0:00

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from

0:03

House Stuff Works dot com.

0:10

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:12

Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant

0:15

and Jerry and this is Stuff

0:17

you Should Know, Part two

0:20

about animals rare sweet.

0:23

Yeah, good one. And you wrote

0:25

this for your buddies

0:27

at Primer Yeah. Yeah, let's

0:29

give a little shout out to Primer Stories. Um

0:32

So, Primer Stories are basically

0:34

doing for uh the

0:37

interactive medium, the same thing that podcast

0:40

did for radio and Ted Talks did for speaking

0:42

engagements. And I wrote

0:44

an essay for him for season four and you

0:46

can check it out at Primer Stories dot com

0:49

slash s y s K go

0:51

go check it out. It's pretty neat, but it ties

0:53

into animal rights and

0:56

uh humans. But

0:58

you you did put this together, right.

1:00

I've put together this episode and then I wrote a

1:02

separate essay based on my

1:05

research that, um is, it's different.

1:07

Nice. I'm Josh Clark and I did my

1:09

book report on Yeah.

1:12

Luckily the primary dudes, Joe

1:15

and Tim kept it from devolving into

1:17

that. Well, this was fantastic. I just want

1:19

to say that, thanks man, I appreciate it.

1:21

Uh So, I guess we don't need to set

1:23

anything up. If you haven't listened to the one on animal

1:26

testing, yes, stop right here, Yeah, just go

1:28

do that and then welcome

1:31

to part two. Yeah,

1:33

how awkward was that? I thought it was pretty

1:35

succinct. Okay, not awkward. Uh.

1:38

So tell me a little bit about your buddy

1:40

Aristotle. So Aristotle, we

1:43

mentioned him in the last episode. We're gonna say

1:45

that a lot. But Aristotle was

1:47

one of the first dudes to experiment on animals.

1:50

I think I called him a big dummy, you did, and

1:53

as a joke, Yeah,

1:55

and yeah,

1:59

no, he's fine. Yeah he Uh.

2:01

He was a smart dude, he was.

2:04

But one of the things that he did not only um

2:07

experimenting on animals, he also came

2:09

up with a hierarchy of animals based

2:12

on the souls he anticipated each

2:14

possessed. He said, kitty got pretty

2:16

good, dog much better?

2:19

What is that? Is he? Checkoslovakia? I have no

2:21

idea, No, I guess it'll just

2:23

be check now. Yeah, I don't know what

2:25

that was unless he's from like the fifties.

2:28

It was It was not Greco Roman?

2:32

Uh, maybe Albanian. Okay,

2:35

So Aristotle the Albanian comes

2:37

up with this hierarchy UM.

2:39

And at the top of the hierarchy, guess who

2:42

humans And humans have

2:44

all three kinds of souls, the vegetative

2:47

soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational

2:49

soul. We possess all three of

2:51

those souls. Therefore, we're at the top of

2:53

the hierarchy of all the organisms

2:56

on planet Earth. Below

2:58

us are animals, and they've got

3:00

the first two. They've got the vegetative soul and

3:03

the sensitive soul, which means

3:05

that like they like to lay around and read

3:07

UM romance novels, that's

3:10

right. And then you've got plants,

3:12

and plants obviously have the vegetative soul.

3:14

So what he's describing are the different

3:16

um I guess life forces that

3:18

he expected UM

3:22

organisms to have. And because

3:24

of that, there was a hierarchy that was established.

3:27

And because of that hierarchy that Aristotle

3:29

came up with, we still view animals

3:31

in a certain way today, like we

3:33

still basically follow that same

3:36

hierarchy that he made, uh

3:39

hundred years ago or so. Yeah,

3:41

And and the whole kind of point of this episode

3:44

is kind of based on

3:46

that whether or not animals have a soul and

3:48

where they rank or maybe should

3:51

rank, and UM it's

3:53

sort of that's sort of going down the rabbit

3:55

hole myself of what a soul is and

3:58

human even Well, you're

4:00

not the first to do that, of course, Um,

4:04

would you come up with? Would

4:06

you come up with? Everyone wants to hear, including

4:08

me and Jerry? Nah, I don't. I don't

4:10

know. I'm still struggling with what I believe, even

4:13

at my advanced stage, and I think I will till the day I

4:15

die and become worm dirt.

4:18

Right. So that's one indication of what I

4:20

believe. Your last words are oh no, Um,

4:25

But that that idea whether or not animals do have

4:27

a souls is nothing new. Um.

4:30

You point out very astutely that, Um,

4:33

Judeo Christian wise, they

4:36

do not think that animals have souls and

4:39

have long held kind

4:41

of a brutal attitude toward animals, like,

4:44

forget animals, just kick them in the face.

4:46

I don't care. That's a

4:48

little harsh. But um, there the

4:50

idea that humans have dominion over animals

4:53

very much a part of the Judeo Christian ethic.

4:55

Yeah, and should have dominion yea. And that animals

4:57

don't have souls, and that's reason what's one reason

5:00

why humans have dominion. That's right. It

5:02

turns out the Mormons actually are one

5:04

of the few groups in the West

5:06

religiously speaking, that do

5:09

believe that animals survive into the afterlife.

5:12

Mormons and then um

5:15

seeks Muslims, Hindus,

5:17

big time Hindus, and Jane's

5:20

Jainists. Um. They believe

5:22

that the best way to to um

5:25

save your soul is to protect other souls.

5:28

So like you'll see a jainistum with a little

5:30

they they have little brooms and

5:32

they'll like wipe down or they'll they'll

5:34

brush off a seat before

5:36

they sit on it because they don't want to accidentally sit on any

5:38

bug and take its life. Well that's nice,

5:41

that's uh. That's protection of other souls

5:43

for sure. Not like the cockroach, right,

5:47

they'll still kill a kukara. Oh

5:49

man, I had a funny cockroach that

5:51

incident last night. Like I laugh,

5:53

belly laughed for ten minutes. What

5:56

did the cock roads laugh? Well, there was a cockroach

5:58

in the room at some point that got away

6:01

and um. Later on that night, Emily

6:03

and I were in bed and I was

6:05

on my computer and she was reading or something, and

6:08

she looked up and on the ceiling it was right above

6:10

her and she, oh, there's that cockroach, which

6:13

I was shocked that she was that lazy fair

6:15

about it. I went, why are you

6:17

not freaking out? I was like, that thing's about to fall

6:19

on you? And right when I said you, he

6:21

moved and fell right on

6:24

her. And it's so funny,

6:26

like she's she shrieked like

6:28

a small child and jumped

6:30

off the bed quicker than I've ever seen her move. She

6:32

scared my dogs. I jumped

6:34

and ran, but I didn't shriek, which

6:37

I just thought was very interesting dichotomy.

6:40

Um and I killed it. And

6:42

it was just very very funny

6:44

that she was just like, oh, there's that cockroach, Like who

6:46

are you? You're not the Emily

6:48

I know exactly, Like why aren't you running?

6:51

And she's super tired or

6:53

something she was, But yeah, it's

6:55

just very strange. I think she

6:57

learned the lesson that a cockroach on the ceiling

7:00

is not on the ceiling for long means you roll out of bed,

7:02

yeah, immediately. So anyway,

7:05

that's my cocorad story. Uh.

7:08

Judaism they believe that, um well,

7:10

it's a lot of debating in the Jewish community.

7:12

Some scholars say that they do have souls.

7:15

Yeah, lately they've been saying that, but only

7:17

here while they're alive, and they don't carry

7:20

into the afterlife. Big work around. Yeah,

7:22

uh it is Uh.

