The Vegan Movement as "Meritocracy": James Aspey = Why I Quit Veganism.
19 December 2018 [link youtube]
Answering questions and criticisms, including, "Who Are You Competing With, What Are You Competing For?"
Youtube Automatic Transcription
I see at least two issues that need
addressing first the term invert this is really interesting the term inverse meritocracy implies a level of organization that I don't really believe exists in other words what I've seen from vegan activism online is simply a reflection of cultural and even political practices outside of it celebrity worshipping in lieu of organization and institutionalism so I disagree with you here this is what makes it interesting in Canada who spoke at the quote-unquote nation rising rally in Ottawa Canada who spoke there and who was excluded right I was in Canada for this event for an issue as I was emailing them more than a year before the event happened I was talking about them and trying to talk with them it turned out to them and mod vegan talk to them on my behalf she was to some extent an insider and knew those people okay I was excluded I was silenced and if I had participated and if they had heard my constructive criticism everything about that everything about that event both in the lead-up and the press coverage afterwards animal die could have could have been way more positive more affect they didn't want to hear it they saluted me from the one who was there James asked me it's the same dude okay that is formally overtly organized so no it's not just people in bikinis on the internet there are formal explicit political organizations with funding from donors making these decisions and they are making the decision no aisel lizard doesn't get to talk doesn't even get to attend doesn't even get to participate in a silent vigil and James ass fee he's the guy on stage speaking they literally give him a platform and one of the organizers he was at first really offended when I reached out to him and shared my my criticism of what had happened with nation wiesen and you know what he took the time to watch the videos and his it met limit messages to me they got less and less angry and then the last couple of messages have before actually warm and appreciate him and he said well you know what I think you're doing something really important here in our firm this kind of critique he saw a lot of value in a book the constructive criticism o saying but what went wrong with Haitian rising I understand why you'd say this at a glance you might think oh no there is no organization there is no institutionalization it's just a bunch of Fame [ __ ] on YouTube trying to get clicks and views and trying to make my Instagram you know there is there is formal political organization just like direct action everywhere and there's a bank account and there's money involved and there's a hierarchy people are unequal there are some people who make decisions and who put that money in their pocket and live off that Twitter money including direct action everywhere showed us tweets young and there are other people who do not and you can't scrutinize those people there are real relationships of authority there are real institutional Harry's this and guess what if you sign up and join a synagogue synagogues are not grassroots organizations either had a pretty big response within just 10 or 11 hours to the last video I put up it's not the first video on my channel titled stupidity is real and it's not the first video on my channel to offer criticism of figures like Paul Bashir James ass B I think it is the first criticism of moon and rock hadn't even heard of before they quit because I wasn't even aware of their channel although in some ways there they're similar to and represent common themes that have come up again and again in the movement now obviously many of the negative reactions were at a kind of shallow surface level to that video but I did also get some deeper comments and criticism so part of it was people feeling that Melissa didn't get a chance to talk Melissa's with me here off camera yeah it's true Melissa didn't get a chance to talk or just chatting about that it's true and you know I think you guys may overlook the extent to which that was a spontaneous video made as we said at the beginning with a disclaimer with about three hours of sleep we just gotten off the airplane and the train and arrived here in France that's France in the background at the window by the way um it is true you know melissa has her own YouTube channel melissa makes her own videos and there are some videos where we sit down on an equal footing to give a response to for example the book review videos we did together when we did the book review video on American Universities and what's wrong with them a few different book reviews few different discussions we've had but we both start off on an equal footing then Melissa gets closer to equal time on the video in that case I sat down with a pretty simple thesis which was to talk about stupidity as being a real factor and I mean you were just asked me with this it's kind of stupidity as something different from morality or ideology it's apart from being right or wrong or a specific practical tactical choice made by these people that said look stupidity is a real factor here people overlook it and it's also as an impact on people like me in my decision to quit the movement in my current situation so I started recording with really that thesis in mind and it is true I was not really interested in Melissa kind of speaking the conversation don't nuther roads and you know right at the start of the video this is one of the reasons what people have reacted so negative is appeal other reasons or stated within the video people don't want to hear what I have to say and I understand that like I really understand how much more popular this channel would be if I come up from day one saying Wow you know what freelee and durianrider are doing is just great and if today I was saying wow you know what James ASPI has been doing is just great and lots of love and support to him and the whole crew and I was so excited to see him on the new the new channel called do boo from Sean Lee and I remember Sean Lee from back when he supported Tory writer and freely and that's also great like if I was doing the cheerleading at every stage consistently and if I was doing the cheerleading now you know obviously some of the cheerleading would be sincere I mentioned in that video also the people the activists I do support and I do respect and admire you know I have respect for what PCRM has done and what Neil Barnard has done a lot of people pointed out in the comments section in response to the complaint like oh you regard all other vegan activist negatively well lucky you well okay another big example one of the longest playlists on this channel is the criticism of DX e so DX e is the initialization of direct action everywhere imagine how differently this whole channel will be perceived my whole career will be different if I just comfy well you know here's the latest project from DX e and that's great and I'm so happy they're doing this we could have done the whole channel that way from start to finish and it could have been a natural vegan is great and vegan cheetah is great and happy healthy vegan is great I could have just been giving out completely false positive indications on all the other YouTube channels and actual organization institutions the movement and you can ask yourself as a thought exercise how much larger and more positive the response from the audience would be but I came into this I keep making the comparison to Buddhism and some of you guys may not know what Buddhism has met in my life I am NOT a Buddhist because I don't want to live a lie Hey look shout out to Mexi and Marni privileged vegan and their podcast is called the vegan vanguard they have a much bigger audience as pinkies now if you don't know what tankey means it is a word for a communist apologist or communist supporter do you guys have any doubt in your mind that I would have a bigger audience and more money coming in and more support if I just came out Hyrum was a stereotypical Pro left-wing tanky I think the size of their audiences a good indication which is it's not enormous they're not like PewDiePie or something they're not pulling in millions there's a big big audience of people who don't want their opinions challenged and just want positive just want to hear reiterated and repeated what they already know and already agree with on the far left wing and I don't do that either I mean I'm if you consider Bernie Sanders left-wing I don't really think of Bernie Sanders as left-wing you know I'm definitely left-of-center in terms of current American political discourse there's no way I could get the Republican Party but you know you know I'm not a stereotypical leftist and I have a lot of criticism directed left-wing also so look you know what the truth is I just said this in some email to some people and some facebook conversations I actually see is really positive the people got offended by my last video because in my last video stupidity is real I was saying things that I've said five times before to be reasonable not a hundred times what they've said it five times before I've criticized James asked you before I've criticized Gary Yourofsky before and it's really positive if you can present that message and then the fifth time people are still finding it fresh and provocative and offensive rather than it responding to it with indifference it's surprising to me because I've said all that stuff before and you know a lot of the questions reflect the fact that people are coming to my channel for the first time so this legit just comes up in the email good answer people were asking have you done cube of truth have you done slaughterers vigils so talking about slaughterhouse vigils that's like four years ago on this channel there's a really good video my opinion is still really good called the agony of activism and that was the first like in-depth discussion of what it's like sitting and witnessing a pig being having its throat slit and cows cows and chickens and other animals being killed in front of you what does that mean for the movement was that me if you as an activist