Zoos and/or/as the Meaning of Life: Conversation with Jae Costly

for me as a vegan it's easy to be
self-righteous it's easy for me to say shut it all down smash all the cages set all the animals free that's easy yeah but the whole reason why my youtube channel exists is that I'm not really interested in easy answers too complicated questions I'm interested in dealing with all the murky complicated you know moral gray areas I've honest yen get me up your ass that's our boy man soon huh ba new CN that's been the most profound thing and I always at least tell people that like they asked me about a beating diet I'll usually tell them the story that you that I actually first heard from you the one about getting off the bus and seeing the hot dog cart right and you know that you can make the choice no one would judge you for it no one would known around you would criticize you for eating that hot dog but you know so I always tell them that story kind of with the ethics and I always tell them the story no I I do feel like you know there's a different way that managed calories immediately happens so just just to kick it off I mean like there's a video up from a couple days ago about my interactions with another student at this school and she has seen that video and she is furious with me she hates me for that video she would have hated me anyway she already hated me but you know in that conversation with her that I described in the video I said look you know I talk to this person who's a meat eater and they ask me these questions and you know type of the consequence of it the way that conversation with her started was simply that I invited her she had been sitting with with a friend here with another one of the students they were complaining they had nothing interesting to do in the weekends I said them well look you know I'm going to make this for like my own interest from purposes I'm going to make a trip to the zoo here if you guys want to come you can um so it was actually a totally like the start of the conversation was totally friendly and not directly related to veganism but the downward spiral from there really was that she said oh well you know my mother taught me that she and her mother would never go to a zoo that they consider that deeply immoral and what have you and my response to that which is why I mentioned now because I say this all the time the meat eaters have said this to my chinese teacher because don't talk about this stuff in class again you you talk about it in Chinese as a way of practicing the language Doug what's going on with your life whatever is meaningful to you um but you know I said the conditions of the animals in that zoo you may think they're terrible but they are the best conditions of any animals in China and they're among the best conditions for Hamels in the world you know so that may be shocking that may be horrifying but let's deal with that shock and horror and then you know move on so I think you know one of the things that makes the whole question of zoos meaningful whether time both zoos in China or zoos in Thailand or zoos in canada is that it raises the sort of philosophical question of how do you human beings animals live together and you know again very often in zoos people are confronted with conditions that they consider immoral and what have you that's like well okay let's really think that through if you think this is immoral what do you think about whether I mean you the comparisons are surreal but what do you think about the pigs that literally live their whole life in a concrete box in a condo on a concrete floor you know there are veal cows that live their lives literally in a wooden box more commonly in a plastic box you know with today's technology is more often plastic rather than would but you know what do we think about a dog living its whole life you know as a domesticated pet and even what do we think about fish you know the mass fish farming even you know farming of crocodiles and alligators alligators for for alligator leather you know to make shoes out of them and so on you know the comparisons they're surreal but if that conversation starts at a zoo that's a conversation I really want to have and you know like it or not it may be deeply embarrassing to you as a mediator or maybe deeply upsetting to us as individuals but the conditions we're seeing at the zoo are not the worst conditions for our human being street animals they're they're actually the best so that's my broad and general first response but look it to give you something more casino you're asking so specifically in Asia you know yeah one of the memories that stayed with me from nine years ago here in kunming was especially seeing the bears the conditions of the Bears and cages and you know i mean it is ooh you see a lot about the culture you're living in because you don't just see the animals you see how the human beings regard and relate and treat the animals you see so many peculiar contradictions contradictions about compassion but contradictions about scientific interests I you know contradictions about education like is this supposed to be educational or is this entertainment or what look what is it what are we doing if we go to see a bear in a steel cage which is literally what that was nine years ago was you know what wasn't like a Zumba it was literally a bear in a cage and of course there are people trying to stuff food through the the cage to get a reaction out of the bear because the bear isn't doing much you know it's not doing anything exciting you know there are questions about the meaning of life in more ways than one that that come up and I remember so this is nine years ago but here in here in kunming in the same city I remember I saw a bunch of people weeping at the zoo and i remember it was obvious to me they were not weeping because of the animals but they were there at the zoo weeping i mentioned this to a colleague of mine a guy with the PhD an educated guy cerium he's out he's a really strange character also he's an eccentric but he isn't intelligence and highly educated guy who knows china pretty well and one of his comments to me said oh well you know if they were middle-aged people which they work their middle aged people crying he said you know a lot of people in the older generation they actually have a very firm sense of where they are and where they are not permitted to show emotion you know especially you know sad emotion like like weeping and he said you know in the old days people used to pay to go to the cinema just to be able to sit and cry in the cinema you know because they didn't want to do it somewhere else so he said that some places like like a zoo rather than just a public park that it was probably one of the places where people could go and kind of event or mourn or deal with some of those emotions so that also is fascinating you know they're there are different levels on which you know the zoo here the way it's used as a public space and the reason why people go there people here go to the zoo literally to play musical instruments you know I've got some footage of that up of people sitting in the zoo playing traditional Chinese musical instruments and so on so you know of what is the future on TV shows like Star Trek you know there are no dogs on the starship enterprise and there's no simple answer to the question of you know how how do bears exist in the city how do bears exist in the forest and whether it's bears or dogs or mountain lions for me there are so many questions there and definitely you know the jumping off point can be you know what trip to the zoo so that's that's the pause development of it but you know obviously it's bleakest if you do go to a zoo and find yourself weeping or outraged at the conditions the animals which is quite natural I mean you know sometimes people who are not vegan react that way okay but I don't see that as a dead-ended emotion I see that as the start of something really meaningful I don't see that as just a meaningless so you know wallowing in self pitying or something I think if you are deeply upset by going to a zoo in Asia that could be something really positive in your life as a whole that's going to raise questions that are really worth answering I think I think honestly like if you look if you look at like things that I've said I mean I think this whole thing like me sharing stories about like my zoo experience it's kind of like an evolving thing I mean I think I think I've given a few different answers to why I'm doing it to different people um I think if I'm thinking like um are the most real thing is just to like I just feel like you know I saw a lot of videos where people you know Sue's our prisons zoos are this zoos are dad and I wondered and I wondered like I think you've talked about new videos have you ever actually talked to a zookeeper what yeah yeah same with scientists and everything else yeah right um I just you know I think there's value to having some