Vegans can be idiots, too: Barbara4u2c, "Vegan community is fu*ked up!"
16 October 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
now here are the issues with this vegan
community what has this turned into makes me wanna puke this is how you usually puke if you know I'm a nice yen today the kind of one who bring some attention to a channel that I've really been getting into the channel it's called a boss lay seal I apologize I'm butchering the name but no Jin is in Mizzou I do not really give a [ __ ] what people do it's not the same thing you know I don't care what other people do and I don't care what other people think of me I don't eat me because I would cry for a week the whole reason why I even turned vegan is because I saw some documentaries and I just don't I just don't like how they treat animals so if you saw these documentaries and you don't like how they treat animals not not we they right what difference does it make whether they are treating the animals that way to bruise the food that's on your place as opposed to your co-workers play your father's play your son's played someone else's play you're sitting the same table with you if you care about outcomes it doesn't matter this can't possibly be a cult of personal purity it can't be about you and your feelings and your emotions and your happiness on some level this has to be about actual animals actual economic impacts actual ecological impacts real-world outcomes I was a vegetarian for 14 years before I was vegan I didn't really you know advertise that because it is an eating habit it's like calling yourself a proud licker of lollipops that was not a best example it's an eating habit so the first point here has been addressed on this channel before no veganism is not just a diet of course it is a diet it partly is a diet it partly is an eating habit as as she says but it is profoundly different from any other eating habit because is concerned with a comes you can state that a little bit more ambitiously or pretentiously by saying it's concerned with saving the world or saving the animals or ecology or reducing suffering there are many many ways to say that but at its most simple and blunt we are talking about outcomes and as soon as we're talking about outcomes the whole question is shifted away from merely personal happiness personal diet preference or personal enjoyment of your life among other things the shift to outcomes means that it's not just a question of what I eat it's a question of what you eat what my father eats what my son eats what everyone else around me in society it's my boss at work my coworkers because if anyone is eating animals then it creates the same injustice as if I myself eat animals it creates the same injustice the same ecological impact etc it doesn't really matter who does the eating and for that reason inevitably vegans have to get organized into a movement for social change we have to move beyond our own plate our own Forks our own knives that is inevitable so this issue I addressed more than a year ago on this channel I forget how long ago it was but in the first video starting with vegans on this channel one of the issues I really tried to put some emphasis on was the fact that we as vegans in many ways we're never going to be cool the concept culturally of coolness in the West really does rely on this attitude that she's exhibiting here of boasting that you don't care boasting that you do not give a [ __ ] and that is that is cool that's cool in rock and roll it's cool in rap it's cool in movies having characters that are reckless and don't care about consequences and don't care about people and don't care about suffering don't care about the harm they're doing being heedless of the consequences of your action is an element of coolness and boasting about how you don't care about how you don't give a [ __ ] in her words that it's definitely part of our modern Western tradition of coolness and veganism is not cool veganism will never be cool veganism very much relies on me looking into your eyes and saying to you look I CAIR this matters to me and I want you to care also I sat down in a restaurant yesterday so I forget that was yesterday presto I said in a restaurant yes it was just yesterday and the waitress served me noodles that were allegedly vegan it's an arrest a buddhist restaurant that you know put us paraphernalia all over the walls and people actually chanting Sanskrit horribly mispronounced Sanskrit and you know the waitress brought me these noodles and from the smell of the noodles I could tell they had egg in them and I said look I'm sorry you have to go and ask the chef I believe these noodles have agaton that's not cool I'm gonna say already it's not cool it would be cool to just not care or have fun or what-have-you and when she came back she did eventually ascertain that the noodles were made with egg and I said to her passionately because I've really cared I said look you can't call this vegan food if there are eggs and the noodles when you use eggs you're still killing animals I said this in Chinese this is about as eloquent as I could be it's not cool I'm the first to admit you know and I didn't plan to say that it wasn't contrived it wasn't a political strategy I was just sincerely reacting the fact that I've been served something that contained eggs invisibly so and you know love was disappointing what have you but it's not cool the truth is I really care I really have that reaction I care on a small scale I care about what's on my own plate I care about the suffering of hens living their whole lives in a steel cage invisibly somewhere far away it's connected by an economic dotted line from that far away farm that far away factory to the food that was on my plate