and what does it mean there was my own story getting rich and there was a whole series of videos about my engagement with the various vigils so cube of truth and their competitor the Earthlings experience sorry and there's another the organization that started it all for them these two young British women in London their organization was called London vegan actions they actually invented that it wasn't all before wearing the wearing the white mask and doing selfish so all that's been covered on this channel in my attempts to volunteer with them and my experience doing Street activism that's all been covered so I understand people coming on and so forth versus saying like oh well when did you ever do this but it's like yeah I've been there I've seen it all I've done it all and I've had a thousand videos on this channel talking about it so obviously you can't expect your audience to be there with you but like I feel the sincerity of those responses and all I can say is I'm happy you came to my channel and saw that video and got stimulated now if you start asking those questions so got an email here from a guy named Lamar by default I just answer email and questions on patreon become cool by their first name so shout it to Lamar unless they tell me they want me to use their full name or they want me to show that their YouTube channel or promote their Facebook or something that all they don't use that name or give that Lake and I just mentioned I have slightly shortened his email and actually this stuff I deleted were statements agreeing with me I understand why he did that to make the criticism kind of less offensive he says look I agree with you about X Y and Zed however and I've normally deleted the first part and I start with the however because for the purpose of this video I don't want to repeat him agreeing with me or him reassuring me that he does see some value in what I'm doing on the channel this is chopped down a little bit so he writes greetings eyes'll first time correspondent here I write this because you are one of the few figures that I'm remotely interested in paying attention to when it comes to veganism preach so I I cut off Melissa on this you guys can tell me once it's just off camera but you know one of the few things I didn't like in last videos Melissa started saying oh well you know you get so many fewer viewers and your videos are actually substantive and these other videos that's none I just didn't want I didn't like the way that changed the tone of the video I didn't want to make it into a competition that comes up here in lamar's this question but look I'm a producer of content and I'm a consumer and Lamar just saying this do you think there's a lot of content for me to watch on YouTube there's shockingly little under any heading there shock a little in veganism resident listening to her hearing like do you think we can sit around and watch the Supreme banana do you think we can sit around and watch our natural vegan like if Melissa and I sit and watch basically any vegan YouTube channel other than my own we're just sitting there heaping scorn on it or like facepalm anger like spending the whole time like oh my god this is so stupid this is so out of touch and you guys know our videos saying this that also applies to the like self-styled intellectuals the people with PhDs the people with formal credentials I can't like sit and enjoy you through the latest lecture from Kerry Rob ski Gary Yourofsky talking about pet ownership or something I have some respect for those people in the movement that's why my criticisms of them are longer any more death but no it's it's facepalm City around here yeah mmm anyway so we agree with this and I really feel it or he says look you're one of the only people in the vegan movement I have any interest in paying attention to and he continues quote while I would well I would be disappointed if you quit I'm not going to directly try to convince you to not quit but I would like to ask you to consider some questions before you do quit consider this in the same light as you do the criticism on your own channel as you put it quote the role of this channel within veganism has been a challenge damn question assumptions people with living by so he then quotes me quote we live in an era of inverse meritocracy the stupidest people are promoted to positions at the pinnacle of fame and influence in the vegan movement and that's one of the main reasons why I want out I don't want to be a part of that I don't want to compete at the bottom of the pile close quote so here is an interesting question one what are you defining as merit by your use of the term inverse meritocracy you imply that you have more merit than people like James asked me Paul Bashir Gary Yourofsky earthling had and others who criticized in your channel specifically say how this is so according to my own definition I would say that you do have more merit like from his perspective but I want to hear or read your definition and not just you know statements about kinda who is stupid and and who's not right so look I don't see ile the merit that it takes to advance the vegan movement as one thing as a single criterion that there's only one right way to do it I actually do think there's a lot of room for diversity of approaches and methods and tactics but there are different things we can point to as you know signalling that there is this kind of under underlying merit I've asked people for the whole five years have been on this channel what are you planning to do for the next five years where do you think you're gonna be five years from now where is the movement going where are you going you know when you're in your methods and you're approaching your activism and I think every single time I think a hundred percent of the time people have not had an answer people if some of them some of them have been shocked some of them we've just been a little surprised and we found it interesting but I don't think I talked to anyone who was like answer oh yeah right well this is what we're doing in the next five years and this is why I'm doing this probably if I were interested if I were interviewing restaurant owners probably if I was interviewing people who are just doing the business side of veganism they'd have a five-year plan and more of a clear clear-headed approach that way but people including really intelligent people I had a guy who was a more like a human rights lawyer they technically did law ecology law so environmental rights law even he was had no answer to that question and he sent me an e-mail a few months ago saying Wow now when I look back the fact that you asked me that question and it's almost five years ago you asked maybe it only been three years but whatever what are you doing next twelve years think about the next five years and where you're going in your activism where both of us are gonna be from five years from now and stuff he says wow I really look back on that and I rue the day sort of thing sure when you look at the extreme short-term thinking and to be blunt famewhoring of people like James ASPI of even the way someone like petaa operates in my opinion not everything petted us is bad you put in exceptions here but a lot of this stuff is just kind of chasing headlines chasing short-term Fame this kind of short this kind of short-term thinking I do think that the kind of merit we're talking about here in terms of building the begin movement it is going to be signaled by genuine long-term thinking and planning with you know positive aspirations you know some kind of pause the best version to make the world a better places is gonna be at play there and I think once you have that you're gonna have positive cooperation with others toward that goal and by the way I do think it's legitimate that many people with a five-year plan would exclude me for legitimate reasons so I don't think PCRM would be interested in working with me they're basically only interested in working with other medical doctors and scientific researchers probably they have a small role for legal experts legal analyst so that kind of thing they ever really specialized type of lobbying they're doing somebody else to give you an example I do not know anyone doing this this is an excellent form of a vegan advocacy let's say you had a five year plan to really take on the issue of the rights of slaughterhouse workers to do a labor union approach where you say look the exploitation of people in the slaughterhouses is terrible we're gonna do this partly to shine a critical light on the whole industry the questions of you know slaughtering the animals also but we're gonna really take the angles and look at how many of these people have PTSD and their lives are destroyed they're horribly exploited in some way taking that approach they might only be interested in other people of a background in labor labor disputes labor law you know this this kind of struggle unionization and factory workers rights that kind of thing so I don't know anyone doing that but that's obviously a very rich approach I've said many times this channel there's an opportunity to have an approach that's just based on leather and leather advocacy and I'm interested now even what about an approach that's based on children's entertainment on storybooks and cartoons and fables so there are different specific modes and tactics but once you've got that once you've got a positive aspiration on a five-year plan or five years set of hopes at least then you're gonna you're gonna have other merits that are attached to that that reflect the sincerity of your engagement your openness to working with other people who can support you and whom you can support so look it's a great question you know what is merit in the roofer in this reverse meritocracy I'm talking about so at to give a very broad and inclusive answer trying to achieve something positive in the movement in a five year time span not a 1,000 year time span not like you put some super broad thing you know I think that's one reasonable criterion to bring to bear here and yeah I do think with a lot of comments that were offended am I talking about people being drug addicts I think that's a significant factor here I think the fact that people are just coping with recovery from drug addiction and