stories some real stories actually occurred news you as kind of having something out there for people that you want i bet i've had people comment on some my videos one person predict on thinking who said you know i watched your video i haven't been to a zoo for 30 years out of like ethical issues but after watching your video I'm gonna go check out the zoo right just to see what's up right cuz i do things one of the true bite size vegan talks about one or videos how literally she questions whether or not zoos are evolving because in like five years nothing has changed but i think one things i look at the San Diego Zoo I remember going to the San Diego Zoo there is a section of the zoo that's beautiful just a foliage like the amount that they grow themselves is under the amount of bamboo that they grow themselves they literally have parts of the zoo where they just grow bamboo to feed the animals and it's beautiful it's like you're walking through a bamboo fart is it truly adds to like the feeling of the suit the size of the chimpanzee and closure they had there is unreal like just you look out you feel like you're looking at a sprawling mountainside but then there's a part of the zoo that you go there and it's grotto grotto grotto grotto grotto and some of those have super super endangered animals but if you go back like 40 I'm gonna totally say something's not wrong but literally decades we're talking decades here that Zoo is entirely grottoes I don't think it's a five year thing I think it's a decades decades in which the zoo's were of all sure and yeah the other side of this is that it's kind of leads us to question the idea that the government has all the answers of the government is omnipotent you remember there was this hit film blackfish I think it's called you know kind of it made a lot of people question the ethics of sea world of keeping whales in captivity and so on so I knew a guy in Canada he was one of my professors but he that wasn't his main gig and so this is just like one year ago or you're a half ago now I forget but not not that long ago um yeah he was he was working as a university professor but he's also an author and a filmmaker he does all kinds of other things and he had made a number of documentaries about killer whales as they're called orcas over orica is also is a ridiculous name if you look into it they're both ridiculous names or canned chili oil but you know and they are actively hunted as entertainment in the sense to be on display in places like SeaWorld and so on so I remember I made a kind of i made a laconic comments about you know the evils of our local our local marine park there actually you know what I don't I don't think it was that I said it was evil I didn't say that I think I just pointed out that I had looked up the statistics or how much money the government was giving to this for-profit business you know and he knows I'm vegan and so on you know so I was like I think that was at the time might my snotty comment it is said you know the government the government of this province just gave so many million to our local you know whale and dolphin amusement park which by the way is not SeaWorld i forget the brand name it's a different you know it's a different brand name but it's the same the same type of attraction and his answer without missing a beat he didn't reply to what i said was this is this is good rhetoric he looked me in the eyes and he said anytime one of the wild injured any anytime one of the whales are injured in the wild and we want to save them that's the only facility we've got that's it so in terms of keeping the endangered wild population alive the government's and the conservation scientists and the conservation activists and people like him they all totally rely on that amusement park if that amusement park shuts down they've got nothing that's it you know the only the only veterinarians with that kind of expertise the only tanks that can hold you know include this is the talk about wild taken from the wild that can hold them temporarily so the vet can patch them up and put them back in the wild that is it so it was a brilliant response in his Park is obviously he is you know he's an ethically inclined guy obviously wants to actually help the whales he doesn't he probably is not comfortable with them being you know exploited for entertainment this way but the flip side is if you think you can shut down that facility and that somehow you know the government has infinite resources to do positive things for Wales the meantime you're wrong so it's immoral it's unethical it's horrible it's it's a terrible compromise but he answered the question why is the government giving millions of dollars to this park that especially just lately you know vegans and non-vegans both all kinds of people at that time really protesting against e-world Marineland against this type of attraction I was like well that is the institutional capacity we've got to help you know the endangered wild populations also and uh with zoos there's a very similar thing you know yeah it's it's pretty atrocious seeing you know these monkeys living the whole lives in cages in the zoo's do you think that if you shut down the zoo there's a better facility somewhere else where the government's or conservation scientists or academics in a university could work to help those monkeys you know the endangered species specifically recover to a you know a breeding population have you for me as a vegan it's easy to be self-righteous it's easy for me to say shut it all down smash all the cages settle the animals free that's easy yeah but the whole reason why my youtube channel exists is that I'm not really interested in easy answers too complicated questions I'm interested in dealing with all the murky complicated you know moral gray areas etc etc as you know one of the things that one of the things that have been engaged on on the top of the zooks is um a few few people have been churned this um but this idea that if ideally in their mind these things should be happy at like universities real research facilities that animals ideally in their minds there's something there's a stigma zoos that they want animals be taken care by you know site whether it's a sanctuary whether it's reserved somewhere and this there's actually no I question you know cuz i think i think you know a lot of those university people are in zoos first of all um but um one thing i'm researching right now is on because i want to make a video about it because i think just the role that you know medical science has played in this the rule that sanctuaries and reserves have played in this you know country and zooms in fact it's a complete horror story the story of on the north the northern white rhino it's absolutely absolutely and one of the things i think is most impactful is on that basically the store basically break down the story there's basically there's three northern white rhinos left and there's one male and there's i believe it's just two other females but there's there's basically there's there's the gene pool is almost nothing basically at this point um although there's other questions interesting questions because the northern white rhino is what it is two subspecies it's not a species the southern white rhino is doing quite well but the northern white rhino is the one that they're doing all these things to but um you know they they decided to move these they were living in a zoo at one point and they decide to move them I believe they were living it somewhere in San Diego Zoo some some facility source of San Diego but um you can tell that I just have so many topics that I think of that I literally flow from one of the other so and we're off but the basis storylines true but um they basically they move this animal to on a reserve in Africa and the first one and when when they move them there um because the realities of poaching and these animals you know you move them back to reserve in Africa the reality is they're supposed to poachers again whereas in a zoo you know that's one of the things that they don't have to deal with and while they can have someone watching them protecting them they still have to recognize no there's no guarantee we can't guarantee that something will go down so what they actually did was they cut the horns off these rhinos like and I totally I can totally imagine why right right right right right to prevent the poaching right to destroy you know their attraction to poachers they disfigure these animals in such you know a horrific way that they look strange when you look at them it's like this longhorn that these animals how is just this nub and I just think you know people have this you know this ethical attachment to these other to the reserves and you know universities and stuff that they're going to do the right thing somehow the zoos are doing all the right things and everyone else is doing all the right is doing all the right things if somehow you know we