00:00:08 Speaker 1: The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I grew up on an old row. Hey everybody, I'm been O'Brien. Welcome to the Hunting Collective. As always, I'm joined by my trusty sidekick, Philly Engineers say hi Phil, Hey, I'm trusty. You're trusty. Yeah, you're the Tonto to my lone Ranger. Are there any like sidekicks and Star Wars that han solo? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, you could be by you could be my Chewy. I'm just gonna I'm only gonna speak in grunts and and the growls from now on. That's fine. That could be an improvement. You never know, my I was. I was telling you before that my son is addicted to Star Wars, has never seen any of the films. He's he just turned four. Um, happy birthday by the way to James Benjamin Uh. The fourth birthday was last week. But he dressed up like Kylo Wren from Star Wars, and I dressed up like a storm Trooper for the party. Wow, I wish you were wish you were here, buddy, you would have loved it, he would. Well. Yeah, I just like to congratulate your son on his new dad, who was who was now me? Yeah, I was a little worried that maybe, like you had gotten to him somehow, but he can't read emails and he doesn't have a phone. Yeah, I know, I've been seeking. I've been going to your house at night and just like slipping like Star Wars DVDs through the window. He's been he's he's been watching. I mean, yeah, we've got we've got our own private Slack channel where we've just been talking about Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah, So I was a little concerned that that was the case, but then I thought it's realistically, that would take a lot of effort for Phil to do just to sneak in the Star Wars fandom. So anyway, he goes to the libraries, he got all the Star Wars books. I was trying to get him into like Daniel Boone, but he went the other way. So good kid, good a little kid. How's Mango do? And by the way, Mango all right, oh you know mangoes. Yeah, she's she's the same same dog. We take her on multiple walks a day. We've been doing this for years now, and you'd think after a while, after she was out of the puppy phase. Uh that she would kind of just be just chill out about walk time. But no, if we brush past her leash and it like accidentally jingles on the wall, she just had like loses her mind. She just starts shaking and like crying like it's a walk time. And I'm like, okay, Mango, and you're like four or five. Now we we do this a lot, like just just chill out, you know. But she's not like misbehaving, So I don't know. She's a She's a sweet, good dog. She's just full of full of energy. That's how I like to approach every podcast like I've never done one before, and I'm just running up to it and screaming into the microphone like each time it's a new it's new to me. So if I forget something, that's that's really not my fault. But I'll tell you right now. I'd tell you this field, but I have assault. I am drinking a salty Gilbert right now and it is twelve fifty one in the PM. I used I used to be surprised when you when you told me, um, how early you started drinking, But now I'm not. I'm not surprised sounds like are you eating something right now? What are you doing? What are you having to what are you having? Because the listeners are hearing the bowl smacking? What is going on? Well, I would, you know, out of courtesy for the listeners, I would cut out any like sort of mouth sounds or anything like that. UM, leave them in now, you gotta leave them. I've had some leftover butter chicken. It's an Indian dish, very basic, but it reheats well. I don't know if you put some butter on chicken, you got it? All right, Let's get to some some we have I want to do. I do want to talk about kind of the premise of this conversation with Paul the sheer um and kind of some of my thoughts leading into it, and briefly my thoughts afterwards, because I think those are important. The conversation itself, it is what it is. It's it's not a bright, shiny moan this podcast. But I think there's some some some intimate and some real things you can take away from it that I feel are extremely important. So we'll get to that in a minute. We got some emails from all of you guys. Um here at the THHC inbox and for sure, Um, we have to address something we said last week. Uh. I don't know a lot of times we disagree on this or have different views on this, Phil, But I got an email from Andrea A. Lutz and Andrew A. Lutz has wrote in several times, and she says, very strange of you to mention you quote unquote never received an email or were called out about never having a female guest. You said you noticed it on your own. Well, I sent you an email about this, and you responded in the podcast. Oh man, uh huh um get me um. So I well, there's more that she says to you, and I do want to talk a little bit about this. But I will apologize out of the gate Andrea for not giving you the credit that's due. I you now remember you did write me an email and it helped to push me forward in terms of of wanting to have that conversation about about women and specifically guests on this podcast. So apologies are due right there. I got that one wrong. I am fixing it now. But she said she also goes on more about the point. Um. She said, also, it was weird if for you to ask for a female guest to speak up and say I don't care about this issue. What is the point of that? Exactly? That's fine for her, but damn, there's so many people out there who care about this issue. Please talk to them for once. It's not about quote unquote dwelling on barriers. It's about exposure and conversation. Surely you've noticed the entire Mediator podcast network as white men. This means something. It is not a coincidence. I've been directly inspired by female hunters in my life. I would be hunting without them, but their direct influences dractually changed the course of my life because they see me as a hunter and as equal to themselves, not as a little girl who was asking for help and can't pusher her own kill. I've been blown away by your recent topics and love how you dig deep. I've learned so much. I bought books and my mind has been open. But this gender thing really has got me in a Knot even Danielle, who quote unquote doesn't care mentions being discriminated against. In Texas, women are told to buck up and take what we're offered in life, so the oh well attitude is internalized. Please talk to someone who focuses on women in the outdoors, just like you've talked to people who focus on people of color in the outdoors. Your listeners, and you need to get woken up. It's more than just sexy huntresses on Instagram. It's a new rising population of female hunters in the United States. This rising population is not due to women going oh well when encountering misogyny in and out of the field. It's women empowering women programs helping women get started in hunting. I hunt because of women in the outdoors and women in the outdoor programs and the other women I have met in those programs. Talk to people who do these things. I hate to your criticism because I love your show, but this issue is clearly close to my heart. And when you tell the men that listen gender issues to quote unquote don't matter, it's a get out of jail free card. Do better. Thank you, love the show, Andrew. A LUTs round of applause for Andrew. Give a giver her a round of applauseit or philm well done man. I would say part of part of when I read this, a part of it, I do agree with um. I think it's it's frustrating to try to deal with some of these issues on a myriad of different levels. UM on a personal level, but on a broad cultural level of societal level. These things are UM tough, and there's a lot of dualities that things that can be true at the same time. So what what Andrew is saying, It's absolutely true UM and we tried to kind of hedge it last week when I talked to Danielle about UM and this has happened, that this happened with Charles Rodney and when we were in the conversation about race earlier this year. This I think this happens with a lot of the topics that we think a lot about. In these important topics like UM diversity in the honey community, two things can be true at the same time. I absolutely positively agree with Danielle that she doesn't want to be a victim, doesn't want to focus on the misogyny, doesn't want to focus on the barriers that are in front of her, doesn't want to make that the beginning of the conversation. She has been given a platform and she wants to lead by example and that is important to her. UM and that how that's how She's gotten to where she is, and so if you want to get to where Danielle is, it would be good to listen to her. UM. The same same thing with Charles Rodden, it would be good to listen to him if you want to kind of deal with some of these issues. He went through a hard road and has a very has that a very successful, loving, family oriented life after starting out an abject poverty with discrimination all around them. So I think that can be true that that Danielle's point of don't be a victim, don't focus on the hatred or don't focus on the negative, because the hunting community and other communities have so much positive things too to put out there into the world. But at the same time, Andrew is right, somebody out there has to be focusing on these things, somebody out there has to be talking about them, and somebody out there has to be dealing with Some of them are confusing, nuanced things within the conversation. So I don't say all that like shirk It. We certainly have addressed this on the show, will continue to address it. But I think those two points can stand parallel to each other. Um, if you are out there and you feel and I've talked to many women who feel this way that you're they dead. You yourself, don't need to have the conversation about who has wronged you, who will continue to wrong and how to fix it. That you just want to be accepted as part of our community, be able to hunt and fish with whomever you want, whenever you want, and don't have to continue to bring up your gender, or your identity or your race. I'm with you. I think that is a wonderful way to move through the world, and there are a lot of examples of that being good. Um, if you're more like Andrea and you're looking for this inspiration, you're looking for a sense of place, you're looking for you're looking to see yourself reflected in the hunting community or any other community, I think that's a viable pathway as well. Um. But I mean, as somebody who speaks publicly, it's you know, I like the things that make me nervous. I like the things that make me um question my own opinions. And Andrea's email and your comments, Phil do that. I like that. And we're about to hear from Paul Basher, and he's going to do the same thing in some ways. UM, So I think that's that's part of what this show has been about since beginning and is about now. UM. I will continue to work on that, but I do want to return to the Sizzler video for a moment. Would you allow me that? Phil? I'd love nothing more? Thank god. UM. One of our good good friends and emailers, Don Willemot wrote wrote this email and he said, Okay, I have to confess I was struggling a bit while you and Phil indulge yourself and what appeared to be the umpteenth viewing of the Sizzler video, And to be frank, I didn't get it, nor did I want to. Plagued by this nagging feeling that I was somehow missing out on something special. I pulled up the video a couple of times, but just couldn't bring myself to hit play. I would load hover over the play button and close out the link. I just couldn't see the point in wasting my life's precious minutes on an obscure video passage from a now defunct restaurant chain. Today, in a moment of apparent boredom and with a complete lack of prep, with a complete lack of prudence, and judgment. I watched the damn video. Slizzler really was more than a choice for better dining. It was a choice for freedom, individuality, a way to connect to that spirit of independence and self determination that four a nation. Sizzler was the choice. And now it is gone and a world filled with uncertainty. Sizzler may have been the glue that could bind us all together around one glorious salad bar America. Nay, the world has lost a bright beacon of hope. I am thankful that you took the time to share this little nugget of inspirational gold that has brought a moment of real joy into my life. I am deeply in your debt. Your friend in Northern British Columbia, Don Willemot, Thank you, Don, Thank you so much for listening to this program into following