Vegan Cheetah Eats Cheese: Violence & "The Man of Principle" Problem.
01 December 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
if you've been watching this channel
since the beginning you'll remember I always used to come on camera and say if I look exhausted it's because I am exhausted I'm back in the day and still now today being the example I always used to come online and make videos when I was too tired to do other more serious work things that I cared about and today is no exception or today is an example of that old rule what used to be the norm around here I woke up at 6:45 in the morning I had to go down to the train station it's a long story and this evening when I had this guy here hilariously repairing the electricity in my bathroom I was talking about the stuff and joking about it on a live stream on you-now with a great audience we had a great time we really just hung out for like two hours wonderful and you know a couple of trolls showed up but everyone was having such a good time the trolls also got into the spirit of things and had a good tent too so it's really a beautiful beautiful experience we had a lot of fun and then I went to the gym and now I'm talking you again for that same fundamental reason I feel too tired to really hit the books to really get something done intellectual otherwise best it sounds worse the times so this is me on four hours of sleep people um ah take me as I am or let me go um look this video the topic which you've already seen in the title is a topic that people requested and I'm happy to comply and put up this video I will decide later whether this video is going to be up temporarily or permanently because as you may have heard me say many times this channel just like saying if I look exhausted cuz I am exhausted another thing I've said many many times is that I always like to make videos that will still be meaningful to other people and will still be meaningful to me personally if I came back and watch them ten years from now you know something that's not just meaningful a short term not just to go to controversy of the day so we'll see how this goes umm-hmm the question of this one vegan on the internet eating cheese and not caring about eating cheese and expressing his indifference laughing about it etc raises all kinds of issues and some of them are issues that I've already discussed with them face to face in person and sorry face to face via Skype you know in the custom the interview to have he and I have talked about the difference between the man of principle model where you stand up for the principle of the thing whether or not you can see the meat whether or not you can taste the cheese whether or not you ordered it whether or not you asked for it whether or not the principle the thing is more important or versus I suppose the go-with-the-flow model of being a flexitarian or semi vegan so there's a sense in which you guys already know where I stand however I think a lot of you will find the content of the remainder of this video a little bit surprising and hopefully a lot enlightening um my first university degree is in political science I'm not a specialist in Afghanistan I'm not a specialist in Iraq however anyone who seriously dressed in politics in the last 20 years has to some extent developed an interest in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and I actually was interesting that part of world before September 11 2001 partly just because of the particular professors I had in the particular university program where I studied political science I read an account once of one of these bizarre public education programs that the United States supported in Afghanistan and this was an education program not aimed at children blamed at adults and trying to change some fundamental religious social and cultural attitudes toward women toward education toward the way societies organized and so this program was addressing things like arranged marriage an arranged marriage in that culture partly it means the question of whether or not a woman has the right to choose her own husband as opposed to having her father choose her husband for her but partly it also deals with child marriage versus adult marriage so people being married at too young an age partly it deals with inbreeding with whether not people they're cousins etc and this programs education program that was really engaging local religious leaders in debate local kind of village elders in debate the local equivalent of the mayor leaders of public opinion behind the other big question was of women's education and they were trying to engage these people in debate many of whom were members of the Taliban um and other you know some were not members of the Taliban were extremely conservative Muslims and trying to within an extremely fundamentalist and somewhat fanatical a social setting trying to convince them that their own religion their own culture really did not call for women to be kept illiterate forever for women to for women to be unable to choose their own husbands etc etc so that was a very careful argument for them to advance the people doing this the reality is they're employees of the American government so they have a very obvious agenda it's very obvious who's paying the bills and why the whole public education program is this but they were trying to debate with these people on their level within the Muslim religious schema and in many cases for in many cases they say they