The People vs. Durianrider: The Deeper Significance of the Case. (vegan / vegans / veganism)
10 February 2017 [link youtube]
@22:39 "We need to replace a culture of conspiracy-theory thinking with a culture of sincere engagement."
@22:45 "What more can I do for an audience of vegans who say they're trying to save the world, but who have gradually become accustomed to this culture of constant defamation and conspiratorial thinking?"
@27:08 "I *can* tolerate this stuff, but you guys ought to have some sympathy in your hearts, because I shouldn't have to."
Youtube Automatic Transcription
hey guys I don't really have time to be
making videos I thought I wouldn't make any videos the rest of this month haha my new girlfriend is coming over I got to clean up the apartment I was just joking to Richard vegan gains I said to him I'm gonna buy a whole bunch of flowers because the more flowers I have sitting around the apartment the less my girlfriend is gonna notice how filthy the place but I gotta sweep the floor gotta mop the floors I got a I got a decent things to clean things up around here look this video is filling in the gaps or some of you guys on the court case with durianrider and it's deeper significance we're living in a period of history when the culture of the Internet is really corroding the culture of everything else that is not the internet a lot of you guys need to really you know put your feet on the ground feel the earth and the grass between your toes and start behaving on the internet the same way you would behave in the real world if you talk to someone in a cafe if you talk to someone face to face the way you would consider evidence the way you would evaluate a real situation because YouTube is not very far removed from real people their real lives in real situations and this doesn't just involve people with edgy or extreme online personas like durianrider or vegan cheetah you know to me it's still really memorable that when a natural vegan decided to come at me the first thing she was coming at me with was denouncing me saying that I was a terrible scholar of Buddhism so for more than 10 years of my life it was a scholar of Buddhism there are still essays on the internet you can read a couple of them are peer-reviewed publications I forget I forget I have two I thought did you say I'd like to peer review publications it's not a lot but have a couple um I remember a response to this her whole way of behaving it's like the mentality of the youtube comment section even though she's speaking to me directly she's saying this really over-the-top caddy and something stuff to me as if she's trying to get my attention we talked someone in real life face to face in a cafe or in a boardroom at a meeting or even in a university classroom setting you don't say the kadia stand most outrageous thing to get the person's attention if you say caddy and outrageous things in real world contacts you lose people's respect and they stop paying attention but in a context like a youtube comment section people are always saying thing they're there they're exaggerating there they're taking reasonable situations and reacting to them in an unreasonable way just in the hopes that the content creator or that other people in the comment section will pay attention to them as opposed to someone who's being rational and reasonable and like so you know when I natural vegan was talking this way my actual reaction sure was oh look if you want to criticize me as a scholar of Buddhism like read two or three articles like you know we can read my work like I would be so happy to have someone actually engaging in critique of my work in Buddhism like you actually have an interest you actual want to know about that no no she didn't what a natural vegan did was defame me I think I could call it defamation by going to like the crappy comment sections of you know some like group chat websites you know and like she found some comment sections where some anonymous people were calling me a worthless piece of crap now again there's a lot wrong with this there's the mentality the internet the way the internet corrodes culture [ __ ] world like okay so even if I've only got a couple of peer-reviewed articles I got a lot more non peer-reviewed articles how are you going to evaluate you know my work as a scholar of Buddhism why would you go to why would you take as indicative some anonymous comments made by people who hate me on a board like that now again you know the flip side of this is I look at somebody like a natural vegan and I said okay look like I'm I'm the first Prime well I'm extremely self-critical I think I wasted more than 10 years in my life as a scholar Buddhism I'm not gonna exaggerate the value of what I did as a scholar but it's not at all there are some people who consider my work in Buddhism brilliance I've presented my work in some very interesting settings both you know like monastic settings like you know with you in Buddhism as a religion and academic settings I've had feedback from people who are real experts in the field which of course unnatural vegan is not um but you know I'm the first person to say I wasted ten years of my life I wish I had never done that I wish I'd never become scholars I wish I'd never put in all those hard hours studying the language in the literature and so on and you know I'm eager to not only receive criticism but to engage in that kind of criticism this I mention this because this comes up also in the stuff in my personal life I'm eager to talk about my divorce or what I've done wrong in barristers but I'm not open that stuff I enjoy examining it said mother that's just part of my character part Who I am and the flip side is the other reason why I'm eager is almost nobody wants to engage in those conversations I have material on Buddhism going back to the very first days of this channel so a couple years ago do you think there are other channels engaging in like meaningful examination exploration of the articles I published on Buddhism no and like even with stuff like my divorce and I said to cheetah lately look like you're making up this gossip out of thin air as if I'm not here like if you actually wanted to talk to me what's going on my divorce again if anyone wants to talk to me about what's going on in the court case they can so it's this it's this really sick game I say to me it's like the youtube comment section mentality where you think by being unreasonable by responding to anything reasonable in an unreasonable way you're going to get more attention from your viewers from other people in the comment section or because you're really just trying to hurt the feelings of the content creator themselves and the reason why I've hung in here is that it doesn't hurt me it's completely surreal to me what a natural vegan did in trying to denounce me and the family and take me down and it's completely unforgivable completely intellectual dishonest in a very different way from what vegan cheetah and durianrider do but I think on this more fundamental and profound question of how the culture of the internet corrodes just the cult the culture of political discourse in the real world this is really worth reflecting on guys durianrider you could see in my video my four minute you know statements to him was basically only one-sided cuz I could barely hear what he said I could hear a few words of what he said so it was just informing him he needs to get a lawyer he needs to see it represented in court look guys I mean why would durianrider side of the story even be believable to anyone I'm gonna reflect on this in a relatively deep way because I think this is again the culture of the internet corrupting other forms of political discourse other aspects of our culture um you know that durianrider lied about a long list of things in this