7:25

Pope John Paul the Second said, yeah,

7:27

you probably you you probably

7:30

are going to see your your little

7:32

dog in the afterlife. Maybe it's

7:34

possible. I'm Pope John Paul.

7:37

Everybody loves me. Would you like my autograph?

7:39

Right? Me? Gorby and Ronald Reagan

7:41

rule the world? Uh. During

7:44

the Enlightenment, things change a little bit from

7:46

the religious aspects to more of a uh

7:49

science based or philosophical and

7:51

our old buddy Descartes said

7:55

animals have no internal

7:58

experience, which is very cold way of putting it.

8:00

Yeah, he called them automatons

8:03

kind of famously actually, and he said that, um,

8:05

they are capable

8:09

of ex of responding

8:12

to pain, but because they don't

8:14

have any internal experience,

8:16

they can't actually experience

8:19

the pain. Therefore, when

8:21

you, um are cutting open

8:23

a live dog and you're

8:25

seeing it squirm and and wrythe

8:28

and agony strictly responding

8:30

to a stimulus, it's not actually

8:33

going on. Like when Lucas testing out his

8:35

new hand and

8:38

he's poking the like the different

8:41

nerves or the artificial nerves or whatever making

8:43

the fingers move. He's getting poked on the finger, but he doesn't

8:45

feel that. It's just a response to a stimuli. Yeah,

8:48

I guess very much like that. It's

8:50

the same thing as like with robots too. Yeah.

8:53

I mean that's that's how essentially

8:56

they cart decreed

8:58

that animals were And that's some thing

9:00

that stuck out to me, like throughout researching

9:02

this whole thing. Humans

9:04

have long just decreed that things are

9:06

a certain way, and that those

9:09

decrees tend to fit whatever

9:11

the human wants to do to an animal

9:13

at that time of course, right, Yeah,

9:16

that idea is sort of the basis was and

9:18

still kind of is for for scientists

9:20

who experiment on animals. They're trained

9:23

to um to detach

9:25

themselves emotionally and just say,

9:27

no, this is just a stimuli reaction.

9:30

This is not an animal that's actually feeling

9:33

pain. Dogs don't have that. Dogs

9:35

don't have internal experience or internal

9:37

lives, so you can't really, I

9:40

can't really feel pain or suffering. It's

9:43

not true. Uh.

9:45

Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher in England.

9:48

Correct, Yeah, a big one and actually

9:50

he's still around. They bring his mummified

9:54

body out for um dinners

9:56

of the the guys who run the college

9:59

what, every once a year, and

10:01

he sits at the head of the table and his head

10:04

has actually been separated from his body, and

10:06

they bring that out too. It's in a case. It's

10:08

pretty cool. Holy cow. Yeah,

10:11

as far as philosophers go, it's pretty neat.

10:13

So he had a pretty neat idea, which

10:15

was, um, you know what, it's not just

10:17

about whether you can reason with an animal, but

10:20

can they suffer? He's he's the one that kind of brought about

10:22

this idea of animals suffering

10:26

in the same way that a human might, which

10:28

is a huge change. It was

10:30

a big sea change in the way that we saw

10:32

animals, because up to that point, the

10:34

idea was that animals couldn't

10:36

suffer, and even if they could suffer, nobody

10:39

was taking that into account. But they couldn't

10:41

suffer because they couldn't talk or they couldn't

10:43

rationalize. And he said, no, we

10:46

I think they can suffer. And he used his um

10:49

philosific calculus, which takes into

10:51

account all of the suffering and

10:53

all of the happiness or pleasure

10:55

produced by an event and

10:58

you weighed against one another and

11:00

it's really involved. Actually, but

11:03

if you carry out Bentham's

11:05

calculations, uh, you

11:07

can take any any event, any

11:09

action, and determine whether it's

11:11

ethically like, morally

11:14

correct or morally repugnant. And

11:17

uh, he came to the conclusion that experimenting

11:20

on animals was morally

11:22

repugnant because animal suffering wasn't

11:24

taken into account. And he took it into account,

11:27

and it wasn't just a one off where he wrote

11:29

an essay about it like this is a well he went back

11:31

to a lot and was kind of an agitator

11:33

for animal welfare early on. Well,

11:36

there's a lot of money in it, right. Uh

11:39

So moving on to and

11:43

I think you make a very good point here that the

11:46

protectionism for animals really starts

11:49

around the time where we

11:51

made the transition um

11:54

in in farming and how we raised

11:56

in eight animals. Yeah, because

11:58

you sue like you be like I

12:00

feel like some beef for dinner. I'm gonna go kill old

12:02

Bessie r Cow. Yeah, And you love Bessie,

12:05

and your little boy or a little girl

12:07

might cry about Bessie, but then the

12:09

parents would explain that you know, We raised Bessie, and

12:11

we loved and cared for Bessie, treated Bessie

12:13

very nicely. UM.

12:15

And the reason Bessie is here so Bessie

12:18

can eventually feed us, and we should

12:20

um honor that

12:23

in every way possible by

12:25

using as much of this animal as we can and

12:28

honor the life that she led. You

12:31

know, or if you had a bad parent, they just kind

12:33

of wheeled that cleaver in your direction

12:35

and shut up just as fast. This could

12:37

be you. But that was

12:39

a huge sea change when things started to change

12:42

and industrialization took off,

12:44

UH, and people were no longer connected

12:47

to the animal on their farm that they ate.

12:49

It was a sea change and how people

12:52

I mean it directly coincided with how people

12:54

felt about animals. When you could buy something

12:57

in the store that looked nothing like that animal. Yeah,

12:59

it's not even called pig, it's called pork or bacon

13:01

or ham. Um. And then not

13:03

only that chuck something I left out here that came

13:05

across later. Um. This

13:07

is at the same time when people move from the farm

13:10

to the factory, from rural um

13:12

in interactions with animals to UH

13:15

to urban settings without animals.

13:18

This is when people started to keep pets. Yeah,

13:20

you know, I never realized

13:23

what you just said there about pork and

13:25

beef. That never really dawned on me. It's

13:27

never called pick that. If it said ground cow,

13:30

right instead of ground beef, people would be like,

13:33

reveal, yeah, some

13:35

baby cow, ground baby cow. Yeah,

13:38

yeah, that makes total sense. And such

13:40

a dummy that that never occurred to me, Like,

13:43

is that where that came from? Calling them different names?

13:45

I would guess

13:48

veal is probably like Latin for baby

13:50

calf or something. I don't think it was a purposeful

13:53

obfuscation. I don't know, would

13:56

not surprise me. This is before the advent

13:58

of pr, so I think much

14:00

more innocent, naive back then. Chicken

14:03

is but who gives? Who cares about chicken?

14:07

I was saying that, Um, this is also the

14:09

time when people began keeping pets

14:11

around the house, so animals,

14:15

so we're removed from food production,

14:17

and we're we were starting to see animals not

14:20

as commodities but as sweet little

14:22

things that we want to care for and protect and

14:24

like give food to and like let's

14:26

sleep in the bed with us. And it developed

14:29

this dichotomy of how we view animals

14:31

today, which is, um,

14:33

animals are to be protected

14:36

by humans, but

14:38

we can also eat them. It's totally cool. Uh.

14:42

And that's a really if you step back and look at it.

14:44

It's so easy to take for granted because that's

14:46

how almost everybody, except for vegans

14:49

um view animals.

14:52

It's really easy to take it for granted. But if you step

14:54

back and look at it, it's a very bizarre contradictory

14:58

um paradigm.