won how effective was the program really I have no opinion but I'm reading this article that's describing the program as a success and there's a very interesting moment of reflection in this program where one of these men I think he wasn't he's some kind of village elder just a respected older gentleman in a village in Afghanistan um he asked the question he said look I know how these things were done in my grandfather's time I know these things were done in my father's time but I know how we did them in this village just ten years ago and he referred to his own family situation exactly these issues arranged marriage women's education versus women's illiteracy and he said how do we know when to make the change when the reality of the change were making he is an offense to our own grandparents is an offense to our own tradition is an offense to our own culture and own way of doing things just five years ago just ten years ago and of course a hundred years ago and so on and the answer that was given by the local religious leader this is a Muslim cleric who had very gradually been convinced by this basically American propaganda program the answer he was given is the obligation to make the change comes as soon as we know before we were ignorant there was no obligation on us to do the right thing because we did not know as soon as we know we have to make ginger interesting now there was more to it there's a whole context of Islamic jurisprudence Islam as a religion Muslim culture ah but the simplicity of that being tied to of course a monotheistic and totally non democratic worldview to me of course it was just it's just a moment that stays with me it's a moment that leaps off the page in contrast to the sort of ethical debates we engage in within veganism animal rights ecology and within democratic forums shall we say as soon as you know there's the obligation to make the change doesn't matter what your parents believe what's your grandparents believe so many of you watching this are vegans who already sympathize with why I raised this many of you are vegans who will have had conflicts with your own parents or with your own grandparents some of you just recently at Thanksgiving some of you in the next thirty days are gonna go to Christmas or Hanukkah you're gonna deal with those exactly those questions in some sense and you are not going to be able to get away with presenting an ethical argument that simple in that simplistic so you know we all go through these situations where you order something in a restaurant you think it's vegan it arrives and it's not when is the obligation on you to act as soon as you know I go through these things in many languages of reading ingredients and sometimes reading ingredients very carefully the ingredients are written in English the ingredients are written in Chinese the ingredients are written in Thai or Cambodian or some other languages have lived in all these strange countries sometimes I buy things and I don't know they contain some kind of animal product the obligation of me to act comes as soon as I do know right very simple um so I digress for more anecdote here I have really two big anecdotes in mind but here's a little one in the middle if you think it doesn't make a positive impact in the world it does there was a bakery in Victoria British Columbia Canada Victoria is a small city and it was a so-called artisanal bakery which just means it's expensive so I mean some of the loaves of bread in this bakery are five dollars probably some of them are like seven dollars the bread could be very pricey they tried to make different types of fancy bread and I would go in and I would have to ask every time is this bread vegan and they didn't know they the only way that could find out whether or not a particular bread on a particular day was really vegan was for them to phone the Baker who did the work that day because they mixed up their recipes so like on a given day a certain that bread might or might not have egg wash on it or might might or might not have some parmesan used in it or might or might not have some other non vegan ingredient they really didn't know I guess again this is part of their artisanal style they don't want to be like a corporate bakery I'm guessing they encourage their bakers that you have to mix it up a little bit from day to day or week to week to make things you know a little bit unpredictable um now I didn't punish them sometimes when I ask this question it's okay is this can i buy this bread or not you know I'm vegan you know can you check sometimes the result was that with buy nothing now we have to leave the store empty-handed so we move it sometimes I would just have to buy the cheapest plain white bun which they made they made a simple what we call a dinner roll to have a very simple white bread because that was the only thing I was really certain was vegan their loss so they're selling me a 50 cent bun or a couple of 50 cent buns instead of a $5 loaf of bread this is these are Canadian prices and in Canadian cities sadly it's very common to steal hope of bread for five dollars and with Canadian dollars Canadian prices um okay and you know the last time I talked to them because this happened repeatedly the last time I talked to the woman who was the boss I know she was the manager of the owner but she was some kind of boss she just said to me she said look you know what we need to be better organized because whenever we get these questions of