Q&A2 (Part 1 of 999!) On Humanitarian Motives & "What if Your Daughter Chooses to Eat Meat?"

yo guys what's up there are exactly two
things in this room that prove that I'm in China that I'm not recording this video in Ireland there's something one is that I got the dojang this is powdered soy milk and I had to ask them at the shop does it contain milk powder and does it contain powdered eggs try to make sure your goddamn even soy milk can be non-vegan around here when I was in Thailand they had soy milk no kidding that contained fish meat fish in the song walk I'm not joking it's a whole other story and the other piece of evidence that i'm currently in china and nowhere else the worlds that i bought this t-shirt today and this is size extra large stick tight on me extra large anyway sorry I'm coughing guys the reason why i have not had a contribution to the Q&A earlier is that i have been really sick and you can still see it in my face i still look a bit puffy and out of it I've been falling asleep at strange times the day just like two o'clock in the afternoon I just pass out fever illness coughing its it I thought this would be a trivial illness but it has not been up and really really sick but still I've been trying to bring some quality content for you guys well I've been over here in china keeping my head above water so look this is the start of what's going to be many many parts answering your questions I do take all the questions and into the QA seriously I will not answer each and every one because that's humanly impossible but i will read each and every one and wheres one person has asked for questions i'm definitely going to answer one another for line jumping your line jumpers come on it's a Q&A you're asking me four and six question but what do you what do you think come on all right first question this feeding in answer to just try to keep your sunday a bit Lively if it is sunday in your time zone when you happen to see this here this first question answer is from atlas d i'm treating people just slightly announcement just saying Alice T she actually does give her full last name she is asking what led to your desire to help people and make the world a better place based on the way you come across in your videos it seems like a wearying pursuit etc etc ok look so this relates to several different themes in my life in whatever in all the stuff I talked about on YouTube veganism politics midterm work why do I say so often that I'm not a nice guy you know it's so easy to tell a story it's so easy to make yourself out to be a saint or a murderer it's so easy to glorify misrepresent the motivations that really drive you into humanitarian work and the humanitarian side of politics of being involved in politics and trying to make the world a better place which you know I have been it's been a part of my life something I've always really tried to be honest with myself about and honest with others about was precisely the extent to which those things involve some quite negative motivations so yes you know humanitarian work it is about saving the world it's about helping human beings by making the world a better place whether it's feeding starving people in famine afflicted areas of Laos or dealing with the consequences of Cambodian civil war or first nations within Canada or any of the other things have cared about I mean I cared about first nation especially since I was a kid really since I was a child that bothered me it's been a it's been a fissure in the illusion that Canadian civilization is something morally positive and good that we should all be a part of and we should all be applauding but are those motivations entirely positive no they're not so to give an example again from childhood forward from early childhood part of what made me want to be involved with humanitarian work was a sense of contempt for the civilization I was born into a sense of contempt for the culture I was raised in now I was born and raised in Canada as you may have heard my culture my civilization didn't build the pyramids you know maybe it would be different if I was born and raised in Egypt and I really felt a profound sense of belonging and of indebtedness to the grandeur the greatness the accomplishments of my ancestors who built the pyramids I can imagine that being very different for some people maybe it would even be different if I'd been born and raised in a Buddhist culture where there were other virtues in the civilization but i was born in a civilization in a culture and a time that rangs so hollow to me were all the justifications for what the government was doing what it was for why why my country even existed were incredibly hollow and you know morally repugnant to me and again the history of colonization the history of the British Empire the history of genocide against the indigenous peoples and where that was says that's was a huge component of that that vitiate 'add the myth of canada for me growing up those were not the only factors I could list a whole bunch of things about Canada that I really disliked as a child and then things that I disliked as a teenager and things that dislike as an adult but it was fundamentally very hard for me to accept the culture that I was born into now you could respond to that in a bunch of different ways you know you could respond to that by getting involved in organized crime or becoming antisocial in a number of different ways and it is it is strange not strange in my case I respond to that by really developing my kind of humanitarian instincts now another route I could have taken I think would have been to become an artist to see myself as being in a state of rebellion and trying to make the world a better place through art but you guys already know for my character that never could have worked for me you know and I was involved in the arts and certainly that's only my parents would have encouraged much more than any of the things that I did end up being passionate about and I again I mean it's this thing you hear me say all the time keeping it real to me the idea that you you actually literally paint a painting you create a painting and think you're making the world a better place to me that is never going to be as real as going to a farm and talking to the farmers and