15:01

Yeah, it's sort of a deal people have made with themselves

15:03

mfortually, I think, and society is made

15:05

with itself too. All right, Well, we're gonna

15:07

take a break and we're gonna come back and talk a little bit

15:09

about the fact that, as of yet, there were still no

15:12

laws on the books about protecting animals.

15:36

All right, before we left, I teased about the laws

15:38

of the land and while

15:41

things were changing maybe attitude in le

15:44

Uh. In England. You point

15:46

out in the mid nineteenth century, it was

15:49

still legal to beat

15:51

your horse to death if he was tired, or

15:53

to kill your cow if

15:55

it didn't produce milk. There

15:57

were no laws in place or like a

16:00

your dog did something you didn't like, you could kick it to

16:02

death. Like It's just some people

16:04

did that. I think some people

16:06

are still like that today,

16:08

but are restrained by laws

16:11

that developed out of this era, out of the nineteenth

16:13

century, and where before

16:15

there weren't any laws. So if you

16:17

were in impulsive puts,

16:19

you could kick a dog to death. You

16:21

know. I can't even go there

16:23

with those stories that happened today,

16:26

but that happened even more then. That's

16:30

a very important point though, is like society

16:33

as a whole wasn't just beating horses

16:35

and dogs to death. UM

16:38

for the most part, right, I think it was sociopath

16:41

back then, and I think it still is now, you

16:43

know. UM, for the most part, people did

16:46

not do that, and people didn't even

16:48

like they didn't necessarily

16:50

even turn a blind eye too it. I think they did more

16:52

because there wasn't a lot you could do.

16:55

UM. But it's probably along the lines

16:57

of where if you, UM

16:59

don't agree with spanking your kid, and

17:02

you see somebody in the store like grab their kids and

17:04

spank them, you might want to say

17:06

something, but at the same time, you probably won't

17:08

because you don't know if that's a crazy person and

17:11

or whatever. You don't get involved. For

17:14

the most part, most people don't. I

17:16

think that was probably very much the same lines

17:18

like where you um, you might

17:20

see something like that happening, but you

17:22

weren't gonna say anything. I think that

17:24

was the social status quo at the time.

17:27

But that said, if, if, if

17:30

the circumstances were right in the act was

17:32

particularly egregious, some

17:34

someone might say something. There was a guy in eighteen

17:36

thirty four who in the middle of

17:38

Washington, d c. Beat his cow to death,

17:42

and he was arrested and charged

17:44

with um not beating the cow

17:46

to death because again there was no law protecting

17:48

that cow, but um with creating

17:51

a public nuisance because he

17:53

subjected all the passers by to the

17:56

site of his cow being beaten to death, and people

17:58

objected to it. So even even

18:01

at the time when there wasn't any legal protection

18:03

for animals, there was still there

18:06

was a line that was drawn. You know, people

18:09

weren't cool with it, you know. Interesting,

18:12

So, legislatively speaking, it was

18:14

about the turn of the nineteenth century in England when

18:17

Lords Erskine and Morton got

18:20

together and they a bunch of times

18:23

to try and actually amend the code,

18:25

the legal code and UH.

18:27

One of the first things they tried to outlaw

18:29

with something called bull baiting UH

18:32

and I imagine bear baiting,

18:34

which was also a thing. And

18:37

we'll get to this in a second, but it's like

18:39

Roman gladiator stuff. Yeah.

18:41

It's when they put a bull or a bear and they

18:44

chain them to a steak

18:46

and a pit. Yeah, and put dogs in

18:48

there to fight and kill. Yeah.

18:51

And bulldogs used to be way,

18:54

way more vicious and aggressive than they

18:56

are today. They actually had that stuff bred

18:58

out of them and they looked a lot different to

19:01

um. But that's where they got their name from.

19:03

Bulldogs. Bear baiting

19:06

is still going on in Pakistan.

19:09

Yeah, it's it's disgusting, it's

19:11

um there's a big push to stop it now. There's

19:14

a group called World Animal Protection International

19:17

and that's one of their big causes is to stop bear baiting

19:19

in Pakistan. But UM, I would

19:21

encourage you not to look that up and

19:24

and look at pictures and stuff un

19:26

once you want your heartbroken. But um,

19:28

it's amazing that in s that's still

19:30

going on in the world at all. But it is uh

19:33

and then Uh Martin and

19:36

Uh Martin and Erskin the

19:38

great comedy duo was going to say, too,

19:41

what is it is? Because of Martin Rohan and Martin is that where

19:43

I'm thinking Uh,

19:45

in eighteen twenty two they actually were

19:47

enabled to get the first law pass in

19:49

the West that made it a criminal act

19:52

to abuse animals, called Martin's Act

19:54

after Martin and Uh it

19:56

was the technical name was an act to prevent the cruel

19:58

and improper treatment of battle and

20:01

it was specifically for livestock.

20:03

And it was a ten shilling fine three

20:05

months in the pokey if you didn't pay the

20:07

fine. But what it did was set

20:10

a precedent for the future. It was very important it

20:12

did. It was only there was a law, right, there was a law

20:14

in the books protecting animals. And again,

20:16

like you said, it was pretty specific and

20:18

technically there have been a law in the

20:20

Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans

20:23

had a law in their Body of Liberties,

20:25

but apparently it wasn't ever enforced. But

20:28

this is the first real law. UM.

20:30

And UH. The

20:33

fact that Parliament

20:35

was responding to this um

20:37

kind of aroused the public. Uh.

20:40

We talked about in the animal animal

20:43

Testing episode the last one. UM.

20:45

How I think in eight seventy six there

20:48

was a law that passed that was passed

20:50

like protecting animals during experimentation

20:52

thanks to Charles Darwin Um,

20:55

that that came fifty years

20:57

after the first animal protection laws in

20:59

the UK. So they've been there have been niche

21:01

people. Groups who

21:03

had been agitating for this got

21:07

actually the parliament involved,

21:10

and then the public became involved, which

21:12

is usually the opposite rum. Usually

21:15

it's like these groups agitate, get the public

21:17

involved, and then the public get government to do something.

21:20

This actually kind of went out of order a little

21:22

bit. But the people who were

21:24

agitating, these niche people were usually

21:27

very interesting people like Henry Berg

21:29

is a really good example. Boy, I love this

21:31

guy. Yeah, you talked about an agitator. He

21:34

founded the created the A s p C A,

21:37

and um, he was a little rich

21:39

kid and he basically said, you know what, I'm gonna

21:41

kind of dedicate my life too

21:45

walking the streets because one of the things in eight

21:48

sixty six when the SPC

21:50

A SPC I was founded was in

21:52

New York. They said, you know what, you

21:55

have the power to go out and police these things. We're not

21:57

really enforcing it, but you can do so,

21:59

and great, I'll do it.

22:01

Yeah. He was a true believer for sure.

22:04

Um. I think the first instance, as the legend

22:06

goes, he saw he was a Russian

22:09

diplomat or a diplomat to Russian American

22:11

diplomat in Russia. Um,

22:13

during the reign of the Tsar still,

22:16

he saw a Russian peasant

22:18

beating his horse, and he threatened

22:20

to beat the man, and

22:23

the guy responded very in

22:26

in a way that Henry Berg was like, oh, I'm

22:28

going to do this all the time. Now he

22:31

was like, I'm so sorry. Apparently the guy started

22:33

crying he was being talked down to by

22:35

someone of a higher station. Then when

22:37

Henry Bird got back to America and tried it, he

22:39

found that people of

22:41

the middle or lower classes beneath

22:43

him socially did not respond

22:46

the way the Russian peasantry did. They said, this

22:48

is New York, so he had to kind

22:50

of So he would um sometimes

22:53

actually follow through on his threats and like

22:55

beat people he saw beating their horses.