conflict and even if you have no source information other than durianrider many of the things he said he later in an offhand way admitted they were lies or he just dismissed them as trolling as being of no significance right so in various ways in various levels of seriousness and he had one video where he broke down weeping in apologize it wasn't apologizing to me he was regretting that vegan gains had you know crossed him because of this and so on you know he was reading the the collapse of his social media empire people get at me because I broke down weeping for pretty good reasons well during Ryder broken for some mad suspect reasons in the same the same event right so let's let's keep this in perspective but if you make a flowchart of how many things durianrider lied about why would his claims about this court case specifically be credible now I'm just gonna use one maybe two examples here to keep it quick but you know way back in the day when this started one of the Lies durianrider told about me that I've laughed about many times on camera he claimed that just before I came here to China he claimed that I had so many sexual liaison with other vegans in some vegan activist group that he never named in Quebec that I had been kicked out of this vegan group in Quebec now if you look at a map it's not hard to figure out that this story must be fake I was a full time University student in Victoria British Columbia a lot of you are not familiar with the geography of Canada I think that durianrider was completely unaware of the geography of Canada even anyone who watched my channel casually among the things they would have a sense of my character they have a sense of the extent to which I talk about what's going on in my life if I had been sleeping with a whole bunch of people in a vegan activist group I would have been talking about it because I'm really interested in activism that would not be a secret I'd say oh wow this is great I've got this whole bunch of vegan activists in Quebec I may you know it why would it be secret it does but the story doesn't make of us on many many levels but including so I mean like there's just no reason if you watch my channel even a little bit you know that be something you would talk about his channel oh I'm with this vegan group but now I've got a new girlfriend in the group that's that's the kind of thing I talk about my channel I just did a three-hour podcast with tofu goddess we were talking about activism and we're talking about who were dating and our love lives and the way those things overlap it's exactly the kind of stuff I do talk Boboli would not be a secret but beyond that the distance between Vancouver sorry Victoria Victoria is just south of Vancouver from Victoria to anywhere in Quebec this is like the difference between France and Russia there's an enormous distance so it's obviously a lot so you have a long list of statements from durianrider that are and you can even question where does it come from did he just make it up out of thin air or did he hunt around the internet trying to get lies about me from other people I don't know I don't really care but nothing about what this guy has said at any stage is incredible and as I've just said the durianrider you know face to face so to speak over a over over internet chat but Center look I've told you the truth at every single stage and I'm telling you the truth now you should get a lawyer you should be represented in court and I told him the courthouse and the court date and again guys the document at the start of that video you can decide in terms of Occam's razor please if you don't know what Occam's razor means fascinating Wikipedia article I am sure all right which is a simpler explanation the document I showed is it real or is it fake why would it be fake if it's real then everything I've been saying from the start of the case till now is honest and true and consistent if it's fake you would have to come up with a very convoluted explanation and again you can go through what during writer said and try to piece together a truthful or accurate or narrative but I don't even think you can do it I mean so much of what he said at every stage of this has been a lie now one of the aspects of that form in an interaction a lot of people asked about many of them with good intentions which is fine a lot of people asked well why did you say to durianrider that you you know you wish him the best like what are you why are you in effect being such a nice guy to somebody who's hurt you and harmed you and who you're currently in a core case with it could in a court battle with it's good question look guys there's such a difference with people who watch my videos and people who don't if you actually watch my channel lately I think you do have a pretty good sense of what kind of guy I am and if you don't if you just listen to lies made up about me by vegan cheetah or the other channels that basically try to imitate vegan cheetah which is pathetic you know obviously you're gonna have no sense of who I am alright I'm not a vengeful character there's a difference between being theatrical and actually being vengeful I mean I have videos where I'm really criticizing Ryan from happy healthy vegan in a very harsh tone it's very theatrical it's very intense I'm looking into the camera and delivering but you know what I have absolutely no hate in my heart for Ryan from happy healthy vegan you know these people I should hate them but I don't I should hate Charles and a lot of people are shocked that I keep reaching out positively to Charles to be entreated I keep wishing the best friend I should hate during Ryder he's really harmed me and he's harmed a lot of people but I don't I'm not eventual character it's on a level of feeling I don't feel that way at all about these people the the reason for I mean okay there are two reasons to take during writer court one because it's the right thing to do I take very seriously and that's the kind of person I am and the second is for the future of the movement right somebody has to care about the future of the vegan movement and every day I look into this camera and I ask my audience is it you um but I don't hate these people I don't hate them not even when I should not even when they've given me really good reasons to hate them and look guys how would you feel if you showed up at a boxing match you showed up at the gym you were told you were gonna box with somebody and then you get there and you realize the man you're supposed to fight in the boxing ring has only one arm it is very obvious to me when I'm watching durianrider face-to-face durianrider himself talks to some extent openly and honestly about his history with psychiatric care with diagnosed mental illness he claims that he has cured his own mental illness you can judge to what extent that is true for yourself sometimes he claims he's been diagnosed with quite an amazing list of conditions including Crohn's disease and he claims that he's cured those conditions that again is I think a very very indicative example of the ways in which durianrider doesn't just lie to his audience but he lies to himself and when I'm looking in his eyes and telling him you need to hire a lawyer in Thailand you can see him kind of alternate between two frankly crazy frames of mind one in which he is sort of playfully lying to me in lying to the audience and one in which he's lying to himself and you can see him switching between a manic smile trying to seem and vulnerable and him seeming very vulnerable indeed you know I'm a lot more comfortable having a debate or even having a you know a shouting match with somebody like a natural vegan who at least is coming into the boxing ring with both hands working and durianrider is not somebody I can even debate with and I do feel sorry for it I do feel