Why vegans still won't join PETA.

the perspective of Richard here is the
assumption that being a joiner is being better than being asked list you know that unity is better than factionalism etc and that sounds on the face of it very plausible but I think what's being ignored here is the extent to which you give up the capacity for having any personal initiative or any personal innovation or for any of your personal ambitions when you sign up for a food like peda unless you're at the elite level with that organization you've got a new idea you got something innovative you want to do for the future of veganism here's your clipboard get on the street start your buddy door the door right new chin we have a lot of discussions on this channel about effective activism about what you and I can do with our time as individuals if we care about the future of veganism if care about the future of the movement or even if we just care about the people in our own lives trying to get your own grandfather to convert to veganism try and get your own girlfriend or boyfriend to convert to veganism whatever your situation may be okay we talk about it a large scale talk about a small state of scale we talk about it in philosophical and emotional ways as well as explicitly political questions of organization if there's one thing we all know everybody has got something better to do with their time then standing on the sidewalk with a clipboard asking complete strangers to donate money to petaa most of us as vegans we ourselves do not want to donate money to petaa and we don't want to donate our time to stand the sidewalk walking up the strangers asking them to support feta and its really worth reflecting on why that is I just asked my girlfriend here well what about you why did you never consider joining Pat our volunteering with feta asking complete strangers to sign a petition that you probably don't really believe in and even if you believe in what the petition says you don't believe them signing it will make a difference and asking them to donate ten dollars to an organization that already has millions of dollars which peda does and where you don't really believe the $10 is gonna make a difference or where you know if you're looking at the annual reports and pettite they do things the money doesn't just disappear I mean it has outcomes it has impacts but is it a good use of your time whoever you are as an individual you may work at a gas station you may be an architect whoever you are you have some set of talents that you could be using to support veganism maybe as a cook you know in a vegan hot dog shop you know actually running a restaurant maybe as an illustrator and an artist making posters or story books you know there are so many creative and innovative things you could be doing with your time including yes yes y'all writing a letter to Congress going to Parliament and love if you're like the representatives on some issue including you know legal and political lobbying at City Hall there's all kinds of stuff you could be doing that's better than supporting peda and that's without even raising question marks but whether or not peda is a legitimate vegan organization which a lot of us have qualms about or you know raising qualms poems about the effectiveness of that use of your your time of money so no the contrast what this guy Richard did and running into me he really put together a very effective argument because he contrasts what he presumed to be the effectiveness of supporting large organizations that have infrastructure and budgets of millions of dollars and hierarchy in the means to accomplish their goals to the imagined scenario of vegans splitting up into smaller smaller groups each of these groups having in fighting against the other groups each group feeling that the larger groups are somehow impure or tainted because of their stance on particular issues that may or may not be trivial you know where veganism instead of engaging in outreach instead of reaching out to other people is increasingly an involuted and closed movement that's really about personal purity ideological purity about forming these very small groups where every member absolutely agrees with the political position of the the founder or a leader and what have you and where apparently they accomplished nothing now I don't think this guy Richard is I don't think he's rendering a kind of cartoon a cartoonish exaggeration of what's wrong with with vegans I think he's probably you know explaining he's probably reflecting on real situations he's been in real scenarios he's familiar with where this is how he sees vegans behaving I think I've had a lot of videos in the past talking about that myself from from different angles um however I think this really is a false dichotomy it's a false dichotomy to say hey these are ineffective small groups therefore the large groups are effective and therefore what he argues specifically is in order to increase the number of vegans at this stage what we should all be doing with our time and money is basically joining petaa joining the largest best funded organization now that's interesting because that's a specific you know goal he's reaching for he's not wanting you know changes on a specific law we were just looking at horrific conditions on fur farms you know it's a single issue cause you can improve conditions at fur farms and you get support from all kinds of non vegans all kinds of meat eaters are gonna donate their time and money if you have a specific issue like that he's not talking about saving the whales he's not talking about you know groundwater pollution saving a particular River you know where the river is being polluted by the meat and dairy industry or what have you he is talking about the specific issue of how do vegans get to a so-called critical mass how do we radically increase the number of people who are vegan I would say honestly I don't think petaa is the answer on a large scale and we type it on a small scale you and me our time our talent our money I don't think you and me standing on the street corner with a clipboard I don't think that's the answer either I don't think that's gonna create vegans or ease the transition for vegans and again there's a real contrast just to you and I opening a small restaurant which we can do finally there's any comparison of course we do so at our own financial risk you know there are other issues involved there if we pour our time and effort into pedda as opposed to running a vegan hotdog stand I don't think there's any argument even within running the hotdog stand I think we can say doesn't take any particular Talent the way being an architect actor and artist or some other specialized skill sets may or a musician I mean different people have different ways of you know pruning veganism but nevertheless I think there's a huge impact for relatively modest input there and the other side of this is because again I sympathize this that this guy's argument I think it's an intelligent well reasoned argument I just think it's