22:58

Um, I have no problem with that. Yeah,

23:01

I think most people didn't. But he would also

23:03

he'd go and break up like underground bullfight

23:06

or underground bull baiting that underground

23:08

bullfight to both

23:11

going a uh. And he

23:13

is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

23:15

If you want to go by and uh lay some

23:18

flowers at his grave and pay your respects. I

23:20

think I might do that next time in New York.

23:22

Yeah, and I mean even if you're not in the animal rights.

23:24

He was also a huge children's crusader, and

23:27

he very wisely never allowed,

23:29

uh, the children's organizations that

23:32

he funded and supported, to

23:34

merge with the animal organizations,

23:36

because he knew full well that the little

23:38

children would take the wheel

23:42

and they would very quickly

23:44

overwhelmed the sentiments in the UM.

23:46

The efforts on behalf of the

23:49

animals. Yeah, it was. It was pretty smart to keep

23:51

it uh separate. You got to keep them separated.

23:55

You point out in this article very astutely

23:58

that um abusing an

24:00

animal is it could

24:02

be an indicator of violence toward humans. And I

24:04

know that. You know, uh

24:07

a lot of serial killers started out like

24:10

killing animals first as their first try.

24:12

That is, from what I can tell,

24:15

most likely a pop psychology

24:17

urban legend, what that they

24:20

did that. Yeah, I

24:22

mean there's Jeffrey Dahmer did for sure. There's

24:24

okay, yes, but that the idea that it's a

24:26

predictor of future serial killing.

24:28

Oh yeah, yeah. The triad

24:30

of evil, which is bed wedding,

24:34

harming, farming animals, and setting

24:36

fires. If you have your kid

24:38

doing those three things allegedly

24:41

under this triad of evil, you can

24:43

bet that there's a pretty good chance they're going to grow up

24:45

to harm humans. I went

24:47

to bed. I uh,

24:51

I didn't set harmful fires, but I

24:53

did play with fire a little bit. I

24:55

think this is more like you're intentionally setting

24:58

fires like harmiting or burning burned

25:00

down the woods. No, I didn't do that. Um.

25:03

And then you know, my dog died and I

25:05

sat in his doghouse for two days and cried. So

25:07

I was it's not harming animals, clearly not.

25:10

I was on the other side of the coin from early on

25:12

when Huggy Bear died. But that whether

25:15

or not that's true that that's been used.

25:17

The Huggy Bear, Yeah, that was my German Shepherd.

25:19

Great name for a dog. Yeah, that was like

25:22

the first dog that I really bonded with.

25:24

That was the dude from the like the street

25:26

Wise start from start, right,

25:29

Huggy Bear. That's

25:31

great. Yeah, he was awesome. I get

25:33

a little sad thing about him today, which

25:36

Huggy Bear not the TV show. Okay, I

25:40

just remember my mom literally came home from work

25:43

and like I was in the doghouse

25:45

crying, like laying down and crying. That is sweet.

25:47

You know, I was

25:50

such a little boss. How old? How long was

25:52

Huggy Bear around? Uh? You know,

25:54

I don't remember, like your

25:56

whole life. Was he alive when you were born, not

25:59

when I was born? His mom Daisy

26:01

was And then Daisy died when I

26:03

was really young, so it didn't have a

26:05

super big impact. But then Huggy Bear was

26:07

one of the puppies we kept. How old were you

26:09

when he died? I want to say I was

26:11

like eight

26:14

or nine maybe, Oh, yeah,

26:16

that's right there. Yeah, first

26:19

big loss. You know. Um

26:21

r I p Huggy Bear. Yeah, I appreciate that.

26:24

Yeah, we'll drink one in your honor tonight. Hb

26:27

uh. But anyway, Yeah, you're right. It

26:29

doesn't hold up to scrutiny all the time. But

26:32

if you're torturing and killing animals,

26:34

it's it's not a good sign. No, And

26:37

and the people who have agitated

26:40

for animal rights have long used this.

26:42

Whether it's true or not, people think it's

26:44

true. So the whole, the

26:46

whole premise for a lot of people has been

26:49

if a human harms an animal,

26:51

there's a good chance they're gonna harm a human. So

26:53

if you protect animals and prevent people from

26:56

harming animals, you're preventing somebody

26:58

from possibly harming human. I'm fine with

27:00

that line of thought. Or you're also by

27:03

drawing a line before animals,

27:06

you're rooting out people who might

27:08

harm humans down the road by

27:12

having them exposed themselves as harmers

27:14

of animals. That one's a little morally

27:17

trickier. If harming animals

27:19

doesn't lead to harming humans. If

27:22

you assume that it doesn't treat the person like

27:24

that like, oh, you're a serial killer because

27:26

you just certifire Peter

27:28

Pants and Ate bit

27:30

the head off a chipmunk. Actually,

27:33

you'd probably be right if especially

27:37

if you did all three at once. At

27:40

the very least, I wouldn't leave them alone with your child.

27:44

Uh So, a lot of progress is being made, and by

27:46

nineteen o seven all the states in the

27:48

United States had some kind of anti

27:51

cruelty law going on, and

27:53

it started to become just sort of the mindset.

27:56

Yeah, that was kind

27:58

of the tradition, Like the states oversaw

28:01

a protection of animals until

28:03

the mid sixties when

28:06

the federal government got involved and

28:08

created the Animal Welfare Act and

28:11

the Animal Welfare Act. Um.

28:13

Again, this kind of follows that thing where

28:15

some people agitate for changes to

28:17

the law, changes to our way of thinking, and

28:20

get the public aroused, and then the public say

28:22

Congress or government do something. The

28:24

same thing happened here. UM

28:26

Sports Illustrated in Life Magazine

28:30

both came out with articles about how

28:32

people's family pets are being stolen

28:35

and used as what are called random sourced

28:38

animals that are sold to labs.

28:41

And that really would get the public going right,

28:43

because the idea that Huggy Bear could be stolen

28:45

from your yard, sold to Johns

28:48

Hopkins University's Head Trauma Center,

28:51

and then have his head beaten

28:53

open with a bat. See

28:55

what happens. I'm sorry I used

28:57

Huggy Bear. Now that I'm I'm making this this

28:59

far forty years later, that still

29:01

cuts the uh

29:04

so, Snoopy Snoopy is stolen

29:06

from your yard and experimented

29:09

on the idea that this could happen just

29:12

scared an outraged America, and

29:15

UM it created very quickly the

29:17

Animal Welfare Act. Yeah, and that originally

29:20

just protected lab use, but

29:22

then over the following decades, you know, it really

29:24

expanded. UM and today

29:26

it protects all warm blooded animals

29:29

in lab experience except three

29:32

birds sadly uh, the

29:34

rattus genus rats, and the muss

29:37

genus mice and

29:39

uh not Coincidentally, they those three

29:41

makeup of research

29:43

animals in the US, along with the other cold blooded

29:46

animals that are used like fish and reptiles.

29:48

So of

29:51

the animals used in lab experiments

29:54

are not covered

29:56

by the Animal of Welfare

29:59

Act. But it's not to say that other

30:01

animals can't be used in animal

30:03

experiments. It just means that if

30:05

you do experiment on a guinea pig or

30:08

a macaque monkey

30:10

or something like that, you have to follow these guidelines.

30:14

But even then the guidelines are pretty

30:16

slouchy. Actually, they're huge loopholes,

30:18

and basically they amount to um

30:21

you. Especially originally in like nineteen

30:24

sixty six, you just have to reduce

30:26

unnecessary suffering. Who's

30:29

to say what's necessary or unnecessary?