pity for him I feel pity for him now and if he actually ends up in jail in Thailand in a two-year sentence I would feel even more pity for him so for me there's a contrast between doing the right thing between because it's the right thing to do and just feeling some sympathy some Soros some pity because of the the harm that's gonna do to another human being taking during right a court is the right thing to do it's the right thing to do for me it's the right thing to do for the donors it's the right thing to do for the future of the vegan movement but I can still feel bad looking at this guy and realizing I do not think he's intellectually capable of handling the situation he's already in I'm looking at somebody who doesn't want to admit to himself that I've been telling the truth and that he's been lying he's basically sitting there asking me if this is true why doesn't he know it already and it's like well the reason why you don't know this durianrider is because you've been lying to yourself lying to everyone else and you've been disregarding the advice from everyone who told you the truth okay and when it even comes down to me believe me it would be more convenient for me more convenient for my lawyer my lawyer would rather try the case with no opposition in the courtroom it's an easier job for him if Terry price does step anyone we're presenting his side of the story but like when I'm put in that position I'm trying to do the right thing just because the right thing to do and I'll add on to this look guys in terms of my not being eventual character one of the things that made this conflict during more trite or more dramatic is that I'm still in court with my ex-wife in France now I remarked in the irony of this many times different people I think including during writer and vegan cheetah made up totally false allegations at a thin air about my divorce you know in the the connected court trial whatever want to say because it's more legal II there's more going on there than just the divorce and I've seen Charles directly claim a pardon me that I have criminal charges against me in connection to that which is not true and has never been true I'm not facing any criminal charges on the contrary my ex-wife will face criminal charges now I know just how terrible it is to find out that someone has in secret filed legal paperwork against you that someone has carried out a trial in your absence without informing you so you didn't have the opportunity to show up and defend yourself or to pay a lawyer to show up and defend yourself because that is exactly what my ex-wife did to me okay legally in France I was declared missing without a trace I believe that's the French term in the United States of America I think you'd say am ia or something oh no sorry I made this in military term if you're missing and presumed dead is what that is and often in informal English and on it's a legal term we just refer this as legally dead now when that happens to you again this is true this is similar in America in France you lose all your legal rights you lose all your standing in the divorce trial and that's why I'm not divorced yet you can't get divorced if you're dead then I had to start a legal process to prove that I was a lie pardon me to prove that I was alive and to overturn that earlier you know injunction resolution whatever you want to say so I know just how terrible that is so the irony is I'm in a situation where we are carrying on a legal case against durianrider and I have made every effort to declare to the world openly this is real and it's ongoing and he is so deep into his own self-deception that he doesn't want to accept that it's real he doesn't want the open okay so I feel sorry for him and I hope he finally does hire a lawyer in Thailand who will see right away when they look up his name of the court date of the court it will be very easy for a professional lawyer in Thailand to see the ongoing case against him I've already given him all the information he needs and again I mean what more can I do for during Ryder like do you want me to put him in touch with a lawyer like this is ridiculous people okay and what more could I do for this audience what more can I do for an audience of vegans who say they're trying to save the world but who have you know step by step gradually become accustomed to this culture of constant defamation and conspiratorial thinking all right yes you know what when I showed my passport on camera it's possible that it's a fake passport here I actually have it out because I went to the bank the other day thank you yeah it's possible I'm showing you a fake passport it's possible that I'm showing you a fake criminal record check yeah it's possible it's possible that how would I have even done I would have paid it's possible that I created fake legal documents in the Thai language it's possible okay but on the other side of this the of Occam's razor here people the simpler explanation is I have been telling you the truth at every stage and durianrider has been lying there is just no reason to think that during Ryder's story about this court case is more credible than his story about my sleeping with a whole bunch of women in back when I was living an enormous distance away from Quebec in Victoria enrolled in university full-time and making videos every day showing you what was going on for life I would have been happy I had a bunch of girlfriends if he could move in and come back it was part of a vegan movement at all I would talk about it on YouTube it's so ridiculous the story okay it's not more credible than his story about me being kicked out of a group in Quebec it's not more credible than his story that he was diagnosed with these illnesses like Crohn's disease and he magically cured those illnesses so why are you overlooking just how plausibly stories are I think we really need to replace a culture of conspiracy theory thinking with a culture of sincere engagement okay and this is why I started with the example of a natural vegan okay why do people seemingly intelligent people find it so satisfying to believe that they found the truth because they found some angry comments buried in a discussion forum all right a natural vegan is not that stupid if she wanted to have a fair and balanced sense of what I did both good and bad as a scholar of Buddhism so she could look at my resume showing my CV she can learn my list of publications she can look at the academic colloquia of presented papers ad you know that's place to start she can look at the essays it could she can look at the language work there's a lot of evidence available just through Google really rapidly to get a sense of what I did with those used my life and as you may know I didn't just study Buddhism at the same time I was doing humanitarian work I was doing a lot of historical research language research as as mentioned I was also doing other jobs to survive interact it's not boring you know that's that was the life I lived during those years right I'm not asking a natural vegan to praise that I'm not asking her to respect it but I think she does I think she does respect it and why is it that she reaches past this mountain of evidence of readily available evidence she has a university degree in philosophy with no background Buddhism on sure she could nevertheless read some my essays and even blog posts like informal articles about Buddhist philosophy and she could probably appreciate oh this guy knows who's Thai but this guy didn't just waste his time for 10 years no no she ignores that melton of evidence she reaches over it to pick up a thimbleful from the ground okay she finds some little statement an anonymous statement on discussion forum of you know people are pissed off of me and Buddhism or whatever people who hate my work which exist if you're doing anything