Episode Transcript
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0:28
Hey
0:28
there! Here we are again. It's
0:31
another Just Cast. You may
0:33
be aware, as I am, that
0:35
I can breathe this week, which is incredibly
0:38
good news. And my nose is working.
0:41
I hate to tell you all this medical stuff, but it's been
0:43
going on. And yesterday, just for good
0:45
measure, just because I feel like, you know, let's keep
0:47
me
0:48
on my toes, I had a colonoscopy as
0:50
well. Woo-hoo! Um,
0:52
two little, tiny little polyps,
0:54
apparently. I'm gonna be fine. Not dead yet. But
0:57
it's great! Spring is here. And I'm feeling
1:00
better, which is always a good
1:03
thing. And I am
1:05
particularly delighted
1:07
this week to start
1:09
a conversation about something that, obviously, we've
1:11
talked about on the dish for many years, and that's always
1:14
intrigued me and pushed me in ways that
1:17
I don't find very comfortable, which is veganism.
1:21
And the morality, or
1:23
otherwise, of killing and eating
1:25
animals, if you put it in a rather blunt
1:28
kind of way. And so I was talking
1:30
to Chris about this and trying to find
1:32
somebody who engaged who would be really interesting
1:35
on this. Not a, not a, not a, not a,
1:37
not a soy boy, so to
1:39
speak. Anyway, we have with
1:41
us a man called John O'Burke.
1:44
John O'Burke is an animal rights advocate
1:46
and social media professional. He
1:49
once served as the director of New Media for the
1:51
Humane League and as the director
1:54
of communications for vegan outreach.
1:56
Now he's just an independent animal advocate.
2:00
that means. He's both a vegan, but
2:02
more importantly, he's a power lifter, as I
2:04
can see in studio. You
2:07
can be vegan. And, Jacked,
2:10
welcome to the dish cast, John.
2:13
And also, he's in the studio with me
2:15
today, which is wonderful. Thank
2:18
you for coming in, John. Nice to meet you. Andrew,
2:20
thanks so much for having me. It's a real honor to be here.
2:24
And he is. If you have
2:26
an image, as I do, in my
2:29
head, of your average
2:32
pathetic pajama boy vegan, sitting
2:34
there with his master's degree
2:36
in
2:37
critical
2:38
gender theory and munching
2:40
on the occasional piece of fennel.
2:43
Oh, contraire, here you have John Oberg, this
2:46
strapping young muscle bound power
2:48
lifting. Looks like he just walked
2:50
out of some kind of MMA class as
2:52
the vegan. So, first of all, John, congratulations.
2:55
You have completely defied the
2:57
stereotype just by walking in the door. Thank
3:01
you, Andrew. I think that's important as
3:03
an advocate for animals and veganism to try
3:06
and break some stereotypes.
3:08
And vegans face a lot of stereotypes,
3:10
so I am happy to do my part. Yeah.
3:13
It's funny how
3:15
sometimes that kind of just matters, even
3:18
though it shouldn't matter. I mean, this is the
3:20
world completely ridiculous. How
3:22
someone looks should not have any bearing
3:25
upon the cogency
3:27
of their argument. But the truth is in
3:29
the world, in public,
3:32
these things that I remember just
3:34
being out as a gay person like 30 years
3:37
ago, when not many people
3:39
were out, by just showing
3:41
that gay people were a variety of different
3:43
kinds of people, that the way
3:46
you previously identified them might have
3:48
been just confirmation bias and
3:50
you just wouldn't see the gay man in front of you. So
3:54
it was helpful, just helpful. It
3:56
didn't mean you better than anybody else. It
3:58
didn't mean that.
3:59
You were somehow a superior sort of gay
4:02
to more stereotypical kind of gays. It doesn't
4:04
mean any of that. It just meant you helped
4:07
Loosen up the atmosphere culturally in a way
4:09
to help people engage the actual
4:11
argument. I guess that's what that's
4:13
roughly how you see it Yeah, pretty similar
4:16
concept. You know, I think that
4:18
we need to be vegans need to be relatable
4:20
and we need people to be able to see We
4:23
need people need to be able to see themselves in
4:25
our shoes And I think that if all
4:27
of us I don't know dress a certain way
4:30
or act a certain way. I think that
4:32
that
4:34
will hinder our ability
4:36
to influence others and I am
4:38
all about influencing the people who
4:40
aren't already like me it's all about Influencing
4:43
non vegans because you know These are
4:45
the people out there who can make a difference
4:47
for animals because a vegan can't get any more
4:49
vegan, you know I'm trying to have
4:52
Don't you have other vegans who aren't quite
4:55
as extreme vegan as you that you can bend your life
4:57
beating up on isn't the most progressive
5:00
activists do other than actually trying to persuade
5:02
the other side they just Lecture
5:04
each other on who's the most
5:07
work and who's the most most being but anyway, I'm
5:09
just obviously that sort of It's a rhetorical
5:11
question. Tell me where did you grow up? Where
5:13
were you born? So I was born in Detroit, Michigan
5:16
grew up in the surrounding area and I grew
5:18
up
5:19
mainly with just my mom who
5:22
Raised me and really instilled a sense of compassion
5:24
for animals and you know the innocent.
