"Why Don't You Debate 'Ask Yourself'?" [Q&A]

guys Isaac is not a stranger to me and
Isaac and I are not in a situation where one or the other of us is avoiding having a debate or like there's a debate challenge one side there isn't isn't taking up I think that some of Isaac's viewers are just so accustomed to that being the situation they're so accustomed to seeing Isaac come on YouTube and denounce people with coarse language saying why don't you debate me you blank blank blank long list of exploited assaults did they assume this is a situation you and I and it's not at all Isaac and I have our differences but our differences ethical political and otherwise are largely outside the dotted line of veganism proper questions of vegan politics if Isaac were to chat with me tomorrow I would probably just ask him very open-ended questions of pragmatics and what I say pragmatics I mean the most pragmatic of pragmatic questions like what are you planning to do in the next six months what are your plans the next five years for veganism as a movement and you know for what he can do in his role as someone who now has step forward as a leader in the vegan movement which is what he is I mean there's no doubt about that and I do think that Isaac is someone who has fundamentally good intentions within that dotted square he's someone who wants to see progress for the vegan movement he wants to see you know this movement step forward he wants to veganism as a diet and a lifestyle and a moral no ideology really you know become something very dominant influential in Canada the United States if not the world more broadly so you know with those good intentions haven't been noted that's really all I'd have to ask him it's not as if there's some outstanding bone of contention to debate the other side is as I've said in open this video he and I aren't strangers we probably spoke over the phone it's not really the telephone we spoke by a internet voice chat but let's use the word phone we spoke over the phone for some like three hours back when I was in China and I did challenge him I had we had a conversation that I would say was challenging for him on quite a long list of issues including you know issues of race and racism questions about the biological determinants of intelligence and I mean at that time I think he was very much on the influence of right-wing rehabilitations of a book called the bell curve a book that has been broadly discredited as as bad science or what if you want to say as a racist in its intense and as you know not valid in its in its data in its in its factual claims and so on um you know and I assume he's moved on to some extent we also had I think a reasonably deep and broad conversation about democracy in Canada for example we talked to quite some length about the extent to which native people in Canada indigenous people like the Cree the achieve way the Mohawk to what extent they are and are not represented in our parliamentary system how the parliamentary system has been designed how it works now it fails to work in representing those people or in theory any special interest in Canada and I think it is fair to say at that time I think he would have said himself that I did just challenged him by presenting him with a lot of facts a lot of considerations that were outside the scope of anything he had read about or really thought about before it was just an alien and intellectually stimulating perspective for him to hear but those conversations were not particularly hostile and so you know I mean maybe it just is the genre that ask yourself has created that people assume there's some kind of ROI roiling debate coming between he and I but let me ask you to ask yourself this you know audience if you're one of these people who's rattling your chains demanding that I debate ask yourself or something you know what is your answer to the question of what you're gonna do for veganism in the next six months what is your answer to the question of what you're gonna do for this movement in the next five years it's not really something we can debate in this hostile sense but it's something we probably can all benefit from sharing our experiences and opinions and the options we're considering one of the major things that's changed in my life since the last conversation I had with Isaac is that I've enrolled to go to a cuisine at school to go to a college that teaches cooking and baking I'm gonna pursue a degree as a baker and you know as part and parcel of that I've pointed out some recent videos we have a lot of baking equipment here now we're already starting to study and prior to speaking here around the apartment why am i doing that well I can tell you this if I wasn't involved in vegan political ideology if I wasn't involved in veganism as a movement if I wasn't an aspiring vegan activist I would have absolutely no reason to be pursuing the Diploma in baking to be learning at a baked in a formal College program so that's a radical and fundamental change in my long-term career outlook the more I'm looking at working in the back of the kitchen and probably washing a lot of dishes and scrubbing down a lot of mixing machines and prefers and all that stuff I'm looking at that to try to create a basis for meaningful vegan activism in the future this movement now you know I think at any given time the last time I talked to Isaac he was thinking about putting together a kind of political roundtable of people with contrasting opinions and trying to do something like a podcast or discussion group where I don't know once a week or once a month or something these people with contrasting opinions talk when you have a conversation like that it's not gonna be a debate it's gonna be like well each side is probably said this is what I've been looking at doing this is something I've been thinking about trying here are my concerns here are my hopes here my expectations I see no reason in terms of what's within the dotted line of veganism why Isaac and I couldn't have a totally a productive a polite conversation along those lines because even if what he and I are considering doing for the future of the begin women is completely different if we're using completely different set of strategies and tactics it's clear that each of us in our way is looking to make a positive contribution of the future of the movement and we both have the best intentions within those dotted lines now you guys already know do I think that Isaac has the best of intentions when he's making excuses for the racism of Cory McCarthy no I don't there are a lot of political issues I think outside of an alien to veganism where he takes positions that from my perspective are just kind of bumpkin ignorant and deeply embarrassing and I hope one day he moves on it becomes more sophisticated and more well-read and he looks back at that and laughs one of my real problems with direct action everywhere DXE is that they never look back and laugh that's a movement that's changed a lot they keep moving the goal posts they keep rewriting their unwritten Constitution but you never get them admitting that they made a mistake or even admitting that they made a change they changed things than they lied to you as if that's what they've represented all along I find that very dishonest I think that Isaac is at a stage in his life where inevitably he's gonna both learn new things and adopt new attitudes and look back at what he believed in a assumed or said in the past and laugh at it and that's perfectly healthy and perfectly normal on that I wish him the best but again it's not something we can really debate I'll say something else I do think that Isaac lacks the hubris to imagine that what he's doing is what everybody ought to do I don't think that Isaac thinks I don't think he presumes that I should live the same life he's leading or that my youtube-channel should imitate his and believe me I've dealt with other people vegans and vegans on YouTube where that really is that resumption mmm I think Isaac is aware that he's a somewhat eccentric figure and to some extent he's a dissident not just a dissonant within Canadian culture or than the Western political milieu generally he's a dissonant even within veganism he's on a somewhat narrow eccentric path that very few other people could walk or would want to walk and I can say that about myself also to some extent I can say that you know I'm aware that the things that make me happy would make other people miserable that the choices I make morally ethically politically personally and professionally in terms of scholarship and research these are not it's not for everyone well so that is a particular type of hubris that he lacks and said that I like there's a link below this video you guys can click on some of you might have already seen this just a few days ago I received a message from a young person who was contemplating suicide and then I tried to offer some advice they were part of that I'm not gonna be the whole thing here but I opened my advice to this suicidal seventeen-year-old with the following caveat I said quote there's a parallel here in offering advice to this person there's a parallel here to the advice that I would offer you about diet people ask me what should I eat in a reply I have to say I can tell you what I eat but I can't tell you what you should eat I eat a lot of broccoli every day I eat broccoli beans and bread I think plenty of people would basically go crazy if they eat the same diet that I eat they couldn't tolerate it or couldn't cope with it I can't really recommend it to others likewise my own nihilistic philosophy and yes it has a playlist you can go to the playlist section of this channel and check out those videos my own nihilistic philosophy isn't something that I can easily recommend to others this is the first big cavity to state before offering advice of any kind so end of quote I think this is something that Isaac and I have in common is that each of us is aware of our own idiosyncrasy and we lack the hubris to try to impose it upon others by the same token that idiosyncrasy that eccentricity has taken he and I down very different paths and outside the dotted line of pragmatic questions of what can we do and what should we do as individuals for veganism there are indeed deep ethical and political differences that separate us but guys it's not the case that he's avoiding a debate know that I've devoted my debate nor that you can mark it on your calendars when he and I will clash swords because simply put I think there's nothing for us to clash over