Vegans, "It takes a nation of millions to push us forward, we hold ourselves back".

politics is an art form but unlike
painting you cannot do it alone you need to be just one player in an orchestra Pet of your contemporaries and coming here on YouTube lets you find other people and ask and answer the question hey you and me can we play in harmony can we play the same tune about the different angles I watched a video by vegan foot soldier yesterday and title was something like vegan YouTube is dying it was addressing something that aisel Mozart about the CL talked about a few months ago do you remember aisel making that video the idols argument was that the vegan movement is dying the victim movement is losing momentum because vegan youtubers are losing views and stuff like that and Google trends and things like that no no no there's a massive distinction between the movement the vegan movement and vegan YouTube right so what goes on a vegan YouTube it's certainly not a reflection about what's going on most of the time when people present you with a logical fallacy they do not do it intentionally and they do not do it in an underhanded way I think that Michelle is here being completely sincere but she is in fact engaging in deceptive and fallacious reasoning this is a moving the goal posts fallacy she first tries to establish that YouTube itself is not a political movement but then you take a subtle next step into absurdity in saying that it is not a reflection of a political movement well vegan YouTube it's certainly not a reflection about what's going on of course it's a reflection of a political movement people have conferences for the movement and they film those conferences and they upload them to YouTube it reflects what happened at the conference people have demonstrations on the street and they film them and upload them to YouTube that reflects what's going on in street activism so on and so forth if you were talking about any other example of a political social or even a religious movement if you're talking about any example that you didn't have this biased attachment toward you would readily accept that YouTube and other social media metrics like Google Trends data tells you something about how popular how successful that movement is it's a reflection of what's going on in that movement all right so a course in miracles' ACIM this is the peculiar religious cult associated with the political leader marianne williamson so this is a political movement in part it is a religion in part and of course it's in part a social media phenomenon now let's say you just found out yesterday that there is this wacky new religion in the United States of America and you want to know how popular is it what's going on you can look at YouTube you can look at Facebook you can look at metrics like Google Trends and even if you don't have anything else you can compare the data to you get a sense of the growth or decline in interest by looking at the same statistic over time all other things being equal so this relatively obscure new religious movement or cult got a lot of newspaper headline coverage because Marianne Williamson briefly was a candidate in the elections for president of the United States she attended and participated in debates within the Democrat Party the United States I made two videos at least criticizing her politically and I noticed that nobody else was engaged in the critique of her politics or her religious views and that was a somewhat dangerous thing now was her campaign successful in increasing public interest in her religion because she is a preacher she is a leader in that religious movement well look at the blue line on screen the jagged blue line we can look at social media data like this and no there's no question here of this ridiculous fallacious reasoning we're not using oh no no social media tells us nothing about what's going on in this political movement social media tells us nothing about how much interest there is in this religion it tells us something it provides us with a reflection we might expect to see in this data a sudden increase in public interest in this religion around the time when it got a lot of newspaper coverage because of this political campaign all right we don't see that we also do not see a sudden and dramatic decline in interest but we can say this was a marginal political group and you can see on the map there it's clustered in just one part of the United States of America we can say that over the past five years they failed to achieve their goals politically or in terms of promoting their religion so on and so forth vegan YouTube it's certainly not a reflection about what's going on social media such as YouTube provides a reflection however so imperfect of what is going on in different kinds of political movements it even gives a remarkably good reflection of what's going on in covert political movements terrorists for the government's illegal political movements and governments all over the world use social media to track groups like Isis groups they're actually at war with because those groups also film themselves and upload when they have meetings when they give lectures when they have street protests all kinds of radical and extreme groups who have every reason to conceal their faces and and locations they also are addicted to uploading to social media and believe it or not governments and intelligence agencies can track how much interest these different political groups have is increases and decreases over time using the same sort of methodology we're talking about here whether it's applied to veganism or Buddhism or Marianne Williamson and her peculiar religious group A Course in Miracles okay so know when you're looking at YouTube you're not looking at the reality of veganism as a political movement itself but you are looking at a reflection of that political movement and you know what there's a third really important point here which is that social media lets us measure how much public interest there is in the political movement from outside because I think we all agree it's really easy to live inside the bubble of a cult like the Course in Miracles group here you might live in one of the communities in California where it seems like everyone's supporting Marianne Williamson and this is a big deal and it's really popular and really successful and everyone you know goes to attend classes and prayer and meditation with the Marianne Williamson religious group you might think hey wow everything's really going great for this this movement were part of it's growing and growing and then you get to consult these sorts of metrics to put your perception in check yes within the vegan movement there's a lot of interest in veganism but how much interest is there in the general public there was a controversy in Canada just a couple of years ago about the way in which the federal government was using social media data to diagnose not just social problems but public interest in and public complaints about social problems and this is hypothetically a very powerful and useful tool in the government's hands what we're about to give is a hypothetical example but if you live in Canada you'll know this is not too terribly hypothetical let's just say the newspapers and local radio are full of complaints that the new ferry scheduled the new boat scheduled causes problems for people that it's ruining communities that it's society apart okay but the government is evil to track the complaints through social media they're able to look at oh how many people are actually complaining that the new ferry schedule was a problem now compared to how many we're complaining before they're able to analyze the data and then present and say you know what the reality is there were just a few tourism companies that are closely connected to the newspapers and the radio stations and those tourism companies are complaining a lot and they're getting a lot of press coverage but actually the new ferry schedule is better for the majority of the population and you know what the government needs to do maybe we need to find a solution with another boating company or some other arrangement just for this tourism company because it's just not true the complaints are being blown out of