worthwhile there are people out there on the internet saying you're a terrible human being there are people saying that about a natural vegan - there have always been people saying that about durianrider and cheetah and and me - right because the conspiracy theory frame of mind rewards that kind of behavior it makes you feel like you're smarter than everyone else because you're ignoring the mountain of evidence and picking up something hidden something secret something makes you feel like you're better than the people who are paying attention you have the key to a lock nobody knows but you know something secret and special that makes you smarter than wrong I do think a natural vegan was the victim of that mentality was just so common and wise for the Internet in her reaction to me and the truth is if she had proceeded in a more open way and actually looking at the evidence or she just talked to me the same way you would talk to a person in a in a cafe you know she may dislike me I dislike her but I do think in these obvious ways I think she would respect me and regard be Zumbi and would not denounce me and my background in Buddhism I think she might have actually just a more intelligent a more meaningful critique of me or more intelligent debate with me right this applies across the board people I think my conflict with durianrider did raise so many things that are worth debating but the type of behavior you see going on is people ignoring the melton and trying to pick out something they feel is secret that it reveals it feels the real dirt but you know there's a mountain of dirt the dirt and stone that's really worth talking about okay now look guys the only reason I'm still here is that I'm the one person a million who actually is tough enough to take it you know there's been so many other people the durianrider made threats of violence against that he denounced defamed in the past who just crumbled and some of them have sent me email some of the sent email thanking me thanking me because I was the guy who stood up and they regretted that they never felt strong enough that they were too afraid for whatever reason they couldn't stand up for themselves when during inviter did something similar to them okay I can tolerate this stuff but you guys ought to have some sympathy in your hearts because I shouldn't have to okay I was delighted when the secret got out that I changed my legal name because it amuses the hell out of me to see people generating a mythology out of that side of my life alright and I did address it in the conversation with the light twins and I've dressed it several times on you now and people expect me to be really emotionally bashed up about it but what I said when I was starting to light tones I'm gonna say again now it's not a secret everybody in my life who knows me personally knows about that they know about my relationship with my parents they know that I changed my legal name they know that for a period of almost exactly 10 years it just worked out to be 10 years I didn't talk to my parents at all and they didn't talk to me we were not on speaking terms I have a very bad relationship with my parents but what I said to the light twins is not meaningless and it's it's a long cool interview I did with light winds I said look I made a decision when I came on the Internet my story is mine to tell my parents story is not mine to tell and look again I've alluded to it like guys I'd say the same thing about my ex-wife I'm not coming on here and defaming and denouncing my ex-wife or even complaining about it really what I say about my ex-wife in this channel is very flattering my story is mine to tell hers isn't okay I'm not asking any of you guys respect that I'm really not but when you look at the reaction to that to something which again the reason why I haven't deleted my youtube channel is that emotionally and intellectually I can handle all this stuff and a lot of other people can't I can laugh at it I can treat it in a more serious and sober mood the way we are right now but like guys when we're looking back on like you know the history of veganism where did you stand on these issues like why did you take such Glee in you know trying to destroy another human being by ridiculing his relationship with his own parents by ridiculing his relationship with his own daughter with his own ex-wife why were so many people so eager to do that in a context of again look at the videos in my own channel I have a really substantive book review up now I've had several in the past three months because about the time to read books you know switching from be living in conveying to living in to home I decided to read a bunch of you know that major academic publications and the vegan vegan politics literature and review and discuss them guys this channel has always been trying to raise really serious substantive issues for discussion for the future of the movement and you're reaching over that melton you're ignoring the mountain to try to pick up some little thimble full of dirt that you think makes you feel powerful makes you feel special makes you feel like you've got the key to a secret code that nobody else knows and you know what's what's really worth dealing with is the mountain it's what's right in front of your face it's what I'm presenting to you my relationship with my parents believe me today right now if vegan cheetah wanted to talk to me in a down-to-earth way about my relation of the parents I'd be eager to do so if anybody wanted to talk to me my divorce believe me you get to be middle-aged I'm 38 years old nobody wants to talk to me alone a divorce my best friends they don't want to hear about it they trust me if you're a teenager you made a beautiful monster understand this once you get past a certain age nobody wants to talk to you about your personal life nobody wants to know about it people talk about business people talk about making money people talking about politics nobody wants arguments if not even the people who gossip too but I had a great conversation with Lance carb strong Lance carb strong used to have videos defaming me in exactly these ways what the court cases during right arm personally you don't want to get him on skype he's the nicest guy in the world and he doesn't want to talk about that stuff he has no interest most people don't he was given the opportunity to talk to me face to face guys just say again I was at a zoo in Thailand the zoo that is on the same mountain that durianrider rides his bike up so often they all ride past the entrance to that Zoo I went to that zoo because I was sincerely interested in the conditions the animals there I'm interested in contrasting houses work in China Thao Sue's work in Thailand other countries in Asia too how they work back in Canada I'm interested in the politics of zoos from a vegan perspective and in terms of the future of animals and people living together I think there was a lot of interesting issues and when I was at that zoo one of the zookeepers had a sort of show and he was teaching children to care about recycling not worth describing and so at one point you know he had a bunch of the zoo animals who were trained come out and pick up a bunch of aluminum cans that he put out on the stage and put them into the recycling bins you know so the animals picked up the aluminum cans and put them in one bin and put the the plastic in another bin and he was lecturing the children the audience with the importance of recycling and he unveiled a sign in both Thai and English that said save the planet I was standing there of course I had mixed emotions about this I'm against domestication of animals you know there are a lot of ethical problems with zoos from Venus standing there looking this I think God as such a simple slogan and we all say it so often the man how would we be living our lives and how would we be conducting ourselves the internet if any of us really were motivated by a concern for a view to a plan to save the planet whether you are at a coffee shop or leaving comments on the internet I'm gonna ask you try to act like somebody who is trying to save the planet