doing research on agriculture and actually handing out sacks of rice to people who otherwise would starve or be lacking you know add to me there's no comparison you know making a painting or a play of work of performance art or writing a piece of music about a war like the current war in Afghanistan or the civil war in Cambodia the civil war in sri lanka to me that can never be as real as actually doing the research and I've actually trying to get involved to make a positive difference even if that difference you make is tiny because it's direct and it's real so for me going and trying the volunteer for example at refugee camps on the border between Thailand and Myanmar this is years ago when those refugee camps really booming that's that so this reflects my sense of what's real and what have you but as they say you know I've always tried to be honest myself notes but that's something I've talked about in contrasting myself to Christian missionaries you know Christian missionaries tend to really need to have the the delusion that the people they're helping our angels they're helping people who are morally good and I always said no that's not the point you help people because they need help and because helping them is the right thing to do you can go to Cambodia and have a charity that helps people and the people you're helping maybe scumbags you like they're starving their poor and their war criminals you know the war just ended they just finished massacring people but they need help now you have to think about seriously is this the right thing to do but you can't go in there I mean even whatever northern Laos the farmers the typical guy who runs a farm is he a nice guy is he an angel as he morally good as he pure of heart because he needs your help no so again my my mix of instincts and motivations and where that came from as a child it's not entirely positive and it's definitely not the kind of stereotype we have coming out of Western Christian culture so that's what I'm always saying that I'm not a nice guy I'm always saying that there's kind of more to it and it probably is for most people if you can riff Emil when I was in a place like Laos and Thailand you know a lot of the guys doing humanitarian work were homosexuals and one of the reasons for doing humanitarian work in that part of the world was that they didn't want to be in a homophobic culture anymore you know they grew up somewhere in the Western world and they got sick of it and they were trying to have a career that let them live in Thailand or Laos or what have you to be in a culture that was not homophobic and where they could openly be themselves and so on totally sympathetic totally understandable but it doesn't really have anything to do with the humanitarian work has to do with kind of lifestyle they want to live so uh I guess I guess that's enough of an answer this question from Alice second question I actually do not have the the name of the person who posed the question here but someone wrote in an asked how would I feel if my own daughter grew up to eat meat if my own daughter is not vegan and to me this is an interesting question coming at this time because you know my thoughts and feelings about this changed when i was in chiang mai just in the last couple of weeks if i had answered this question before the trip to chiang mai I would have told you the following narrative so I'm foreshadowing my thoughts on this epic I would have told you a story it's a true story about a Hindu man and I only found out about him because one of his daughters became a successful actress successful TV personality and this daughter in interviews had revealed that you know her father was a traditional Hindu vegetarian and he took vegetarianism very seriously and the minute she started eating meat which I think was when she was in University so when she had some independence from her family she started eating meat from the minute she started eating meat you know basically didn't talk to her you're very simple keeping in touch but you know the personal relationship was over and then he never supported her career as an actress or what have you and he was just very harsh towards her and eventually you know she would this address she was successful enough that she did commercials for restaurants that serve me for like fast food restaurant but you know I'm sure only made his his feelings towards or even harsher and I you know what complete was that having to read interview with this actress and she said that her sister she had a younger sister by contrast and he had always been so warm and so loving to this younger sister and he had supported her in her career to be she also wanted to be an actress he had two daughters were both basically good-looking and wanted to be hecht races and so she always felt the burn of this contrast in the way the dot the the younger daughter was treating the older daughter was treated reading this like it's not trivial that you decided to strategic meet it's like if you're in a Christian family and you convert to Satanism Satanism is still based on the same Bible you're cheering for the other side but you still actually believed in the same God and the same cosmology and the same world system you know Amy sound bizarre but actually for a Christian family to accept a Satanist kid not that difficult conceptually but you are literally killing and eating cows on a daily basis and your father is a traditional Hindu vegetarian which doubtless includes some ethical aspects and some supernatural aspects some religious aspects and some just traditionalism but you're betraying and insulting your family and hurting your father's feelings in a daily basis in a way that's really real it doesn't just have to do with belief or behavior you know so when i read that obviously the interview was written entirely from the actresses perspective but i thought what are you thinking look there's another side to this story and not only are the father's feelings real but you know the impacts for the cows are real the impacts for ecology real but you know this is something that actually does harm which is again it's very different I would not be happy if my daughter started smoking cigarettes but you know the cigarettes would be harming her you know on when