course whether it's from a vegan or maybe it's from someone who's just lactose intolerant you know someone who has another reason we never really answer so you know what I gotta talk to the chef we got a we got to get organized so we have a written list every day about what is there isn't so great it's a small change in the world but if I had behaved like this other youtuber and just pretended I didn't know or didn't care if I just blindly ate bread that had cheese in it and wasn't different in that small way I wouldn't make the world a better place and of course this type of conversation is part of the difference between veganism being a visible minority or an invisible minority which is very important I'm not going to get into that at length here at the top of that above many videos I think part of the dynamism and strength of the gay rights movement was that gay people made a transition from being an invisible minority to being a visible minority a highly visible minority it's possible if you're gay most gay people can pretend to be straight they keep they can choose to be invisible right but that I mean the difference between homosexuality in the 1930s and homosexuality in the 1990s a big part of it was the transition from being invisible to being visible so yes being vegan in a visible way just in that small way of when you go to the bakery sing look I got a check I think this bread is vegan but is it obviously you don't ask that about bread that has that's labeled as bacon bread or you press that about bread that's labeled labeled as cheese loaf but sure with bread that could be or should be or might be vegan it's totally reads blessed and engage in that and you are making that small difference um you know now look sorry I up by blood I'm Jewish I think I I I think I could tell I could lie and not be Jewish I've met and talked to Jewish people who are religious I'm an atheist I'm a nihilistic atheist and for them all so that's part of the reason for them to go into shops and check does this contain pork is this kosher for them to talk to people and shouts of their desert roles it's partly because they want the shop owners to know we're out here we're not an invisible community or visible community were some of your customers we're looking to buy this stuff like whether that's a labeling challenge or an ingredient challenge some of them want to do that now fundamentally I don't I don't sympathize with any supernatural dietary requirements I don't I don't sympathize with them within Judaism North and Buddhism nor any other religion but I just say that's an interesting parallel where again there's a question of visible versus invisible and a question of very polite gradual suasion on those institutions whether there are restaurants or bakeries or what-have-you right there's still an activism folks this has just living your life this is just normal daily life this is just the struggle as a vegan right activism is a whole nother question part of the reason why this channel exists is not just to talk about the politics of veganism not just to talk about the irrational elements of veganism but to talk about the emotional elements and indeed the irrational elements okay keeping all the way real now I've got a disclaimer here I'm gonna say it after the anecdote also I do not support or endorse violence of any kind I don't support violent protests I don't support I don't support any of the excuses for violence made by other vegans such as Gary Yourofsky I do not support violence even against laboratory technicians who perform experiments and animals not at all I only endorse democratic nonviolent methods of social Trains especially if you're living in a democratic country such as kin of the United States Germany etc um I don't know if anyone watching this channel is really living in a non democratic country maybe a few but most of my advice is being addressed to people who really have the right to vote and Lobby government and go to City Hall and organize dissident movements etc if you live in a country where you have none of those rights and none of those options that's probably another story and somebody has to talk about it on their YouTube channel um with that haven't been said there was a guy and I'm not gonna say who he was and I'm not gonna say where I was I am going to lie and say that this happened in Malaysia it did not but we're gonna pretend it happened in Malaysia cuz I want to make this story more anonymous okay there was a guy and I had been a friend to him and he had been a friend to me at one point I had invited him into my own house and I him as a house guest he had met my girlfriend time I had cooked food for him in the past I had been a host him take care of him and at one point in Malaysia he was a host to me and I did not speak the local language I couldn't communicate in Malay and he knew how seriously I took vegetarianism at the time so at the time I was strictly vegetarian I wasn't yet vegan I've talked about that in earlier videos but you know the process of me becoming vegan that time already though I've refused to wear leather refused to eat eggs in many ways I was very very close to vegan in my ethical beliefs and in my diet but I was not at that time on a person fee but he knew how serious it was that he said that he was a vegetarian he was serious with vegetarianism also that's what he said and not once but repeatedly he went with me to a grocery store and he bought for me a type of