[Discussion:] A Protest-Based Diet? Revolutionaries & Restaurateurs.
23 June 2017 [link youtube]
Vegan / Vegans / Veganism
Youtube Automatic Transcription
so something you just said to me was you
don't know how to feel about protests yeah I don't have experience with protests I haven't been involved I haven't held up signs I haven't gone door-to-door protesting things yeah um I have had the option to in Detroit did some activists that were standing outside of places that would sell fur and I just didn't know if it would be effective I didn't know it was something that I should be involved in um I thought if people were going to a store buying fur they would already be aware of where it came from I did not really care that yeah there are people standing outside claiming that they are murderers just for the how long have you moving it about two years so I think some vegans like direct action everywhere try to present veganism as if protests Street protests is really the core of what being vegan is all about and for some people it's something very minor or it's something it's a footnote it's something around the margins like veganism exists it's this movement it does this long list of things but there's really no obvious reason why protests it's got to be at the center of it yeah well the main reason I can think of is that you real helpless you feel like I didn't do something right right we were talking about with that you were just saying that with Wayne's young like that sure after years and years of not feeling like he's being effective right feeling like you want to make a difference right yeah he came to this conclusion that protest would be something that all right right media it'd be great but in terms of the in terms of that feeling like when you think about it that's you raging against public and difference so it's the people who are not vegan that's your reach others but there's another way to take that feeling like some people feel like the core of veganism is about the animal sanctuaries or is about rescuing stray cats and like that's not a joke you can meet people and like their whole [ __ ] life like every day they're spending hours and hours taking care of stray casts so again that's I mean that I think that there's something similar there so wanting to feel like you're making a difference mm-hmm but that feeling is being put into animal sanctuaries or raising cats you know that these other these other directions to take it in yeah like I know that feeling because just I went vegan overnight after we're in conspiracy and I was I told all my friends and family that I thought would be interested and I did the response was just lackluster it wasn't what I wanted to hear it wasn't the same response that I had like why do people not know this how did I not know this or how was I blind to it maybe ignorant so yeah I do know that feeling of just wanting to scream at people like wake up but sure it's sometimes it's come up here like we used a day when we're particularly busy like we weren't doing anything particular said to me you may not remember this you said to me like there has to be something more we can do I mean I've been ISM you know like what just comes and you know I feel you like you know what you know again I don't know what was you probably had something on your mind probably something you just always something particular you had in mind but like I know it just comes up sometimes we're just like there has to be something more we can do you know a cake you know it can't just be a diet you know ya know it has to be something else like because just the diet won't won't be effective in creating more vegan people I think maybe for a short period of time people will see it as a fad diet but I don't think well mmm yeah be a long-term solution well you know like I believe me I'm not I'm really not boasting when I say this if anything I'm laughing at myself being self-critical but I had a situation at work where the topic of the day the students have this organized workshop type of thing I had no advance warning I show up and I'm told like 5 seconds went at the topic of the day is animals and the students want me to give a lecture about animals in English so this is partly these are Chinese University students back practicing their English and so on and you know I basically gave them a lecture about veganism I was speaking both in English and and Chinese now I think I'm the first person to be critical so critical that say look you know like real life is not activism your job is not these kids that they don't want to hear it you know I mean like there are so many levels in which I could say this is kind of goofy or ridiculous but again you know I kind of couldn't help myself and it did have an impact if you guys have seen on this channel there's one video that's called they don't pay me to sing and it's the students singing this song they do with these horses every time this workshop anyway I gave them this this lecture and ended by saying the conclusion of it was every day you are killing animals for no good reason and there was this kind of nervous laugh but that was you know this laugh that that went around and I said it's true and there were other elements of it - I mean I'm by far the biggest human being at this event like there none of the Chinese guys in China there if you hang out in the basketball court you can meet bigger Chinese guys but I said look I'm bigger than you I'm stronger than you I'm stronger than anyone here you know there are no college athletes they're you you do not need to meet every day you were killing animals for no reason in this birth and you know so that was really the conclusion was my saying to them you know all these other topics got covered pretty briefly because I was I was invited to give a lecture about animals and that's what I'm gonna talk about is eating animals you know I'm not gonna say upgraded as dev a pet dog or something and then they sang that song this week and that was the most somber rendition that's soppin I've I've I've ever heard you know yeah give a try I can be the one I really yeah yeah so this but yeah it was a really down beat yeah kill animals every day yeah this is really downbeat version of the song right look I just mentioned so you know like um I don't know like you know there are even other words there's activism there's public outrage this education there's getting organized there's many different ways to politicize veganism there's many ways to try to make a difference in the world but I feel I mean like for you like you're mostly talking about your college days I assume you know knows after oh okay well I'll rephrase this question I think what what I wanted to say was just like during college many people have a kind of unexamined idealization of street protests yeah that for every movement whether it's whether it's feminism or the war in Iraq that for every movement the seal of authenticity is Street protest yeah yeah yeah I think I told you in college at least since in the city that I was in there weren't very many protest yeah that I knew of at least yeah which is surprising good yeah didn't did people take buses to go to protest in New York City or sign in bigger cities or webaim's I honestly don't know okay it's probably yeah but I I wasn't involved politically yeah which I do it like I wish I had gotten more involved with yeah it's weird like look so I'm from downtown Toronto and downtown Toronto culture and politically is really very different from the suburbs probably a lot of cities are like that but Toronto is one example and I went to the largest three protests in the history of Canada I think it still has the record maybe's knows but it was basically against expanding the war into Afghanistan against that kind of you know after 2001 it was against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan at whatever stage we were at then I forget I think was before the war in Afghanistan started yet you know at that stage and so a huge number of people attended and you know we was downtown and so we walking along this Main Street in Toronto and I could look up into the windows in the shopping malls on either side one shopping mall in particular these big glass windows and the expressions on the faces of the people who are not participating of in comprehension and condemnation and just kind of disgust for this merger was a peace protest I mean it's like the purest guy was basically we don't want a war we don't want to expand this war for there's an incredibly simple message compared to veganism you know ii mean probably just keeping scorn because they thought it was unpatriotic people well not cuz this is canada this is not even the state so it's not it doesn't even have it no it's really it really no it's a good point it's really different and that way there isn't even an almond patriot systems like we don't think the word Patriot was ever Patriots was ever used yeah because were September 11th didn't have in Canada yeah yeah it's very different kind of perspective it's like well why is why are we even getting involved in yeah I was probably there yeah perspective I'm you know so I just say like you know um I don't know like look other people that protest do they remember that as like the pinnacle of their political ado then that as a really happy meaningful memory like when they were a university what they went to that protest when they were younger maybe when they were older maybe they were 50 years old what happened but now they feel like I for other people subjectively and emotionally do they really idealize protest as something that from my perspective it is not because you know for me obviously the protest didn't work it we had then more than ten years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan it didn't win it didn't get it didn't get outcomes and you know it didn't at that protis I didn't meet one person or have one new friend or one connection you know there was nothing in terms of mobilization or organization there was no political organization came out of it there wasn't even anything within say the most left-wing party in Canada you know I mean like it didn't didn't have any political outcomes that way so I should I look back that no I don't feel ashamed I went to that point I don't feel bad about it in that sense but if anything what I was learning from that kind of