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%).
🤡 country
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/19/what-do-americans-consider-immoral/
More people thinking homosexuality is wrong than the fucking death penalty…
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.
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 won’t teach them empathy showing that you have none for them when you’re angry.
Worse than that. My parents conditioned me to hurt myself when I make a mistake. They also instilled a permanent sense of guilt. So… I hurt myself a lot. I am getting therapy. I do not see much of a future for myself, my life has never been worth living. Everyone underestimates how bad it is.
I’m glad you’re getting therapy. You’re right to tell people exactly how bad it’s been, because this isn’t small. I am very sorry.
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
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”.
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”
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.
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.
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.
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?
How is eating meat not morally wrong? Or not a moral issue?
Like genuinely does anyone understand how someone could think that?
I’m not entirely sure, but I have heard the argument that we kill everything we eat to live.
I’ve had someone try to tell me that plants feel pain and scream when they die.
Okay dawg, but I know I’d rather mow my lawn than mow over a field of pigs.
I’m not entirely dismissive of the argument. I do think it has a point. Why do pigs get to live? Because they look vaguely like us? Fuck you wheat! You eyeless, legless monstrosity! I don’t care how much you enjoy swaying in the wind and basking in the sun. You’re literally toast!
Everything wants to live and is afraid to die. But I do agree dying screaming pigs is much more unsettling than millions of wheat stalks getting slaughtered by a combine.
The logical next question becomes: why do you get to live? Everything wants to live and is afraid to die. You aren’t special.
This line of argumentation leads to nihilism at its conclusion: nothing matters, everything is permitted, kill whatever you want.
That’s a simple minded misunderstanding of nihilism. It is not a license to just do whatever with no consequences or consideration.
Nothing matters, because there is no such thing as divine law or morality, so it doesn’t matter what you choose to matter to you. That’s entirely your opinion to have and dictate your life around. We are free to shape our own reality and morals.
You’re right. We aren’t special in the grand scheme. Humans are just another animal in the ecosystem. But I am me and I choose to care about myself, so I choose to care about whether I live or die.
You’ve stopped short of engaging with the actual problem: why should I choose to care about whether you live or die?
No, I fully engaged with it. You just don’t have the logical ability to figure that out so let me explain it simply for you…
That’s entirely up to you to decide. No one can make that decision for you. If you’re that shitty of a person then that’s for you to choose to be.
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’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.
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 45° 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.
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.
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 Center’s 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.
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I personally know at least one family who is a Nielsen household. You’re asked to keep your participation confidential which is probably why you don’t know anyone doing it.
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It’s a retired couple with adult children who don’t live with them.
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Imprisoning, torturing, and killing animals = A-OK
2 consenting adults of the same gender having sex = whoa, too far!
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That can be done without imprisoning and torturing animals.
Ironically, more people seem to be opposed to hunting than buying (factory farmed) meat from the grocery store. Fishing doesn’t seem to get the same negative reaction as hunting though.
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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
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
I honestly didn’t realize that beating children was still so popular.
As a parent of two very strong willed kids, I will say that spanking (distinct from beating) has to be at least on the table. It’s not the go-to, but the fallback if all else fails, and it does represent my failure to reach them, but sometimes it’s the only thing that gets them to understand how serious something is.
In contrast, their (ultra Christian) grandma would call me soft, she used to go straight to spanking without warning, she felt that you shouldn’t threaten, just do, and they’d learn soon enough. I would much rather threaten a spanking than actually do it… And it works, at this point I haven’t spanked either kid in a couple years, though I have threatened it maybe twice in the last year.
Yes, CPS? This person right here.
CPS (or as they call it here, department of child safety) doesn’t care about spanking.
Sincerely, fuck you. As a person who experienced beating (and other physical and psychological abuse by multiple family members).
Even if you (in your subjective opinion) beat your child just the right amount, you will probably overstep the boundary at some point. My dad used to occasionally beat me, sometimes he had a reason (which I figured out from context or was told from someone else, I was never explained what I did wrong) and sometimes, I feel like he didn’t. He once tried to suffocate me with the sofa cuishoning (the only reason I survived was because I tilted my head enough I was able to breathe), and I still don’t know why he chose to do that.
I also had to come to school with a visible bruise around my eye (and was afraid the social services would be alerted, as at 13 I already knew that, as an Autistic, I wouldn’t be treated well).
There was also some psychological abuse from my mother, which I won’t write about here because this is turning into a disorganized rant (but I feel like she enjoyed my pain, while my dad didn’t).
I don’t think I learned anything from being abused, apart from being quiet and avoiding confrontation whenever possible.
Also, “bare ass” spanking (which I haven’t experienced) is sexual abuse and no one could convince me otherwise.
YOU are normalizing even worse types of abuse, but somehow people are fine with it.
I think the big distinction is “spanking” versus “beating”.
A light slap is something that has been used for longer than humans have existed up to about 40 years ago. Like, we see that in all mamalls that raise their young. You give them a small negative consequence that hurts a little but doesn’t cause damage, no where near as much damage as if the behavior wasn’t corrected
A human brain isn’t developed until 25, some times a clear negative consequence needs to be on the table to break bad behavior that has a much worse negative consequences. Because the child doesn’t have the critical thinking to understand how bad the potential negative from the action could be
Tell a 6 year old not to chase a ball into the street, and they keep doing it…
You spank them because it’s better than getting hit by a fucking car , or having a creep snatch them up if they get away from the house quickly before you notice
That’s 1000% different than beating a kid for whatever reason the parent used justified it.
Acting like any physical discipline is the same as whatever you experienced just isn’t logical, and you attacking others like this instead of trying to learn the difference is a common result of past abuse.
Because even if you understand it was abuse, your brain was trained to submit to authority, so when you believe someone is wrong, you try to make them submit to your authority, instead of looking at it logical…
You’re the perpetuating that attitude ironically enough. Which is people who were legitimately abused need to eventually see a professional to work it all out. Not saying that as a judgement, just saying that type of shit has lifelong effects.
Anyways, try to be more civil.
Thank you. If I tried to say all that it wouldn’t come out nearly as coherently.
This is some weird deja vu…
I 100% remember that exact comment, and it looks like it happened to a couple of your comments in this thread.
You’re from this instance tho, so it can’t be a federation thing…
Anyways, curious enough to ask if I’m remembering wrong and you really made that comment five hours ago and not a month ago
Nope, I’ve been occupied with other things for a while, so I literally hadn’t opened the app for a month or so…
it’s the only thing that gets them to understand how serious something is
No, also spanking is child abuse (for all the people upvoting this shit).
It’s not.
The legal distinction hinges on “reasonable force”. In the U.S., parental corporal punishment (like spanking) is legal in all 50 states if it is intended for correction, is appropriate for the child’s age, and leaves no lasting injury. Abuse occurs when force becomes excessive, unreasonable, or causes physical or emotional harm.
Don’t hit your fucking kids you ghoul.
I don’t care what your law says, it changes nothing about the fact that it is child abuse.
I look forward to the day your children never return your phone calls.
If the alternative is them getting shot by cops because they don’t think they have to get out of the car when told, I’m ok with that.