making videos I thought I wouldn't make any videos the rest of this month haha my new girlfriend is coming over I got to clean up the apartment I was just joking to Richard vegan gains I said to him I'm gonna buy a whole bunch of flowers because the more flowers I have sitting around the apartment the less my girlfriend is gonna notice how filthy the place but I gotta sweep the floor gotta mop the floors I got a I got a decent things to clean things up around here look this video is filling in the gaps or some of you guys on the court case with durianrider and it's deeper significance we're living in a period of history when the culture of the Internet is really corroding the culture of everything else that is not the internet a lot of you guys need to really you know put your feet on the ground feel the earth and the grass between your toes and start behaving on the internet the same way you would behave in the real world if you talk to someone in a cafe if you talk to someone face to face the way you would consider evidence the way you would evaluate a real situation because YouTube is not very far removed from real people their real lives in real situations and this doesn't just involve people with edgy or extreme online personas like durianrider or vegan cheetah you know to me it's still really memorable that when a natural vegan decided to come at me the first thing she was coming at me with was denouncing me saying that I was a terrible scholar of Buddhism so for more than 10 years of my life it was a scholar of Buddhism there are still essays on the internet you can read a couple of them are peer-reviewed publications I forget I forget I have two I thought did you say I'd like to peer review publications it's not a lot but have a couple um I remember a response to this her whole way of behaving it's like the mentality of the youtube comment section even though she's speaking to me directly she's saying this really over-the-top caddy and something stuff to me as if she's trying to get my attention we talked someone in real life face to face in a cafe or in a boardroom at a meeting or even in a university classroom setting you don't say the kadia stand most outrageous thing to get the person's attention if you say caddy and outrageous things in real world contacts you lose people's respect and they stop paying attention but in a context like a youtube comment section people are always saying thing they're there they're exaggerating there they're taking reasonable situations and reacting to them in an unreasonable way just in the hopes that the content creator or that other people in the comment section will pay attention to them as opposed to someone who's being rational and reasonable and like so you know when I natural vegan was talking this way my actual reaction sure was oh look if you want to criticize me as a scholar of Buddhism like read two or three articles like you know we can read my work like I would be so happy to have someone actually engaging in critique of my work in Buddhism like you actually have an interest you actual want to know about that no no she didn't what a natural vegan did was defame me I think I could call it defamation by going to like the crappy comment sections of you know some like group chat websites you know and like she found some comment sections where some anonymous people were calling me a worthless piece of crap now again there's a lot wrong with this there's the mentality the internet the way the internet corrodes culture [ __ ] world like okay so even if I've only got a couple of peer-reviewed articles I got a lot more non peer-reviewed articles how are you going to evaluate you know my work as a scholar of Buddhism why would you go to why would you take as indicative some anonymous comments made by people who hate me on a board like that now again you know the flip side of this is I look at somebody like a natural vegan and I said okay look like I'm I'm the first Prime well I'm extremely self-critical I think I wasted more than 10 years in my life as a scholar Buddhism I'm not gonna exaggerate the value of what I did as a scholar but it's not at all there are some people who consider my work in Buddhism brilliance I've presented my work in some very interesting settings both you know like monastic settings like you know with you in Buddhism as a religion and academic settings I've had feedback from people who are real experts in the field which of course unnatural vegan is not um but you know I'm the first person to say I wasted ten years of my life I wish I had never done that I wish I'd never become scholars I wish I'd never put in all those hard hours studying the language in the literature and so on and you know I'm eager to not only receive criticism but to engage in that kind of criticism this I mention this because this comes up also in the stuff in my personal life I'm eager to talk about my divorce or what I've done wrong in barristers but I'm not open that stuff I enjoy examining it said mother that's just part of my character part Who I am and the flip side is the other reason why I'm eager is almost nobody wants to engage in those conversations I have material on Buddhism going back to the very first days of this channel so a couple years ago do you think there are other channels engaging in like meaningful examination exploration of the articles I published on Buddhism no and like even with stuff like my divorce and I said to cheetah lately look like you're making up this gossip out of thin air as if I'm not here like if you actually wanted to talk to me what's going on my divorce again if anyone wants to talk to me about what's going on in the court case they can so it's this it's this really sick game I say to me it's like the youtube comment section mentality where you think by being unreasonable by responding to anything reasonable in an unreasonable way you're going to get more attention from your viewers from other people in the comment section or because you're really just trying to hurt the feelings of the content creator themselves and the reason why I've hung in here is that it doesn't hurt me it's completely surreal to me what a natural vegan did in trying to denounce me and the family and take me down and it's completely unforgivable completely intellectual dishonest in a very different way from what vegan cheetah and durianrider do but I think on this more fundamental and profound question of how the culture of the internet corrodes just the cult the culture of political discourse in the real world this is really worth reflecting on guys durianrider you could see in my video my four minute you know statements to him was basically only one-sided cuz I could barely hear what he said I could hear a few words of what he said so it was just informing him he needs to get a lawyer he needs to see it represented in court look guys I mean why would durianrider side of the story even be believable to anyone I'm gonna reflect on this in a relatively deep way because I think this is again the culture of the internet corrupting other forms of political discourse other aspects of our culture um you know that durianrider lied about a long list of things in this conflict and even if you have no source information other than durianrider many of the things he said he later in an offhand way admitted they were lies or he just dismissed them as trolling as being of no significance right so in various ways in various levels of seriousness and he had one video where he broke down