Two Vegan Activists from Two Generations. [1hr+]

but what does democracy really mean what
democracy really means is if you're a vegan and you want to change the world you have ways to do it other than violence you have some better option I don't even feel like like veganism has to rely on animal rights you know I think it has to rely on asking yourself what what's the meaning of life what's a meaningful life for me now whether that's in terms of ecology or what have you I remember many many years ago just sitting at a table with a guy it was a an all-you-can-eat buffet and so you know everything I had was was vegan and he had all these bones of dead animals on his plate you know just sit there a table aggressive to me I know it sounds stupid to me that alone you know is enough of a reason to be vegan I look at the waist of that just the ugliness of that and the decadence and the self-indulgence for me I can't imagine living at life with with bones apply even if you don't love animals you don't respect animals you don't believe in animal rights to me veganism is a really natural consequence of caring about living a meaningful life okay look so I mean you know uh what's the future you're gonna get a diploma in human rights gonna change the world what's up I was reading about if you hear what the mink someone let makes out enough oh no see that you've had another one those near you down in southern Ontario he was in Brantford yeah I know I know there's a lot of fur farming there in southern Ontario but I haven't heard about that case now 300 mink farms in Canada like why they like who's buying the fur I don't know so many people are against for well I just mentioned one of the funny things in our history textbooks they always mention really vaguely about how important the fur trapping industry was and then they just vaguely say and then it stopped being important you know like then it the economy just disappeared which is true but it's true because of fur farming that's why First Nations don't trap for any more they can't get any money out of it trapping for in the wild isn't profitable because you have 300 mink farms or whatever and you know so those those animals now live their whole lives in a cage to be killed and died for a for fur but that was the historical transformation but i think i think for you also in school fur fur trapping fur farming is always presented as this huge part of our national history so great pride is that we built this country on killing beavers you know so yeah yeah that's also weird trip the thing was good the people like 500 mix out my parents are talking about oh that's horrible that makes are gonna die in like the mix we're gonna die anyway like but like is it effective active activism to let it mix or actually try to shut down like or to try to shut down the farms because the farmers gonna get money from insurance to get more like is that really helping or is it just sabotaging will you you probably can already guess what my answer is my answer is no and I have talked about this a fair bit on my channel lately I'll say a little bit about why it's no so for one thing interestingly you know Gary Yourofsky who's a famous guy and veganism he his start he sabotaged it was either a mink farm or another type of fur farm so if it wasn't mink it was very similar to make in Canada that was how we got his start and that's why the charge against him was international terrorism because I think he was an American who crossed into Canada any cemetery right that's right yeah because he committed a crime there was another example I know this is a bit obscure but the brother of an actress who was on Baywatch that yet used to be a really famous TV show Baywatch so this is bizarre I only know this so this guy his sister was a successful actress and she's also vegan uh so this guy he decided to burn down a slaughterhouse that was supposedly a slaughterhouse just for horses so place where they slaughtered and killed horses I don't even know if that's true cuz I I think most of the time one slaughterhouse does you know cows as well as horses but anyway that's what he claimed it was a horse so a horse abattoir it's possible I just just unusual anyway he burned it down and like you say you know like two weeks later you know the insurance money paid for it and it was rebuilt and reopened me nothing nothing was accomplished but what was accomplished is that his ass is in jail he spent many years in prison it's a serious charge there are many different reasons why I do not believe this is effective activism for one thing I believe it discredits veganism it's a problem for us as a movement as an ideal and I would put you it will discredit any ideology any ideal any movement uh what if Buddhists did that you know what if the main form of Buddhism was Buddhists going and burning down cow slaughter houses or Hindus any any kind of new religion and can of religion that's just not that well-known or not that popular like Buddhism or Hinduism people would regard Buddhist differently it would discredit Buddhism in a huge way now Buddhism doesn't have that good of reputation I think the reputation of Buddhism is mostly built on kung fu movies like you know I'm not even complaining but I mean kung fu movies are popular and there's a wise old man and he quotes Buddhist doctor and everybody's philosophy and says oh don't don't punch people or don't punch people too much and then the whole movie people punch each other and that's that's um you know our perspective on Buddhism or Hinduism would be dramatically different if after immigrating to Canada they were carrying out terrorist attacks on cow slaughter houses and there is I mean there is an argument within those religions that that it's very easy to imagine a parallel universe where they did that so yes it does discredit veganism but first and foremost what I say to people when I talk to them face-to-face is don't put yourself in a cage there are situations in the history of the world where the only thing you can do politically is to resort to violence and I study them I just wrote an essay about a horrible situation in 1920 where you know it really came down to guns and knives where it came down to a fight fight to the death with bayonets and swords and more than 6,000 people got killed there are situations like that in the history of the world and it takes some degree of honesty to recognize this ain't one of them you know the struggle to get people educated and motivated to support veganism I I don't think anyone if you're really being honest with yourself can say that you're in a in a survival situation where you need to break the law resort to violence or have you and the up the upshot will be those people just put themselves in prison so you know if you feel powerless now if you feel like you're not an effective activist now how effective are you going to be when you're spending 10 years in jail you know it's my improvised answer but yeah I'm one of the only people talking openly above that of really talking about and it's okay look let's see something positive positively I would have just said is negative I've just said why you shouldn't get involved with extremism why you shouldn't get involved with terrorism while you shouldn't do illegal and violent acts what should you do you should appreciate that you're living in a democratic country even if it's a really crappy democratic country I think one of the questions we all got to deal with as we grow up is what does it mean to live in a democracy what are the opportunities living in a democracy what are the responsibilities living to marks and what are the advantages as well as the disadvantages and that's something you don't learn cool in school they don't teach you how to go to City Hall and make a difference they don't they don't teach you any of that and you know you're probably totaling really vague like oh you know you're living in a special country because there's no civil war here with Isis you know there are no bombs like you know you have peace and democracy but what does democracy really mean what democracy really means is if you're a vegan and you want to change the world you have ways to do it other than violence you have some options and you know going to City Hall it can be crappy and draining and emotionally tough people at City Hall will say things to denigrate you and insult you and hurt your feelings they really will there are nasty aspects to local politics but you know ultimately we do have elections we do have freedom of speech we do have a free press and as crappy as democracy is in Canada because I dislike it I don't like I don't like the Canadian political system there actually are all these openings opportunities for you to make some positive happen and it's say something even more positive do you think the people who run Greenpeace are a bunch of geniuses I don't I think they're a bunch of idiots do you think the people who run People for the Ethical Treatment animals the Green Party uh what's another one that's right there are a couple of their organizations the Sierra Club you know foundations that deal with ecology or animal rights or this connect to them those people aren't geniuses but they know better than to burn down a slaughterhouse they know better than to try to smash up a fur farm they're people who are making a positive difference and you can too i