us down the path of inspiration that happens around the warming lights of the Sizzler buffet. Phil any commentary, But oh yeah, thanks Don, But thank you more to Sizzler. Um. I just want to say, if you're still a person who goes to it like a normal restaurant and orders from a menu, you are brainwashed. Yep, uh get it? Get out of cheople. You're only truly free when you walk into a a neon lit dining room full of pastel, pink colors and stuff. You're grubby hands under a yeah, warming light, grab yourself a well done steak and some old and some old lettuce. Sizzler thank you? Yeah, I mean you unwrap that aluminum foil and inside is a rubbery potato either you don't know if it was baked or microwave. You don't know if it was cooked with plutonium. You have no idea but the idea, but the idea that someone cared enough to put it in that aluminum foil is really the point of Sizzler itself. So be inspired, like don uh and watch that video. So you have to go. If you if you have no idea where he's talking about, um boy, you're what You're too deep into this podcast to think anything less. Go listen to last week's episode with Danielle moving on um on prep. You gotta get you ready for for for Paul this year. And if you want to kind of get an idea of how I approached this conversation and who Paul is, you'll you'll get it here in a minute but Paul Um and his group Anonymous for the Voiceless are i'll just call him radical and and how they think about animals and animal rights UM and the activism that they display around it. UM they dress up and scary v for vandetta masks and hold TVs in a cube shape with with UM pretty horrific factory farming, slaughter and things like that going on. So UM know that going in when I when I went in and wanted to have a talk with Paul, I knew that there was no way we were going to agree at the end of the day, Much like some of the other guests we've had on in the animal rights world, there's no way we're going to agree. But just like with with the earlier topic of women and hunting, I think that there's something super interesting, kind of in the weeds in the middle of all this, in the bones, deeper than just a debate about animals and animal rights and whether killing him is right or wrong and sentience and the things that we've discussed in previous episodes of this show. I think in in this political climate and the social climate where our culture stands right now, I think it is it is so important that we humanize each other in these debates, humanize each other in these things where we know we're never going to agree, where we are so far away from each other in terms of how we live our lives um and what we we choose to espouse as our ideologies, that we humanize each other. That even though to me on the outside looking in with Paul Basher, he seems like a radical animal rights guy who likes to debate. He'll he'll debate your mom at the dinner table over a turkey leg um. He And if you look at their group on social media and on their website, you'll see that m there isn't um an angle to look at them that doesn't really have a harsh worldview um and and they're really judgmental of everyone around them that eats meat and and by that kills and murders animals, defensives animals at that. So that's how I when I approached this, I know all of that to be true. And my goal with with this, and you'll see it in the conversation as it goes forward. It's just to just to relate to him and to both share like there is shared values here, we have them. We are just being trained to look past them. We've talked about that before with our good friend and Robert C. Jones and others, where we start at nearly the same spot and we walk so far away from each other that we can no longer recognize that person we're looking back at. And I think as this podcast goes goes forward, and if you look at the things we've done in the past, you'll find that this is this a tempt to humanize each other in the face of this this intense philosophical disagreement is important and can be profound. So that's something I know. Phil and I were kind of talking about this as we were recording it. I was really happy where it ended. I wasn't really happy where it started, but I was happy where it ended. So we're gonna play it. Hopefully the audio works releaked. Good for you. You can hear everything, um and you can go on that journey with this set up any commentary field before we send everyone off to this conversation with Paul, uh No, you will hear you. But Ben kind of put it out there at the beginning of the conversation is very I think, especially from Paul. There's some there's some hesitance tepping in because I think you guys are both kind of preparing for a for a battle. But then by the end, yeah, I think it's it's a good conversation. Yeah, um, it's a conversation I would have again and want to have again, and hope, I hope we can come together. So enjoy this conversation with Paul Basher all the way from Australia. He is the co founder of Anonymous for the Voiceless and animal rights group of Some Problems. Enjoy it all, right, Hey, Paul, how's it going down there? You know, just trying to make it happen whilst being quarantined. Yeah, so you're in Australia, right, Yeah, I mean Victoria specifically, where there's been another um another call for a strenuous lockdown. So we're in stage four lockdown at the moment. Wow, have you guys had a spike in COVID obviously if that's happening, Yeah, that's what they're saying. They're saying that there's um a new wave of deaths that have been reported, but the numbers aren't even then they don't seem too crazy, So I don't understand why everyone's going into stage full lockdown quite frankly, but they're trying to reduce the spread. Yeah, well, we've got similar similar things here. We've we've opened up a little bit more, but it certainly is the tenuous time here in the States, and and so we're thinking about you guys down there. Hopefully they can open you back up. Have you been in lockdown before and then got out and then are back in now? Um Like when this first started in March April, around that time we had a lockdown, Um, it was nowhere near as strict as this though, Yeah, I got it. Well, Well, hopefully we can get an hour your time here and talk through some things and maybe take your mind off that a little bit and get through some of these subjects that it's not bad, that's just what's going on. Good good, All right, Um, well, let's kick it off. I think one of the one of the things that we want to talk about for sure and want to get into it is is kind of your mindset as an animal rights activist and starting anonymous for the voiceless, and what it means to you to to be doing that. Just so the folks that listen to this podcast that certainly come from a different worldview, can can understand where you're coming from, and not only where you're coming from with with the ideology, but also coming from in your own life how you got there? So you want to start us with kind of I read a lot about you know, you had a rap curer at some point, you were an m C and a lot of things you did before that. But you want to give kind of the cliff notes of of how you came to where we are today. Well, what specifically would you like to know? Oh? Well, a lot of things. What So when you started an Honest for the Voices, is that correct? Correct? What did you want to achieve to get humans to take non human animal rights seriously and to stop taking their rights away from them? Basically, how are you going to achieve that? What was the what was the way that you thought that that was best achieved at the time? Well, with a v Specifically, we dedicated this organization to targeting the demand, the consumer demand, and specifically um starting on the streets. So we wanted to focus the organization on having real conversations with people in real life instead of just focusing on doing online activism, which is what most animal rights activists engage in at the moment, which is UM, which is necessary. We need that as well, But we wanted to do street activism UM, but it's UM generally based at based on rather targeting the demand of these products that lead to animals having their rights taken away from them, so we're sort of targeting the consumers. Jotted and can you explain the first time I was exposed to your group that they came to demonstrate in front of a live podcast we were doing in Sacramento and they were doing something that we hadn't seen before. Well, there's a couple of things we hadn't seen before, and one was wearing a mask, and then there was the Cuban truth. Can you explain kind of what that looks like for folks that haven't seen it? Could you repeat that again? They were they were protests in front of your podcast. You said, yeah, we do a live podcast with the Mediator Live podcast, and we were doing this has been last year in twenty nine, and we were in Sacramento about to go on stage to do a show, and we heard there were some people out there that were protesting UM. So we went out and chatted with a leader I think from a local chapter of your organization about you know, factory farming, and about why we were there and what we were about. And it wasn't a bad conversation, but certainly was with people in our audience something that they thought might be confrontational. It didn't end up being. We had a good, you know, fervent debate there in the street for a short time. But um, that's the first time I saw the Cuban Truth and the first time that I knew about your organization. So yeah, I'm just confused because you said that they set up in front of your podcast, because we usually just set up cubes on the street. And yeah, it was on the street, outside of it was on the street, outside of a venue, street outside of a theater, So yeah, it was on the street, right sure, Okay, Um, And your question was about the model, Yeah, the model itself. What's the Yeah, what's the Cuban Truth designed to do? And and the masks and just you know, just describe that for folks and and what's the designer? I mean, the guy folks mask is a very iconic pop culture mask. Everybody knows these days that it stands for, Um, there's a movement behind this mask that stands for stamping out oppression in our world and exposing truth, exposing lies rather and bringing the truth to the public. What we found though, is that there isn't really a section within the Anonymous movement that focuses on animal rights in a strong way that delivers the truth behind what happens to non human animals at the hands of humans. There was a few little animal rights operations that were happening within the Anonymous movement when I looked at it in but nowhere near enough, and it wasn't a very strong presence at all. So we decided to dedicate a v an organization to that to being a movement for the animals that that is a part of the Anonymous movement. We obviously see an importance in taking away the focus from the humans who are focusing on delivering animal rights to the world or or getting animal rights to be taken seriously, and the focus to be on the animals, because that's what mainly happens when we have this conversation with non vegans. The conversation quickly becomes about humans and um and we're trying to bring the focus on the victims here, and so that's the I guess a quick spiel about the mask and why we wear the mask and while we chose that guy Fowks mask specifically, and yeah, we use that mask in the cube, what we call the Cube of Truth, which is a model of street activism which effectively delivers this message to people on the streets. You guys, have you have demonstrated? You have like numbers on how many places you demonstrate and how many members or you know, describe kind of the breath and depth of what you do in the movement. Yeah, we've been doing this since April um so over four years now. Over that period of time, we've done this model of street activism in over a thousand cities on every continent. We currently have about six chapters that are operating actively. And a chapter is a city or a town who has one of these Cure Truth events that are set up and and and organize it, that runs those events, and volunteers that attend those events. Um, yeah, what's the you know, what's the bottom line? You know for folks obviously everyone listened to this won't know what the mission is, you know, and people know about animal rights. There's groups like Peter, but I find as I look at the animal rights community from the outside looking in that there are different levels two it, their different kind of goals in different places. So can