Will the Meaning be Lost?

So-o-o, should I presume somebody’s sidewalk message is meant to be sarcastic? According to the good folks at Merriam-Webster, a factory farm is “a large industrialized farm, especially: a farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost”. Presumption: Animal cruelty—or so claims fourteen of the first fifteen results to my search query.

Let me ask then: We should eat less food as a means of not supporting factory farming? That starvation will put the entities out of business and thus diminish livestock hardship? Timing is odd, given all the warnings about food shortages.

I used Leica Q2 to capture the Featured Image on July 3, 2022. The chalked chiding was scrawled on the Meade Avenue sidewalk alongside Garfield Elementary School in San Diego neighborhood North Park. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/6.3, ISO 100, 1/800 sec, 28mm; 2:27 p.m. PDT.