Why I Hate Vegans & Why Vegans Hate Me.

so guys it ain't deep but it's real and
veganism really is fractious and fragmentary I am self-critical I do genuinely examine myself and criticize myself whenever I try to cooperate or collaborate with another vegan activist and it doesn't work out or sometime eat and start talking to vegan activist and I conclude from my side I don't want to work with this person or another's person as them well why why did I conclude that when did I decide this is somebody I don't want to work with they're someone I want to avoid rather than someone I want to cooperate with or sometimes the decision is made on the other side that person decides they don't want to talk to me that I want which is fine we all have to make those decisions but I think about well why did that person come to that conclusion was it for reasons that are really valid or just we're just happy to being compatible they're interested in something I'm not interested in vice-versa um you know I mean there were some vegan activists and their methodology is completely built around weight loss or heart attacks or the rates of cancer or bodybuilding there's the health base there were other activists and their methods would alienate me or exclude me for other reasons and that's fine I mean okay some extent it's fine to some extent I can criticize their methods they can criticize mine and through the mutual criticism steel sharpens steel hopefully we all get sharper from this this interaction hopefully we all you know examine and learn from the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods being used it's fine but ultimately as I said this person again again look imagine if you were in my position you had this experience you make videos talking about it you have different people ready to every day you wrote to me and I made the decision based on what she told me based on this interaction with you that you are someone I never wanted to hear from again baddest yen two of my old slogans from this channel I have to evoke at the start of this video the first is it ain't deep but it's real what I present in this video you may think is quite shallow in some ways got to tell you it's deep to me it resonates with it represents it echoes deep recurring problems I deal with in the vegan movement and just as I figure out how to communicate with people in 21st century digitized Western society where there are barriers of language and culture involved but there's also the new culture of the internet with its tremendous potential to connect activists to one another to connect people with like-minded interests you know and the second slogan I was gonna mention was the statement from my old blog vegan mind tricks on my blog vegan mind tricks I commented that veganism is fractious and fragmentary that you know we can't talk about it as a unified movement we really have to recognize how profoundly divided and divisive veganism is even from the perspective of people inside the movement or the people of the most clearly espoused you know political and ecological and ethical aspirations for the future of the movement it is still genuinely frag refractors inflammatory it is genuinely difficult to get vegans to work together and we reach out across these divisions and you know try to find people we have common ground with common interest with try to make something positive happen so this is a message one in this correspondence quote hey I just discovered your YouTube channel and I love it I'm vegan in progress and now trying to understand the problems with domesticated animals and what to do it requires a ton of humility to admit our mistakes I just wanted to ask you about Sam Harris's criticism I don't understand what a crass EA is I tried to google it but found no results can you help me thank you for what you were doing and fostering critical thinking PS what are you holding r2d2 in your videos is the same microphone question mark best Delphine now from both the style and the substance of this email I did assume that this person speaks English as their second language or their third language and in all of my written communication with the foes I am actually simplifying my language and style a bit to reply um thank you I hope you'll consider joining the patreon group for one dollar a month there are free t-shirts involved so this really marks the moment in my life when this conversation happened to happen um at this time I just printed up a stack of t-shirts really to thank people who supported the channel I just recently posted these images letting you guys know that t-shirts are on the way and I wanted my reason for doing this reads that I really do appreciate it I really do want to give thanks to some people who've been supporting the channel for years and so the t-shirts will indeed be free it says here they're free aside from shipping and handling even that's not accurate I'm not even a church shipping handling I'm just gonna charge postage the cost of the postage stamp is the cost so anyone can check that online if it takes me five dollars and 25 cents to send it to you depending on where you are and the weight of the package that allows you to pay but nothing else I know that on the internet some people interpret the term shipping and handling really loosely and they actually come up with a price that makes a profit for rivers to make the t-shirt involved I was it back to this conversation I reply briefly by saying one a crazy is basically a fancy term for being weak-willed it's etymology is linked to its appearance in one sentence by Aristotle referring to the feeling of knowing the right thing to do but being too weak to do it too yes the white sphere is a microphone here's the link patreon there's the link thanks for your time um I'll put an image on screen here of I don't know a semi academic article about this concept of a crazy ax if you google the word this is exactly the sort of thing you're gonna find or if you google the world word Plus Aristotle or + etymology you can see that the summary I've given here is indeed a reasonable one Delphine writes back to me marketing advice never ever start a conversation by asking for money it puts people off right away try to be more genuine even if you don't mean it period strategy is key period second the r2d2 microphone thing was a joke third I strongly disagree with the concept of a crazy ax it's not about weakness it's about picking your battles period are you perfect question mark then you can judge period veganism is caring about every being and thinking they're all equal and avoiding suffering there for vegans shouldn't buy clothes made by underpaid workers or in bad conditions for example vegans shouldn't buy clothes from H&M 90% of the vegans I've told that to got really angry be careful not to appear morally self-righteous it doesn't work people who really know me or really know this channel people have been longtime fans will probably already have been laughing when I first read this out because it is peculiar that almost every sentence of this I disagree with I deeply disagree with her statement try to be more genuine even if you don't mean it that to me I'm not mad at her um it's not something I'd want to debate or