weeping in apologize it wasn't apologizing to me he was regretting that vegan gains had you know crossed him because of this and so on you know he was reading the the collapse of his social media empire people get at me because I broke down weeping for pretty good reasons well during Ryder broken for some mad suspect reasons in the same the same event right so let's let's keep this in perspective but if you make a flowchart of how many things durianrider lied about why would his claims about this court case specifically be credible now I'm just gonna use one maybe two examples here to keep it quick but you know way back in the day when this started one of the Lies durianrider told about me that I've laughed about many times on camera he claimed that just before I came here to China he claimed that I had so many sexual liaison with other vegans in some vegan activist group that he never named in Quebec that I had been kicked out of this vegan group in Quebec now if you look at a map it's not hard to figure out that this story must be fake I was a full time University student in Victoria British Columbia a lot of you are not familiar with the geography of Canada I think that durianrider was completely unaware of the geography of Canada even anyone who watched my channel casually among the things they would have a sense of my character they have a sense of the extent to which I talk about what's going on in my life if I had been sleeping with a whole bunch of people in a vegan activist group I would have been talking about it because I'm really interested in activism that would not be a secret I'd say oh wow this is great I've got this whole bunch of vegan activists in Quebec I may you know it why would it be secret it does but the story doesn't make of us on many many levels but including so I mean like there's just no reason if you watch my channel even a little bit you know that be something you would talk about his channel oh I'm with this vegan group but now I've got a new girlfriend in the group that's that's the kind of thing I talk about my channel I just did a three-hour podcast with tofu goddess we were talking about activism and we're talking about who were dating and our love lives and the way those things overlap it's exactly the kind of stuff I do talk Boboli would not be a secret but beyond that the distance between Vancouver sorry Victoria Victoria is just south of Vancouver from Victoria to anywhere in Quebec this is like the difference between France and Russia there's an enormous distance so it's obviously a lot so you have a long list of statements from durianrider that are and you can even question where does it come from did he just make it up out of thin air or did he hunt around the internet trying to get lies about me from other people I don't know I don't really care but nothing about what this guy has said at any stage is incredible and as I've just said the durianrider you know face to face so to speak over a over over internet chat but Center look I've told you the truth at every single stage and I'm telling you the truth now you should get a lawyer you should be represented in court and I told him the courthouse and the court date and again guys the document at the start of that video you can decide in terms of Occam's razor please if you don't know what Occam's razor means fascinating Wikipedia article I am sure all right which is a simpler explanation the document I showed is it real or is it fake why would it be fake if it's real then everything I've been saying from the start of the case till now is honest and true and consistent if it's fake you would have to come up with a very convoluted explanation and again you can go through what during writer said and try to piece together a truthful or accurate or narrative but I don't even think you can do it I mean so much of what he said at every stage of this has been a lie now one of the aspects of that form in an interaction a lot of people asked about many of them with good intentions which is fine a lot of people asked well why did you say to durianrider that you you know you wish him the best like what are you why are you in effect being such a nice guy to somebody who's hurt you and harmed you and who you're currently in a core case with it could in a court battle with it's good question look guys there's such a difference with people who watch my videos and people who don't if you actually watch my channel lately I think you do have a pretty good sense of what kind of guy I am and if you don't if you just listen to lies made up about me by vegan cheetah or the other channels that basically try to imitate vegan cheetah which is pathetic you know obviously you're gonna have no sense of who I am alright I'm not a vengeful character there's a difference between being theatrical and actually being vengeful I mean I have videos where I'm really criticizing Ryan from happy healthy vegan in a very harsh tone it's very theatrical it's very intense I'm looking into the camera and delivering but you know what I have absolutely no hate in my heart for Ryan from happy healthy vegan you know these people I should hate them but I don't I should hate Charles and a lot of people are shocked that I keep reaching out positively to Charles to be entreated I keep wishing the best friend I should hate during Ryder he's really harmed me and he's harmed a lot of people but I don't I'm not eventual character it's on a level of feeling I don't feel that way at all about these people the the reason for I mean okay there are two reasons to take during writer court one because it's the right thing to do I take very seriously and that's the kind of person I am and the second is for the future of the movement right somebody has to care about the future of the vegan movement and every day I look into this camera and I ask my audience is it you um but I don't hate these people I don't hate them not even when I should not even when they've given me really good reasons to hate them and look guys how would you feel if you showed up at a boxing match you showed up at the gym you were told you were gonna box with somebody and then you get there and you realize the man you're supposed to fight in the boxing ring has only one arm it is very obvious to me when I'm watching durianrider face-to-face durianrider himself talks to some extent openly and honestly about his history with psychiatric care with diagnosed mental illness he claims that he has cured his own mental illness you can judge to what extent that is true for yourself sometimes he claims he's been diagnosed with quite an amazing list of conditions including Crohn's disease and he claims that he's cured those conditions that again is I think a very very indicative example of the ways in which durianrider doesn't just lie to his audience but he lies to himself and when I'm looking in his eyes and telling him you need to hire a lawyer in Thailand you can see him kind of alternate between two frankly crazy frames of mind one in which he is sort of playfully lying to me in lying to the audience and one in which he's lying to himself and you can see him switching between a manic smile trying to seem and vulnerable and him seeming very vulnerable indeed you know I'm a lot more comfortable having a debate or even having a you know a shouting match with somebody like a natural vegan who at least is coming into the boxing ring with both hands working and durianrider is not somebody I can even debate with and I do feel sorry for it I do feel pity for him I feel pity for him now and if he actually ends up in jail in Thailand in a two-year sentence I would feel even more pity for him so for me there's a contrast between doing the right thing between because it's the right thing to do and just feeling some sympathy some Soros some pity because of the the