5:26
What does that mean? What does she do? So
5:29
she so she had a really big heart for animals
5:31
and she really taught me that you know animals
5:33
are also
5:35
Deserving of our compassion in our consideration
5:37
and our respect and so for years We
5:40
did things like TNR which would be trapping
5:42
nutrient and releasing feral
5:44
cats for example so that you know They didn't
5:47
breed uncontrollably and you know this
5:49
really reduced a lot of animal stuff We did
5:51
other various animal rescue efforts
5:53
and we protested deer hunts particularly
5:56
a cull that took place at
5:58
a park that we
5:59
went to on a regular basis that really
6:02
broke our hearts. And my
6:04
mom really installed this sense
6:06
of compassion for animals in me. Where did
6:09
she get that from?
6:11
That's a good question. I always kind of wondered
6:13
that. And unfortunately, my mom passed away
6:16
seven years ago. So I can't ask
6:18
her now where she got this, but
6:21
it's something that she had for basically
6:23
the entirety of her life. And
6:25
it's something I've had for the entirety of my life as well.
6:28
She used to tell me this story about
6:30
how when I was just a little baby,
6:32
I was just laying in
6:35
the middle of the living room floor,
6:36
and our cat kind of rolled
6:38
off the couch onto the floor. And
6:41
I was so worried. I crawled
6:43
over the cat and was petting them to make sure
6:45
they were OK. And so apparently, it's
6:47
been in my
6:49
genes all along as well.
6:52
Yeah, but what did she do for a living? My
6:54
mom? Yeah, I want to understand your mom. Because
6:56
she's obviously, everything
6:58
you say, she is in some ways the inspiration
7:01
for your life. Yeah, my mom had
7:03
some physical issues that prevented her from
7:05
work.
7:07
We would do everything we could to make ends meet. As
7:10
a single mother, it was really hard.
7:12
We grew up without much money.
7:14
Something we would do is. You were the only son? Yes,
7:16
yes. I was the only child. And something we wouldn't do. What
7:19
happened to your dad if you don't mind asking? Yeah, he
7:21
was never in the picture. So it was
7:23
just my mom and I. And something we
7:25
would do to make ends meet is that we would
7:28
go to local parks. And so
7:30
in the state of Michigan, in
7:32
the 90s, I think it might be the still the
7:34
same way. I'm not sure. But in the 90s,
7:36
at least you get 10 cents for a can. If
7:38
you return to the grocery store and we would
7:41
go to local parks in
7:43
Michigan and we would go from trash
7:45
can to trash can searching through to
7:47
find empty aluminum cans
7:50
and we would get a few hundred over
7:52
the course of a few hours and over the course of a
7:54
day, you know, that would give us 10, 20, 30 bucks. That
7:57
would then go towards our bills. And this
7:59
was. was the kind of thing
8:01
that my mom and I would do together. And
8:04
it was, looking back, it was certainly a great bonding
8:06
experience. And it was actually
8:09
something that happened then that really
8:11
taught me how to use
8:14
my love for animals and turn it into advocacy. And
8:17
so my mom and I, we would go to
8:20
this park called Stoney Creek.
8:22
And Stoney Creek was a state park.
8:25
And there were
8:29
dozens of garbage cans across numerous
8:31
small parks within this large park. And
8:34
so we would spend much of the day going there
8:36
and we'd start in the early morning. And we had to start
8:38
really early at the crack of dawn because that's,
8:41
you know, you get there before other people got there. It was this
8:43
competitive thing. And so my
8:45
mom and I would do this. And in the mornings,
8:48
there was almost nobody else in these parks,
8:50
but there were deer. And
8:53
we, it was sort of majestic. You know,
8:55
you'd be walking from trash can to trash can.
8:58
And while you're
8:59
on your little walk, you see these deer
9:01
popping their head out and looking around and
9:04
looking at you curious about who you are. And
9:06
we really sort of developed kind of
9:09
a bond with these animals. And
9:11
it was sort of special. And
9:14
we did this for years. And then one
9:16
day we learned the heartbreaking
9:18
news that this park wanted
9:21
to cull these animals. And
9:23
cull is a very polite term for slaughter
9:26
these animals, to kill these animals who
9:28
never
9:29
faced anything like that prior.
9:32
And we were... Why? Because
9:34
there were too many of them or there were diseases or something?
9:36
Yeah, you know, it was, they said that there was too many
9:38
of them. You know, my personal opinion then
9:41
and still is today is that they were just looking
9:43
for a reason to shoot these
9:45
animals because they enjoy this.
9:48
It was, you know, the hunting lobby was pushing
9:50
for this at the time because they
9:52
wanted to, they enjoyed the process
9:55
of hunting. But hold on, but the park itself,
9:58
there must have been some precipitating.
9:59
event that would require them to cull, right?
10:02
What was the reason given? Yeah,
10:05
so keep in mind this I was eight or nine years
10:07
old then, so it was a little tough for
10:09
me to remember the exact details, but
10:12
from what I can remember the DNR,
10:15
yeah there was herd thinning and the DNR
10:17
was you know buddy buddies with
10:19
the hunters and us as two...