30:31

Certainly the law didn't, and they left

30:33

it up to the researchers to decide

30:36

what was necessary or unnecessary. What's

30:38

crazy is Chuck is it has been expanded

30:41

and amended, It's also been narrowed.

30:43

There was an amendment made I think in the seventies

30:45

that extended the protections,

30:48

which again are loose and almost toothless,

30:51

to all animals warm

30:53

and cold blooded. And then in two

30:55

thousand two they dialed it back to what

30:57

it is now and what it was originally, whichard's

31:00

warm blooded animals except

31:02

rats and mice, and the cold blooded animals

31:06

and the birds and the birds and

31:08

the bees in the sycamore trees.

31:10

All right, well, let's take a break here and we're gonna

31:13

come back and talk about the kind of the two categories

31:15

for animal protection, animal welfarest and

31:17

animal rightest's

31:20

what I call them, all right, right after this, Okay,

31:45

we're back, Chuck, and you teased um

31:48

the different types of approaches

31:51

to protecting animals, right

31:54

there is like a whole contingent of people.

31:56

And I think most people on the street, if you stopped

31:58

them said do animals deserve

32:01

protection from harm or suffering? I

32:04

would guess most people would say yes. And I'm sure there's

32:06

surveys out there. I didn't find one, Um,

32:09

but if you drill a little deeper

32:11

into it, to adopt a little corporate

32:14

buzz speak, um, low

32:16

hanging fruit, yeah, you

32:18

would find that there's really kind of two

32:20

threads to this, like, and they're they're

32:22

based on just how far you

32:25

feel that protection should go. Right,

32:27

So the first is animal welfare. So and that's

32:30

the current accepted paradigm

32:32

of how we approach treating

32:35

animals protecting animals. Yeah,

32:37

and they generally think, uh, and these

32:39

are you know, generalizations, but it's

32:42

if you're going to fit people into two groups, you got to do

32:44

that. They generally think that, you know,

32:46

what we're doing now works pretty well, but

32:48

we need to enforce it more. We

32:51

agree with John Locke and Emmanuel

32:53

Kant that you should

32:55

protect animals from cruelty, but

32:58

not because like they have moral standing

33:00

necessarily, but because that is

33:03

a sign of a bad person that makes us look bad,

33:06

which you know that's valid. Um.

33:10

But they balance that out with we

33:13

treat animals humanely, but we can still use

33:16

them for food and labor. Right,

33:18

So animals deserve protection from

33:20

humans harming them,

33:23

um, But they're also

33:25

our property, like we can we can do

33:27

what we want with them, so long is there isn't any

33:30

unjustified suffering, right

33:33

and uh, not suffer needlessly,

33:35

which you pointed out earlier, but more

33:37

so here that that's a needlessly

33:40

what does that mean it's very open

33:42

to interpretation. Yeah, because if you look at what

33:44

happens to animals in animal

33:46

experiments, there's um

33:49

I mean it runs the gamut, like and everything

33:51

from withholding food and water to

33:54

um uh burning

33:57

skin with blow torches or

33:59

to making a monkey

34:01

obese on purpose and

34:04

making sure they don't exercise. So you

34:06

can study what lap band surgery

34:08

does, right, I mean there's damaging

34:13

their brains, maiming on blinding

34:15

them, um, just doing invasive

34:17

surgical procedures for for

34:20

practice like just

34:22

um. The idea of

34:24

what is justified is extremely

34:28

subjective, but as a

34:30

society we've all generally agreed

34:32

that hey, as long as science is being advanced,

34:35

as long as human uh

34:38

humanity is is being in some

34:40

way advanced or developed or protected,

34:43

then it's justified. Um

34:46

or And then with food, right,

34:48

like, is it those animals don't

34:50

die of old age? Is it? Is it a

34:52

needless death to eat a

34:54

cow uh and

34:57

kill the cow before it's time? Yeah? And

34:59

so most people, I think who believe

35:02

in the hierarchy of humans at the top

35:04

of all organisms here on earth would

35:06

say, well, yeah, that's a useful a

35:09

useful um use of an

35:12

animal feeding

35:14

a human, right, right, So that's

35:16

the idea of animal welfare. Protect

35:18

them from harm, but yeah, we can

35:20

eat them and and and a good

35:22

example is making sure a

35:24

cow has a good life while

35:27

it's alive, it's not suffering while

35:29

alive, it's not scared when it

35:31

dies, and then you can eat it

35:33

totally fine. That's the animal welfares

35:36

view, and that's the generally accepted

35:38

view in in the West. Animal

35:41

rights or rightists. Uh.

35:46

They think generally that the system

35:48

we have is flawed and that

35:51

um, animals have these rights

35:54

they or they should have rights kind of along the same

35:56

lines that humans do. Um. They

35:58

should have legal protection just like

36:00

we do under the law. And we are

36:03

a long way from where we need to be when

36:05

it comes to protecting animals from

36:07

humans. Right. Um.

36:10

The idea of the animal rightists is

36:12

that animals have

36:15

an inherent moral value.

36:18

Um. And the idea behind that

36:20

is if if they have an inherent

36:22

more moral value like humans do,

36:26

then they deserve legal protections

36:28

that humans enjoy, which

36:30

is a radically different approach to protecting

36:34

uh animals. Um.

36:36

And the idea is that, um, well,

36:38

it all kind of came from this guy named Peter Singer,

36:41

and he wrote a book in nineteen called

36:44

Animal Liberation, and

36:46

he basically started off

36:48

the modern animal rights

36:51

movement, especially the radical

36:53

version of it. He said in it that

36:55

um that you,

36:57

if you use Bentham's philocific

37:00

calculus, but include

37:03

animals right to happiness, not just their suffering.

37:06

He added a little cherry on top, right,

37:08

you just blow the concept

37:10

of using animals for human

37:13

means out of the water, like

37:15

it's just not justifiable. Is

37:17

an animal a moral agent? And a moral

37:19

agent is a being that is capable of

37:23

making decisions based on right or wrong.

37:26

And moral behavior comes in all sorts of forms.

37:28

We think of it as like, um,

37:30

helping a little lady across the street,

37:32

or not stealing even though you totally

37:34

could and get away with it. Um, But

37:36

it's it's even more. It's even broader

37:39

than that. And some people say animals

37:41

do demonstrate moral behavior like loyalty

37:43

or showing concern for someone that's

37:46

or a person that's injured, or

37:48

something like that, and so therefore an animal

37:50

can be a moral agent. Other people say, no, an

37:52

animal can't rationalize, it can't think

37:55

about the future, it can't want

37:57

to keep living. Therefore, it couldn't

37:59

possibly be a moral agent. And Peter Singer

38:01

really made a lot of waves when he said, he

38:04

said, well, then if

38:06

you're going to experiment on animals because they're

38:08

not moral agents, you might as well go ahead and

38:10

experiment on people in vegetative states

38:12

and infants because they're not moral agents

38:15

under that definition either. Yeah, he says, you

38:17

know what, else, can't rationalize your baby?

38:20

Yeah, so go ahead and do some horrible experiments

38:22

on your baby. Yeah. And I'm sure, I

38:25

mean, the other side of the argument

38:28

was probably like, oh god, and

38:31

he dropped that Mike, and everything is the rubbing in

38:33

our faces. Uh.

