Speaker 1: The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I
Speaker 1: grew up on an old row. Hey everybody, I'm been O'Brien.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Hunting Collective. As always, I'm joined by
Speaker 1: my trusty sidekick, Philly Engineers say hi Phil, Hey, I'm trusty.
Speaker 1: You're trusty. Yeah, you're the Tonto to my lone Ranger.
Speaker 1: Are there any like sidekicks and Star Wars that han solo? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could be by you could be my Chewy. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna I'm only gonna speak in grunts and and
Speaker 1: the growls from now on. That's fine. That could be
Speaker 1: an improvement. You never know, my I was. I was
Speaker 1: telling you before that my son is addicted to Star Wars,
Speaker 1: has never seen any of the films. He's he just
Speaker 1: turned four. Um, happy birthday by the way to James
Speaker 1: Benjamin Uh. The fourth birthday was last week. But he
Speaker 1: dressed up like Kylo Wren from Star Wars, and I
Speaker 1: dressed up like a storm Trooper for the party. Wow,
Speaker 1: I wish you were wish you were here, buddy, you
Speaker 1: would have loved it, he would. Well. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: like to congratulate your son on his new dad, who
Speaker 1: was who was now me? Yeah, I was a little
Speaker 1: worried that maybe, like you had gotten to him somehow,
Speaker 1: but he can't read emails and he doesn't have a phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I've been seeking. I've been going to your
Speaker 1: house at night and just like slipping like Star Wars
Speaker 1: DVDs through the window. He's been he's he's been watching.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we've got we've got our own private
Speaker 1: Slack channel where we've just been talking about Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was a little concerned that that was the case,
Speaker 1: but then I thought it's realistically, that would take a
Speaker 1: lot of effort for Phil to do just to sneak
Speaker 1: in the Star Wars fandom. So anyway, he goes to
Speaker 1: the libraries, he got all the Star Wars books. I
Speaker 1: was trying to get him into like Daniel Boone, but
Speaker 1: he went the other way. So good kid, good a
Speaker 1: little kid. How's Mango do? And by the way, Mango
Speaker 1: all right, oh you know mangoes. Yeah, she's she's the
Speaker 1: same same dog. We take her on multiple walks a day.
Speaker 1: We've been doing this for years now, and you'd think
Speaker 1: after a while, after she was out of the puppy phase.
Speaker 1: Uh that she would kind of just be just chill
Speaker 1: out about walk time. But no, if we brush past
Speaker 1: her leash and it like accidentally jingles on the wall,
Speaker 1: she just had like loses her mind. She just starts
Speaker 1: shaking and like crying like it's a walk time. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, Mango, and you're like four or five.
Speaker 1: Now we we do this a lot, like just just
Speaker 1: chill out, you know. But she's not like misbehaving, So
Speaker 1: I don't know. She's a She's a sweet, good dog.
Speaker 1: She's just full of full of energy. That's how I
Speaker 1: like to approach every podcast like I've never done one before,
Speaker 1: and I'm just running up to it and screaming into
Speaker 1: the microphone like each time it's a new it's new
Speaker 1: to me. So if I forget something, that's that's really
Speaker 1: not my fault. But I'll tell you right now. I'd
Speaker 1: tell you this field, but I have assault. I am
Speaker 1: drinking a salty Gilbert right now and it is twelve
Speaker 1: fifty one in the PM. I used I used to
Speaker 1: be surprised when you when you told me, um, how
Speaker 1: early you started drinking, But now I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 1: surprised sounds like are you eating something right now? What
Speaker 1: are you doing? What are you having to what are
Speaker 1: you having? Because the listeners are hearing the bowl smacking?
Speaker 1: What is going on? Well, I would, you know, out
Speaker 1: of courtesy for the listeners, I would cut out any
Speaker 1: like sort of mouth sounds or anything like that. UM,
Speaker 1: leave them in now, you gotta leave them. I've had
Speaker 1: some leftover butter chicken. It's an Indian dish, very basic,
Speaker 1: but it reheats well. I don't know if you put
Speaker 1: some butter on chicken, you got it? All right, Let's
Speaker 1: get to some some we have I want to do.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about kind of the premise
Speaker 1: of this conversation with Paul the sheer um and kind
Speaker 1: of some of my thoughts leading into it, and briefly
Speaker 1: my thoughts afterwards, because I think those are important. The
Speaker 1: conversation itself, it is what it is. It's it's not
Speaker 1: a bright, shiny moan this podcast. But I think there's
Speaker 1: some some some intimate and some real things you can
Speaker 1: take away from it that I feel are extremely important.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to that in a minute. We got
Speaker 1: some emails from all of you guys. Um here at
Speaker 1: the THHC inbox and for sure, Um, we have to
Speaker 1: address something we said last week. Uh. I don't know
Speaker 1: a lot of times we disagree on this or have
Speaker 1: different views on this, Phil, But I got an email
Speaker 1: from Andrea A. Lutz and Andrew A. Lutz has wrote
Speaker 1: in several times, and she says, very strange of you
Speaker 1: to mention you quote unquote never received an email or
Speaker 1: were called out about never having a female guest. You
Speaker 1: said you noticed it on your own. Well, I sent
Speaker 1: you an email about this, and you responded in the podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh man, uh huh um get me um. So I well,
Speaker 1: there's more that she says to you, and I do
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about this. But I
Speaker 1: will apologize out of the gate Andrea for not giving
Speaker 1: you the credit that's due. I you now remember you
Speaker 1: did write me an email and it helped to push
Speaker 1: me forward in terms of of wanting to have that
Speaker 1: conversation about about women and specifically guests on this podcast.
Speaker 1: So apologies are due right there. I got that one wrong.
Speaker 1: I am fixing it now. But she said she also
Speaker 1: goes on more about the point. Um. She said, also,
Speaker 1: it was weird if for you to ask for a
Speaker 1: female guest to speak up and say I don't care
Speaker 1: about this issue. What is the point of that? Exactly?
Speaker 1: That's fine for her, but damn, there's so many people
Speaker 1: out there who care about this issue. Please talk to
Speaker 1: them for once. It's not about quote unquote dwelling on barriers.
Speaker 1: It's about exposure and conversation. Surely you've noticed the entire
Speaker 1: Mediator podcast network as white men. This means something. It
Speaker 1: is not a coincidence. I've been directly inspired by female
Speaker 1: hunters in my life. I would be hunting without them,
Speaker 1: but their direct influences dractually changed the course of my
Speaker 1: life because they see me as a hunter and as
Speaker 1: equal to themselves, not as a little girl who was
Speaker 1: asking for help and can't pusher her own kill. I've
Speaker 1: been blown away by your recent topics and love how
Speaker 1: you dig deep. I've learned so much. I bought books
Speaker 1: and my mind has been open. But this gender thing
Speaker 1: really has got me in a Knot even Danielle, who
Speaker 1: quote unquote doesn't care mentions being discriminated against. In Texas,
Speaker 1: women are told to buck up and take what we're
Speaker 1: offered in life, so the oh well attitude is internalized.
Speaker 1: Please talk to someone who focuses on women in the outdoors,
Speaker 1: just like you've talked to people who focus on people
Speaker 1: of color in the outdoors. Your listeners, and you need
Speaker 1: to get woken up. It's more than just sexy huntresses
Speaker 1: on Instagram. It's a new rising population of female hunters
Speaker 1: in the United States. This rising population is not due
Speaker 1: to women going oh well when encountering misogyny in and
Speaker 1: out of the field. It's women empowering women programs helping
Speaker 1: women get started in hunting. I hunt because of women
Speaker 1: in the outdoors and women in the outdoor programs and
Speaker 1: the other women I have met in those programs. Talk
Speaker 1: to people who do these things. I hate to your
Speaker 1: criticism because I love your show, but this issue is
Speaker 1: clearly close to my heart. And when you tell the
Speaker 1: men that listen gender issues to quote unquote don't matter,
Speaker 1: it's a get out of jail free card. Do better.
Speaker 1: Thank you, love the show, Andrew. A LUTs round of
Speaker 1: applause for Andrew. Give a giver her a round of
Speaker 1: applauseit or philm well done man. I would say part
Speaker 1: of part of when I read this, a part of it,
Speaker 1: I do agree with um. I think it's it's frustrating
Speaker 1: to try to deal with some of these issues on
Speaker 1: a myriad of different levels. UM on a personal level,
Speaker 1: but on a broad cultural level of societal level. These
Speaker 1: things are UM tough, and there's a lot of dualities
Speaker 1: that things that can be true at the same time.
Speaker 1: So what what Andrew is saying, It's absolutely true UM
Speaker 1: and we tried to kind of hedge it last week
Speaker 1: when I talked to Danielle about UM and this has happened,
Speaker 1: that this happened with Charles Rodney and when we were
Speaker 1: in the conversation about race earlier this year. This I
Speaker 1: think this happens with a lot of the topics that
Speaker 1: we think a lot about. In these important topics like
Speaker 1: UM diversity in the honey community, two things can be
Speaker 1: true at the same time. I absolutely positively agree with
Speaker 1: Danielle that she doesn't want to be a victim, doesn't
Speaker 1: want to focus on the misogyny, doesn't want to focus
Speaker 1: on the barriers that are in front of her, doesn't
Speaker 1: want to make that the beginning of the conversation. She
Speaker 1: has been given a platform and she wants to lead
Speaker 1: by example and that is important to her. UM and
Speaker 1: that how that's how She's gotten to where she is,
Speaker 1: and so if you want to get to where Danielle is,
Speaker 1: it would be good to listen to her. UM. The
Speaker 1: same same thing with Charles Rodden, it would be good
Speaker 1: to listen to him if you want to kind of
Speaker 1: deal with some of these issues. He went through a
Speaker 1: hard road and has a very has that a very successful, loving,
Speaker 1: family oriented life after starting out an abject poverty with
Speaker 1: discrimination all around them. So I think that can be
Speaker 1: true that that Danielle's point of don't be a victim,
Speaker 1: don't focus on the hatred or don't focus on the negative,
Speaker 1: because the hunting community and other communities have so much
Speaker 1: positive things too to put out there into the world.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, Andrew is right, somebody out
Speaker 1: there has to be focusing on these things, somebody out
Speaker 1: there has to be talking about them, and somebody out
Speaker 1: there has to be dealing with Some of them are confusing,
Speaker 1: nuanced things within the conversation. So I don't say all
Speaker 1: that like shirk It. We certainly have addressed this on
Speaker 1: the show, will continue to address it. But I think
Speaker 1: those two points can stand parallel to each other. Um,
Speaker 1: if you are out there and you feel and I've
Speaker 1: talked to many women who feel this way that you're
Speaker 1: they dead. You yourself, don't need to have the conversation
Speaker 1: about who has wronged you, who will continue to wrong
Speaker 1: and how to fix it. That you just want to
Speaker 1: be accepted as part of our community, be able to
Speaker 1: hunt and fish with whomever you want, whenever you want,
Speaker 1: and don't have to continue to bring up your gender,
Speaker 1: or your identity or your race. I'm with you. I
Speaker 1: think that is a wonderful way to move through the world,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of examples of that being good. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're more like Andrea and you're looking for this inspiration,
Speaker 1: you're looking for a sense of place, you're looking for
Speaker 1: you're looking to see yourself reflected in the hunting community
Speaker 1: or any other community, I think that's a viable pathway
Speaker 1: as well. Um. But I mean, as somebody who speaks publicly,
Speaker 1: it's you know, I like the things that make me nervous.
Speaker 1: I like the things that make me um question my
Speaker 1: own opinions. And Andrea's email and your comments, Phil do that.
Speaker 1: I like that. And we're about to hear from Paul Basher,
Speaker 1: and he's going to do the same thing in some ways. UM,
Speaker 1: So I think that's that's part of what this show
Speaker 1: has been about since beginning and is about now. UM.
Speaker 1: I will continue to work on that, but I do
Speaker 1: want to return to the Sizzler video for a moment.
Speaker 1: Would you allow me that? Phil? I'd love nothing more?
Speaker 1: Thank god. UM. One of our good good friends and emailers,
Speaker 1: Don Willemot wrote wrote this email and he said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have to confess I was struggling a bit while
Speaker 1: you and Phil indulge yourself and what appeared to be
Speaker 1: the umpteenth viewing of the Sizzler video, And to be frank,
Speaker 1: I didn't get it, nor did I want to. Plagued
Speaker 1: by this nagging feeling that I was somehow missing out
Speaker 1: on something special. I pulled up the video a couple
Speaker 1: of times, but just couldn't bring myself to hit play.
Speaker 1: I would load hover over the play button and close
Speaker 1: out the link. I just couldn't see the point in
Speaker 1: wasting my life's precious minutes on an obscure video passage
Speaker 1: from a now defunct restaurant chain. Today, in a moment
Speaker 1: of apparent boredom and with a complete lack of prep,
Speaker 1: with a complete lack of prudence, and judgment. I watched
Speaker 1: the damn video. Slizzler really was more than a choice
Speaker 1: for better dining. It was a choice for freedom, individuality,
Speaker 1: a way to connect to that spirit of independence and
Speaker 1: self determination that four a nation. Sizzler was the choice.
Speaker 1: And now it is gone and a world filled with uncertainty.