experience um you know III was very critical of what the role is of these protests in people's own kind of dream life yeah yeah one that recently had been after Trump was elected was a women's March and I could have gone to one in Ann Arbor for that so that was one that just recently happened or I could have gone to the Capitol in Michigan Lansing but um no I didn't I didn't participate in that and it was kind of out of a sense of feeling like what what was this accomplishing other than kind of bringing women together to stand up against Trump but I just the things that he said because he had just been elected he didn't put any policies that were misogynistic heard yeah yeah like what yeah this is about just about the grabbing by the [ __ ] like scandal I came out like you know that right I'm not defending Trump not in support of him but I don't know what the women's March would do what outcomes gonna yeah yeah well you you must remember the Occupy Wall Street period now I was at 2011 yeah that's something like that yeah and then carried on into 2012 I think something so you know I was involved at that time with First Nations politics First Nations is our polite word in Canada for what Americans call American Indians native people indigenous people who say so first and just those first nations but you know for me there was this contrast at that time between what I thought was really the meaninglessness and incoherence of the Occupy Wall Street protests that's partly criticism is probably just I don't agree with like the parts of their agenda that are coherent I actually disagree with I don't want to go back to the gold standard their actual economic reforms they were calling for I don't agree with I don't want to go back to the gold standard and some of their crazy particular economic theories but anyway so that was that was very much going on and then we had these from my perspective really meaningful and really coherent protests by and for First Nations so in that area it's the Cree the edge it is the native peoples that that part of Canada and to me I remember saying to my my ex-wife my wife at the time saying look I feel like this is the contrast between the politics of the moment and the politics of the century like here are these protests for a cause that's gone on for more than a hundred years and I think it's still gonna be going on a hundred years in the future and here's this Occupy Wall Street thing and people think it's a video what what where is it going to be even five years from now what are the outcomes going to be and you know I don't know whether it's sad or positive but I think I won the my bad I mean I do feel that basically nothing positive no real outcomes came out of Occupy Wall Street despite the fact that it was so enormous it was so well widely covered in the media it occurred in so many cities and again so for me different people draw different lessons from this for me I would say well okay look at Occupy Wall Street and how little it accomplished and now we have to face up to the fact that as vegans even if we were as successful as Occupy Wall Street we'd still be a failure yeah you know yeah that's why I kind of the reason I like your channel so much is that you talk about legal change like actually changing policies to help the future the vegan movement because oh yeah and one thing that you had talked about recently that kind of blew my mind I did not really realize that um the JFK assassination was involved so much in Oh civil rights like oh yeah what I thought it was more about zero tests the protests that were so like important and that's that's what gets covered in my that's what was covered in my history class oh really yeah yeah yeah um so I didn't you know realize that it was something sure I can I mean I think it's also a question of like wallpaper in terms of the way newspapers present a story like for decades and decades the main like locus for political discussions was the front page of a newspaper and they would put a photograph of protesters while having the latest story about civil rights of the Vietnam War or whatever the controversy was and very often those photographs were indeed focused on young good-looking people young good-looking women you know wearing bikinis with flowers painted on their bite that was what dominated the front pages of newspapers you actually just mentioned it for that example when the anti-vietnam War protests started the core of the organization's the core of the anti-war movement was actually people old enough to remember World War 1 name over they were an T it was the same anti-war activist who averted its World War One in the 1950s and 1960s because they were you know so though those were not the people who were naked half naked and having flowers together there were the flower child you know protestors so you know but the problem is exactly thinking in terms of cause and effect okay so this this young woman in a bikini or these few young women bouquets who make a photogenic image for the newspapers to exploit frankly you know is that really the story of why the Vietnam War ended when it did is that the story of why civil rights legislation was passed when it passed and again especially if you're looking at it in terms of legislation the answer is no yeah really yeah and again in terms of you know the the role of gender politics in that LBJ so LBJ is the present United States who replaced JFK after his unexpected demise unexpected for some they expected it anyway you know LBJ his wife went from town to town so her nickname was Lady Bird Johnson and she gave these speeches directly addressed to you know white supremacists and white supremacists much the majority are very you know strong ideology that was the default view of society in the American South she went from town to town explaining why her husband a white Texan was supporting this new legislation that would integrate you know both specific institutions like the CIA and the FBI you know federal super the first time hiring black men and would you know integrate universities and education would have you I thought I may just say that's I mean can you call that activism standing up in front of that audience it means it's from the top down it's someone in a position of power and privilege who's changing the world and changing a strange a new society and the myth is that the street protest is people who are powerless and voiceless hmm t King taking to the streets yeah yeah that is yeah that's a contrast yeah yesterday you were just telling me that a mayor in Bangkok was it the arching mind or something that was vegan for like 20 years oh yeah years ago right and yeah so that maybe that's something that you know I wish we had more public figures who were vegan yeah could be something somebody that could right well I mean I guess he showed me again maybe that's implied cause when what is more important you know when you're looking at protests I mean obviously celebrity politics could cover that we have actors and musicians who are vegan yeah but yeah somebody like a mayor somebody like a Member of Parliament the politicians vegan can obviously have way more impact yeah then disgruntled university students I guess yeah it's definitely not gonna happen with Trump but I wish that you know Obama both Michelle and Barack Obama were very they were very intent on getting people more concerned about their health yes move-move was Michelle Obama is like government program to try to get kids more active well right and so now both bill and Al Gore our vegan in Bill Clinton's case he identifies primarily as a dietary vegan as a health vegan yeah but Al Gore is more or less an ecological and ethical vegan so what's a few decades too late for that to matter yeah but yeah conservatives kind of think Al Gore is a joke anyway yeah well he's shot I mean he had a shot he was the next last president United States you know he was you did win an election he was elected for his people didn't didn't quite turn out his plan again unexpected for some yeah but I mean you know look the other thing is about all these strategies is that they're not mutually exclusive so you know like it's not as if revolution from below and careful political change from above are mutually exclusive options yeah and how much did the protests for the civil rights movement how much did it influence when and why the right why why legal change was made right um so you can't you can't say it was there was no part it played no part in that but right well look at me on a human scale these things can be moved to exclusive but when I was looking at Earthling ad in my recent video um I see a lot of what he does as praiseworthy and I sympathetic and laudable yeah um however in my life uh it is an absolute either or IQ all that's living in China I have no civil rights you know I know freedom of speech I can't do street protests yeah we can't go out on the street we can good to it restaurant protests in front yeah and uh and that would be really ridiculous here and it wouldn't it wouldn't make sense in this culture otherwise to work there are there are pretty strong roots and right here where we are the local Buddhist organization requires all of its members to refuse to eat meat so we've talked about this refusing to eat meat is not the same as veganism it's not even the same as vegetarianism really but that's a requirement of the Buddhists hierarchy here in Indo home which is in so you know vegetarianism the basic idea of veganism does have local roots that you could work with all those all those issues and opportunities but yeah in terms of one person and how much time now much opportune you have these things are mutually exclusive but and when I look at something like earthling ed I more think of it in terms of the future like well okay so now for what in that one year you had 300 conversations with complete strangers who didn't want to hear which ed say fundamentally they don't want even ships a some respond positively some Ursula they have no interests they don't want you to say when I'm nursing is okay now looking ahead to the next five years how much could you get done if you were talking to people who were interested and did one of your job say yeah could to me that's even firstly yet for this specific guy it's like okay if he starts talking to people who actually want to hear what I say and actually want to