would close zoos and get these plays the chance and it's all over the all over the place it's it's just you know it's a complicated thing I think of one of the interesting contrasts because the first question you raised was the difference between legitimate research and what zoos do the part of what zoos do is research but I don't know probably less than ten percent of it is what they do but you know sure sure excuse me there's one of my favorite stories that I ever took out of the zoo zoo was on this son it was literally just me driving in a van with one of the vets the head vet of the zoo and I don't remember what we were doing I think we were going to pick up a crate that we need to inspect somehow i think i think i was i might have only been an intern and i have just been riding along for the day to see what it was like what the vets did but i'm one of the things that he talked about was he talked about you know one of the research proposals that was going out i think was um i don't members who what probably shouldn't say it anyway but on ira he was talking about how it had to do with primates and had to do with dom yawning cuz yawning is one of those things that you know it's it's known to be catchy you know a human sees one human do it you know they're likely to pick it up and this student apparently this grad student he wanted to do this project we're on he wanted to look at yawning in primates and he wanted to see if you know the similar phenomena occurred in primates and I remember I remember in the nasally voice that this the head vet hat I remember you just said that is just so stupid because because one of the things that was true for primates is yawning is a territorial thing oh no they on they open their mouths shows their teeth that's how they say you know you're you know you need to get away from me so of course you know one primate does it the other one's gonna do it cuz it's a threat display so it's just completely psychologically silly and yours and that's just one thing I picked up for that's that's just one thing I had to throw in there that's my favorite story ever about research and zoos that is interesting though certainly if we ever had that instinct we don't respond to yawning that way at all now huh interesting there is you know there's just one human culture to my knowledge I think in the whole world but there still is in the extreme remote part of northeast India part of India that's closer to Myanmar you know it's it's not part of the it's not part of the scent India as we normally think of the shape of India its way out on the limits but there is one culture there where they still regard smiling as a threat that's showing your teeth when you smile is perceived as a threat I have never heard of any other culture where that's that true for for human beings i mean but obviously many many animals show their teeth as a threat and of course that culture today is now those people as they start to watch television and become more involved in modern society I'm sure that if that hasn't disappeared then it's disappearing right now along with many other footnotes in the history of anthropology what's going to say about the the issue of legitimate research versus all the things ooze do um I noticed there is no such conflict with botanical gardens you know we have a botanical gardens here in conveying is a very famous botanical gardens in in Sri Lanka those places they exist primarily for research and they do they do a lot of work on endangered plant species I mean you may or may not be familiar with us but it's it's similar in that sense they're often trying to preserve plant species from going extinct keeping a catalog you know does that the DNA isn't lost and they also work on even reviving plant species that have gone extinct we know there's some seeds left there's some DNA material and they can splice things they can actually bring back plant species that have that have already disappeared from the world but all kinds of other plant research that tends to be the main thing they're doing and once in awhile they put up an exhibition showcasing that but otherwise the Botanical Gardens is open to the public for a few hours per day and some people not that many go and see the trees or go and see whatever it is that's that's pigs played so I mean obviously the the issue of the the ethical weight and the horror that is associated with zoos and with the you know something like SeaWorld with the places that keep whales and dolphins I think on the one hand it has to do with the animals themselves with the sense of how much territory they should have what behaviors they should normally be allowed to enjoy with their own natural inclinations towards sex violence territoriality whatever behaviors they are the the presumed contrast between the the animal in its natural habitat and the unnatural of that and the other hand I mean there's there's also just death involved I like before I said it on YouTube I'd never heard anyone mention the issue I mean obviously you've now discussed in YouTube channel you you you may have discussed it before I did and I didn't see it I don't know who said it first but I to my knowledge I was the first to talk about you know if you have a tiger in captivity you're not just keeping a tiger alive you're killing cows and lambs and chickens every day to feed that type of horses I mean you're channeling talk about killing horses for horsemeat to feed the animals in the zoo where there's that dimension to it also as soon as we're into meat-eating animals then we're talking about a much longer shadow of animals being killed some animals being killed to keep other animals alive which supposedly is a problem for us vegans because we supposedly don't believe in you know in speciesism so yeah but I just put that to you I mean it's an interesting contrast at any time as a thought experiment you can say well if if this is a problem with zoos why is it not a problem with the Botanical Gardens that serves a similar function but doesn't have all the same ethical quandary ethical issues ok disguise but Edwin can go back to the black first thing sure that's really relevant to me because i actually just saw it last week Oh like I live I literally I I am I think my mom's seen at this point she got it from the library I've seen it i think i think i got on youtube but um um but I saw last weekend I've researched it because I actually I want to do a video cuz there's a trainer who's been very vocal about his bill he he sides with SeaWorld and there's some there's some points that you make that I completely disagree with but I'm one of the things I research is there's there's one trainer you you I'm sure you say said it but I'd miss it you've seen that movie right no I've never I've never seen blackfish I'm gonna going in there is there's a trainer in that in that movie um horsies name's John Hargrove I know his last name is hard girl but I can't remember sir I thought I might be spatially on the first name but I'm he you know he's one of the guys that they got to talk about you know the reality of workers in captivity you know some of the things that trainers do he actually does kind of a play by play on one of the incidents that happen there um but I'm he's he's actually someone who's been slandered by seaworld you can look up videos on YouTube of seaworld actually making campaign just against him he's maybe in the movie for used less than 15 minutes but you will really made a campaign against him where they bring up little text that he made um where you know said some things will under the influence of you know alcohol and things like that which is interesting in itself but he's on he's someone who after that movie apparently from what I understand now there's legislation that prevents sea world from actually um matchy going from trainers actually going in the water they're interacting with animals outside the water on and he was one of the he was one of the individuals who actually testified that case that actually got that legislation passed and the first thing I thought of when i read that was when you talked about how on you know vegans want to play with vegans they don't necessarily always want to play with people who aren't Nestle vegans but involved in those who do you talk about a lot of intersection but I thought that was a really good example yeah I'm someone who's involved do that someone you know if you put Chris Chris ha or John I'm complete about his name out if you put mr. Hargrove on a panel I'm in like readings were in the audience I'm sure he get booed I'm sure people would say nasty things like throw things at him you know he played a legitimate role in legislation that improves something that changed that was just something that I thought of when I saw that movie that was real and was really relevant to something that you talked about yeah I mean I think that's partly because vegans don't understand that process of what legislation is and