than in there and also in a sense I care about this waitress who'd never even thought about it before I mean she was very young waiter she looked like she was 16 or 18 years old I think she had never thought this through before I care about her and everyone else knowing this stuff so yeah I care and you're right what school what's culturally appropriate is to have this attitude instead of saying I don't give a [ __ ] but I do I that's not me and people who become vegan activists people take the next step beyond just their own personal diet they are the people who care they are the people who want to see that change in the world on a small scale on a big scale in their own backyard around the old for the future for the animals for the environment and if you don't care I think you got to look in the mirror and ask yourself why are you boasting about that in a sense why aren't you ashamed or why aren't you humble about that instead of being humble about the things she's about to go on and claim she's so humble about it's not the same thing you know I don't care what people do and I don't care what other people think of me so again why why would you be boasting about this if you don't care what other people do really I think some humility is in order I can understand that I mean there are all kinds of surgeries I don't care about you can't care about everything I do not care equally about Cambodia and Indonesia I don't I don't you know just this week I did a lot of reading about current politics in Cambodia it's not worth mentioning why I have a long history of engaged with all of you and you know what if there were equally interesting things happening Indonesia I really wouldn't care because I'm finite I can't know about the history and politics ever country I completely admit that but I would never come on camera boasting that I don't give a [ __ ] about some human suffering some serious public problem in Indonesia I would never be boasting about my indifference and it's true I care less about Africa than I do about Cambodia because I'm finite I can't study everything I can't know what everything I can't care about everything some countries and some languages are part of my life and some are not I can't have expertise in everything I can't make a positive impact everywhere but if you are vegan if you know the harm that's being done by meat why would you come on camera and boast as she has just said she that she doesn't care what other people think about her and she doesn't care about the conduct of other people if you care about outcomes then of course you care you care about the fact that your neighbor is eating meat and if you're not because the impact is the same the the cow is still having its throat cut it doesn't matter whether the steak ends up on his plate or on your plate if you want to have real-world outcomes you have to start changing the world with at least small groups of people not isolated individuals just ridiculous it's not the same thing you know I don't care whether people do it out of here people think of me however vegans out there god damn it you need to stop especially some vegan youtubers out there like source shop or freelee the banana girl who are basically bullying people into becoming vegans like this is something so moralistic this is interesting to me on this channel I have many many times criticised freely freelee the banana girl but this is not my criticism of really I have a completely different set of reasons for why criticize really what my concerns are freely is someone who has come on camera and said that if you follow her magical diet you do not need to use soap or shampoo freely has claimed on camera that your skin is self-cleaning if you follow her diet and freely has claimed on camera that garlic is a neurotoxin all kinds of pseudoscience all kinds of ridiculous advice caning veganism to an ocean of beauty and health that's ultimately ultimately its fallacious it's bad advice even if what you want is is beauty and to lose weight and so on there are so many reasons why I criticize what freely does and how she does it and yet it's hilarious to me here's a vegan with whom I disagree her reason for criticizing freely is because it is so moralistic and of course that the irony is here that's maybe that's one of the crucial elements of what really does that I do sympathize with obviously you know I don't disagree with freely about everything there are elements of her channel and all most of her career that I can positively appreciate including just her sincerity when you see her coming on camera sometimes when you see that she really does care and that she really has moral concern and even if really is going about it in a totally inept way or in a counterproductive way that it is it is moralistic for her in a moral sense she's trying to make the world a better place and even if I disagree with freely about 90% of the stuff on her channel I can still sympathise with them and if you're vegan I don't know what can't you from like you do realize that you cannot be an absolute vegan ever whatever that means I really hate this argument that you can't be an absolute vegan on the first of all logically the correct answer is so what okay you know what if if you can never be a perfect driver does that mean that you should never drive a car if you're a vegan and at some point you kill an animal like you live in Canada and at some point you kill a bear it's really very possible killing bears happens in Canada bears attack people bears break into people's houses bears smell garbage in your backyard and then end up coming into your house it is not a ridiculous scenario to talk about being a vegan and at some point push comes to shove and you have to kill a bear and then