sharing that story I think that is part of the short-term thinking here I mean it's one factor among many apart from just famewhoring apart from just trying to make money out of vacation videos of going on vacation and then making a social media product out of the videotape of you swimming on the beach and a tropical island James asked me does this heavily and he's not the only one I mean there are a lot of other factors here that as I say are are the opposite of merit in this in this situation so yeah what when you're asking about merit look it's very easy for me to imagine a positive version of pretty much every institution and organization I criticize like so Melissa you participated in a bunch of the videos criticizing direct action everywhere DXE if I put it to you as a thought experiment what would a parallel universe look like in which we both supported DXE how different with that organization have to be the honest answer is it's not that different the changes are fundamental the difference is our fundamental and that's why they're not going to happen that's why it's worth criticizing but it's not it's not that different pedda people's the Ethical Treatment manimals all vegans hate peda we all we all love to hate on petaa but if you ask yourself as a thought experiment what how different would peda be for you to approve it you can make a checklist it's attainable it's not that it's not that hard or even for me to be a member of peda I don't think they'd have me but you know if I could join Pettit and again one like my clash with Joey carb strong over cube of truth I said to him straight up repeating it directly to him and in the videos look the criticisms I have of Cuba truth you could change this stuff within the next two months these are practical changes you can make this is attainable change so it's not that it's not that big a gap even for the group's I've criticized most harshly and at the most life okay so we continue with this email from Lamar I see at least two issues that need addressing first the term invert this is really interesting the term inverse meritocracy implies a level of organization that I don't really believe exists okay in other words what I've seen from vegan activism online is simply a reflection of cultural and even political practices outside of it celebrity worshipping in lieu of organization and institutionalism so I disagree with you here this is what makes it interesting in Canada who spoke at the quote-unquote nation rising rally in Ottawa Canada who spoke there and who was excluded right I was in Canada for this event for an issue as I was emailing them more than a year before the event happened I was talking about them and trying to talk with them turns out to them and mod vegan talk to them on my behalf she was to some extent an insider and knew those people okay I was excluded I was silenced and if I had participated and if they had heard my constructive criticism everything about that everything about that event both in the lead-up and the press coverage afterwards and what actually could have been way more positive and more effective they didn't want to hear it they saluted me from doing who was there James asked me it's the same dude okay that is formally overtly organized so no it's not just people in bikinis on the internet there are formal explicit political organizations with funding from donors making these decisions and they are making the decision no aisel lizard doesn't get to talk doesn't even get to attend doesn't even get to participate in a silent vigil and James ASPI he's the guy on stage speaking they literally give him a platform and they ask for donations and they keep that money and they spend that money and they get endorsements in the court in the case of nation rising they get endorsements from other agencies in their case they got backing from the pig slaughter group that paid the vigil movement what if they call it the silent vigils at Pig slaughterhouses and counselors they reached out to and cart doors from all these different agencies and their event was a flop it was a failure and one of the organizers he was at first really offended when I reached out to him and shared my my criticism of what had happened with nation wiesen and you know what he took the time you watch the videos and his it met limit messages to me they got less and less angry and then the last couple message said but we're actually warm and appreciative and he said well you know what I think you're doing something really important here in orphan this kind of critique he saw a lot of value in above the constructive criticism I was saying but what went wrong with nation rising and there was also a tendency in his first response he was a part of to just lie and pretend it was a success to just lie and say oh no thousands of people attended it was a huge that no wasn't it was a failure and I would also say specifically James aspies involvement with it was a failure so this is what's interesting to me is no I understand why you'd say this at a glance you might think oh no there is no organization there is no institutionalization it's just a bunch of Fame Horrors on YouTube trying to get clicks and views and trying to make my Instagram know there is there is formal political organization just like direct action everywhere and there's a bank account and there's money involved and there's a hierarchy people are unequal there are some people who make decisions and who put that money in their pocket and live off that Twitter money including direct action everywhere showed us tweets young and there are other people who do not and you can't scrutinize those people there are real relationships of authority there are real institutional hierarchies of this and guess what if you sign up and join a synagogue synagogues are not grassroots decentralized organizations either they're also formally institutionalized organized center okay don't worry this isn't too much longer but to me this is an interesting and again it is a critique he is criticizing me and challenging me but that challenge is appreciated so he says the focus is less on institution building than it is on online slacktivism that allows most people to give money to selectively it's too big allows the people to give money to celebrity activists that can then do the activism for them right so that is one factor but I would say there's more money in institutionalizing and that's why people do it and that's why our thing had did it earthling had graduated from slacktivism to institution building mmm look at someone like Hania mania she would have been better off if she had but sure this this comment it applies to many scenarios but not all obviously a lot of this criticism I just agree with or it's you know it's not true 100% of the time but it's true a large enough time sure second how can quitting veganism be reconciled quitting the vegan movement of course I'm going to keep eating a vegan diet what do you think you start eating organ meat it's okay anyway how can quit the movement be reconciled with the foundation of your conception of veganism one that has an intense desire for community the way you speak of the connection between your veganism and a sense of community even possesses moral connotations in your video on communities title the video you say quote I have no reason to pretend that veganism is completely satisfactory to me if it is just a diet or it's something I do in private and that can't have any political ramifications close quote how would your quitting fundamentally change your veganism this would be a very useful tub for a video by the way if you still want the sense of community that you discussed your manifesto what exactly are you saying if you stop engaging with the activities that facilitated right so look this is a criticism basically all I can do is agree and say it's really sad I'm just gonna contrast this to a different criticism I received several people wrote in and telling me you would never be satisfied with anything nothing is good enough for you like you're quitting the movement but no movement could have satisfied you I completely disagree with that so III do largely agree with what he's this guy is saying here with the criticism from Sarah my forgetting his name the criticism from Lamar but if I had five people I could cooperate with I'd be happy when I had the money to host a conference in Vancouver Canada and then coolers a huge city for veganism Avena activism if I had ten people saying yes I want to join in I want to deliver a paper I want to make I want to help I wanted positive I'm happy that is not after whatever was that point four years in the movement that is not too much to ask you've been through what I've been through in this movement and you come back to candidates say hey I want to organize like a small academic style conference this is not a huge this is not a street protest this is not something for thousands of people to attend it's time for a few dozen people to attend say hey I want to organize people and I wanted to test to deliver papers the topic of the conference was actually pragmatism what really does practice doesn't mean and challenging some of the voices who think pragmatism means reduce at arianism and saying kind of reclaiming fighting for intellectually and politically and ultimately organizationally the concept of a vegan pragmatism a principled pragmatism and what what that now means and to some extent what the research and hard facts it I didn't have one person not one and this includes all the people with PhDs and a lot of reasons that not one person so it's not the case that nothing would have satisfied me all right unattainable goals if I had five people if I had ten people great and again I could say the same about Buddhism if I need ten scholars and Buddhism who were that M doesn't have to be scholars but I knew ten people doing humanitarian work I cared a lot about humanitarian work in my life if I knew ten people doing real sincere work I'd still be a Buddhist today and I'd still be those ten people would be my best friends now for ten years or whatever you know what I mean they we all would have done together what I said and that movement was I don't want to be a one-man religion so I had to quit Buddhism I don't want to be a