bread and this is basically like a bread with herbs like a focaccia type of bread so as a bread with some some flavoring some herbs on it I couldn't taste anything taste like it had any egg in it it didn't taste like it had anything there was no cheese so whatever non-vegan aparts it absolutely seemed to be vegan to me right and he went with me the first time and he explained what was he talked to the woman behind the counter and the local language and he confirmed yeah oh yeah this is totally great and he said he had a idea he ate it himself all the time and he was vegetarian okay so I didn't see him for a while I don't know let's say for so I he I ate it a couple of times with him for that reason this bread from this particular store and then I didn't see him for a week let's say these are approximate times during that week I did a couple more times and that I did see him again and when he saw that I bought it he laughed at me and I could tell from his laughter something was wrong he was like oh you still buy this stuff I was like yeah it's like you know it's because it's the bread you confirmed was you know vegan vegetarian whatever I want to say like this is the bread safe for me to buy because you talk to the person I can't speak the language here you know and you know while he was talking to me I was eating the bread and he laughingly and casually said that in fact this bread contained beef contained beef tallow and the moment he said that the moment I knew I spat out the bread that was in my mouth I put the bread down I never hated again and now it must be a trace amount and actually in his whole story heat in his laughing way he told this whole story that no actually he when he asked the one behind the counter she admitted or she stated that it contains some trace amount of beef tallow of I assume beef fat and again it was so little I really can taste most impurities so I assume it is really a tiny amount of beef but it's the principle of the thing and again my purpose on this channel is to keep it all the way real and talk about emotional and irrational aspects of veganism and when I put that bread down I was sitting there looking at him I didn't feel angry I felt cold and I was thinking through completely rationally whether or not I was gonna murder this guy now some of you may say that's irrational again I don't enforce endorse violence for any political purpose I don't I don't work in my violence in your life well it was rational and I came to the rational conclusion that I was not gonna kill him I just have the level of honesty to come on camera and tell you I thought that all the way through and the situation we were living in in Malaysia again not really Malaysia I could have done it very easily and I would have gotten away with it if there wouldn't have been any problem in that sense in terms of law enforcement not an issue not an issue I will digress just to say for me personally there has to be extraordinary circumstances to use violence against someone but the most ordinary of those extraordinary circumstances for me from my perspective is that this person is not just a threat they're an ongoing threat or in other words if you don't use violence to stop them they're not just gonna cause a problem for you now they're not just threats you know they're gonna continue to be a problem they're gonna continue to instigate violence or do something else very seriously wrong in the world again and again to others or possibly to you again or what have you where violence is necessary to stop violence and again I actually sorry this is obviously this is totally unscripted spontaneous video I don't even like the word necessary where your reason for using violence is to stop further violence / thats basically the only situation in which I would be able to convince myself of that sort of thing so as I said it's very extraordinary that's the most ordinary of extraordinary circumstances that I couldn't achieve it that kind of thing again even in the comments below this video even in anonymous comments I don't know how many people are willing to come forward and say yeah when someone crosses you like that when someone intentionally lies to you when someone makes a mockery out of the moral principles you choose to live your life by that you think through whether or not you're gonna kill them when somebody doesn't just cross that line but they trick you into crossing that line this is really the opposite of this other youtuber who just has the relaxed attitude have let it all hang out and who sits he sits down the rest unlike me he sits down in a restaurant he orders something it turns out it has cheese on it and he just laughingly in a relaxed way eats the cheese well I guess the advantage of his approach to life is that it doesn't cross his mind the things that crossed my mind I now again being asked you I got it under control I have never had a single violent outburst that kind in my entire life I doubt I ever will I'm now 38 years old um I have talked to other vegans who do not have an under control I have talked to vegans who get into fist fights over trivialities there are vegans who lose their temper and I can sympathize but sure I'm here to say it's bad and it's wrong so the vegan who laughingly just eats cheese when it's convenient to eat cheese because they don't want to make a fuss it's bad and it's wrong but I've also got to say living the way I live this whole man of principle thing it's not for everybody because some people are gonna snap and that also is bad and it's wrong hit me up