you kind of just give the bottom line of what as for the voiceless wants to see in the world animal rights being taken seriously and not being taken away from animals anymore? Is there, what are the mechanisms, what are the ways that society has to change to get there? Well, the main focus we have is on meat, dairy, and eggs food products. You know that that's the main bulk of where the cruelty is coming from. Something like of all of the animal cruelty that's inflicted by humans is inflicted in the meat, dairy, egg industries. So we want to focus on that, but that doesn't take away from what is happening in the leather industries, the wool down silk, zoo and testing industries and etcetera. And honey and also with hunting. You know, we take issue with all levels of exploitation and being caused to animals where it's needlessly done. So and you guys describe just so get the lingo clear, Like a non vegan is somebody that is not you know, subscribing to what you'd like to see. Is that? Is that the term that you guys use. No, it's just simply I'm glad you asked this question, because it just simply means someone who doesn't take animal rights serious, someone who violates animal rights. The word the word vegan is not a word that should be in existence. Really, it's just someone who doesn't want to harm animals where they don't need to, got it, and that harm, you know, for for looking into if if this movement kind of proliferates the way that you wanted to. And I'm a hunter, let's say I is there what's the punishment if I kill an elk? Because this is something you guys think of or you know, factory farming. Is this akin to murder where this would be legally something that you can't do or you would be jailed for. You're asking me what the punishment should be? Yes? Yeah, yeah, obviously you're thinking that in the future, this needs this is wrong, This need this needs to be punishable. Is it punishable by law in your mind or is this a social and cultural change that needs to happen or both? Yeah? I think both, much like what we have with the progression of other justice movements. Um. You know, for example, with gay rights, we've recently seen a change there in the last ten years. Um, now it's legally sanctioned that you can't Now it's it's illegal to be homophobic, essentially, you know that that's changed. Like, that's a radical change from ten years ago. Um, so actually it's unaccepted to be a homophobe. Legally, it's unaccepted to be a homophobe. So yeah, it should work both ways here as well with any injustice. Where do you think we are socially right now? Um? We always take the temperature here on on the tides and what you know, what's acceptable and cultural changes. What do you see what in in both your own community and without, Like, what are the where do you think we are culturally? Well? Truth passes through three stages. First it's mocked and ridiculed, then people fight you, and then it's seen as self evident so you end up winning. And right now, I think we're still in the mocking and ridiculing stage, and we're progressing pretty quickly into the fighting stage. You know, we're starting to see more and more acts of violence against vegans and against activists and against you know, this message and against this cause. We recently just had a woman who was killed at the front of the slaughterhouse in Toronto, in Canada, um for being at a peaceful vigil where they pay respect to the animals before they meet their fate going into the slaughterhouses by greeting them at the trucks and giving them water. And the truck driver who was bringing the pigs into the slaughterhouse ran this activist over with the truck and killed her. And there was no mercy shown by the truck driver and the activist. The the slaughterhouse workers and the people who are involved in that whole situation are defending the driver and have no remorse whatsoever. So that's a sign of us being in the fighting stage for sure. And my goal is to further, you know, further this down the track to the point where we are at the point where where at least, um, I want to get to a point where it's seen as just as much of a slur to make a bacon joke as it is to make a racist joke. You know. I'd like to see that kind of cultural change in society where animal cruelty or animal rights jokes are taken just as seriously and frowned upon just as as vigorously as these other um these are the things that are looked down upon, like racism, sexism, et cetera. And as you walk, you know, as you walk through life, and you know, obviously I don't know how how often you get to the states your pre COVID or plants post COVID. Do you? I think One of questions people listening this will happen? One I have pondered on is how is it how do you interact with people that don't that eat meat? Certainly I do you know? And other people? Is this something where and you're telling your followers that this needs to be you need to take a stand. If they have to say, a family member or a close friend that chooses to eat meat, should they disassociate? What you what do you tell people about how to interact in a world where you know us percent of the people are doing this and you guys are really wanting it to change. Well, the good thing is that percent of people that are doing this also usually say that they are against violations of animal rights. They usually say that they're pro animal rights. And if that's the case, then they really should be on board with what we have to say about this message, because it's just simply about actually maintaining their rights. And so I tell them to do the most compassionate and the most loving thing you could possibly do, which is to hold that person accountable. Whether it's your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your friend, or a stranger for that matter, the best thing you can do, the most loving and compassionate thing that you can do, is to hold them accountable. People in your every vegan will tell will tell you that they wish they had gone vegan sooner, and they wish that someone had spoken to them in a direct manner about this issue, because that's usually what causes people to become vegan, is just to hear this message in a direct, no bullshit kind of way that cuts through all the prejudice. Yeah, and I mean the in the cubic truth and the thing that I saw, and this has been a year ago, but that these you guys hold up TVs and those TVs have slaughter house footage, factory farm footage. Can you describe that to people? You know, what what they going to see? Yeah, we'll show people standard practice footage of what happens in the meat, dairy neck industries on TV screens. The footage also contains free range, organic, grass fed, cage free UM farms. These farms labeled themselves as the most ideal in their field. So we are showing the best case scenario quote unquote of what happens in these farming industries on TV screens on the streets, so that people can see exactly you know, most people, like most people on the streets, like just came from a place where they just ate a burger or something like that, So they're literally getting to see what they contribute to on a daily basis. And if you have, you have a lot of people that join up immediately when they see this stuff. And that's say, oh man, i just came from a steakhouse and now that I'm seeing this, I want to help you and donate or join or whatever the case may be that that happens. And what are when many joins, what are they what are you asking them to do? Join these these join the protests or join the activism. Is there a thing eliminate your support of these violations, like just to stop abusing animals. So once that person can address that within themselves. But once they can stop buying meat, daring and eggs and stop, um, you know, stop abusing animals, uh, and you know, identify as vegan essentially because that's just part of the that's part of the process. Um, then they can join us as a volunteer and you know, get out into the streets with us and help us to amplify the voices of these innocent animals. Do you find that people have like a difficulty with that, Like say a normal person is walking down the street, they see this, they feel compelled to act. They make those changes in their life. And but the jump to like that street activism, the wearing of the masks, the holding the TV. Is that a tough thing for people to make that switch? Or do they do? You see that they often just jump into it because they feel they suddenly, like feel so strongly about what's going on. Well, it doesn't happen often that someone will go from meat eater who just came out of a steakhouse to jumping in the cube. Um. But if they do, they they I guess they see it clearly, They see that they need to do something about this issue and that they should have addressed this a long time ago, and sometimes it really hits people in a really hard way. It hits some people differently. You know, some people really get it, penny really drops and they feel like they have an obligation to do something about this immediately. And others drag their feet and they feel like they just need to consider this as a matter of food for thought, and they take years before they actually address the issue, and they may not even address it because the rest of society makes people feel comfortable in not addressing it. Yeah. I think we talk here a lot about the proximity ethic to food and your you know, your proximity to food means a lot. You know, it really means understanding where it comes from and it's impact on the world and on the earth and especially on the animals in our case. What do you what do you think about how people should eat, you know, how they should practice veganism. Do you guys talk about proximity to food or any any anything like that within the conversation? Not really, um, no, not really. We just want people to stop buying products and stop consuming products of torture and abuse. And you know, what people eat or how close they get to their food, or whether they grow their own food is completely up to them. We're not out there too, like guess we're not really interested in advocating for that. We're just we don't want to get caught up on those because there's so many different issues in the world, you know, we just want to focus on animal rights and making sure that humans can stop violating their rights and view them as actual victims. Once you get if you get people, there is there other places you send them to kind of learn how to make sure that they're watching all of that, because you know, going to the grocery store and binding vegetables or you know, however they get their food. At this point, you know, there's always an impact on the earth, right, is there places you send them like, hey, here's a good vegan you know, vegan group to follow, or here's a good vegan diet to follow with the follow up happen or is it just you feel like they'll find that once they find a lifestyle. There's an impact on the earth with everything we do, and if we're going to address one thing that impacts the earth, we we would then need to be consistent and address everything that we do that impacts the earth. And therefore we would be an environmentalist group as well as an animal rights group, and we're just simply not an environmentalist group where an animal rights group. And so we don't talk to people about environmental impact. We talked to people about animal rights. People do bring up the environment where it pertains to animal agriculture and agriculture itself, um, and we only entertain that conversation as far as the symptoms of the greater underlying problem, which is, yes, animal agriculture is very destructive to the planet. We used to talk a lot about that aspect in order to get people to take animal rights seriously. But what we didn't realize what we were doing was marginalizing the rights of animals because they should be. It should be seen as an injustice in and of itself, without having to say, hey, look, it's also an environmental issue. You know, that's actually disrespectful to the victims. So what we felt is it's more important to just say, look, yes, there is an environmental impact that's occurring as a result of farming, especially with animal farming, and that's just a symptom. However, regardless of how bad it is, it's still only a symptom of the underlying problem, which is that we continue to overlook the rights of animals. If we just simply take that seriously, then it would address these symptoms that we have. And yes, there are still problems that we need to address with farming itself, like with