00:00:00 Speaker 1: What's up, everybody, And welcome to episode seventy of The Hunting Collective. I'm Been O'Brien today I am joined by the great and powerful Ryan cal Callahan, host of Cow's Weeken Review, among many other things. And we're talking about animals and the rights and whether they should have them and what they should be afforded and why. And we're having that conversation because I traveled to Berkeley a few weeks back to track down what I hoped to be too really enlightening conversations, and I wanted to My goal was to speak to an animal rights activist that was deep into that community and also a vegan who was deep into that community. And I was able to do both. And the first of those two interviews is with Matt Johnson, who was a spokesman for Direct Action Everywhere, which is the animal rights group you'll hear more about coming up shortly. It is very impactful to me, very interesting conversation. I will not lie. It was very confusing at points, and I came out with a different perspective, uh and maybe less enlightened that I thought I might be. But you'll hear all of it coming up soon. But before we get into that rain gear. A lot of people have been asking lately about rain gear, and it's something when we do pack dumps here to meet either people are asking about all the time. So I figured why not check out first Lights rain gear. And so you have a couple of versions. You have the storm Light rain gear. In fact, I carry with me pretty much everywhere I go, the very pacable, very light in fact ultra light vapor storm Light ultra light rain Jack. I carry that with me, and I carry this this same version of their pants for black and net rain In fact, I was hunting in Hawaii last year and we were hunting kind of near uh An active volcano, and this volcano would create its own rain clouds a couple of times a day, and you can see it creating these rain clouds with the steam, and that rain cloud would eventually matriculate over to where we were and it would rain on us pretty much three or four times during a day. And this is where I put that vapor storm Light ultra Light rain jack to the test, and it passed with flying colors. And it's just the answer to the question of should you pack a rain gear, how much and when? If you're going to a place where it might rain, you gotta have this. It's essential for your pack. If you're going to a place where it's it's definitely going to rain, it's going to be cold, So you're going to Kodiak Island, then you want to look at like the seek Storm tight rain Jacket, things like that, a little more heavy duty for a little more heavy duty circumstance. So go to first light dot com and check out those things. And so, without further ado, we're gonna talk animal rights in this podcast. Enjoy. I guess it grew up on an all day road. A bat'll do the medal. I always did what I've told until I found out that my brand new glows a game second hand from the rich kids next door. And I grew up, Bath, I guess I grew up. I mean, they have a thousand things inside of my head I wish I ain't seen. And now I just wanted through a real bad dream of being a lack of coming a part of the seams. But thank you, Jack Daniel No No seven, Dennis, Hey everybody, it's been O'Brien's. Another episode of The Hunting Collective coming at seven sixteen nineteen you're gonna be listening to this one. And I'm here this week with Ryan cal Callahan. Hey Cal, what's happening? Oh, you know, it's getting through UM. Were just recorded a few things. Lou's life taken forever, living the dream, that's that was kind of your response. Oh, you know, just getting through, just getting getting through the territory. As I like to say, Well, we're here on an interesting day. This is the day where you're going to hear the much discussed interview that I did with a fella named Matt Johnson. And Matt Johnson is the UM Press coordinator and also spokesman for a group called Direct Direct Action Everywhere, and it's best described as an animal rights organization. They're best known for their investigative work in the factory farms and disrupting UM talks by Jeff Bezos and getting felony charges. In fact, the first time I met with Matt and his friend Priya, who was one of the founders of Direct Action Everywhere, one of the first things that came up in conversation was that Priya was facing several different felony charges for her activism. One of those was when she jumped up on stage with Amazon's Jeff Bezos to protest factory farming conditions, and then she was charged for interrupting the talk. She faces now fell any charges that could put her in jail for up to ten years. And so one of the things, Kali, that I first struck Jeff Bezos on a factory farm seems that way, or many farms he apparently the there's California poultry farm that supplies Amazon that she was very upset about. She said, I have been inside of Amazon's chicken farms where animals are criminally abused. She said, Jeff, please, you're the richest man on the planet. You can help the animals, That's what she said. Well, I'm assuming that's on stage. Did he say I didn't get to be the richest man on the planet by helping animals? How do you get to be rich these days? You abuse animals by by helping very few animals? Um, yeah, no, that's not Yeah. Chickens and chickens are gross, man, They're little little dinosaurs, evil, evil little dinosaurs. Yeah, chicken chicken farms aren't aren't pretty things. There's definitely some work that can be done there. Yeah, And I would say that Priya and Matt are part of this organization that would call themselves whistleblowers. Often, very often they're investing investigations are pointed towards factory farms, which we can start off by saying, you and I both aren't big fans back factory farms. Least, that's my guess. Oh yeah, man, No, I think there's there's a better way out there for sure. For sure. I mean, can it's not gonna flip light switch right because you're getting this argument of like, well, this is how much it takes to efficiently feed people, and this is the only way to do that. I think we're all smart folks. You can figure out a better way. I would agree um and Priya and Matt and their group feel like they've they've found a better way. But just is a way to color my experiences. I was in Berkeley's Annie