cooperate them one get stuff done then I think he's going to accomplish way more in the next five years and doesn't mean that I think what he's done with the last one year is is bad and evil and wrong yeah even I think he was in that video cuz we were watching the top 10 yes yeah just giving us Pete he was giving a speech to people who in Tanwar it so yeah but if you did more of that I think so you see what it leads to see it leads to actual organization and actual lobbying or some some other kind of activism that is measurable goes but you remember babe I got an email from Julie carp strong mmm-hmm and as a joint carp from another guy he's mostly based on street street theatre you know where they play films they have not not in-your-face disruptive protest but kind of more quiet protests and then one-on-one conversations to people so while they're playing this documentary showing slaughterers conditions he goes up in his polite one-on-one conversations with people so that's really what he's into that that's what he devotes his time and effort to and he said to me and his message to me simply that he respects what on my channel likes what he does like he likes what I'm doing because he recognizes we need different kinds of strategies for different kinds of people Yeah right I do admire what earthling Ed and Joey kerbs wrong to you sure yeah sure I can definitely understand why they do it and I wish them the best yeah I hope I hope they do make it make a change for some like individual right on a bigger scale well look pedda People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals they paid the money and they got every single advertisement in the subway station remember this thing so there's one subway station London yeah let's go oh you know who can you know who can complain I'm sure I don't have the money to do that but that's an amazing form back to even though as vegans we all hate peda and that the ad pretty much just said go vegan like every single thing it showed a picture of a cute pig and said go vegan there was not much else it was a strictly vegan you know active protest yeah so I mean you know it's the different strategies for different people who have different means their decision some people might respond differently to the different forms to right will might respond to earthling ads approach some people might respond to the ads that sure that PETA put up and then subway station sure and it's an amazing fact that some people have converted to veganism because of this channel and it's an email talking about that so I do assume it's a very particular type of person respond to these intellectual discussions and and and become vegan yeah the onion night he made a video about protests and he was talking about how for him this this may not work for other people but actually being screamed at and a restaurant would have worked for him oh really and I was I can kind of sympathize with him because like when I would watch cowspiracy it made me realize these things that had been a little bit under the surface or just in the background that I didn't didn't think of and maybe if someone had been yelling at me in a restaurant like hey you're eating an animal I stop right I might have responded more so than other people but in his video he said yeah but I'm kind of weird out that way right I don't think most people hear that way generalizable yeah yeah so anyway I other people will respond differently and when I first watched cowspiracy and told other people to watch it other people did not respond the same way they just said oh that's that's a shame that's a shame right or that's a lie like my parents were my dad specifically like really skeptical really skeptical about the facts about the ecology and how it's or how animal agriculture affects ecology yeah and like you said some people in Canadian culture just say that's a lie that's any any inconvenient information they just response it with with denial yeah I mean you know it in terms of how I feel about that I mean again this this is still this question kind of is protest central to veganism there's a defined veganism is vegan as a defined in terms of protest it is well to quote direct action everywhere is activism the moral baseline and when they say activism they mean street protest yes they mean disruption so street protest and inside the bakeries and you know grocery stores or what have you or is it something marginal you know in terms of my whole life occurred my personal life my private life started with the face when you're talking to other grown adults I don't see how it is possible to be an adult and not question where does milk come from where does food come from you know and like I mean that on such a simple level I don't even mean it's an ethical obligation or athos off location intellectual obligation I'm just saying how is it possible that you like the person's are you got to be 25 years old or 35 years old 55 years old and you never questioned where does my food come from you know what I mean and that makes veganism completely different from any of the social moon because I I actually completely sympathize I feel like you know I did all this research on Cambodia but I'm not an expert on Syria and I can't be I can't really derail my whole life and start researching politics in Syria just because there's a new war in Syria you know and I'm tempted to I mean I was wounded when the Civil War started in Syria I remember hearing this one interview in the radio and weeping I was I was sitting there alone weeping it was an interview with actually a rock musician from Syria and he was talking about the body count it was very emotionally moving to me but you know it is is my point is I totally sympathize with people just saying look I know I'm not from Syria Syria is not part of my life they're not interested you know I can only choose to be interested in so many things but what I eat and drink yeah it's something that you can do every day you can choose yeah it's something you can't not do every day you know you must yeah yeah yeah yeah and oh I was gonna say at the time that I watch conspiracy a few months prior I had been in this state of really questioning what I'm gonna do with the future of my life with my future what I'm going to do how I'm going to make a positive impact on the world or at least not make a negative impact and a lot of it had to do with the environment how can i how can I be more environmentally friendly how can I be a better just member of this human race member of the planet yes for both of us really ecology came first we were kind of into ecology before we got into veganism yeah yeah so then a couple months later I was just scrolling through Netflix and I saw this documentary that was talking about the impacts of animal agriculture on ecology so that's why I got interested in it so I think if you don't have that base baseline interest in certain parts of veganism like you know there are three basic things like the ecology your health and then your caring about animal welfare so if one if one of three of those doesn't interest somebody I don't know I don't know how to reach them how do how to make them care about any of them right let alone to care about veganism in general right look at the health aspect though it does change things civil rights couldn't offer to make you more beautiful or to live longer or to have better clearer sinuses or clearer skin or think more clearly yeah I mean it was just it's I mean like you know like people joke about white guilt yeah well back in 1955 white guilt was really [ __ ] real again really were talking about there was in your face every day that you know this school was whites only in this restaurants only sometimes this water found was whites only like white guilt is not really to be trivialized and you know again sometimes in Canada we type of First Nation so my native people again I don't think I don't think was your joke about white guilt and what guilt is you don't real but but still having a guilt based movements and some vegans I think the protest face vegans they want to make it a guilt based movement but look so to real quick examples mean the health aspect really really matters when I was talking to my own mom I forget a couple days ago a couple weeks ago you know my mom wants to be more involved with my life in the next three years and I was basically saying to her look I don't really know if you've got three years you know like in terms of being healthy and active and not in the hospital and taking jets all over the world which is what she does she flies all around the world constantly and doing book tours and lectures this is the way she lives I said look and you may not realize it but the cholesterol in your diet doesn't just make you fat clog your arteries it clogs your brain atherosclerosis really needs to be thought of as a spectrum disorder you know the atherosclerosis of the brain is terrifying google it you'll regret you google it you know it's your life but you know I'm looking here on that that that health aspect is really is really pressing um and you know the health aspect I'm looking at my own ex-wife my own daughter they're now lacto-vegetarian so they're vegetarians who consume dairy and you know I am I do not think I think basically veganism is for adults this deals with grown-up issues I don't have a guilt based approach to my daughter drinking milk I don't want to have a protest based approach you know what I mean like you know what take a four-year-old to a you know [ __ ] budget people screaming on the strip you know that just music but the health aspect you know so I just say like you know I know we don't talk about the health aspect that often on this channel partly because there are channels already handleable enough it's important I told that to my parents to another documentary I had them watch actually watch it with them was vegetated and that talked a lot more about the health s person cowspiracy did and I would I told them you know all of my grandparents suffered from some level of dementia and so at throw sclerosis of the brain and it just doesn't seem to be very effective I think my mom is probably like then more convinced by it because she's a nurse but my dad not so much um so yeah like yeah yeah yeah so I mean you know look I have to admit I would be uncomfortable with veganism being primarily or wholly a health