soy farming and corn farming and just in general farming in any of any plant, but that's a separate conversation. We're not here to address every issue in the world. There's issues with making clothes, and with making pharmaceutical medicines, and with making products in general, with packaging, with materials, with inks. There's a long list of issues that we could address in the world, but the list would continue to grow each day because there's so many issues that exist. So we want to focus on just the animal rights aspect, got it. So if you we boil it down to kind of we start talking about death and the way animals die and kind of the myriad of ways that this happens, both in the natural world and kind of the world that we've cultivated. How do you guys talk about death? You know, I've had other animal rights folks on and vegans on, and we talk about sentient life and and the meaning of sentient life and how we should interact with it and the kind of respect that we should have for it. Do you guys talk about that within animal rights, talk about what you know, what death is and when it's appropriate and our relationship to it as humans somewhat. Do you have a specific question about that? Yeah, I think this the specific question is how do you talk to your followers about animal death, you know, both human cause animal death and how animals die in the wild, and how all of how they can better understand all of that with when they're giving these rights to animals or affording them the rights that you'd like like them to have. Well, just well, just to clarify, is specifically just not taking away the rights of animals anymore into their inherent basic rights to liberty and bodily integrity. Um, we talk about animal death to the extent that it happens in nature obviously, you know nature is is um, Nature is nature. You know there's violations occurring in nature all the time. But what we want to address in terms of animal death is our cause of these violations. Humans claim to be the most civilized, the most intelligent, the most morally superior to all of the other beings on the planet. That's why when we refer to savage as you know, savage humans, humans who act in a savage nature, we refer to them as animals in order to you know, to disrespectfully say that they are savages. UM. So yeah, that's how nature works. But when it comes to humans, we talk to humans about their contribution and and and when those deaths that were causing a needless you know, that's where there's an issue. So we only talked to it as far as the needless death is concerned. How do you how do you get to needless? How do you define needless in these conversations? Is is it the I know, I understand you know, the broader context of factory farms and things like that, But how do you describe that that word? There is this needless death because that's something we've talked about on this show before and something I want people to understand from your perspective, like what is what's what's this idea maybe over an above factory farming, Like what is what is need death? You know, driving down a highway or going to the grocery store. Um, just like you said earlier, being a human causes death and lots of different ways, and so yes, so to find that needless part for it if you don't mind, sure, So. UM, I basically see it as everyone's right. Every human has the right to participate in society like everybody else, in the sense that we have these basic structures in society that are aimed to benefit all of us in a very basic way, things like driving a car, like everybody should have the right to transport around, having access to a hospital. So if you ever are injured or sick, you have the right to access the hospital and get the care that you need. Um, if you are ever in danger, you have the right to access the police force to protect you. If you are ever in danger of a fire, you have the right to access the fire department to assist you. You know. So all these things in society that have been laid out before us, I believe that every human has the right to access and use. However, none of these things that I've mentioned are things that are just frivolous and unnecessary. These are things that are that are essential when it comes to hunting, and I'll just specifically focus on that because Um, with hunting, there is an argument that's been thrown around that it's for conservation or it's for survival purposes, that it's being done. The question really needs to be asked to yourself. Is it really necessary? Do you really need to go out and shoot a deer in the you know, in the forest, or can you source your calories and your nutrition elsewhere? Can you get your nutrition from plants, you know, without intentionally causing harm, intentionally taking the life of an animal. So it's about what systems were supporting what kind of a world we want to create? And needless just simply means are you actually in a survival situation or not? Do you have another option right now or not? Because if you can go into a supermarket and you can buy yourself some rice, potatoes, greens, beans, whatever, then you certainly are not in a survival situation where you have no other option. You know, sure are there other That's one thing I wanted to get to with you. Just have you run through whom you might have to be exhaustive here, but that's the thing you talk about conservation and and you know, hunting to feed yourself. Are there other things that you've heard? Because I was listening to um around a prominent vegan earthling ed talk about your hunting and altruism and how some hunters would label themselves, is you know, respectful and even sympathetic to the animal by killing them and it's a cleaner death when you do it, and these types of things. Do you have other arguments that you've heard, then you've you've thought about why you don't believe them to be true in terms of hunting. That's what you just referenced, is pretty much it. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I think I think it was addressing Joe Rogan because Joe Rogan, yes, he tends to Um, he tends to share these arguments that we commonly hear from hunters, So I think he addressed that pretty well. And um, that's pretty much what I hear as well on the streets that you know, hunting. If if hunters see themselves as somehow altruistic and the killing of an animal, that that's just not on the table for you. That that's that's certainly see in many cases, even more so than in many cases, they view themselves as even more virtuous than someone who wants to abstain from from from violating animal rights altogether, from being vegan essentially, gotcha. Yeah, I mean here we we often talk about this exact thing, and I say often that there's a lot of things about veganism and even animal rights that I certainly agree with. And I even when I was talking to some of the activists outside our show that I mentioned last year, we talked about that when we started by saying listen, factory farms. Yeah, I'm with you, that's not something. Again, we speak here about the fair kill and proximity ethics and things like that that we want to be close to our food and and go back to understanding death. Death is caused by you know, many of our actions, and you talk about like intentional causation in terms of death and humanity, and for me, we have to I try to weigh that the idea that we are these consumption engines and we are affecting habitat we are we are planting monocultures to feed ourselves, and those green beans that come from the grocery store are coming at expense of some animals somewhere, no matter, no matter what. Really, and so I'm I'm just weighing my options. Is kind of how I start the conversation. Is that a place where you can start the conversation in terms of you're talking about the needless. Do we need to do it? No? But is this another way to be closer to the death we cause, rather than to just shut it away and say that intentional causation is not there for us. Well, again that yes, those green beans cause death. They caused some death. How many deaths do they cause? Though it's not certain? Is it? Yeah, that's the That's kind of my point though, the point is that when it's not certain, when I kill an elk, it's one dead elk, and I am certain of how many elk died, And if I eat green beans, I'm not certain of what happened there, whether it was whether field mice died or whether they didn't. They might not have, but I don't know that. You know, there's no way for me to know. And it's possible that they didn't, right, It's but you know, it's very possible that they didn't, but I would never there's no way for me to know. So if I was being you know, if I was polarized, and I only wanted to see my own worldview in this case, how would said, Well, you know it's probably likely that hundreds and I know Joe Rogan said this before, hundreds of field mice might have died and rodents, and you know, you have combines that are killing animals, and I might say, well, hundreds have died. You might say, well, it might have been zero. But the point I would make is that you just don't know, um. And so the thing is, we do know, we do know somewhat what happens. We know the process of what happens on arm For example, with green beans, you mentioned combined harvests. Combine harvests are very loud machine pieces of machinery, and they're very big and loud. Rodents like mice are not completely stupid. They're smart enough to know that when there's allowed thing that is coming towards them, they're going to run away. They're not going to stick around and get mulched up by it. So it's very rare that a mice is going to stick around and get killed by combined harvester. So at best, what's happening is some rodents might get killed and some bugs might get killed, and the farmer themselves might also be a hunter who just goes out and kills animals who the hunter might want to kill for whatever reason. So you're kind of supporting that when you buy food from that hunt, from that farm. These things are all speculation. However, they're not certain, Like I asked you, you know, it's it's not certain that it will happen. You're not sure. It's possible that there won't be any deaths at all with those snow peas that you're buying. With hunting a deer, that's not possible. It's not possible that you're going to return home with a dead deer in your truck. And yeah, there's there's definitely a deer there. Yeah, Yeah, you're right about that. There's definitely a deer there. Yes, And that's the argument I think you're you know, the point I'm making is the same kind of point you're making, it just ends in a different way. I mean, I do believe that the proximity ethic. And I'll tell you that hunting has led me to garden. It's led me to want to collect rain, it's led it's led me to want to kind of take this tiny little half acre I have in Montana and turn it into a more fruitful place for me. And that all goes back to that proximity ethic. To that if I know, if I have a relationship with my food all the way around, I have a better respect for every part of it. And even if the combine doesn't kill the mice, the combine is taken away habitat for that. For for many animals, especially mono culture is everything we do in society takes away from the habitat of animals. So this argument could be made for everything we do in society. I don't know why it has to be extra focused on the agricultural aspect of what we do in society. You can do it. You can do with driving down the highway. There's potential deaths to animals, or pretend. I don't want to say potential deaths, because it's really when you kill someone, it's not causing death. You're actually you're murdering them. That's the correct word. So if you're if you're murdering or killing animals needlessly um in the production of let's say rice, but you're not doing it intentionally. And in fact, we don't know the numbers of animals that we're killing in that process because it varies from farm to farm, and and it certainly isn't going to be as um as violent or as brutal in terms of the numbers that we cause to be killed, as it would be in meat, dairy and eggs or any other practice. Even with hunting, I would say, because I've had this argument before with hunters hunting versus you know, buying your produced from the supermarket. And the point I'm trying to make here is that there are some violations or some animal deaths that are going to occur when we just live our lives generally, and that's no excuse to then go and hunt or get closer to the death of I don't think that it's an argument to then say, yes, there is some killing that's going on in the sourcing of your rice, so therefore I'd like to go and kill a deer myself instead of going to get that rice. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm growing tomatoes in my backyard and carrots in my backyard and doing everything I can to understand the impact, you know, And that's that's the choice that everyone has to make, Like what death do you want to inflict and how much knowledge about that death would you like to have, you know, and the so to the point you're making that you know, my my debate there. The retort I would have is that what I said earlier simply that proximity, you know, to me, I think we we can be divergent about, you know, the idea that I'm killing an elk and that's murder or to me that's that's a lot of different things, and certainly can I can explain some of those um but I think where we have to continue to kind of, you know, work at this conversation is to say that I can't. I seem way more value in knowing where all my food come from, not just to meat, but the vegetables. And to say that killing an animal would allow me to know exactly where the animal lived, what it ate, how much habitat it used, you know, what it thinks, that where it has sex, how it reproduces, how many of those animals need to be on one landscape with the carrying capacity of landscape, might be the health of that ecosystem that that lives in our cohabitation, the elements of the way that we interact with those animals. That knowledge is, that knowledge is really important to me. And I think I think we here agreeing on this. I think we agree on this, and I've had other conversations where I think it's like we're agreeing on some of the core principles of this and we just diverge at the point where I kill the animal. Does that sound I understand that you want to get closer to your food, like I. Of course that's a great thing that you want to do, Ben, But what objection do you have to being vegan? None? Zero, I have. I applaud vegans. I do. So what's why why aren't you vegan at the moment? Well, because I I feel one, hunting is a lot more to me than just the meat. It is enriched my life in ways that you know that I'm sure hard to explain for somebody that's never done them. But I am an omnivore. Like I My diet, my nutrition, my physical and mental health I feel come from my omnivory and and I enjoy meat. I enjoy hunting it, but I also enjoy vegetable I enjoy carrots. But if somebody want to make wants to make the choice to cut out the animal part, I fully support that because I think that's that's that's looking at the nuance of our world, that's looking at how we eat and our impact on the world. And the thing I like about vegans animal rights folks is that you're actively looking at how you impact the world. And that isn't a thing that if we all did it tomorrow, the world would be a better place. So when I think about animal rights and veganism, I don't I don't have this. The only negative feeling I have in my head is the way you think about me. But the way I think about you is like, man, it's cool to see that the way and I told the folks that were protesting outside of our show the same thing. It's just like, it's cool to see this happening because this activism, as you said before, is something that people need to hear it. They need to hear that that this this this is out there. There wouldn't be the reason why um vegans and hunters have an issue with like the respect thing is because like, yeah, of course there's nothing to respect in needlessly killing an animal or anything. And of course there's nothing to lack respect in over here with what we're doing because we're just trying to avoid harming animals. How is that like, of course that's respectable, Like there's not to lack respect about that. I mean, like I said that the thame things that I don't the things that I differ. Where I diverge is the way, you know, it is the ideology, the way that it's spoken about, the way that it's you know, the worldview that you have. The calling animal, you know, hunters murderers really makes it, you know, an argument. It makes it a thing where we're disagreeing on that one that one element of this, and I get it, and we could certainly will certainly continue to talk about that because I think it's an important conversation and so you know, I stand with what I said there. I I do anybody who was trying to eat differently, trying to move through the world differently, understanding all the impacts that they have in the world. I think anyone that's doing that should be applauded, um, no matter what and what an understanding. Of course, I like anyone who gets closer to their food and thinks about the impact that they're having. Like I said, you know, with your mission to get closer to your food, I'm just very blown away by the fact that you like, why don't you just want to grow all of your produce? Because that seems like what you want to do is get closer to your food and of growing food and any anybody that's grown I answered that question. Um, this happens with my family. My dad was talking to me about this the other day. He has a huge garden, um, much bigger than the one I'm trying to cultivate here in Montanics. It's relatively new, you know, we had we started with wanting to have a garden, and we have a small half acre, and my dad has a larger property that his might be a better example. And as he starts to grow his food, he starts to see that the animals are encroaching on what he's growing, and so he has a choice to allow the deer. You know that he had squirrels and his fruit trees and all these other things. He he's very respectful about animals themselves, and so he had a choice to make. And I'll have a choice to make too, because I have voles in my yard and different things that would come and eat my garden. So you have a choice to make even there. Um, I may a retreat to my backyard and only eat those vegetables, but I'll still have a choice to make. When nature comes for my food? Do I kill them? Do I drive them away? Do I poison them? Do I plant two thirds more food than I need so they can have food as well? I don't have enough yard for that, I don't. You know, that's a that would be a luxury that I don't have. And so as as I think about that, I know I'm going to run into nature either way. Um. So there's no version of gardening or or consumption that doesn't involve some struggle with nature. So what I do with hunting is I go out and meet that struggle and take part in it. And I've seen animals die. I've watched them as they their life left them, and then I eat them, and I think about that when I'm eating them, And to me, you know that that tragic knowledge, that knowledge of life and death helps me inform what I do in my garden, whether I kill the voles or let them live and eat my radishes or my carrots and so on. So that's just a battle that that we have all the time. Um. Now, I find it really I kind of find it disturbing that you you went through the options of how to address that problem with these wild animals encroaching on your farm. Um, without mentioning one very obvious option of just putting up a fence. Oh yeah, fence is my and I would I like to say my dad has a larger garden and he has a big fence around it. That doesn't stop score earls from getting into his fruit trees, that doesn't stop bugs, that doesn't stop voles, that doesn't stop many wild creatures that are going to find their way to get to that food source. Um. And because that's just how they're wired, that's how they're conditioned. And so, like I said, I haven't found a situation where I can put up a fence or put up a bubble and completely contain my food source from the outside world. I just I haven't found it. And if there was, boy, I'd take it all day. Have you seen greenhouses? Well, yeah, you have greenhouses. You can't grow I mean you can't have eight hundred square foot greenhouse in your yard. I mean you have to have open air garden. You can't just live all foods you grew in a green und square feet? Is that how big of a farm you're trying to so you so what's your solution? Here? Is your solution that we would just have a giant greenhouse and that's where we grow all of our food. No, I didn't realize you were trying to achieve such a large operation with just sourcing your own food. Eight hundred square feet seems really large. I'm not gonna argue with the square feet. That was completely hypothetical, but I mean we get back to all I can say is I've never gotten to a point where my food and overall my activity throughout you know, my life in the world doesn't come up against nature itself and those animals, whether it's driving in a car and hitting a squirrel or being in my backyard and trying to grow something and trying to work through that and understand that I have a lot of luxuries in my life. I have a pretty good salary, have good money. I can afford these things, and I can't imagine somebody that was trying to grow their own food that couldn't afford um fences or other things that that took money. So well, I would just say that no matter what the other options are out there, I haven't found one that would sustain my family. Grow, you know, make sure the ecosystem, even the tiny little half figure I have is still intact and functioning without some sort of encroachment by nature. It just it's when there's food there, the animals are gonna come for one way or the other. Seems to me, it would seem to me they're dealing with a little bit of encroachment, would be would be okay in the biggest scheme of things. Yeah, you're getting your calories. I talked to him successfully. I talked to my dad about that a little bit too, and he said I could. He's like, there's an option where I could plant two thirds more trees than I need, or there's options. There's certainly things out there you could do. But again, those things are I mean, those are tough to calculate, you know, for anyone trying to achieve this proximity to all of their food. And so it's I mean, there are many people in the world who are eating their calories from the food that they grow. This isn't a new concept. This is a very age old sure thing that humans are doing. Is very possible for us to source our calories from plant foods that we grow. Of course, and of course where I come in as an activist because it's basically a message of having a moral obligation to do something about this situation and to avoid murdering animals needlessly. Where we sure, I mean, I like that idea, I agree with It's like I don't. There's nothing that you know. Part of what we do here at this company, and part of what we talked about on this show is this idea that we need to eat and we are omnivory is important, is at least important to me, you know, the human history of how we how our diet is constructed is is something that I don't know a lot about him, no dietitian. But in my own life, my family enjoys this meat. And I know I know for sure that if I take that one let's say, just call an elk, the one thing that I take off the mountain, that there's two hundred pounds of meat there, that that consumption is going to mitigate any other consumption I might do from the grocery store or from any other place where I don't know where. I'm not sure what the tally of deaths are. UM, and so that's one element. The other element we discussed around the garden and so UM I've definitely thought about this um thought about how is it possible to go vegan and really feel like I have a clean conscience. I just don't think it is um about what you're voting for. You know, you're out there choosing rice, you're choosing beans, you're choosing bananas, and you're saying, I want a world where this is what food is, instead of choosing for animals to be violated and and promoting to the world that animals are in fact food when they don't need to be in non survival situations, and these other things that you've mentioned, like enjoyment. Enjoyment is in an argument, whether you and your family enjoy the flesh of a dea has no bearing over the moral consideration of that dea. And no, I mean the moral considerations happened prior to the eating of the flesh. I mean the moral consideration is I'm not. I'm not. I'm not somebody who does who just goes out and shoots it and drags it and puts into my truck and drives away and thinks that's mine. That you know, the world owes me this, dear. I think about the morality and the ethics of it, and what is the way I can move through the world to make this to make this death like most like most death in nature, beneficial to our environment as a