Daane, Berkeley, and I met pre and Matt at a restaurant called the Butcher's Son that's located there in Berkeley. It is what they call, at least these folks call a vegan delicatessent, but they also call it a vegan butcher shop, which confused me. From the outset. What do you feel? Does that confuse you? Cal a vegan butcher shop, I guess yeah, butcher and butcher ring is a word that we've reserved for meat. Yes, so they have things like fried chicken, bagel, witch steak, and egg HOGI the original chicken grinder, which is what I had, chicken palm, buffalo, bacon, ranch, fried chicken, barbecue, pulled pork, b lt lemon, chicken, can go on, lemon, chicken, pesto. Are all this has chicken? None of this has meat? Yeah, none of this has meat at all. I had this really bad joke. I actually my cousin used to do a lot of stand up comedy, um, you know, open my Mike Knights stuff back in his college days. I gave him this joke on you know things like that where I just don't feel so like if if that part of not eating meat, if it was set up to like, listen, I desperately want to eat meat, but my convictions are such that I have to get as close to it as possible without eating meat. And that was like the mantra, the public message, I can make room for that type of establishment. However, that that is not the messenging that I hear the most um by far and away. It's like, no, eating meat is wrong, then why do you go through great lengths and effort to transform what you do want to eat into something that resembles don't want to eat the thing that you don't want to eat. So, and this terrible joke that involved um, you know, like sexual preference, I ought to be good and uh it was like, no, no, no, that's not what I'm into at all. But excuse me while I eat this thing that resembles that thing. But just so there's no confusion, I'm not into that. Cousin on the college circuit did well with that. Yeah, And it's just like the righteous indignation right of like, no, it's wrong to eat chicken. What are you eating? I'm eating a chicken parmesan sandwich. And here's the thing that maybe was the most worrisome to me, because there are some ingredients in these dishes or sandwiches that are unlisted. Not only are they unlistened from the title of the sandwich, they're listed within when you look at the description on the menu. And this is all I have to go on. I've never met the owner of this place like usually when you go to a place, it has all the ingredients listed of the of the meal you're about to eat, So they have a steak bond me. It says served on a soft hogi with seasoned steak, sarata, mayo, cilantro, garlic, fish sauce, fresh alpino, shredded savoy, cabbage, and care it's a cucumber. It says seasons steak in the ingredients list, right next to things like cilantro, which are actual things. It is the the most confusing. Now, I asked another guy that you'll hear on the podcast next week. His name is Robert C. Jones. He's a vegan philosopher and you'll hear his kind of I don't want to spoil it, but you'll hear his reasoning for why someone might do this just as just to boil it down. He feels like you're changing what the word chicken means. If you're using it to describe things that aren't actually what we need we today understand his chicken. You are functionally changing what chicken is. Everyone eats chicken, but if chicken isn't just chicken, then that that opens up the definition of the term what people might accept as chicken. It's interesting chickens the most consumed protein in the US, and so that was his explation. Ghost is the most consumed protein worldwide. I think that's what kind brings these conversations nowadays, Now that Cole's weaken review is going your interjections of like really hot facts is going up. I'm gonna say tenfold, maybe twentyfold. It's impressive. Yeah, I'm gonna start hiring myself out as like a ringer for pub trivia, like you cover all my cocktails and or you just come over to people if if somebody's having a boring family member over, or like having a boring family get together, cow will come to your house, sit at the dinner table and just say, did you know every once in a while in the in the conversation, you don't have I know at all, uncle, I can be that know at all uncle. He can a little price a hundred bucks an hour. It's easy anyways that that that this is how I was first introduced to these folks. Nice people. Let me just say, Matt Johnson and Priya I don't know her last name. We had a nice lunch. Like they I ate the chicken grind your sandwich. It tasted like a sandwich with stuff on it that looked like meat. And the biggest thing I thought as I was eating this, and regular listeners to the Old Show will know this, that my wife and I had this thing where she was asking for more white meat. And so then I made this mission to kill ten turkeys a year because I felt like, after some calculations, that that would be enough white meat for us to to carry on through the year without having to buy some other white meat at the store, because I'm pretty um dedicated to not buying meat from the store were store bought meat of any kind. And so I just thought, well, I would rather eat this pot chicken that was in this chicken grinder than some factory farms produce meat. I would much I would eat this before that because I would feel better about it. So the point I made to them, and I made it to Robert Jones as well, and you're here next week, is that I would rather you just call us what it is so then I could better understand it and it could be better useful in my life, because I would rather eat fode chicken, wheat filler or whatever this was. Because it doesn't say on the menu what it was, say there was. It says there's soy and wheat in it and tree nut treat nut. I would rather have that than some factory from chicken. Yeah, but it's very confusing it. Yeah. Man, that's kind of been the you know, burr under my saddle on this stuff is like, if you're real proud of your life choices, why are they masked in things that you apparently despise? And I'm telling you that Burger King's getting a chicken sandwich, he knows it. And Chick fil A there's a picture of a chicken on the bag, so there's no way you can miss that in this. I looked on their website. I looked at all the information I could find about a Butcher's the