since the beginning you'll remember I always used to come on camera and say if I look exhausted it's because I am exhausted I'm back in the day and still now today being the example I always used to come online and make videos when I was too tired to do other more serious work things that I cared about and today is no exception or today is an example of that old rule what used to be the norm around here I woke up at 6:45 in the morning I had to go down to the train station it's a long story and this evening when I had this guy here hilariously repairing the electricity in my bathroom I was talking about the stuff and joking about it on a live stream on you-now with a great audience we had a great time we really just hung out for like two hours wonderful and you know a couple of trolls showed up but everyone was having such a good time the trolls also got into the spirit of things and had a good tent too so it's really a beautiful beautiful experience we had a lot of fun and then I went to the gym and now I'm talking you again for that same fundamental reason I feel too tired to really hit the books to really get something done intellectual otherwise best it sounds worse the times so this is me on four hours of sleep people um ah take me as I am or let me go um look this video the topic which you've already seen in the title is a topic that people requested and I'm happy to comply and put up this video I will decide later whether this video is going to be up temporarily or permanently because as you may have heard me say many times this channel just like saying if I look exhausted cuz I am exhausted another thing I've said many many times is that I always like to make videos that will still be meaningful to other people and will still be meaningful to me personally if I came back and watch them ten years from now you know something that's not just meaningful a short term not just to go to controversy of the day so we'll see how this goes umm-hmm the question of this one vegan on the internet eating cheese and not caring about eating cheese and expressing his indifference laughing about it etc raises all kinds of issues and some of them are issues that I've already discussed with them face to face in person and sorry face to face via Skype you know in the custom the interview to have he and I have talked about the difference between the man of principle model where you stand up for the principle of the thing whether or not you can see the meat whether or not you can taste the cheese whether or not you ordered it whether or not you asked for it whether or not the principle the thing is more important or versus I suppose the go-with-the-flow model of being a flexitarian or semi vegan so there's a sense in which you guys already know where I stand however I think a lot of you will find the content of the remainder of this video a little bit surprising and hopefully a lot enlightening um my first university degree is in political science I'm not a specialist in Afghanistan I'm not a specialist in Iraq however anyone who seriously dressed in politics in the last 20 years has to some extent developed an interest in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and I actually was interesting that part of world before September 11 2001 partly just because of the particular professors I had in the particular university program where I studied political science I read an account once of one of these bizarre public education programs that the United States supported in Afghanistan and this was an education program not aimed at children blamed at adults and trying to change some fundamental religious social and cultural attitudes toward women toward education toward the way societies organized and so this program was addressing things like arranged marriage an arranged marriage in that culture partly it means the question of whether or not a woman has the right to choose her own husband as opposed to having her father choose her husband for her but partly it also deals with child marriage versus adult marriage so people being married at too young an age partly it deals with inbreeding with whether not people they're cousins etc and this programs education program that was really engaging local religious leaders in debate local kind of village elders in debate the local equivalent of the mayor leaders of public opinion behind the other big question was of women's education and they were trying to engage these people in debate many of whom were members of the Taliban um and other you know some were not members of the Taliban were extremely conservative Muslims and trying to within an extremely fundamentalist and somewhat fanatical a social setting trying to convince them that their own religion their own culture really did not call for women to be kept illiterate forever for women to for women to be unable to choose their own husbands etc etc so that was a very careful argument for them to advance the people doing this the reality is they're employees of the American government so they have a very obvious agenda it's very obvious who's paying the bills and why the whole public education program is this but they were trying to debate with these people on their level within the Muslim religious schema and in many cases for in many cases they say they won how effective was the program really I have no opinion but I'm reading this article