think you can do better you know I doesn't in recognizing that those people are kind of stupid you have to recognize the same time you know okay if we could get 10 smart people together we can do better than the Green Party we can do better than Greenpeace and that's not short term that's long term that's over ten years or what have you but that potential is there that hope is there and that is part of democracy fundamentally that's completely built on democracy when you are living in a dictatorship when i was living in laos because this is a really small example any kind of political organization means you go to prison there was sorry i hope i hope is a fun active for you I knew a schoolteacher she was teaching English at a school in Laos and they decided to have a celebration for Earth Day you know this holiday earth day they had the kids get out their paints and paint pictures of trees ecological messages and write in English because it was the English class happy Earth Day save the bears save the elephants this kind of thing the kids painted these and held them up and they walked from one school property to another school property the city carrying their school projects all put in prison for an illegal political protest I'm not joking they were put in prison the teacher was detained and interrogated the principal of the school was taken in deteriorated real talk that's dictatorship that's the difference between a democracy and dictatorship okay um they weren't they weren't even protesting they were literally carrying their school projects which was painting a poster about ecology from one place to another in Laos again louses communist dictatorship they threatened to kill me they kicked me out of the country I had my own experience with politics there and I did I never lets did I did advocate for ecological change there in my small polite way I did try to make a positive difference in that country I knew a guy it's not worth saying how I know these people some people tried to form a club not political at all they tried to form a club for the owners of Volkswagen cars so I people on old secondhand Volkswagens in Laos they did not get the permission of the Communist Party they did not get the government's permission to form a club for Volkswagen owners thrown in prison thrown in prison for having a legal political organization okay so on a deep level when I talk about like understanding democracy and what it means to you what responsibilities what opportunities of course you can take it for granted because we're all raised to take it for granted we're raised with a fundamentally kind of racist narrative of the superiority of the British Empire and of British culture and that everything in Canada is just wonderful because of British culture meanwhile don't look at First Nations don't look at it side of it don't look at the actual colonial history but this idea that just because we have a parliament everything in our society is better and it's almost the opposite because we have a parliament there is an onus on you there's an obligation on you to figure out for yourself how to make a pause the difference in the world democratically and for vegans there's good and bad that comes with it but i hope i really hope we can at least in the same sense that you know there used to be real political organizations about alcohol like Mothers Against Drunk drunk driving at one time that was no joke people getting politically organized try to discourage alcoholism and drunk driving like back in the 1980s that was still a big issue because the government didn't really care that much about drunk driving and they had a whole series of legal changes related to drunk driving alcohol there were actually yeah sure Hume to my high school every year ins in a presentation right so why doesn't it that exists for veganism because we suck no seriously so that's a good example of us against drunk driving and the passengers could say there were also organizations like that for about cigarettes about trying to get the government to change its rules and cigarettes I always say that I think mothers against drunk driving the reason why they're less impressive today is that they want like now the government is completely against drunk driving and all the legal changes they wanted got made they won so now they can shut up and that's also something we don't think about as vegans we haven't even thought through the possibility of winning but in a Democratic Society when you win then the struggle is over you don't have to have organizations that are against slavery forever you don't have to have you know like protests on the street about drunk driving forever you can form an organization that achieves its goals in Parliament and does things like visiting school kids to give them lectures about drunk driving sure Mothers Against Drunk Driving there are a success story but they also get to fade out they become less important because they've succeeded yeah maybe two hundred years from now for me they still have call centers in southern Ontario I thought that stuff yeah hey yeah a lot of that stuff's on the east coast of Canada I did a ton of job applications in the last bunch of months I actually I think I never complained about that on youtube so it's cool when you have stuff going on in your life you don't complain about on YouTube that's that's also funny to reflect on but I applied for jobs in Canada in Europe in Japan and in China and I did Skype interviews for a bunch of those jobs too yeah my cousin I was two occasions she's a teacher she's like oh you can be my au pair I'm like it's Australia like it's so far away yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but also what he apparently taking care of little kids in Australia yeah it's like she said okay I think it's just a fancy word but babysitter yeah right yeah yeah I pay you to do that but they live in like that one back so yeah I mean look a lot of that stuff too I see other other people on YouTube giving really bad advice about those types of jobs like teaching English and going abroad to you know these kinds of really low level jobs it's definitely a situation where you know reckless optimism can get you into trouble some some people a few people will have really positive experiences that kind of work but both short-term and long-term there are a lot of real disadvantages you know if you take up au pair work you are competing with you know people from third world countries like the Philippines who do that work for less than minimum wage that's you know that's what we do in Canada as well as in Australia is employing you know people from the Philippines would having that kind of work you're putting yourself in a position where you're you're both not paid well and not respected and it doesn't look good on your resume or CV and short-term and long-term it's the implications are really tough and for a lot of people i think what they don't anticipate is just the level of disrespect you get is how your how you're treated now your talk to i would i would say all those things what i just said about being an au pair i would also say about being an english teacher in asia a lot of people are not you know prepared i was at a CrossFit gym like for 22 years three years yeah and there's a guy that he had an English degree and some other degree like teaching to hear or something and he went to somewhere new and he did and he loved it and has wiped it to pick it together but I don't know if I want to do that yeah well also these things a lot of them really are indirectly banking on your parents support in your life like they could only pay you so little to be at Australia because in reality your parents are still like I assume you still live with your parents yeah your parents are still paying for you to have a home in Canada and your parents are paying for your airplane ticket so like in reality you're your parents or indirectly paying for you to have a job that's less than minimum wage your parents are providing subvention subvention is our fancy economic in you know and that's also a huge problem but so so many of those things those lines of work like you know those people they like for an ESL teacher living in a kind of homeless state in Asia if they don't still have their parents supporting them then they have no mailing address back in Canada or whatever country they come from they have no way to receive government benefits they have no you know they have no legal status anywhere so anyway the disadvantages as I say it's very straight from to seek is just lately I just made a video talking about this a little bit yesterday but selling the dream of Independence of freedom through these types of jobs in Asia when really from my perspective it's it's the exact opposite this is this is depriving you of your freedom you're giving up your shot at freedom so when you're young travel but uh me I'll do it so yeah wait till you're older or well you're you're 18 right yeah I mean that's the other thing it's like you know I'm gonna get I have no idea what kind of people your parents are but I mean at 18 maybe you should be traveling with your parents you know I know people think that sounds humiliating or what have you but most people at 18 I'm again whether it's your parents or if you had an older brother or something or older sister whatever but most people at 18 cannot really travel