Butcher's Vegan sun dot com. I went all over that thing, and I'm trying to find where they list what the actual chicken is made of. It's not there. It lists grinder meat one time, and a list of the allergens being soy, wheat and tree nut. Like I said earlier there, but I didn't say what's what the chicken is? So I feel like I thought going to Berkeley would be strange because this is just not It's kind of the epicenter of a of what I of a worldview I don't know intimately that maybe I don't agree with, but at the very least it seems strange to me. And this was one of the first interactions I had kind of with this core ideology, and mid threw me for a loop straight off. Didn't really understand what I was looking at, what I was eating, or whether I was missing something at the core of this that they were seeing that I was not. But I never did get much of an answer. Is it all right? If I had play a minor devil's advocate here? Please? Second, please Phil, I think, I mean, I think it's clear, like a like a tongue in cheek kind of clever way to bridge that gap for people who look at a cube of tofu and kind of I don't think. I don't want to put that in my body. I don't know, you know, it looks, it looks funky. Okay, So we have this other these other quote unquote meat products, and we're going to call them chicken and steak or whatever. And I think if you put that on your menu, and that's the the the the name of the item. Okay, I think that's funny. But I think that you should be able to, like you said, when you tried to dig a little deeper to look into what these products actually were. Then I think it should be crystal clear up front. They should be like, Okay, this thing that we're calling chicken parm this is what's actually in it. I thought for sure I was missing something. For sure I was missing the point because there is this you know I've had. We used to get these giant puffball mushrooms. Um during uh UM branding. We had this least property and we it grew these huge, like pumpkin sized, puffball mushrooms and we'd cut those into steaks and you'd have like a mushroom steak. And so there's kind of a bridge to that gap. But you're not like, but what is the mushroom steak? It's it's a mushroom. That's that's that's what it is. Right. And if you have you know, they have like the Portobello burger right places, Yeah, I get behind that, no problem. Ye take those Portobellos, fill them with a bunch of stuff on the grill, you know, and make make little um. You can make Paramesan out of that. Yeah. Yeah, but nobody's gonna be like, but what is the mushroom part. It's a mushroom, right, Well, maybe that's what you do, but that's what I thought to Phil, this is a mushroom sandwich. Yeah. To Phil's point, I'm looking at this thing and this has to be this is like tongue in cheek because this is like highlighting it. The great alternatives to the things you really love are which I would find value in that, And the alternative is a bunch of smoking mirrors. Yeah, why the smoken mirrors? I don't understand. I don't get it either, Like I mean, that is so confusing to me. So that that was the first part of our meeting, and when we talked about I learned what was most shocking to me is I learned the commitment that these folks have too their worldview, in their ideologies, and the commitment is such that they're willing, like Priya, to face failing any charges. And it seems like a bit of a badge of honor in the community that they're in, which ye, by point of fact, is a very small honor. Is when I have people over and people are like, man, this is really good. What is it. I'm like, well, this is exactly what it is. Yeah, and I'm super excited about it. Like this mountain lion, I did this to it, and then I did this to it, and now it's on your plate. Well, that's glad you enjoyed it to that point. To the point you just made we as hunters are like are used to sell alebrating the closeness to our food, celebrating the story behind our food, celebrating the reality of what it is, the interaction with the natural world that led to this food being where it is, knowing point to point contact, how where it was and how it got to where it is. I'm sitting in a place with people that are are espousing like a similar belief in the consumption and how their consumption affects the world. And they're pulling the wool over people's eyes. And this is a very nice establishment and it was packed. What was the name the name of it again, it's called the Butcher's See. I think a better way they could have done it would be to have their own names of the items, just flat out and tell you what they are or what their names for the items are and then have something like they could still go and get a legend and they could still go with the whole butcher's theme. If you like chicken parm then maybe you'll like our boby blue. Like I said, I would love to have some blobit he blew it all with my wife rather than having to go by the produced chicken that I know was raised in the If you like an Italian sub then those similar flavors and textures you could find and are whatever. Yes, well done, Yes exactly. There's another thing you'll hear into the podcast with Robert C. Jones where we talk about reasoning in and arguing in and debating in good faith. The good faith is the point of these very twisted up ideological arguments. Always be talking in good faith. Don't be trying to trick, pull the wool over, or push into a corner. The person that you're debating with her, talking with her exchange ideas with I feel like this is a pretty bad faith. Well it's interesting too, because man, if you're gonna feed masses of people like it doesn't matter what like if if soy is the base of that that's coming out of cost You know, I mean it just it is, and we're seeing it. Like there's a lot of cases right now where it's like, oh yeah, soy productions up, so we're gonna, you know, slash and burn a bunch of rain forest. Um, you know that that's an example. I'm sure it's being done elsewhere very very well. You know obviously like is udon noodles or our sawyer right, and Japanese been doing that for thousands and thousands of years. Um. Yeah, I mean this is when we go into this again and in some of these conversations while I was in Berkeley, but you look at avocados in Mexico, you look at