Q&A2:The Ethics of Clothing-Factory-Conditions & Veganism on Paper (Publications).

this is the second Q&A session I've ever
done by a patreon I'm gonna try to address two questions or questions from two people out of the nearly infinite number of questions have got here coming to you from could Ming China we're gonna try to do this in just a few minutes this is not gonna be too too lengthy I got one question from Christophe Christophe are and this is not directly related to veganism but indirectly it's the type of ethical question vegans ask about he says you mentioned doing research on working conditions in third-world factories which is true I have done research of that kind he then kind of misrepresents what I have to say about it so I'm not gonna read that part out you know it's well-intentioned but he either didn't get my point or he didn't really remember what I had to say on the stuff it's cool so he asked what is your opinion on fair trade products and he mentions that every so often there are news reports showing horrible conditions in sweatshops and factories etc okay so point one is this is not a vegan issue this is outside of veganism I have talked about my channel and I have done research into it and so obviously it's great there are all kinds of ethical issues we got to talk about that have nothing to veganism like war war has a lot of important ethical questions attached to it but you know you want to talk about the war in Afghanistan right now it's not a vegan issue veganism has no position one way or the other however obviously vegans should think about it engage with it what do you think about Isis what do you think about Syria what do you think about Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory this is completely irrelevant to veganism but very important ethical and political questions so that's the first thing yeah the second thing is you know nothing else is real research there is no substitute for actually going up and doing the research yourself and yeah my research did actually involve visiting some of the factories and one of the inherent biases in the mass media such as a TV news show is that they are only going to show you the most salacious examples because that's what makes a good news story so within the same city if there were 300 factories and 280 of them have normal or boring conditions but they found just a couple where the conditions are terrible guess what film footage is gonna be on the news that night now of course doesn't mean I hate the news media is great sure go out get a camera I mean yeah we do that it's peakins also so if we if we sent out film crews to ten different slaughterhouses what what footage are we gonna use are we gonna use the best footage are we gonna have a representative study of the full range of slaughterhouse conditions of the full range of even farm and dairy conditions no as vegans we select the worst most horrible most horrifying footage and some meteors and farmers do complain about that they say look this is not representative and in response vegans can basically we're not even trying to be representative we're not trying to give you you know a full spectrum view we're not trying to break down what percentage of farms use these methods and what use those methods you know with the slaughterhouse footage we're just giving you shocking glimpses of some of the worst conditions that we have footage of and if you'll have to say I'm vegan I I support that but yes it's it's propaganda of a kind and yes what the mainstream news media does with factory conditions is propaganda of a kind whether or not they they intended to be a general I think they do intend it to be I think they just want to have a salacious story on the six o'clock news and they're not interested in doing a lifecycle analysis of what life is like for the employees or of the variety of conditions that exist in factories and if what the factors are that separate so why are some factories worse than others there are real answers to those questions and you can do real research into it but look so he says do you think that it is immoral to buy products manufactured in unknown conditions in the third world that's his his final question wrapping up his you know agonizing over this issue why did you put third world in there why didn't you say is it immoral to buy products in unknown conditions period white why third world you think we don't have these problems in Canada really you think we don't have problems with exploitation of labour the United dates in Europe really have you done five mister you think there aren't horrendous factory conditions within Italy I did some readings randomly I remember about the the factories were purses and other high fashion items are made in Italy gets pretty grim and including the fact that the employees are often illegal laborers within those factories in Italy so then there's it's all being conducted outside of government oversight outside of the law because the the employment itself is illegal is so the real question is is it immoral to buy something made in conditions that are unknown to you well it's ignorant you're acting out of ignorance veganism choice TV news beyond is about doing what's possible and practicable what can you know one of the main things you can know is the country of origin so one of the easiest decisions you can make is to buy goods that are made in countries that have elections they have democracy even if it is a somewhat corrupt or dysfunctional democracy Cambodia is in many ways a terrible example of a democracy but nevertheless when I was in Cambodia we had labor unions we had protests we had workers protesting to get higher wages and they did not easy why would it be easy and Cambodia obviously it's claims to democracy are pretty weak it's not a positive example of democracy but the contrast between Cambodia and say China is still tremendous in terms of making an ethical decision do you want to buy clothing made in Cambodia versus clothing made in China there are real differences there are differences in transparency government accountability the ability of workers to unionize the ability of a Free Press to go and investigate and report on conditions in in factories so on that level yes you can make the decision to buy clothing made in countries where you know the workers will have some of those rights now does that mean they all enjoy those rights no does that mean is this a perfect solution no but in terms of what's impracticable choosing the country of origin carefully is probably the real difference you can make in terms of Fairtrade branding and so on if you