you're standing there over the corpse of this bear would you then just give up being a vegan would you then say well I mean it's impossible to be a perfect vegan because when you get attacked by a bear you end up killing a bear I guess I'll just start going the McDonald's every day I guess I'll just start eating the standard American diet I guess you know there's there's no point in avoiding eating cheese because I can't be a perfect vegan the the idea that that perfection would be the criterion you apply to this is already ridiculous and self-defeating but secondarily I mean again I assume this person has no experience with any other type of political movement or activism let's say you want to help people in Cambodia and let's say it's within the last hundred years Cambodia's had a tremendously colorful history you know Cambodia today there are problems with poverty and you know sewage treatment plants and medical care and there are so many social problems Cambodia is a rapidly developing country they have you know political problems of many many different kinds but in the recent past for decades there was war and civil war in Cambodia instability of terrible kind this idea of being a perfect vegan there's nothing even compare it to in other forms political activism you can't save everybody in Cambodia can you save even one person in Cambodia if you look at again look at the last 100 years of what happened in Cambodia you feel so powerless as a human being looking at a real political crisis like that what part again today you could pick a different example you could look at the war in Syria you can look at the war in eastern Ukraine can you make any positive impact at all can you save one person and even if you can if you can do something positive you can save a few people what if your program at the same time is doing harm is doing damage in order to help those few people or in order to have some some positive outcomes it's very real I mean in real humanitarian intervention has terrible trade-offs terrible costs not just financial customers cost in human lives where some people are dying in order to save some other people it's gruesome and wouldn't there be any question of well can you be a perfect humanitarian or can you save everyone in Cambodia can you save everyone in Syria can you save everyone in the eastern Ukraine no question of that so already with veganism we're looking at it with this kind of absurdly high standard if you're vegan and you got to kill some rats life is full of contradictions if you're vegan you got to kill a bear labels whole countries if you're vegan and you go to a restaurant and somebody lies to you and serves you food that invisibly contains meat life is full of contradictions and I feel for you you may be very upset if you have to kill a bear you may be very upset if you have to kill a rat or if you have that scenario at a restaurant but there is no reason there to say well you can't be a perfect vegan therefore why even bother with being vegan as a matter persons that are why even bother with veganism as as a political social movement it's just ridiculous if you have a chance to go out and rescue a cat or a dog or let's not discriminate a bird do so because they really need our help so you know donate some food to shelters or go and donate some food to homeless people you know just do something good so again I come back to this question do outcomes matter or not if outcomes matter this woman like many other vegans has to face up the fact that this is really just a dangerous distraction that she's endorsing if you save a bird or you save a stray cat it's not going to change anything not now not if you keep doing it every year for ten years it's not gonna change anything ten years from now not if a hundred people do it every year in the next ten years it's not gonna close down a single slaughterhouse it's not gonna have a dance not even the smallest dent imaginable on our culture and our economy of animal exploitation okay now by contrast if the government passes a twenty five percent tax on leather shoes and as a program encouraging people to buy non leather shoes because leather shoes are now obsolete there's no rational reason why women need to wear high-heeled shoes made at 11 leather there's no practical functional reason for athletes to have to wear basketball shoes made it leather we can now wear shoes that have no leather in them something like that which is not radical which is not people screaming in the streets it's not based on protest in a sense doesn't even interrupt anyone's lives that can actually send a profound single signal through an entire society that you know what leather shoes have to become things of the past if we actually as a society whether it's through legislation or through cultural change or a combination of the two if we move towards really making leather obsolete if we move towards as as a movement really inducing and motivating people to stop eating meat to eliminate me from their diets same ways I've described eliminating leather from their wardrobes things can change the total number of animal slaughtering can decline but the reality is anyone can look up the statistics within my lifetime the number of animals being slaughtered has only increased and it continues to increase those industries are expanding they continue to expand and you can engage in a [ __ ] you can convince yourself that you're a morally good person because you rescued a cat from the street and it's not it's even debatable rescue it's really genuinely debatable whether or not that cat is gonna have a better life or a worse life after you rescue it after you chop up its testicles after you took away the little bit of freedom at hat living on the streets