keenwa in the Andes. There's all these these really really specific, uh examples of what you're talking about, especially with keenwa and the Andes. Like that the market there, they deforced a ton of land to plant keenwa, and then the market went bust. There's a bunch of people that were poor. So, like what you said, we're consuming something regardless of whether we feel good about it or not, and we are affecting someone or something regardless of whether we feel good about it or not. And that's when you know the next step for me. In this trip, I went to the a animal rights activist house, which is basically like a six bedroom house in the middle of this pretty quaint neighborhood in Berkeley. And in in this house lived oh I want to I want to say, eight to ten and rights activists that were working for direct action everywhere. They introduced me to a couple of dogs. One of the dogs was rescued from a dog meat factory in China. The other one was rescued from a dog fighting ring. And so there's a bunch of animals. There's a bunch of people, pretty stuffed into this house and not in decent conditions but not great. But they're all they're they're all sacrificing, you know, they're living conditions a lot of times their freedom, as we've discussed already two to fight this fight. And these are not um, baseless, stupid individuals. These are intelligent, well meaning people, at least from what I could see. They're not crazy. They just have this worldview that is so different from ours that it's driving them to do things that we would never do and to think things that we have never you know, conceived of thinking. And being in that does it kind of diving into their space. I sat in their house when we did an hour and a half podcasts which you'll hear after we've done this conversation, and then they streamed it live on there um Facebook page, and it was a fine conversation. I would say that there are certainly some stumbling blocks from me in the way that their logic works. And one of the things I believe that they do is they have a cascading form of logic that as long as you you can continue to back them into a corner with counter logic and kind of get them, you know, prove disproved some of the points they make, but there's always a fallback piece of logic that one is shocking and two it is difficult to wrangle from most regular folks. And one of those be interested to get your thoughts on this cow one of those which I am actively going to cut out of the conversation you're about to hear. I want to address it here just just to let people know why I cut it out. It is in the discussion of dominion over animals. Animal personal animal personhood is what they're arguing for. The animals should have the same rights as people. In fact, the constitutional amendment would be past to give animals those rights, right to live being the major factor, the right to not be murdered, things like that. We're talking about dominion. I said that the animal. You could not articulate those rights to the animal, and it could not articulate those rights back to you. You couldn't explain to a bear, I'm going to give you rights. That means you have to act differently. I'm going to give you rights, so you have the right to live, so don't kill any more bear cups. Like So, we're having discussion on dominion over animals. The fallback point when that gets tough, the fallback point was just simply this. There are disabled humans who can't speak for themselves, and we give them rights. They have the right to live, basic human rights is what they have. And the question then is why if we give disabled humans these basic rights, will we not give them extend them to animals. Neither of the two can speak for themselves, And so I'm cutting that out. I cut that out because I feel like that's a very very offensive line to walk. As soon as I as soon as I'm starting to counter reason why disabled people are like animals or vice versa. It gets it, it gets into an almost impossible line of conversation, and like I said earlier, I think that's how it's set up. It's set up too slowly back into a corner logically a person that's not expecting, and then throw that at them. And that's just not something I want to acknowledge the idea, but I don't. I'm not going to include that discussion. Right, So it's like, so bad you think that disabled people should be eaten And they're like, well, no, but you said what you said, right, These are logical traps that are designed, because that's really all this is. Animal personhood is just a logical construct. It's like, can you logically argue against what I'm saying? And so all I have to do is build in some fail safe, some trap doors in the conversation. I pull this lever, You're gonna fall through it one way or the other. So I felt like that's what that was, and I very much left the conversation upset by that, you know, And I felt like that was a bad faith move. And I don't think there was an intentionally bad faith move. I just think because that logic is so connected to their worldview. They don't see it the way I saw it. And for me to have to stumble through the idea of animals versus disabled people, I felt it was an impossible task. And it's not respectful to to the folks that are disabled or maybe um parents of folks that are, to say it's just it's as weird to me. It's as weird as eating a chicken grinder that has no chicken in it. It's just weird. I do, I do, I do get hung up on some of this, and in the fact that, you know, I definitely think that there's a lot of folks out there that like to think much higher of humans than we probably should be thinking of ourselves, you know, like the example of homo erectus. Uh. You know, people, it's odd, like the evolution of man. Uh, It's like we really like to have like these placeholders, right and be like, well, homo erectus it was like this and man, we've come so far, but it's almost daily that we're learning so much more about at home erect us that we have an insane amount in common, right, and as well, what about this, this and this. It's like oh no, no, no, that you know, look at the evolutionary steps here. Okay, that's that's way back then. Yeah, well a lot of what was happening way back then is still happening right now. We just came up with fancier names for it. Yeah, well, you're