one-man political protest I don't want to be a one-man organization so to answer this directly Lamar asks what would it mean if you stopped engaging in facilities you pardon me would mean if you stopped engaging in activities that would facilitate the community it means I accept that I'm totally alone and I'm walking away alone and with nothing as I even said in the earlier video so that's sad but I mean every other trip we made to Europe inclusive the last one six months ago I brought sure we made everywhere we went to Los Angeles and everything I was really putting out as many emails and it's on YouTube and everything I could say hey hey hey we're going to Los Angeles what can we participate in like what even what protests gonna show up look what street protest or what activism or what outreach what are their vegan activists can I meet who can I cooperate with whether it's making a YouTube video or something more positive or meaningful is that everywhere in the world and obviously including places like Seattle and Vancouver Bangkok Chiang Mai Paris you know it's been a long strange list of places abroad for any of you and guys nothing positive came back and now it's over hoe people closed the door against me so many times and after a certain point you say ok the door is closed moving on ok from what I've seen continues why not establish your own institution with much better organization superior values and effective methods this is it this is where I assume you will say quote no one is going to cooperate with me I would argue that this needs to be fleshed out more who did you see cooperation with and why so look one of the reasons I don't talk about that more specifically it's just privacy so he suggests in his full email that I should make more videos talking with that well there's already a lot of complaining on this channel and for me to come out and be like look you know mod vegan is a piece of [ __ ] I tried to get something organized with mod vegan for so long and this is a response and she let me down and now I can't work with it like you really think this channel would be better this was coming out and naming and shaming all the people I've tried to cooperate with or even I mean in some cases just emails that never got answered once so I just talked about the group nation rising who froze me on exclusion I did also make videos talking with a cube of truth people aka anonymous for the voiceless who actively scorned me excluded me didn't even let me participate in a silent protest and they do allow people as offensive as vegan gains and Isaac from ask yourself those guys you know or reached out to or included to some extent Paul Bashir was willing to hear criticism from those guys and not me well we all know why you know from there's good reason I utterly despise their reasons but I know understand the reasons why they exclude I know why they were afraid I know what they were afraid of you know so you know some of that stuff has been talked about the channel but no you're not gonna get more content talking about my disappointment with particular activists or particular people that would be a kind of a naming and shaming thing but yeah at this point I can say I reached out to everybody obviously especially in Canada um there's no point in my reaching out to someone in the United Kingdom you know an England that I can't participate with but even that having been said I'm now remembering all the examples of people in English English one couple in Scotland where there was at least the possibility of cooperation over Skype you know and through YouTube on that level but terms of really getting organized obviously it's got to be Canada or parts the United States that are adjacent to Canada like Seattle and we went to Los Angeles Dylan's so no I understand anyway he says he doesn't know whoever reached out to it's true but you know it's both it's who I've reached out to when it's who's reached out to me and he went on to say buddy I'll skip this part he says it's quite correct he says look you know you really tried hard even to have a working relationship with vegan cheetah you're damn right I worked really hard to have worship with vegan cheetah with Enya of Enya mania with Jason Posey know with all kinds of people who were really at the shallow lifestyle activism bikinis bikinis and permanent vacation styling because I did I made tons of positive effort with people you know where I find fault and what they're doing on YouTube fourth what they're doing the time and again it comes back to the same thing with my critique of cube of truth and direct action everywhere it wouldn't be that hard for these people to reform what they're doing for these institutions due to what they're doing alright so again I still think this is interesting this is his point to as he numbered at point two to quote also what do you mean when you say you are competing at the bottom of the pile who are you competing with what are you competing for and just to summarize he goes on to say that he doesn't believe we should be competing for fame and once he doesn't believe we should be competing competing for the number of viewers so this is also why I didn't like Melissa's brief comment in my former video where she was caught I totally sympathize why she said it and I know it's sincere and I'm basically in favor of anyone saying sincere crap on YouTube where Melissa was saying like oh well you know it doesn't make sense that these videos that are just about nothing have so many more views than videos on your channel as old that are substantive I feel Melissa's sincerity and this line we both live with however the other side of that is of course of course fluff at nonsense has more viewers how many viewers can you possibly get for a video talking about philosophy of Aristotle how many viewers can you possibly get a really good example for a book review about Gary France aione and his philosophy of animal rights and critique of animal rights your really substantive content that's really important to veganism in the movement but for me I completely understand why I mean like a girl jumping up and down in a bikini after drinking a fruit smoothie gets more reviews than that like I'm not in a position to complain if you think of this in terms of competing for audience size like you kind of have to accept going into this the numbers are always going to be on the side of garbage of absolute garbage and in a sense that's okay so but I'm gonna answer directly this question what are you competing for and what are you competing with I'm competing for those five people I'm competing for those 10 people I'm competing for a small audience of support of people who could actually work with me to build institution abilities to movement and to scale it up a little bit I would say I'm competing for maybe 2,000 people who would support my publishing a children's storybook maybe it's 2,000 maybe it's 5,000 so again not big numbers not the 9.2 million people who watched the Nina Aranda video to lick my body challenge I don't think those are 9.2 million people who are supporting veganism but sure whether it's two thousand people or five thousand people would support me publishing a children's storybook if we had done that academic conference academic style conference on veganism and veganism and pragmatism how many people would have needed to support a hundred two hundred so yeah there still is something I'm competing for although you're correct to use his terms I am not competing for a meteoric rise to fame and influence all right so it goes on to say from my quote from my perspective you quitting deprives veganism and an opportunity to most effectively institution build and he again says that he wants me to get specific about what kind of cooperation I've been seeking and who has been refusing to cooperate with me this video is that specific as it's going to get Lamar but I have been very open-minded I mean keep in mind this channel has included the possibility of people cooperating with me in in vegan baking it would covered a huge range it's not just street activism it's not just lobbying city hall there's been a huge range of possible forms of cooperation okay he closes by saying at some length that he really doesn't want me to quit and asked what quitting will mean stay tuned you're gonna see how the channel will change and he says I think he would be making a mistake even in your own terms by quitting fina activism well I'm a 40 year old man with a five-year-old daughter I have other commitments in life and in many ways I had already quit at the time durianrider created this controversy that forced me into the courtroom and forced me to double down my efforts on YouTube just to clear my own name if that hadn't happened with durianrider it's really possible to quit much sooner because I was in a full-time language program in China struggling to learn Chinese and doing other things these five years have been a remarkable opportunity in my life and in some ways a remarkable period of time for the vegan movement because I was in university in Canada and then I was in an education program in China and I was I was doing other things but no not only do I feel that quitting is the right thing for me at this point I feel I really have really have no alternative even if YouTube is now to become not a smaller button even bigger part of my life if you guys check out the front page of my patreon link in the description you're gonna see there are no promises about vegan activism I'm not doing any of the dishonest manipulative things that other vegan youtubers do I'm not saying if you donate $10 I will convert to new people to veganism if you've watched this channel a long time I used to criticize other vegans who have this kind of thing I'm not saying if you pay me enough money I'll go out and write chalk on the sidewalk chalk divisa m-- Schokolade there's another channel who did that if you pay me money I'll go do this there is there is no lie of that kind there's a straight-up statement that look I'm someone with a background in political philosophy political science Asian Studies Asian languages and I'm coming on YouTube to share what it is I've got to give and at some point after 1000 videos what I've got to share what I've got to give no longer is complaining about the hopelessness of the vegan movement its internalizing that hopelessness learning the lesson and moving on [Music]
