Vox Sentences - Is this how factory farming ends?

Hey readers,

Vox’s Future Perfect, where I work as deputy editor, has a different mandate than most media outlets. We exist to cover the truly important issues of our time, especially the things that few others are covering — not just what happens to be in the news. That was why this week, while the news was dominated by the Veepstakes and the Olympics, we published a bit of counterprogramming (or 10 bits, to be precise): How Factory Farming Ends, a series of stories on the fight against factory farming, the struggle to change our culture, politics, and palates, and how the movement might yet make real progress in ending one of humanity’s great moral atrocities. 

As an editor and reporter covering factory farming, I’m asked all the time by friends, family, and readers what it will take to stop this system. The truth is that I have no idea — nor does anyone, really. Lots of smart people have tried lots of creative ideas over the years, with only limited success. So I wanted to assemble a roster of writers with diverse, clashing theories of change to look squarely at the depth of the challenge and propose useful ideas for moving forward.

The resulting project was a monumental effort, including work from three Future Perfect staff writers, eight outside writers from journalistic, academic, and advocacy backgrounds, two breathtakingly talented artists, and behind-the-scenes contributions from many, many more people across Vox. An essay from novelist Jonathan Safran Foer and Aaron Gross, founder of the anti-factory farming nonprofit Farm Forward, highlights a groundbreaking recent study on the role that behavioral nudges can play in shifting preferences toward plant-based foods, while my colleague Kenny Torrella reported a blockbuster investigation into how powerful environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy greenwash the meat industry’s massive climate impact — and how they can be pushed to do better. 

We think you’ll find the stories challenging, inspiring, and — despite the grave subject matter — hopeful. Here are some more of my favorites this week, from the package and elsewhere at Vox. 

—Marina Bolotnikova, deputy editor, Future Perfect 

If the left is serious about saving democracy, there’s one more cause to add to the list

In the animal advocacy space, it’s often said that the anti-factory farming movement needs the buy-in of the left to succeed. This story by the powerhouse duo Astra Taylor and Sunaura Taylor makes a fascinating, thoroughly original case that it’s the other way around: If progressives want to protect our democracy from corporate tyranny, it needs to embrace animal rights. 

You’re wrong about PETA

Feedback I’ve gotten so far confirms that this story is just as much a delight to read as it was for me to edit. Political economist Jan Dutkiewicz wrote this funny, lively, provocative, deeply reported dive into the legacy of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and why it deserves more credit than you might think. 

What happens when everyone decides they need a gun?

Marin Cogan is unparalleled at identifying a sweeping, momentous national trend and connecting it to the stories of real people. You won’t want to miss her beautifully told and photographed feature exploring why the US gun violence epidemic has created an arms race that’s spurring more and more Americans to buy guns. 

Missing a friend from the past? You should reach out. 

Like many if not most of you, I have an old friend I haven’t spoken to in a while because of a silly spat that, though it felt like a big deal at the time, I can now barely remember. This piece by Hannah Seo is the push I needed to let myself be vulnerable and reach out. 

📹 How AI could help us talk to animals  

I tend to be pretty skeptical that AI will be all it’s cracked up to be. But my friend Mickey Pardo, a wildlife researcher and animal advocate, has changed my mind on at least one thing. In this video, he’s interviewed on how he used AI to discover that elephants call each other by individual names — a groundbreaking finding, also covered by Future Perfect’s Celia Ford, that has profound implications for how we treat these intelligent creatures. As one reader commented: “The Earth just shifted a little bit.” 

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