right, And I think there's the other constructor that I agree with a little bit. But then to your point I diverge from that agreement is that the history is progressive. There are there's always these ideas that were held is either sacred or at least held in in the communal sense, is okay that when we look back or like that's insane? Why did people ever do that? And so that's kind of how they feel about this idea. They feel as if they would be akin to someone that was, for example, against slavery, when our entire culture was for it. In fact, our entire country was built on the idea of enslaving other human beings. So I feel like that's how they feel that their place in history is their revolutionary the revolutionaries in a way that we can't understand because we're we're akin to the slavers, saying slavery is just a part of our country, this is how it was built, why would we get rid of it? And so that that's another logical construct that they've built that kind of eliminates a lot of Hey, let's argue, what's happened in the past two million years of evolution has led to where we are today, why would we throw that away? So they're, like I said, there's there's arguments that they've built that kind of you know, work their way around some of these things. But to your point, I think two million years of evolution is a lot different than slavery. There's a lot less human of that human condition than there is of the hunting or eating meat human condition. So it's those things that's not apples to apples, but it is a way to kind of get around that comparison that they've used. Yeah, yeah, and you definitely hear that right. Well, we used to think right and there was a time when and they're not wrong about that, They're right about it. And my I would make the point that history is progressive, but like comparatively, the space and time where we enslaved humans, even though it was a very very very long time in our history, is much shorter than the amount of time that are even you know, you're talking Homo erectus to Homo sapien and even before that, even you know, lower hominids that were I mean it, it is like, you know, I'm sorry, but you just can't. There's there was no period in time where everybody was for one thing, slavery cue aform writing how to chisel a freaking rock, Like all of society wasn't ever on the same page at one point in time. Just never never was, especially if you want to talk about slavery, right because the enslaved, we're probably like, you know what, I'm starting to have second thoughts about this whole slavery thing. Turns out not that great, yes, and I and they're able to do that right, Um there, there's there's a thing that happens to with this argument, and it twists me. Another thing that twists me up a little bit is these folks. The the ideology is so powerful that these folks, I'm not saying they may or may not be willing to die for it. I don't know, but they're certainly willing to go to prison and ruin their lives over it. And so the feeling that they have when they wake up in the morning, whether it's a misguided feeling or not. And I went to Berkeley in hopes to kind of understand it better. And I left this particular conversation you're about that you're more confused than ever. But it certainly did help me. Um, you know, go to the gym with my ideas and make sure they were strong enough to hold up. But and another thing I will say is, I went into this interview with no I didn't prep I didn't rename books or have any quotes or stats. I just wanted to see what that conversation would be like with what I currently knew and what this person currently knew, you know, and just in weigh those things with each other without having without me, with no cards, with like here's a statue ought to consider. I didn't want that. I wanted to be natural the flow of conversation, at least on my end. So you got to know that. But you also got to know that these people believe this so mind alteringly that they're willing to do just about anything because they feel like they're saving lives, that that are being to do anything other than call a sandwich what it is outside of that, willing to go to prison. Okay, but this is chicken, but my Phillies cheese steak contains some things, yeah that we shan't talk about. We shan'n't. No, we shan't not Yeah, And I so like I said this. This is There's two parts of of my trip to Berkeley specifically to pursue these ideas. The first one you're about to hear, and the second one you're here next week on part of a vegan philosopher named Robert C. Jones. I came out of both these conversations better equipped to handle these conversations in the future. I learned a lot. I feel like I got twisted up a lot with some of this stuff. Um, I think as anybody probably would if I was saying wins and losses. I think there were a lot of winds logically and some losses. But um, I'm glad I did it because I'm now better. One. I understand what it's like to be, just for a brief moment, what it's like to be these people, and what's like to feel that way and to devote your life to saving the lives of things you think are being murdered on mass scale. Um, what it must feel like for them to grat run into a actory farm and grab a chicken and run out. They must feel it think that there, you know, heroes saving lives and so I have a better understanding of that, but I don't know that I came out of there with a better appreciation. But it's kind of like like the you know they're there. The argument isn't against factory farming, right, It's it's against animals being cultivated and eaten, you know, and and and they but they like to boil it down to like, well, this is what we're against. Yeah, but you know you and I talked to those animal rights folks and Sacramento and Anonymous for the Voiceless. Yeah, and you know it's like, I mean, it's just so funny, like my mom's little farm there and outside of Billings, you know, half of those freaking animals would walk up to We're looking to get their ears scratched, you know, like they they were not living in a stressed environment at all, and uh, you know a lot of those things turned into meat. Those creatures turned into meat. So um, it's like yeah, man, it is. And it's really interesting thing as far as like, you know, those animals don't have super