proportion this is the sort of analysis the social media allows governments to do and to some extent if you have the time and interest it allows you and I to engage in that analysis if you have the motivation and discipline to do so it's certainly not a reflection about what's going on in relation to being in the real world because me going vegan in the real world made me look at veganism on YouTube I'm fine to be good YouTube right so there's an overlap but the arguments are not the same so it doesn't mean to say that because vegan something and YouTube channels are losing views the veganism is dying in the same way that Michelle is not really aware of how fallacious our own reasoning is she here also slips into misrepresenting me misrepresenting my argument misrepresenting my position I think the soldier does this too but you know if I'm actually speaking to him I can kind of snap him out of it you know if entire log um what what side of this debate was I on again was I one of the people like freely who argued that social media was going to replace conventional political activism oh no wait right I was the bitterest enemy of right I was her harshest critic right you remember that how did you manage to get that mixed up how did you manage to misrepresent my position in the debate about vegan activism to the extent of pretending that I was one of the people exaggerating the significance of veganism on YouTube I never was i eating back when people like foot soldier were true believers in and cult followers of harley and freely when he was literally going to chiang mai to ride his bicycle with those people and do social media collaborations with them i was the guy who was sure on the internet not just harshly criticizing their position on social media activism but also criticizing unnatural vegan let's not forget my political manifesto video now translated into 11 languages or something is me disagreeing with a natural vegan she says that she doesn't want to build a community she doesn't want to be part of a community she just wants to make money coming on youtube and doing this [ __ ] commentary video thing and i say back loud and clear no no no i'm here on youtube to meet people to make friends to make colleagues but you know what i'm about I'm getting off YouTube and building a real community real constituency real political organization real lobbying that's who I've been that's what I've been advocating for from day one I've been the harshest critic of the shallowness and stupidity of the people who pretended that YouTube wasn't merely a substitute for real-world activism that YouTube was merely a substitute for political organization and lobbying a lot of these people pretended and actively preached that YouTube was so effective that it had replaced conventional political organization entirely freelee and durianrider came here on the internet and told you that they were the most effective vegan activists in the world they said come on the internet tell your weight loss story talk about how veganism improve your sex life Alvie he doesn't cure your ass veganism cured close disease and a whole bunch of other crazy diseases that veganism does not cure they said come a leader and boast about that stuff and that is going to be more effective than all the hard work that petaa has done in the last 20 years more effective than all the hard work the abolitionists have done or the anti whales in SeaWorld people have done it's going to be more effective than the abolish fur movement all these decades it's going to be so much more effective if we just get enough hot chicks in bikinis talking about how veganism change the world and to give credit where it's due they were also believers in people putting up slaughterhouse footage ethical and ecological footage they did also see that as part of the magic of what YouTube and social media were doing and setting the world aflame now I disagree with their entire analysis I think they were wrong in a step beyond that I was the only person criticizing a natural vegan when she came out and said she has no interest in a vegan community she's not here on YouTube in order to be part of a community she doesn't want to build a community in the figure hey guess what that is kryptonite to me I'm at the opposite extreme I'm here on YouTube only to meet people and collaborate with people in order to create a real community in the real world not a Facebook group not a youtube following I want a real community I want to really lobby Parliament Lobby the Senate I want to actually have political constituency and organization making a difference in the real world in real legislation that's been my position from day one and people like Michelle manage gets so wrapped up in their fallacious reasoning that they end up attacking me as if I were the guy advocating for YouTube being just as good as or more important than real world look like isms there's a massive distinction between the movement the vegan movement and vegan YouTube right Michelle I'm bedridden ill but I'm making the effort to come on camera and filmed us face to face so that you don't feel I'm insulting you because I'm not I'd invite you your person of the same generation as myself to reflect back on your youth and think about the risk someone was taking when they were handed a pamphlet on paper that invited them to join an organization for black rights let's just say it's for the upliftment of African Americans or we could say it's for the improvement of the conditions of Caribbeans within the United Kingdom I know England has its own black rights struggle when you're handed that pamphlet decades ago before social media before the internet who are you gonna trust how do you know what you're signing up for the leaders of that organization they say they represent black rights they say they represent human equality are they actually connected to communism are they actually connected to Islamic fundamentalism you don't know that was the way political organization went on for decades and people like my own father thrived on it my father was basically a communist extremist maniac and he loved the way politics went in the 1960s he could get money he could get laid he could get famous he could publish books he could leave charismatic lectures he could become a union organizer with absolutely no education expertise in that area he had a great time and done a lot of women pregnant as a political leader in that era what YouTube lets us do that's so fundamental to political organization and I think you don't feel this because you don't have a personal emotional engagement with the reality of with that importance of trust is just that you can get to know someone in this way face-to-face you can get to know all of their political views you can get a sense of how reasonable or unreasonable they are you get a sense for how much common ground you may or may not have a lot of people supported Cory McCarthy until the moment they saw criticism of Cory McCarthy on my YouTube channel where I pointed out just how racist he was and I know this because they send me email that communicated moved in various media telling me wow I had no idea that was who this guy really is politically now I'm not gonna support him he's not gonna be a leader for me in the beacon movement they changed their minds about that a lot of people supported Gary Yourofsky until the moment they saw a critique of Gary Yourofsky on my channel and that changed their minds they said wow I didn't realize that's what this guy represents politically strategically ethically etc my video in effect opened their eyes and they changed their position they looked for new leaders they moved in a different direction with veganism on and on this goes what we have here on YouTube for that stage that first preliminary stage of political organization is crucial and that's establishing just enough trust for cooperation even if it's with the first five people who start an organization politics is an art form but unlike painting you cannot do it alone you need to be just one player in an orchestra pet of your contemporaries and coming here on YouTube lets you find other people and ask and answer the question hey you and me can we play in harmony can we play the same tune [Music]