to live on its own term to seek out its own food to kill rats to meet with its own species to live among some kind you rescue this animal to turn it into a plaything on your couch to medicate it castrate it turn it into a toy take away its last inch of Liberty make it into something that entertains you and makes you feel good was a fine okay so you do that you call that rescuing an animal to take a wild or feral animal and turn it into your pet fine I'm not even going to debate the morality that with you right now but I'm gonna add you to reconsider how will the world ever change how will veganism ever attain its goals if that's your idea of activism how is it ever gonna be that the actual industries we're talking about come to an end that for example people simply stop wearing leather if that's if your idea of changed the world is to be silent about your own veganism and to silently and invisibly rescue a couple of cats a year that is really a dangerous distraction and a delusion of moral purity that's a terrible stuff it's no substitute for real activism it's not the same thing you know I don't care what other people do and I don't care what other people think of me there's a famous quotation from Socrates the unexamined life is not worth living as with most famous quotations you normally hear it quoted out of context for one thing the original phrase ends with the words for men so it is sometimes translated as the unexamined life is not worth living for human beings and it's an interesting line when it's phrased that way because as vegans as people interested in animal rights ecology future of the planet um very often we're asking ourselves what life is worth living for animals in contrast to what life is looking for human beings it's also interesting that the the original question the context for it is that Socrates asks himself he says you may ask me why it is I can't stop teaching philosophy why does I can't stop having these discussions these controversial topics conversation why can't I just go away live a quiet life and stop talking about these things and it's in response to that hypothetical question that he says the unexamined life is not worth living for men in a situation here in the digital vegan demi-monde the world of vegan politics in the internet it really has changed in 2016 and I've played a very strange role in that process of change I think I can say with some confidence that we are never going back to the world as it was in 2014 today nobody writes to me saying how dare you ask these questions how dare you engage in the critique of other vegans and when this channel first started that really was kind of the the knee-jerk reaction seem to be the main reaction across the board and people used to accuse me of being anti vegan because I dared to ask these questions and you know there really is a sense in which I could use this line I could reply to that saying look the unexamined life is not worth living a virus Yin
community what has this turned into makes me wanna puke this is how you usually puke if you know I'm a nice yen today the kind of one who bring some attention to a channel that I've really been getting into the channel it's called a boss lay seal I apologize I'm butchering the name but no Jin is in Mizzou I do not really give a [ __ ] what people do it's not the same thing you know I don't care what other people do and I don't care what other people think of me I don't eat me because I would cry for a week the whole reason why I even turned vegan is because I saw some documentaries and I just don't I just don't like how they treat animals so if you saw these documentaries and you don't like how they treat animals not not we they right what difference does it make whether they are treating the animals that way to bruise the food that's on your place as opposed to your co-workers play your father's play your son's played someone else's play you're sitting the same table with you if you care about outcomes it doesn't matter this can't possibly be a cult of personal purity it can't be about you and your feelings and your emotions and your happiness on some level this has to be about actual animals actual economic impacts actual ecological impacts real-world outcomes I was a vegetarian for 14 years before I was vegan I didn't really you know advertise that because it is an eating habit it's like calling yourself a proud licker of lollipops that was not a best example it's an eating habit so the first point here has been addressed on this channel before no veganism is not just a diet of course it is a diet it partly is a diet it partly is an eating habit as as she says but it is profoundly different from any other eating habit because is concerned with a comes you can state that a little bit more ambitiously or pretentiously by saying it's concerned with saving the world or saving the animals or ecology or reducing suffering there are many many ways to say that but at its most simple and blunt we are talking about outcomes and as soon as we're talking about outcomes the whole question is shifted away from merely personal happiness personal diet preference or personal enjoyment of your life among other things the shift to outcomes means that it's not just a question of what I eat it's a question of what you eat what my father eats what my son eats what everyone else around me in society it's my boss at work my coworkers because if anyone is eating animals then it creates the same injustice as if I myself eat animals it creates the same injustice the same ecological impact etc it doesn't really matter who does the eating and for that reason inevitably vegans have to get organized into a movement for social change we have to move beyond our own plate our own Forks our