whole. And that's how I'm thinking of it. You know. I think that's something that you'll probably never agree with, and and you know, I'm just not sure that we could have a conversation where we get to an agreement there, obviously, I mean, we come from different sides of the fence, but that's just how I think about it. And I understand where you're trying to get to. And as I've said to other folks on that we're vegan our animal rights, I just don't. I think the reality of the world is too strong a narrative for me to say that I'm just going to remove myself from death. You know, I think it's some pulling the cloak over your own eyes at some level, because death is going to happen around you because of you. I think, yeah, I'm not saying, you know, I'm avoiding death like forever. I know that existing in fact, in the earlier stages about chat, I said, just by merely existing as a human being, we cause some death. So being vegan is not about being perfect because that's not possible. Yeah, that's a good point that you intentionally promote you're out there hunting animals when you could be in a supermarket buying produce. And yes, we don't know how many deaths you could be causing if you buy some rice, but we know that your intention is to not cause any deaths at all by rice, and the possibility of that being the case is a lot higher than you're going out and killing a deer, because when you kill a deer, you have removed the possibility of you coming home without violating animal rights. Sure, yeah, I mean I think if you ask the animals about if they care about our intentions when we buy rice, they'd say, don't really care, Like, well, why would an animal care about our intentions? Saying this from an animal's point of view, I'm saying this from the point of view of the world that we want to create. When you walk into a supermarket and you buy rice, you are intending to create a world where animals aren't having the rights violated. Right. But you said at the beginning of this that and you know that it's not certain whether you're called you're causing any animal deaths when you buy that rice, and it's possible, it's very possible that you're causing no harm to animals at all when you buy that rice. So that's a better option to go with then to definitely cause harm to animals when you go out and hunt a deal. Yeah, I mean, that's like I said, you're kind of making my point then reversing it a little bit. But I understand what you're saying. I understand the point that you were making. But we started this kind of with this idea that we wanted to focus on the animals, and I, like I was just saying, I don't think the animals care about our intent at all. I don't think that they're saying, well, at least you were trying to be nice, you know, at least you were trying to do your at least by buying the race and not to meet, you're telling yourself that you're better, you're intense, or that you're intense, are to be kind and are to give me rights, although by your by your very existence, you're denying me of rights. By the very need to consume, you're denying me of the right to do what I need to do. You know. So I think if we're talking about humans. Sure should our intent and be to always do what's best for everything around us, the world around us. Absolutely, I'm just saying I feel like hunting is the best thing I can do after I sat and thought about it for a long time. Yeah, and and and is there anything that you're open to having that changed or you're having your thoughts on that challenged. Sure, Yeah, that's why you're here, man. And I don't, like I said, I I have. I think these ideas and I'll say and I hopefully this this means something to you know, I say this, I think of animals not as others, but as part of this thing that I'm involved in, you know. I see, my hunting is this idea that being involved in the ecosystem itself gives me a chance to have, you know, an intelligent impact on it um and and take from it in a way that's the way that's you know, knowledge based, rather than this idea that I might remove myself from it and somehow feel better about it and eat my rights from the grocery store, but not really know what's happening behind the scenes, you know. So for me, it's diving into the reality. But at the same time I know that I'm killing animals. I know what I'm doing. I'm not telling myself that this is harvesting or that this is some other thing that it isn't you know. I'm telling myself, man, animals are dying and I'm causing it. And I think about that a lot. I think about that when the animal dies. I think about that while I'm practicing it with my bow or rifle. I think about that when I'm eating its flesh and or I hang its head on my wall. I think about that all the time. And so there, I know a lot of older hunters who just started taking photographs of animals later in their life, and so maybe I do get there one day. Um, But you know, up to I'm thirty four, Up to this point in my life, I've thought about it hard. I've examined animal rights and in and of itself and veganism, and as I said, I find things I respect about it. But I've come to this conclusion that, Man, I think this is my way, and my way is always evolving. So I would never close myself off to any idea when it comes to how do I do better with the ecosystem with which I live? And then the world, you know, like you said earlier, Man, I try not to make it about the world, because what the hell can I do for the world. I certainly can do something for the ecosystem that I live in and the animals I cohabitate with, But I can't do ship for you know, Victoria, Australia, really other than speak out, which what does that do? So? I mean, that's that's my speel. I have other things I say about kind of what hunting does for me, but I want you to know that I certainly have this. It's a weighty thing I'm doing, and I get it, and I'm not I'm not trying to write that off as a hunter and say like I get to do this because I can serve. I get to do this because I'm eating meat. I know what this is. I don't call it anything other than the death of an animal at my own hands. Um. But that's that's that's something I've thought about and and try to objectively say is this good or bad? Looking at the options I've got to weigh here, Do you believe that the animals that you violate deserve to have an objective effort from you to avoid violating them? Yeah, I mean, we would have to define objective effort. And I think I know, you know, if if we're defining objective effort in the way that I say, like I I'm a part of a system that was created to say like this the sustainable use of a natural resource. I'm sure that's a term that just doesn't sit well for you, um, But that's something that that I think of, and I know I want there to be I want there to be elk on the landscape, not the elk or the deer, but elk and deer themselves. I want them their species to go on. So if someone asked me, would you either the end of deer or the end of your own hunting, I would stop hunting tomorrow. If somebody said the end of whatever species or the end of your own hunting, I would say, I'll stop hunting tomorrow. I care about that population, I care about it being there, and I care about drawing from it to sustain my life. Um. And so there there's there's a relationship there that I have that that I don't think. I would never ask you to understand that, because it's just such a such a different thing, um from from killing animal. And then and then choosing not to. Um. Does any of that make sense? Man, I'm just trying to talk for my personal level. Yeah, I don't know. I just guess when it comes to objective. UM, what I mean by objectively an objective effort. By objectively making a difference, I mean with the equation that I laid out for you earlier. For example, where you walk into a supermarket and I'm just comparing the worst case scenario in terms of plant foods to the best case scenario in terms of animal food animal flesh, which is hunting in your case. So let's just compare hunting to buying produce in a supermarket. When you walk into a supermarket and you buy rice, there is a very real possibility that you aren't causing any violations to animal rights. In fact, the possibility is so very clearly there. It's so obviously present in that option to purchase that rice because there's no blood involved in that rice. It's not proven that there is any animals that are being killed in that process. So objectively speaking, it's very real that it's possible that that you're walking away with no blood in your hair when once you purchase that rice. Yeah, but I mean, I just that's an objective truth, that that could be an objective truth. But I'm not. The thing that I'm saying is I'm not willing to roll the dice. I don't. I'm not going to roll the dice on that rice. I'm sorry. That didn't That wasn't meant to rhyme. I'm not going to roll the dice on that purchase. Um, I don't understand, Ben, because you aren't you taking You're taking a chance. I mean, you're taking a chance that an animal did die. Right, It's about lowering the violations. So you're not lowering the risk, you're lowering the violate the violations because when you go hunting, you are certainly killing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean if well, let's play the numbers game. Let's play the numbers game objectively for a moment. Like if we're saying what objective truth is at the same time is no animals might die. There could be hundreds of animals that died. I don't know that. So I'm rolling the dice to say, Hey, you know, from your perspective, you want to argue that there's zero and people would think from my perspective, I'm gonna argue that there's hundreds of deaths. Canna argue that, I'm gonna say, you just don't know. I know how many I know? If I kill one elk a year, one elk died to feed my family, one elk died four or four. That's not It's not as straightforward as that, Ben, because that kills many animals in their lives just by existing walking around. They're killing bugs, They're stepping on bugs, eating grass, they're eating plants. They're eating bugs in the process of eating those plants because they ripped them out of the ground, you know they So you don't know how many deaths are left in the in the path of that deer before you end up killing that dear? So, am I saving lives by killing the deer? Then? Much for the point? Am I saving lives by killing like future lives by killing the deer itself? Then? Or are you saying that there's an equation where the the deer I killed it's deaths are equated to me somehow lives. You're causing more lives to be violated. How's that with rice? Again? Like you're not He's saying it could be a hundred deaths? Is so unrealistic. It's so completely um, it's so blown out of proportion that it doesn't even represent reality. That's not really what happens. When you buy a kilo of rice, you know, you're maybe going to cause one death, you know, maybe maybe two deaths if you're you know, if you're really trying to stretch it here conservatively, Like, and what what kind of death are we talking about? Bugs? Bugs are? This is the other thing, Like, if we're talking about a bug death, vegans are not stupid enough and crazy enough to think that a bug death is the same thing as a cow death. You know, if we're talking about a fly who's killed by your car as you're driving down the road, we're not going to be stupid enough and crazy enough to say that that that experience of that life is going to be the same as the experience of a cow who's on a farm who's being raised for the specific intention of having the heads hacked off and their bodies, um, their bodies chopped up into a thousand pieces. So yeah, like when you go hunting, you also drive your vehicle to the location where you go hunting, right, Oh, yeah, we talked about this all the time. Bugs on the way to your location. He might hit a deal on your location. Just causing one death, you're also causing other deaths on the way to and fro. Yeah, I mean this is kind of the the choice goes back to the choice thing. It's kind of the point that I'm making here is that I want to choose. I want to have the choice. I want to say one ELK dies or zero UK dies. But that's my choice. I want to say I'm going to kill the voles in my backyard or I'm not. I want to have the choice. I want to farm out that choice to someone else. Um, I don't want to farm out the ethics am I eating to some person I've never met. I don't want to allow. I don't want to allow. Yeah, I don't want to allow a proxy rice farmer who I've never met, to kill zero kill, one