addressing first the term invert this is really interesting the term inverse meritocracy implies a level of organization that I don't really believe exists in other words what I've seen from vegan activism online is simply a reflection of cultural and even political practices outside of it celebrity worshipping in lieu of organization and institutionalism so I disagree with you here this is what makes it interesting in Canada who spoke at the quote-unquote nation rising rally in Ottawa Canada who spoke there and who was excluded right I was in Canada for this event for an issue as I was emailing them more than a year before the event happened I was talking about them and trying to talk with them it turned out to them and mod vegan talk to them on my behalf she was to some extent an insider and knew those people okay I was excluded I was silenced and if I had participated and if they had heard my constructive criticism everything about that everything about that event both in the lead-up and the press coverage afterwards animal die could have could have been way more positive more affect they didn't want to hear it they saluted me from the one who was there James asked me it's the same dude okay that is formally overtly organized so no it's not just people in bikinis on the internet there are formal explicit political organizations with funding from donors making these decisions and they are making the decision no aisel lizard doesn't get to talk doesn't even get to attend doesn't even get to participate in a silent vigil and James ass fee he's the guy on stage speaking they literally give him a platform and one of the organizers he was at first really offended when I reached out to him and shared my my criticism of what had happened with nation wiesen and you know what he took the time to watch the videos and his it met limit messages to me they got less and less angry and then the last couple of messages have before actually warm and appreciate him and he said well you know what I think you're doing something really important here in our firm this kind of critique he saw a lot of value in a book the constructive criticism o saying but what went wrong with Haitian rising I understand why you'd say this at a glance you might think oh no there is no organization there is no institutionalization it's just a bunch of Fame [ __ ] on YouTube trying to get clicks and views and trying to make my Instagram you know there is there is formal political organization just like direct action everywhere and there's a bank account and there's money involved and there's a hierarchy people are unequal there are some people who make decisions and who put that money in their pocket and live off that Twitter money including direct action everywhere showed us tweets young and there are other people who do not and you can't scrutinize those people there are real relationships of authority there are real institutional Harry's this and guess what if you sign up and join a synagogue synagogues are not grassroots organizations either had a pretty big response within just 10 or 11 hours to the last video I put up it's not the first video on my channel titled stupidity is real and it's not the first video on my channel to offer criticism of figures like Paul Bashir James ass B I think it is the first criticism of moon and rock hadn't even heard of before they quit because I wasn't even aware of their channel although in some ways there they're similar to and represent common themes that have come up again and again in the movement now obviously many of the negative reactions were at a kind of shallow surface level to that video but I did also get some deeper comments and criticism so part of it was people feeling that Melissa didn't get a chance to talk Melissa's with me here off camera yeah it's true Melissa didn't get a chance to talk or just chatting about that it's true and you know I think you guys may overlook the extent to which that was a spontaneous video made as we said at the beginning with a disclaimer with about three hours of sleep we just gotten off the airplane and the train and arrived here in France that's France in the background at the window by the way um it is true you know melissa has her own YouTube channel melissa makes her own videos and there are some videos where we sit down on an equal footing to give a response to for example the book review videos we did together when we did the book review video on American Universities and what's wrong with them a few different book reviews few different discussions we've had but we both start off on an equal footing then Melissa gets closer to equal time on the video in that case I sat down with a pretty simple thesis which was to talk about stupidity as being a real factor and I mean you were just asked me with this it's kind of stupidity as something different from morality or ideology it's apart from being right or wrong or a specific practical tactical choice made by these people that said look stupidity is a real factor here people overlook it and it's also as an impact on people like me in my decision to quit the movement in my current situation so I started recording with really that thesis in mind and it is true I was not really interested in Melissa kind of speaking the conversation don't nuther roads and you know right at the start of the video this is one of the reasons what people have reacted so negative is appeal other reasons or stated within the video people don't want to hear what I have to say and I understand that like I really understand how much more popular this channel would be if I come up from day one saying Wow you know what freelee and durianrider are doing is just great and if today I was saying wow you know what James ASPI has been doing is just great and lots of love and support to him and the whole crew and I was so excited to see him on the new the new channel called do boo from Sean Lee and I remember Sean Lee from back when he supported Tory writer and freely and that's also great like if I was doing the cheerleading at every stage consistently and if I was doing the cheerleading now you know obviously some of the cheerleading would be sincere I mentioned in that video also the people the activists I do support and I do respect and admire you know I have respect for what PCRM has done and what Neil Barnard has done a lot of people pointed out in the comments section in response to the complaint like oh you regard all other vegan activist negatively well lucky you well okay another big example one of the longest playlists on this channel is the criticism of DX e so DX e is the initialization of direct action everywhere imagine how differently this whole channel will be perceived my whole career will be different if I just comfy well you know here's the latest project from DX e and that's great and I'm so happy they're doing this we could have done the whole channel that way from start to finish and it could have been a natural vegan is great and vegan cheetah is great and happy healthy vegan is great I could have just been giving out completely false positive indications on all the other YouTube channels and actual organization institutions the movement and you can ask yourself as a thought exercise how much larger and more positive the response from the audience would be but I came into this I keep making the comparison to Buddhism and some of you guys may not know what Buddhism has met in my life I am NOT a Buddhist because I don't want to live a lie Hey look shout out to Mexi and Marni privileged vegan and their podcast is called the vegan vanguard they have a much bigger audience as pinkies now if you don't know what tankey means it is a word for a communist apologist or communist supporter do you guys have any doubt in your mind that I would have a bigger audience and more money coming in and more support if I just came out Hyrum was a stereotypical Pro left-wing tanky I think the size of their audiences a good indication which is it's not enormous they're not like PewDiePie or something they're not pulling in millions there's a big big audience of people who don't want their opinions challenged and just want positive just want to hear reiterated and repeated what they already know and already agree with on the far left wing and I don't do that either I mean I'm if you consider Bernie Sanders left-wing I don't really think of Bernie Sanders as left-wing you know I'm definitely left-of-center in terms of current American political discourse there's no way I could get the Republican Party but you know you know I'm not a stereotypical leftist and I have a lot of criticism directed left-wing also so look you know what the truth is I just said this in some email to some people and some facebook conversations I actually see is really positive the people got offended by my last video because in my last video stupidity is real I was saying things that I've said five times before to be reasonable not a hundred times what they've said it five times before I've criticized James asked you before I've criticized Gary Yourofsky before and it's really positive if you can present that message and then the fifth time people are still finding it fresh and provocative and offensive rather than it responding to it with indifference it's surprising to me because I've said all that stuff before and you know a lot of the questions reflect the fact that people are coming to my channel for the first time so this legit just comes up in the email good answer people were asking have you done cube of truth have you done slaughterers vigils so talking about slaughterhouse vigils that's like four years ago on this channel there's a really good video my opinion is still really good called the agony of activism and that was the first like in-depth discussion of what it's like sitting and witnessing a pig being having its throat slit and cows cows and chickens and other animals being killed in front of you what does that mean for the movement was that me if you as an activist and what does it mean there was my own story getting rich and there was a whole series of videos about my engagement with the various vigils