that's describing the program as a success and there's a very interesting moment of reflection in this program where one of these men I think he wasn't he's some kind of village elder just a respected older gentleman in a village in Afghanistan um he asked the question he said look I know how these things were done in my grandfather's time I know these things were done in my father's time but I know how we did them in this village just ten years ago and he referred to his own family situation exactly these issues arranged marriage women's education versus women's illiteracy and he said how do we know when to make the change when the reality of the change were making he is an offense to our own grandparents is an offense to our own tradition is an offense to our own culture and own way of doing things just five years ago just ten years ago and of course a hundred years ago and so on and the answer that was given by the local religious leader this is a Muslim cleric who had very gradually been convinced by this basically American propaganda program the answer he was given is the obligation to make the change comes as soon as we know before we were ignorant there was no obligation on us to do the right thing because we did not know as soon as we know we have to make ginger interesting now there was more to it there's a whole context of Islamic jurisprudence Islam as a religion Muslim culture ah but the simplicity of that being tied to of course a monotheistic and totally non democratic worldview to me of course it was just it's just a moment that stays with me it's a moment that leaps off the page in contrast to the sort of ethical debates we engage in within veganism animal rights ecology and within democratic forums shall we say as soon as you know there's the obligation to make the change doesn't matter what your parents believe what's your grandparents believe so many of you watching this are vegans who already sympathize with why I raised this many of you are vegans who will have had conflicts with your own parents or with your own grandparents some of you just recently at Thanksgiving some of you in the next thirty days are gonna go to Christmas or Hanukkah you're gonna deal with those exactly those questions in some sense and you are not going to be able to get away with presenting an ethical argument that simple in that simplistic so you know we all go through these situations where you order something in a restaurant you think it's vegan it arrives and it's not when is the obligation on you to act as soon as you know I go through these things in many languages of reading ingredients and sometimes reading ingredients very carefully the ingredients are written in English the ingredients are written in Chinese the ingredients are written in Thai or Cambodian or some other languages have lived in all these strange countries sometimes I buy things and I don't know they contain some kind of animal product the obligation of me to act comes as soon as I do know right very simple um so I digress for more anecdote here I have really two big anecdotes in mind but here's a little one in the middle if you think it doesn't make a positive impact in the world it does there was a bakery in Victoria British Columbia Canada Victoria is a small city and it was a so-called artisanal bakery which just means it's expensive so I mean some of the loaves of bread in this bakery are five dollars probably some of them are like seven dollars the bread could be very pricey they tried to make different types of fancy bread and I would go in and I would have to ask every time is this bread vegan and they didn't know they the only way that could find out whether or not a particular bread on a particular day was really vegan was for them to phone the Baker who did the work that day because they mixed up their recipes so like on a given day a certain that bread might or might not have egg wash on it or might might or might not have some parmesan used in it or might or might not have some other non vegan ingredient they really didn't know I guess again this is part of their artisanal style they don't want to be like a corporate bakery I'm guessing they encourage their bakers that you have to mix it up a little bit from day to day or week to week to make things you know a little bit unpredictable um now I didn't punish them sometimes when I ask this question it's okay is this can i buy this bread or not you know I'm vegan you know can you check sometimes the result was that with buy nothing now we have to leave the store empty-handed so we move it sometimes I would just have to buy the cheapest plain white bun which they made they made a simple what we call a dinner roll to have a very simple white bread because that was the only thing I was really certain was vegan their loss so they're selling me a 50 cent bun or a couple of 50 cent buns instead of a $5 loaf of bread this is these are Canadian prices and in Canadian cities sadly it's very common to steal hope of bread for five dollars and with Canadian dollars Canadian prices um okay and you know the last time I talked to them because this happened repeatedly the last time I talked to the woman who was the boss I know she was the manager of the owner but she was some kind of boss she just said to me she said look you know what we need to be better organized because whenever we get these questions of course whether it's from a vegan or maybe it's from someone who's just lactose intolerant