based movement I I'm just being honest with you and I do feel like you know in that in a video a few weeks ago I quoted that surgeon he's a heart surgery and heart attacks but he was actually saying he avoids using the word vegan because he doesn't want to using ethical he just is talking about dietary all yeah just talk about heart heart attacks and what happened he's advocating for a vegan diet but not for ethical veganism Orca logical veganism that that does freak me out but nevertheless with that have been noted the health aspect is really important and it really does I think you know galvanize and motivate people to keep going over the long long term and it does also make the protest centered approach you know seem a bit seem a bit ridiculous one of my patreon supporters I won't I won't name her I couldn't but I'll leave it in oh it was one of my patreon supporters wrote to me recently saying so her whole household is vegan but her son saved up don't allowance money and for whatever reason insisted on buying chicken so and then this was debated between the husband and the wife like okay so it's his choice like we got a respect forget the kids 11 or something like you know he's old enough to start making some choices like okay look if it's his money and he's going to buy the chicken we're not going to stop him even though there have sold this vegan over so he bought this chicken it from a restaurant you know cooked cooked chicken and then he got horribly ill he got something like Salmonella boys so then the mom is you know whatever cleaning up his vomit and cleaning up the mess the chicken made in the kitchen itself and all this stuff and feeling disgusted as the smell of the chicken house and and the the kid is sick and what-have-you and I remember one of my first reactions I wrote back to I said look you know if you put this in a movie or a sitcom it would seem fake maybe it's too perfect you know so the kid for the vegan house rebels against his parents yeah uh you know it's it's it's kind of too perfectly an example but sure I mean you know yeah yeah health health and so on can't be in the background and healthy is what brought in you know people like like Bill Clinton to play there very strange role in the movement but which is nevertheless I mean okay Bill Clinton being vegan it's it's more important than walking up to one more person on the street and telling them why are you wearing a fur coat or one more protest in front of things I don't know yeah even though it's nothing you can do I mean you have no role in somebody somebody in power becoming vegan but yeah I do think so look I mean just again so for me political activism is way broader and deeper than protests protesting is one thing is one type of activity and political activism is all kind of stuff and if you guys watch my channel unless you knew the channel I talk a lot about examples like Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers Against Drunk Driving is not a protest based movement they do public education they do yoga but they they literally show up in children's classrooms talk about drunk driving they have all these different formats of reaching out to the public publication and also reaching out to and influencing government laws in the past but they changed laws everywhere they change laws but everything's from seat belts to you know with the breathalyzer what percentage of alcohol is acceptable they influence government policy in a massive way but they're not a protest based movement they're not so politics is much bigger than than protest but I do have to say you know in a big way one of the reasons why I'm not considering living in Asia long term is that poll that I feel I need to be back I need to be back somewhere where I can be part of that those yeah yeah go up to town hall and talk about how you want to change light that's something like I've been interested in having the ability to go up and talk to the school board and say be like I don't want there to be dirty posters in the school like I don't want kids to see this propaganda for the darién why are you teaching kids that eggs are healthy yeah this kind of question hmm yeah being able to be involved with yeah a city well you know he said once I released the other but that was also funny I've been doing this survey with with my students it's their final oral exam and many many of the students for their final oral exam that a choice what they wanted to talk about and a lot of them talked about the importance of physical exercise sport phys ed what I want to say and in physical health in that sense sport training or says the I don't know I'm going to actually calculate what presented seemed like 25% of the students chose to but that how important sport was in their lives I'll figure out the actual percentage at the end of the assignment and it was interesting because when they were talking about that many of them what they were really talking about is their struggle as Chinese people to remain slim despite eating a diet that consists largely of pork fat you know very unhealthy very high fat oily you know but meat it's a meat-based diet here you know it is now you know this this they meet three miles a day they're eating meat breakfast lunch and dinner in even if it's in small portions and they and they yogurt here yogurt is big that they have all the stuff but was interesting because and but when they were talking about how meaningful phys ed physical education was in their lives it was like well think about how differ if we thought of that in terms of nutritional science yeah because he was one of the options you gave did anybody choose it I thought that was something was it I didn't I didn't give it to them I didn't give them no it's not okay okay okay but yeah sure you could yeah I mean in theory you could choose nutritional science but in a sense a lot of what they're talking about with sport and exercise is a struggle against their own ignorance of nutrition and you know I feel I'm a beneficiary I look kind of way better than I should I don't I don't get them justice I really don't uh but you know of looking way better than should because you not you're not setting that you're not creating that obstacle for yourself with the misunderstanding of health and diet yeah yeah but it's also not true that going out a vegan diet will make you yeah I'll eat a lot you can diet actually gained weight when I first wanna be ya know yeah totally understand ok well I look I mean ultimate veganism as a diet I've never heard about any diet really being successful because of protests like a protest based diet or protest getting people to adopt a diet that is really a stretch it really is it really is and it's not comparable to like think about instead the role of protease protests or anti-nuclear protests that's not asking you to change how you live 365 days a year you know like there were people because the anti-nuclear thing went on for decades and decades I remember when I was a small child ok so you're against nuclear bombs so realistically maybe four times a year you go to a protest against nuclear bombs and the other thing okay the other thing is about those movements everyone in them feels like an expert like a lot of you guys but like everyone who is in the anti-nuclear or anti-war movement in the 1980s they felt they knew everything about nuclear bombs you know I mean you know they're not experts they read a few pamphlets maybe they read one book whatever you know but they knew nuclear waste is bad nuclear wars but they had this simplistic view and they'll they get an ego trip out of it so maybe four times a year you go to a protest and you literally hold up a sign with the peace symbol on it and and they chant no more nukes and there's a big payoff right there's this big sense of I'm better than everyone else have an axe but they get they get a lot out of it that way and yeah I feel veganism is the opposite and all these things if this morose lonely ethical burden I don't feel great on the contrary it leads you elite you to regard parents as scumbags and you know all this like I have so many videos talking about this where you know you feel alienated from your own co-workers and your own family and your own culture and there's millions of animals dying every day anyway you know you're not doing anything to really help those animals you're only you're only doing your small part to not make things even worse you don't even this is this terrible nightmare at sixty-five day of the year but I don't think so yeah so putting protests at the center of it apart from questions of effectiveness that seems like a bit of a downward spiral to to madness I know keeping it all the way real yeah but when you're in the face of it I feel especially you're frustrated and irritated when somebody so close to me like my own dad would say you know nothing you're doing is changing things right you know animals are getting slaughtered every day you're not changing anything that gives me even more fuel to want to say yeah I'm changing something like let's get out there and like do something but what what do I do um well look look look look look look the most underrated form of activism is running a restaurant running a vegan restaurant running of you well I mean when you think about it we think of it like that maybe on a shallow level would be my answer is that you know it shouldn't be a protest centered movement it should be a restaurant centered mode like it's I know like it's weird how that becomes invisible with me because most vegans are all the time obsessed with finding vegan restaurants that we're traveling where we were going to Beijing we're flying to France we're flying around the world and of course the first thing you're doing is googling the vegan restaurants wherever it is you're you're going right but the effect on everyone the effect on people who already are vegan the effect on people who aren't vegan yet who maybe go there were the friend the people have never even heard of veganism for because I've seen that I've been in vegan restaurant so people came in who didn't know the meaning of the word vegan yeah they just thought oh this is a nice restaurant or something like oh they have pancakes whatever they see you know whatever's been really really really really like it seems like there's just not enough appreciation for the role of the the restaurant er er rather than the revolutionary that's my exit line Maury it's a wrap cut heart out