10:22
The DNR is... The Department
10:24
of Natural Resources in Michigan
10:26
and at this park and you know
10:29
us as two lone
10:29
animal advocates who are you know walking
10:32
around from trash can to trash can to get empty
10:34
bottles you know we didn't have much sway,
10:36
but something that really did
10:38
something to me and this is you
10:41
know for me at the time as an eight or
10:43
nine year old I would have been sad about this but
10:46
not done anything about it, but my mom she
10:48
did not sit back and rest on her laurels what
10:51
she did was she said Johnny we have
10:53
to do something about this and so she
10:56
called up every local news station
10:58
got as much media as she possibly could and
11:01
she took me and her with
11:03
homemade signs and went
11:05
to the entrances and the exits of this park
11:08
and we stood
11:08
there day after day showing you know
11:11
everybody who went into the park or exited the park
11:14
showing them these signs that showed that
11:16
you know kind of expressed our compassion
11:18
for these animals. What did the sign say? One said being cruel
11:23
isn't cool another one said something
11:25
like save the deer and...
11:27
But John isn't I
11:29
mean isn't aren't
11:32
you isn't that exactly why people find vegans
11:34
irritating? It's
11:36
like there may be surely there
11:38
are reasons occasionally why there should be
11:41
culling of herds I mean there are I mean
11:43
I I hear there are maybe there isn't
11:45
enough for them to eat you know
11:47
within a particular maybe they're running
11:50
out of territory I don't I don't know all the answers
11:52
to that but it seems to me
11:55
that to argue and
11:57
we'll get back to you we get back to your childhood but
11:59
argue that that the only reason that
12:02
people might want to hit these herds because they
12:04
just like killing animals seems a little
12:07
harsh. Yeah, I mean, again,
12:09
I am- Maybe they do, I don't know, but there
12:12
are arguments otherwise. But anyway, you
12:15
and your mom were doing
12:17
this. How old were you? I was
12:19
eight or nine years old. So it was like the mid-90s.
12:23
And it was something that taught
12:25
me that I think you need to, when you
12:27
see an injustice going on in the world, that
12:29
you don't just sit back and let it happen, you do what we could.
12:32
And what I think- Did your mom ever, did
12:34
you ever have meat growing up? Yes,
12:36
so I grew up a meat eater.
12:37
My mom ate meat for most of her
12:39
life. She made a distinction. So
12:41
yeah, so we collectively made a
12:43
distinction between the
12:46
animals who we loved, cats, dogs,
12:49
deer, and so on, and the animals who were
12:51
on our plates. And it wasn't until years later that
12:55
we both made that connection.
12:58
And so we
13:01
decided as a team that
13:04
we were going to try and stick up for these deer and
13:06
we would pro-they're killing
13:08
it. And my mom had strategy for
13:10
it. It wasn't just taking signs
13:12
to try and look cool or something.
13:15
We weren't cool. It was Michigan, it was winter,
13:17
it was cold as hell. And it
13:20
wasn't a fun process. You'd have
13:22
some people give us the middle finger. A
13:24
few people would maybe honk and support. Did you win?
13:26
So unfortunately our cries
13:29
eventually, they sort of fell on deaf
13:31
ears and it didn't
13:33
work out. But what this experience
13:35
taught me was that when you do see
13:37
something in the world, that's not that you
13:40
don't agree with or that you want to fight against, you
13:42
do something about it. And that was what
13:45
really taught me that advocacy
13:47
is something that
13:48
every animal lover should
13:51
certainly engage in because
13:53
the animals have a lot
13:55
working against them, but they do have a few
13:58
people who really want to make.
13:59
their lives better in the world of kinder
14:02
place for animals and that's where I thought my
14:04
role could be which you know and that's
14:06
where your mother really came from was she a religious
14:09
person or was she she was not
14:11
a religious person she just she loved
14:13
animals and she loved me and we had a really
14:15
great relationship dogs and cats yeah yeah we had
14:17
cats we had we had turtles
14:20
as well and you know so I
14:22
grew up around these animals but you know I think that
14:25
most people in the United States at least grow
14:27
up around animals and I think
14:29
that
14:29
the
14:31
vast majority of would
14:34
the vast majority of us would never want
14:36
cruelty to happen to these animals
14:38
absolutely allergic to cruelty exactly
14:41
exactly you know you ask anybody in the
14:43
street hey do you think animal cruelty is acceptable
14:46
everybody's going to say no everybody you know how
14:48
hard is it for us to get everybody
14:50
to agree on one thing it's almost
14:53
impossible almost nobody agrees in
14:55
anything but almost
14:57
everybody agrees that animal
14:59
cruelty is wrong yeah but then
15:01
you have two two words there and
15:04
animal and cruelty and we have to unpack
15:06
that right because I think
15:08
people inherently
15:10
we have we make distinctions within
15:13
the animal kingdom and there are different ways
15:16
of doing that right because now it's your
15:18
view that all
15:20
life all animal
15:22
insect any kind of organism
15:24
is never to be
15:27
eaten never to be consumed
15:29
by another animal because
15:31
one of the the key facts
15:34
of the planet is that is
15:36
that animals exist
15:38
by eating each other this this is this
15:41
is universal it is not all this
15:43
is there there are obviously some that did eat just
15:45
plants but a hell of a lot of us creatures
15:48
on earth eat other creatures and this seems
15:50
to be integral to our evolution
15:53
integral to natural selection integral
15:55
to our ability to survive so what your
15:57
argument is really a moral rejection
15:59
Let me put it this way, of reality.