you know someone who has another reason we never really answer so you know what I gotta talk to the chef we got a we got to get organized so we have a written list every day about what is there isn't so great it's a small change in the world but if I had behaved like this other youtuber and just pretended I didn't know or didn't care if I just blindly ate bread that had cheese in it and wasn't different in that small way I wouldn't make the world a better place and of course this type of conversation is part of the difference between veganism being a visible minority or an invisible minority which is very important I'm not going to get into that at length here at the top of that above many videos I think part of the dynamism and strength of the gay rights movement was that gay people made a transition from being an invisible minority to being a visible minority a highly visible minority it's possible if you're gay most gay people can pretend to be straight they keep they can choose to be invisible right but that I mean the difference between homosexuality in the 1930s and homosexuality in the 1990s a big part of it was the transition from being invisible to being visible so yes being vegan in a visible way just in that small way of when you go to the bakery sing look I got a check I think this bread is vegan but is it obviously you don't ask that about bread that has that's labeled as bacon bread or you press that about bread that's labeled labeled as cheese loaf but sure with bread that could be or should be or might be vegan it's totally reads blessed and engage in that and you are making that small difference um you know now look sorry I up by blood I'm Jewish I think I I I think I could tell I could lie and not be Jewish I've met and talked to Jewish people who are religious I'm an atheist I'm a nihilistic atheist and for them all so that's part of the reason for them to go into shops and check does this contain pork is this kosher for them to talk to people and shouts of their desert roles it's partly because they want the shop owners to know we're out here we're not an invisible community or visible community were some of your customers we're looking to buy this stuff like whether that's a labeling challenge or an ingredient challenge some of them want to do that now fundamentally I don't I don't sympathize with any supernatural dietary requirements I don't I don't sympathize with them within Judaism North and Buddhism nor any other religion but I just say that's an interesting parallel where again there's a question of visible versus invisible and a question of very polite gradual suasion on those institutions whether there are restaurants or bakeries or what-have-you right there's still an activism folks this has just living your life this is just normal daily life this is just the struggle as a vegan right activism is a whole nother question part of the reason why this channel exists is not just to talk about the politics of veganism not just to talk about the irrational elements of veganism but to talk about the emotional elements and indeed the irrational elements okay keeping all the way real now I've got a disclaimer here I'm gonna say it after the anecdote also I do not support or endorse violence of any kind I don't support violent protests I don't support I don't support any of the excuses for violence made by other vegans such as Gary Yourofsky I do not support violence even against laboratory technicians who perform experiments and animals not at all I only endorse democratic nonviolent methods of social Trains especially if you're living in a democratic country such as kin of the United States Germany etc um I don't know if anyone watching this channel is really living in a non democratic country maybe a few but most of my advice is being addressed to people who really have the right to vote and Lobby government and go to City Hall and organize dissident movements etc if you live in a country where you have none of those rights and none of those options that's probably another story and somebody has to talk about it on their YouTube channel um with that haven't been said there was a guy and I'm not gonna say who he was and I'm not gonna say where I was I am going to lie and say that this happened in Malaysia it did not but we're gonna pretend it happened in Malaysia cuz I want to make this story more anonymous okay there was a guy and I had been a friend to him and he had been a friend to me at one point I had invited him into my own house and I him as a house guest he had met my girlfriend time I had cooked food for him in the past I had been a host him take care of him and at one point in Malaysia he was a host to me and I did not speak the local language I couldn't communicate in Malay and he knew how seriously I took vegetarianism at the time so at the time I was strictly vegetarian I wasn't yet vegan I've talked about that in earlier videos but you know the process of me becoming vegan that time already though I've refused to wear leather refused to eat eggs in many ways I was very very close to vegan in my ethical beliefs and in my diet but I was not at that time on a person fee but he knew how serious it was that he said that he was a vegetarian he was serious with vegetarianism also that's what he said and not once but repeatedly he went with me to a grocery store and he bought for me a type of bread and this is basically like a bread with herbs like a focaccia type of bread so as