harm that's gonna do to another human being taking during right a court is the right thing to do it's the right thing to do for me it's the right thing to do for the donors it's the right thing to do for the future of the vegan movement but I can still feel bad looking at this guy and realizing I do not think he's intellectually capable of handling the situation he's already in I'm looking at somebody who doesn't want to admit to himself that I've been telling the truth and that he's been lying he's basically sitting there asking me if this is true why doesn't he know it already and it's like well the reason why you don't know this durianrider is because you've been lying to yourself lying to everyone else and you've been disregarding the advice from everyone who told you the truth okay and when it even comes down to me believe me it would be more convenient for me more convenient for my lawyer my lawyer would rather try the case with no opposition in the courtroom it's an easier job for him if Terry price does step anyone we're presenting his side of the story but like when I'm put in that position I'm trying to do the right thing just because the right thing to do and I'll add on to this look guys in terms of my not being eventual character one of the things that made this conflict during more trite or more dramatic is that I'm still in court with my ex-wife in France now I remarked in the irony of this many times different people I think including during writer and vegan cheetah made up totally false allegations at a thin air about my divorce you know in the the connected court trial whatever want to say because it's more legal II there's more going on there than just the divorce and I've seen Charles directly claim a pardon me that I have criminal charges against me in connection to that which is not true and has never been true I'm not facing any criminal charges on the contrary my ex-wife will face criminal charges now I know just how terrible it is to find out that someone has in secret filed legal paperwork against you that someone has carried out a trial in your absence without informing you so you didn't have the opportunity to show up and defend yourself or to pay a lawyer to show up and defend yourself because that is exactly what my ex-wife did to me okay legally in France I was declared missing without a trace I believe that's the French term in the United States of America I think you'd say am ia or something oh no sorry I made this in military term if you're missing and presumed dead is what that is and often in informal English and on it's a legal term we just refer this as legally dead now when that happens to you again this is true this is similar in America in France you lose all your legal rights you lose all your standing in the divorce trial and that's why I'm not divorced yet you can't get divorced if you're dead then I had to start a legal process to prove that I was a lie pardon me to prove that I was alive and to overturn that earlier you know injunction resolution whatever you want to say so I know just how terrible that is so the irony is I'm in a situation where we are carrying on a legal case against durianrider and I have made every effort to declare to the world openly this is real and it's ongoing and he is so deep into his own self-deception that he doesn't want to accept that it's real he doesn't want the open okay so I feel sorry for him and I hope he finally does hire a lawyer in Thailand who will see right away when they look up his name of the court date of the court it will be very easy for a professional lawyer in Thailand to see the ongoing case against him I've already given him all the information he needs and again I mean what more can I do for during Ryder like do you want me to put him in touch with a lawyer like this is ridiculous people okay and what more could I do for this audience what more can I do for an audience of vegans who say they're trying to save the world but who have you know step by step gradually become accustomed to this culture of constant defamation and conspiratorial thinking all right yes you know what when I showed my passport on camera it's possible that it's a fake passport here I actually have it out because I went to the bank the other day thank you yeah it's possible I'm showing you a fake passport it's possible that I'm showing you a fake criminal record check yeah it's possible it's possible that how would I have even done I would have paid it's possible that I created fake legal documents in the Thai language it's possible okay but on the other side of this the of Occam's razor here people the simpler explanation is I have been telling you the truth at every stage and durianrider has been lying there is just no reason to think that during Ryder's story about this court case is more credible than his story about my sleeping with a whole bunch of women in back when I was living an enormous distance away from Quebec in Victoria enrolled in university full-time and making videos every day showing you what was going on for life I would have been happy I had a bunch of girlfriends if he could move in and come back it was part of a vegan movement at all I would talk about it on YouTube it's so ridiculous the story okay it's not more credible than his story about me being kicked out of a group in Quebec it's not more credible than his story that he was diagnosed with these illnesses like Crohn's disease and he magically cured those illnesses so why are you overlooking just how plausibly stories are I think we really need to replace a culture of conspiracy theory thinking with a culture of sincere engagement okay and this is why I started with the example of a natural vegan okay why do people seemingly intelligent people find it so satisfying to believe that they found the truth because they found some angry comments buried in a discussion forum all right a natural vegan is not that stupid if she wanted to have a fair and balanced sense of what I did both good and bad as a scholar of Buddhism so she could look at my resume showing my CV she can learn my list of publications she can look at the academic colloquia of presented papers ad you know that's place to start she can look at the essays it could she can look at the language work there's a lot of evidence available just through Google really rapidly to get a sense of what I did with those used my life and as you may know I didn't just study Buddhism at the same time I was doing humanitarian work I was doing a lot of historical research language research as as mentioned I was also doing other jobs to survive interact it's not boring you know that's that was the life I lived during those years right I'm not asking a natural vegan to praise that I'm not asking her to respect it but I think she does I think she does respect it and why is it that she reaches past this mountain of evidence of readily available evidence she has a university degree in philosophy with no background Buddhism on sure she could nevertheless read some my essays and even blog posts like informal articles about Buddhist philosophy and she could probably appreciate oh this guy knows who's Thai but this guy didn't just waste his time for 10 years no no she ignores that melton of evidence she reaches over it to pick up a thimbleful from the ground okay she finds some little statement an anonymous statement on discussion forum of you know people are pissed off of me and Buddhism or whatever people who hate my work which exist if you're doing anything worthwhile there are people out there on the internet saying you're a terrible human being there are people saying that about a natural vegan - there have always been people saying that about durianrider and cheetah and and me - right because the conspiracy theory frame of mind rewards that kind of behavior it