Speaker 1: Sizzler may have been the glue that could bind us
Speaker 1: all together around one glorious salad bar America. Nay, the
Speaker 1: world has lost a bright beacon of hope. I am
Speaker 1: thankful that you took the time to share this little
Speaker 1: nugget of inspirational gold that has brought a moment of
Speaker 1: real joy into my life. I am deeply in your debt.
Speaker 1: Your friend in Northern British Columbia, Don Willemot, Thank you, Don,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to this program into
Speaker 1: following us down the path of inspiration that happens around
Speaker 1: the warming lights of the Sizzler buffet. Phil any commentary,
Speaker 1: But oh yeah, thanks Don, But thank you more to Sizzler. Um.
Speaker 1: I just want to say, if you're still a person
Speaker 1: who goes to it like a normal restaurant and orders
Speaker 1: from a menu, you are brainwashed. Yep, uh get it?
Speaker 1: Get out of cheople. You're only truly free when you
Speaker 1: walk into a a neon lit dining room full of pastel,
Speaker 1: pink colors and stuff. You're grubby hands under a yeah,
Speaker 1: warming light, grab yourself a well done steak and some
Speaker 1: old and some old lettuce. Sizzler thank you? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you unwrap that aluminum foil and inside is a
Speaker 1: rubbery potato either you don't know if it was baked
Speaker 1: or microwave. You don't know if it was cooked with plutonium.
Speaker 1: You have no idea but the idea, but the idea
Speaker 1: that someone cared enough to put it in that aluminum
Speaker 1: foil is really the point of Sizzler itself. So be inspired,
Speaker 1: like don uh and watch that video. So you have
Speaker 1: to go. If you if you have no idea where
Speaker 1: he's talking about, um boy, you're what You're too deep
Speaker 1: into this podcast to think anything less. Go listen to
Speaker 1: last week's episode with Danielle moving on um on prep.
Speaker 1: You gotta get you ready for for for Paul this year.
Speaker 1: And if you want to kind of get an idea
Speaker 1: of how I approached this conversation and who Paul is,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll get it here in a minute but Paul
Speaker 1: Um and his group Anonymous for the Voiceless are i'll
Speaker 1: just call him radical and and how they think about
Speaker 1: animals and animal rights UM and the activism that they
Speaker 1: display around it. UM they dress up and scary v
Speaker 1: for vandetta masks and hold TVs in a cube shape
Speaker 1: with with UM pretty horrific factory farming, slaughter and things
Speaker 1: like that going on. So UM know that going in
Speaker 1: when I when I went in and wanted to have
Speaker 1: a talk with Paul, I knew that there was no
Speaker 1: way we were going to agree at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, Much like some of the other guests we've
Speaker 1: had on in the animal rights world, there's no way
Speaker 1: we're going to agree. But just like with with the
Speaker 1: earlier topic of women and hunting, I think that there's
Speaker 1: something super interesting, kind of in the weeds in the
Speaker 1: middle of all this, in the bones, deeper than just
Speaker 1: a debate about animals and animal rights and whether killing
Speaker 1: him is right or wrong and sentience and the things
Speaker 1: that we've discussed in previous episodes of this show. I
Speaker 1: think in in this political climate and the social climate
Speaker 1: where our culture stands right now, I think it is
Speaker 1: it is so important that we humanize each other in
Speaker 1: these debates, humanize each other in these things where we
Speaker 1: know we're never going to agree, where we are so
Speaker 1: far away from each other in terms of how we
Speaker 1: live our lives um and what we we choose to
Speaker 1: espouse as our ideologies, that we humanize each other. That
Speaker 1: even though to me on the outside looking in with
Speaker 1: Paul Basher, he seems like a radical animal rights guy
Speaker 1: who likes to debate. He'll he'll debate your mom at
Speaker 1: the dinner table over a turkey leg um. He And
Speaker 1: if you look at their group on social media and
Speaker 1: on their website, you'll see that m there isn't um
Speaker 1: an angle to look at them that doesn't really have
Speaker 1: a harsh worldview um and and they're really judgmental of
Speaker 1: everyone around them that eats meat and and by that
Speaker 1: kills and murders animals, defensives animals at that. So that's
Speaker 1: how I when I approached this, I know all of
Speaker 1: that to be true. And my goal with with this,
Speaker 1: and you'll see it in the conversation as it goes forward.
Speaker 1: It's just to just to relate to him and to
Speaker 1: both share like there is shared values here, we have them.
Speaker 1: We are just being trained to look past them. We've
Speaker 1: talked about that before with our good friend and Robert C.
Speaker 1: Jones and others, where we start at nearly the same
Speaker 1: spot and we walk so far away from each other
Speaker 1: that we can no longer recognize that person we're looking
Speaker 1: back at. And I think as this podcast goes goes forward,
Speaker 1: and if you look at the things we've done in
Speaker 1: the past, you'll find that this is this a tempt
Speaker 1: to humanize each other in the face of this this
Speaker 1: intense philosophical disagreement is important and can be profound. So
Speaker 1: that's something I know. Phil and I were kind of
Speaker 1: talking about this as we were recording it. I was
Speaker 1: really happy where it ended. I wasn't really happy where
Speaker 1: it started, but I was happy where it ended. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna play it. Hopefully the audio works releaked. Good
Speaker 1: for you. You can hear everything, um and you can
Speaker 1: go on that journey with this set up any commentary
Speaker 1: field before we send everyone off to this conversation with Paul,
Speaker 1: uh No, you will hear you. But Ben kind of
Speaker 1: put it out there at the beginning of the conversation
Speaker 1: is very I think, especially from Paul. There's some there's
Speaker 1: some hesitance tepping in because I think you guys are
Speaker 1: both kind of preparing for a for a battle. But
Speaker 1: then by the end, yeah, I think it's it's a
Speaker 1: good conversation. Yeah, um, it's a conversation I would have
Speaker 1: again and want to have again, and hope, I hope
Speaker 1: we can come together. So enjoy this conversation with Paul
Speaker 1: Basher all the way from Australia. He is the co
Speaker 1: founder of Anonymous for the Voiceless and animal rights group
Speaker 1: of Some Problems. Enjoy it all, right, Hey, Paul, how's
Speaker 1: it going down there? You know, just trying to make
Speaker 1: it happen whilst being quarantined. Yeah, so you're in Australia, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Victoria specifically, where there's been another um another
Speaker 1: call for a strenuous lockdown. So we're in stage four
Speaker 1: lockdown at the moment. Wow, have you guys had a
Speaker 1: spike in COVID obviously if that's happening, Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: they're saying. They're saying that there's um a new wave
Speaker 1: of deaths that have been reported, but the numbers aren't
Speaker 1: even then they don't seem too crazy, So I don't
Speaker 1: understand why everyone's going into stage full lockdown quite frankly,
Speaker 1: but they're trying to reduce the spread. Yeah, well, we've
Speaker 1: got similar similar things here. We've we've opened up a
Speaker 1: little bit more, but it certainly is the tenuous time
Speaker 1: here in the States, and and so we're thinking about
Speaker 1: you guys down there. Hopefully they can open you back up.
Speaker 1: Have you been in lockdown before and then got out
Speaker 1: and then are back in now? Um Like when this
Speaker 1: first started in March April, around that time we had
Speaker 1: a lockdown, Um, it was nowhere near as strict as
Speaker 1: this though, Yeah, I got it. Well, Well, hopefully we
Speaker 1: can get an hour your time here and talk through
Speaker 1: some things and maybe take your mind off that a
Speaker 1: little bit and get through some of these subjects that
Speaker 1: it's not bad, that's just what's going on. Good good,
Speaker 1: All right, Um, well, let's kick it off. I think
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things that we want
Speaker 1: to talk about for sure and want to get into
Speaker 1: it is is kind of your mindset as an animal
Speaker 1: rights activist and starting anonymous for the voiceless, and what
Speaker 1: it means to you to to be doing that. Just
Speaker 1: so the folks that listen to this podcast that certainly
Speaker 1: come from a different worldview, can can understand where you're
Speaker 1: coming from, and not only where you're coming from with
Speaker 1: with the ideology, but also coming from in your own
Speaker 1: life how you got there? So you want to start
Speaker 1: us with kind of I read a lot about you know,
Speaker 1: you had a rap curer at some point, you were
Speaker 1: an m C and a lot of things you did
Speaker 1: before that. But you want to give kind of the
Speaker 1: cliff notes of of how you came to where we
Speaker 1: are today. Well, what specifically would you like to know? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of things. What So when you started an
Speaker 1: Honest for the Voices, is that correct? Correct? What did
Speaker 1: you want to achieve to get humans to take non
Speaker 1: human animal rights seriously and to stop taking their rights
Speaker 1: away from them? Basically, how are you going to achieve that?
Speaker 1: What was the what was the way that you thought
Speaker 1: that that was best achieved at the time? Well, with
Speaker 1: a v Specifically, we dedicated this organization to targeting the demand,
Speaker 1: the consumer demand, and specifically um starting on the streets.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to focus the organization on having real
Speaker 1: conversations with people in real life instead of just focusing
Speaker 1: on doing online activism, which is what most animal rights
Speaker 1: activists engage in at the moment, which is UM, which
Speaker 1: is necessary. We need that as well, But we wanted
Speaker 1: to do street activism UM, but it's UM generally based
Speaker 1: at based on rather targeting the demand of these products
Speaker 1: that lead to animals having their rights taken away from them,
Speaker 1: so we're sort of targeting the consumers. Jotted and can
Speaker 1: you explain the first time I was exposed to your
Speaker 1: group that they came to demonstrate in front of a
Speaker 1: live podcast we were doing in Sacramento and they were
Speaker 1: doing something that we hadn't seen before. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things we hadn't seen before, and one was
Speaker 1: wearing a mask, and then there was the Cuban truth.
Speaker 1: Can you explain kind of what that looks like for
Speaker 1: folks that haven't seen it? Could you repeat that again?
Speaker 1: They were they were protests in front of your podcast.
Speaker 1: You said, yeah, we do a live podcast with the
Speaker 1: Mediator Live podcast, and we were doing this has been
Speaker 1: last year in twenty nine, and we were in Sacramento
Speaker 1: about to go on stage to do a show, and
Speaker 1: we heard there were some people out there that were
Speaker 1: protesting UM. So we went out and chatted with a
Speaker 1: leader I think from a local chapter of your organization
Speaker 1: about you know, factory farming, and about why we were
Speaker 1: there and what we were about. And it wasn't a
Speaker 1: bad conversation, but certainly was with people in our audience
Speaker 1: something that they thought might be confrontational. It didn't end
Speaker 1: up being. We had a good, you know, fervent debate
Speaker 1: there in the street for a short time. But um,
Speaker 1: that's the first time I saw the Cuban Truth and
Speaker 1: the first time that I knew about your organization. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just confused because you said that they set up
Speaker 1: in front of your podcast, because we usually just set
Speaker 1: up cubes on the street. And yeah, it was on
Speaker 1: the street, outside of it was on the street, outside
Speaker 1: of a venue, street outside of a theater, So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was on the street, right sure, Okay, Um, And
Speaker 1: your question was about the model, Yeah, the model itself.
Speaker 1: What's the Yeah, what's the Cuban Truth designed to do?
Speaker 1: And and the masks and just you know, just describe
Speaker 1: that for folks and and what's the designer? I mean,
Speaker 1: the guy folks mask is a very iconic pop culture mask.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows these days that it stands for, Um, there's
Speaker 1: a movement behind this mask that stands for stamping out
Speaker 1: oppression in our world and exposing truth, exposing lies rather
Speaker 1: and bringing the truth to the public. What we found though,
Speaker 1: is that there isn't really a section within the Anonymous
Speaker 1: movement that focuses on animal rights in a strong way
Speaker 1: that delivers the truth behind what happens to non human
Speaker 1: animals at the hands of humans. There was a few
Speaker 1: little animal rights operations that were happening within the Anonymous
Speaker 1: movement when I looked at it in but nowhere near enough,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a very strong presence at all. So
Speaker 1: we decided to dedicate a v an organization to that
Speaker 1: to being a movement for the animals that that is
Speaker 1: a part of the Anonymous movement. We obviously see an
Speaker 1: importance in taking away the focus from the humans who
Speaker 1: are focusing on delivering animal rights to the world or
Speaker 1: or getting animal rights to be taken seriously, and the
Speaker 1: focus to be on the animals, because that's what mainly
Speaker 1: happens when we have this conversation with non vegans. The
Speaker 1: conversation quickly becomes about humans and um and we're trying
Speaker 1: to bring the focus on the victims here, and so
Speaker 1: that's the I guess a quick spiel about the mask
Speaker 1: and why we wear the mask and while we chose
Speaker 1: that guy Fowks mask specifically, and yeah, we use that
Speaker 1: mask in the cube, what we call the Cube of Truth,
Speaker 1: which is a model of street activism which effectively delivers
Speaker 1: this message to people on the streets. You guys, have
Speaker 1: you have demonstrated? You have like numbers on how many
Speaker 1: places you demonstrate and how many members or you know,
Speaker 1: describe kind of the breath and depth of what you
Speaker 1: do in the movement. Yeah, we've been doing this since
Speaker 1: April um so over four years now. Over that period
Speaker 1: of time, we've done this model of street activism in
Speaker 1: over a thousand cities on every continent. We currently have
Speaker 1: about six chapters that are operating actively. And a chapter
Speaker 1: is a city or a town who has one of
Speaker 1: these Cure Truth events that are set up and and
Speaker 1: and organize it, that runs those events, and volunteers that
Speaker 1: attend those events. Um, yeah, what's the you know, what's
Speaker 1: the bottom line? You know for folks obviously everyone listened
Speaker 1: to this won't know what the mission is, you know,
Speaker 1: and people know about animal rights. There's groups like Peter,
Speaker 1: but I find as I look at the animal rights
Speaker 1: community from the outside looking in that there are different
Speaker 1: levels two it, their different kind of goals in different places.