own knives that is inevitable so this issue I addressed more than a year ago on this channel I forget how long ago it was but in the first video starting with vegans on this channel one of the issues I really tried to put some emphasis on was the fact that we as vegans in many ways we're never going to be cool the concept culturally of coolness in the West really does rely on this attitude that she's exhibiting here of boasting that you don't care boasting that you do not give a [ __ ] and that is that is cool that's cool in rock and roll it's cool in rap it's cool in movies having characters that are reckless and don't care about consequences and don't care about people and don't care about suffering don't care about the harm they're doing being heedless of the consequences of your action is an element of coolness and boasting about how you don't care about how you don't give a [ __ ] in her words that it's definitely part of our modern Western tradition of coolness and veganism is not cool veganism will never be cool veganism very much relies on me looking into your eyes and saying to you look I CAIR this matters to me and I want you to care also I sat down in a restaurant yesterday so I forget that was yesterday presto I said in a restaurant yes it was just yesterday and the waitress served me noodles that were allegedly vegan it's an arrest a buddhist restaurant that you know put us paraphernalia all over the walls and people actually chanting Sanskrit horribly mispronounced Sanskrit and you know the waitress brought me these noodles and from the smell of the noodles I could tell they had egg in them and I said look I'm sorry you have to go and ask the chef I believe these noodles have agaton that's not cool I'm gonna say already it's not cool it would be cool to just not care or have fun or what-have-you and when she came back she did eventually ascertain that the noodles were made with egg and I said to her passionately because I've really cared I said look you can't call this vegan food if there are eggs and the noodles when you use eggs you're still killing animals I said this in Chinese this is about as eloquent as I could be it's not cool I'm the first to admit you know and I didn't plan to say that it wasn't contrived it wasn't a political strategy I was just sincerely reacting the fact that I've been served something that contained eggs invisibly so and you know love was disappointing what have you but it's not cool the truth is I really care I really have that reaction I care on a small scale I care about what's on my own plate I care about the suffering of hens living their whole lives in a steel cage invisibly somewhere far away it's connected by an economic dotted line from that far away farm that far away factory to the food that was on my plate than in there and also in a sense I care about this waitress who'd never even thought about it before I mean she was very young waiter she looked like she was 16 or 18 years old I think she had never thought this through before I care about her and everyone else knowing this stuff so yeah I care and you're right what school what's culturally appropriate is to have this attitude instead of saying I don't give a [ __ ] but I do I that's not me and people who become vegan activists people take the next step beyond just their own personal diet they are the people who care they are the people who want to see that change in the world on a small scale on a big scale in their own backyard around the old for the future for the animals for the environment and if you don't care I think you got to look in the mirror and ask yourself why are you boasting about that in a sense why aren't you ashamed or why aren't you humble about that instead of being humble about the things she's about to go on and claim she's so humble about it's not the same thing you know I don't care what people do and I don't care what other people think of me so again why why would you be boasting about this if you don't care what other people do really I think some humility is in order I can understand that I mean there are all kinds of surgeries I don't care about you can't care about everything I do not care equally about Cambodia and Indonesia I don't I don't you know just this week I did a lot of reading about current politics in Cambodia it's not worth mentioning why I have a long history of engaged with all of you and you know what if there were equally interesting things happening Indonesia I really wouldn't care because I'm finite I can't know about the history and politics ever country I completely admit that but I would never come on camera boasting that I don't give a [ __ ] about some human suffering some serious public problem in Indonesia I would never be boasting about my indifference and it's true I care less about Africa than I do about Cambodia because I'm finite I can't study everything I can't know what everything I can't care about everything some countries and some languages are part of my life and some are not I can't have expertise in everything I can't make a positive impact everywhere but if you are vegan if you know the harm that's being done by meat why would you come on camera and boast as she has just said she that she doesn't care what other people think about her and she doesn't care about the conduct of other people if you care about outcomes then of course you care you care about the fact that your neighbor is eating meat and if you're not because the impact is the same the the cow is still having its throat cut it doesn't matter whether the steak ends up on his plate or on your plate if you want to have real-world outcomes you have to start changing the world with at least small groups of people not isolated individuals just ridiculous