make me think about eating less meat" can't handle this

but I'm frigthned of vegetarism, I might die of starvation due to vegetarism.
Those vegetarians are eating the food of my food

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

vegetarianism doesn't give a balanced diet without use of vitamin pills anyway, you need vitamin meat (aka my little friend B12) otherwise you can suffer

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

This list is missing the GD option of
'Would make me have more sex with an 8 year old'

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

sweet reptilian jesus you're a self-righteous arse.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

The point of the study is to understand psychological reasoning for excessive meat consumption. All of the arguments are either supported by observational evidence or, for the last question, is one of those ethics things.

I'm sure they would argue that humans are naturally omnivorous and designed to eat meat; but that this doesn't mean it's vital. Males have nipples, for example. Just how vital are these?

I'm not vegetarian, fyi.



And TK; that doesn't matter. Even if you answer #2 all the time, it helps. Tnx <3

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

i will admit to a fair amount of surprise here, so fair play.

i would say though that you've managed some fantastically condescending questions there, even by accident, so it might be worth tweaking them a bit.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Because it's tasty! The same reason why people do things like smoke, because they don't care enough that it kills them.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Here's a man who's missing out

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Excuse me? You're one of those tree hugging animal rights hippies, aren't you?

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

If you have any suggestions then please pm me. :)

It's for research purposes so changes should still ensure that the recipient has a certain level of understanding of the facts behind the question so as not to bias the results.

Animal rights don't bother me.

I do enjoy a good hippy now and then though!

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

People who opt for vegetarianism tend to come from wealthier backgrounds where you can afford to be fussy about what you eat and where the rights and wrongs of post-industrial intensive farming is the sort of conversation you have time for. This is a lifestyle that lends itself to conscientiously taking better care of oneself, private healthcare etc.

Eating less vegetables would save money. Eating cheap shit food would save money. You're confusing your points here.stacks an irrelevant point onto a faulty conclusion.
I'm sure a fair amount was also cut down for arable land. Biased question.This is such a horrifically loaded question its unreal. You can only tick the 'unethical you say? Why, fetch me a steak knife!' box rather than the 'I would contest that claim' box.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Evidence suggests that with less meat consumption (and without the biofuel boom), deforestation for arable land would not be required to supply world food demand. [1][2][3]. Lower meat consumption means less land used for farming (although I think that everyone going vegan would be a stupid idea because there is a lot of land which works for pasture but not for arable land)

I would disagree with your interpretation of the answer. The answer is what you would do when presented with this argument; your reasoning is immaterial in terms of what the survey is trying to find out.

Most answers so far (including mine) have been point 2, with a handful of point 1s and point 5s. This suggests that this argument affects a very small number of people, but affects them very strongly. Campaigning on this argument is unlikely to be effective; the sort of thing we want to find out.


I agree with your points about wealth & health, plus the phrasing of the 'fashion' statement, however. I'll suggest an alternate phrasing when I work one out or have one given to me.

Thanks for your input; but I do feel you might have misinterpreted what the survey is trying to do. It's not to judge people or find out why they react this way, just to find out how they tend to react.


1 - 'Livestock's Long Shadow' (2006) - report for the European Union, United States & United Nations, H Steinfeld et al
2 - http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases...stock.hrs.html (accessed 1850, 20/07/07)
3 - http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-30610-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html (accessed 1850, 20/07/07)

No journal articles as I'm away from uni where I have access to them.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

It just seems like a shock tactic to turn people vegetarian,to be honest.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Wait, are you saying meat is cheaper than vegetables? Stuff like potatoes, onions, beans etc is pretty cheap I'd say. Cheese and most fruit is more expensive than meat in many cases, but besides that?

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

I don't know about you guys but I ****ing hate broccoli.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

I had a burger and chips today and leeuce on the burger.

I'm killing the planet! :crymeariver:

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

No they arent, at least 50% of the arguments are either made-up or dishonest.

edit: heres a list

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that shows that poor people can't afford to eat healthily, which is why they go to McDonalds and other shitty food suppliers, because it's cheap and filling.

In fact, in the US, if you go to supermarkets in poorer areas, there just isn't the same range of fruit and veg, since poor people won't buy it.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

The question on killing and mistreatment is an unfair question. I do not see anything wrong with killing animals for food, that is just the circle of life. Mistreatment is a different matter, simply because we don't need to do it for me to get food.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

McDonalds isnt cheap, not is healthy food expensive. You could easily afford a day's food for the price of a McDonalds meal.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

I would have to agree that the survey is not particularly worded well. I felt forced to answer 1 to every question because the other answers were incredibly biased in the other direction.

You gave 3 varying degrees of agreeing with the question, and only 1 strongly opposed answer to choose from. That doesn't mean any of the statements would make me eat more meat, but the other options applied even less to my own beliefs.