16:03
Well, that's why I'm glad you're having me on the show today,
16:05
is to kind of unpack animal cruelty.
16:08
Okay, let's do it. And
16:09
what I believe is that we
16:12
need to look at all sentient life, so all animals
16:15
who have the capability of experiencing
16:17
pain, which we all recognize as
16:20
pain is bad. And if you are
16:22
hearing this and think, oh, pain isn't bad, burn
16:25
your finger on the stove. Yeah,
16:27
but there are varieties of pain, obviously. Some
16:29
pain is essential because if we didn't experience
16:32
pain, we wouldn't learn to avoid danger.
16:35
I mean,
16:35
experiencing some level of pain as
16:38
animals is actually crucial to our survival.
16:41
Exactly. Pain, I'm not saying that pain
16:43
doesn't exist for a good reason, but unnecessary
16:47
pain being caused to animals.
16:50
Let's say an ant
16:52
is squished. Can
16:56
we use the word pain to
16:59
describe that? Or
17:01
as opposed to, say, sticking a needle
17:04
in a grown adult? I mean, it
17:06
seems to me that the brain's
17:08
potential to understand pain and
17:11
to process it is, if
17:14
pain is the threshold,
17:16
then you must have some way of determining
17:19
to what extent each individual animal
17:21
will experience pain, right? Yeah,
17:24
so pain is universal
17:27
to sentient creatures, and there
17:30
is a lot of data
17:32
to still be collected and sifted through when
17:34
it comes to the complexity of insects.
17:37
But I think it's important to realize and recognize
17:40
that
17:41
farm animals, for example, absolutely
17:44
feel pain. Yeah, we'll get to them in a
17:46
minute. I'm trying to get to the very basics here.
17:49
That ants may not feel pain in any way that we could
17:51
possibly. Maybe it's anthropogenic
17:53
of us, entirely anthropomorphic
17:55
of it,
17:56
anthropomorphic of us to assume
17:59
that animals are
17:59
experience pain in exactly
18:02
the same way that we experience pain, partly because
18:04
we have brains, these huge brains that can think
18:06
of pain in the past, can remember it, can
18:08
think of it in the future, all sorts of things that
18:11
may not make pain as the same
18:13
experience for
18:15
animals. Would you concede there's some point
18:18
at which
18:19
an animal becomes sentient like
18:22
a human or like in a way that we
18:24
could understand and use the moral language
18:26
of pain? And up until then they don't,
18:29
after that they do. Is that where you
18:31
were getting it? Yeah, and I'm
18:33
on the favor of erring on the side of caution
18:36
because
18:37
pain is such an awful
18:40
experience and the kinds
18:42
of pain that we can inflict on others
18:45
is so massively bad. It's
18:47
so massively just wretched in
18:50
some ways. If I lean back
18:52
and I've squished a bug, right, and I
18:54
didn't really mean it particularly, or if I'm just
18:56
batting one away and I kill it,
18:59
I can't find that to
19:01
be morally horrifying. It just intuitively
19:03
doesn't horrify me. Yeah, so for one,
19:06
I want to make very clear, Andrew, that the
19:09
vast majority of my advocacy is for-
19:12
Where would you start? Where
19:14
does an animal begin to be of
19:17
moral
19:18
importance? If
19:21
they're sentient, if they're able to feel pain. They're
19:23
all sentient. They're all sentient. If
19:25
they're able to feel pain. Well, what is an
19:27
able to feel- How about a turtle?
19:29
Yeah, I believe
19:31
that turtles feel pain, just like I believe that
19:34
cats and dogs feel pain, just like I believe that pigs
19:36
and cows and chickens feel pain, and
19:38
therefore we should take steps
19:40
that reduce the suffering that these animals experience.
19:44
Let's take a chicken in a cow. Surely
19:47
they experience it differently.
19:49
Sure, they experience lots
19:51
of things differently, but if
19:54
you kick a pig,
19:57
they are going to react similarly
19:59
to if you kick a dog. which is going
20:01
to act similarly if you kick
20:03
a human. You know, they are going to
20:06
react and they are going to clearly
20:08
experience something that they do not
20:11
want to experience. And
20:13
it is up to us as people who are making
20:15
choices every single day that matter
20:18
to
20:20
beings that feel pain to try and
20:22
reduce this suffering. What
20:25
about when animals inflict terrible
20:27
pain on other animals? Yes, so
20:29
there is a lot of cruelty. Tearing
20:32
another animal apart. It does not have
20:35
any interest in protecting this
20:37
other creature from pain. In fact, it
20:40
is almost terrifying to watch the cruelty
20:42
of animals. So, why
20:45
does that? I mean, at some point,
20:47
you must be adopting a
20:49
different standard
20:50
for humans than you are for animals. Well,
20:52
I am glad that you are bringing this up because there
20:54
is certainly a tremendous amount of cruelty
20:57
and suffering in the animal kingdom,
21:00
even excluding
21:01
humans from that. But it can be cruelty
21:03
if they are not intending anything to be cruel.
21:05
They are just simply attempting to survive.