why expert opinion matters like it matters to me as human being like for me it's interesting to talk to someone who has that kind of direct experience with animal behavior and also with the institutional behavior like whether we're talking about vivisection or zoos or evidence true of your channels is why your channel is so interest is really interesting for me to hear you talk about you know killing horses at a zoo so that you can feed horse meat to tigers or whatever the animals are you know are wolves or what have you you know to me okay this is interesting and this is the kind of you know a analytical information that you know you can't get by just sitting down with a bunch of other vegans who already agree with you and you know I'm probably going to make a video soon talking again about this concept of abolitionism in veganism and you know there's nothing wrong with the word abolitionism it's not that I'm offended by the basic concept I understand why people say that what they want to say they are an abolitionist vegan but it leads to people wanting to shortcut or disregard exactly these questions like oh well if you actually want to testify in congress if you actually want to inform a legislative body this is how the industry works and this is why you need to regulate it in this way for any specific regulation those are exactly the guys you need right you need informed insiders who really understand the process you can really answer those questions who can you can not only speak from experience but who can literally testify who can say yes I have seen this with my own eyes and you see that even with something like you know the Incan gresham inquiry into steroid use you know who do you think speaks on a panel about steroid use you can get a local Catholic preacher you get a Catholic priest who for whatever reason goes around saying steroids are bad but he doesn't know anything about them he's never used them he's never seen them or you can get someone who is maybe a you know a sports medicine doctor who himself used to prescribe used to provide illegal steroids but he was now willing to come on the stand and say look here's how the industry works here's what's bad about it here's how it is regulated you you absolutely crucial II need insiders whether you know whether it's the athletes themselves of the medical doctors themselves who are willing to come forward and talk about how those things work and those will always be people who are tainted those will be people of blood on their hands in some sense those are people participate in it that's true whatever congressional inquiries into you know war crimes in Vietnam you know you want to there's no point the moral purity is actually you know just irrelevant to the actual process you want the the informative pains of people who are who are really involved so anyway you people like you I mean I hope frankly when I watch your channel what I hope is I hope you're not stuck being the guy who talks about zoos for the rest of your life like I think 10 years from now it's going to be very different for you to look back on this to say okay there's time my life when I worked in zoos this time of life when I talked about it a lot I think I mean it's always going to be meaningful for you I think it's like you're always going to talk about with people from time to time but you're also going to make a transition where this this isn't going to be the the crusade this isn't going to be the you know the flag you carry for the rest of your life you don't want to always be the guy who talks about zoos so what that transition is for you i think is also a meeting question because I was a beanie your whole human being zoos are only one part of your life it's only one part of your own vegan activism him yeah I've been aware that I mean there's certain the one that you talked about actually killing animals that's one that's a video that she look back on and yeah it was something that I knew I should talk about right I didn't know how to talk about it though and I think I frame in that video that oh if you're begging and you like you want to go on the zoo field something that these are realities that you have to deal with you know it's it's not going to be you know I'd literally I when I went to school we literally had people who would come in like applying to our zoology program saying that you know what they want to do is they wanted to play with baby tigers all day yeah well no playing with baby tigers I mean I could see that being something that a vegan or vegetarian come and say that would be their ambition like you know something nice and soft like that having to do with animals but on that's kind of what i thought that's I'm but yeah but I'm not when I watched that video i'm actually not happy with i'm not happy with that for some reason I can't put my finger on why but as something I knew I had to talk about right um yeah but I have a I have a few videos you know it's really I hear something like it could be one thing someone says it could literally just be you know seeing happy healthy being and having a title that says Pokemon go is not vegan or something right I don't know what I want to talk about so it's something that's been very spontaneous to be honest right no I'm my videos look my videos are spontaneous too and I think you know in the future I can really imagine that you take your thoughts about zoos and you put them together into a more formal lecture like a written lecture that you give it an animal rights conference and then you know that's recorded but I can totally imagine you going through a process like that I'm just saying like as one human being to another you know as important as that is and I can imagine if you gave that lecture once you might then a year later give the same lecture at a different animal rights event animal rights conference I can totally imagine that because i think it is meaningful i think what you have to say is very meaningful for other vegans and i also think it's meaningful for you to talk about it but i'm just warning you on a human level like I personally I don't want to be the guy who talks about Cambodia for the rest of my life cambodia comes up in my videos but like Cambodia doesn't own me you know what I mean when I could actually I mean just this morning I was thinking about I started recording a video about some atrocities and Laos or what have you you know it's still part of my life it still comes up but that's all I'd say is that you know I was just making it in a sympathetic sense the statement that uh you know zoos don't don't let zoos dominate you know it's fine and even if it's even it's for the whole next year even if it's the main thing you talk about YouTube channel that's great i would enjoy the videos myself i'm interested in that but you know you you are more as a person and your own potential as an activist long-term you're more than that one issue that's all I'm saying I i I'm just you know I do you know interesting in a challenge to talk to as well because I'm literally something to sip from how think about it sometimes like like other kick something not gonna back blackfish like add something next so on so yeah I got I got yourself basically that's my long-winded way of saying we're cool but on and now x 0 like one of the things as far as talking about sue's that i have realized i'm gonna have to deal with eventually or at some point polo stories that are easy to tell like um there are certain stories that have i think i've mentioned a comment with you the one about the you know the anteater the 25 the 250 k anteater that's a story that you know maybe 10 people on earth know and that's a story that you know if someone who worked at you know the place that I worked at you know they could watch that be and they'd be like oh he's telling all our secrets um so um that is there and I I still have friends you know who are in that wearing that field and stuff like that and I have to you know figure that at some point I'm gonna get to the point where you're like you know I'm starting to get to you know content i haven't talked about where we have to question whether or not you know is this gonna hurt someone if i talk about it now gonna have to make decisions i mean you know i didn't i didn't leave that fueled in the best of way it was a conscious decision I could have gone forward and had a career in it but um I had some broken ties in that industry on some levels that's it i'm not right with I'm not asking you to divulge in the secret but I mean I thought you quit the zoo's before you became vegan isn't that back to me you chose to leave but you yeah its third they're not they're not connected okay Stan's I became vegan you like oh like literally I think I'd talked to you before that story would begin cheetah where I literally was on a streaming app with him and I asked him you know you know Charlie do you think that this is something that would be worth talking on YouTube and he