so cube of truth and their competitor the Earthlings experience sorry and there's another the organization that started it all for them these two young British women in London their organization was called London vegan actions they actually invented that it wasn't all before wearing the wearing the white mask and doing selfish so all that's been covered on this channel in my attempts to volunteer with them and my experience doing Street activism that's all been covered so I understand people coming on and so forth versus saying like oh well when did you ever do this but it's like yeah I've been there I've seen it all I've done it all and I've had a thousand videos on this channel talking about it so obviously you can't expect your audience to be there with you but like I feel the sincerity of those responses and all I can say is I'm happy you came to my channel and saw that video and got stimulated now if you start asking those questions so got an email here from a guy named Lamar by default I just answer email and questions on patreon become cool by their first name so shout it to Lamar unless they tell me they want me to use their full name or they want me to show that their YouTube channel or promote their Facebook or something that all they don't use that name or give that Lake and I just mentioned I have slightly shortened his email and actually this stuff I deleted were statements agreeing with me I understand why he did that to make the criticism kind of less offensive he says look I agree with you about X Y and Zed however and I've normally deleted the first part and I start with the however because for the purpose of this video I don't want to repeat him agreeing with me or him reassuring me that he does see some value in what I'm doing on the channel this is chopped down a little bit so he writes greetings eyes'll first time correspondent here I write this because you are one of the few figures that I'm remotely interested in paying attention to when it comes to veganism preach so I I cut off Melissa on this you guys can tell me once it's just off camera but you know one of the few things I didn't like in last videos Melissa started saying oh well you know you get so many fewer viewers and your videos are actually substantive and these other videos that's none I just didn't want I didn't like the way that changed the tone of the video I didn't want to make it into a competition that comes up here in lamar's this question but look I'm a producer of content and I'm a consumer and Lamar just saying this do you think there's a lot of content for me to watch on YouTube there's shockingly little under any heading there shock a little in veganism resident listening to her hearing like do you think we can sit around and watch the Supreme banana do you think we can sit around and watch our natural vegan like if Melissa and I sit and watch basically any vegan YouTube channel other than my own we're just sitting there heaping scorn on it or like facepalm anger like spending the whole time like oh my god this is so stupid this is so out of touch and you guys know our videos saying this that also applies to the like self-styled intellectuals the people with PhDs the people with formal credentials I can't like sit and enjoy you through the latest lecture from Kerry Rob ski Gary Yourofsky talking about pet ownership or something I have some respect for those people in the movement that's why my criticisms of them are longer any more death but no it's it's facepalm City around here yeah mmm anyway so we agree with this and I really feel it or he says look you're one of the only people in the vegan movement I have any interest in paying attention to and he continues quote while I would well I would be disappointed if you quit I'm not going to directly try to convince you to not quit but I would like to ask you to consider some questions before you do quit consider this in the same light as you do the criticism on your own channel as you put it quote the role of this channel within veganism has been a challenge damn question assumptions people with living by so he then quotes me quote we live in an era of inverse meritocracy the stupidest people are promoted to positions at the pinnacle of fame and influence in the vegan movement and that's one of the main reasons why I want out I don't want to be a part of that I don't want to compete at the bottom of the pile close quote so here is an interesting question one what are you defining as merit by your use of the term inverse meritocracy you imply that you have more merit than people like James asked me Paul Bashir Gary Yourofsky earthling had and others who criticized in your channel specifically say how this is so according to my own definition I would say that you do have more merit like from his perspective but I want to hear or read your definition and not just you know statements about kinda who is stupid and and who's not right so look I don't see ile the merit that it takes to advance the vegan movement as one thing as a single criterion that there's only one right way to do it I actually do think there's a lot of room for diversity of approaches and methods and tactics but there are different things we can point to as you know signalling that there is this kind of under underlying merit I've asked people for the whole five years have been on this channel what are you planning to do for the next five years where do you think you're gonna be five years from now where is the movement going where are you going you know when you're in your methods and you're approaching your activism and I think every single time I think a hundred percent of the time people have not had an answer people if some of them some of them have been shocked some of them we've just been a little surprised and we found it interesting but I don't think I talked to anyone who was like answer oh yeah right well this is what we're doing in the next five years and this is why I'm doing this probably if I were interested if I were interviewing restaurant owners probably if I was interviewing people who are just doing the business side of veganism they'd have a five-year plan and more of a clear clear-headed approach that way but people including really intelligent people I had a guy who was a more like a human rights lawyer they technically did law ecology law so environmental rights law even he was had no answer to that question and he sent me an e-mail a few months ago saying Wow now when I look back the fact that you asked me that question and it's almost five years ago you asked maybe it only been three years but whatever what are you doing next twelve years think about the next five years and where you're going in your activism where both of us are gonna be from five years from now and stuff he says wow I really look back on that and I rue the day sort of thing sure when you look at the extreme short-term thinking and to be blunt famewhoring of people like James ASPI of even the way someone like petaa operates in my opinion not everything petted us is bad you put in exceptions here but a lot of this stuff is just kind of chasing headlines chasing short-term Fame this kind of short this kind of short-term thinking I do think that the kind of merit we're talking about here in terms of building the begin movement it is going to be signaled by genuine long-term thinking and planning with you know positive aspirations you know some kind of pause the best version to make the world a better places is gonna be at play there and I think once you have that you're gonna have positive cooperation with others toward that goal and by the way I do think it's legitimate that many people with a five-year plan would exclude me for legitimate reasons so I don't think PCRM would be interested in working with me they're basically only interested in working with other medical doctors and scientific researchers probably they have a small role for legal experts legal analyst so that kind of thing they ever really specialized type of lobbying they're doing somebody else to give you an example I do not know anyone doing this this is an excellent form of a vegan advocacy let's say you had a five year plan to really take on the issue of the rights of slaughterhouse workers to do a labor union approach where you say look the exploitation of people in the slaughterhouses is terrible we're gonna do this partly to shine a critical light on the whole industry the questions of you know slaughtering the animals also but we're gonna really take the angles and look at how many of these people have PTSD and their lives are destroyed they're horribly exploited in some way taking that approach they might only be interested in other people of a background in labor labor disputes labor law you know this this kind of struggle unionization and factory workers rights that kind of thing so I don't know anyone doing that but that's obviously a very rich approach I've said many times this channel there's an opportunity to have an approach that's just based on leather and leather advocacy and I'm interested now even what about an approach that's based on children's entertainment on storybooks and cartoons and fables so there are different specific modes and tactics but once you've got that once you've got a positive aspiration on a five-year plan or five years set of hopes at least then you're gonna you're gonna have other merits that are attached to that that reflect the sincerity of your engagement your openness to working with other people who can support you and whom you can support so look it's a great question you know what is merit in the roofer in this reverse meritocracy I'm talking about so at to give a very broad and inclusive answer trying to achieve something positive in the movement in a five year time span not a 1,000 year time span not like you put some super broad thing you know I think that's one reasonable criterion to bring to bear here and yeah I do think with a lot of comments that were offended am I talking about people being drug addicts I think that's a significant factor here I think the fact that people are just coping with recovery from drug addiction and sharing that story I think that is part of the short-term thinking here I mean it's one factor among many apart from just famewhoring apart