21:10
I mean, most of the cruelty
21:12
is done for survival's sake
21:15
because that is their prey
21:17
or that is how they stay alive. They have got
21:19
to feed their own offspring. That
21:22
is where they are going to be. So, it is not cruel.
21:24
Well, when I am saying
21:26
cruelty in
21:29
regard to the interactions
21:31
between animals, I am just saying that one is
21:33
causing suffering to the other.
21:36
But what I am saying as
21:38
an advocate for animals is that
21:41
what is happening between animals should
21:45
not dictate how we interact
21:49
with animals. They are two separate
21:51
things because it does not matter aren't
21:55
we animals? Yes, but we
21:58
as human beings in the year 20.
21:59
in 2023, we can make
22:02
choices that reduce
22:04
the suffering of animals.
22:07
And
22:07
regardless of not regardless or not of
22:10
whether or not a line is going to chase down
22:13
a zebra and cause that zebra so
22:15
much suffering like that does make
22:18
me sad. And I wish that that suffering
22:20
didn't exist, but that
22:23
is out of my control. What is within
22:25
my control is the choices
22:27
I make on a day to day basis.
22:29
And when I go to the grocery store, I
22:32
am choosing one thing off of a shelf instead
22:34
of another. And this one thing I'm choosing doesn't
22:37
cause suffering
22:37
versus another thing I could be choosing that
22:40
does cause suffering. When I go to a restaurant,
22:42
I am choosing something off of a menu that
22:45
I can be confident an animal
22:47
did not suffer for.
22:49
Whereas the vast majority of people, we
22:51
love animals, but are making
22:53
choices on a regular basis that are
22:56
causing suffering, whether or not we want
22:58
to or not.
22:59
Right. If you could
23:01
kill an animal without this party,
23:03
the argument, right, if you can kill an animal instantly
23:07
or without suffering,
23:09
that would change the moral
23:11
equation. There would be a lot
23:13
of changes to the moral equation of things were
23:15
different. But the thing is, it is
23:18
impossible. It's not even
23:20
worth entertaining the idea because
23:23
it is an impossibility to
23:25
raise farm animals
23:27
in a way that is going to fit
23:30
this narrative. And it's the easy way
23:32
out that many meat eaters take
23:34
when they try and consider that
23:37
option. When the significantly
23:39
easier, healthier, cheaper option
23:42
is to choose more plant based
23:44
foods and
23:46
we can each make choices that really
23:48
do make a really big
23:51
difference for animals, because like
23:53
I said, we all recognize
23:56
that
23:56
suffering is bad and we don't
23:59
want to cause
23:59
unnecessary suffering and our
24:02
choices really dictate whether
24:04
or not we are going to You
24:07
know
24:07
have animals suffer or not Why
24:12
do humans eat
24:14
animals in the first place It's
24:17
a good question, you know, I'm not a Anthropologist
24:21
so I
24:22
can't well we kind of know don't we
24:24
I mean we kind of know that it was really good protein
24:27
It was it was it made
24:29
them stronger. It was incredibly good
24:31
nutrition they got all sorts of
24:33
nutrients and and and
24:35
that was sort of our price along with
24:38
berries and other Should we picked up?
24:40
Yeah, you know what? Nature
24:43
this is nature. This is this is who we are
24:46
as as as animals now if one could
24:49
what I'm curious about is I We
24:51
can talk later about
24:52
Animal factory farming
24:54
and all the rest of it all of which I think you have some extremely
24:57
strong points But I'm kind of interested in the sort
25:00
of philosophical idea of the
25:02
fact that it would be was wrong for humans To
25:05
kill animals we would no longer
25:07
exist if we haven't killed animals We
25:10
wouldn't so at some point you're you're
25:13
asking for us to adopt a standard
25:16
that humans
25:17
Never adopted you're asking us to evolve
25:20
in a really quite dramatic way
25:23
out of being the animals that we
25:26
That we began as There
25:28
are lots of things that we do today
25:30
that we didn't do then and there are lots of
25:32
things that we did then that We don't do today
25:35
humans evolve humans change and
25:37
in 2023 We no longer have to
25:39
live as cave people we can
25:41
live as
25:42
people living in the modern era Where
25:45
we have access to grocery stores we
25:47
have access to restaurants. We have access to
25:49
our own food growing our own food We have access
25:52
to lots of options that we didn't
25:54
have in the past and therefore we
25:57
should live as
25:58
modern humans rather than trying
26:00
to live to some standard from
26:03
thousands or tens of thousands of years ago?
26:06
Well, I'm just saying that most of us
26:08
understand that the human body, for example,
26:11
and its health, much of what we discover
26:13
today is that, in fact,
26:15
to be more in touch with the way humans
26:18
lived and ate and conducted
26:21
themselves for 195,000 years as hunter-gatherers is actually an
26:26
important corrective to
26:28
the period in which humans settled down and
26:31
grew plants and agriculture
26:34
and actually suffered a decline in
26:36
their lifespans marginally
26:38
in that period before recovering back
26:41
their lifespans. So the question really
26:43
is that you... It's interesting
26:45
that, in fact, you're
26:48
very forward-looking
26:48
in the sense that we're
26:51
leaving behind our nature. In
26:54
fact, we can overcome
26:56
our nature or substitute it somehow.