was like oh my god yeah absolutely I'm that that conversation actually occurred in real time and it had in a big way you know affected you know what I'm doing today and you know in some way I'll always owe that to him on some level um in a very real way I'm talking on YouTube in because of his influence um but um you know I'm it is the talking about zoos is something that I realized might be finite you know it'll be something that I know always have other things that I want to talk about and stuff like that but definitely at some point you know I won't be talking about zoos I think that's stuff in the reality yeah I hope I hope one day I'm no longer talking about Cambodia we'll see all right you know I was going to say to just used to two examples in parallel this applies to so many things but you know the issue of zoos and the issues of hunting you know i do not i mean as vegans and again this is a problem i have with the abolitionist approach the abolition approach says abolish everything and there isn't really an acknowledgement that we deal with day-to-day real questions of priority you may or may not have already heard this anecdote but you know on my channel of complaint in Victoria there was this group of vegans and they were making it their top priority to attack horse-drawn carriages and in this case you know the word attack isn't that inappropriate then we're just criticizing it but to protest that and obstruct and stop the horse drawn carriages because the horses pulling the carriages were being terribly exploited yes from a vegan perspective from a delicious right okay yes a horse pulling a carriage it's not vegan it's bad okay but this is in the context of you know a civilization that is built on every day millions of pigs and cows being killed eat and turned into leather you know the the the people taking the carriage ride are wearing leather shoes what is a real er issue you know what I mean like there's so many levels in which this is absurd and it's it's just the use of your your time and energy so I mean again this is an issue with in some of the currently popular theories currently popular approaches to vegan politics no we do have to make questions of priority and I do not think that you know shutting down zoos should be a priority now we've already talked about some of the reasons why that is because zoo serve more than one function blah blah blah definitely in a legal reforms to change the the ethics of zoos or even you know I just mentioned again I would support a law within Canada for example that made all zoos operate on a strictly non-profit basis I think that would be very interesting law to pass and then probably zoos probably the question of research interests and public entertainment and education probably a very different set of questions and to what extent it's the taxpayers responsibility and to what extent it's based on zoo admissions you have very different set of questions if they were not probably but with all that having been said you know the the funny thing is when zoos especially sorry when zoos are especially targeted by vegans because some vegans do they really want to shut down zoos some vegans especially target scientific research you know vivisection and so on related to cancer or whatever the case may be and some vegans especially want to target hunters and all these things are marginal in terms of the body count these are all incredibly insignificant compared to you know diet the exploitation of animals for dieter or leather what have you there obviously some symbolic significance these people and some emotional significance but actually you know the animals being kept in zoos are very small in number and this this doesn't have the same see the animals being killed by hunters a very small number but the other thing that that to me the reason why I'm pitching this now the irony is that the people who work in the zoo's there's some of the only people who really appreciate animal intelligence who really see it who really have experience you know of the kind you talk about and and penny more and you know when I was studying a Cree Cree in a jib way algonkian languages first nations languages these are native languages in Canada you know I was reading accounts that were translated from korean to english so you know you look at both of people's lives people would really lived as hunters in a fairly traditional manner out on the frontier I just give you this as one example the story this is this guy traditional hunter and he was talking about the the types of intellectual relationships he had with these wild animals and he mentioned there was one I believe it was a weasel I may have the species later on but the weasel or something resembling a weasel out in the woods and it wasn't he wasn't his pet it wasn't the messages lived in the wild but it would come around and and chat with him and talk with him and he would give it bits of food especially because he was hunting other animals and cutting element of you and he got this cooperative relationship going with this weasel wild untrained animal where it understand he would be looping a fishing line and he would hand it so is a little loop like a little a little noose like a little loop and the fishing line and he would hand it to the weasel and this would be ice fishing in winter and the weasel would go under the ice would swim into the water and pull this out to help him set up his his fishing apparatus they would swim back and he would give it food to reward and so on yet all these bizarre stories about the intelligence of wild animals some of which he got to know just literally because he was sitting in the forest for many long hours and these animals out of boredom and curiosity started spending time now you know from a vegan perspective this guy he killed animals every day you know in the zoo does also kill animals every day and also it's holding the mckameys on but Emil again there's some there's something here for us to learn there's my fundamental point there is a voice here that's really important and worth listening to you know now and for the future and by contrast I've met and talked to slaughterhouse workers no I do not believe that employees of slaughterhouses in that sense have anything meaningful to say about animal intelligence in the meaning of life not not in the sense don't get me wrong slaughterhouse workers are human beings tip but you know there has to be some recognition that what we're talking about in terms of conservation in terms of the future of how humans live together with with animals what happens in a zoo and even what happens with hunters who literally live in the woods you literally live with animals and who may or may not respect animals they may be jerks no as an individual person they may they may just be a jerk about it um to me again it's just not as simple as the abolitionists approach is saying this is evil this is exploitation of animals therefore abolish everything do it today we have difficult questions of priority and we have difficult questions just of meeting people like you and listening to them saying oh here's someone who knows what it's like to shoot a horse in the head and to cut up that horse and feed it to a tiger you know there's something there's there's a perspective on life and animal rights here that I I don't know you know there's something here for me to learn I've never actually shot of worse killed I'd killed I've seen I've seen it been around that right i think i think the most horrific stories in that video or honestly though the for me personally one about the small caliber gun being used to kill the horse and then just hearing the multiple gunshots not being able to acting just picture with the horrific scene what's going on and then to actually have to go in there and actually like you know finish not finish the job nestle but then actually prepare that animal to be fed like it's it's it's not the I I talked about it you know they're being a real teamwork aspect and that's you know you talking about smashing smashing in the heads of rabbits and all that it's it's horrific yeah it's horrific but it's it's worth hearing yeah I forgot about that that's actually fun um but out rabbits chickens um if anyone was interested non horses though but um but no but it happened I was rounded one of the things I think from the last time we talked I think was you know most i think i think the things that you told me about native about on yeah the native americans are you experienced with um I mean made me reflect a lot of my own honestly um and one of the things that like I recently like I literally just saw this and I thought of like what you were saying and softening I think it reflects a lot back about this common history that you're talking about I literally like watch the video i guess there's like the show where celebrity Spacely in some kind of frivolous thing they go back and they they look at on their they they work with a story