38:36

Another guy came along named Tom Reagan, and

38:39

uh. He wrote a book called The Case for Animal

38:41

Rights. He argued favorably,

38:44

the animals do have moral rights, and

38:47

he had a little thing that he liked to call subjects

38:50

of a life. He said, humans and animals

38:52

are both subjects of a life, which

38:55

means we have you know,

38:57

animals have that inner experience that is

38:59

called haveing a life like we do.

39:01

Right, So some of the ones that have higher

39:03

moral, higher faculties up.

39:06

Yeah, yeah, it's not all animals in his

39:08

his uh, in his um

39:11

view, it was like ones that are capable

39:13

of reasoning, because

39:16

some people say humans are the only rational

39:18

beings on the planet and therefore everything

39:21

else is is open season. Um,

39:24

these guys like Tom Reagan said,

39:26

no, there are certain animals out there that can

39:28

reason and therefore can be moral agents.

39:30

Yeah. I mean when you see behavior of some of these animals

39:33

like that elephants, well then

39:35

people would be like, that's anthropomorphizing,

39:37

anthropomorphizing burn him.

39:40

Yeah, you know, you try and burning can't

39:42

can't be can't be, can't be proven.

39:45

So therefore Descartes ghost

39:47

exists. And then Tom Reagan

39:49

also made waves chucked by saying,

39:51

um, if if an animal is

39:53

a subject of a life, meaning it can think about

39:56

its own life and want to live, therefore,

39:59

um, I sound like Miss South Carolina.

40:03

Therefore, um, that animal deserves

40:06

at least one basic freedom,

40:09

which is the freedom from being property,

40:12

which in and of itself would radically alter

40:14

our relationship humans relationship with

40:16

animals. So these guys are like kind

40:18

of putting these ideas out there, and

40:22

as we'll see, they got some response, but

40:24

it was typically um among

40:26

hardcore animal rights

40:28

people rather than the general public. Up to this

40:30

point, and then the final dude in the trifecta,

40:34

the triad of Evil, of

40:37

Evil, of good. I know, I'm just teasing

40:40

Gary franc Uh.

40:43

He was a guy that came along and said, you

40:45

know what, we need to abolish our

40:47

domination over animals period. Outright,

40:50

it is slavery and we

40:52

should treat it as such, get rid

40:54

of it. And he said, we didn't get rid

40:56

of slavery by making slavery more humane.

40:58

We got rid of slavery by getting rid

41:00

of slavery. That's what you do. And he's

41:02

saying, it's the same thing here. Yeah, pretty

41:05

radical ideas at the time. Yeah, it's um

41:07

and radical is a pretty good word because these

41:10

these ideas really caught the attention

41:12

of some people who did become I guess radicalized

41:15

by them. Like the the animal rights

41:17

movement has had long

41:20

had a militant arm to it, for

41:22

sure. Yes, it started actually

41:24

before even Peter Singer's book Animal

41:26

Liberation, from as

41:29

far back as nineteen sixty two, there was a

41:31

group in the UK called the

41:33

Hunt Saboteurs Association. This

41:36

is the most polite saboteurs

41:38

organization name you can come up with, probably,

41:40

so they um,

41:43

they sort of laid the groundwork for for the

41:45

Animal Liberation Front, who was got

41:47

a lot of press, and then another group called

41:49

the Band of Mercy Um. The

41:52

Band of Mercy was named for the Victorian

41:54

era British SPC A

41:57

with their children's wing. Yeah, that's what

41:59

in the cute Yeah, totally

42:02

cute, the Band of Mercy Um

42:04

And they were the actual the first people

42:07

to liberate animals when they

42:09

broke into a laboratory

42:12

that used uh or a farm that

42:14

that sold guinea pigs, two labs, and

42:16

freed six guinea pigs. Yeah, they made off

42:19

with six, but I mean there were six

42:21

guinea pigs lives that uh

42:23

that otherwise would have been um

42:25

subject to experimentation. So it was a big

42:27

success and they ended up eating the guinea

42:29

pigs to celebrate, No, they

42:32

didn't. Uh. And the actually the lady who

42:34

ran the farm though, she was really shaken up and she

42:36

actually shut down her guinea pig

42:38

selling business because of that because

42:40

she was I mean some some people

42:42

had broken into her house at night and

42:45

she thought twice Yeah, she was like this

42:47

is I don't want this to happen again. And

42:50

I mean this is depending

42:52

on your viewpoint, this is deeply

42:56

uncool of these people,

42:58

like they used in imidation.

43:01

They would make death threats, they would make bomb

43:03

threats. Um. They would threaten people's

43:05

family. Yeah, they would set fires. People

43:07

who were running legitimate labs

43:10

were threatened. Um, people

43:12

who were legitimately supplying the labs were

43:14

threatened. Yeah, they would set fires. Um.

43:16

And then there were other ones where you're just like, yeah,

43:19

I'm kinda and can kind of get behind that.

43:22

The point to a lot of these wasn't not wasn't

43:25

just to get people to um

43:27

cease their activities or

43:30

to actually liberate animals. They um

43:32

were done also to generate publicity.

43:35

This is a huge aspect of it. These

43:37

guys were pr masters. They realized that the

43:39

bigger and the bolder, UM,

43:42

the more likely it was to get headlines. So guys

43:44

like the or groups like the Animal

43:46

Liberation Front or UM

43:49

the Band of Mercy would

43:51

agitate, go out

43:53

and do these these acts, and

43:56

then Peter like more moderate

43:58

groups that weren't actually doing us would

44:00

publicize it and write up press releases and send

44:02

it out to the press and um maybe

44:05

set up interviews and stuff like that and try

44:07

to get the get the word out as much

44:09

as possible about these One thing Peter

44:11

did was they would, uh,

44:14

they would basically turn

44:16

people. Well sometimes they would send people in undercover

44:19

to get jobs at these labs so they could make videotapes.

44:21

And sometimes they would just get in touch with someone there

44:24

who worked there, turn them as but

44:26

basically as a double agent, and say

44:29

you will be our person on the inside

44:31

and you can do these videos for us. And

44:33

they got kill the Queen. They

44:37

got sixty hours worth of audio

44:39

and video from a lab, cut

44:41

it down to a about a half an hour documentary

44:44

called Unnecessary Fuss and

44:47

released it. And it was a big deal.

44:50

Like basically experimentation

44:52

and and in humane treatment

44:55

on tape for the masses beyond.

44:57

Like it was about as ugly as you could get. Was

45:00

that the u PEN Head Trauma

45:02

Center, UM research lab.

45:04

That's probably all you need to say.

45:06

Pretty much. Baboons were involved and

45:09

they were researching head trauma. Yeah. So

45:11

um. When this came out, it

45:13

really got the public going. And just like

45:15

in the sixties with those two articles

45:17

about people's pets being stolen and used

45:20

in lab experiments, this led

45:22

to an amendment to the Animal

45:24

Welfare Act. UM directly

45:26

led to it, and the amendment

45:28

said that, uh, there needed to be committees

45:31

that oversaw each lab that was carrying

45:33

out animal experiments. There

45:35

needed to be the use of pain relievers

45:38

and anesthesia uh in

45:41

in experiments, and there needed

45:43

to be postoperative care in

45:45

lab experiments. Right yeah, and that

45:48

you couldn't take a single animal and just

45:50

keep operating on that animal.

45:52

Okay, Again, all

45:54

of these things had a very important caveat.