kill, to kill a hundred. I don't know what that person's doing. And so that this is just part of how I get to hunting. This is part of the reasoning how I get you have You're coming from a from an integrity point of view on this, And to you then is if if you want to follow through with that integrity, why don't you just make it a focused effort on choosing to grow planned foods and if you take some losses here and there, then so be it. But that's the choice you're making to avoid harming animals altogether. Yeah, I mean, I just this is a conversation I had with a guy that I really respect by the name of Dr Robert C. Jones. He's a vegan philosopher. He was at Chico State. I think he's teaching out of Hollywood now. But anyway, he opposed it like a circle, like there's this circle where all this death is happening. If you could choose to be in the circle where the death is happening or step out of it, would what would you choose? And I just said, look, I feel as though I have a look, you know, and I'll continue to examine my own impact on the world, in my own human consumption. My feeling is no matter what I do, I'm coming I'm forced against this idea that I'm a part of nature. I cause death. So then I want to take that death upon myself where it where it's weight, understand what it means. And that's the term we talked about, that tragic knowledge, this knowledge of what death really looks like. Rather than say I'm not going to approach death. I don't want to see it. I don't want to intentionally cause it. I'm saying, I know I'm causing it by just being a human, So I want to I want to take a step forward towards death. Understand it. They're both saying that we code we we both cause some death by being human. I think where we and I've been through this kind of before, so I know where we diverge, where we diverge, as you're saying, I know I cause death. I want to do everything I possibly can to never intentionally cause death, to never like eat a hamburger and to know that there's going to be a dead thing in my mouth, or to to do anything that's intentional. I've looked at this idea in my own life, and again I'm not I'm not preaching that everyone should go hunting or or preaching that this is the way for everyone. All I'm saying is I've looked at that in my own life, and I feel like this personal application of you know, my my own food choice is my own choices about impact, you know, And then again, my own choice is about what comes into my home in terms of food is incrementally making me better at being a human and better than understanding this ecosystems and better understanding nature. Hunting is a huge part of that for me, Um, but it's allowed me to bring in other things. I'm you know, and I'm sure you would admit. We are all imperfect in the way that we try to move around this world, and so there's this idea that we're always growing, we're always learning more, you know, We've I've had people in here talking about lab based meat, talking about plant based meat, and these ideas of these replacements, and so I want to explore those things as well. And I'm not so stupid as I'm gonna say like hunting will always be here, and it won't. They'll never be an idea better than hunting. That's not true. Um. What I'm saying is personally, I've looked at this and I feel for my own life, this is a way for me to understand death, not cause as much of it. And also even if I even if I don't know the exact number to say, I have this proximity to death that is personal and it's affecting me and Therefore, I you know, I have respect for these creatures because I know what they are and I know what I am. Uh, you know, and that's that's just my rationale. And and I think I understand your rationale as well. I get where you're coming from. Um, where we disagree is where I just said, I don't know that that's a reality for me. I don't know that I can look at the world and say, like, my intentions matter more than the actual death there. Well, you can't actually say that you know how many actual deaths are caused in my lifestyle, for example, versus your No, I wouldn't I wouldn't put I wouldn't play a numbers game at all. Sure, that's my point. The speculation is the thing that I struggle with, um. And so so that's why this proximity thing, well, I'm saying most of this, most of these conversations we have about this, this is speculation anyway. Zero deaths for the rice or a hunter death, these are all speculations. Um. I've never I can't remember ever being I've been on many farms, never a rice farm particularly, And so my point is I just don't know, But I do know with hunting I do know that there's an elk herd that lives near my house. If I take one a year, that that elk herd can remain remain on the landscape. I'm never going to take more than I need, and that when I watched the death go from an animal's eyes, I don't know that I say I'm a murderer, but I and definitely aware of what's going on. And I'm not excusing it. I'm not saying that it's something that's not I'm saying this is tragic, but our humanity is is evenly so tragic. Um And so I'm trying to deal with that maybe in the same way you're trying to deal with it, just in the like maybe a polar opposite endgame that Maga sense I have to pull you up there, Ben, because you just said evenly more tragic. You don't know that we just established that it's not it's it's speculation. You don't know if my lifestyle is causing the same amount of animal violations as your lifestyle. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. I'm like I said, I like to have this idea that like I know personally what what's happening. I know the pushes and pools, I know the options. I know. I know kind of the equation from from my for a lot of my eating, and some of it I don't. I still eat cereal, and you know, you you could see me, you know, eating a yogurt or drinking a soda or I'm not jeez, I'm not above any of that stuff. But but there's this idea that you know, hunting, gardening, other things make make this equation visible to me. I can see it, I can look at it. I can make my own choices as as as do I make that kill, do I not? Um? Do I cause that death? Or do I alleviate that death? In this way? At least I can make the choice. If you buy something from the grocery store, you have no choice but to buy that. And unless you've already done all the research on its ill it's exact production, there's a bit of a proxy going on there with with who's delivering that food? Do you? And so I'm confused because you can you do have You do have many options. You can grow your own produce. For example, you said you have an interest in doing that. Oh yeah, absolutely possible option for you. It's still a viable option. It's just it has some challenges, just like with anything. I guess sure, I mean, like I said, the channel. If if I guess, here's where we can maybe maybe this makes more sense. If my if I'm I'm if I am choosing to stop hunting to stop the violation of an animal to death. If I'm choosing to stop the death of that animal allowing that elk to live at this, then I have to return to Okay, how do I replace that that food, that that food source and the percentage of my diet. Okay, Let's say I turned to a grocery store. I think that's a worse option than killing that elk um. Let's say I turned to my backyard, which I've done in the past. Let'll say I'm I'm a phorn of the death of yelok, and I'm gonna turn to my backyard. I find still I'm in the throes of of nature. There, I'm still asking myself, is there a way for me not to have to kill these animals that are gonna eat it or or have this conflict with nature? There? So I'm looking at the options I have and saying, Okay, this the hunting feels the most right to me. It feels like something where I'm I have an active choice in what I'm doing, rather than just relying on a proxy farmer somewhere whom I never met. So that's just that's my argument. I think, you know, for me personally, it's always changing, it's always evolving. It doesn't take away my respect for animals or my respect for your position that you know, let's try not to harm them if you don't have to. Well, I guess that's where I'm confused, because like it's it's just an objective fact that if you buy beans to make up your calories instead of animal flesh to replace animal flesh, that it would be very rare that you would cause the same amount of animal violations with a kilo or I guess you go buy pounds in America, you know, two pounds of beans. I can guarantee you that it would be extremely rare that you would cause the same amount of violations as you're going out and intentionally killing a deal. I'd have to see some kind of some fact or some study or some some farmer that can call in and tell me that, because that's just again I'll say again, you're making an assumption. You don't know unless unless there's like a unless there's like a number on the front of that bean package that says zero animals are kiling in the arm this you have no idea. And on this and on the flip side, you don't know if it's got ten deaths behind it either. So exactly we're both speculating. However, based on my education on this subject, you know, I've been doing this for over four years now. I've talked to a lot of people about this subject. I've worked with the best aim orious activists in the world, you know, and our education on this subject is that it's objectively clear to us that with farming rice or beans, or just like the generic products that exists on the shelf, there aren't as many animal violations as being spoken about by people like hunters who make this argument that's just not how agriculture is actually carried out. I mean, I have to see, I have to see some data keeps getting brought up. But when you look at agriculture and and the data that goes into combine harvesting, the amount of animal deaths that are caused by those machines pales in comparison to the story that's actually being told to vegans. So no, that's not just an assumption on my part. However, there is an assumption on your part when you say that it causes the same amount or it's just a risk, and you could be causing more. You could be causing more harm by buying beans, for example, from a supermarket, and that's just objectively not true. Yeah, I mean I think, I mean, you could say that, but you have to back that up and causing the same um at best. And this is me being conservative here. You would be causing the same amount of harm by by buying that beat, those beans or that rice, and that isn't even realistic for me to say that. I'm trying to be charitable by saying this. Actually conservative isn't even the right word. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things. If you causing no violations to animals is very much possible, It's very much real It's that that is very clear. I have to see something that I'd have to see something where there's you know, there's a bunch of data from farms that are looking at the you know, net zero cost of animal death versus the production of monoculture. You know, plants essentially, what kind of habitat is being lost when you're planning. You know, nature needs biodiversity and these landscapes, even landscapes that are arible that we can plant, need biodiversity. Um. Monoculture. We have you know, five vegetable products that we plant on most of our world. Um, we can't have this monoculture. We have to have this biodiversity for everything from pollinators to butterflies, to be you know, to deer. But again I'm confused because you said you also eat these products, so you're not only eating dea flesh. No, I'm eating like I would say, if if if an optimal diet for me would all would all include proximity to my food. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm perfect, and I don't. I've never had a French fry. I've never had something that wouldn't that I know exactly where it came from. But I'm saying the optimal diet. The thing that hunting and gardening and other things UM give me is is this idea that I want that proximity. I seek it out. I try to try to find it where I can and hunting and gardening and other things are are part of that for my my own life. Um. And so I'm not, you know, not necessarily saying any of that, but I mean, look, I mean, I I'm out there. I see these big monoculture crop fields. Um. Nature abhors that vacuum. It doesn't want that vacuum. That that is the the elimination of habitat for many species. And that's something we've done to the land. That's something we've done since we invented agriculture from twelve thousand years ago. And so I just again I'm not willing to and if somebody could, if you could show me some objective data that says that you know, this, this type of plant, this type of production processes a limits death to zero, one to whatever however that might be classified, I'd read it, I'd look at it. And ultimately, if if there was a plant and a farming practice that guaranteed zero deaths, boy, I'd be hard pressed not to eat whatever that was. But I just I've never seen it or heard of it. And if that's objectively true, I'd love to see it, because I just never I've never come across it. And all my talks about regenerative agriculture and responsible farming and bio diversity and healthy ecosystems and trophic cascade and predation and cohabitation. Um, I've never run into what you just said, and and so I, like I said, I'd love to learn more about it. I just have never heard that, and I don't know it to be true. Yeah. Well again, I'm confused because you are also consuming the products of these farming practices as well as right. What's that sounds to me like you're trying to choose one or the other. I'm not. I'm not trying to I just said that I'm trying to get better at everything that I do. Gardening certainly gives me proximity to vegetables. I don't have a rice field in my backyard. I just don't. I never will. Um so, and I can't the h O A would get kissed if I had a rice field my backyard is. I guess what would help is you visiting a russ field and how they and witnessing the entire process. Sure, I mean listen, like I said, if if if this is I I genuinely this isn't This isn't true. Because I've been to these places, I've seen it. I've talked to many farmers, many of the generative agriculture farmers, who are trying to figure this all out on a natural landscape, how they can maximize that landscape and make it a wildlife paradise while also getting the food that they need from that, you know, And that's a complicated process and involves all kinds of um intrusions on wildlife and and the removal of their habitat um. Every action in the natural world has this has a reaction. Yeah, everything we do as human beings. And that's why I'm saying that the simple act of being vegan and just choosing to intentionally not violate the rights of animals, it seems like the most logical. Yeah, I mean, listen, man, I'm yeah, I'm I'm not. I'm not here to say like, wow, you're crazy. That sounds pretty logical. I mean, it sounds like something that when we're both kind of having the same calculus here and and now I think people probably gonna get frustrated with here and let's go round and round. But I mean, I do I do believe, and I've said this to other folks um, I do believe we're kind of using the same calculus, but we're landing on the different answers here. My calculus is very much yours. It's human impact is you know, no matter how you look at it, we do consume the world around us, which net net gives us a negative impact on lots of things because we consume the world around us, um. And so we we as humans as we progress through society, as we as we grow as people, as we innovate, you know, as as fellow citizens, where it's all on us to step back and be like, what can I do to make sure I understand my impact on the world. And that's a very personal journey. I think for most hunters that's a very personal journey. I'm sure for most vegans that's a very personal journey. It's a personal journey, but it's not a personal choice when your choice involves victims. So like, if you don't have to choose between eating, um, some risal beings from the supermarket or hunting an elk, where in the second option you are intentionally certainly choosing to kill an animal, then your personal choice is not just a personal choice that involves someone else, and therefore it's no longer personal and sure, I mean the personal choice to eat that you're making a personal choice while unintentional, you're making a choice to eat that food from the grocery store rather than again have your own rice farm or do whatever. I mean again, that this goes back to, you know, in struggling economies and places where we don't have this kind of first world luxurious debate that we're having, people are hungry and they do what they can to survive. UM, and so there's there's that I don't know that that's a German while we're talking about you be sure and most people, yeah, I think absolutely, Yeah, I mean in um, in other countries, second and third world countries, and yeah, in your case, you know, yeah that that doesn't really I imagine, and I imagine for you like if I'm going to try to get you on a got your question and be like, hey man, if you were starving, would you eat a deer? Like I just I'm not gonna that's not something that I think is getting anybody anywhere. And certainly I think hopefully what people can hear in us is that there's some semantics going on here. We're kind of dancing around these issues. Um, I I just believe. I don't know if you can disagree with this. You know, you might or might not, But I, like I said, I think there's a similar calculus going on here and if we're all able to come to this idea, and I think that this ideologically comes to this discussion about death and the intentionality as you say, and like need needless death or maybe needful death, if that's a good way to say it. But I do, I do think that there is there's more to be had here than than maybe meets the eye. And my only point to have this conversation is not just tell you, hey, let's go hunting tomorrow. Um what is to say, like it's say exactly that to you is I think there is some some ways to explore the nuance here where we can come we can learn something from each other and express appreciation for this idea that our impact on the world is it's not finite. It does have lots of fissures and cracks through our world the things that we do. So that's that's just where I stand on And I objectively, UM love having these conversations. I like testing ideas and and trying to find ways to connect. So you know, hopefully like hopefully you're seeing that a little bit and and again hopefully people listening can see, Um, you know where you're coming from and what it means to you. Yeah, right on, Yeah, is there any is there anything else you want to say? I don't I don't want to You know, this isn't about this, certainly isn't about a debate. You know, you're you have a forum here to speak to an audience that would never hear you, never hear your thoughts before. So is there something you know, something that you thought of you want to say to to you know, tens of thousands of hunters out there to say, you know, for those listening that you know, regarding this conversation that we're having right now. UM, it essentially comes down to choosing whether you into inntionally want to support the violations of animals or not. And um, and since we do not know how many deaths go into a pound or a kilo of rice or beans, and it's very reasonable for us to say that that there are less violations occurring with those products. Um, if you look at like over the course of a year, for example, for the consumption of a vegan versus the consumption of a hunter someone like yourself, band who also consumes products that I consume. Then you know, over the course of a year, it's very safe to say that someone like myself vegan is going to cause far less violations to animals. And so I think that we have a moral obligation. And I guess the question for me to the listeners is to the question from me is do you believe that animal rights is something that you should take serious? Do you do believe that you should take animal rights seriously? Do you believe that you have the right to violate animals and their rights, to take their rights away from them. Do you believe that you should care about animal rights and you should do something about animal rights when faced with the scenario where animal rights are being violated, especially when they're being violated by you. And that's what I'd like to leave people to think about and to do something about, you know. I like to talk to people about accountability and the responsibility that each of us as individuals have, and I'd like for people to really consider their own participate, their own place in all of this, because we all have a place in this and the world doesn't just it doesn't just run um and operate the way that it does accidentally, it operates deliberately because of individuals and their choices. So, yes, we all have a personal journey, and we all have personal choices. But when we have choices that we need to make that a personal that violate the rights of others, they're no longer personal. They infect everyone else. They affect. And I said infect there is a slip of the world, but it actually does infect the world because it affects the world in such a negative way. And we have the power to make positive change in the world, to to too cause change, to cause an effect in the world that is positive by making the right choice, using that guideline to make those choices is going to be a lot easier. It's going to be a lot better for people to just simply ask that question to themselves that rather than asking that question to the world. God. Yeah, I mean, there's lots I agree within their lots I disagree with. But I guess that's the point and of this conversation. Paul listenant, I really appreciate you stepping into this um and being so open as to share what you do and what you think and how you move through the world. I certainly didn't have to do this, It wasn't required, um, but I think this will help a lot of people both understand where you're coming from and understand kind of where the debate hinges upon, and make their own decision based on what they've heard today and what they'll continue to hear. I'm sure from an honesce for the voiceless and also us here at Meat Eater. So I just want to say thank you man for taking the time to do this. You didn't have to, Yeah, Ben, thank you. I appreciate you reaching out and wanting to have this discussion. You're certainly one hunter that I've spoken to, or one person that exists on the side of eating animals and the idea that you know, I guess, the carnival side of things, or you know, that idea that animals are here to be eating them. Um. Many people have reached out to me in the past and haven't been as respectful and as intelligent as you have come across. So I appreciate that, Ben, really, yeah man, that you can reach out to more people, more animal rights activists and have these kinds of conversations. I'd recommend Ed. Actually you mentioned Ed. Yeah, if you can hook me up with him, I tried to. I don't know him, so I just tried to, like, you know, kind of sheepishly mastered him on Instagram or something. Um, if you know him, I would love to continue this conversation with Ed or anyone else. Um. Like I said, I really value testing my own ideas. I don't want to sit around in my own echo chamber and shout how right I am. I I want to talk to people. I want to talk to people that yeah, I want to talk to people that say, like, this ain't right man. UM. So I can continue to either shift my position or I don't often want to say harden it, but just understand it a little bit better. And and I think you know, we talked about having your own before on the show, and it is like, hey, this, We're gonna contin continue down this road, to continue to challenge the things that we think are true in order to explore these important concepts because they're important. Killing of animals in any way that we do it is an important thing for us to think about critically. UM. And I know we can agree on that for sure. And so and so that's what you want to have a chat again in the future, i'd great, man, that's great. Awesome dude, Well, I really appreciate everything. And again you can check check out what they do. Well. We have some videos I know your folks send us that will put up on Instagram, so you guys can see the Cubic truth and what that looks like. And and certainly go go find Paul. Go find what he does and explore it. Don't be don't be that person that that doesn't want to hear something you don't agree with. Be the person that explores it and accepts what what it, accepts it for what it is, and knows that that these things exist. We exist on different polls. So that's what That's what I think. And again, Paul, thanks so much, man Um. Hopefully that locked on doesn't last too long in no worries. Thanks be alright, Lo, because I can't go a week without doing run, without run ranking out right drinking

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