long lifespans. This is like people need to be fed. This is how they're currently being fed. Yeah, they they're talking about a sea change to our humanity. You know, they're talking about a shift in how we interact with the natural world and the world around us. It's in and of itself that's going to have a cascading negative effect to our our entire world if we were to go the way that they want us to go. And I think maybe they partly understand the means of production there against the consumption. Imagine, imagine if a world where next year, for the next presidency, the first thing they do is try to get a constitutional amendment past that's talking about animal personhood and saying you if you kill an animal, you're a murderer. You go to jail. That's that's that's the idea, and so that's what that's the strength of that idea, at least for the people that hold it is is ridiculously strong. I mean it is, it's in their minds, infallible, and so at least I got to understand that from their perspective. And hopefully if you listen to the interview coming up here in a minute, you'll you'll get that too. But it's certainly if you would a race, if you call if you and I and even you feel would relay a race what you currently believe in kind of approach the world with a blank slate. At the very least, what they what they're saying would be compelling because they believe it's evan strongly. You know it could. Could I make as compelling a case for hunting as they do for murdering animals? I don't know if I could, because they I mean, they're willing to go to their felony charges, multiple felony charges for multiple members. In fact, the founder that the true founder of d x c's react action everywhere, he's going to go to jail for a long time. He's just awaiting sentencing and awaiting a trial. So it's that's a person going to jail over the over this idea. So it's that's pretty strong. I don't think of any examples in hunting where people are going to jail for this. I wouldn't want to go to the clink. Like comparing stories are interrupted, Jeff Beza, he uh, pretty good. Minutes in I jumped up on stage. All right, Well, um, any final words there? Child before we transport to Berkeley. No take us away, Phil, Are you good? Yeah, I'm I'm doing good. I don't know if you wanted to put throw down some some Simon and Garfunkle to set the scene or something while we transport to Berkeley. I guess I grew up on an all the roads. How's it going. It is going great. Thanks so much for having me. I'm Ben. Yeah, well thanks for having me in the home here. And you guys call this an activist house. This is known as the Dingo Den. The Dingo So we have several activist houses and they all kind of have animal ish type names like that. So welcome to the Dingo Den. The Dingo Den. I like, I'm happy to be in the Dingo Den. And this is is for the organization that that you're a part of. This is where a lot of activists get together, they live in the same place. They kind of coalesced around the idea of animal rights activist. Absolutely, lots of meetings, lots, I mean lots of events, like you know, things like this where we're filming and doing interviews with the media and yeah, just all sorts of planning, video editing, organizing protests, community events. You name it, yeah, and you would would our self described animal rights activists, is that yeah? Absolutely? Animal rights, animal liberation activists kind of interchangeable. Yeah, maybe in the short term animal welfare activists. People kind of don't. Don't like that one, but animal welfare as a means to to animal rights perfect. UM. Tell us about your organization, and i'd, like I said I said earlier before we hit record, and we have I will also say we have UM your organizations Facebook Live joining us. So we're gonna have hopefully some questions as we go. So if we do, you get a good question, just stop me at a at a place that makes sense and we'll take those questions. Because this this conversation is all about questions, questions I have for you, hopefully questions you have for me, and and just exploring the things that are important to both of us. UM where we agree and then a lot of where we probably don't agree. So tell us a little about the organization. Sure. So I'm the press coordinator with Direct Action Everywhere, which is a global grassroots animal rights network UM committed to achieving UM revolutionary social and political change for animals, culminating in our eventual goal of species of equality. So that would be a constitutional amendment. UM, at least that would be kind of the the U S version of it to UH, to give animals basic personhood, to say that you know, in the same way that it's it's not you know, you can't you know, I don't. I can't invade your bubble, I can't harm you, I can't put you in a cage, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. UH, to extend that right to all sentient life on you know, in the U. S and event eventually on Earth. And the way we do that is by following the footsteps of successful social movements of the past, and we employ non violent direct actions. So this means UM going directly to where the injustice is happening and speaking out against it. UM. We go into into farms, into slaughterhouses, we document what's happening, We rescue animals. Sometimes we go into even like a grocery stores and in restaurants and raise awareness. They're a wide variety of actions all centered around building a mass movement for andomal rights to to to facilitate that kind of change. Yeah, and you guys have have done this UM to what I would call extremes that there's um prey that's sitting over there, has a few felonies on on the books. Just explain, you know, the extents. Did you guys go to to document some of the factory farming practices that we talked about earlier and some other animal cruelties that you guys perceive, you like, it's you know what I would I would say it's very extreme. I think anybody would say it's very extreme. But it's what you're passion about. So kind of explain the boundaries within you guys, how you work. Yes, So I think I mean in terms of what ordinary you know, what most people are doing. It's certainly the action itself is extreme. When most people are you know, very few people are actually doing it. I think in terms