you're eating meat you're harming yourself and you're harming the cows in your harming the world so in the past I would have related this and I would have again talked about the fact that I'm not a nice guy and I would have had a reflection that I would have said you know probably even though I'm not religious probably like that Hindu parent that Hindu father I would have a somewhat neg stream you know negative reaction like that and I probably would be a jerk about it okay that was before Chiang Mai in Chiang Mai I got to see for myself people totally disillusioned with totally emotionally devastated by the conduct of their fellow vegans and at that time before reading this question I reflected just independently I thought you know what this change is the way I feel about that scenario like you know what if my daughter starts eating me and it changes it because I can now imagine completely that just being a disillusioned with the people who are vegans not being disillusioned with veganism but being a disillusioned with the reality of vegans themselves really could be enough for my daughter to quit being vegan i was seeing that I was seeing that in Chiang Mai was seeing the impact of that and I have to confess that that's of course quite quite closely parallel to my experience with Buddhism it who Buddhists are in the 21st century I had to look at who people were and realize I can't work with these people and this is not the religion for me not because of the details of the philosophy not because of the type of textual study that I engaged in not like one day you know I was reading a pally manuscript that I discovered a different aspect of the Buddhist philosophy that I didn't know before I thought is it no no not for the textual aspect not for the historical aspect not for the political aspect it's for the human reality of who Buddhists are in the 21st century what the religion is on the human scale who these people are what's possible and impossible because of who they are and you know this is simplifying I've had longer videos talking about my strength but and I had to walk away from Buddhism but with veganism and it's even more dynamic than that because you are limiting your life by being vegan socially in terms of the people into the human element you are you can get yourself about it but you are you know different people when i was in shame i joked with me because of the accusations from during writer giving people joke with me oh well you know you're gonna you know you're here to find a vegan girlfriend or something i remember saying look if i was trying to find a girlfriend the number one thing is don't be vegan you know or don't mention that you're vegan the number two thing is you know pretend you drink alcohol so you guys probably know I both I'm vegan I also don't I don't drink alcohol I don't use any other mind altering drugs the reality is if you just want to meet people for romance or friendship or social networking the vast majority of those people are going to be meat eaters and the actual social context for meeting them for making those connections in 2016 is dominated by meat and alcohol that's where people meet that's how they meet alcohol as creating the whole atmosphere of relaxed social interaction so on so you know when you cut yourself off from that is definitely in Canada definitely in England definitely in Germany in many many many cultures but even in Thailand you're massively reducing the spectrum of people who can be part of your life and the type of life you lead we can direct with so yes d I could actually now deeply sympathize with the my daughter might have for either becoming non-vegan or for you know pretending to eat meat and you know to be more of a mainstream member of normal society that way just so that she doesn't have to live in an intellectual ghetto so she doesn't have to live in this with this narrow spectrum of her fellow human beings and I mean like I say in Chiang Mai I was created by people who just had their minds blown who were so disappointed in this consulate because they were having to see the ugly reality of who their fellow vegans were and look guys now that I have the comments section open in YouTube you can have their faces you look in the YouTube comments section and you have all these people who are avowedly ethical vegans and there is apparently absolutely nothing else in their lives that's ethical and we got to take that seriously so yeah um you know my thoughts and my feelings on that have changed uh but for me personally I'm you know I'm not tempted to stop being vegan I do not mind living a life where I have narrow a narrow but deep section of the population I interact with of course I'm a fully grown adult I'm not a teenager i'm not a child so it's very different for me than it would be for my daughter growing up for me there's no temptation to get involved with meat or alcohol or even the broader constituency the broader part of the world's population i can drag that but that's me and as I've said so many times even in this first set of answers to the Q&A I'm not a nice guy in a lot of ways the type of lifestyle have been yearning for since my teens since my early teenage years are late shelters has been a pretty monastic focused disciplined lifestyle and here at this language school I really have that it's a strange irony but my situation this language school I'm going to try to make some videos to show you in some ways this is more monastic than being in a Buddhist monastery and I have stayed in enough Buddhist monasteries to know to have an opinion and it's more monastic than being in the Canadian military and I did sign up to join the military so I could be on a base right now but I'm not um you know of living a kind of focused simple life in every way in terms of food study scholarship self-discipline so that's that's also been an aspect of my character and in some ways I was seeking that out in humanitarian work and wanting to be in that tent in that village where people needed sacks of rice and out of them and in some ways I was seeking out throughput a scholarship and in some ways I've been seeking it out you know in all and all the different things that are part of my life so that was just two questions barely under twenty fifth long