alone and I think it's funny too because think people tend to think less critically when it's an exotic place so like you're 18 but it doesn't matter some was 17 19 someone at about your age I think if they told their parents they were going to Detroit their parents would be really concerned and look at every step like okay well what hotel are you going to stay at like let's plan this out to make sure its weakest Detroit is easy you can go to Detroit it's no big deal but people think about it really carefully of course Detroit as crime and poverty you know something can go wrong in Detroit but they tell their parents the same age they're going to Thailand people Oh fine hey you know oh there's a beach in Thailand why would that be difficult yeah you just take an airplane you're there it's no problem like well you know assuming you don't speak the Thai language thailand is pretty difficult you know any of these places Thailand China what have you it's a lot it's a lot more difficult than Detroit and really of whether it's an older brother or somebody or I mean if you had a best friend who spoke the local language fluently that'd be different too but it strange to me as soon as it becomes exotic and far away I think people stop thinking critically carefully about it whereas again probably you know New York or Detroit or any of those things there they're pretty safe and easy if you speak English but we tend to be much more careful conserve upon them when i was 16 i went to the netherlands cuz I family back there and I stayed with my cousin and I don't know where it is I can't even pronounce it but it's like an hour away from Amsterdam and stay there for two weeks and then he he's in business so he with the Curacao is it going guys should come to Curacao I don't know if you know where that is yeah we pronounce it coração in standard English course how I want yeah I've never been there was to be it's a famous beautiful island yeah we went there for a week and rented a villa what it was the most beautiful place I've ever been to like it's crazy that may be the way the Dutch pronounce it they may say Curacao I know but ok you know so I'm sure that's the Dutch Prince but in English it's become coração we're probably wrong but that's that's this yeah yeah no that croco is just wrong but that's the way a lot of people inspiron zino kuroko is yeah yeah it actually is the color of the sea birds right that's why it's famous it's famous for the the beauty to see so yeah but anyway you're you're currently are you in your first year university or what I don't I don't know how these things I went to Sheridan and brampton for a year I thought I wanted to math letak therapy but cuz I've been to like sports and weightlifting but I'm like wait I hate human biology yeah so I did at journal arson science to get into that program and I did well in that but I didn't want to do that so I'm doing human rights instead wow there's a change there's it there's a switch okay human rights alright cool yeah yeah my mom she's like me you like human rights and like stuff like that so she's like oh you have you always have something you're like passionate about and stuff like that so why don't you use that's it hurts the BA will actually called a BA in human rights that'll be the name of the beer yeah there was explaining how it was it's a BA in human rights in human diversity but i'm doing a minor in human resources so what is this you know my first diploma is political science which is from Canada some University of Toronto and in general for all those degrees the the only way to get a job is to then get an MPP or an MPA which is masters of public policy or master of public administration so if if you want money at any point in life it doesn't have to be after you finish the degree you you could definitely take a human rights degree and then get a temp EP or an mpa I'm not recommending that but uh I think that's that's the at least the plan B or the plan see you know somewhere on your list you should be aware of that and the good thing about MPP + m PA diplomas is that they're really cheap so like it's like two thousand five hundred dollars or something you know tuition so yeah that's his cheat like hey compared to becoming a dentist as really cheap you know so do a girl I met her on her actually and she she's from blonde and she's like that dental school mistakes it's like uh seventy thousand dollars he Orson yeah and she's like yeah I don't know if I want to go in Canada or the states like that is crazy no it's it's really depressing you know because I study these obscure languages I've looked at so many universities and I was looking at a language program the United States for allow solo is the language of Laos it's also a lotion whatever but their preferred name is just to say Lao and you know just to study there for three months it was several tens it was like thirty thousand dollars i was gently because it wasn't even a full academic year it was just a few months at a university in the States and they made the mistake of putting up YouTube videos of what the education program is like so you can see what it really is you know look like if there were no YouTube videos you could at least kid yourself like oh it's it's tens of thousands of dollars but I bet it's really great it's like no it's some people sitting around you know it's it's impossible to justify the cost and then you look at that when i lived in laos in the country when i'll study the language just by being there and coping and teaching myself and a lot of hard work a normal government worker salary was fifteen US dollars per month and then the next level up was 30 30 30 US dollars per month and i had a period of time there when i earned three hundred US dollars per month and i had people working with me who were governments whatever government officials and they would say to me why do you make as much money as 20 of us so in terms of poverty and how far the money would go like instead of studying for one semester at a university united states you could buy a hotel in Laos and own and operate your own hotel for like 10 years like that's how extreme the only the only thing i have to know it is probably since I left because now I haven't been involved with lost like 10 years probably the costs have gone up and up and probably salaries have gone up a bit so I'm about ten years of eight but still those those extreme tres of wealth and poverty and how they relate to American education is insane here in Canada it's still semi insane the costs are still a bit a bit dumb but yeah america's got it on another level yeah i complain about the minimum wage here yeah and then you get to your wallet so much yeah and again well coming back to where I said earlier about subvention which I know it most people do not other words subvention but you know of relying on your parents money indirectly that way that's a lot of what goes on in those countries also so like if you ask how is it possible for people to live on one dollar a day well it's because in reality their parents still own a farm and they can still go back to that farm and live there for free without paying rent and like if they get fired or their job stops or a few months they can go back to the farm and our money working on the farm and come back again their parents are probably unlikely to actually give them cash but their parents are giving them support of various kinds well they're living in the city and doing those kinds of jobs so in a lot of countries that's definitely say Thailand and China have that in common the explosive growth of manufacturing of heavy industry it indirectly relied on support from the agricultural sector that way of subvention in that sense and the problem is that only lasts for one or two generations because even if your parents own farmland if they have three kids they can't leave farmland to all three kids right though there's it's not you know it's not like every generation there's a new country worth of land at one time land got handed out to people for free that causes a ton of wealth directly and indirectly and then within a couple of generations that effect of making the whole society wealthier starts to disappear I just mentioned here in bc if you look at who has money I do not mean to make this a racist thing but race is an element the rich white people in bc they are disproportionally the people who benefited from what was called preemption preemption was the polite word for kicking the indigenous people off the land kicking out the First Nations and giving the land to white people for free so the way people didn't actually buy the land and interesting system so that was an opportunity that existed at one point in time and now it's over and a hundred years later if your grandparents were the lucky white people who benefited from preemption you're now fabulously wealthy because you had land giving you for free you know in the West Coast year the land is really worth body weight some yo Northwest Territories not so much but in DC that history is quite short because colonialism here happened very late and they went to this system of preemption actually because other styles other systems of colonialism had already failed in Canada other systems of giving Atlanta white people so I mentioned this to say this is a pattern you can see in the history of South Korea in the history of