of the values it represents is actually pretty mainstream. Um. When ordinary people, I mean yourself, you know we were talking before the recording. Um, ordinary people see what's happening in factory farms, they're horrified by it. They're horrified, you know, even by the food that they're reading where it comes from. When they learn that, and so what we're really doing is is shining a light on that. And we're we're elevating what's happening behind closed doors and allowing that compassion that's really common to most people to to to be raised to the forefront. And I think when ordinary people, you know, see what's happening in these farms, and then they hear that someone like Priya here is is facing felony charges for for just exposing the truth, for trying to help animals. Ordinary people are with us, uh in terms in terms of the values. So the actions themselves are extreme, but it can actually, um really be a powerful mechanism to to draw attention to it when people be like, oh my god, like she she might be going to prison for this, Like that's that's just outraised like a lovely person. I don't understand. Not a felon. Yeah, it's it's a it's a pretty wild a state of affairs. And I think we're marching down the path to change things. Well, I want to learn, like I learn as much as I can about the ideologies, but also you the person and how the organization kind of came to be. So let's start with the organization. Um, who founded it, how did it come about? How long has it been around? Yeah? So direct actually ever was founded in tween. Prio is actually one of the co founders who's in the room. UM. Wayne Chung was another co founder UM, and his his experience UM was kind of bouncing around within the kind of animal rights world and trying certain tactics that he didn't feel like we're very effective, like more conventional like education, leafletting, and so on and again following in the footsteps of social movements throughout history. What we've seen is that UM education alone hasn't really done it. You know, when there's when there's segregation happening in America, when there's when there's slavery, you don't just go to somebody and say, hey, you know here, here's the logical case for why that doesn't work. Like that, that didn't get us anywhere. And what did get us anywhere is when people actually took action, when we see the sit in and so on. So it's really drawing on that, you know, taking that mainstream, kind of animal focused animal personhood message and and adopting these these different tactics that that we think can can can bring about more change that we haven't unfortunately seen. UM. How about you. You're from Iowa, so you got some street credit, Like, I'm from Iowa, man from Berkeley. So so explained about how you got here, you know, how did you become the press coordinator for for ours like this? So yes, I was born and raised in Iowa until just like two years ago. I'm thirty three now and so I've been there until something like that. And uh so, originally I was this four year old kid. It's really it's pretty interesting to think about it. Who for the first time in my life, I kind of had this realization that this what was sitting on my plate, you know, wasn't some benign food that it was there was was this body of an animal that wanted to live. My uncles were having a conversation about me and kind of joking and laughing about this their deer hunters, and it was just very viscerally shocking to me at the time. And I just like had this whole, i mean, really traumatic moment. I'm just like, oh my god, everybody around me is is doing this, which you know, just seems so horrific. And then you know, you fast forward, uh and I had another experience when I was at my relatives home, and you know, I kind of had to even bring this up because my relative you know there this is like thirty years ago, and you know, I'm certainly not going to name me. Well not not illegal, but pretty distasteful. So I had some they they said, hey, Matthew, come out here, and they brought me out to the shed and they had this deer that they had killed and strung up upside down and the nose is painted red, and you know, it was like Christmas time, and you know, I'm like, okay, this isn't actually like Rudolph, but it was just like this pretty you know, I was just horrified that they would make, you know, that kind of a joke about this dead animal, and it just I think it really just like further entrenched me into this this perspective because um, I mean I think a lot of kids, I mean you can look on social media on Facebook. I mean, I guess more in my schere you see this, but like a lot of kids like that's an initial response. They're like, oh my god, we're killing animals, like how you know, like there's just an initial aversion to that sort of a thing. And then it's kind of like what's normalized around you. How it's you know, if if it's kind of made up, you know, just like oh this is you know, my parents were big on like God gave us animals for food this sort of thing. So I was, you know, kind of this mental battle for me. It was like, you know, why am I You know, it seems seems like such a horrible thing to do, but yet is it what God wants us to do? So I, you know, through my whole childhood, I was basically I was just a silent vegetarian because I really didn't know what to make of that um. But anyways, fast forward twenty years, I got some different ideas about the religion stuff, which I won't go into, but you know, the religion thing wasn't holding me back, and then I was like, okay, yeah, I think that that that four year old was was onto something. I think that, you know, if we can create a world where we respect the rights of animals and the same way we respect the bodily autonomy and the right to to life and safety and happiness of of individual humans, I think that there's a lot that makes sense with that. Sure and not I think and that's why I think we you know, we're a different size of the tracks, I would say, and when I always like to think of when we say anti hunters or animal rights activists and there is there's a bit of a boogeyman, and then the hunting community around those those terms I always like to think of when I wake up in the morning, I'm passionate about, like how hunting has enriched my life. The act of