don't know how to feel about protests yeah I don't have experience with protests I haven't been involved I haven't held up signs I haven't gone door-to-door protesting things yeah um I have had the option to in Detroit did some activists that were standing outside of places that would sell fur and I just didn't know if it would be effective I didn't know it was something that I should be involved in um I thought if people were going to a store buying fur they would already be aware of where it came from I did not really care that yeah there are people standing outside claiming that they are murderers just for the how long have you moving it about two years so I think some vegans like direct action everywhere try to present veganism as if protests Street protests is really the core of what being vegan is all about and for some people it's something very minor or it's something it's a footnote it's something around the margins like veganism exists it's this movement it does this long list of things but there's really no obvious reason why protests it's got to be at the center of it yeah well the main reason I can think of is that you real helpless you feel like I didn't do something right right we were talking about with that you were just saying that with Wayne's young like that sure after years and years of not feeling like he's being effective right feeling like you want to make a difference right yeah he came to this conclusion that protest would be something that all right right media it'd be great but in terms of the in terms of that feeling like when you think about it that's you raging against public and difference so it's the people who are not vegan that's your reach others but there's another way to take that feeling like some people feel like the core of veganism is about the animal sanctuaries or is about rescuing stray cats and like that's not a joke you can meet people and like their whole [ __ ] life like every day they're spending hours and hours taking care of stray casts so again that's I mean that I think that there's something similar there so wanting to feel like you're making a difference mm-hmm but that feeling is being put into animal sanctuaries or raising cats you know that these other these other directions to take it in yeah like I know that feeling because just I went vegan overnight after we're in conspiracy and I was I told all my friends and family that I thought would be interested and I did the response was just lackluster it wasn't what I wanted to hear it wasn't the same response that I had like why do people not know this how did I not know this or how was I blind to it maybe ignorant so yeah I do know that feeling of just wanting to scream at people like wake up but sure it's sometimes it's come up here like we used a day when we're particularly busy like we weren't doing anything particular said to me you may not remember this you said to me like there has to be something more we can do I mean I've been ISM you know like what just comes and you know I feel you like you know what you know again I don't know what was you probably had something on your mind probably something you just always something particular you had in mind but like I know it just comes up sometimes we're just like there has to be something more we can do you know a cake you know it can't just be a diet you know ya know it has to be something else like because just the diet won't won't be effective in creating more vegan people I think maybe for a short period of time people will see it as a fad diet but I don't think well mmm yeah be a long-term solution well you know like I believe me I'm not I'm really not boasting when I say this if anything I'm laughing at myself being self-critical but I had a situation at work where the topic of the day the students have this organized workshop type of thing I had no advance warning I show up and I'm told like 5 seconds went at the topic of the day is animals and the students want me to give a lecture about animals in English so this is partly these are Chinese University students back practicing their English and so on and you know I basically gave them a lecture about veganism I was speaking both in English and and Chinese now I think I'm the first person to be critical so critical that say look you know like real life is not activism your job is not these kids that they don't want to hear it you know I mean like there are so many levels in which I could say this is kind of goofy or ridiculous but again you know I kind of couldn't help myself and it did have an impact if you guys have seen on this channel there's one video that's called they don't pay me to sing and it's the students singing this song they do with these horses every time this workshop anyway I gave them this this lecture and ended by saying the conclusion of it was every day you are killing animals for no good reason and there was this kind of nervous laugh but that was you know this laugh that that went around and I said it's true and there were other elements of it - I mean I'm by far the biggest human being at this event like there none of the Chinese guys in China there if you hang out in the basketball court you can meet bigger Chinese guys but I said look I'm bigger than you I'm stronger than you I'm stronger than anyone here you know there are no college athletes they're you you do not need to meet every day you were killing animals for no reason in this birth and you know so that was really the conclusion was my saying to them you know all these other topics got covered pretty briefly because I was I was invited to give a lecture about animals and that's what I'm gonna talk about is eating animals you know I'm not gonna say upgraded as dev a pet dog or something and then they sang that song this week and that was the most somber rendition that's soppin I've I've I've ever heard you know yeah give a try I can be the one I really yeah yeah so this but yeah it was a really down beat yeah kill animals every day yeah this is really downbeat version of the song right look I just mentioned so you know like um I don't know like you know there are even other words there's activism there's public outrage this education there's getting organized there's many different ways to politicize veganism there's many ways to try to make a difference in the world but I feel I mean like for you like you're mostly talking about your college days I assume you know knows after oh okay well I'll rephrase this question I think what what I wanted to say was just like during college many people have a kind of unexamined idealization of street protests yeah that for every movement whether it's whether it's feminism or the war in Iraq that for every movement the seal of authenticity is Street protest yeah yeah yeah I think I told you in college at least since in the city that I was in there weren't very many protest yeah that I knew of at least yeah which is surprising good yeah didn't did people take buses to go to protest in New York City or sign in bigger cities or webaim's I honestly don't know okay it's probably yeah but I I wasn't involved politically yeah which I do it like I wish I had gotten more involved with yeah it's weird like look so I'm from downtown Toronto and downtown Toronto culture and politically is really very different from the suburbs probably a lot of cities are like that but Toronto is one example and I went to the largest three protests in the history of Canada I think it still has the record maybe's knows but it was basically against expanding the war into Afghanistan against that kind of you know after 2001 it was against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan at whatever stage we were at then I forget I think was before the war in Afghanistan started yet you know at that stage and so a huge number of people attended and you know we was downtown and so we walking along this Main Street in Toronto and I could look up into the windows in the shopping malls on either side one shopping mall in particular these big glass windows and the expressions on the faces of the people who are not participating of in comprehension and condemnation and just kind of disgust for this merger was a peace protest I mean it's like the purest guy was basically we don't want a war we don't want to expand this war for there's an incredibly simple message compared to veganism you know ii mean probably just keeping scorn because they thought it was unpatriotic people well not cuz this is canada this is not even the state so it's not it doesn't even have it no it's really it really no it's a good point it's really different and that way there isn't even an almond patriot systems like we don't think the word Patriot was ever Patriots was ever used yeah because were September 11th didn't have in Canada yeah yeah it's very different kind of perspective it's like well why is why are we even getting involved in yeah I was probably there yeah perspective I'm you know so I just say like you know um I don't know like look other people that protest do they remember that as like the pinnacle of their political ado then that as a really happy meaningful memory like when they were a university what they went to that protest when they were younger maybe when they were older maybe they were 50 years old what happened but now they feel like I for other people subjectively and emotionally do they really idealize protest as something that from my perspective it is not because you know for me obviously the protest didn't work it we had then more than ten years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan it didn't win it didn't get it didn't get outcomes and you know it didn't at that protis I didn't meet one person or have one new friend or one connection you know there was nothing in terms of mobilization or organization there was no political organization came out of it there wasn't even anything within say the most left-wing party in Canada you know I mean like it didn't didn't have any political outcomes that way so I should I look back that no I don't feel ashamed I went to that point I don't feel bad about it in that sense but if anything what I was learning from that kind of experience um you know III was very critical of what the role is of these protests in people's own kind