canada in the history of a country like Thailand in totally different histories totally different countries different cultures at some point the government gives out land for free to people and it has massive knock-on effects and today in terms of our society we don't use the word aristocrat but in reality the aristocrats here in British Columbia the rich they are the sons and daughters of the people who benefited from preemption preemption is another great example of a word where you could not possibly guess what it means by looking at fiction using like I feel dumb I don't know what you're saying right right yeah well you know my grandparents came out here because of the preemption pulse oh yes my preemption means genocide actually live i live near the Six Nations reserve like do you know where norfolk county is i looked it up on google when you mention it to me but I mean I I didn't I didn't look into it in great dad you know important over no honestly no okay it's like it's like a on Friday the 13th like thousands of water cycle people come to port over but it's right near the Six Nations reserve and there's so much racism and right hey it's just so sad yeah well you know so in Saskatchewan I was actually a student at First Nations University I I assume you know it's been mentioned on my youtube channel every five minutes so went there to study Korean a jib way and politics of First Nations and the ongoing struggles for language but also their general struggles the Canadian government that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life it's really hard for outsiders to understand because the other part of my life is Asia so I talked to Asian people a lot and that is really hard from to understand that the primary form of racism in most of Canada is racism against First Nations so like all the time I would be talking to Chinese people and they would be like oh no like Canada is wonderful like nobody here is racist at all and they would mean they're not racist against Chinese people and like I know the things they're talking about they value like Chinese immigrants who come here they really appreciate that when they go to the bank there's like a pamphlet in Chinese at the bank and like the bank machine and maybe as an option like at the beginning you can press a button English French Chinese you know and I would point out to them when you go to that bank machine there's no button for Cree there's no button for a jib way you it's like on a really deep level Chinese people have a better status in Canada than the Kree do even though in Saskatchewan like at least ten percent of people are CREE percentages and I mean you know in Ontario indigenous people are very small percentage I think that the smallest in Quebec I think they're a boat like they're they're down closer to one percent of three percent in Quebec just because the vast majority people quebecor you know white white settlers or whatever want to say um so yeah it's funny I've dealt with that as an insider just as someone born and raised in Canada and I deal with it as an outsider but I mean you talk to like Pakistani immigrants Chinese immigrants like they're good but they're their perspective on like First Nations and race and races it it's a bit scary yeah it's a bit worrying for the immediate future of our country yeah even my parents they're like oh I'm not racist but then they're like oh why can't they just get over it like just work hard and you'll like it's not like that yeah yeah yeah well I do with six six nations is a unique unique example mr. Canada to blame or whatever when I can talk about six nations you want to talk about veganism and an activism a little bit or you okay cool so what's that what let's start with a really simple question when did you become vegan or when did you first get interested in these these types of things January cool cool cool another long ago um I have a Twitter it's like a kind of like Fitness Twitter I guess I have some friends on that I met and one of them was vegan she's vegan for like she has IBS and um albums like that and she kind of just showed me like bits and parts of [ __ ] veganism I'm like wow like I'm a piece of [ __ ] reading me um maybe I should stop so like I cut it out bit by bit and then enjoy anywhere I was like I should be vegan so it's been three months and never felt better and like emotionally and physically yeah so uh what are you thinking of now I mean you're looking at veganism in terms of activism now or what's what are the current questions you're asking yeah I was gonna write down questions but um didn't know what to write down but um I was actually a part of the health unit I was part of like a youth group and we were doing like smoking and like mental health stuff and um I see a lot of people they try to blame they try to blame everybody and our point for the smoking thing was to blame the company's not the people like you can't attack people and expect them to change you have to like change the company's not that it's really hard to explain yeah I understand gone but um I'm not exactly how to like be an activist for veganism like there's so many different approaches and I'm like I don't know what to do yo it's in the country and there's not much stuff we can do I don't know yeah well look I mean um I think the the big question that I I kind of want to talk about more of my youtube channel because it's boring but it's really important has to do with your commitment to the place you know I you know I've made comparisons between veganism and smoking all the time but the other kind of comparison have made since the start of my channel is talking about vegan politics as opposed to going to City Hall you know being involved with activism on local issues that way uh in some ways being in a small town is an advantage in that you can build up the trust of people and contacts with people locally but the choice of where you are and whether or not you're really committed to that place is is fundamental in terms of my own political development I went through a long series of stages before I really embraced what I would just call pragmatic politics where I really made the decision in my life look what matters to me is whether or not the drinking water is poisoned is whether or not you know like so Toronto was on a lake all right and at that time this may have changed but I doubted you could look at a map and be like here is the tunnel that puts sewage into the lake and here is the tunnel that takes in drinking water for the city and they were so close together what the city did was they built and they extended there was a little like brick wall underwater it doesn't even go to the service there's like a little wall underwater to try to make the poo go off in one direction and the drinking water come in and other day I should like it you do not need an advanced degree in biochemistry to see what the problem is anyone could look at that map and see the reality that oh another thing I'll just mention that's interesting in terms of like the larger scale of ecologic Toronto is built on a tiny tiny river now the Don River that that's just a trickle there's like nothing there there's a small park there and so on a river that was destroyed aika logically when Toronto was founded that river was big enough to have steamboats going up it so like old-fashioned southern American South steamboats would carry people up this river basically the whole length of the city the city is this now from the from the lakefront up the reason why the the water level dropped so dramatically was deforestation when you cut down the trees you cut out the hydrological cycle you reduce the amount of water being pumped through the ecosystem to simplify slightly and river levels drop so in Toronto nobody Percy these problems they're invisible although they're right in front of your face so people cross over that River on a bridge they drive their cars over the river they don't see an ecological history they don't see the devastation that's implicit in right people drink water out of their tap every day really in 5 seconds they could look at a map and see that problem so that for me this is before I became vegan back then I was strictly vegetarian I made a video toy guide I'd really never even heard the word vegan but I was I was pretty close to vegan in terms of what I believed in I was I was already very close to vegan and I refused to wear leather and stuff like that um but you know for me it was really a turning point my life was like okay I want to deal with real politics and I admit it's a completely subjective definition like what is real and then what is real politics it's completely it's not objective it's subjective but to me I decided look there's all this kind of BS going on with you know people holding signs in the streets and protesting and in Toronto there's a lot of very far left politics extreme communism that sort of thing and people wanting to have opinions on issues they can't influence so like an issue an example this is probably even true at your college probably even as Sheridan College there will be people protesting human rights in Israel which is understandable but if you live in southern Ontario you cannot make an impact on human rights in Israel yeah no no but I just mentioned so like on many university campuses that is something gets protested like on campus as if it's something