and they find out their roots their family and there was one episode with this guy this actor Don Cheadle's going like Hotel Rwanda um are you I do know who John Don Cheadle is amazingly but yeah I do know what don't you it was good yeah this actor Don Cheadle but um but um he's been in I guess he was you know one of the things that they came back with his ancestry was that um you know he his uh his lineage has no slaves and that they were owned by Native Americans oh really wow wow that was something that I never honestly thought of the Native Americans would have would have owned slaves and not only that that I guess like even after like the Emancipation Proclamation um or whatever like Native Americans didn't Nestle relieved there's released their slaves I just said you know where you know our own nation you know we're not going to do that and I remember what they said about when actually transpired that you know his answers became freedmen the first free man actually turned up but on that was that was a profound thing to me yes idea that I never would have occurred me like on some level you know I would have never occurred to me that Native Americans had owned slaves any court had owned African African slaves well you know I've got a reverse example this is long before I studied Korean ajeeb boys languages it's interesting you know my mother has said to me she said you know you always cared passionately about Native Americans about First Nations like when you were a small child you were already pissed off about this which is interesting I mean she remembers that I don't really I don't that's not really how I remember my own thoughts on the matter was a kid but she said I was always this is always kind of a political issue for me even in childhood and mentioned also was never a [ __ ] is also very unusual but it wasn't based on a story book idea of Native Americans of the past it was really based on who they were today you know like Native Americans as people who watch TV and own cellular phones back then it was they owned Walkman you know it was them as real human beings not at the kind of glorified vision of them but you know remember i was talking to an old frenemy frenemy is really the word in this case he's you know not my friend but remember i was talking to him in canada years ago and he basically gave his reasons for why he as a left-wing person he was a left-wing political activist type why he didn't want to be involved in it didn't want to care about the the Native American situation in which you know ultimately I have to respect his honesty you know it's a decision everyone makes in Canada you know you choose which political causes are going to be involved in which not and I remember he made a number of statements about the history of slavery as part of his explanation you know slavery and how slavery had created countries like Canada United States we have you and I just said to him simply I said you know that's that's what we did to them when we we want to get rid of them here in the British Empire you know long after the British Empire supposedly made slavery illegal when you look into the details slavery slavery disappeared from the british empire in a very slow series of stages and most people are taught in school a simplified history that makes it seem that slavery became illegal much earlier than it actually did but in canada long after slavery was supposedly illegal in in british colonies when we wanted to get rid of our rebellious native peoples and i don't mean that in a casual sense i mean native peoples who actually rose up in rebellion we sold them to the sugar plantations so we're exporting as slaves our own native peoples to that part of the world and I am told that some of the DNA surveys were confused by this because you can have people today who are you know black predominantly of you know Africa African Caribbean ancestry but you have also people who are a mixed mixed black and indigenous ancestry but when they look into who the indigenous people are they're not the people indigenous to the Caribbean they're not the people from those islands their people from central Canada or something you know so these are the the brutalities and and vagaries of history that you know we're now left to you know we're now left to draw the lessons from and move forward from but yeah I mean ultimately look sorry this is off topic but for me it's it's right on topic I had someone writing to me in my patreon group someone who paid the one dollar thank you thank you to everyone who pays one dollar for to listen to me talk um you know and she was talking about how inspired she felt by the things that said about Laos and Cambodia those words America's war in Laos son it is actually difficult to answer the question if you're being sincere what does this mean to people today what's the message in terms of public education or ethics you know what does it mean for you and me today to look at this as whether it's so those are two opposite examples what does it mean that yes Native Americans owned Africans as slaves what does it mean that yes Native Americans were sold as slaves uh amidst African Americans and sorry at the ending of that anthro when I told that guy I remember what surprised me was that he was really upset by that he was really disturbed by it and I don't know why I mean it's not so different from everything else we did in history of slavery or history british empire but for whatever reason my telling him that anecdote really shook him up and I guess really challenged the excuses would not the excuses it challenged the reasons he had in his own mind for I guess why he was more interested in kind of black power activism and not you know native peoples rights I guess or challenged some left-wing assumptions I don't know but that was really upsetting them and for me it's not really upsetting but it's it's very difficult to really ask it answer the question of if I'm gonna take this message to people today why does it matter you know why does it matter to them and I don't you know I don't buy into this sort of thing that we should all be on the internet screaming about every social injustice and that the screaming isn't of itself when I share those stories with people for one thing I don't tell them to everybody and I think there is a real question of you know where are we going with this how is this making how is this supposedly making you a better person or how is this vague the world a better place what do we actually do with this history now moving forward to that unwritten science fiction novel of what the what the future is supposed to be there's wonder to you that you did and it was I remember it's my editing my favorite YouTube ending at all time were you talking about this subject yeah and you you acquainted to shouting at the moon yeah yeah I think that's I think that's my favorite ending all time you know I think it's yeah you know there's a lot again there's a as you said there's a lot of people shouting shouting on YouTube about you know various sorts of things I thought that that equation to shouting at the moon or whatever just like just added to the lunacy of its highlighted in a way just within that like I thought that I thought I thought that super found person well look I've been thank you i can take a compliment but I mean the other thing i can say maybe we should wrap it up now because we're past two hours a good length for a podcast but you know i think the questions about tradition they do relate to the questions about the future in a very simple sense because you know a lot of time I deal with hostile questions about veganism but about First Nations Native Americans and all this stuff to you know one of the questions have asked it has an impact when you talk to Europeans you know in the future do you do you want to live in a world where in the future there are no bears in France you know wild bears not bears and zoo's wild bears it's a really simple question but when you ask it about the future it actually does have an effect on people obviously in play in Laos that was a real question I had to ask people do you want to live in a world where in the future there are no Tigers in Laos wild tigers i knew a woman in cambodia she literally grew up in a village in Cambodia where people got killed by Tigers were hunt being human beings being hunted by Tigers was a fact of daily life and today that area is a parking lot there is not a single tree there is not a single tiger you know it's just everything has been flattened for human progress and you know that's a real question what you don't do you want your children to grow up never knowing what a tiger looks like and hey let's say it do you want your children grow up never knowing what it's like to be afraid because there are Tigers in the woods isn't that a loss to you know what I mean uh growing up frankly with that fear with that awareness that the forest is you know the forest is not a playpen