of dream life yeah yeah one that recently had been after Trump was elected was a women's March and I could have gone to one in Ann Arbor for that so that was one that just recently happened or I could have gone to the Capitol in Michigan Lansing but um no I didn't I didn't participate in that and it was kind of out of a sense of feeling like what what was this accomplishing other than kind of bringing women together to stand up against Trump but I just the things that he said because he had just been elected he didn't put any policies that were misogynistic heard yeah yeah like what yeah this is about just about the grabbing by the [ __ ] like scandal I came out like you know that right I'm not defending Trump not in support of him but I don't know what the women's March would do what outcomes gonna yeah yeah well you you must remember the Occupy Wall Street period now I was at 2011 yeah that's something like that yeah and then carried on into 2012 I think something so you know I was involved at that time with First Nations politics First Nations is our polite word in Canada for what Americans call American Indians native people indigenous people who say so first and just those first nations but you know for me there was this contrast at that time between what I thought was really the meaninglessness and incoherence of the Occupy Wall Street protests that's partly criticism is probably just I don't agree with like the parts of their agenda that are coherent I actually disagree with I don't want to go back to the gold standard their actual economic reforms they were calling for I don't agree with I don't want to go back to the gold standard and some of their crazy particular economic theories but anyway so that was that was very much going on and then we had these from my perspective really meaningful and really coherent protests by and for First Nations so in that area it's the Cree the edge it is the native peoples that that part of Canada and to me I remember saying to my my ex-wife my wife at the time saying look I feel like this is the contrast between the politics of the moment and the politics of the century like here are these protests for a cause that's gone on for more than a hundred years and I think it's still gonna be going on a hundred years in the future and here's this Occupy Wall Street thing and people think it's a video what what where is it going to be even five years from now what are the outcomes going to be and you know I don't know whether it's sad or positive but I think I won the my bad I mean I do feel that basically nothing positive no real outcomes came out of Occupy Wall Street despite the fact that it was so enormous it was so well widely covered in the media it occurred in so many cities and again so for me different people draw different lessons from this for me I would say well okay look at Occupy Wall Street and how little it accomplished and now we have to face up to the fact that as vegans even if we were as successful as Occupy Wall Street we'd still be a failure yeah you know yeah that's why I kind of the reason I like your channel so much is that you talk about legal change like actually changing policies to help the future the vegan movement because oh yeah and one thing that you had talked about recently that kind of blew my mind I did not really realize that um the JFK assassination was involved so much in Oh civil rights like oh yeah what I thought it was more about zero tests the protests that were so like important and that's that's what gets covered in my that's what was covered in my history class oh really yeah yeah yeah um so I didn't you know realize that it was something sure I can I mean I think it's also a question of like wallpaper in terms of the way newspapers present a story like for decades and decades the main like locus for political discussions was the front page of a newspaper and they would put a photograph of protesters while having the latest story about civil rights of the Vietnam War or whatever the controversy was and very often those photographs were indeed focused on young good-looking people young good-looking women you know wearing bikinis with flowers painted on their bite that was what dominated the front pages of newspapers you actually just mentioned it for that example when the anti-vietnam War protests started the core of the organization's the core of the anti-war movement was actually people old enough to remember World War 1 name over they were an T it was the same anti-war activist who averted its World War One in the 1950s and 1960s because they were you know so though those were not the people who were naked half naked and having flowers together there were the flower child you know protestors so you know but the problem is exactly thinking in terms of cause and effect okay so this this young woman in a bikini or these few young women bouquets who make a photogenic image for the newspapers to exploit frankly you know is that really the story of why the Vietnam War ended when it did is that the story of why civil rights legislation was passed when it passed and again especially if you're looking at it in terms of legislation the answer is no yeah really yeah and again in terms of you know the the role of gender politics in that LBJ so LBJ is the present United States who replaced JFK after his unexpected demise unexpected for some they expected it anyway you know LBJ his wife went from town to town so her nickname was Lady Bird Johnson and she gave these speeches directly addressed to you know white supremacists and white supremacists much the majority are very you know strong ideology that was the default view of society in the American South she went from town to town explaining why her husband a white Texan was supporting this new legislation that would integrate you know both specific institutions like the CIA and the FBI you know federal super the first time hiring black men and would you know integrate universities and education would have you I thought I may just say that's I mean can you call that activism standing up in front of that audience it means it's from the top down it's someone in a position of power and privilege who's changing the world and changing a strange a new society and the myth is that the street protest is people who are powerless and voiceless hmm t King taking to the streets yeah yeah that is yeah that's a contrast yeah yesterday you were just telling me that a mayor in Bangkok was it the arching mind or something that was vegan for like 20 years oh yeah years ago right and yeah so that maybe that's something that you know I wish we had more public figures who were vegan yeah could be something somebody that could right well I mean I guess he showed me again maybe that's implied cause when what is more important you know when you're looking at protests I mean obviously celebrity politics could cover that we have actors and musicians who are vegan yeah but yeah somebody like a mayor somebody like a Member of Parliament the politicians vegan can obviously have way more impact yeah then disgruntled university students I guess yeah it's definitely not gonna happen with Trump but I wish that you know Obama both Michelle and Barack Obama were very they were very intent on getting people more concerned about their health yes move-move was Michelle Obama is like government program to try to get kids more active well right and so now both bill and Al Gore our vegan in Bill Clinton's case he identifies primarily as a dietary vegan as a health vegan yeah but Al Gore is more or less an ecological and ethical vegan so what's a few decades too late for that to matter yeah but yeah conservatives kind of think Al Gore is a joke anyway yeah well he's shot I mean he had a shot he was the next last president United States you know he was you did win an election he was elected for his people didn't didn't quite turn out his plan again unexpected for some yeah but I mean you know look the other thing is about all these strategies is that they're not mutually exclusive so you know like it's not as if revolution from below and careful political change from above are mutually exclusive options yeah and how much did the protests for the civil rights movement how much did it influence when and why the right why why legal change was made right um so you can't you can't say it was there was no part it played no part in that but right well look at me on a human scale these things can be moved to exclusive but when I was looking at Earthling ad in my recent video um I see a lot of what he does as praiseworthy and I sympathetic and laudable yeah um however in my life uh it is an absolute either or IQ all that's living in China I have no civil rights you know I know freedom of speech I can't do street protests yeah we can't go out on the street we can good to it restaurant protests in front yeah and uh and that would be really ridiculous here and it wouldn't it wouldn't make sense in this culture otherwise to work there are there are pretty strong roots and right here where we are the local Buddhist organization requires all of its members to refuse to eat meat so we've talked about this refusing to eat meat is not the same as veganism it's not even the same as vegetarianism really but that's a requirement of the Buddhists hierarchy here in Indo home which is in so you know vegetarianism the basic idea of veganism does have local roots that you could work with all those all those issues and opportunities but yeah in terms of one person and how much time now much opportune you have these things are mutually exclusive but and when I look at something like earthling ed I more think of it in terms of the future like well okay so now for what in that one year you had 300 conversations with complete strangers who didn't want to hear which ed say fundamentally they don't want even ships a some respond positively some Ursula they have no interests they don't want you to say when I'm nursing is okay now looking ahead to the next five years how much could you get done if you were talking to people who were interested and did one of your job say yeah could to me that's even firstly yet for this specific guy it's like okay if he starts talking to people who actually want to hear what I say and actually want to cooperate them one get stuff done then I think he's going to accomplish way more in the next five