it's not the same thing you know I don't care whether people do it out of here people think of me however vegans out there god damn it you need to stop especially some vegan youtubers out there like source shop or freelee the banana girl who are basically bullying people into becoming vegans like this is something so moralistic this is interesting to me on this channel I have many many times criticised freely freelee the banana girl but this is not my criticism of really I have a completely different set of reasons for why criticize really what my concerns are freely is someone who has come on camera and said that if you follow her magical diet you do not need to use soap or shampoo freely has claimed on camera that your skin is self-cleaning if you follow her diet and freely has claimed on camera that garlic is a neurotoxin all kinds of pseudoscience all kinds of ridiculous advice caning veganism to an ocean of beauty and health that's ultimately ultimately its fallacious it's bad advice even if what you want is is beauty and to lose weight and so on there are so many reasons why I criticize what freely does and how she does it and yet it's hilarious to me here's a vegan with whom I disagree her reason for criticizing freely is because it is so moralistic and of course that the irony is here that's maybe that's one of the crucial elements of what really does that I do sympathize with obviously you know I don't disagree with freely about everything there are elements of her channel and all most of her career that I can positively appreciate including just her sincerity when you see her coming on camera sometimes when you see that she really does care and that she really has moral concern and even if really is going about it in a totally inept way or in a counterproductive way that it is it is moralistic for her in a moral sense she's trying to make the world a better place and even if I disagree with freely about 90% of the stuff on her channel I can still sympathise with them and if you're vegan I don't know what can't you from like you do realize that you cannot be an absolute vegan ever whatever that means I really hate this argument that you can't be an absolute vegan on the first of all logically the correct answer is so what okay you know what if if you can never be a perfect driver does that mean that you should never drive a car if you're a vegan and at some point you kill an animal like you live in Canada and at some point you kill a bear it's really very possible killing bears happens in Canada bears attack people bears break into people's houses bears smell garbage in your backyard and then end up coming into your house it is not a ridiculous scenario to talk about being a vegan and at some point push comes to shove and you have to kill a bear and then you're standing there over the corpse of this bear would you then just give up being a vegan would you then say well I mean it's impossible to be a perfect vegan because when you get attacked by a bear you end up killing a bear I guess I'll just start going the McDonald's every day I guess I'll just start eating the standard American diet I guess you know there's there's no point in avoiding eating cheese because I can't be a perfect vegan the the idea that that perfection would be the criterion you apply to this is already ridiculous and self-defeating but secondarily I mean again I assume this person has no experience with any other type of political movement or activism let's say you want to help people in Cambodia and let's say it's within the last hundred years Cambodia's had a tremendously colorful history you know Cambodia today there are problems with poverty and you know sewage treatment plants and medical care and there are so many social problems Cambodia is a rapidly developing country they have you know political problems of many many different kinds but in the recent past for decades there was war and civil war in Cambodia instability of terrible kind this idea of being a perfect vegan there's nothing even compare it to in other forms political activism you can't save everybody in Cambodia can you save even one person in Cambodia if you look at again look at the last 100 years of what happened in Cambodia you feel so powerless as a human being looking at a real political crisis like that what part again today you could pick a different example you could look at the war in Syria you can look at the war in eastern Ukraine can you make any positive impact at all can you save one person and even if you can if you can do something positive you can save a few people what if your program at the same time is doing harm is doing damage in order to help those few people or in order to have some some positive outcomes it's very real I mean in real humanitarian intervention has terrible trade-offs terrible costs not just financial customers cost in human lives where some people are dying in order to save some other people it's gruesome and wouldn't there be any question of well can you be a perfect humanitarian or can you save everyone in Cambodia can you save everyone in Syria can you save everyone in the eastern Ukraine no question of that so already with veganism we're looking at it with this kind of absurdly high standard if you're vegan and you got to kill some rats life is full of contradictions if you're vegan you got to kill a bear labels whole countries if you're vegan and you go to a restaurant and somebody lies to you and serves you food that invisibly contains meat life is full of contradictions and I feel for you you may be very upset if you have to kill a bear you may be very upset if you have to kill a rat or if you have that scenario at a restaurant but there is no reason there to say well you can't be a perfect vegan