discuss but this shows she's someone who is really a profoundly different person me this is someone I don't want to be friends with this is someone whose values and whose philosophy of life is very different from mine no I'm really honest on YouTube I'm really honest about my personal life but my politics about my philosophy and everything else I'm honest with you about the etymology and meaning of the term Achrafieh and you know she doesn't know what I'm guessing she just hasn't seen that many videos in my channel but what she says about veganism and what she says about factory workers what she says about you know mass manufacturing of clothing I actually disagree with every single point made her sentence by sentence and I have already made videos discussing whether it is i've also by the way done research on the garment industry especially in Cambodia so it's most likely this is something I know more about than she does so there are many many things she doesn't know that we have in this group I'm putting back on screen here again the direct contrast she says I disagree with the concept of a KRAS eeeh it's not about weakness weakness it's about picking your battles now again I also really dislike and disagree with her saying are you perfect question mark than you can judge that sounds like the position of someone who's perhaps deeply Christian this judge not lest he be judged attitude but before that no this is just false to claim this about the meaning of the word of crazzy 'you can look on screen here yes it really is about weakness and impetuous 'ti giving in to your impulses when reason when your rational mind tells you you ought to do something else now i've read this in a friendly tone of voice and whether or not she wrote it in a friendly voice i am willing to take it that way i mean this kind of opens with a rather abrupt reproach against me i'm so-called marketing advice and telling me that i missed the punch line of her joke that was written in broken english it's true i did not have the sense that that was joke but so be it um but for me really the red flag here as i said later in this correspondence is just your response to this look I've spent time with all sorts people all over the world when I was in Laos I spent time with people who had no formal education rice farmers and the sons and daughters of rice farmers and very often it allows the people who did have formal education the value that formal education was very very low and even if you become highly literate and Lotion there may not be published books about any of the things really matter in life when you're only literate in a small language like that you have access to very few books very few newspapers magazines or what have you literacy and formal education is a very different significance in languages like lotion and Cambodian people who grow up with starkness images if someone like that wrote to me saying these things about you know Aristotle's concept of a crazier that's one thing this is someone who has a master's degree and a PhD both from elite English language universities in England so this is to me a bit of a red flag so the reply I sent to her at this juncture was very brief and very simple and I think she could have looked back at her own message and understood why I said this to her at the time I said simply quote never write to me again um she then writes back as you see here on screen quote your open-mindedness and your kindness are so high comma how do you handle it alright whatever the blank I want and you will have to block my email address to stop me from writing to you smiley face I pity the people who give money to you period so now again this is someone with a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge with another graduate degree from the London School of Economics this is someone with an elite education who was allegedly not capable of googling something and looking up something that is very well documented very well researched and very widely published in English namely you know Aristotle so I don't know what's going on here but my conclusion was simply this isn't something I want to talk to you so I reply tell you what you go to Laos do humanitarian work go to Cambodia to humanitarian research make 900 videos on YouTube talking about your experiences political aspirations personal life etc see who wants to talk to you choose whom you'd like to be friends with out of the people hundreds or thousands who respond positively or just with curiosity to your videos your written articles your shared experiences and aspirations you'll have your pick and I likewise must choose even if you receive as few as five messages a day from fans or strangers which ones you reply to is a choice I have no other source of income people who want to talk to me pay one dollar per month less than you pay to drink coffee with a friend and that's what makes the channel possible not to mention the free t-shirts I will repeat myself one last time never write to me again she replies are you seeking professional help question mark my initial message was genuine and you replied with such aggression and violence I hope you use the money to see a therapist and a doctor you don't know anything about my life and you don't need to know all the human Tirion work i've done i don't brag about it because I'm not a pretentious and condescending pieces I will repeat myself again I will write if I want to it's not against the law block me if you can't handle people who disagree with you so this is an adult woman with a PhD and this is how she writes to me I'd point out in the first paragraph here she says my initial message was genuine I think it's really worth asking why were her later messages not genuine and she's aware in writing this but this contrast that her initial message was genuine and her later ones were not and the second paragraph brings up one of the great themes of all of my interactions with white Western english-speaking people the trap of people demanding to know don't you know who I think I am who do you think you are it's a really sad really counterproductive a really negative set of attitudes here coming from someone who started this correspondence by saying she's not even vegan yet she's just started getting into veganism she's in transition to being a vegan she's some kind of new vegan she's just discovered my channel and she's a fan and she thanked me for helping people engage in so-called critical thinking and you see how quickly you get into this kind of really really negative attitude all right so I write back to clarify but again to some extent the language barrier may be an issue here but she got a master's degree and a PhD in English so you know I can't dumb it down too much quote are you seeking professional help my initial message was genuine and you replied with such aggression of violence no I didn't I replied by telling you about free t-shirts you said that you were a fan of the channel I wrote back telling you that you could get a free t-shirt I also told you that you can join my patreon to talk to me like everyone else reread the messages I've sent you I never said one word that was insulting to you and you on the contrary have said many things that weren't