a bread with some some flavoring some herbs on it I couldn't taste anything taste like it had any egg in it it didn't taste like it had anything there was no cheese so whatever non-vegan aparts it absolutely seemed to be vegan to me right and he went with me the first time and he explained what was he talked to the woman behind the counter and the local language and he confirmed yeah oh yeah this is totally great and he said he had a idea he ate it himself all the time and he was vegetarian okay so I didn't see him for a while I don't know let's say for so I he I ate it a couple of times with him for that reason this bread from this particular store and then I didn't see him for a week let's say these are approximate times during that week I did a couple more times and that I did see him again and when he saw that I bought it he laughed at me and I could tell from his laughter something was wrong he was like oh you still buy this stuff I was like yeah it's like you know it's because it's the bread you confirmed was you know vegan vegetarian whatever I want to say like this is the bread safe for me to buy because you talk to the person I can't speak the language here you know and you know while he was talking to me I was eating the bread and he laughingly and casually said that in fact this bread contained beef contained beef tallow and the moment he said that the moment I knew I spat out the bread that was in my mouth I put the bread down I never hated again and now it must be a trace amount and actually in his whole story heat in his laughing way he told this whole story that no actually he when he asked the one behind the counter she admitted or she stated that it contains some trace amount of beef tallow of I assume beef fat and again it was so little I really can taste most impurities so I assume it is really a tiny amount of beef but it's the principle of the thing and again my purpose on this channel is to keep it all the way real and talk about emotional and irrational aspects of veganism and when I put that bread down I was sitting there looking at him I didn't feel angry I felt cold and I was thinking through completely rationally whether or not I was gonna murder this guy now some of you may say that's irrational again I don't enforce endorse violence for any political purpose I don't I don't work in my violence in your life well it was rational and I came to the rational conclusion that I was not gonna kill him I just have the level of honesty to come on camera and tell you I thought that all the way through and the situation we were living in in Malaysia again not really Malaysia I could have done it very easily and I would have gotten away with it if there wouldn't have been any problem in that sense in terms of law enforcement not an issue not an issue I will digress just to say for me personally there has to be extraordinary circumstances to use violence against someone but the most ordinary of those extraordinary circumstances for me from my perspective is that this person is not just a threat they're an ongoing threat or in other words if you don't use violence to stop them they're not just gonna cause a problem for you now they're not just threats you know they're gonna continue to be a problem they're gonna continue to instigate violence or do something else very seriously wrong in the world again and again to others or possibly to you again or what have you where violence is necessary to stop violence and again I actually sorry this is obviously this is totally unscripted spontaneous video I don't even like the word necessary where your reason for using violence is to stop further violence / thats basically the only situation in which I would be able to convince myself of that sort of thing so as I said it's very extraordinary that's the most ordinary of extraordinary circumstances that I couldn't achieve it that kind of thing again even in the comments below this video even in anonymous comments I don't know how many people are willing to come forward and say yeah when someone crosses you like that when someone intentionally lies to you when someone makes a mockery out of the moral principles you choose to live your life by that you think through whether or not you're gonna kill them when somebody doesn't just cross that line but they trick you into crossing that line this is really the opposite of this other youtuber who just has the relaxed attitude have let it all hang out and who sits he sits down the rest unlike me he sits down in a restaurant he orders something it turns out it has cheese on it and he just laughingly in a relaxed way eats the cheese well I guess the advantage of his approach to life is that it doesn't cross his mind the things that crossed my mind I now again being asked you I got it under control I have never had a single violent outburst that kind in my entire life I doubt I ever will I'm now 38 years old um I have talked to other vegans who do not have an under control I have talked to vegans who get into fist fights over trivialities there are vegans who lose their temper and I can sympathize but sure I'm here to say it's bad and it's wrong so the vegan who laughingly just eats cheese when it's convenient to eat cheese because they don't want to make a fuss it's bad and it's wrong but I've also got to say living the way I live this whole man of principle thing it's not for everybody because some people are gonna snap and that also is bad and it's wrong hit me up