Speaker 1: So can you kind of just give the bottom line
Speaker 1: of what as for the voiceless wants to see in
Speaker 1: the world animal rights being taken seriously and not being
Speaker 1: taken away from animals anymore? Is there, what are the mechanisms,
Speaker 1: what are the ways that society has to change to
Speaker 1: get there? Well, the main focus we have is on meat, dairy,
Speaker 1: and eggs food products. You know that that's the main
Speaker 1: bulk of where the cruelty is coming from. Something like
Speaker 1: of all of the animal cruelty that's inflicted by humans
Speaker 1: is inflicted in the meat, dairy, egg industries. So we
Speaker 1: want to focus on that, but that doesn't take away
Speaker 1: from what is happening in the leather industries, the wool
Speaker 1: down silk, zoo and testing industries and etcetera. And honey
Speaker 1: and also with hunting. You know, we take issue with
Speaker 1: all levels of exploitation and being caused to animals where
Speaker 1: it's needlessly done. So and you guys describe just so
Speaker 1: get the lingo clear, Like a non vegan is somebody
Speaker 1: that is not you know, subscribing to what you'd like
Speaker 1: to see. Is that? Is that the term that you
Speaker 1: guys use. No, it's just simply I'm glad you asked
Speaker 1: this question, because it just simply means someone who doesn't
Speaker 1: take animal rights serious, someone who violates animal rights. The
Speaker 1: word the word vegan is not a word that should
Speaker 1: be in existence. Really, it's just someone who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to harm animals where they don't need to, got it,
Speaker 1: and that harm, you know, for for looking into if
Speaker 1: if this movement kind of proliferates the way that you
Speaker 1: wanted to. And I'm a hunter, let's say I is
Speaker 1: there what's the punishment if I kill an elk? Because
Speaker 1: this is something you guys think of or you know,
Speaker 1: factory farming. Is this akin to murder where this would
Speaker 1: be legally something that you can't do or you would
Speaker 1: be jailed for. You're asking me what the punishment should be? Yes? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously you're thinking that in the future, this needs this
Speaker 1: is wrong, This need this needs to be punishable. Is
Speaker 1: it punishable by law in your mind or is this
Speaker 1: a social and cultural change that needs to happen or both? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think both, much like what we have with the
Speaker 1: progression of other justice movements. Um. You know, for example,
Speaker 1: with gay rights, we've recently seen a change there in
Speaker 1: the last ten years. Um, now it's legally sanctioned that
Speaker 1: you can't Now it's it's illegal to be homophobic, essentially,
Speaker 1: you know that that's changed. Like, that's a radical change
Speaker 1: from ten years ago. Um, so actually it's unaccepted to
Speaker 1: be a homophobe. Legally, it's unaccepted to be a homophobe.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it should work both ways here as well
Speaker 1: with any injustice. Where do you think we are socially
Speaker 1: right now? Um? We always take the temperature here on
Speaker 1: on the tides and what you know, what's acceptable and
Speaker 1: cultural changes. What do you see what in in both
Speaker 1: your own community and without, Like, what are the where
Speaker 1: do you think we are culturally? Well? Truth passes through
Speaker 1: three stages. First it's mocked and ridiculed, then people fight you,
Speaker 1: and then it's seen as self evident so you end
Speaker 1: up winning. And right now, I think we're still in
Speaker 1: the mocking and ridiculing stage, and we're progressing pretty quickly
Speaker 1: into the fighting stage. You know, we're starting to see
Speaker 1: more and more acts of violence against vegans and against
Speaker 1: activists and against you know, this message and against this cause.
Speaker 1: We recently just had a woman who was killed at
Speaker 1: the front of the slaughterhouse in Toronto, in Canada, um
Speaker 1: for being at a peaceful vigil where they pay respect
Speaker 1: to the animals before they meet their fate going into
Speaker 1: the slaughterhouses by greeting them at the trucks and giving
Speaker 1: them water. And the truck driver who was bringing the
Speaker 1: pigs into the slaughterhouse ran this activist over with the
Speaker 1: truck and killed her. And there was no mercy shown
Speaker 1: by the truck driver and the activist. The the slaughterhouse
Speaker 1: workers and the people who are involved in that whole
Speaker 1: situation are defending the driver and have no remorse whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So that's a sign of us being in the fighting
Speaker 1: stage for sure. And my goal is to further, you know,
Speaker 1: further this down the track to the point where we
Speaker 1: are at the point where where at least, um, I
Speaker 1: want to get to a point where it's seen as
Speaker 1: just as much of a slur to make a bacon
Speaker 1: joke as it is to make a racist joke. You know.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see that kind of cultural change in
Speaker 1: society where animal cruelty or animal rights jokes are taken
Speaker 1: just as seriously and frowned upon just as as vigorously
Speaker 1: as these other um these are the things that are
Speaker 1: looked down upon, like racism, sexism, et cetera. And as
Speaker 1: you walk, you know, as you walk through life, and
Speaker 1: you know, obviously I don't know how how often you
Speaker 1: get to the states your pre COVID or plants post COVID.
Speaker 1: Do you? I think One of questions people listening this
Speaker 1: will happen? One I have pondered on is how is
Speaker 1: it how do you interact with people that don't that
Speaker 1: eat meat? Certainly I do you know? And other people?
Speaker 1: Is this something where and you're telling your followers that
Speaker 1: this needs to be you need to take a stand.
Speaker 1: If they have to say, a family member or a
Speaker 1: close friend that chooses to eat meat, should they disassociate?
Speaker 1: What you what do you tell people about how to
Speaker 1: interact in a world where you know us percent of
Speaker 1: the people are doing this and you guys are really
Speaker 1: wanting it to change. Well, the good thing is that
Speaker 1: percent of people that are doing this also usually say
Speaker 1: that they are against violations of animal rights. They usually
Speaker 1: say that they're pro animal rights. And if that's the case,
Speaker 1: then they really should be on board with what we
Speaker 1: have to say about this message, because it's just simply
Speaker 1: about actually maintaining their rights. And so I tell them
Speaker 1: to do the most compassionate and the most loving thing
Speaker 1: you could possibly do, which is to hold that person accountable.
Speaker 1: Whether it's your father, your mother, your brother, your sister,
Speaker 1: your friend, or a stranger for that matter, the best
Speaker 1: thing you can do, the most loving and compassionate thing
Speaker 1: that you can do, is to hold them accountable. People
Speaker 1: in your every vegan will tell will tell you that
Speaker 1: they wish they had gone vegan sooner, and they wish
Speaker 1: that someone had spoken to them in a direct manner
Speaker 1: about this issue, because that's usually what causes people to
Speaker 1: become vegan, is just to hear this message in a direct,
Speaker 1: no bullshit kind of way that cuts through all the prejudice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean the in the cubic truth and the
Speaker 1: thing that I saw, and this has been a year ago,
Speaker 1: but that these you guys hold up TVs and those
Speaker 1: TVs have slaughter house footage, factory farm footage. Can you
Speaker 1: describe that to people? You know, what what they going
Speaker 1: to see? Yeah, we'll show people standard practice footage of
Speaker 1: what happens in the meat, dairy neck industries on TV screens.
Speaker 1: The footage also contains free range, organic, grass fed, cage
Speaker 1: free UM farms. These farms labeled themselves as the most
Speaker 1: ideal in their field. So we are showing the best
Speaker 1: case scenario quote unquote of what happens in these farming
Speaker 1: industries on TV screens on the streets, so that people
Speaker 1: can see exactly you know, most people, like most people
Speaker 1: on the streets, like just came from a place where
Speaker 1: they just ate a burger or something like that, So
Speaker 1: they're literally getting to see what they contribute to on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. And if you have, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of people that join up immediately when they see
Speaker 1: this stuff. And that's say, oh man, i just came
Speaker 1: from a steakhouse and now that I'm seeing this, I
Speaker 1: want to help you and donate or join or whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be that that happens. And what are
Speaker 1: when many joins, what are they what are you asking
Speaker 1: them to do? Join these these join the protests or
Speaker 1: join the activism. Is there a thing eliminate your support
Speaker 1: of these violations, like just to stop abusing animals. So
Speaker 1: once that person can address that within themselves. But once
Speaker 1: they can stop buying meat, daring and eggs and stop, um,
Speaker 1: you know, stop abusing animals, uh, and you know, identify
Speaker 1: as vegan essentially because that's just part of the that's
Speaker 1: part of the process. Um, then they can join us
Speaker 1: as a volunteer and you know, get out into the
Speaker 1: streets with us and help us to amplify the voices
Speaker 1: of these innocent animals. Do you find that people have
Speaker 1: like a difficulty with that, Like say a normal person
Speaker 1: is walking down the street, they see this, they feel
Speaker 1: compelled to act. They make those changes in their life.
Speaker 1: And but the jump to like that street activism, the
Speaker 1: wearing of the masks, the holding the TV. Is that
Speaker 1: a tough thing for people to make that switch? Or
Speaker 1: do they do? You see that they often just jump
Speaker 1: into it because they feel they suddenly, like feel so
Speaker 1: strongly about what's going on. Well, it doesn't happen often
Speaker 1: that someone will go from meat eater who just came
Speaker 1: out of a steakhouse to jumping in the cube. Um.
Speaker 1: But if they do, they they I guess they see
Speaker 1: it clearly, They see that they need to do something
Speaker 1: about this issue and that they should have addressed this
Speaker 1: a long time ago, and sometimes it really hits people
Speaker 1: in a really hard way. It hits some people differently.
Speaker 1: You know, some people really get it, penny really drops
Speaker 1: and they feel like they have an obligation to do
Speaker 1: something about this immediately. And others drag their feet and
Speaker 1: they feel like they just need to consider this as
Speaker 1: a matter of food for thought, and they take years
Speaker 1: before they actually address the issue, and they may not
Speaker 1: even address it because the rest of society makes people
Speaker 1: feel comfortable in not addressing it. Yeah. I think we
Speaker 1: talk here a lot about the proximity ethic to food
Speaker 1: and your you know, your proximity to food means a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, it really means understanding where it comes from
Speaker 1: and it's impact on the world and on the earth
Speaker 1: and especially on the animals in our case. What do
Speaker 1: you what do you think about how people should eat,
Speaker 1: you know, how they should practice veganism. Do you guys
Speaker 1: talk about proximity to food or any any anything like
Speaker 1: that within the conversation? Not really, um, no, not really.
Speaker 1: We just want people to stop buying products and stop
Speaker 1: consuming products of torture and abuse. And you know, what
Speaker 1: people eat or how close they get to their food,
Speaker 1: or whether they grow their own food is completely up
Speaker 1: to them. We're not out there too, like guess we're
Speaker 1: not really interested in advocating for that. We're just we
Speaker 1: don't want to get caught up on those because there's
Speaker 1: so many different issues in the world, you know, we
Speaker 1: just want to focus on animal rights and making sure
Speaker 1: that humans can stop violating their rights and view them
Speaker 1: as actual victims. Once you get if you get people,
Speaker 1: there is there other places you send them to kind
Speaker 1: of learn how to make sure that they're watching all
Speaker 1: of that, because you know, going to the grocery store
Speaker 1: and binding vegetables or you know, however they get their food.
Speaker 1: At this point, you know, there's always an impact on
Speaker 1: the earth, right, is there places you send them like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's a good vegan you know, vegan group to follow,
Speaker 1: or here's a good vegan diet to follow with the
Speaker 1: follow up happen or is it just you feel like
Speaker 1: they'll find that once they find a lifestyle. There's an
Speaker 1: impact on the earth with everything we do, and if
Speaker 1: we're going to address one thing that impacts the earth,
Speaker 1: we we would then need to be consistent and address
Speaker 1: everything that we do that impacts the earth. And therefore
Speaker 1: we would be an environmentalist group as well as an
Speaker 1: animal rights group, and we're just simply not an environmentalist
Speaker 1: group where an animal rights group. And so we don't
Speaker 1: talk to people about environmental impact. We talked to people
Speaker 1: about animal rights. People do bring up the environment where
Speaker 1: it pertains to animal agriculture and agriculture itself, um, and
Speaker 1: we only entertain that conversation as far as the symptoms
Speaker 1: of the greater underlying problem, which is, yes, animal agriculture
Speaker 1: is very destructive to the planet. We used to talk
Speaker 1: a lot about that aspect in order to get people
Speaker 1: to take animal rights seriously. But what we didn't realize
Speaker 1: what we were doing was marginalizing the rights of animals
Speaker 1: because they should be. It should be seen as an
Speaker 1: injustice in and of itself, without having to say, hey, look,
Speaker 1: it's also an environmental issue. You know, that's actually disrespectful
Speaker 1: to the victims. So what we felt is it's more
Speaker 1: important to just say, look, yes, there is an environmental
Speaker 1: impact that's occurring as a result of farming, especially with
Speaker 1: animal farming, and that's just a symptom. However, regardless of
Speaker 1: how bad it is, it's still only a symptom of
Speaker 1: the underlying problem, which is that we continue to overlook
Speaker 1: the rights of animals. If we just simply take that seriously,
Speaker 1: then it would address these symptoms that we have. And yes,
Speaker 1: there are still problems that we need to address with
Speaker 1: farming itself, like with soy farming and corn farming and
Speaker 1: just in general farming in any of any plant, but
Speaker 1: that's a separate conversation. We're not here to address every
Speaker 1: issue in the world. There's issues with making clothes, and
Speaker 1: with making pharmaceutical medicines, and with making products in general,
Speaker 1: with packaging, with materials, with inks. There's a long list
Speaker 1: of issues that we could address in the world, but
Speaker 1: the list would continue to grow each day because there's
Speaker 1: so many issues that exist. So we want to focus
Speaker 1: on just the animal rights aspect, got it. So if
Speaker 1: you we boil it down to kind of we start
Speaker 1: talking about death and the way animals die and kind
Speaker 1: of the myriad of ways that this happens, both in
Speaker 1: the natural world and kind of the world that we've cultivated.