wrong he talks about these large organizations providing their members with support and that's that's deadly vague what do you what do you mean by support my video that I've had translated into at least nine languages on this channel I have a video called on community my vegan manifesto that really harshly contrasts the pretensions of vegan community that we often have here on the internet and sometimes with vegan activist groups including direct action everywhere who claim to provide you with community maybe some of these groups like pet a claim to provide you with support I don't know what kind of support if you go out on the street and you hold that clipboard for them what support do you get I don't think you get as much support as you get by being in a Christian rock band that plays in a church basement you know again the video on community talks about those kinds of comparisons at length the kind of support the kind of meaningful community involvement in your life that you can get out of joining a mainstream religion like Buddhism or Judaism is many orders of magnitude different than the relationship you're going to have with with petaa and obviously there are there are clear financial issues there too right yeah you want jumping on that I mean no I was just thinking like you know being involved in church organization you get you get so much more benefit than you would from Peter so much more support like with your family right throughout your life than you would with like you know I'm just trying to think of what what he means by the support that you would get from that oh yeah I think it's next no but look another thing that's interesting is most people do not join a religion in order to convert more people to that religion you know I mean like most people who are Catholic in a part of a Catholic Church aren't going there because they're trying to maximize numbers you little Catholic I think a tiny minority you become missionaries and that is their gig but you know same with Judaism same with Buddhism you don't go to the Buddhist temple because you're trying to pull in more people to the Buddhist temple or you don't go to the Jewish you know shul because trying to broken more people to shul and very specifically his interest is in vegans dragging more people into veganism which again is only one of many goals or functions we can have for getting organized and being activists right well I mean it is true if you donate money to a church you probably are funding some missionary trips yes I'm sort of donating to a church spreading the religion but in terms of your involvement to the church you're not going to church for that reason I'm just saying I think it's right there are different community and social functions to it but that isn't really up there but yeah but when you're actually when you're paying to be a member of a church you really see every time that you go to the church what your money is going towards yes actual building itself the actual like members of the church yes yeah yeah so the leaders of the church I mean and also like you know running schools for kids you actually see that in action and I keep mentioning as an example of a really successful vegan organization as PCRM I don't think PCR Em's main goal is to turn more people vegan you know what I mean like PCRM as this list of things that they do like you know famously so they challenge the egg board claiming that the egg board was engaging in false advertising because they claimed eggs are healthy an eggs are not healthy but like PCRM are not out there converting people to veganism like missionaries and if you join and donate to PCRM it's not this kind of so again I think different you know agencies perform different specialized functions and some of them are very good at it like PCRM but I don't think an agency is gonna play this role in your life that that he's imagining or gets rid of the need for you to maybe have your own small organization or start one he says also as an example kind of dismissively he says oh well it doesn't matter if one of these big organizations like like peda if they have the wrong position on saving the blue spotted otter or something you know sad thinkI blue spotted Woodcock uses a bird but some specific species and when I read that it's interesting cuz I don't read it cynically I look at that and say no it really does matter whether or not we save the blue spotted daughter I mean like no I mean exactly what makes politics and the personal relationships involve in politics meaningful rewarding is that you care about this one species going extinct and you want to get together and meet with other people who care about that species go extinct and you want to have make a difference you know you want to have an impact on that and you can you can at City Hall or Parliament or the Senate on you know you you can do that with your group of ten people and with petaa you can't so that's that's deep to me you know that really matters I will say that if you do those small causes it may reach people that would not know about you know son in the first place right people like people who care about wildlife conservation people who care about some species of wild bird but they never even thought about veganism never thought about the dietary elements of ecology you can you know - I was with the Green Party even care that all the time sure right now yeah yeah and I was just going to say sorry I was gonna say but um but yeah oh oh yeah what I was going to say is he made a comment that people get a bad impression of veganism and just vegans because of this infighting because of these like breaking off into groups and that if we were more defined if we were more united it by Pat out like maybe there would be a better image of vegan and vegans and veganism you know I I just disagree with that and I don't think people would be more likely to go vegan if they we were all followers you know if we're all my ghosts mindless pedo drones you know like I don't think that would make a lot of people do feel tractive I mean a lot of people do feel that Pettit has really given us a bad name and image - I mean you know the the the sexy models in magazine photos and stuff a lot of people it's infinitely debatable whether or not petaa has helped us more than harm to us in the last 30 years and it's also debatable you know whether or not they're gonna help us ermis in the next 30 years I'm kind of optimistic that they're gonna do better in future than they did in the past well yeah well yeah just just if you're passionate about like that's not a woodpecker like right why not like why not have a group of people that are talking - I don't I agree no Congress saying like hey we need to focus on wildlife preservation so that the species survive but that's also why I disagree with the the Gary fence the only approach of trying to ban all single issue cause it's cuz you got to embrace you know the peculiarity of human passion you know I don't think you can expect vegans to be not passionate about veganism first