26:59
So for example, instead of running around all day long hunting,
27:01
antelope, or whatever, and occasionally killing them
27:03
or eating them, we sit around all day and
27:05
eat processed foods which
27:08
are benignly created. I'm just saying that you
27:11
can see there's a slight tension here. In
27:15
fact, you really want us to go beyond,
27:17
in a way, anything that humans
27:18
have done before. That
27:21
seems to me to be an interesting
27:24
point that isn't often made. You're
27:26
asking for a revolution
27:28
in human understanding of who we are
27:30
as animals.
27:32
Yeah, I think that we
27:34
no longer need to eat animals
27:37
to survive. We no longer need to
27:39
run around chasing antelope, as you say. We
27:42
don't need to do that. It was good for us, however.
27:45
It kept us very healthy. It
27:47
kept our body weight. We can still
27:49
do that today without having to chase antelope.
27:52
There's lots
27:55
of different exercises that you can do that don't require
27:57
running through prairies chasing animals.
27:59
Why am I attached? So
28:03
attached to the idea of a steak
28:05
or a rasha of bacon?
28:08
Because you
28:09
likely because you grew up eating that
28:12
and I grew up eating that as well and I love
28:14
that. I used to eat so
28:16
many animals. I used to as
28:18
a 19 year old I once
28:21
ate 39 chicken wings in a single
28:23
sitting. 39
28:24
chicken wings. And counted them afterwards.
28:26
Yeah I did. Well my friends were egging
28:29
me on and I was going for as much as I possibly
28:31
could. I used to eat two slabs
28:33
of ribs in one sitting as
28:35
a teenager
28:36
and I loved animals. And so
28:38
I never even thought about how my choices
28:41
were really making an impact on
28:44
animals. And I certainly
28:46
loved meat. I loved dairy.
28:50
I loved cheese. I loved eggs. And then
28:52
I realized you know if I love
28:54
animals maybe I should try and make
28:57
the connection between the foods that I was
28:59
eating and the animals I was eating. Now
29:01
that
29:02
just raises another question
29:04
in my head. Let's say we
29:07
did get rid of eating animals.
29:10
There will be a lot fewer cows
29:13
on the planet right. Their population
29:15
would probably disappear. Go down
29:18
what 95. What you're talking about is the
29:21
is a future in which there are
29:22
vastly fewer animals
29:24
than we think currently exist.
29:27
Yeah I mean I think that it's absolutely
29:30
bizarre that we have
29:32
billions and tens of billions
29:35
of animals that we're raising behind the closed
29:37
doors of factory farms and slaughterhouses.
29:40
And these animals are living
29:43
in just absolutely miserable conditions which I'm sure we'll
29:45
talk about later. And
29:47
the. But when
29:50
you when you want to. One of the ironies is
29:52
that some people will say the cows
29:54
for example among the most successful species ever
29:57
existed on earth that they they
29:59
they.
29:59
The numbers that they have are a species
30:02
triumph, of course, because they latched onto
30:04
humans. Similarly with dogs, for that matter.
30:07
Many more than would have existed without humans.
30:10
There is a paradox here that if you get
30:13
rid of eating animals, you're also going
30:15
to get rid of a lot of animals. And I guess that's
30:17
part of the point, isn't it? Because fewer animals,
30:19
far less, they eat less.
30:23
You are contributing massively
30:25
to reducing carbon energy if
30:27
you reduce the number of actual
30:29
living, breathing animals on the planet
30:32
and increase the number of plants sucking in
30:34
the carbon dioxide, right? Conversely,
30:37
I mean, there's no
30:38
benefit to just raising, bringing
30:41
these animals into existence for no
30:43
reason. And this would take,
30:45
these changes happen slowly over time.
30:48
I don't expect a vegan world overnight. I do
30:50
not expect that next week or next
30:52
year or even next decade, we're going to have
30:55
a vegan world. And so
30:57
we aren't going to suddenly have some situation where
31:00
we have 10 billion farm animals on our hands and we don't
31:02
know what to do with them. That's not going to happen.
31:04
Just like every other chain. I know, I know. But
31:07
I just find these are
31:08
kind of weird paradoxes
31:11
here that animal rights will require
31:13
actually the disappearance of
31:16
billions of animals that we have created
31:18
for our own use in
31:20
a way, literally for our own use.
31:23
If
31:25
humans were capable
31:27
of living
31:29
as we used to, let's say, take us back a couple of
31:31
centuries
31:33
in which animals were not created en
31:35
masse. They were not, they were
31:37
generated on, they were mainly part
31:40
of an agricultural society
31:43
which fed its, they weren't treated
31:45
as
31:47
objects in a factory as it
31:49
were. They were treated and human beings had
31:52
quite complicated and long relationships
31:54
with the animals that they lived with
31:57
and eventually often killed.
31:59
My brother has
32:02
his little cottages around in
32:06
the landscape of Sussex and Surrey
32:08
where I grew up. And
32:10
you find houses which were just for animal
32:13
husbanders.