your professors can change you know but these kinds of issues like you know the water and the deforestation and pollution and city you know city ordinances city plan city political changes those are things I really could impact and influence and to me that seemed like something that was completely morally positive for me to do with my time as opposed to what was going on again on basically in left-wing politics in Canada I I didn't have any contact with right wing right wing politics like right-wing politics also exists but I mean I I don't I'd never even met those people it's just downtown Toronto I didn't see it obviously like I think the working people in Toronto vote for the Conservative Party so it exists but I mean you know I just say this not wasn't wasn't really part of my life there was no temptation for me to join the up conservatives me yeah me maybe things would have turned out better for me either haha but look what you are yeah well I don't fit in in Canada there's no place from here and you know i'm going back to china in a few weeks so we'll see how that works out they will come back to what i am if you want a second but look this is this is me giving you the advice about you and activism in a small town another material I there is no way i could tell you that the town you were born in or the town your parents own a house in Surrey you may be more elsewhere does matter but there's no reason why the town you're living in would be the right town for you and in a lot of ways Toronto is the wrong city for me like in a lot of ways it's the wrong place for me to make that commitment but I think any kind of meaningful activism it's very humbling to recognize it does require that type of commitment to say I'm committed to this place at this time like for whether it's 10 years 20 years or what and this also reflects why religious organizations have a huge advantage over like vegan organizations or just left wing organizations the fact that a church owns property it owns a building there's a church and a church basement and people meet there and play the guitar I'm not religious at all as you may have guessed but we're saying the churches of a huge advantage of that and you can go to that church and you can do fundraising where you say look we're really concerned about the drinking water we'll just stick with the same example and you know here's the map here's where the sewage goes in here's where drink water comes from this is really a problem we're concerned about and the city government is doing this and maybe at that church maybe there is 50 people who are sympathetic willing to listen you may not even need their money you know you may actually need their signature some some things in democratic process you need 50 people to sign a piece of paper but maybe they each give you ten dollars you know can make can make a really big difference and then to be building that kind of trust with people face to face in one place at one time that's why historically churches that this huge vantage and vegans by and large we've started with that kind of infrastructure with other kind of support so I see one speaks I'll just finish the sense that is also when vegans make the comparison to martin luther king jr dr martin luther king jr. have to give his full name they always skip the religious component the reality is the political power martin luther king jr. had was built on Christianity was built on Christian churches was built on the fact that he could go from town to town speaking at churches and each one of those churches had deep grassroots support from people who knew each other face-to-face who trusted each other they had the potential to make a political difference already before he got there and of course he had his own church he had his own ministry he had his own status in that so again when people say to you Oh we'll look at Martin Luther King jr. okay will really look I don't I don't have any of those advantages I'm a guy on YouTube yes I mean and and that is the in some ways I love it like in some ways I love the fact that anyone can watch my youtube channel and get interested and get motivated and in theory can make a difference in the world but i'm also really aware of the disadvantages that I've got and that and that collectively we've got so but but the implicit point there i was saying is there's no way i can tell you you're living in the right tail it may be the wrong place here maybe you decide like one year from now or whatever that you hate the town you're living in and you're going to move to montreal or you're going to move to to beijing like it could be uh or or florida you decide Sarasota Florida is where you want to sit down roots but I think the point is if you want to move somewhere else even if it's just Montreal the decision not to be there as a tourist the decision to say no no these are my people this is my problem this is my responsibility I'm not just here for fun or not sure to make money I'm you know I'm going to set down roots that even if it's completely invisible that's a big change that's a big difference that's different from just being there because all these people go to Thailand I was talking to vegans who went to Thailand and they were really being sincere with me they didn't think there was any poverty they didn't think there was any prostitution they didn't think any of these social problems existed they're they're seeing it I I can't explain it they're seeing it just as tourists but obviously it's possible to go to Montreal or go to Toronto stay with Toronto it's possible to go to Toronto and not see any problems definitely you go to Toronto when you don't see where the drinking water comes from right and you don't see the deforestation and the destruction that river there can be very obvious problems when I was there Toronto actually was running out of drinking water it's not worth explaining why it's for technical reasons even though Lake Ontario is really big you can still rendering war when i was there Toronto had literally run out of places to put its garbage and we're wasting millions of dollars sending it on trucks to the United States and a huge distance of the border was a catastrophe financially as well as psychologically basically due to government and competence obviously as a tourist you don't see any of that but if you're there and you care just a little bit you see all of it and I think obviously I would give this advice to someone who is non vegan but I think it's even more important for vegans because vegans may think about these issues in an abstract way like it's only about the whole world like it's about air pollution on a global scale and my perspective is no it never is it's always about your town your five friends your 10 people again it would be your church group if you've got a church group I don't it's on that level of local local unit organization you know that's that's where the struggle gets fought and that's where you figure out you know if you can live a meaningful life or not and if you can't I don't know you got to move to Montreal whatever yeah actually lived in Brampton in the residence there I just didn't feel like the Brampton is so shitty I just I can't live there and like I came back here I just feel I've lived in this house my entire life my parents moved it here and like built it and I just feel like I belong here and I don't know so maybe you maybe you're explaining like the Toronto wha we had a place to get garbage like someone who wanted to buy the Vics pickle planet let's down their own for my house and put garbage mm and then p world with their protesting it and so it didn't get bought for that but my dad just bought it for his business man the bix pickle plant head of all places to add to move his business your dad doesn't make pickles they move down to Texas or something but though because people make so many excuses as to why they need why they dairy it's like everyone knows it's bad to smoke well I didn't a long time ago but everyone knows it's bad to smoke but it'd be so hard because I live in that farming community and people like oh it's good to eat meat it's good to like these animals are happy to be in these cages and like what they even allow someone like a vegan activist to come to school because there's so many different excuses and like stuff like that but people would just throw in your face instead of asking you questions right it's not a short-term struggle it's a long-term problem it's a long-term issue yeah you know I mean I agree with you today in Canada you can't do that but I mean definitely I think that a lot of schools would for you today in 2016 I think they would be open to someone talking more generally about animal rights about animal cruelty because a lot of schools have problems with kids that torture animals that kind of thing like I remember like in Taiwan there will be issues with educating kids about cruel forms like it weighs the torture animals that are done to entertain human beings some of them are hard to describe what they actually liquid have like a living goldfish and there would be like a metal skewer into its body so that looks like the goldfish is doing tricks but it's actually being used like a puppet sorry this is China you know what we can say uh yeah but I mean you know was it kind of educating children about the type of Cruelty that's in circuses the