so obviously they're gonna hate peda or they're gonna hate some other group when they step on issues that to them contract contradict core tenets of veganism that's that's one thing but then beyond that I think that's part of kind of the glory of you know that's the wonderful thing about diversity these people over here they really want to work on this issue these people here they really want to work on this issue and through the internet it's now easier than ever to find the other handful of people who really share those passions so you're not working Sling you're lukewarm but I told you I was with this group and they wanted to do just horse-drawn carriages mm-hmm it was like oh my god of all the issues in veganism like the one I care least about or the one I can't support where I'm not with you guys I don't want to make an issue at a horse-drawn carriages you know I mean this to be this is leading with like the weakest elevator so many issues I am passionate about but it's like nope I don't really want to make an ass of myself trying to on the street stop a horse-drawn carriage because the horse is beings look but someone else is passionate about it so fine so he can do this thing right like I'm not trying to stop him either but to me it's like wow see there side and to me that is something that is completely unnecessary like I'll never be okay with just getting rid of meat entirely right but like you know you can get rid of horse-drawn carriages entirely like there's really no reason so yeah I can see why maybe they would focus on that I just say to me from I respect their issues that are weak and their issues that are strong so that's right so those people can there's there's a woman named Brenda her last name I'm forgetting her last name but she she published a book called riding on the backs of others so it's about she was a horse trainer for years and years right then she went vegan and there's all this stuff you know the damage done to the knees of the horses well they're carrying people and stuff in well look the perspective of Richard here is the assumption that being a joiner is being better than being a split s you know that unity is better than factionalism etc and that sounds on the face of it very plausible but I think what's being ignored here is the extent to which you give up the capacity for having any personal initiative for any personal innovation or for any of your personal ambitions when you sign up for a group like peda unless you're at the elite level of that organization you've got a new idea you got something innovative you want to do for the future of veganism here's your clipboard get on the street stories if buddy donuts are right like oh you know you have you have the initiative and interest and maybe Oh specialized expertise maybe or someone who's done a lot of research on a particular watershed on a particular River you know on the endangered animals in that river or in the factories along that river you have some specialized knowledge that you could take to City Hall or take the problem and make a difference you're not gonna do it through petaa you're not gonna do it through these these organizations right so for me it is not about vilifying the multi-million dollar organizations I don't think I do I'm editing on the channel again even my consistent endorsement of PCRM who are not perfect saying look this is a positive example there are a multi-million dollar organization we can learn from their successes and their failures but in large part if you want to have that scope for personal initiative versus personal innovation your personal ambitions you either have to start your own group or join a small group or you're just lucky any part of virtue is luck I wasn't born into a country that has a strong vegan subculture and where there are vegan organizations I can join I wasn't if I was born in Taiwan speaking fluent Taiwanese accent in Chinese maybe I would be Taiwan's way I think if I was born even in Israel I mean I know in Israel veganism is several steps ahead those are the two most advanced countries in the world ravine ISM or Taiwan and Israel by the way you can go check it out maybe that'd be different but you know I don't have luxury of joining political groups where I can be a supplicant rather than an applicant I don't have the luxury of doing that so I'm the position of trying to start my own thing but I mean by all means you know if look okay keep keeping it all the way real you remember I did this research recently on direct action everywhere and direct action everywhere have this struggle and a new group taking over and I remember actually wandering for like one split second oh wow I wonder if direct action everywhere is gonna change that in future they're the kind of group I could join you know what I mean and then I just like clicked on their next website for their current activities I was like holy what the hell was I think I couldn't I could never cooperate with these people I could never be a part of this organization and obviously in some ways they're only gonna get worse and worse like you could see the direction they were going that's that's what gets them money right no that's really gets DXE money and I was thinking about that too with with PETA like what am I getting support from them through you know what does Reuters pet actually doing and there by paying them by donating money to them and basically paying protestors paying people to go out and protest or paying them so that's okay so that's another interesting thing is why would you raise money and donate money so someone else is an activist on your behalf instead of actually doing the activism yourself from path yeah and I do think organizations like like Pettit can put you in that in that place and for some people that there's a positive answer I think there were a lot of meat-eating grandmothers who care about ecology who just donate money to peda yes don't give a about veganism and and they they are the type of people who have more money than time and they'll never do any activism they're never even gonna write a letter to Congress they only want to do the reading they don't want to know they just want to put that money in an envelope and feel sure that somebody else is doing something positive on on their behalf but I think for myself and for anyone who's even watching this video because it's gonna be a you know small audience watch the video none of us are in that category and all of us have some kind of talent or potential whether you work at a gas station or you're an architect whatever it is you feel you can make more of a positive difference then going around as a beggar with a clipboard you know all right that's a wrap a bonus yen for me as a vegan it's easy to be self-righteous to say shut it all down settle the animals free that's easy put the whole reason why my youtube channel exists is that I'm not really interested in these answers to help get a question I'm interested don't know the murky complicated you know moral gray areas [Music] ba Lu Cl