years and doesn't mean that I think what he's done with the last one year is is bad and evil and wrong yeah even I think he was in that video cuz we were watching the top 10 yes yeah just giving us Pete he was giving a speech to people who in Tanwar it so yeah but if you did more of that I think so you see what it leads to see it leads to actual organization and actual lobbying or some some other kind of activism that is measurable goes but you remember babe I got an email from Julie carp strong mmm-hmm and as a joint carp from another guy he's mostly based on street street theatre you know where they play films they have not not in-your-face disruptive protest but kind of more quiet protests and then one-on-one conversations to people so while they're playing this documentary showing slaughterers conditions he goes up in his polite one-on-one conversations with people so that's really what he's into that that's what he devotes his time and effort to and he said to me and his message to me simply that he respects what on my channel likes what he does like he likes what I'm doing because he recognizes we need different kinds of strategies for different kinds of people Yeah right I do admire what earthling Ed and Joey kerbs wrong to you sure yeah sure I can definitely understand why they do it and I wish them the best yeah I hope I hope they do make it make a change for some like individual right on a bigger scale well look pedda People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals they paid the money and they got every single advertisement in the subway station remember this thing so there's one subway station London yeah let's go oh you know who can you know who can complain I'm sure I don't have the money to do that but that's an amazing form back to even though as vegans we all hate peda and that the ad pretty much just said go vegan like every single thing it showed a picture of a cute pig and said go vegan there was not much else it was a strictly vegan you know active protest yeah so I mean you know it's the different strategies for different people who have different means their decision some people might respond differently to the different forms to right will might respond to earthling ads approach some people might respond to the ads that sure that PETA put up and then subway station sure and it's an amazing fact that some people have converted to veganism because of this channel and it's an email talking about that so I do assume it's a very particular type of person respond to these intellectual discussions and and and become vegan yeah the onion night he made a video about protests and he was talking about how for him this this may not work for other people but actually being screamed at and a restaurant would have worked for him oh really and I was I can kind of sympathize with him because like when I would watch cowspiracy it made me realize these things that had been a little bit under the surface or just in the background that I didn't didn't think of and maybe if someone had been yelling at me in a restaurant like hey you're eating an animal I stop right I might have responded more so than other people but in his video he said yeah but I'm kind of weird out that way right I don't think most people hear that way generalizable yeah yeah so anyway I other people will respond differently and when I first watched cowspiracy and told other people to watch it other people did not respond the same way they just said oh that's that's a shame that's a shame right or that's a lie like my parents were my dad specifically like really skeptical really skeptical about the facts about the ecology and how it's or how animal agriculture affects ecology yeah and like you said some people in Canadian culture just say that's a lie that's any any inconvenient information they just response it with with denial yeah I mean you know it in terms of how I feel about that I mean again this this is still this question kind of is protest central to veganism there's a defined veganism is vegan as a defined in terms of protest it is well to quote direct action everywhere is activism the moral baseline and when they say activism they mean street protest yes they mean disruption so street protest and inside the bakeries and you know grocery stores or what have you or is it something marginal you know in terms of my whole life occurred my personal life my private life started with the face when you're talking to other grown adults I don't see how it is possible to be an adult and not question where does milk come from where does food come from you know and like I mean that on such a simple level I don't even mean it's an ethical obligation or athos off location intellectual obligation I'm just saying how is it possible that you like the person's are you got to be 25 years old or 35 years old 55 years old and you never questioned where does my food come from you know what I mean and that makes veganism completely different from any of the social moon because I I actually completely sympathize I feel like you know I did all this research on Cambodia but I'm not an expert on Syria and I can't be I can't really derail my whole life and start researching politics in Syria just because there's a new war in Syria you know and I'm tempted to I mean I was wounded when the Civil War started in Syria I remember hearing this one interview in the radio and weeping I was I was sitting there alone weeping it was an interview with actually a rock musician from Syria and he was talking about the body count it was very emotionally moving to me but you know it is is my point is I totally sympathize with people just saying look I know I'm not from Syria Syria is not part of my life they're not interested you know I can only choose to be interested in so many things but what I eat and drink yeah it's something that you can do every day you can choose yeah it's something you can't not do every day you know you must yeah yeah yeah yeah and oh I was gonna say at the time that I watch conspiracy a few months prior I had been in this state of really questioning what I'm gonna do with the future of my life with my future what I'm going to do how I'm going to make a positive impact on the world or at least not make a negative impact and a lot of it had to do with the environment how can i how can I be more environmentally friendly how can I be a better just member of this human race member of the planet yes for both of us really ecology came first we were kind of into ecology before we got into veganism yeah yeah so then a couple months later I was just scrolling through Netflix and I saw this documentary that was talking about the impacts of animal agriculture on ecology so that's why I got interested in it so I think if you don't have that base baseline interest in certain parts of veganism like you know there are three basic things like the ecology your health and then your caring about animal welfare so if one if one of three of those doesn't interest somebody I don't know I don't know how to reach them how do how to make them care about any of them right let alone to care about veganism in general right look at the health aspect though it does change things civil rights couldn't offer to make you more beautiful or to live longer or to have better clearer sinuses or clearer skin or think more clearly yeah I mean it was just it's I mean like you know like people joke about white guilt yeah well back in 1955 white guilt was really [ __ ] real again really were talking about there was in your face every day that you know this school was whites only in this restaurants only sometimes this water found was whites only like white guilt is not really to be trivialized and you know again sometimes in Canada we type of First Nation so my native people again I don't think I don't think was your joke about white guilt and what guilt is you don't real but but still having a guilt based movements and some vegans I think the protest face vegans they want to make it a guilt based movement but look so to real quick examples mean the health aspect really really matters when I was talking to my own mom I forget a couple days ago a couple weeks ago you know my mom wants to be more involved with my life in the next three years and I was basically saying to her look I don't really know if you've got three years you know like in terms of being healthy and active and not in the hospital and taking jets all over the world which is what she does she flies all around the world constantly and doing book tours and lectures this is the way she lives I said look and you may not realize it but the cholesterol in your diet doesn't just make you fat clog your arteries it clogs your brain atherosclerosis really needs to be thought of as a spectrum disorder you know the atherosclerosis of the brain is terrifying google it you'll regret you google it you know it's your life but you know I'm looking here on that that that health aspect is really is really pressing um and you know the health aspect I'm looking at my own ex-wife my own daughter they're now lacto-vegetarian so they're vegetarians who consume dairy and you know I am I do not think I think basically veganism is for adults this deals with grown-up issues I don't have a guilt based approach to my daughter drinking milk I don't want to have a protest based approach you know what I mean like you know what take a four-year-old to a you know [ __ ] budget people screaming on the strip you know that just music but the health aspect you know so I just say like you know I know we don't talk about the health aspect that often on this channel partly because there are channels already handleable enough it's important I told that to my parents to another documentary I had them watch actually watch it with them was vegetated and that talked a lot more about the health s person cowspiracy did and I would I told them you know all of my grandparents suffered from some level of dementia and so at throw sclerosis of the brain and it just doesn't seem to be very effective I think my mom is probably like then more convinced by it because she's a nurse but my dad not so much um so yeah like yeah yeah yeah so I mean you know look I have to admit I would be uncomfortable with veganism being primarily or wholly a health based movement I I'm just being honest with you and I do feel like you know in that in a video