makes you feel like you're smarter than everyone else because you're ignoring the mountain of evidence and picking up something hidden something secret something makes you feel like you're better than the people who are paying attention you have the key to a lock nobody knows but you know something secret and special that makes you smarter than wrong I do think a natural vegan was the victim of that mentality was just so common and wise for the Internet in her reaction to me and the truth is if she had proceeded in a more open way and actually looking at the evidence or she just talked to me the same way you would talk to a person in a in a cafe you know she may dislike me I dislike her but I do think in these obvious ways I think she would respect me and regard be Zumbi and would not denounce me and my background in Buddhism I think she might have actually just a more intelligent a more meaningful critique of me or more intelligent debate with me right this applies across the board people I think my conflict with durianrider did raise so many things that are worth debating but the type of behavior you see going on is people ignoring the melton and trying to pick out something they feel is secret that it reveals it feels the real dirt but you know there's a mountain of dirt the dirt and stone that's really worth talking about okay now look guys the only reason I'm still here is that I'm the one person a million who actually is tough enough to take it you know there's been so many other people the durianrider made threats of violence against that he denounced defamed in the past who just crumbled and some of them have sent me email some of the sent email thanking me thanking me because I was the guy who stood up and they regretted that they never felt strong enough that they were too afraid for whatever reason they couldn't stand up for themselves when during inviter did something similar to them okay I can tolerate this stuff but you guys ought to have some sympathy in your hearts because I shouldn't have to okay I was delighted when the secret got out that I changed my legal name because it amuses the hell out of me to see people generating a mythology out of that side of my life alright and I did address it in the conversation with the light twins and I've dressed it several times on you now and people expect me to be really emotionally bashed up about it but what I said when I was starting to light tones I'm gonna say again now it's not a secret everybody in my life who knows me personally knows about that they know about my relationship with my parents they know that I changed my legal name they know that for a period of almost exactly 10 years it just worked out to be 10 years I didn't talk to my parents at all and they didn't talk to me we were not on speaking terms I have a very bad relationship with my parents but what I said to the light twins is not meaningless and it's it's a long cool interview I did with light winds I said look I made a decision when I came on the Internet my story is mine to tell my parents story is not mine to tell and look again I've alluded to it like guys I'd say the same thing about my ex-wife I'm not coming on here and defaming and denouncing my ex-wife or even complaining about it really what I say about my ex-wife in this channel is very flattering my story is mine to tell hers isn't okay I'm not asking any of you guys respect that I'm really not but when you look at the reaction to that to something which again the reason why I haven't deleted my youtube channel is that emotionally and intellectually I can handle all this stuff and a lot of other people can't I can laugh at it I can treat it in a more serious and sober mood the way we are right now but like guys when we're looking back on like you know the history of veganism where did you stand on these issues like why did you take such Glee in you know trying to destroy another human being by ridiculing his relationship with his own parents by ridiculing his relationship with his own daughter with his own ex-wife why were so many people so eager to do that in a context of again look at the videos in my own channel I have a really substantive book review up now I've had several in the past three months because about the time to read books you know switching from be living in conveying to living in to home I decided to read a bunch of you know that major academic publications and the vegan vegan politics literature and review and discuss them guys this channel has always been trying to raise really serious substantive issues for discussion for the future of the movement and you're reaching over that melton you're ignoring the mountain to try to pick up some little thimble full of dirt that you think makes you feel powerful makes you feel special makes you feel like you've got the key to a secret code that nobody else knows and you know what's what's really worth dealing with is the mountain it's what's right in front of your face it's what I'm presenting to you my relationship with my parents believe me today right now if vegan cheetah wanted to talk to me in a down-to-earth way about my relation of the parents I'd be eager to do so if anybody wanted to talk to me my divorce believe me you get to be middle-aged I'm 38 years old nobody wants to talk to me alone a divorce my best friends they don't want to hear about it they trust me if you're a teenager you made a beautiful monster understand this once you get past a certain age nobody wants to talk to you about your personal life nobody wants to know about it people talk about business people talk about making money people talking about politics nobody wants arguments if not even the people who gossip too but I had a great conversation with Lance carb strong Lance carb strong used to have videos defaming me in exactly these ways what the court cases during right arm personally you don't want to get him on skype he's the nicest guy in the world and he doesn't want to talk about that stuff he has no interest most people don't he was given the opportunity to talk to me face to face guys just say again I was at a zoo in Thailand the zoo that is on the same mountain that durianrider rides his bike up so often they all ride past the entrance to that Zoo I went to that zoo because I was sincerely interested in the conditions the animals there I'm interested in contrasting houses work in China Thao Sue's work in Thailand other countries in Asia too how they work back in Canada I'm interested in the politics of zoos from a vegan perspective and in terms of the future of animals and people living together I think there was a lot of interesting issues and when I was at that zoo one of the zookeepers had a sort of show and he was teaching children to care about recycling not worth describing and so at one point you know he had a bunch of the zoo animals who were trained come out and pick up a bunch of aluminum cans that he put out on the stage and put them into the recycling bins you know so the animals picked up the aluminum cans and put them in one bin and put the the plastic in another bin and he was lecturing the children the audience with the importance of recycling and he unveiled a sign in both Thai and English that said save the planet I was standing there of course I had mixed emotions about this I'm against domestication of animals you know there are a lot of ethical problems with zoos from Venus standing there looking this I think God as such a simple slogan and we all say it so often the man how would we be living our lives and how would we be conducting ourselves the internet if any of us really were motivated by a concern for a view to a plan to save the planet whether you are at a coffee shop or leaving comments on the internet I'm gonna ask you try to act like somebody who is trying to save the planet