32:14
These are people who just dealt with animals,
32:16
dealt with hoofing them and helping
32:19
them and then also
32:21
killing them. Is that kind of world
32:24
in which, yes, animals
32:26
were a part of the human life and
32:28
were not treated with abject
32:30
cruelty? They weren't treated
32:32
as gods, but they weren't treated in the way that we
32:35
treat animals today.
32:37
Is that a world that you could find morally acceptable?
32:40
At least more morally acceptable than ours?
32:42
I would say that a world in which
32:45
animals suffered significantly less
32:47
is something that is better, but
32:49
it isn't ideal because there is still a certain
32:52
level of animal suffering going on.
32:55
If we are going to compare today's world to
32:57
the world in 1723 or 1823, yes, there is less
33:03
suffering then. So in that way, it
33:05
would be much better. But
33:09
in 2023, in today's world, we
33:11
can, instead of trying to strive for
33:14
some
33:15
ideal from the past that
33:17
is better, we can choose something
33:19
that is more realistic and
33:22
you
33:22
can be 100%
33:24
sure that there is
33:26
no suffering. So by moving
33:28
in a direction of vegan eating,
33:30
by consuming fewer animals, or by consuming
33:33
no animals and no animal products,
33:35
you can be sure that there
33:37
is no suffering that went into that
33:40
meal. And on top of this, this is going
33:42
to be cheaper. This is going to be healthier.
33:44
This is going to be easier to obtain.
33:47
So you don't necessarily, you don't need
33:50
to try and reach for some
33:52
ideal. On top of it, just from an
33:54
advocacy standpoint, it becomes really
33:56
problematic when you start saying, oh,
33:59
well, let's just try and find out.
33:59
I put in quotations, humane
34:02
meat, because that is the
34:04
easy way out.
34:06
I
34:08
can't tell you how many conversations
34:10
I've had with meat eaters when they say, oh, I
34:12
only eat humane meat. Well, that is
34:15
a practical impossibility because
34:17
if you look at chickens, for example, 4,999 out
34:21
of every 5,000 chickens that are
34:23
raised in the United States are raised on
34:26
factory farms. That's 9.98%
34:29
of chickens and chickens are the vast majority of
34:31
the land animals who we are consuming. And
34:34
so I promise you, you are not eating
34:37
humane meat, but
34:39
in today's world, again, in 2023 and
34:42
beyond, we have access to so
34:44
many foods that don't
34:46
require any suffering at
34:49
all. And therefore we should really consider
34:51
eating more of that,
34:53
more food that doesn't cause suffering and less
34:56
food that does cause suffering. Would it
34:58
be in any way possible?
35:01
I'm just now gaming out loud. You're going to tell
35:03
me no, I suppose.
35:05
To feed as many people as we currently
35:08
feed
35:10
without some level of factory
35:13
farming, because it does seem to me we have a
35:16
huge number of ... Let's take
35:18
America, 330 million or so people.
35:22
That's a lot of eggs. That's a lot
35:26
of bacon. That's a lot of burgers.
35:28
How would it be conceivable
35:31
to do this without ... I mean, surely factory
35:33
farming isn't simply a function of evil,
35:35
although I think one could make
35:38
the argument that it is evil, but it was a
35:40
function of feeding people and a function of feeding
35:42
them as efficiently and as cheaply as
35:44
you possibly can. That's what capitalism does.
35:48
Is there any way in which it wouldn't have happened that
35:50
way? Was there any way in which you
35:52
could have taken agriculture,
35:54
humane agriculture, and multiplied
35:56
it at scale to feed this many
35:59
people?
36:00
It's a good question. And, you
36:02
know, without getting into the history
36:05
of factory farming and whether or not it would, what
36:08
would have been possible when factory
36:10
farming started becoming the norm, you know, 60, 70, 80 years
36:13
ago in the mid, in the mid 20th
36:15
century. I think that what we can say is
36:18
that moving forward,
36:20
we can choose something actually is less
36:22
resource intensive. And unfortunately,
36:26
factory farming is incredibly inefficient.
36:28
It's incredibly resource intensive
36:32
and we can feed more people
36:35
by
36:35
feeding them plant-based foods rather
36:38
than animal-based foods. We use
36:40
so much land, so much
36:42
water, so many natural resources
36:45
to feed farm animals.
36:47
And it is so incredibly inefficient to feed
36:50
a farm animal and then to eat that farm
36:52
animal rather than just feeding
36:54
people the plants directly.
36:57
I see your point. And
37:01
this is why I kind of come up empty sometimes
37:04
with this because it seems to me that
37:06
I don't know enough to know how much protein
37:09
we could really, really get
37:11
to most people without animals.
37:13
What is the answer to that? I mean, it seems to
37:16
me there are going to be, it's going
37:18
to be more difficult, presumably.
37:21
Isn't, doesn't
37:24
animal meat have far more
37:26
protein in it than most other substances? I
37:29
mean, you can definitely get a ton
37:31
of protein from meat, but
37:33
we, most people's problem is actually
37:35
eating way too much protein. And
37:39
if you ask any doctors out there, they will
37:41
say that
37:42
protein deficiency is almost impossible.
37:45
You know, every doctor I've ever asked has said
37:47
they've never met anybody who
37:49
is protein deficient. Any vegetarian, any
37:51
vegan, anybody at all. The protein myth is something
37:54
that's been pounded into our
37:56
heads by the meat industry
37:59
for decades.