a few weeks ago I quoted that surgeon he's a heart surgery and heart attacks but he was actually saying he avoids using the word vegan because he doesn't want to using ethical he just is talking about dietary all yeah just talk about heart heart attacks and what happened he's advocating for a vegan diet but not for ethical veganism Orca logical veganism that that does freak me out but nevertheless with that have been noted the health aspect is really important and it really does I think you know galvanize and motivate people to keep going over the long long term and it does also make the protest centered approach you know seem a bit seem a bit ridiculous one of my patreon supporters I won't I won't name her I couldn't but I'll leave it in oh it was one of my patreon supporters wrote to me recently saying so her whole household is vegan but her son saved up don't allowance money and for whatever reason insisted on buying chicken so and then this was debated between the husband and the wife like okay so it's his choice like we got a respect forget the kids 11 or something like you know he's old enough to start making some choices like okay look if it's his money and he's going to buy the chicken we're not going to stop him even though there have sold this vegan over so he bought this chicken it from a restaurant you know cooked cooked chicken and then he got horribly ill he got something like Salmonella boys so then the mom is you know whatever cleaning up his vomit and cleaning up the mess the chicken made in the kitchen itself and all this stuff and feeling disgusted as the smell of the chicken house and and the the kid is sick and what-have-you and I remember one of my first reactions I wrote back to I said look you know if you put this in a movie or a sitcom it would seem fake maybe it's too perfect you know so the kid for the vegan house rebels against his parents yeah uh you know it's it's it's kind of too perfectly an example but sure I mean you know yeah yeah health health and so on can't be in the background and healthy is what brought in you know people like like Bill Clinton to play there very strange role in the movement but which is nevertheless I mean okay Bill Clinton being vegan it's it's more important than walking up to one more person on the street and telling them why are you wearing a fur coat or one more protest in front of things I don't know yeah even though it's nothing you can do I mean you have no role in somebody somebody in power becoming vegan but yeah I do think so look I mean just again so for me political activism is way broader and deeper than protests protesting is one thing is one type of activity and political activism is all kind of stuff and if you guys watch my channel unless you knew the channel I talk a lot about examples like Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers Against Drunk Driving is not a protest based movement they do public education they do yoga but they they literally show up in children's classrooms talk about drunk driving they have all these different formats of reaching out to the public publication and also reaching out to and influencing government laws in the past but they changed laws everywhere they change laws but everything's from seat belts to you know with the breathalyzer what percentage of alcohol is acceptable they influence government policy in a massive way but they're not a protest based movement they're not so politics is much bigger than than protest but I do have to say you know in a big way one of the reasons why I'm not considering living in Asia long term is that poll that I feel I need to be back I need to be back somewhere where I can be part of that those yeah yeah go up to town hall and talk about how you want to change light that's something like I've been interested in having the ability to go up and talk to the school board and say be like I don't want there to be dirty posters in the school like I don't want kids to see this propaganda for the darién why are you teaching kids that eggs are healthy yeah this kind of question hmm yeah being able to be involved with yeah a city well you know he said once I released the other but that was also funny I've been doing this survey with with my students it's their final oral exam and many many of the students for their final oral exam that a choice what they wanted to talk about and a lot of them talked about the importance of physical exercise sport phys ed what I want to say and in physical health in that sense sport training or says the I don't know I'm going to actually calculate what presented seemed like 25% of the students chose to but that how important sport was in their lives I'll figure out the actual percentage at the end of the assignment and it was interesting because when they were talking about that many of them what they were really talking about is their struggle as Chinese people to remain slim despite eating a diet that consists largely of pork fat you know very unhealthy very high fat oily you know but meat it's a meat-based diet here you know it is now you know this this they meet three miles a day they're eating meat breakfast lunch and dinner in even if it's in small portions and they and they yogurt here yogurt is big that they have all the stuff but was interesting because and but when they were talking about how meaningful phys ed physical education was in their lives it was like well think about how differ if we thought of that in terms of nutritional science yeah because he was one of the options you gave did anybody choose it I thought that was something was it I didn't I didn't give it to them I didn't give them no it's not okay okay okay but yeah sure you could yeah I mean in theory you could choose nutritional science but in a sense a lot of what they're talking about with sport and exercise is a struggle against their own ignorance of nutrition and you know I feel I'm a beneficiary I look kind of way better than I should I don't I don't get them justice I really don't uh but you know of looking way better than should because you not you're not setting that you're not creating that obstacle for yourself with the misunderstanding of health and diet yeah yeah but it's also not true that going out a vegan diet will make you yeah I'll eat a lot you can diet actually gained weight when I first wanna be ya know yeah totally understand ok well I look I mean ultimate veganism as a diet I've never heard about any diet really being successful because of protests like a protest based diet or protest getting people to adopt a diet that is really a stretch it really is it really is and it's not comparable to like think about instead the role of protease protests or anti-nuclear protests that's not asking you to change how you live 365 days a year you know like there were people because the anti-nuclear thing went on for decades and decades I remember when I was a small child ok so you're against nuclear bombs so realistically maybe four times a year you go to a protest against nuclear bombs and the other thing okay the other thing is about those movements everyone in them feels like an expert like a lot of you guys but like everyone who is in the anti-nuclear or anti-war movement in the 1980s they felt they knew everything about nuclear bombs you know I mean you know they're not experts they read a few pamphlets maybe they read one book whatever you know but they knew nuclear waste is bad nuclear wars but they had this simplistic view and they'll they get an ego trip out of it so maybe four times a year you go to a protest and you literally hold up a sign with the peace symbol on it and and they chant no more nukes and there's a big payoff right there's this big sense of I'm better than everyone else have an axe but they get they get a lot out of it that way and yeah I feel veganism is the opposite and all these things if this morose lonely ethical burden I don't feel great on the contrary it leads you elite you to regard parents as scumbags and you know all this like I have so many videos talking about this where you know you feel alienated from your own co-workers and your own family and your own culture and there's millions of animals dying every day anyway you know you're not doing anything to really help those animals you're only you're only doing your small part to not make things even worse you don't even this is this terrible nightmare at sixty-five day of the year but I don't think so yeah so putting protests at the center of it apart from questions of effectiveness that seems like a bit of a downward spiral to to madness I know keeping it all the way real yeah but when you're in the face of it I feel especially you're frustrated and irritated when somebody so close to me like my own dad would say you know nothing you're doing is changing things right you know animals are getting slaughtered every day you're not changing anything that gives me even more fuel to want to say yeah I'm changing something like let's get out there and like do something but what what do I do um well look look look look look look the most underrated form of activism is running a restaurant running a vegan restaurant running of you well I mean when you think about it we think of it like that maybe on a shallow level would be my answer is that you know it shouldn't be a protest centered movement it should be a restaurant centered mode like it's I know like it's weird how that becomes invisible with me because most vegans are all the time obsessed with finding vegan restaurants that we're traveling where we were going to Beijing we're flying to France we're flying around the world and of course the first thing you're doing is googling the vegan restaurants wherever it is you're you're going right but the effect on everyone the effect on people who already are vegan the effect on people who aren't vegan yet who maybe go there were the friend the people have never even heard of veganism for because I've seen that I've been in vegan restaurant so people came in who didn't know the meaning of the word vegan yeah they just thought oh this is a nice restaurant or something like oh they have pancakes whatever they see you know whatever's been really really really really like it seems like there's just not enough appreciation for the role of the the restaurant er er rather than the revolutionary that's my exit line Maury it's a wrap cut heart out