You would have done far better to put in 'Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither, Disagree, Strongly Disagree'. I've done a dozen phone surveys and this seems standard canon in the industry, you dont want to lead the participant into a set response.

As it stands the survey has little value other than to serve as a propaganda piece.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

That's not what the question is asking though; it asks what your response is when faced with that argument. Not what you think of the argument. Personally, I don't think it's unethical to kill animals for food but it is an argument that exists.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

'Vegetarian Diets' - Journal of the American Dietetic Association 103, 748-765
'American Dietetic Association Position Statement on Vegetarian Diets' - Journal of the American Dietetic Association 97, 1317-1321
'Mortality in British Vegetarians: review and preliminary results from EPIC-Oxford' - The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 533-538 (accessed 1050 21/07/07)

However, eating less meat will generally save money. The majority consume more than is required; what gluten, eggs, dairy and limited meat & fish should be able to provide sufficient protein.

Research suggests that successful parts of society can become role models for others to aspire to; the work of Levitt into child naming for example.

The IQ correlation has been observed, although this is not strong evidence for causality.

The way I understood it is that if demand for land were to fall due to lower meat consumption, the least efficient producers would drop out first, suppressing overall prices.

Equivalent of a left shift of the demand curve, providing a lower quantity & lower prices.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an economist.

'Livestock's Long Shadow' by the LEAD initiative (supported by the EU, World Bank, US & UN). States figures of 6.9bn tonnes CO2 equivalent in terms of NOx, CO2 & CH4, including land use. Minus land use, the figure is 4.56bn tonnes.

Neither the US nor China exceeded 6bn tonnes over the last recorded years;
'Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions' - PNAS 104, 10288-93, M Raupach et al

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

this thread is actually going to make my head implode, both sides are coming up with some random shit

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

My response is "stop being so absurd and break up the question so I can answer it properly" but there wasn't an option for it.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

It's hardly coming from a neutral source and all the questions are loaded in favour of becoming a vegatarian.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

That's hardly relevant in context to the survey.

I never said I thought he was a vegetarian. It is impossible to dismiss the fact that the survey is heavily weighted towards a pro-vegetarian viewpoint.

So my point still stands that the survey is biased, as such any resulting data collected from the survey will also be biased.

This effectly renders the survey unfit for its intended purpose. Since it cannot function as a well balanced collection of scientific and statistical data from a sample population, I see no other suitable purpose for its design other than as a pro-vegetarian propaganda piece whether that was the authors original intent or not.

Good day sir!

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

The survey is meant to be "biased." As Gate has said many times he is looking for the reaction of people when presented with these obviously absurd and leading questions. This would be useful, for example, in determining a correct marketing strategy for the Hippies to adopt when they are trying to push their poisonous tofu-laced products down our throats. Clearly this condescending and somewhat biased route is not the one to choose as it seems, irrespective of the facts*, prone to causing anti-vegetarian sentiment in the target audience.

*I have no idea if the data regarding meat consumption provided is correct, nor do I care. Like most omnivores I eat what I like the taste of although I will avoid "junk" food in preference to cooking myself as a general rule.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Filled it in, hope it helps :-)

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

And this is why the survey is set up as it is.

Which is why I think (hope) it's obvious that the questionnaire itself is not a propaganda piece. For the audience on this site at least, I would expect it to yield a negative reaction;



It is, however, giving useful results. For example; Daily Mail readers appear to be slightly more concerned with personal health & financial impacts than respondants on this site; but are slightly less concerned with social & environmental issues.

Evidence from this response group indicates Maddox' 'for every animal you don't eat I'm going to eat 3' may not only be funny, but also insightful. The animal rights argument affects very few respondants, but generally affects them strongly; either positively or negatively.

This evidence suggests that the traditional vegetarian strategy of campaigning on animal rights isn't just something that's annoying, but is also likely to be ineffective.

A useful finding, thanks to those of you who responded. :)

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

People don't like hippies. It's as simple as that. there are many possible reasons; disillusionment with the past; traditional reactionary tendancies in the old; wish to forget their unfulfilled youth; the 1980s; the smell etc but whatever the reason, people don't like hippies.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

Many 'hippy' causes are now being adopted by society at large. Skim through an issue of New Scientist or the Economist, pick up a paper and just see how many adverts are some kind of corporate bullshit about how they really care about the environment/ethical trade/whatever.


I would argue that a major contributor to the negative sentiment towards hippies is, in some cases, simply a natural psychological defence. People like things the way they are and they are being asked to change. A strong, aggressive reaction allows you to overwhelm any inclination towards rationality & morality. Without this inclination, there is no cognitive dissonance to worry about; you can carry on what you were doing before without any feelings of guilt.

Again, I'm not a psychologist, so feel free to correct me on this one too.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

I hope you find all those Daily Mail readers and cut their house price in half while moving some immigrants next door.

Re: Answer a quick questionnaire for me
 

:lol:

My town is a Daily Mail town. I've been trying to get more immigrants for ages.