do five minutes of research you're gonna find that that's a pretty weak and corruptible system I did meet and speak to one person who was part of that system and who complained exactly that it was corrupt and terrible and that this really didn't mean anything I have also seen some salacious news reports on that that the Fairtrade system doesn't work and wondering if it was designed not to work because it so totally fails to actually enforce any kind of ethical standards by the way clean laundry if you're wondering why my exciting backdrop changes so much okay Anna s asks are there any books journals or articles on vegan politics vegan ethics speaking community vegan activism is there something worth reading and sharing Anna asks is one of my super heavy users on patreon think she comes on every day and comments and responses oh hi Anna um no so long story short I think what's interesting to reflect on is that the the importance YouTube is taking on within veganism reflects the weakness of other media so no I do not think moving that direction if you're looking ahead at the next ten years do you think that print media such as magazines are going to be more important than veganism or less important do you think the important the significance of digital media like YouTube is going to increase or decrease for veganism now pardon me way back in the day what ever more than 15 years ago when I was involved with the the Green Party in Canada I really argued passionately to them to the leadership of that party that if they did not develop a respectable magazine they would never be a respectable political party and it was quite a strong argument at that time partly because the Green Party in Canada relied on sending people paper in the mail you know ultimately the medium for the party was to collect donations and then your reward was you got something in the mail so at that time I looked at magazines like the ecologist again 15 years ago I don't know maybe it's a terrible magazine now I saw only a couple issues of that but that was a magazine that had very science driven articles talking about ecological disasters but also for instance they would have an article talking about what are the ingredients in suntan lotion and what are the real effects in your health of these chemicals that are in suntan lotion mmm I look to something like that and I said look if the Green Party can have scientifically respectable well researched articles with a good editorial process then you can build trust in the constituency the donors the people who support the party then you can start to be taken seriously for having informed opinions about ecological disasters or events within Canada you can show you have some capacity for active research and you can be taken seriously by your own supporters maybe eventually by the mainstream press by the public at large so at that time I was really insisting on the importance of their developing their their print media capability because they were publishing stuff on paper it was just garbage you know they'd publish a you know like a newsletter but all it said was donate money to the Green Party we promise we're gonna save the world there was no substance there was no no intellectual substance no political subs to what have you for veganism next five years no veganism as a broad tenth veganism as a whole I do not think it's moving towards print media at all I think what currently exists on paper is garbage I think the only real books that come out that people read connected to veganism are celebrity driven books guys like Jorge mumble we're already famous or you know a famous singer famous actor famous athlete becomes vegan they may publish a book on veganism and that may be written about in magazine articles but no I mean the whole the whole print media world is very weak for veganism as a broad tent however something I discussed towards the end of my my interview with the light twins on the other hand you could have vital and meaningful print media for smaller circles within veganism I've said several times be wonderful to get organized just vegan scientists or even just vegans doing research in the health sciences and the life sciences because of the connection to vivisection and animal testing those issues so could you have a print media publication to give a voice for people yes and those people would probably be highly motivated to contribute to a magazine or journal of that kind and to see it have high editorial standards so when you have a specific profession vegans within that profession sure you could have a great journal or great magazine probably vegan restaurant ters vegan franchise owners people who run restaurants who make money at a vegan food probably they could have an industry publication probably very successful but I mean almost anything vegan architects you know veganism is related to architecture really you could probably have specialized publications where there's enough interest and passion within one profession with those people a lot in common to make paper publication work or obviously if you actually have a political party like the Green Party that could work but no for veganism as a as a big tent I don't think that's the direction we're moving in at all and for me that reflects the fundamental fact that veganism is internally fractious fragmentary divisive and divided and it's gonna stay that way it's gonna remain a beautiful cacophonous mixture of left-wing and right-wing and centrist and atheist and religious and Buddhist and Hindu and Jew and you know it's people who are vegan for strictly ethical reasons for ecological reasons people are vegan for the sake of vanity or health the people who are vegan who are really passionate about animal rights defined as animal rights as opposed to people who approach it more from a climate change perspective or saving the rainforest perspective or and of course they're gonna be people who are specific or focused on specific species saving the Bears saving the whales for that big tent the crazy cat ladies all the way over to the recovering an erect sex all you people I've you know who you are some of you talk to me everyday this you know that diversity to try to harness that in one magazine boosting it ain't gonna work whereas we do in a sense harness it here on YouTube we get to reflect that diversity we get to capture that cacophony but I do hope well as moving forward we're going to see some of those more focused organizations within veganism just for scientists or just for other special interest groups okay thanks for the questions guys I mean hey two questions under 20 minutes