you know the forest has Tigers or if it's in France that the forest has bears isn't that a tremendously sad thing and the context of Native Americans and so on I have really had to ask people do you want to live in a world where this language is extinct where there isn't a single human being left who can communicate in a jib way Cree or whatever the the the the language is you know so for me I mean again I guess that's the sense in which my traditionalism is tied into these ethics these political questions for the future because ultimately I'm challenging us to say yes with all this technology with all this science can't we see a future where we literally make space for these other animals and yeah you know there's a cultural component of that too you know for these other languages but man when you look at it it's really bleak cuz I don't know what I don't know in the future III don't have a lot of faith that they're gonna be any Tigers in Cambodia I don't have a lot of faith there gonna be any bears in France you want me I remember one of your videos you talk um and one of your on you talked about on when you went to the zoo and you actually took footage you you mentioned at the end of the video and you put together a latch that was a very cool montage I'm up this one species of on I think was it noseless macaque that's right it's a snub-nosed monkey yeah that's correct yeah that's right and I actually looked that up like after you had that video and literally it's a whole genius right the snub-nosed monkeys its own genius you know I when I see genius you know to me it has meaning as like some of the state science I'm not sure the average person if they understand you know it's it's a specific branch you know of you know classification um but every you know species in there that's like the whole genius every species is endangered right I don't you know what if they what if there's a point you know when I you know every single animal every single species from an entire genus an entire branch clade of evolution is only in a zoo I know it's it's so sad and look I'm actually glad you raised that because I was going to mention this to you you have at least one video I think more than one talking about the fact that you know like nature documentaries are they don't really show you what the animals in the wild that also is an example of that so mention this because it's also part of the spiritual significance of that monkey no obvious I'm a nihilistic atheist so you'll see why I use the word spiritual and in just a moment but you know in that video even at the very end where it shows them supposedly in the wild if you know a little bit about the monk you can tell that's not the wild you can tell you can tell it's fake at exactly the ways you you talk about for one thing they're down on the ground they're sitting on the on a felled tree picking up bits of bark picking up bits bits of food bits of moss you know like him hahahaha in the wild in terms their natural behavior that's where there'd be the most terrified any predator can run by on four legs and kill them when they're on the ground right when they're on the floor of the forest right including just a dog wild dog can come by and tear the neck brother totally defenseless against the wild dog and even in that video were chosen up in a tree it's not really a tree they're kind of sitting in some twigs kinda can't really bear their weight in terms of how they would really live if they're if they're ecosystem were intact they were up in these dense trees here in Yunnan we have what's called a cloud forest cloud forest in contrast to rain forest quite interesting part of the function of this force you have trees up at a level where it would catch a passing missed passing fog and ultimately as passing clouds and so the trees would get more water because you know the water would turn into droplets and be caught by the forest come down but you have these dense dark trees and the monkeys are black-faced as you know black based on those monkey did well sorry they're both black and white that the sort of ghostly white features and black so there's there's both black and white in their coloring and the only time you would see them as a human being would be walking through that dark dense forest and then these faces pop out at you right because they're curious in the wild in the wild they like human beings they want to come and have a look and of course that's why Native people in that part of you nan they thought they were the ghosts of the dead for two reasons one because they have no knows their noseless so it looks like a skull it looks like a human skull to some extent right right but secondly that be the only time soon would silent these silent faces popping out of the trees and looking at you with curiosity and you can't see the rest of the monkey right you can't see so it's really it's really something magical and beautiful and lyrical and special for this part of the world and the forest has been so destroyed that you can't even put together a fake documentary trying to make it look like they're in their conditions and we're down to that point of saying can we take a few dozen of these things and give them a shot at living you know in what's ultimately going to be a man-made artificial you know terrarium you know we can we can we can we can we can keep a couple trees together uh but you know it's it's past that point so it's it's this is wildlife management at its most extreme is can we basically simulate a little patch of wilderness for them and part of China where to simplify all the trees have been cut down you know yeah so yet to me that's that's kind of a really really meaningful and moving example in in so many ways I like hearing those kind of stories especially when you talk about what you know then being the zoo I remember what if one experience that I remember having as a zookeeper that you know until I thought about it later I didn't really think about but I remember there was one week that we spent like fixing up this entire enclosure for these animals that were coming in we did a number of times I remember why it sticks with me but I just remember people would walk by and you know the running joke that people would make oh oh this is the human exhibit because you know they see the keepers and you know you get annoyed because every single person comes by the cleverest person in the world and they said something everything other person said but I'm it just it reflected me like you know stupid things like people say you know and hearing these stories about these animals that have this true mythology right this true you know context in which they matter and just on some little if I was a keeper at that too and I know that and I see these animals because as you say they're curious and they're actually interacting with people it would probably be a great exhibit animal because they'd actually come up thing and you know some someone would hear the stupid things people would say you know about those animals knowing like the real you know how in the past they being absurd special and you know you look at this weird like knows this monkey like you think he hides stuff in there or like weird things like that yeah you know yeah but look I mean you know you know there is no political party in the world that has a target to increase um you know natural habitat while wilderness habitat and you know when I was in France obviously I've done research on this in all these weird countries in Cambodia and Laos and Thailand so I've done in a bunch of ways but France is useful cuz France it's so similar to us as a society France is not that exotic be the French government was always publishing these lies about how many thousands of hectares of wilderness France has right and the way they did that is you know France has controls a bunch of remote islands in the Pacific that sometimes have zero human inhabitants there uninhabited islands or sometimes there's you know one state one military naval naval station there were boats can dock and otherwise it's you know it son habited and there are you know some some birds flying around what have you but you know their claims about wilderness and you know expansive areas for wild animals are totally based on on places on the map that you and I would just not consider France legally they're French territory but this is like you know the United States controls Guam Guam is an territory of the United States but there's another sense in which Guam is really not the United States this is a sense of it Midway Island and these remote properties but you know when I was in France I got to see the single largest area of so cold it's a national park I can't even call it wilderness and all the people lived around there said look you know it's really dangerous to walk through this park because if you go during hunting season all you hear is pok pok pok pok you just hear gunshots going off ms park is a shooting