types of animal cruelty that relate to children I think probably already in 2016 you could put together an educational package like Mothers Against Drunk Driving that deals with basic questions of animal rights and animal cruelty and human responsibility towards animals where the question of veganism or the question of where milk comes from is one component of that that would be very you'd politically you'd have to put that curriculum together very carefully in Canada but I've been part of processes for one of the East Coast provinces like Brunswick or something I was invited to give my opinion on the official school curriculum on Buddhism you know like how would they would teach Buddhism to school children in New Brunswick so that's its carefully negotiated now was I was invited that because there were Buddhist monks who respected my opinion they were like look and you look at this and give us your opinion so I just say there are processes like that where education systems in Canada it's in each province where they look at and they talk to experts or special rights groups like you know they were basically checking with Buddhist to say look is this offensive as this accurate is this telling it and I thought I thought it was complete horseshit to come I thought what they were teaching children about what is it was terrible but i'm sure they disregarded my opinion but uh they're normally is some window for participation education system but for in many places maybe that's a bit more a bit more long-term but yeah when I was probably 10 or so we made someone come in from a local farm yeah talk about milk what and it's just crazy because they're like oh milk is good for this good for that and then learn about it now and you're like it is torture it is we don't need milk why do we drink milk like it's just for profit yeah yeah well I think why are they allowed to come in like it's I think though that is I mean again you would have to be a member of The Parent Teacher Association or something mean you personally probably can't do that but I think that is something parents can challenge school boards on is well why are you doing pro pro far more Pro milk propaganda if you are that I want equal time if the kids are getting two hours of pro milk propaganda then I want to give them two hours you know if the opposite and of course most schools would just say okay let's cancel let's cancel the propaganda from the milk board but obviously there are there are both scientific and ethical reasons why you can make that argument but i don't know i mean like in the united states this is a few decades ago there used to be struggles like this about sex education probably there still are in the really conservative states you know like you know but a lot of parents what they did to compensate was they organized their own sex education that was outside of the school you know and i think i think even some church groups did that like more liberal churches or like well look it hosts somebody's got to teach these kids where babies come from so yeah those those types of struggles are ongoing but I've got to say like I think we're talking right now but some really optimistic examples at some point Mothers Against Drunk Driving had to start with five or ten mother's sitting down and signing the paperwork the former foundation I don't have five people I can work with here in Victoria there are a lot of vegans in Victoria there are I mean compared most of Canada is really bleak you were mentioning that about brampton or whatever you know like a lot of kin is really horrible Victoria is beautiful there are several vegan restaurants there's a big vegan presence I ain't got I ain't got five vegan friends in Victoria I couldn't do the paperwork to make a foundation I couldn't even get a student group organized on campus or what have you another story um you know so what I could do here is limited I've got like maybe 2,000 people on the internet who are really interested in hearing me say say things about veganism including especially organization and activism but some of them are in Germany some of the United States so again the opportunity fundamentally rests on the five people you can trust the 10 people you can trust and being rooted in one local place which is again why I say the churches have such an advantage just even just having a building you know having a basement and a building and a commitment to that neighborhood or whatever it is and of course there's also power in knowing people for four years and years I mean oh yeah I know you I I was at your father's funeral that's deep and none of us got that none of us have you know no offense of happy if you do but the vast majority gan's were not United that way where she's like oh yeah I know him I knew his grandfather I was at that guy's funeral I was at her wedding we have some level of trust and cohesion internet connects vegans like I know a couple from the states and canada and I'm actually I meant to dinner have you been to hog John vegan in Toronto no I think that didn't exist when I was in Toronto I was in trial a long time ago I left it's so good i had a like a buffalo chicken ranch round yeah so good but we went there for dinner and I know a couple other ones and I'm going to do means have you heard of that yeah I heard about it just a couple days ago yeah go on and this week am so excited with like that's where vegans unites restaurants basically yeah yeah but I think that's also the struggle like when I was talking to cheetah about it I think there's also sense of disappointment for many people because you go to those restaurants and you leave with the same number of friends you came with you know that's also part of Canadian culture like it's it's really hard in Canada to go to a restaurant and and make connections that will actually be you know political or otherwise real relationships like he was talking about the hipster people like I went to one in sick Catherine's last week and it was just all like hipster people like I'm not like that I I don't look like that or act like that so it's kind of weird going in there to you're like I don't belong like it feels weird yeah but I mean look so I get a lot of questions about that or just lately in the last couple of weeks but including from older people so cheetah he's old i forget i will the US but I mean he's not a kid but people in their 30s have exactly the same problem like people people in their 50s have the same problem and the advice I've given recently because I talked about this last couple days is you know one option is to really just be honest about what your concerns are so like I think one of the most the biggest barriers is drug culture but I say like look you know you really have the option of saying to somebody I'm vegan and I'm really excited to meet you because you're vegan but on the other hand you know I feel like I can't trust you because you've told me you're heavily into marijuana hashish ayahuasca cocaine whatever you know drug culture is real and it's emits a big part like so-called hippie subculture within veganism a lot of it's about about drug use it's okay to actually say that to somebody and you know what happens after that and the conversation the relationship is another story maybe they say back to you well go to hell you know if you're not cool with you know heavy mind-altering drug use don't even talk maybe they say that okay it's that simple but I think you might be surprised at the range of advances you can get another hard limit as i mentioned religion so many times all the time I meet people who have religious differences from me and whatever I meet them and say well look I like you I want to know you because you're vegan or because you're serious about ecology but I've got to tell you the Christian Church killed millions of people but let's say they're Christian that history is real and that matters to me in a bunch of different ways it matters to me within the history of Asia it matters to move the history of First Nations people here in Canada and you know ultimately I'm a Jew you also exterminated my people and put them into ghettos you know they have their own history of oppressing the Jews to whatever i'm not really hung up on that emotionally but you might as well lay it on the table say so where are we going to go from here you know with this relationship if you can say that to someone honestly and I would see both of those things in a more polite and appealing way I wouldn't be quite quite that blunt talking to someone face-to-face is christian or face-to-face who's part of the drug culture uh honesty is an option you know i mean so what you've mentioned i think is less is less intimidating if you meet someone and I don't know they're into some music scene I know you just said hipster I don't know let's say that lets say they're heavily into punk rock just just for the example back in like two thousand in Toronto there was a big anarchist punk rock scene I guess it was getting smaller every year at that time it used to be big in the 90s or whatever you know you can say to someone honestly look I'm vegan you're vegan I want to know you I think we've slam in common politically but I'm concerned I'm not part of the punk rock scene at all I'm not cool in the way you think we in terms of what you think cool is I'm afraid you don't want to know me I'm afraid we have this