from just trying to make money out of vacation videos of going on vacation and then making a social media product out of the videotape of you swimming on the beach and a tropical island James asked me does this heavily and he's not the only one I mean there are a lot of other factors here that as I say are are the opposite of merit in this in this situation so yeah what when you're asking about merit look it's very easy for me to imagine a positive version of pretty much every institution and organization I criticize like so Melissa you participated in a bunch of the videos criticizing direct action everywhere DXE if I put it to you as a thought experiment what would a parallel universe look like in which we both supported DXE how different with that organization have to be the honest answer is it's not that different the changes are fundamental the difference is our fundamental and that's why they're not going to happen that's why it's worth criticizing but it's not it's not that different pedda people's the Ethical Treatment manimals all vegans hate peda we all we all love to hate on petaa but if you ask yourself as a thought experiment what how different would peda be for you to approve it you can make a checklist it's attainable it's not that it's not that hard or even for me to be a member of peda I don't think they'd have me but you know if I could join Pettit and again one like my clash with Joey carb strong over cube of truth I said to him straight up repeating it directly to him and in the videos look the criticisms I have of Cuba truth you could change this stuff within the next two months these are practical changes you can make this is attainable change so it's not that it's not that big a gap even for the group's I've criticized most harshly and at the most life okay so we continue with this email from Lamar I see at least two issues that need addressing first the term invert this is really interesting the term inverse meritocracy implies a level of organization that I don't really believe exists okay in other words what I've seen from vegan activism online is simply a reflection of cultural and even political practices outside of it celebrity worshipping in lieu of organization and institutionalism so I disagree with you here this is what makes it interesting in Canada who spoke at the quote-unquote nation rising rally in Ottawa Canada who spoke there and who was excluded right I was in Canada for this event for an issue as I was emailing them more than a year before the event happened I was talking about them and trying to talk with them turns out to them and mod vegan talk to them on my behalf she was to some extent an insider and knew those people okay I was excluded I was silenced and if I had participated and if they had heard my constructive criticism everything about that everything about that event both in the lead-up and the press coverage afterwards and what actually could have been way more positive and more effective they didn't want to hear it they saluted me from doing who was there James asked me it's the same dude okay that is formally overtly organized so no it's not just people in bikinis on the internet there are formal explicit political organizations with funding from donors making these decisions and they are making the decision no aisel lizard doesn't get to talk doesn't even get to attend doesn't even get to participate in a silent vigil and James ASPI he's the guy on stage speaking they literally give him a platform and they ask for donations and they keep that money and they spend that money and they get endorsements in the court in the case of nation rising they get endorsements from other agencies in their case they got backing from the pig slaughter group that paid the vigil movement what if they call it the silent vigils at Pig slaughterhouses and counselors they reached out to and cart doors from all these different agencies and their event was a flop it was a failure and one of the organizers he was at first really offended when I reached out to him and shared my my criticism of what had happened with nation wiesen and you know what he took the time you watch the videos and his it met limit messages to me they got less and less angry and then the last couple message said but we're actually warm and appreciative and he said well you know what I think you're doing something really important here in orphan this kind of critique he saw a lot of value in above the constructive criticism I was saying but what went wrong with nation rising and there was also a tendency in his first response he was a part of to just lie and pretend it was a success to just lie and say oh no thousands of people attended it was a huge that no wasn't it was a failure and I would also say specifically James aspies involvement with it was a failure so this is what's interesting to me is no I understand why you'd say this at a glance you might think oh no there is no organization there is no institutionalization it's just a bunch of Fame Horrors on YouTube trying to get clicks and views and trying to make my Instagram know there is there is formal political organization just like direct action everywhere and there's a bank account and there's money involved and there's a hierarchy people are unequal there are some people who make decisions and who put that money in their pocket and live off that Twitter money including direct action everywhere showed us tweets young and there are other people who do not and you can't scrutinize those people there are real relationships of authority there are real institutional hierarchies of this and guess what if you sign up and join a synagogue synagogues are not grassroots decentralized organizations either they're also formally institutionalized organized center okay don't worry this isn't too much longer but to me this is an interesting and again it is a critique he is criticizing me and challenging me but that challenge is appreciated so he says the focus is less on institution building than it is on online slacktivism that allows most people to give money to selectively it's too big allows the people to give money to celebrity activists that can then do the activism for them right so that is one factor but I would say there's more money in institutionalizing and that's why people do it and that's why our thing had did it earthling had graduated from slacktivism to institution building mmm look at someone like Hania mania she would have been better off if she had but sure this this comment it applies to many scenarios but not all obviously a lot of this criticism I just agree with or it's you know it's not true 100% of the time but it's true a large enough time sure second how can quitting veganism be reconciled quitting the vegan movement of course I'm going to keep eating a vegan diet what do you think you start eating organ meat it's okay anyway how can quit the movement be reconciled with the foundation of your conception of veganism one that has an intense desire for community the way you speak of the connection between your veganism and a sense of community even possesses moral connotations in your video on communities title the video you say quote I have no reason to pretend that veganism is completely satisfactory to me if it is just a diet or it's something I do in private and that can't have any political ramifications close quote how would your quitting fundamentally change your veganism this would be a very useful tub for a video by the way if you still want the sense of community that you discussed your manifesto what exactly are you saying if you stop engaging with the activities that facilitated right so look this is a criticism basically all I can do is agree and say it's really sad I'm just gonna contrast this to a different criticism I received several people wrote in and telling me you would never be satisfied with anything nothing is good enough for you like you're quitting the movement but no movement could have satisfied you I completely disagree with that so III do largely agree with what he's this guy is saying here with the criticism from Sarah my forgetting his name the criticism from Lamar but if I had five people I could cooperate with I'd be happy when I had the money to host a conference in Vancouver Canada and then coolers a huge city for veganism Avena activism if I had ten people saying yes I want to join in I want to deliver a paper I want to make I want to help I wanted positive I'm happy that is not after whatever was that point four years in the movement that is not too much to ask you've been through what I've been through in this movement and you come back to candidates say hey I want to organize like a small academic style conference this is not a huge this is not a street protest this is not something for thousands of people to attend it's time for a few dozen people to attend say hey I want to organize people and I wanted to test to deliver papers the topic of the conference was actually pragmatism what really does practice doesn't mean and challenging some of the voices who think pragmatism means reduce at arianism and saying kind of reclaiming fighting for intellectually and politically and ultimately organizationally the concept of a vegan pragmatism a principled pragmatism and what what that now means and to some extent what the research and hard facts it I didn't have one person not one and this includes all the people with PhDs and a lot of reasons that not one person so it's not the case that nothing would have satisfied me all right unattainable goals if I had five people if I had ten people great and again I could say the same about Buddhism if I need ten scholars and Buddhism who were that M doesn't have to be scholars but I knew ten people doing humanitarian work I cared a lot about humanitarian work in my life if I knew ten people doing real sincere work I'd still be a Buddhist today and I'd still be those ten people would be my best friends now for ten years or whatever you know what I mean they we all would have done together what I said and that movement was I don't want to be a one-man religion so I had to quit Buddhism I don't want to be a one-man political protest I don't want to be a one-man organization so to answer this directly Lamar asks what would it mean if you stopped