37:59
because people obviously
38:02
love eating meat and we're
38:04
Americans we want to get big this
38:06
is true you want to be mighty
38:08
we want to be great and powerful and you can be mighty
38:11
by eating plant-based foods I
38:13
promise you how you you you look pretty
38:16
stacked you you're how you're like
38:18
five
38:19
seven five eight I'm like
38:21
five nine and a half okay
38:23
I'm sorry five
38:26
nine and a half these things about and how much you weigh
38:28
you gotta you gotta do a half in there I'm like 190
38:30
190 pounds and
38:33
I eat a lot
38:36
of food I eat a lot of food
38:38
I eat a lot of protein as well I to
38:40
food temp a satan by a lot of plant-based
38:43
meats you know vegetables have lots of
38:45
protein me about the plant-based
38:47
meats because this is where you
38:49
could get me because I really don't
38:51
want to live without the
38:53
taste of chicken without
38:56
the taste of a great chili
38:59
not a vegetarian chili without the
39:01
taste of
39:02
steak is it
39:04
we're not quite there yet are we
39:06
but are we I mean is it is it would
39:08
it be possible to do that at some point the
39:11
food innovations over the last couple
39:13
of decades alone have been just
39:15
absolutely monumental in terms
39:17
of providing options to people who want
39:20
to eat less meat and it is
39:22
really quite beautiful even last
39:25
seven to eight years have just been give
39:27
me give me some examples of
39:30
things that have happened that could really actually make a difference
39:32
sure so choosing an impossible
39:34
burger over a
39:36
beef burger right that is a
39:39
huge step that is something
39:41
that is going to give you basically the same
39:43
experience and it doesn't require
39:46
killing a cow it
39:47
requires why
39:49
haven't I ever eaten an impossible burger that's
39:51
a good question because they are all over the place
39:54
Andrew and no Burger King carries
39:56
an impossible Burger King does Burger King
39:58
does McDonald's doesn't yet have a no
39:59
No, they're in works, they're
40:02
working on creating a plant-based option. I
40:07
was assuming the mikrib was entirely plant-based.
40:11
It seemed it came from somewhere. It
40:13
didn't look like it came from an animal. So
40:18
I should try the impossible whopper? Yeah,
40:23
that's something that's great. What's
40:26
beautiful about living in 2023 versus even 2013 or 2003 is that there are so many
40:32
options out there. I know lots
40:34
of
40:35
vegans who went vegan in the 90s
40:37
and they had to literally make
40:39
their own soy milk. They had to go to
40:41
the store, buy soy milk powder and
40:44
mix it with water, which just sounds so disgusting.
40:47
Now you go to the grocery store. You won't even
40:49
let us have milk anymore. Now you go
40:51
to the grocery store, there's soy milk, almond
40:54
milk, hemp milk, oat milk. So
40:56
fucking irritating. These people
40:59
are... It's beautiful, Andrew. I
41:03
have to sit behind another
41:05
Gen Zer ordering an almond, half
41:07
almond, half oat, half whatever. But
41:09
it's not Gen Z, it's everybody.
41:12
People
41:14
across the board are choosing more and more plant-based
41:17
options, which is why these companies
41:19
who pretty much only care about their bottom line,
41:22
they are introducing this all
41:24
the time. Even Starbucks, a
41:26
few years ago, they only had
41:28
soy milk, then they introduced almond milk, then
41:30
coconut milk, and now oat milk. So
41:33
you see across the board, even
41:35
corporations who pretty
41:37
much just care about making money are
41:41
adding more vegan options, more plant-based
41:42
options, because that is the future.
41:45
Corporations are good.
41:47
The desire to make money can
41:49
be an extraordinarily positive thing. It
41:52
just depends what you attach it to. If you attach
41:54
it to the ability to reduce
41:56
suffering, then the profit motive is your friend.
41:59
Don't, do not, do
42:02
not criticize the capitalists if they are actually
42:05
bringing about the revolution that you
42:07
want. I'm not criticizing anybody. I'm
42:09
just saying that if your main
42:11
motivation is to make money
42:14
for your investors and your stockholders-
42:17
But you see how that's a more effective argument for this to say,
42:19
look, we're going to give you more choices,
42:21
not fewer. We're not going to sit
42:23
here lecturing you about not eating
42:25
meat, but we're going to offer you these new, interesting,
42:28
new, yummy things
42:31
to eat that
42:33
come with a clear conscience. And
42:36
to sell that with all the power
42:38
of multi-millionaire capitalism.
42:41
Yeah. And what's beautiful is that
42:44
more and more people are making those kinder,
42:46
compassionate choices. Whether or not they're
42:48
doing it for ethical purposes
42:51
or they're doing it because they just like a
42:53
taste of oat milk more than the taste of cow's
42:55
milk. Whatever the reason is, there
42:57
are lots and lots of people making
43:00
those decisions on a regular
43:02
basis. And that is pretty
43:04
beautiful to me. And that is something that just
43:06
shows that we are moving
43:08
towards a more compassionate
43:11
world where there are more options
43:13
for people who want to make kinder choices. What about
43:15
buying like fake meat in a supermarket?
43:18
Can people do that yet? Hi there. This
43:21
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