barrier again you can say it in a more charming way but you can you can take those concerns and make them explicit you can make them overt and I think that's a pretty good basis for moving ahead with a friendship or at least not being enemies and they may say to you yeah you're right you know you and me should get together to talk about the things we have in common and I recognize you're not going to come to the same rock concerts i go to you're not going to be part of the other parts of my life you know I guess maybe I think maybe things like Facebook make it worse were you like the website presentation of people facebook and instagram it's like either you subscribe to my whole lifestyle or the most glamorous part of my lifestyle I choose to put in the internet or you don't you know either you're part of the same the same aesthetic I'm a part of or you're not but that's you know that's not real life of people people are multifaceted and probably probably there are some people who would have those differences for me you know who are for instance Christian or our drug users or you know our into punk rock who could still really be my friends who can really be my colleagues because we have veganism and calmness of males come maybe I could have a really meaningful relationship with one of those people and just acknowledge the differences I talk I talk a lot about tolerance on my channel I think that's a really meaningful aspect of tolerance and people attack me for being too tolerant I had you know Kenya on my channel I had jasom shall I talk to both of them there are people who criticize me saying that I should be like denouncing them like I should be hating them for various things they've done wrong what about tolerance what about cooperation if I can't build on the common ground of God with people like that there are differences there are things I disagree with there are many differences vegan cheetah or whatever there are many differences but if you're not willing to try you know to build on common ground you're going to be alone either you're going to be alone or you're going to be a member of a fanatical cult group with only people who agree with you and I don't know which one is scarier because I don't want that either I don't want to just be people who are like me I'm a really weird guy I don't know if I'd enjoy being around people who have a lot in common with me yeah yeah you look you see you said the cult thing and my brother always makes the job he's like all are you you're still part of that cult or something i'm like it's not a cold like maybe some parts of it like freely freely whatever that is it seems kind of cultish though like she's the leader and everyone's her followers like i just hate that well look what we're coming up in one hour but I mean the good news and the bad news about that is that everyone on the internet feels that way I know even within Canada I know some vegan leaders who think they're incredibly powerful and famous because they can make a post on tumblr and get 100 thumbs up you know or 100 clicks you know showing approval and I completely understand that like from a human perspective for you if you're sitting at your desk and you can you can get a hundred people to agree with you on Twitter on your blog on whatever medium for many many people that's an ego trip that's a power trip they feel like freely and and other people regard them like freely and they may regard for you like that uh but at some point your life it's really a crucial step in in maturity to recognize you ain't [ __ ] you know and everyone else in the system feels the same way Bill Clinton ain't [ __ ] and even when people are in positions of power like Bill Clinton they feel powerless because they rely on so many other people now in reality Bill Clinton has real power in reality you know the boss of a corporation feels real power but one of the things you realize again this is this is I think many people are 40 years old before they realize this when you're the boss that's when you're working for everyone else the minute you're the boss you're trying to make everyone else happy you know like you're the owner of the restaurant now you're trying to make every customer happy every employee happy you seem to be taking orders from everyone else even though you're in charge you know so I mean I I don't even know I can't even call that humility it's just recognizing where you are as one individual person and the Internet in a lot of ways it magnifies some of the worst parts of human nature the only thing I can see that's good about it is that nobody's getting killed or very very few people are getting killed compared to old fashioned politics compared to what politics was like in Canada in the 1930s even in the 1970s you know it's good that people have an outlet where they can state their feelings and emotions without actually causing harm but the bad things are people are more isolated than ever before people are more diluted than ever before people live in an echo chamber or a cult group or like a you know intellectual ghetto where only only other people who agree with them come to their website or come to their Facebook page so they get deeper and deeper into a cult-like mentality people who follow freely think everyone loves freely things really is the most important person in the world she ain't [ __ ] I i don't care if she's got a million followers you still ain't [ __ ] as a Bill Clinton still ain't [ __ ] um you know so yeah there's good and bad to it but I think I think the fundamental good you've probably already already 18 you probably have this experience the internet can put you in touch with people who are really your friends for the rest of your life and it can help you stay in touch with people like if you move to Montreal you can stay in touch with people from your hometown for the rest your life where in the past you couldn't so that's very very positive and for veganism is and for everything else I encourage people to really try to make the most out of that emotionally positive aspect to the Internet no I was gonna actually more pizza the email I sent and the conversation I had with my mom and I never really think confront people kind of shocking the question she asked me like oh what about farm workers um I forget some of the other questions she asked me but I I was a hard time uh answering them Nick we're like plants are plants have feelings too were plants like when like mom do you really feel the same cutting the grasses you do cutting a pig's throat and she's like yeah I do like no you don't like and then my boyfriend is over in the corner he's like I don't want to like I don't want to talk about this like my mom is going off and like it's so hard to like these excuses people have and like what do you say I don't know yeah but look I think I think the absolute final thought I already made like a 17 minute video giving you my advice on that but I think there really is a difference between someone agreeing with you and someone respecting you you know and I think with your parents especially because obviously you know your parents are still giving you a place to live there still supporting your life different ways I think you have to just be able to say to your parents I don't need you to agree with me I just need you to respect the decision I made you know I need you to respect me you know i'm not going to eat meat I need you to respect that period that's the bottom line and that's humbling for both parties and you know your parents when they raise those kinds of issues you can really say to them I know you don't understand that's ok you know maybe you'll never understand but I need you to respect that and you can remind them look there are a lot of worse things you could be doing you could you could be doing cocaine you could have joined the seventh-day adventists they're not that bad as religious cults go but I'm you know you could you are 18 years old you can join a crazy religion you know you can you can go sign up to join the church of scientology please don't um you know you you could be doing porn on the internet 18 i think is the agent sir you know you could and what would your parents [ __ ] do they would have to accept it really think of it i need to say that to them you're not doing porn on the internet you're talking about veganism the internet you know I accept what you do and I like it but please don't force your opinions on me that's what I think people always say don't force your can you don't force your lifestyle but I'm just trying to tell you what I believe like I'm not trying to like cheat like one court I'm trying to like change your views but I'm not trying to like make you feel bad or make you yeah it's that's the one thing people say the mostest don't try to like change me yeah yeah but but nobody else is your mom right you get one mom and one dad unless you have very complicated family um so that that's all I'd say I like I think that is an exception to the rule and I think you can just be honest with them they could be honesty up with it you know you're my mom therefore I'm not gonna try to change your mind and I mean you know when I was a Buddhist I never tried to convert my parents to Buddhism keeping it real yeah uh but conversely again you know veganism helps animals and religions kind of more like a personal thing I think so I don't know no I yeah