engaging in facilities you pardon me would mean if you stopped engaging in activities that would facilitate the community it means I accept that I'm totally alone and I'm walking away alone and with nothing as I even said in the earlier video so that's sad but I mean every other trip we made to Europe inclusive the last one six months ago I brought sure we made everywhere we went to Los Angeles and everything I was really putting out as many emails and it's on YouTube and everything I could say hey hey hey we're going to Los Angeles what can we participate in like what even what protests gonna show up look what street protest or what activism or what outreach what are their vegan activists can I meet who can I cooperate with whether it's making a YouTube video or something more positive or meaningful is that everywhere in the world and obviously including places like Seattle and Vancouver Bangkok Chiang Mai Paris you know it's been a long strange list of places abroad for any of you and guys nothing positive came back and now it's over hoe people closed the door against me so many times and after a certain point you say ok the door is closed moving on ok from what I've seen continues why not establish your own institution with much better organization superior values and effective methods this is it this is where I assume you will say quote no one is going to cooperate with me I would argue that this needs to be fleshed out more who did you see cooperation with and why so look one of the reasons I don't talk about that more specifically it's just privacy so he suggests in his full email that I should make more videos talking with that well there's already a lot of complaining on this channel and for me to come out and be like look you know mod vegan is a piece of [ __ ] I tried to get something organized with mod vegan for so long and this is a response and she let me down and now I can't work with it like you really think this channel would be better this was coming out and naming and shaming all the people I've tried to cooperate with or even I mean in some cases just emails that never got answered once so I just talked about the group nation rising who froze me on exclusion I did also make videos talking with a cube of truth people aka anonymous for the voiceless who actively scorned me excluded me didn't even let me participate in a silent protest and they do allow people as offensive as vegan gains and Isaac from ask yourself those guys you know or reached out to or included to some extent Paul Bashir was willing to hear criticism from those guys and not me well we all know why you know from there's good reason I utterly despise their reasons but I know understand the reasons why they exclude I know why they were afraid I know what they were afraid of you know so you know some of that stuff has been talked about the channel but no you're not gonna get more content talking about my disappointment with particular activists or particular people that would be a kind of a naming and shaming thing but yeah at this point I can say I reached out to everybody obviously especially in Canada um there's no point in my reaching out to someone in the United Kingdom you know an England that I can't participate with but even that having been said I'm now remembering all the examples of people in English English one couple in Scotland where there was at least the possibility of cooperation over Skype you know and through YouTube on that level but terms of really getting organized obviously it's got to be Canada or parts the United States that are adjacent to Canada like Seattle and we went to Los Angeles Dylan's so no I understand anyway he says he doesn't know whoever reached out to it's true but you know it's both it's who I've reached out to when it's who's reached out to me and he went on to say buddy I'll skip this part he says it's quite correct he says look you know you really tried hard even to have a working relationship with vegan cheetah you're damn right I worked really hard to have worship with vegan cheetah with Enya of Enya mania with Jason Posey know with all kinds of people who were really at the shallow lifestyle activism bikinis bikinis and permanent vacation styling because I did I made tons of positive effort with people you know where I find fault and what they're doing on YouTube fourth what they're doing the time and again it comes back to the same thing with my critique of cube of truth and direct action everywhere it wouldn't be that hard for these people to reform what they're doing for these institutions due to what they're doing alright so again I still think this is interesting this is his point to as he numbered at point two to quote also what do you mean when you say you are competing at the bottom of the pile who are you competing with what are you competing for and just to summarize he goes on to say that he doesn't believe we should be competing for fame and once he doesn't believe we should be competing competing for the number of viewers so this is also why I didn't like Melissa's brief comment in my former video where she was caught I totally sympathize why she said it and I know it's sincere and I'm basically in favor of anyone saying sincere crap on YouTube where Melissa was saying like oh well you know it doesn't make sense that these videos that are just about nothing have so many more views than videos on your channel as old that are substantive I feel Melissa's sincerity and this line we both live with however the other side of that is of course of course fluff at nonsense has more viewers how many viewers can you possibly get for a video talking about philosophy of Aristotle how many viewers can you possibly get a really good example for a book review about Gary France aione and his philosophy of animal rights and critique of animal rights your really substantive content that's really important to veganism in the movement but for me I completely understand why I mean like a girl jumping up and down in a bikini after drinking a fruit smoothie gets more reviews than that like I'm not in a position to complain if you think of this in terms of competing for audience size like you kind of have to accept going into this the numbers are always going to be on the side of garbage of absolute garbage and in a sense that's okay so but I'm gonna answer directly this question what are you competing for and what are you competing with I'm competing for those five people I'm competing for those 10 people I'm competing for a small audience of support of people who could actually work with me to build institution abilities to movement and to scale it up a little bit I would say I'm competing for maybe 2,000 people who would support my publishing a children's storybook maybe it's 2,000 maybe it's 5,000 so again not big numbers not the 9.2 million people who watched the Nina Aranda video to lick my body challenge I don't think those are 9.2 million people who are supporting veganism but sure whether it's two thousand people or five thousand people would support me publishing a children's storybook if we had done that academic conference academic style conference on veganism and veganism and pragmatism how many people would have needed to support a hundred two hundred so yeah there still is something I'm competing for although you're correct to use his terms I am not competing for a meteoric rise to fame and influence all right so it goes on to say from my quote from my perspective you quitting deprives veganism and an opportunity to most effectively institution build and he again says that he wants me to get specific about what kind of cooperation I've been seeking and who has been refusing to cooperate with me this video is that specific as it's going to get Lamar but I have been very open-minded I mean keep in mind this channel has included the possibility of people cooperating with me in in vegan baking it would covered a huge range it's not just street activism it's not just lobbying city hall there's been a huge range of possible forms of cooperation okay he closes by saying at some length that he really doesn't want me to quit and asked what quitting will mean stay tuned you're gonna see how the channel will change and he says I think he would be making a mistake even in your own terms by quitting fina activism well I'm a 40 year old man with a five-year-old daughter I have other commitments in life and in many ways I had already quit at the time durianrider created this controversy that forced me into the courtroom and forced me to double down my efforts on YouTube just to clear my own name if that hadn't happened with durianrider it's really possible to quit much sooner because I was in a full-time language program in China struggling to learn Chinese and doing other things these five years have been a remarkable opportunity in my life and in some ways a remarkable period of time for the vegan movement because I was in university in Canada and then I was in an education program in China and I was I was doing other things but no not only do I feel that quitting is the right thing for me at this point I feel I really have really have no alternative even if YouTube is now to become not a smaller button even bigger part of my life if you guys check out the front page of my patreon link in the description you're gonna see there are no promises about vegan activism I'm not doing any of the dishonest manipulative things that other vegan youtubers do I'm not saying if you donate $10 I will convert to new people to veganism if you've watched this channel a long time I used to criticize other vegans who have this kind of thing I'm not saying if you pay me enough money I'll go out and write chalk on the sidewalk chalk divisa m-- Schokolade there's another channel who did that if you pay me money I'll go do this there is there is no lie of that kind there's a straight-up statement that look I'm someone with a background in political philosophy political science Asian Studies Asian languages and I'm coming on YouTube to share what it is I've got to give and at some point after 1000 videos what I've got to share what I've got to give no longer is complaining about the hopelessness of the vegan movement its internalizing that hopelessness learning the lesson and moving on [Music]