Speaker 1: How do you guys talk about death? You know, I've
Speaker 1: had other animal rights folks on and vegans on, and
Speaker 1: we talk about sentient life and and the meaning of
Speaker 1: sentient life and how we should interact with it and
Speaker 1: the kind of respect that we should have for it.
Speaker 1: Do you guys talk about that within animal rights, talk
Speaker 1: about what you know, what death is and when it's
Speaker 1: appropriate and our relationship to it as humans somewhat. Do
Speaker 1: you have a specific question about that? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: this the specific question is how do you talk to
Speaker 1: your followers about animal death, you know, both human cause
Speaker 1: animal death and how animals die in the wild, and
Speaker 1: how all of how they can better understand all of
Speaker 1: that with when they're giving these rights to animals or
Speaker 1: affording them the rights that you'd like like them to have. Well,
Speaker 1: just well, just to clarify, is specifically just not taking
Speaker 1: away the rights of animals anymore into their inherent basic
Speaker 1: rights to liberty and bodily integrity. Um, we talk about
Speaker 1: animal death to the extent that it happens in nature obviously,
Speaker 1: you know nature is is um, Nature is nature. You
Speaker 1: know there's violations occurring in nature all the time. But
Speaker 1: what we want to address in terms of animal death
Speaker 1: is our cause of these violations. Humans claim to be
Speaker 1: the most civilized, the most intelligent, the most morally superior
Speaker 1: to all of the other beings on the planet. That's
Speaker 1: why when we refer to savage as you know, savage humans,
Speaker 1: humans who act in a savage nature, we refer to
Speaker 1: them as animals in order to you know, to disrespectfully
Speaker 1: say that they are savages. UM. So yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: nature works. But when it comes to humans, we talk
Speaker 1: to humans about their contribution and and and when those
Speaker 1: deaths that were causing a needless you know, that's where
Speaker 1: there's an issue. So we only talked to it as
Speaker 1: far as the needless death is concerned. How do you
Speaker 1: how do you get to needless? How do you define
Speaker 1: needless in these conversations? Is is it the I know,
Speaker 1: I understand you know, the broader context of factory farms
Speaker 1: and things like that, But how do you describe that
Speaker 1: that word? There is this needless death because that's something
Speaker 1: we've talked about on this show before and something I
Speaker 1: want people to understand from your perspective, like what is
Speaker 1: what's what's this idea maybe over an above factory farming,
Speaker 1: Like what is what is need death? You know, driving
Speaker 1: down a highway or going to the grocery store. Um,
Speaker 1: just like you said earlier, being a human causes death
Speaker 1: and lots of different ways, and so yes, so to
Speaker 1: find that needless part for it if you don't mind, sure, So. UM,
Speaker 1: I basically see it as everyone's right. Every human has
Speaker 1: the right to participate in society like everybody else, in
Speaker 1: the sense that we have these basic structures in society
Speaker 1: that are aimed to benefit all of us in a
Speaker 1: very basic way, things like driving a car, like everybody
Speaker 1: should have the right to transport around, having access to
Speaker 1: a hospital. So if you ever are injured or sick,
Speaker 1: you have the right to access the hospital and get
Speaker 1: the care that you need. Um, if you are ever
Speaker 1: in danger, you have the right to access the police
Speaker 1: force to protect you. If you are ever in danger
Speaker 1: of a fire, you have the right to access the
Speaker 1: fire department to assist you. You know. So all these
Speaker 1: things in society that have been laid out before us,
Speaker 1: I believe that every human has the right to access
Speaker 1: and use. However, none of these things that I've mentioned
Speaker 1: are things that are just frivolous and unnecessary. These are
Speaker 1: things that are that are essential when it comes to hunting,
Speaker 1: and I'll just specifically focus on that because Um, with hunting,
Speaker 1: there is an argument that's been thrown around that it's
Speaker 1: for conservation or it's for survival purposes, that it's being done.
Speaker 1: The question really needs to be asked to yourself. Is
Speaker 1: it really necessary? Do you really need to go out
Speaker 1: and shoot a deer in the you know, in the forest,
Speaker 1: or can you source your calories and your nutrition elsewhere?
Speaker 1: Can you get your nutrition from plants, you know, without
Speaker 1: intentionally causing harm, intentionally taking the life of an animal.
Speaker 1: So it's about what systems were supporting what kind of
Speaker 1: a world we want to create? And needless just simply
Speaker 1: means are you actually in a survival situation or not?
Speaker 1: Do you have another option right now or not? Because
Speaker 1: if you can go into a supermarket and you can
Speaker 1: buy yourself some rice, potatoes, greens, beans, whatever, then you
Speaker 1: certainly are not in a survival situation where you have
Speaker 1: no other option. You know, sure are there other That's
Speaker 1: one thing I wanted to get to with you. Just
Speaker 1: have you run through whom you might have to be
Speaker 1: exhaustive here, but that's the thing you talk about conservation
Speaker 1: and and you know, hunting to feed yourself. Are there
Speaker 1: other things that you've heard? Because I was listening to
Speaker 1: um around a prominent vegan earthling ed talk about your
Speaker 1: hunting and altruism and how some hunters would label themselves,
Speaker 1: is you know, respectful and even sympathetic to the animal
Speaker 1: by killing them and it's a cleaner death when you
Speaker 1: do it, and these types of things. Do you have
Speaker 1: other arguments that you've heard, then you've you've thought about
Speaker 1: why you don't believe them to be true in terms
Speaker 1: of hunting. That's what you just referenced, is pretty much it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. I think I think it was
Speaker 1: addressing Joe Rogan because Joe Rogan, yes, he tends to Um,
Speaker 1: he tends to share these arguments that we commonly hear
Speaker 1: from hunters, So I think he addressed that pretty well.
Speaker 1: And um, that's pretty much what I hear as well
Speaker 1: on the streets that you know, hunting. If if hunters
Speaker 1: see themselves as somehow altruistic and the killing of an animal,
Speaker 1: that that's just not on the table for you. That
Speaker 1: that's that's certainly see in many cases, even more so
Speaker 1: than in many cases, they view themselves as even more
Speaker 1: virtuous than someone who wants to abstain from from from
Speaker 1: violating animal rights altogether, from being vegan essentially, gotcha. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean here we we often talk about this exact thing,
Speaker 1: and I say often that there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: about veganism and even animal rights that I certainly agree with.
Speaker 1: And I even when I was talking to some of
Speaker 1: the activists outside our show that I mentioned last year,
Speaker 1: we talked about that when we started by saying listen,
Speaker 1: factory farms. Yeah, I'm with you, that's not something. Again,
Speaker 1: we speak here about the fair kill and proximity ethics
Speaker 1: and things like that that we want to be close
Speaker 1: to our food and and go back to understanding death.
Speaker 1: Death is caused by you know, many of our actions,
Speaker 1: and you talk about like intentional causation in terms of
Speaker 1: death and humanity, and for me, we have to I
Speaker 1: try to weigh that the idea that we are these
Speaker 1: consumption engines and we are affecting habitat we are we
Speaker 1: are planting monocultures to feed ourselves, and those green beans
Speaker 1: that come from the grocery store are coming at expense
Speaker 1: of some animals somewhere, no matter, no matter what. Really,
Speaker 1: and so I'm I'm just weighing my options. Is kind
Speaker 1: of how I start the conversation. Is that a place
Speaker 1: where you can start the conversation in terms of you're
Speaker 1: talking about the needless. Do we need to do it? No?
Speaker 1: But is this another way to be closer to the
Speaker 1: death we cause, rather than to just shut it away
Speaker 1: and say that intentional causation is not there for us. Well,
Speaker 1: again that yes, those green beans cause death. They caused
Speaker 1: some death. How many deaths do they cause? Though it's
Speaker 1: not certain? Is it? Yeah, that's the That's kind of
Speaker 1: my point though, the point is that when it's not certain,
Speaker 1: when I kill an elk, it's one dead elk, and
Speaker 1: I am certain of how many elk died, And if
Speaker 1: I eat green beans, I'm not certain of what happened there,
Speaker 1: whether it was whether field mice died or whether they didn't.
Speaker 1: They might not have, but I don't know that. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no way for me to know. And it's possible
Speaker 1: that they didn't, right, It's but you know, it's very
Speaker 1: possible that they didn't, but I would never there's no
Speaker 1: way for me to know. So if I was being
Speaker 1: you know, if I was polarized, and I only wanted
Speaker 1: to see my own worldview in this case, how would said, Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's probably likely that hundreds and I know
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan said this before, hundreds of field mice might
Speaker 1: have died and rodents, and you know, you have combines
Speaker 1: that are killing animals, and I might say, well, hundreds
Speaker 1: have died. You might say, well, it might have been zero.
Speaker 1: But the point I would make is that you just
Speaker 1: don't know, um. And so the thing is, we do know,
Speaker 1: we do know somewhat what happens. We know the process
Speaker 1: of what happens on arm For example, with green beans,
Speaker 1: you mentioned combined harvests. Combine harvests are very loud machine
Speaker 1: pieces of machinery, and they're very big and loud. Rodents
Speaker 1: like mice are not completely stupid. They're smart enough to
Speaker 1: know that when there's allowed thing that is coming towards them,
Speaker 1: they're going to run away. They're not going to stick
Speaker 1: around and get mulched up by it. So it's very
Speaker 1: rare that a mice is going to stick around and
Speaker 1: get killed by combined harvester. So at best, what's happening
Speaker 1: is some rodents might get killed and some bugs might
Speaker 1: get killed, and the farmer themselves might also be a
Speaker 1: hunter who just goes out and kills animals who the
Speaker 1: hunter might want to kill for whatever reason. So you're
Speaker 1: kind of supporting that when you buy food from that hunt,
Speaker 1: from that farm. These things are all speculation. However, they're
Speaker 1: not certain, Like I asked you, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not certain that it will happen. You're not sure. It's
Speaker 1: possible that there won't be any deaths at all with
Speaker 1: those snow peas that you're buying. With hunting a deer,
Speaker 1: that's not possible. It's not possible that you're going to
Speaker 1: return home with a dead deer in your truck. And yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's definitely a deer there. Yeah, Yeah, you're right
Speaker 1: about that. There's definitely a deer there. Yes, And that's
Speaker 1: the argument I think you're you know, the point I'm
Speaker 1: making is the same kind of point you're making, it
Speaker 1: just ends in a different way. I mean, I do
Speaker 1: believe that the proximity ethic. And I'll tell you that
Speaker 1: hunting has led me to garden. It's led me to
Speaker 1: want to collect rain, it's led it's led me to
Speaker 1: want to kind of take this tiny little half acre
Speaker 1: I have in Montana and turn it into a more
Speaker 1: fruitful place for me. And that all goes back to
Speaker 1: that proximity ethic. To that if I know, if I
Speaker 1: have a relationship with my food all the way around,
Speaker 1: I have a better respect for every part of it.
Speaker 1: And even if the combine doesn't kill the mice, the
Speaker 1: combine is taken away habitat for that. For for many animals,
Speaker 1: especially mono culture is everything we do in society takes
Speaker 1: away from the habitat of animals. So this argument could
Speaker 1: be made for everything we do in society. I don't
Speaker 1: know why it has to be extra focused on the
Speaker 1: agricultural aspect of what we do in society. You can
Speaker 1: do it. You can do with driving down the highway.
Speaker 1: There's potential deaths to animals, or pretend. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say potential deaths, because it's really when you kill someone,
Speaker 1: it's not causing death. You're actually you're murdering them. That's
Speaker 1: the correct word. So if you're if you're murdering or
Speaker 1: killing animals needlessly um in the production of let's say rice,
Speaker 1: but you're not doing it intentionally. And in fact, we
Speaker 1: don't know the numbers of animals that we're killing in
Speaker 1: that process because it varies from farm to farm, and
Speaker 1: and it certainly isn't going to be as um as
Speaker 1: violent or as brutal in terms of the numbers that
Speaker 1: we cause to be killed, as it would be in meat,
Speaker 1: dairy and eggs or any other practice. Even with hunting,
Speaker 1: I would say, because I've had this argument before with
Speaker 1: hunters hunting versus you know, buying your produced from the supermarket.