people view it as a religion but I don't view it as a religion I knew it as helping other animals again I've made all these other comparisons to smoking to mothers against drunk driving to what have you uh no I think that I mean veganism has some things in common with a religion fundamentally uh and I I think you know the problem with religion of course is that it's not private of course religions try to change society of course religions try to change laws our whole culture in Canada is totally built by Christianity so some of it becomes invisible to us everything you know go to Quebec they solve a Christian cross hanging on the wall of Parliament everything about our education system is still Christian there you know the treatment of first nations and everything else we live in a society totally shaped by Christianity so it becomes invisible to some extent if you go on vacation to a Muslim country you suddenly are in a country where everything is instead shaped by as long and of course there are social and violet to measure that right now you know World War for going on right now involves the Islamic state and it's very much about the future of Islam as a religion if you go to India there's an open contest between Hinduism Islam for who's going to control the government who's going to shape religious policy and of course Israel and other extreme examples so no I mean I think the the social dimension of religion is inevitable and I'd say it's even part of what defines religion if you actually are just talking about private belief if you're talking about someone who has a crazy idea but what happens after you die with no social dimension I think that's not a religion I think that's just one crazy old guy who has a theory about what happens after you die it's only when people are organized into a church when people want to raise their children with the same beliefs so already there as soon as you want to raise your children of the same beliefs you start building schools here in Victoria I mean Victoria is beautiful so people retire here every retirement home has a different religious denomination on it right there's a separate retirement home for Baptists so Baptists and Catholics don't have to retire in the same building is that the way Jesus wanted it there's a separate church for Korean Anglicans and white angle Ken's so that Koreans and white people don't have to sit in the same church is that what Jesus wanted I'm not Christian at all but to me the total insanity of that has become normal in Canada in downtown Toronto we had separate schools for Jews and Catholics to me that's deeply deeply problematic I don't think Jews should be in a separate school I don't think Catholic should be in a separate school raising children that's to me that segregation it's partly racial but it's also partly just religious and in reality there were separate schools for black people they just weren't called that that's just the reality you know and again it's obvious some churches or churches just for black people in Toronto and so on so there's a deeply deeply problematic aspects of religion and one of the reasons why i think it's worth talking about the religious aspects of veganism is to avoid those problems i think if we're talking about it openly and thinking about it openly and we're self-critical and aware then we won't repeat those mistakes from history and if we're kidding ourselves then we will and again freely i think is an example a cheetah cares about that more than I do but I think there are kind of strangely religious aspects that creep into what's going on there and even though it's just a diet book that really is it's just a diet fad there's nothing else going on and we all have to ask these questions what about your career you know there are people dropping out of school and change their career paths because of what freely enumerator tell them what about your own kids what about daycare what about a retirement home as veganism goes on decade by decade you'll start to get institutional counterparts it's going to go beyond just having a restaurant um and I'm up I'm up for the ride what could I tell I don't know how crazy it's gonna get things have already gotten pretty crazy I guess it'll get crazier but I think those debates are worth having I think that struggle is worth fighting whereas you know with with most these religions I don't I the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism can you [ __ ] believe people used to kill each other over that for hundreds of years you know friends that I'd to leave Ireland for that right right right Ireland Scotland all these places murdering each other for centuries over the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism so you know do I think it's worthwhile to have polite debates on YouTube about the future of veganism absolutely I do yeah I mean someone said to me you shouldn't um talk about how another person's approach to veganism is wrong because they're good um spreading veganism I'm like I think it's okay to talk about how someone's a person veganism is bad or is not good like so look this is not copy of your 100% right the other person's one hundred percent wrong I mean certainly what you've just said that's a hundred percent right of course you have to criticize other people's approaches to veganism but critique is a positive part dissent is a positive part of any political process and it has to be we got that idea that you shouldn't criticize another vegan because they're still supporting veganism that's insane I definitely think you shouldn't kill another vegan I think but even look I don't think you should even kick them out of the restaurant you know even restaurants are open to everybody anybody can go in so veganism hasn't had that problem yet of really being like the Catholic Church where you know if you disagree with me you're kicked out of the church we haven't had that problem yet but what we have had is drifting into worse and worse forms of stupidity so recently on my channel I've been drawing attention to Gary Yourofsky and they're really insane things he said and one of the main responses of God from people people who say to me wow you're so right why didn't I see that before they'd heard the same speech you know I like his speech of its really good speech I never knew go to the activism her right the crazy [ __ ] he's done right well and it's both I mean he's not he's not just one thing or the other I mean he's all these things and more I'm a complicated person to but I I do not think there is any legitimate argument to say you should cover up what's wrong with Gary Yourofsky know if we're going to make progress will admit the problem and we'll move on and again I mean compared to Protestants struggling with Catholics what we're doing is completely productive and completely nonviolent and what have you but it's I I want to keep it nonviolent keep it intellectually honest and productive and that's why I have to address no no here's someone who's discrediting veganism through you know promoting violence including you know quite gory quite corian extreme statements of violence so you know yeah that's that's a discourse we absolutely have to have if we don't want to drift into complete insanity sometimes I'm like I don't even want to see I'm vegan because of those people they're like all you burn down farms you're like you it's like it's hard because they give you a bad reaction when you say you're vegan but like no I'm a nice vegan no well look I've gotten that an email from people I have had a couple of emails from people who have been vegan for several years at the beginning that called themselves vegan then they stopped and then they wrote to me and said after watching my youtube channel they started calling themselves vegan again because they felt so ashamed the insane [ __ ] about veganism basically that's on the internet because it's not on it's not on the news it's not on TV it's not in the newspaper so they felt that people like freely and Gary Yourofsky had so totally discredited veganism that they stopped using the word you know that's that sad and like we had here in Victoria we had a political party who were called like the animal activist party they picked a really long name it's longer than that and the newspapers would refer to them as the vegan party because it's a better name but they themselves they were these people who were animal rights people who stopped using the word vegan who didn't want you thinkin because they felt was great I've met a mess unless people face-to-face you say no no they don't call themselves vegan anymore even though they're vegan so yeah there are there are consequences and I don't I mean I don't think it's going to have an impact on you I think I mean it's just because of your youth and because you're female I mean it's different for men and women I think you are going to have to find your own voice for how you say in a self-confident way yes I'm vegan period and I'm not apologizing for it and I'm not ashamed of it and I'm not crazy and if you think I'm crazy we'll look at my eyes and tell me I'm crazy you know if you think I'm starving to death look at my eyes and tell me I'm serving that there there is a way to be relaxed and self-confident and to present yourself as vegan and you know it's not surprising me at all that would be hard for you at age 18 is a female