gallery and you know there's there's nothing wild about it and then just say I mean it is what it is it's a field with some feral pigs in it and you know they keep the feral pigs around because people like to shoot them dead wild boar what do you want to say nobody Emile to look yes some people want to stop wearing leather shoes what an incredibly small minority of the population it's depressing there are so few of us who have made the ethical leap necessary to say you know what I can do better than this I can stop wearing leather boots you know that's already a tiny percentage of population but it's also depressing to me it's also and it's it's a it's a really urgent issue there's nobody or almost nobody sitting there in France looking at a map saying we need to make some space so that bears can exist you know and not for my entertainment but you know that there's got to be some percentage of the map has to this has to be a priority you know and i know i mean i know we have other priorities you know hey somebody's gotta conquer Syria again somebody's got to conquer Afghanistan and Iraq again you know there are untold millions and millions of dollars being put into other priorities in life but for me short term and long term I'm basically you know I remain horrified by human beings that so few people look at the map of France and think that's a problem and I can say that about Laos and Cambodia to to some extent just somewhat different story I want to ask you a nut I hope this isn't too depressing for you go no but on again in the last like few minutes we've talked about you talked about you know saving preserving cultures you talked about preserving animals on in a very real way I'm a way I'm aware that you know the dollars you no matter that the dollars can make a difference in saving an animal do you think that money can preserve like raising money for a cause do you think a millionaire can start a fund to mom say oh I want to raise this much money to save a language yeah does that make sense yeah I look I mean it III think I think it's happened I think there have been some some projects like that I mean for me something I used to say to people in that part of Canada where you know native people are still a significant percentage population by blood but very very few of them can speak the language I'll point out to people when you go to a bank machine here you put your card in you have English French Chinese minimum maybe maybe Spanish or another language also but nobody ever thought it was important to have career a jib way or mohawk or you know any other native language when you go to the bank machine you press a button to choose your language you know so yeah you can think about it in terms of preservation in terms of conservation but ultimately you know the question the problem is forward-looking right is not putting the language in a museum which you know you can do for a million dollars you know I mean like I think that's that's the side that a millionaire can do which is very positive and I encourage that also if you got a million dollars and you care about language diversity or what have you they're millionaires can do really positive things that way for sure but looking forward I remember talking to one of my professors and again they were just very impressed because I thought about these things it's a different way from the other white people who are interested is you know some of the white people are Christian missionaries and different types of eccentrics but I remember talking to professor I said look what's our timeline when are we going to have a first chemistry textbook written and Cree and they were shocked and I said yeah you know like science textbooks for children obvious I'm not talking about you know advanced research level text books being written to create a jib way it's just you're not gonna have a large enough population to do that and many languages within Europe are like that too you know if you speak a smaller language than Europe you know for advanced scientific research they have to use a language like English or German after use a larger language to get really specialized stuff but yes you know science education and developing the vocabulary to talk about science in those languages moving forward where this is not just about preserving you know your grandfather's stories or legends is obviously a very real part of it a lot of people want to preserve the legends and songs and music traditional songs in those languages moving forward if this is going to be part of a meaningful life in Canada it has to be in the bank machine you know it has to be in those kinds of prosaic uses also and you have to have a bunch of bored kids in a classroom going oh no it's science class again and like you know learning stuff they don't want to learn in the language too you know so yeah I don't know for millionaires I think definitely nature conservation is easier than those really complex questions of language conservation and in both cases you rely on your on people like you ju rely on people who have hands-on experience you rely on people who've lived the sort of with the ethical contradictions and quandary zand you know these things work you know the contradictions in the community and the culture on that side the carnation without humans live with animals how animals actually live in the wild you really you really need to learn to appreciate the perspectives the people have that experience and have that knowledge which right now from my perspective the vast majority of vegans don't okay look great great talk to you but you want to wrap it up there I mean you wanna see some more of you great well and maybe this isn't content that you Nestle want but I I wanted to float something out to you because if I don't I'm gonna regret it like I'm gonna think about it forever but I'm cool I can always censor it later don't worry cool cool cool we talked we talked in beginning about how you create thumbnails and stuff like that like how can you create three video I was wondering cuz honestly I i am i'm willing to kind of accept you know that the vegan embassies of this world they're gonna come out and say I'm the you know hello mini mr. clean I like the dr. evil and better than the mr. clean one personally um but um I was wondering and maybe and I respect you know people have certain ways of doing things I know that sometimes people to ask me give me ideas and how to do things and you know I got my own I don't care but um I think I've always thought me funny count the thumbnail but the thumbnail for a video with you beat do you send me and I would send you a matching one like 11 you're faxing rose I'll shave my head like perfectly wait is that him again so we we can we can do that um you know but you might want to wait don't you want to do it for this podcast I have a suit being made by a tailor right now and I only thought us afterwards I went to a tailor and i ordered a traditional chinese style suit a grey suit with a certain kind of color and only afterward that I realize dr. evil good that's great and that's actually that's the style suit both worn by the original doctor no character you know because dr. evil is a parody of dr. know who wore a Chinese suit and then dr. Evil's character I think the style of [ __ ] was just a little bit different so coming up if you want to you can do a cosplay as me that's true we could do a I could send you a post photograph and you could match it then we could be either both of our channels whatever and uh but also if you wanted to you could do a cosplay as me as dr. evil I'm not going to do any makeup I wouldn't do any makeup or anything but just me and that gray in that gray Chinese suit with Chinese color that could be a hit for you and I mean you know and if you might if you get a suit like that believe me you can get a lot of use out of it those are really good suits okay great look that's it's wonderful to be managed to start stop this podcast on a positive note let's stop before we talk about anything too depressing wonderful wonderful meeting you and like I've said to so many things vest I hope I still know you five years from now what I'm doing right now is not activism it's making friends it's making connections for the future but you know I hope you know next five years next ten years we can all make slim positive happen and this mess of eccentrics on YouTube it's a much more positive basis for you know future positive political action then a lot of movements had when they were first getting organized so here's to you man here's to us here's the future y'all see that I'm down with a capital g bt boy you can't [ __ ] with me in your neighborhood you better done sighs Kim is crazy as [ __ ] when I'm going out believe something hell if I ever got me feel I'll give a [ __ ] that's no problem see the month cooking out mound up some sass male go creep baba never see you go fast fine he's gonna find as you to show easy nothing on me