Speaker 1: And the point I'm trying to make here is that
Speaker 1: there are some violations or some animal deaths that are
Speaker 1: going to occur when we just live our lives generally,
Speaker 1: and that's no excuse to then go and hunt or
Speaker 1: get closer to the death of I don't think that
Speaker 1: it's an argument to then say, yes, there is some
Speaker 1: killing that's going on in the sourcing of your rice,
Speaker 1: so therefore I'd like to go and kill a deer
Speaker 1: myself instead of going to get that rice. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm growing tomatoes in my backyard and
Speaker 1: carrots in my backyard and doing everything I can to
Speaker 1: understand the impact, you know, And that's that's the choice
Speaker 1: that everyone has to make, Like what death do you
Speaker 1: want to inflict and how much knowledge about that death
Speaker 1: would you like to have, you know, and the so
Speaker 1: to the point you're making that you know, my my
Speaker 1: debate there. The retort I would have is that what
Speaker 1: I said earlier simply that proximity, you know, to me,
Speaker 1: I think we we can be divergent about, you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that I'm killing an elk and that's murder
Speaker 1: or to me that's that's a lot of different things,
Speaker 1: and certainly can I can explain some of those um
Speaker 1: but I think where we have to continue to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, work at this conversation is to say that
Speaker 1: I can't. I seem way more value in knowing where
Speaker 1: all my food come from, not just to meat, but
Speaker 1: the vegetables. And to say that killing an animal would
Speaker 1: allow me to know exactly where the animal lived, what
Speaker 1: it ate, how much habitat it used, you know, what
Speaker 1: it thinks, that where it has sex, how it reproduces,
Speaker 1: how many of those animals need to be on one
Speaker 1: landscape with the carrying capacity of landscape, might be the
Speaker 1: health of that ecosystem that that lives in our cohabitation,
Speaker 1: the elements of the way that we interact with those animals.
Speaker 1: That knowledge is, that knowledge is really important to me.
Speaker 1: And I think I think we here agreeing on this.
Speaker 1: I think we agree on this, and I've had other
Speaker 1: conversations where I think it's like we're agreeing on some
Speaker 1: of the core principles of this and we just diverge
Speaker 1: at the point where I kill the animal. Does that
Speaker 1: sound I understand that you want to get closer to
Speaker 1: your food, like I. Of course that's a great thing
Speaker 1: that you want to do, Ben, But what objection do
Speaker 1: you have to being vegan? None? Zero, I have. I
Speaker 1: applaud vegans. I do. So what's why why aren't you
Speaker 1: vegan at the moment? Well, because I I feel one,
Speaker 1: hunting is a lot more to me than just the meat.
Speaker 1: It is enriched my life in ways that you know
Speaker 1: that I'm sure hard to explain for somebody that's never
Speaker 1: done them. But I am an omnivore. Like I My diet,
Speaker 1: my nutrition, my physical and mental health I feel come
Speaker 1: from my omnivory and and I enjoy meat. I enjoy
Speaker 1: hunting it, but I also enjoy vegetable I enjoy carrots.
Speaker 1: But if somebody want to make wants to make the
Speaker 1: choice to cut out the animal part, I fully support
Speaker 1: that because I think that's that's that's looking at the
Speaker 1: nuance of our world, that's looking at how we eat
Speaker 1: and our impact on the world. And the thing I
Speaker 1: like about vegans animal rights folks is that you're actively
Speaker 1: looking at how you impact the world. And that isn't
Speaker 1: a thing that if we all did it tomorrow, the
Speaker 1: world would be a better place. So when I think
Speaker 1: about animal rights and veganism, I don't I don't have this.
Speaker 1: The only negative feeling I have in my head is
Speaker 1: the way you think about me. But the way I
Speaker 1: think about you is like, man, it's cool to see
Speaker 1: that the way and I told the folks that were
Speaker 1: protesting outside of our show the same thing. It's just like,
Speaker 1: it's cool to see this happening because this activism, as
Speaker 1: you said before, is something that people need to hear it.
Speaker 1: They need to hear that that this this this is
Speaker 1: out there. There wouldn't be the reason why um vegans
Speaker 1: and hunters have an issue with like the respect thing
Speaker 1: is because like, yeah, of course there's nothing to respect
Speaker 1: in needlessly killing an animal or anything. And of course
Speaker 1: there's nothing to lack respect in over here with what
Speaker 1: we're doing because we're just trying to avoid harming animals.
Speaker 1: How is that like, of course that's respectable, Like there's
Speaker 1: not to lack respect about that. I mean, like I
Speaker 1: said that the thame things that I don't the things
Speaker 1: that I differ. Where I diverge is the way, you know,
Speaker 1: it is the ideology, the way that it's spoken about,
Speaker 1: the way that it's you know, the worldview that you have.
Speaker 1: The calling animal, you know, hunters murderers really makes it,
Speaker 1: you know, an argument. It makes it a thing where
Speaker 1: we're disagreeing on that one that one element of this,
Speaker 1: and I get it, and we could certainly will certainly
Speaker 1: continue to talk about that because I think it's an
Speaker 1: important conversation and so you know, I stand with what
Speaker 1: I said there. I I do anybody who was trying
Speaker 1: to eat differently, trying to move through the world differently,
Speaker 1: understanding all the impacts that they have in the world.
Speaker 1: I think anyone that's doing that should be applauded, um,
Speaker 1: no matter what and what an understanding. Of course, I
Speaker 1: like anyone who gets closer to their food and thinks
Speaker 1: about the impact that they're having. Like I said, you know,
Speaker 1: with your mission to get closer to your food, I'm
Speaker 1: just very blown away by the fact that you like,
Speaker 1: why don't you just want to grow all of your produce?
Speaker 1: Because that seems like what you want to do is
Speaker 1: get closer to your food and of growing food and
Speaker 1: any anybody that's grown I answered that question. Um, this
Speaker 1: happens with my family. My dad was talking to me
Speaker 1: about this the other day. He has a huge garden, um,
Speaker 1: much bigger than the one I'm trying to cultivate here
Speaker 1: in Montanics. It's relatively new, you know, we had we
Speaker 1: started with wanting to have a garden, and we have
Speaker 1: a small half acre, and my dad has a larger
Speaker 1: property that his might be a better example. And as
Speaker 1: he starts to grow his food, he starts to see
Speaker 1: that the animals are encroaching on what he's growing, and
Speaker 1: so he has a choice to allow the deer. You
Speaker 1: know that he had squirrels and his fruit trees and
Speaker 1: all these other things. He he's very respectful about animals themselves,
Speaker 1: and so he had a choice to make. And I'll
Speaker 1: have a choice to make too, because I have voles
Speaker 1: in my yard and different things that would come and
Speaker 1: eat my garden. So you have a choice to make
Speaker 1: even there. Um, I may a retreat to my backyard
Speaker 1: and only eat those vegetables, but I'll still have a
Speaker 1: choice to make. When nature comes for my food? Do
Speaker 1: I kill them? Do I drive them away? Do I
Speaker 1: poison them? Do I plant two thirds more food than
Speaker 1: I need so they can have food as well? I
Speaker 1: don't have enough yard for that, I don't. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a that would be a luxury that I don't have.
Speaker 1: And so as as I think about that, I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to run into nature either way. Um. So
Speaker 1: there's no version of gardening or or consumption that doesn't
Speaker 1: involve some struggle with nature. So what I do with
Speaker 1: hunting is I go out and meet that struggle and
Speaker 1: take part in it. And I've seen animals die. I've
Speaker 1: watched them as they their life left them, and then
Speaker 1: I eat them, and I think about that when I'm
Speaker 1: eating them, And to me, you know that that tragic knowledge,
Speaker 1: that knowledge of life and death helps me inform what
Speaker 1: I do in my garden, whether I kill the voles
Speaker 1: or let them live and eat my radishes or my
Speaker 1: carrots and so on. So that's just a battle that
Speaker 1: that we have all the time. Um. Now, I find
Speaker 1: it really I kind of find it disturbing that you
Speaker 1: you went through the options of how to address that
Speaker 1: problem with these wild animals encroaching on your farm. Um,
Speaker 1: without mentioning one very obvious option of just putting up
Speaker 1: a fence. Oh yeah, fence is my and I would
Speaker 1: I like to say my dad has a larger garden
Speaker 1: and he has a big fence around it. That doesn't
Speaker 1: stop score earls from getting into his fruit trees, that
Speaker 1: doesn't stop bugs, that doesn't stop voles, that doesn't stop
Speaker 1: many wild creatures that are going to find their way
Speaker 1: to get to that food source. Um. And because that's
Speaker 1: just how they're wired, that's how they're conditioned. And so,
Speaker 1: like I said, I haven't found a situation where I
Speaker 1: can put up a fence or put up a bubble
Speaker 1: and completely contain my food source from the outside world.
Speaker 1: I just I haven't found it. And if there was, boy,
Speaker 1: I'd take it all day. Have you seen greenhouses? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have greenhouses. You can't grow I mean you can't
Speaker 1: have eight hundred square foot greenhouse in your yard. I
Speaker 1: mean you have to have open air garden. You can't
Speaker 1: just live all foods you grew in a green und
Speaker 1: square feet? Is that how big of a farm you're
Speaker 1: trying to so you so what's your solution? Here? Is
Speaker 1: your solution that we would just have a giant greenhouse
Speaker 1: and that's where we grow all of our food. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize you were trying to achieve such a
Speaker 1: large operation with just sourcing your own food. Eight hundred
Speaker 1: square feet seems really large. I'm not gonna argue with
Speaker 1: the square feet. That was completely hypothetical, but I mean
Speaker 1: we get back to all I can say is I've
Speaker 1: never gotten to a point where my food and overall
Speaker 1: my activity throughout you know, my life in the world
Speaker 1: doesn't come up against nature itself and those animals, whether
Speaker 1: it's driving in a car and hitting a squirrel or
Speaker 1: being in my backyard and trying to grow something and
Speaker 1: trying to work through that and understand that I have
Speaker 1: a lot of luxuries in my life. I have a
Speaker 1: pretty good salary, have good money. I can afford these things,
Speaker 1: and I can't imagine somebody that was trying to grow
Speaker 1: their own food that couldn't afford um fences or other
Speaker 1: things that that took money. So well, I would just
Speaker 1: say that no matter what the other options are out there,
Speaker 1: I haven't found one that would sustain my family. Grow,
Speaker 1: you know, make sure the ecosystem, even the tiny little
Speaker 1: half figure I have is still intact and functioning without
Speaker 1: some sort of encroachment by nature. It just it's when
Speaker 1: there's food there, the animals are gonna come for one
Speaker 1: way or the other. Seems to me, it would seem
Speaker 1: to me they're dealing with a little bit of encroachment,
Speaker 1: would be would be okay in the biggest scheme of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're getting your calories. I talked to him successfully. I
Speaker 1: talked to my dad about that a little bit too,
Speaker 1: and he said I could. He's like, there's an option
Speaker 1: where I could plant two thirds more trees than I need,
Speaker 1: or there's options. There's certainly things out there you could do.
Speaker 1: But again, those things are I mean, those are tough
Speaker 1: to calculate, you know, for anyone trying to achieve this
Speaker 1: proximity to all of their food. And so it's I mean,
Speaker 1: there are many people in the world who are eating
Speaker 1: their calories from the food that they grow. This isn't
Speaker 1: a new concept. This is a very age old sure
Speaker 1: thing that humans are doing. Is very possible for us
Speaker 1: to source our calories from plant foods that we grow.
Speaker 1: Of course, and of course where I come in as
Speaker 1: an activist because it's basically a message of having a
Speaker 1: moral obligation to do something about this situation and to
Speaker 1: avoid murdering animals needlessly. Where we sure, I mean, I
Speaker 1: like that idea, I agree with It's like I don't.
Speaker 1: There's nothing that you know. Part of what we do
Speaker 1: here at this company, and part of what we talked
Speaker 1: about on this show is this idea that we need
Speaker 1: to eat and we are omnivory is important, is at
Speaker 1: least important to me, you know, the human history of
Speaker 1: how we how our diet is constructed is is something
Speaker 1: that I don't know a lot about him, no dietitian.
Speaker 1: But in my own life, my family enjoys this meat.
Speaker 1: And I know I know for sure that if I
Speaker 1: take that one let's say, just call an elk, the
Speaker 1: one thing that I take off the mountain, that there's
Speaker 1: two hundred pounds of meat there, that that consumption is
Speaker 1: going to mitigate any other consumption I might do from
Speaker 1: the grocery store or from any other place where I
Speaker 1: don't know where. I'm not sure what the tally of
Speaker 1: deaths are. UM, and so that's one element. The other
Speaker 1: element we discussed around the garden and so UM I've
Speaker 1: definitely thought about this um thought about how is it
Speaker 1: possible to go vegan and really feel like I have
Speaker 1: a clean conscience. I just don't think it is um
Speaker 1: about what you're voting for. You know, you're out there
Speaker 1: choosing rice, you're choosing beans, you're choosing bananas, and you're saying,
Speaker 1: I want a world where this is what food is,
Speaker 1: instead of choosing for animals to be violated and and
Speaker 1: promoting to the world that animals are in fact food
Speaker 1: when they don't need to be in non survival situations,
Speaker 1: and these other things that you've mentioned, like enjoyment. Enjoyment
Speaker 1: is in an argument, whether you and your family enjoy
Speaker 1: the flesh of a dea has no bearing over the
Speaker 1: moral consideration of that dea. And no, I mean the
Speaker 1: moral considerations happened prior to the eating of the flesh.