solving to me please see the image attached about the meaning of the word a crazy you have an MA and a PhD from two very famous English language universities please compare what I said about the word Achrafieh to what you said and then look at this article what you wrote to me contained many red flags that you are simply not someone I want to talk to your statements about akrasia really are a red flag as we say in English especially given your level of education the meaning of the word is indeed rooted in its usage by Aristotle regarding quote you don't know anything about my life close quote I know enough to make the decision that I made I explained to you precisely how I made this decision I asked you to sympathize with the fact that you would be in a similar situation if you made 900 videos about your life and your research and your humanitarian work etc and then you were receiving messages from just five people per day who wanted to talk to you I came on the internet to make friends to make colleagues and with the hope that we together could do something positive for the future of the vegan movement I was encouraging you both one to think about the situation from my perspective ie sympathetically and also to I was encouraging you to do something similar yourself good luck so guys it ain't deep but it's real and veganism really is fractious and fragmentary I am self-critical I do genuinely examine myself and criticize myself whenever I try to cooperate or collaborate with another vegan activist and it doesn't work out or sometime eat and start talking to vegan activist and I conclude from my side I don't want to work with this person or another person as then well why why did I conclude that when did I decide this is somebody I don't want to work with or someone I want to avoid rather than someone I want to cooperate with or sometimes the decision is made on the other side that person decides they don't want to talk to me they don't want with me which is fine we all have to make those decisions but I think about well why did that person come to that conclusion was it for reasons that are really valid or just we're just happy to be incompatible they're interested in something I'm not interested in vice-versa um you know I mean there were some vegan activist and their methodology is completely built around weight loss or heart attacks or the rates of cancer or body building there's the health base there were other activists and their methods would alienate me or exclude me for other reasons and that's fine I mean okay somebody said it's fine to some extent I can criticize their methods they can criticize mine and through the mutual criticism steel sharpens steel hopefully we all get sharper from this this interaction hopefully we all you know examine and learn from the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods being used it's fine I do criticize myself in this matter but ultimately as a SEVIS person you can again look imagine if you were in my position you had this experience you make videos talking about it you have different people ready to every day you wrote to me and I made the decision based on what you told me based on us interact with you that you are someone I never wanted to hear from again I think most people would have just blocked her and never replied and to some extent in real life if you're talking to people face-to-face they may just stand up and walk out of the coffee shop and never talk to you again as was mentioned earlier in this video I am the kind of person who really wants to be honest on YouTube who really wants to be real on YouTube because frankly as soon as we take a step off that path from nonfiction into fiction I just don't see the point of the whole exercise I just wanted to add a sort of footnote here that there's a whole separate question of the character of the type of person who chooses to become vegan in the year 2018 that's indirectly raised by this video I've discussed it in many other videos before I discussed it in written form back when I had a vlog what sort of character in this cultural context in this political context makes the decision to commit to veganism as a lifestyle as an ecological ethical ideological cause obviously there are certain traits that we're encountering much more often when we try to organize vegans when we meet other people who happen to be vegan or when we're actively seeking out the company of other vegans and you know as a larger and larger percentage the population becomes vegan those stereotypes will hold to a lesser and lesser extent if you believe veganism is for everybody said this many times before then that means you don't just believe it's for left-wing people you believe it's really for everybody including people who have nothing in common with you and nothing come with their fellow vegans but to be sure I think there's a certain kind of vehemence a certain kind of steadfastness a certain kind of inflexibility of character a certain sense of justice and injustice that you know maybe especially amongst new converts vegans that's this woman is that someone who just recently decided she wants to a transition to veganism maybe some of these traits were seeing here you wouldn't see if by contrast you were talking to people who had newly just recently decided to convert to Buddhism or people who had just recently decided to join the Republican Party or the Democrat Party or some other political cause so guys within the last few months my vision and my plans for what I'm doing as a vegan activist have really changed I've enrolled in a culinary college to study baking and pastry and get into more involved with food services and food production as a platform for vegan activism that's gonna change the type of people I meet and the type of interactions I have many of you may imagine that if only you could get out of your current line of work and get a PhD and get into academia that the grass would be so much greener on the other side of the hill I choose this example to share with you guys for many different reasons but one of them is that I've talked to some vegans lately who really imagined that they could improve their lives dramatically if they went from street activism food based activism health based activism various forms of activism they or even legal activism if they could graduate from that into working within the halls of academia with what they imagine to be a higher caliber of person people who are you know armed with PhDs and what this interaction shows you look guys fundamentally people are people there is a great descriptive equality two human beings professors are not so different from their students you know frankly jail wardens are not so different from the prisoners police are not so different from the people upon whom they have to enforce the law in many ways as you get more familiar with human nature you see the ways in which we're all equal and we all struggle with the same problems in this case this is a highly educated person who is obviously struggling with the same overwhelming emotions that's stereotypically teenagers on Twitter and Tumblr wrestle with and it's another case where we see just how fractures in fragmentary veganism can be a bonus Yin