therefore why even bother with being vegan as a matter persons that are why even bother with veganism as as a political social movement it's just ridiculous if you have a chance to go out and rescue a cat or a dog or let's not discriminate a bird do so because they really need our help so you know donate some food to shelters or go and donate some food to homeless people you know just do something good so again I come back to this question do outcomes matter or not if outcomes matter this woman like many other vegans has to face up the fact that this is really just a dangerous distraction that she's endorsing if you save a bird or you save a stray cat it's not going to change anything not now not if you keep doing it every year for ten years it's not gonna change anything ten years from now not if a hundred people do it every year in the next ten years it's not gonna close down a single slaughterhouse it's not gonna have a dance not even the smallest dent imaginable on our culture and our economy of animal exploitation okay now by contrast if the government passes a twenty five percent tax on leather shoes and as a program encouraging people to buy non leather shoes because leather shoes are now obsolete there's no rational reason why women need to wear high-heeled shoes made at 11 leather there's no practical functional reason for athletes to have to wear basketball shoes made it leather we can now wear shoes that have no leather in them something like that which is not radical which is not people screaming in the streets it's not based on protest in a sense doesn't even interrupt anyone's lives that can actually send a profound single signal through an entire society that you know what leather shoes have to become things of the past if we actually as a society whether it's through legislation or through cultural change or a combination of the two if we move towards really making leather obsolete if we move towards as as a movement really inducing and motivating people to stop eating meat to eliminate me from their diets same ways I've described eliminating leather from their wardrobes things can change the total number of animal slaughtering can decline but the reality is anyone can look up the statistics within my lifetime the number of animals being slaughtered has only increased and it continues to increase those industries are expanding they continue to expand and you can engage in a [ __ ] you can convince yourself that you're a morally good person because you rescued a cat from the street and it's not it's even debatable rescue it's really genuinely debatable whether or not that cat is gonna have a better life or a worse life after you rescue it after you chop up its testicles after you took away the little bit of freedom at hat living on the streets to live on its own term to seek out its own food to kill rats to meet with its own species to live among some kind you rescue this animal to turn it into a plaything on your couch to medicate it castrate it turn it into a toy take away its last inch of Liberty make it into something that entertains you and makes you feel good was a fine okay so you do that you call that rescuing an animal to take a wild or feral animal and turn it into your pet fine I'm not even going to debate the morality that with you right now but I'm gonna add you to reconsider how will the world ever change how will veganism ever attain its goals if that's your idea of activism how is it ever gonna be that the actual industries we're talking about come to an end that for example people simply stop wearing leather if that's if your idea of changed the world is to be silent about your own veganism and to silently and invisibly rescue a couple of cats a year that is really a dangerous distraction and a delusion of moral purity that's a terrible stuff it's no substitute for real activism it's not the same thing you know I don't care what other people do and I don't care what other people think of me there's a famous quotation from Socrates the unexamined life is not worth living as with most famous quotations you normally hear it quoted out of context for one thing the original phrase ends with the words for men so it is sometimes translated as the unexamined life is not worth living for human beings and it's an interesting line when it's phrased that way because as vegans as people interested in animal rights ecology future of the planet um very often we're asking ourselves what life is worth living for animals in contrast to what life is looking for human beings it's also interesting that the the original question the context for it is that Socrates asks himself he says you may ask me why it is I can't stop teaching philosophy why does I can't stop having these discussions these controversial topics conversation why can't I just go away live a quiet life and stop talking about these things and it's in response to that hypothetical question that he says the unexamined life is not worth living for men in a situation here in the digital vegan demi-monde the world of vegan politics in the internet it really has changed in 2016 and I've played a very strange role in that process of change I think I can say with some confidence that we are never going back to the world as it was in 2014 today nobody writes to me saying how dare you ask these questions how dare you engage in the critique of other vegans and when this channel first started that really was kind of the the knee-jerk reaction seem to be the main reaction across the board and people used to accuse me of being anti vegan because I dared to ask these questions and you know there really is a sense in which I could use this line I could reply to that saying look the unexamined life is not worth living a virus Yin