Speaker 1: I mean the moral consideration is I'm not. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not somebody who does who just goes out and
Speaker 1: shoots it and drags it and puts into my truck
Speaker 1: and drives away and thinks that's mine. That you know,
Speaker 1: the world owes me this, dear. I think about the
Speaker 1: morality and the ethics of it, and what is the
Speaker 1: way I can move through the world to make this
Speaker 1: to make this death like most like most death in nature,
Speaker 1: beneficial to our environment as a whole. And that's how
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of it. You know. I think that's something
Speaker 1: that you'll probably never agree with, and and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure that we could have a conversation
Speaker 1: where we get to an agreement there, obviously, I mean,
Speaker 1: we come from different sides of the fence, but that's
Speaker 1: just how I think about it. And I understand where
Speaker 1: you're trying to get to. And as I've said to
Speaker 1: other folks on that we're vegan our animal rights, I
Speaker 1: just don't. I think the reality of the world is
Speaker 1: too strong a narrative for me to say that I'm
Speaker 1: just going to remove myself from death. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it's some pulling the cloak over your own eyes
Speaker 1: at some level, because death is going to happen around
Speaker 1: you because of you. I think, yeah, I'm not saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm avoiding death like forever. I know that
Speaker 1: existing in fact, in the earlier stages about chat, I said,
Speaker 1: just by merely existing as a human being, we cause
Speaker 1: some death. So being vegan is not about being perfect
Speaker 1: because that's not possible. Yeah, that's a good point that
Speaker 1: you intentionally promote you're out there hunting animals when you
Speaker 1: could be in a supermarket buying produce. And yes, we
Speaker 1: don't know how many deaths you could be causing if
Speaker 1: you buy some rice, but we know that your intention
Speaker 1: is to not cause any deaths at all by rice,
Speaker 1: and the possibility of that being the case is a
Speaker 1: lot higher than you're going out and killing a deer,
Speaker 1: because when you kill a deer, you have removed the
Speaker 1: possibility of you coming home without violating animal rights. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think if you ask the animals about
Speaker 1: if they care about our intentions when we buy rice,
Speaker 1: they'd say, don't really care, Like, well, why would an
Speaker 1: animal care about our intentions? Saying this from an animal's
Speaker 1: point of view, I'm saying this from the point of
Speaker 1: view of the world that we want to create. When
Speaker 1: you walk into a supermarket and you buy rice, you
Speaker 1: are intending to create a world where animals aren't having
Speaker 1: the rights violated. Right. But you said at the beginning
Speaker 1: of this that and you know that it's not certain
Speaker 1: whether you're called you're causing any animal deaths when you
Speaker 1: buy that rice, and it's possible, it's very possible that
Speaker 1: you're causing no harm to animals at all when you
Speaker 1: buy that rice. So that's a better option to go
Speaker 1: with then to definitely cause harm to animals when you
Speaker 1: go out and hunt a deal. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: like I said, you're kind of making my point then
Speaker 1: reversing it a little bit. But I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I understand the point that you were making. But we
Speaker 1: started this kind of with this idea that we wanted
Speaker 1: to focus on the animals, and I, like I was
Speaker 1: just saying, I don't think the animals care about our
Speaker 1: intent at all. I don't think that they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: at least you were trying to be nice, you know,
Speaker 1: at least you were trying to do your at least
Speaker 1: by buying the race and not to meet, you're telling
Speaker 1: yourself that you're better, you're intense, or that you're intense,
Speaker 1: are to be kind and are to give me rights,
Speaker 1: although by your by your very existence, you're denying me
Speaker 1: of rights. By the very need to consume, you're denying
Speaker 1: me of the right to do what I need to do.
Speaker 1: You know. So I think if we're talking about humans.
Speaker 1: Sure should our intent and be to always do what's
Speaker 1: best for everything around us, the world around us. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I feel like hunting is the best
Speaker 1: thing I can do after I sat and thought about
Speaker 1: it for a long time. Yeah, and and and is
Speaker 1: there anything that you're open to having that changed or
Speaker 1: you're having your thoughts on that challenged. Sure, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why you're here, man. And I don't, like I said,
Speaker 1: I I have. I think these ideas and I'll say
Speaker 1: and I hopefully this this means something to you know,
Speaker 1: I say this, I think of animals not as others,
Speaker 1: but as part of this thing that I'm involved in,
Speaker 1: you know. I see, my hunting is this idea that
Speaker 1: being involved in the ecosystem itself gives me a chance
Speaker 1: to have, you know, an intelligent impact on it um
Speaker 1: and and take from it in a way that's the
Speaker 1: way that's you know, knowledge based, rather than this idea
Speaker 1: that I might remove myself from it and somehow feel
Speaker 1: better about it and eat my rights from the grocery store,
Speaker 1: but not really know what's happening behind the scenes, you know.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's diving into the reality. But at
Speaker 1: the same time I know that I'm killing animals. I
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. I'm not telling myself that this
Speaker 1: is harvesting or that this is some other thing that
Speaker 1: it isn't you know. I'm telling myself, man, animals are
Speaker 1: dying and I'm causing it. And I think about that
Speaker 1: a lot. I think about that when the animal dies.
Speaker 1: I think about that while I'm practicing it with my
Speaker 1: bow or rifle. I think about that when I'm eating
Speaker 1: its flesh and or I hang its head on my wall.
Speaker 1: I think about that all the time. And so there,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of older hunters who just started
Speaker 1: taking photographs of animals later in their life, and so
Speaker 1: maybe I do get there one day. Um, But you know,
Speaker 1: up to I'm thirty four, Up to this point in
Speaker 1: my life, I've thought about it hard. I've examined animal
Speaker 1: rights and in and of itself and veganism, and as
Speaker 1: I said, I find things I respect about it. But
Speaker 1: I've come to this conclusion that, Man, I think this
Speaker 1: is my way, and my way is always evolving. So
Speaker 1: I would never close myself off to any idea when
Speaker 1: it comes to how do I do better with the
Speaker 1: ecosystem with which I live? And then the world, you know,
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, Man, I try not to make
Speaker 1: it about the world, because what the hell can I
Speaker 1: do for the world. I certainly can do something for
Speaker 1: the ecosystem that I live in and the animals I
Speaker 1: cohabitate with, But I can't do ship for you know, Victoria, Australia,
Speaker 1: really other than speak out, which what does that do? So?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's my speel. I have other things
Speaker 1: I say about kind of what hunting does for me,
Speaker 1: but I want you to know that I certainly have this.
Speaker 1: It's a weighty thing I'm doing, and I get it,
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not trying to write that off
Speaker 1: as a hunter and say like I get to do
Speaker 1: this because I can serve. I get to do this
Speaker 1: because I'm eating meat. I know what this is. I
Speaker 1: don't call it anything other than the death of an
Speaker 1: animal at my own hands. Um. But that's that's that's
Speaker 1: something I've thought about and and try to objectively say
Speaker 1: is this good or bad? Looking at the options I've
Speaker 1: got to weigh here, Do you believe that the animals
Speaker 1: that you violate deserve to have an objective effort from
Speaker 1: you to avoid violating them? Yeah, I mean, we would
Speaker 1: have to define objective effort. And I think I know,
Speaker 1: you know, if if we're defining objective effort in the
Speaker 1: way that I say, like I I'm a part of
Speaker 1: a system that was created to say like this the
Speaker 1: sustainable use of a natural resource. I'm sure that's a
Speaker 1: term that just doesn't sit well for you, um, But
Speaker 1: that's something that that I think of, and I know
Speaker 1: I want there to be I want there to be
Speaker 1: elk on the landscape, not the elk or the deer,
Speaker 1: but elk and deer themselves. I want them their species
Speaker 1: to go on. So if someone asked me, would you
Speaker 1: either the end of deer or the end of your
Speaker 1: own hunting, I would stop hunting tomorrow. If somebody said
Speaker 1: the end of whatever species or the end of your
Speaker 1: own hunting, I would say, I'll stop hunting tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: care about that population, I care about it being there,
Speaker 1: and I care about drawing from it to sustain my life. Um.
Speaker 1: And so there there's there's a relationship there that I
Speaker 1: have that that I don't think. I would never ask
Speaker 1: you to understand that, because it's just such a such
Speaker 1: a different thing, um from from killing animal. And then
Speaker 1: and then choosing not to. Um. Does any of that
Speaker 1: make sense? Man, I'm just trying to talk for my
Speaker 1: personal level. Yeah, I don't know. I just guess when
Speaker 1: it comes to objective. UM, what I mean by objectively
Speaker 1: an objective effort. By objectively making a difference, I mean
Speaker 1: with the equation that I laid out for you earlier.
Speaker 1: For example, where you walk into a supermarket and I'm
Speaker 1: just comparing the worst case scenario in terms of plant
Speaker 1: foods to the best case scenario in terms of animal
Speaker 1: food animal flesh, which is hunting in your case. So
Speaker 1: let's just compare hunting to buying produce in a supermarket.
Speaker 1: When you walk into a supermarket and you buy rice,
Speaker 1: there is a very real possibility that you aren't causing
Speaker 1: any violations to animal rights. In fact, the possibility is
Speaker 1: so very clearly there. It's so obviously present in that
Speaker 1: option to purchase that rice because there's no blood involved
Speaker 1: in that rice. It's not proven that there is any
Speaker 1: animals that are being killed in that process. So objectively speaking,
Speaker 1: it's very real that it's possible that that you're walking
Speaker 1: away with no blood in your hair when once you
Speaker 1: purchase that rice. Yeah, but I mean, I just that's
Speaker 1: an objective truth, that that could be an objective truth.
Speaker 1: But I'm not. The thing that I'm saying is I'm
Speaker 1: not willing to roll the dice. I don't. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to roll the dice on that rice. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That didn't That wasn't meant to rhyme. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to roll the dice on that purchase. Um, I don't understand, Ben,
Speaker 1: because you aren't you taking You're taking a chance. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're taking a chance that an animal did die. Right,
Speaker 1: It's about lowering the violations. So you're not lowering the risk,
Speaker 1: you're lowering the violate the violations because when you go hunting,
Speaker 1: you are certainly killing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean if well,
Speaker 1: let's play the numbers game. Let's play the numbers game
Speaker 1: objectively for a moment. Like if we're saying what objective
Speaker 1: truth is at the same time is no animals might die.
Speaker 1: There could be hundreds of animals that died. I don't
Speaker 1: know that. So I'm rolling the dice to say, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, from your perspective, you want to argue that
Speaker 1: there's zero and people would think from my perspective, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna argue that there's hundreds of deaths. Canna argue that,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, you just don't know. I know how
Speaker 1: many I know? If I kill one elk a year,
Speaker 1: one elk died to feed my family, one elk died
Speaker 1: four or four. That's not It's not as straightforward as that, Ben,
Speaker 1: because that kills many animals in their lives just by
Speaker 1: existing walking around. They're killing bugs, They're stepping on bugs,
Speaker 1: eating grass, they're eating plants. They're eating bugs in the
Speaker 1: process of eating those plants because they ripped them out
Speaker 1: of the ground, you know they So you don't know
Speaker 1: how many deaths are left in the in the path
Speaker 1: of that deer before you end up killing that dear? So,
Speaker 1: am I saving lives by killing the deer? Then? Much
Speaker 1: for the point? Am I saving lives by killing like
Speaker 1: future lives by killing the deer itself? Then? Or are
Speaker 1: you saying that there's an equation where the the deer
Speaker 1: I killed it's deaths are equated to me somehow lives.
Speaker 1: You're causing more lives to be violated. How's that with rice? Again?
Speaker 1: Like you're not He's saying it could be a hundred deaths?
Speaker 1: Is so unrealistic. It's so completely um, it's so blown
Speaker 1: out of proportion that it doesn't even represent reality. That's
Speaker 1: not really what happens. When you buy a kilo of rice,
Speaker 1: you know, you're maybe going to cause one death, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe two deaths if you're you know, if you're
Speaker 1: really trying to stretch it here conservatively, Like, and what
Speaker 1: what kind of death are we talking about? Bugs? Bugs are?
Speaker 1: This is the other thing, Like, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: a bug death, vegans are not stupid enough and crazy
Speaker 1: enough to think that a bug death is the same
Speaker 1: thing as a cow death. You know, if we're talking
Speaker 1: about a fly who's killed by your car as you're
Speaker 1: driving down the road, we're not going to be stupid
Speaker 1: enough and crazy enough to say that that that experience
Speaker 1: of that life is going to be the same as
Speaker 1: the experience of a cow who's on a farm who's
Speaker 1: being raised for the specific intention of having the heads
Speaker 1: hacked off and their bodies, um, their bodies chopped up
Speaker 1: into a thousand pieces. So yeah, like when you go hunting,
Speaker 1: you also drive your vehicle to the location where you
Speaker 1: go hunting, right, Oh, yeah, we talked about this all
Speaker 1: the time. Bugs on the way to your location. He
Speaker 1: might hit a deal on your location. Just causing one death,
Speaker 1: you're also causing other deaths on the way to and fro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is kind of the the choice goes
Speaker 1: back to the choice thing. It's kind of the point
Speaker 1: that I'm making here is that I want to choose.
Speaker 1: I want to have the choice. I want to say
Speaker 1: one ELK dies or zero UK dies. But that's my choice.