45:57

Caveat is unless it's

46:00

necessary. So there was a huge

46:02

loopholder. If you're testing like pain

46:04

threshold on a maccaque monkey,

46:07

while you can't give it pain relievers, you can't

46:09

give it anesthesia, you need to inflict

46:11

pain, and well it's part

46:14

of the experiment, so it's medically necessary. Or

46:16

we have to see how one maccaque

46:18

monkey responds to multiple

46:21

surgeries because we're trying to induce ps

46:23

PTSD in that monkey, so

46:25

we can study PTSD drugs. Well,

46:28

that's medically necessary, and

46:31

that this this whole loophole, that

46:33

huge loophole with the

46:35

idea that advancing science and human

46:37

understanding and human welfare

46:40

as long as it's necessary, then

46:42

you can justify anything you

46:44

do to an animal that's still around

46:46

and it's been around for a very long time. So

46:50

this is all culminated in more recent years

46:52

with a guy, an attorney

46:54

named Stephen Wise, who uh

46:58

depending on who you are, you might this guy

47:00

is crazy,

47:03

or you might say he's amazing, a

47:05

hero and a hero. So he's

47:07

an animal rights attorney essentially.

47:10

He wrote a book in two thousand called Rattling the Cage

47:13

Colon toward Legal Rights for Animals,

47:16

and he basically put forth a very radical

47:18

idea, which is that some animals,

47:21

like the elephant, or the great ape, or

47:24

the gray parrot African gray parrot,

47:26

they actually deserve personhood.

47:29

They deserve legal protection

47:31

under the law, just as a human being does.

47:34

And let me uh well,

47:36

he founded a in two thousand and seven,

47:39

a group called the Non Human Rights

47:41

Project Big in Little H Big

47:43

are Big P and it's a legal

47:45

defense group that basically said, let's find

47:48

a sympathetic judge somewhere where

47:50

we can bring up a case and maybe get

47:52

something some precedent set, get

47:54

something on the books. Yeah, all they have to do is

47:57

get one case heard, get it denied,

47:59

and that's to motion the appeals process

48:01

where you can work through the higher courts. Right,

48:04

um and hopefully get to get some sort

48:06

of legal ruling. Right. So this guy

48:09

is sharp and part of the problem that

48:11

he's facing right now is, as

48:13

far as law in the

48:15

United States goes, animals

48:18

are property. The strictly

48:20

property, their special property

48:22

right Like, for example, if you're beating up

48:24

your microwave and the neighbors

48:27

aren't going to call the cops, and the cops aren't gonna

48:29

come. But if you're beating up your

48:31

dog, the neighbors are probably going to

48:33

call the cops, and the cops are probably going to

48:35

come. Right. The thing is

48:37

is that animals still property,

48:40

and and as far as the law goes,

48:42

property cannot possibly have standing

48:45

in a court. And if it doesn't have standing,

48:47

then that means that the animal can't sue

48:49

on its own behalf. You being

48:51

the neighbor, you

48:54

can't sue on the dog's behalf because you're

48:56

just the neighbor who you have no standing

48:58

in this dog's wealth, are either. So

49:01

these these animals, any

49:03

animal is in legal limbo as

49:05

far as American courts are concerned. Him. Why

49:08

is trying to figure out a way

49:10

around that? Yeah, he attempted

49:12

some lawsuits and his organization did

49:14

UM in New York

49:16

on behalf of four chimpanzees. UM,

49:19

and he said, you know what I'm gonna see on these chimps behalf,

49:22

I'm gonna try and gain their freedom. He lost

49:24

all the cases, got a lot of press, but

49:27

he did have one heard and

49:29

in one of the cases he even got a judge

49:32

or not got a judge, but the judge actually

49:35

issued a writ of habeas corpus, first

49:38

time ever for an animal, even though

49:40

the judge reversed that order that same day.

49:43

It Yeah, what

49:45

did I just do? Uh?

49:47

It was a very big deal in the media. Got I mean, I remember

49:50

hearing about this guy on the news and when you when you

49:52

wrote this article, is like, oh, I totally know that guy. Yeah.

49:55

Yeah, there's a really great Boston Globe

49:57

profile on him and what he's doing

50:00

UM from a year a couple

50:02

of years ago that's worth checking out. Yeah,

50:04

there's a documentary to UM release

50:07

this year called Unlocking the Cage by

50:10

the legendary d A. Pinne Baker and

50:13

his wife and partner Chris. I'm

50:15

not sure you'd pronounce her name Heddas.

50:18

Perhaps he's he's the

50:20

one that did Dylan's don't look

50:22

back in or. He's

50:25

very legendary the War Room. I

50:28

don't know if you ever saw that, the political one.

50:30

Um, what else because I know the

50:32

name he's he's a documentary

50:36

legend, documentary documentary

50:38

and legend documentary, legend

50:41

whatever. But

50:43

he's uh made this movie about Stephen

50:45

Wise and his group called Unlocking the Cage. I haven't

50:47

seen it yet, but it's on the list. Um.

50:50

Yeah, he's a pretty interesting guy.

50:53

Uh, what's what. Something that

50:55

struck me that I found in my research was he

50:57

and Peter don't really see eye the eye.

51:00

They're not working in conjunction. In a

51:02

few years back, Peter Um

51:04

brought a case against Sea World on behalf

51:06

of the Orcas and said that it was a violation

51:09

of the Thirteenth Amendment against slavery,

51:11

and Stephen Wives is like, what are you

51:14

doing? He saw that they had very

51:16

very clearly opened the door for

51:18

the judge to be like, the

51:20

Constitution doesn't apply to animals because

51:22

animals aren't people. And once that

51:24

precedent is set like that, because

51:28

it's not actually written

51:31

in law, and no

51:33

one there hasn't been that precedent, and that really

51:35

opened the door for it. And he Luckily

51:37

the judge is just like no, but

51:39

didn't rule any further. So

51:42

what why is trying to do is to get somebody

51:44

to set a different precedent, which is,

51:47

uh, yeah, well that that actually

51:50

makes kind of sense. So let's

51:52

let's go ahead and run this trial through. Yeah,

51:54

and it's something that could be possible

51:57

one day. Like you know, there have been courts

51:59

that have ruled where, uh, this animal

52:01

was an heir to in a state, and

52:04

the court made the animal

52:06

temporary ward of the court and endowed

52:08

this animal with the inheritance give it a nice

52:11

lunch. Yeah, they had to kind of work through that. So

52:13

he's he's kind of he's got a little

52:15

bit of a leg to stand on and kind

52:17

of pointing some of these things out right. And plus,

52:19

corporations are artificial people under

52:21

the law. Yeah, we did a whole show in that right,

52:23

right. Um, So, I mean it's not like this

52:25

is just totally wacky as far

52:28

as the law goes. I think

52:30

the problem is this the big challenge

52:32

he's facing is, Okay, let's say you're successful

52:35

and all of a sudden, animals have the same

52:37

rights under the law that humans

52:39

do. What's that gonna do

52:42

to the world. Um, And

52:44

that's a huge that's a huge question

52:46

that's raised. I mean, like you can just you can

52:48

come up with a lot of stuff that would happen

52:50

automatically. Obviously, medical

52:52

testing has gone. No more zoos, no

52:54

more circuses for lea circuses

52:57

with animals, right, it's

52:59

just flee circuses maybe um

53:05

the creepiest circus of all. Um.

53:08

Obviously, there would be no hunting. Veganism

53:11

would probably just be that's

53:14

just what we eat. Now. Nugent

53:16

would just drown himself, Yeah,

53:19

he really would. Yeah, Ted Nugent

53:22

would not like a world where animals had the

53:24

same rights that I think about it. Um,

53:28

And like pets would would there be

53:30

pets any longer? There's

53:32

actually been changes I think somewhere in Colorado

53:35

and definitely in somewhere in Rhode Island, if

53:37

not Rhode Island, the state. Um,

53:39

they they amended the law to

53:42

include guardian instead of owner

53:45

or in addition to owner. That's

53:47

a different thing. It totally is like

53:50

when you're the legal guardian of your younger brother,

53:52

you're not their owner. No,

53:55

I mean you might treat them that way. But

53:59

uh. And then the lastly, so we talked

54:01

about animals being moral agents. Right, so

54:03

if you're a moral agent, you also have moral

54:06

responsibilities in addition to moral

54:08

protections. Another can of worms.