Speaker 1: I want to say I'm going to kill the voles
Speaker 1: in my backyard or I'm not. I want to have
Speaker 1: the choice. I want to farm out that choice to
Speaker 1: someone else. Um, I don't want to farm out the
Speaker 1: ethics am I eating to some person I've never met.
Speaker 1: I don't want to allow. I don't want to allow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to allow a proxy rice farmer who
Speaker 1: I've never met, to kill zero kill, one kill, to
Speaker 1: kill a hundred. I don't know what that person's doing.
Speaker 1: And so that this is just part of how I
Speaker 1: get to hunting. This is part of the reasoning how
Speaker 1: I get you have You're coming from a from an
Speaker 1: integrity point of view on this, And to you then
Speaker 1: is if if you want to follow through with that integrity,
Speaker 1: why don't you just make it a focused effort on
Speaker 1: choosing to grow planned foods and if you take some
Speaker 1: losses here and there, then so be it. But that's
Speaker 1: the choice you're making to avoid harming animals altogether. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just this is a conversation I had
Speaker 1: with a guy that I really respect by the name
Speaker 1: of Dr Robert C. Jones. He's a vegan philosopher. He
Speaker 1: was at Chico State. I think he's teaching out of
Speaker 1: Hollywood now. But anyway, he opposed it like a circle,
Speaker 1: like there's this circle where all this death is happening.
Speaker 1: If you could choose to be in the circle where
Speaker 1: the death is happening or step out of it, would
Speaker 1: what would you choose? And I just said, look, I
Speaker 1: feel as though I have a look, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'll continue to examine my own impact on the world,
Speaker 1: in my own human consumption. My feeling is no matter
Speaker 1: what I do, I'm coming I'm forced against this idea
Speaker 1: that I'm a part of nature. I cause death. So
Speaker 1: then I want to take that death upon myself where
Speaker 1: it where it's weight, understand what it means. And that's
Speaker 1: the term we talked about, that tragic knowledge, this knowledge
Speaker 1: of what death really looks like. Rather than say I'm
Speaker 1: not going to approach death. I don't want to see it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to intentionally cause it. I'm saying, I
Speaker 1: know I'm causing it by just being a human, So
Speaker 1: I want to I want to take a step forward
Speaker 1: towards death. Understand it. They're both saying that we code
Speaker 1: we we both cause some death by being human. I
Speaker 1: think where we and I've been through this kind of before,
Speaker 1: so I know where we diverge, where we diverge, as
Speaker 1: you're saying, I know I cause death. I want to
Speaker 1: do everything I possibly can to never intentionally cause death,
Speaker 1: to never like eat a hamburger and to know that
Speaker 1: there's going to be a dead thing in my mouth,
Speaker 1: or to to do anything that's intentional. I've looked at
Speaker 1: this idea in my own life, and again I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not preaching that everyone should go hunting or or
Speaker 1: preaching that this is the way for everyone. All I'm
Speaker 1: saying is I've looked at that in my own life,
Speaker 1: and I feel like this personal application of you know,
Speaker 1: my my own food choice is my own choices about impact,
Speaker 1: you know, And then again, my own choice is about
Speaker 1: what comes into my home in terms of food is
Speaker 1: incrementally making me better at being a human and better
Speaker 1: than understanding this ecosystems and better understanding nature. Hunting is
Speaker 1: a huge part of that for me, Um, but it's
Speaker 1: allowed me to bring in other things. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you would admit. We are all imperfect
Speaker 1: in the way that we try to move around this world,
Speaker 1: and so there's this idea that we're always growing, we're
Speaker 1: always learning more, you know, We've I've had people in
Speaker 1: here talking about lab based meat, talking about plant based meat,
Speaker 1: and these ideas of these replacements, and so I want
Speaker 1: to explore those things as well. And I'm not so
Speaker 1: stupid as I'm gonna say like hunting will always be here,
Speaker 1: and it won't. They'll never be an idea better than hunting.
Speaker 1: That's not true. Um. What I'm saying is personally, I've
Speaker 1: looked at this and I feel for my own life,
Speaker 1: this is a way for me to understand death, not
Speaker 1: cause as much of it. And also even if I
Speaker 1: even if I don't know the exact number to say,
Speaker 1: I have this proximity to death that is personal and
Speaker 1: it's affecting me and Therefore, I you know, I have
Speaker 1: respect for these creatures because I know what they are
Speaker 1: and I know what I am. Uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's that's just my rationale. And and I think I
Speaker 1: understand your rationale as well. I get where you're coming from. Um,
Speaker 1: where we disagree is where I just said, I don't
Speaker 1: know that that's a reality for me. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I can look at the world and say, like,
Speaker 1: my intentions matter more than the actual death there. Well,
Speaker 1: you can't actually say that you know how many actual
Speaker 1: deaths are caused in my lifestyle, for example, versus your No,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I wouldn't put I wouldn't play a numbers
Speaker 1: game at all. Sure, that's my point. The speculation is
Speaker 1: the thing that I struggle with, um. And so so
Speaker 1: that's why this proximity thing, well, I'm saying most of this,
Speaker 1: most of these conversations we have about this, this is
Speaker 1: speculation anyway. Zero deaths for the rice or a hunter death,
Speaker 1: these are all speculations. Um. I've never I can't remember
Speaker 1: ever being I've been on many farms, never a rice
Speaker 1: farm particularly, And so my point is I just don't know,
Speaker 1: But I do know with hunting I do know that
Speaker 1: there's an elk herd that lives near my house. If
Speaker 1: I take one a year, that that elk herd can
Speaker 1: remain remain on the landscape. I'm never going to take
Speaker 1: more than I need, and that when I watched the
Speaker 1: death go from an animal's eyes, I don't know that
Speaker 1: I say I'm a murderer, but I and definitely aware
Speaker 1: of what's going on. And I'm not excusing it. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that it's something that's not I'm saying this
Speaker 1: is tragic, but our humanity is is evenly so tragic.
Speaker 1: Um And so I'm trying to deal with that maybe
Speaker 1: in the same way you're trying to deal with it,
Speaker 1: just in the like maybe a polar opposite endgame that
Speaker 1: Maga sense I have to pull you up there, Ben,
Speaker 1: because you just said evenly more tragic. You don't know
Speaker 1: that we just established that it's not it's it's speculation.
Speaker 1: You don't know if my lifestyle is causing the same
Speaker 1: amount of animal violations as your lifestyle. Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm like I said, I like to have
Speaker 1: this idea that like I know personally what what's happening.
Speaker 1: I know the pushes and pools, I know the options.
Speaker 1: I know. I know kind of the equation from from
Speaker 1: my for a lot of my eating, and some of
Speaker 1: it I don't. I still eat cereal, and you know,
Speaker 1: you you could see me, you know, eating a yogurt
Speaker 1: or drinking a soda or I'm not jeez, I'm not
Speaker 1: above any of that stuff. But but there's this idea
Speaker 1: that you know, hunting, gardening, other things make make this
Speaker 1: equation visible to me. I can see it, I can
Speaker 1: look at it. I can make my own choices as
Speaker 1: as as do I make that kill, do I not? Um?
Speaker 1: Do I cause that death? Or do I alleviate that death?
Speaker 1: In this way? At least I can make the choice.
Speaker 1: If you buy something from the grocery store, you have
Speaker 1: no choice but to buy that. And unless you've already
Speaker 1: done all the research on its ill it's exact production,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a proxy going on there with
Speaker 1: with who's delivering that food? Do you? And so I'm
Speaker 1: confused because you can you do have You do have
Speaker 1: many options. You can grow your own produce. For example,
Speaker 1: you said you have an interest in doing that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely possible option for you. It's still a viable option.
Speaker 1: It's just it has some challenges, just like with anything.
Speaker 1: I guess sure, I mean, like I said, the channel.
Speaker 1: If if I guess, here's where we can maybe maybe
Speaker 1: this makes more sense. If my if I'm I'm if
Speaker 1: I am choosing to stop hunting to stop the violation
Speaker 1: of an animal to death. If I'm choosing to stop
Speaker 1: the death of that animal allowing that elk to live
Speaker 1: at this, then I have to return to Okay, how
Speaker 1: do I replace that that food, that that food source
Speaker 1: and the percentage of my diet. Okay, Let's say I
Speaker 1: turned to a grocery store. I think that's a worse
Speaker 1: option than killing that elk um. Let's say I turned
Speaker 1: to my backyard, which I've done in the past. Let'll
Speaker 1: say I'm I'm a phorn of the death of yelok,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna turn to my backyard. I find still
Speaker 1: I'm in the throes of of nature. There, I'm still
Speaker 1: asking myself, is there a way for me not to
Speaker 1: have to kill these animals that are gonna eat it
Speaker 1: or or have this conflict with nature? There? So I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the options I have and saying, Okay, this
Speaker 1: the hunting feels the most right to me. It feels
Speaker 1: like something where I'm I have an active choice in
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, rather than just relying on a proxy
Speaker 1: farmer somewhere whom I never met. So that's just that's
Speaker 1: my argument. I think, you know, for me personally, it's
Speaker 1: always changing, it's always evolving. It doesn't take away my
Speaker 1: respect for animals or my respect for your position that
Speaker 1: you know, let's try not to harm them if you
Speaker 1: don't have to. Well, I guess that's where I'm confused,
Speaker 1: because like it's it's just an objective fact that if
Speaker 1: you buy beans to make up your calories instead of
Speaker 1: animal flesh to replace animal flesh, that it would be
Speaker 1: very rare that you would cause the same amount of
Speaker 1: animal violations with a kilo or I guess you go
Speaker 1: buy pounds in America, you know, two pounds of beans.
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you that it would be extremely rare
Speaker 1: that you would cause the same amount of violations as
Speaker 1: you're going out and intentionally killing a deal. I'd have
Speaker 1: to see some kind of some fact or some study
Speaker 1: or some some farmer that can call in and tell
Speaker 1: me that, because that's just again I'll say again, you're
Speaker 1: making an assumption. You don't know unless unless there's like
Speaker 1: a unless there's like a number on the front of
Speaker 1: that bean package that says zero animals are kiling in
Speaker 1: the arm this you have no idea. And on this
Speaker 1: and on the flip side, you don't know if it's
Speaker 1: got ten deaths behind it either. So exactly we're both speculating. However,
Speaker 1: based on my education on this subject, you know, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for over four years now. I've talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of people about this subject. I've worked
Speaker 1: with the best aim orious activists in the world, you know,
Speaker 1: and our education on this subject is that it's objectively
Speaker 1: clear to us that with farming rice or beans, or
Speaker 1: just like the generic products that exists on the shelf,
Speaker 1: there aren't as many animal violations as being spoken about
Speaker 1: by people like hunters who make this argument that's just
Speaker 1: not how agriculture is actually carried out. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have to see, I have to see some data keeps
Speaker 1: getting brought up. But when you look at agriculture and
Speaker 1: and the data that goes into combine harvesting, the amount
Speaker 1: of animal deaths that are caused by those machines pales
Speaker 1: in comparison to the story that's actually being told to vegans.
Speaker 1: So no, that's not just an assumption on my part. However,
Speaker 1: there is an assumption on your part when you say
Speaker 1: that it causes the same amount or it's just a risk,
Speaker 1: and you could be causing more. You could be causing
Speaker 1: more harm by buying beans, for example, from a supermarket,
Speaker 1: and that's just objectively not true. Yeah, I mean I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could say that, but you have to
Speaker 1: back that up and causing the same um at best.
Speaker 1: And this is me being conservative here. You would be
Speaker 1: causing the same amount of harm by by buying that beat,
Speaker 1: those beans or that rice, and that isn't even realistic
Speaker 1: for me to say that. I'm trying to be charitable
Speaker 1: by saying this. Actually conservative isn't even the right word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a couple of things. If you causing
Speaker 1: no violations to animals is very much possible, It's very
Speaker 1: much real It's that that is very clear. I have
Speaker 1: to see something that I'd have to see something where
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's a bunch of data from farms
Speaker 1: that are looking at the you know, net zero cost
Speaker 1: of animal death versus the production of monoculture. You know,
Speaker 1: plants essentially, what kind of habitat is being lost when
Speaker 1: you're planning. You know, nature needs biodiversity and these landscapes,
Speaker 1: even landscapes that are arible that we can plant, need biodiversity. Um. Monoculture.
Speaker 1: We have you know, five vegetable products that we plant
Speaker 1: on most of our world. Um, we can't have this monoculture.
Speaker 1: We have to have this biodiversity for everything from pollinators
Speaker 1: to butterflies, to be you know, to deer. But again
Speaker 1: I'm confused because you said you also eat these products,
Speaker 1: so you're not only eating dea flesh. No, I'm eating
Speaker 1: like I would say, if if if an optimal diet
Speaker 1: for me would all would all include proximity to my food.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm perfect, and
Speaker 1: I don't. I've never had a French fry. I've never
Speaker 1: had something that wouldn't that I know exactly where it
Speaker 1: came from. But I'm saying the optimal diet. The thing
Speaker 1: that hunting and gardening and other things UM give me
Speaker 1: is is this idea that I want that proximity. I
Speaker 1: seek it out. I try to try to find it
Speaker 1: where I can and hunting and gardening and other things
Speaker 1: are are part of that for my my own life. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not, you know, not necessarily saying any
Speaker 1: of that, but I mean, look, I mean, I I'm
Speaker 1: out there. I see these big monoculture crop fields. Um.
Speaker 1: Nature abhors that vacuum. It doesn't want that vacuum. That
Speaker 1: that is the the elimination of habitat for many species.
Speaker 1: And that's something we've done to the land. That's something
Speaker 1: we've done since we invented agriculture from twelve thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: And so I just again I'm not willing to and
Speaker 1: if somebody could, if you could show me some objective
Speaker 1: data that says that you know, this, this type of plant,
Speaker 1: this type of production processes a limits death to zero,
Speaker 1: one to whatever however that might be classified, I'd read it,
Speaker 1: I'd look at it. And ultimately, if if there was
Speaker 1: a plant and a farming practice that guaranteed zero deaths, boy,
Speaker 1: I'd be hard pressed not to eat whatever that was.
Speaker 1: But I just I've never seen it or heard of it.
Speaker 1: And if that's objectively true, I'd love to see it,
Speaker 1: because I just never I've never come across it. And
Speaker 1: all my talks about regenerative agriculture and responsible farming and
Speaker 1: bio diversity and healthy ecosystems and trophic cascade and predation
Speaker 1: and cohabitation. Um, I've never run into what you just said,
Speaker 1: and and so I, like I said, I'd love to
Speaker 1: learn more about it. I just have never heard that,
Speaker 1: and I don't know it to be true. Yeah. Well again,
Speaker 1: I'm confused because you are also consuming the products of
Speaker 1: these farming practices as well as right. What's that sounds
Speaker 1: to me like you're trying to choose one or the other.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not trying to I just said that
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get better at everything that I do.
Speaker 1: Gardening certainly gives me proximity to vegetables. I don't have
Speaker 1: a rice field in my backyard. I just don't. I
Speaker 1: never will. Um so, and I can't the h O
Speaker 1: A would get kissed if I had a rice field
Speaker 1: my backyard is. I guess what would help is you
Speaker 1: visiting a russ field and how they and witnessing the
Speaker 1: entire process. Sure, I mean listen, like I said, if
Speaker 1: if if this is I I genuinely this isn't This
Speaker 1: isn't true. Because I've been to these places, I've seen it.
Speaker 1: I've talked to many farmers, many of the generative agriculture farmers,
Speaker 1: who are trying to figure this all out on a
Speaker 1: natural landscape, how they can maximize that landscape and make
Speaker 1: it a wildlife paradise while also getting the food that
Speaker 1: they need from that, you know, And that's a complicated
Speaker 1: process and involves all kinds of um intrusions on wildlife
Speaker 1: and and the removal of their habitat um. Every action
Speaker 1: in the natural world has this has a reaction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything we do as human beings. And that's why I'm
Speaker 1: saying that the simple act of being vegan and just
Speaker 1: choosing to intentionally not violate the rights of animals, it
Speaker 1: seems like the most logical. Yeah, I mean, listen, man,
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I'm I'm not. I'm not here to say like, wow,
Speaker 1: you're crazy. That sounds pretty logical. I mean, it sounds
Speaker 1: like something that when we're both kind of having the
Speaker 1: same calculus here and and now I think people probably
Speaker 1: gonna get frustrated with here and let's go round and round.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I do I do believe, and I've
Speaker 1: said this to other folks um, I do believe we're
Speaker 1: kind of using the same calculus, but we're landing on
Speaker 1: the different answers here. My calculus is very much yours.
Speaker 1: It's human impact is you know, no matter how you
Speaker 1: look at it, we do consume the world around us,
Speaker 1: which net net gives us a negative impact on lots
Speaker 1: of things because we consume the world around us, um.
Speaker 1: And so we we as humans as we progress through society,
Speaker 1: as we as we grow as people, as we innovate,
Speaker 1: you know, as as fellow citizens, where it's all on
Speaker 1: us to step back and be like, what can I
Speaker 1: do to make sure I understand my impact on the world.
Speaker 1: And that's a very personal journey. I think for most
Speaker 1: hunters that's a very personal journey. I'm sure for most
Speaker 1: vegans that's a very personal journey. It's a personal journey,
Speaker 1: but it's not a personal choice when your choice involves victims.
Speaker 1: So like, if you don't have to choose between eating, um,
Speaker 1: some risal beings from the supermarket or hunting an elk,
Speaker 1: where in the second option you are intentionally certainly choosing
Speaker 1: to kill an animal, then your personal choice is not
Speaker 1: just a personal choice that involves someone else, and therefore
Speaker 1: it's no longer personal and sure, I mean the personal
Speaker 1: choice to eat that you're making a personal choice while unintentional,
Speaker 1: you're making a choice to eat that food from the
Speaker 1: grocery store rather than again have your own rice farm
Speaker 1: or do whatever. I mean again, that this goes back to,
Speaker 1: you know, in struggling economies and places where we don't
Speaker 1: have this kind of first world luxurious debate that we're having,
Speaker 1: people are hungry and they do what they can to survive. UM,
Speaker 1: and so there's there's that I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: a German while we're talking about you be sure and
Speaker 1: most people, yeah, I think absolutely, Yeah, I mean in um,
Speaker 1: in other countries, second and third world countries, and yeah,
Speaker 1: in your case, you know, yeah that that doesn't really
Speaker 1: I imagine, and I imagine for you like if I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to get you on a got your
Speaker 1: question and be like, hey man, if you were starving,
Speaker 1: would you eat a deer? Like I just I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna that's not something that I think is getting anybody anywhere.
Speaker 1: And certainly I think hopefully what people can hear in
Speaker 1: us is that there's some semantics going on here. We're
Speaker 1: kind of dancing around these issues. Um, I I just believe.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can disagree with this. You know,
Speaker 1: you might or might not, But I, like I said,
Speaker 1: I think there's a similar calculus going on here and
Speaker 1: if we're all able to come to this idea, and
Speaker 1: I think that this ideologically comes to this discussion about
Speaker 1: death and the intentionality as you say, and like need
Speaker 1: needless death or maybe needful death, if that's a good
Speaker 1: way to say it. But I do, I do think
Speaker 1: that there is there's more to be had here than
Speaker 1: than maybe meets the eye. And my only point to
Speaker 1: have this conversation is not just tell you, hey, let's
Speaker 1: go hunting tomorrow. Um what is to say, like it's
Speaker 1: say exactly that to you is I think there is
Speaker 1: some some ways to explore the nuance here where we
Speaker 1: can come we can learn something from each other and
Speaker 1: express appreciation for this idea that our impact on the
Speaker 1: world is it's not finite. It does have lots of
Speaker 1: fissures and cracks through our world the things that we do.
Speaker 1: So that's that's just where I stand on And I objectively,
Speaker 1: UM love having these conversations. I like testing ideas and
Speaker 1: and trying to find ways to connect. So you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully like hopefully you're seeing that a little bit and
Speaker 1: and again hopefully people listening can see, Um, you know
Speaker 1: where you're coming from and what it means to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right on, Yeah, is there any is there anything else
Speaker 1: you want to say? I don't I don't want to
Speaker 1: You know, this isn't about this, certainly isn't about a debate.
Speaker 1: You know, you're you have a forum here to speak
Speaker 1: to an audience that would never hear you, never hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts before. So is there something you know, something
Speaker 1: that you thought of you want to say to to
Speaker 1: you know, tens of thousands of hunters out there to say,
Speaker 1: you know, for those listening that you know, regarding this
Speaker 1: conversation that we're having right now. UM, it essentially comes
Speaker 1: down to choosing whether you into inntionally want to support
Speaker 1: the violations of animals or not. And um, and since
Speaker 1: we do not know how many deaths go into a
Speaker 1: pound or a kilo of rice or beans, and it's
Speaker 1: very reasonable for us to say that that there are
Speaker 1: less violations occurring with those products. Um, if you look
Speaker 1: at like over the course of a year, for example,
Speaker 1: for the consumption of a vegan versus the consumption of
Speaker 1: a hunter someone like yourself, band who also consumes products
Speaker 1: that I consume. Then you know, over the course of
Speaker 1: a year, it's very safe to say that someone like
Speaker 1: myself vegan is going to cause far less violations to animals.
Speaker 1: And so I think that we have a moral obligation.
Speaker 1: And I guess the question for me to the listeners
Speaker 1: is to the question from me is do you believe
Speaker 1: that animal rights is something that you should take serious?
Speaker 1: Do you do believe that you should take animal rights seriously?
Speaker 1: Do you believe that you have the right to violate
Speaker 1: animals and their rights, to take their rights away from them.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that you should care about animal rights
Speaker 1: and you should do something about animal rights when faced
Speaker 1: with the scenario where animal rights are being violated, especially
Speaker 1: when they're being violated by you. And that's what I'd
Speaker 1: like to leave people to think about and to do
Speaker 1: something about, you know. I like to talk to people
Speaker 1: about accountability and the responsibility that each of us as
Speaker 1: individuals have, and I'd like for people to really consider
Speaker 1: their own participate, their own place in all of this,
Speaker 1: because we all have a place in this and the
Speaker 1: world doesn't just it doesn't just run um and operate
Speaker 1: the way that it does accidentally, it operates deliberately because
Speaker 1: of individuals and their choices. So, yes, we all have
Speaker 1: a personal journey, and we all have personal choices. But
Speaker 1: when we have choices that we need to make that
Speaker 1: a personal that violate the rights of others, they're no
Speaker 1: longer personal. They infect everyone else. They affect. And I
Speaker 1: said infect there is a slip of the world, but
Speaker 1: it actually does infect the world because it affects the
Speaker 1: world in such a negative way. And we have the
Speaker 1: power to make positive change in the world, to to
Speaker 1: too cause change, to cause an effect in the world
Speaker 1: that is positive by making the right choice, using that
Speaker 1: guideline to make those choices is going to be a
Speaker 1: lot easier. It's going to be a lot better for
Speaker 1: people to just simply ask that question to themselves that
Speaker 1: rather than asking that question to the world. God. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's lots I agree within their lots I
Speaker 1: disagree with. But I guess that's the point and of
Speaker 1: this conversation. Paul listenant, I really appreciate you stepping into
Speaker 1: this um and being so open as to share what
Speaker 1: you do and what you think and how you move
Speaker 1: through the world. I certainly didn't have to do this,
Speaker 1: It wasn't required, um, but I think this will help
Speaker 1: a lot of people both understand where you're coming from
Speaker 1: and understand kind of where the debate hinges upon, and
Speaker 1: make their own decision based on what they've heard today
Speaker 1: and what they'll continue to hear. I'm sure from an
Speaker 1: honesce for the voiceless and also us here at Meat Eater.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say thank you man for
Speaker 1: taking the time to do this. You didn't have to, Yeah, Ben,
Speaker 1: thank you. I appreciate you reaching out and wanting to
Speaker 1: have this discussion. You're certainly one hunter that I've spoken to,
Speaker 1: or one person that exists on the side of eating
Speaker 1: animals and the idea that you know, I guess, the
Speaker 1: carnival side of things, or you know, that idea that
Speaker 1: animals are here to be eating them. Um. Many people
Speaker 1: have reached out to me in the past and haven't
Speaker 1: been as respectful and as intelligent as you have come across.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that, Ben, really, yeah man, that you
Speaker 1: can reach out to more people, more animal rights activists
Speaker 1: and have these kinds of conversations. I'd recommend Ed. Actually
Speaker 1: you mentioned Ed. Yeah, if you can hook me up
Speaker 1: with him, I tried to. I don't know him, so
Speaker 1: I just tried to, like, you know, kind of sheepishly
Speaker 1: mastered him on Instagram or something. Um, if you know him,
Speaker 1: I would love to continue this conversation with Ed or
Speaker 1: anyone else. Um. Like I said, I really value testing
Speaker 1: my own ideas. I don't want to sit around in
Speaker 1: my own echo chamber and shout how right I am.
Speaker 1: I I want to talk to people. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to people that yeah, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: people that say, like, this ain't right man. UM. So
Speaker 1: I can continue to either shift my position or I
Speaker 1: don't often want to say harden it, but just understand
Speaker 1: it a little bit better. And and I think you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about having your own before on the show,
Speaker 1: and it is like, hey, this, We're gonna contin continue
Speaker 1: down this road, to continue to challenge the things that
Speaker 1: we think are true in order to explore these important
Speaker 1: concepts because they're important. Killing of animals in any way
Speaker 1: that we do it is an important thing for us
Speaker 1: to think about critically. UM. And I know we can
Speaker 1: agree on that for sure. And so and so that's
Speaker 1: what you want to have a chat again in the future,
Speaker 1: i'd great, man, that's great. Awesome dude, Well, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate everything. And again you can check check out what
Speaker 1: they do. Well. We have some videos I know your
Speaker 1: folks send us that will put up on Instagram, so
Speaker 1: you guys can see the Cubic truth and what that
Speaker 1: looks like. And and certainly go go find Paul. Go
Speaker 1: find what he does and explore it. Don't be don't
Speaker 1: be that person that that doesn't want to hear something
Speaker 1: you don't agree with. Be the person that explores it
Speaker 1: and accepts what what it, accepts it for what it is,
Speaker 1: and knows that that these things exist. We exist on
Speaker 1: different polls. So that's what That's what I think. And again, Paul,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, man Um. Hopefully that locked on doesn't
Speaker 1: last too long in no worries. Thanks be alright, Lo,
Speaker 1: because I can't go a week without doing run, without
Speaker 1: run ranking out right drinking