54:10

Yeah right, So like if an animal kills another

54:12

animal, as are you going to try

54:14

it and execute it? Yeah?

54:18

I mean, well, I mean that kind

54:20

of happens today. You can animals are often

54:22

put down when they attack other animals. Yeah,

54:25

okay, so yeah, there would be more of the same. What's

54:28

weird is apparently back in the Renaissance,

54:30

in the medieval era, um

54:33

they used to have trials for animals that did

54:35

something record. It

54:38

wasn't I mean like we do it today. Like remember

54:40

Travis the chimp who um

54:43

who ripped the woman's face off.

54:46

He was summarily executed by police

54:49

and I think had he even been captured they

54:51

would have put him down. There wouldn't have been a trial. But

54:53

they used to actually have the trial. And

54:56

it wasn't because they wanted to give the

54:58

animal a fair trial. It was for he feeling

55:00

the the community, you

55:02

know, to make the humans feel better. If

55:05

they could draw this out and make this

55:07

like an actual issue that

55:09

was resolved in the execution of the

55:12

of the animal. Interesting,

55:14

it's yeah, it's pretty way boy, good

55:16

one, dude. Yeah, nice

55:19

job. Yeah, thanks you too, buddy.

55:21

If you want to know more about animal rights,

55:24

you can type that

55:26

into the search bar your favorite search

55:28

engine. And since I said search engine,

55:30

that means it's time for listener mail. Yes,

55:35

this is the famous part two from

55:38

earlier this week with IVON

55:41

and I promised a list of band names

55:43

and a list of puns from Josh, because

55:45

Josh says that he hates puns

55:48

despite his somewhat regular use of them.

55:51

Yeah, I again, I take issue with

55:53

this. If you accidentally

55:55

make a pun, you're not a punny person.

55:58

All right, Well, let's just go on this list. Poison

56:00

IVY episode Josh, let's stop beating around

56:02

the bush. Accident blood

56:05

types Josh, I'm sure I take

56:07

a B blood. I'm positive of it. Hula

56:10

hoops discussing a pushing a hula hoop with a stick.

56:13

Hang in there and stick with it. Accident

56:16

police dogs discussing the current popularity

56:18

of arson dogs. They're so hot right now.

56:21

I think that was on purpose. It's possible.

56:23

Remember that one chili

56:26

Chili peppers, Josh, it's right for

56:28

it. Total accident. I

56:30

don't even think you can include that one. Can

56:33

you sweat colors? There's this boiling

56:35

point, I guess talking about how hot it's

56:37

been in Atlanta. M hm, that's

56:39

a reach. Yeah, I agree. Strike that one

56:41

from the record, UM spam,

56:44

talking about the trouble the maker of spam

56:46

had one trying to sell spam. He was hamstrung

56:49

by the name Hormel spice

56:51

meat. Again. Accident, handwriting

56:55

analysis, the writings on the wall. I

56:58

don't even remember that one. I'm not pun though,

57:00

I'm not copping to any of these purpose.

57:02

I've got a few more UM casinos.

57:04

It paid off an aces Nolpe accident.

57:07

White collar crime. This is something that

57:09

has woven into history of white collar crime. Total

57:13

act, disgusting. A wool transporter keeping

57:15

wolf for his own use. Again

57:19

accident. I'm just gonna do one

57:21

more, pick the best of him, chuck uh.

57:25

This like a letterman, Tom tasteing

57:27

how it works. After saying it makes you wonder how things

57:29

we can taste taste, he said, chew on

57:31

that one. Accident. And

57:34

now the band names. I'm gonna read through these

57:36

very quickly and looking at this list, these are

57:38

great. So if you're out there looking for a band,

57:40

name, Listen up, listen up, toe

57:43

thumb uh

57:45

interest, cytoplasmic sperm injection.

57:48

Maybe like a prog band. Maggot Therapy

57:51

that's a metal band. The Static Crush

57:53

that's total chew gaze, oh

57:55

yeah, or ima uh disruptive

57:58

Technology. I

58:00

don't even know. My Atonic Goats.

58:02

That's a good one. Yea. The Tennessee

58:04

Stiff Legs. I love it. That's

58:06

a blue grass band. A fist full

58:08

of neurons. Metal uh,

58:11

force Multiplier, total metal.

58:14

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Nazis on meth

58:17

it's metal. Oh yeah, punk that

58:19

can be good too. Masters of Plastic,

58:22

nerd Core, colloidal

58:25

quantum dots, definite nerd

58:27

core, super critical fluid. That's

58:31

probably nerd Wore two actually, I guess

58:33

so. Or a boy band, the Brownie

58:40

Wise Massacre. That's

58:42

a indie that's good.

58:45

Brownie Wise overdrive boy they were two um

58:48

Snake detection theory up on that one.

58:51

He's really cracking me up. Extraordinary

58:54

rendition. That's like a

58:56

guy just like you. Two guys in Maine

58:58

that singing a coffee shop. They do all the classics.

59:00

Ye standards were extraordinary

59:02

rendition, controlled

59:05

burn not bad. That's a

59:07

new metal Poor fred Noonan. That's

59:11

a band that's destined to break up poop

59:14

Fusion, same cooperative

59:17

eye hypothesis. I

59:20

don't know if that's a good name. After all, I might retract

59:22

that one. Uh, Flesh on the Chunks,

59:26

that's a good one. Or that could be the first

59:28

uh album from poop Fusion.

59:33

Uh, like a Zappa esque band,

59:35

the Horny skin Folds. M.

59:39

I can see that being like, uh,

59:41

party party rock kind of thing, right,

59:45

Um? Is that freedom rock?

59:47

Yeah? Man, turn it up professional

59:50

mermaid culture. That's

59:52

not bad. That's very indie though. Yeah,

59:55

like they go to Columbia University

59:57

or something. Uh. And then

59:59

finally too or super Critical CEO two

1:00:02

not bad. Okay, that's too super critical.

1:00:04

So and then finally Frozen

1:00:06

poop Knife in there.

1:00:09

Who did you tell to change their name to Frozen

1:00:11

poop Knife? Oh? I don't know. Oh

1:00:13

uh diarrhea Planet. Yeah, and they tweeted

1:00:15

back and said thanks for the idea, and never did

1:00:18

they No way. Yeah,

1:00:22

that's great. Oh yeah, those guys are good. Yeah,

1:00:25

all right, that's it. That's it. Everybody von

1:00:28

for keeping track of that. Man, that's a great lesson. Yeah,

1:00:30

and thank you to the dudes at primer Stories

1:00:32

for posting the essay I

1:00:34

wrote. Go check it out at primer stories dot com,

1:00:37

slash s y s K and if you want to hang out

1:00:39

with us, you can hang out with us on Twitter at

1:00:41

s y s K podcast. You can join us on

1:00:43

Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You

1:00:45

can send us an email the Stuff podcast at how stuff

1:00:47

Works dot com and has always joined us at our

1:00:50

home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot

1:00:52

com

1:00:57

For more on this and thousands of other topics.

1:01:00

Is it how stuff Works dot com.

1:01:08

Mhm