hunting has riched my life, not the killing of the animal per se, other than the fact that I get while meat from and protein from the act of hunting has enriched my life in ways that I'd like to explain to you guys. And and but I always think that and the reason I wanted to reach out and have this conversation because I think you guys have the same kinds of passions over the the ideologies and philosophies and things that you've come to believe and believe so strong. So just like I believe vegans and animal rights actes have a lot of income with hunters, I think we as people have a lot in common just what our passion and what we believe. We just happened to have landed on two really really different ideas ways, probably a more tangible and a less tangible way to interact with wild animals and animals themselves. So the couple of ideas that I'm really interested in, and I can't say that I've researched them, but I wanted to come here and just hear right from you. Species is um an animal personhood. So which one is more appropriate to start with? They're both when they're they're inter related and both very appropriate. So so species is UM. I mean, it's, you know, just kind of followed the book definition of discrimination, racism, sexism, species is M. It's it's when you take uh, an arbitrary, arbitrary trait or an arbitrary grouping rather uh, and you say, hey, let's put these individuals into this category and give them rights, not because of any relevant characteristic but just because they're in this group. So white people get these rights, black people are denied these rights, men get these rights, women are denied these rights. Well, over the course of history, we've come to say, well, those those are arbitrary groupings, Like there's no reason that, you know, black people versus white people you're denying rights. Well, species it makes the same case. So it's saying like, well, what is you know, not don't just put them into arbitrary groups and say well, I'm I'm in a position of privilege and power and I'm human and all the non humans like forget you, you get your rights denied. But but no, we that's that's that's discrimination. Uh. And we should in fact say like, well, what is the relevant trait and so uh you know, to me, what makes sense as the relevant trait for for personhood to go into the other part of it is is individuals who have feelings who want to live, We should respect those those rights to to to life and those feelings matter. It comes down to the sentience is the word we use, right um, And sentience is kind of like the level of a being that has feelings and wants to live. Right Like if it if you take a fish and you drop it on the shore, does it flop towards the water? Right? Those things like that? And and I think I think it's it's in my experience, has always been pretty common with folks that are focused on animal rights to start to look at, um, how to personify or anthromorphize an animal like it has they have babies, they have emotions, they have feelings, they're scared, they're happy, they're sleepy, that those types of things. So and it's it's you guys have some rescue pets down here, and you live with these animals, and you see you become emotionally attached, and you start to see how they interact with the world, and you become emotionally attached to that. How do you how do you think of animals, both the pets that you have, and then you take that one step further to like factory farmed animal, and then one step further to a wild animal that lives. Yeah, so I mean there's certainly is emotional attachment like you mentioned that come to certain animals. I try to to take a step back from that and not you know, again, discritin me, any species is m is one thing. You could say humans to non humans, but even within non human animals, right, you have warm feelings towards a dog, but not towards a pig. I try to step back from that and say, like, no, what's what's relevant here? How cute I think an animal is isn't relevant. What what is relevant is that the animal can can feel these emotions, can feel good, can feel suffering, and and so on. And just try to just look at that and and make, you know, live my life and kind of construct my world view of my values around that and not around you know, the emotional sentimental stuff. And we were talking about it at lunch. Um. I will say that we had lunch at the Butcher's Son here in Berkeley. It's a wonderful vegan restaurant. UM. I had the chicken grinder. It's pretty good. I go back. It was very strategically chosen for our guests here. I didn't even I was. I was hungry, like, let's go have lunch. I don't even think of that. We probably would have couldn't have lunch at the same places a lot of times. UM. So I think this gets us into I think one of the main things that I think of here, and we talked about this at lunch a little bit as well, is value right, because we both I think that the very lucky thing about where we live, and it's not this way around the world. I think pre and and you guys have have probably seen this throughout your activism. Is we all most Americans, Americans value animals, the idea of animals and having them here. You know that's not so in Africa, in different places of the world, we all if we were all driving by a field and there were deer and turkeys and squirrels and songbirds, we would all look at that field and say, we want those animals to be there, right. We have the the innate ability to see the value in the animal. And so one of my major questions wanting something I've struggled with and something I think a lot of hunters when they really think about it, what's struggled with is are these animals valuable because we assigned them value? Because we're talking at lunch again, we assigned different values most of our societal you guys, differ from a lot of people and that you don't really assign the hierarchical value to any one animal. But in most of our side do we do? You know, some animals are higher than others. Something we can step on, a step on a bug, but we want to take care of our dog, kind of kind of a thing we can feed, can feed, grind up animal parts to our dog, things of that nature. So there's a hierarchy of how we value certain animals. How do you guys see that value system? Or even probably a better question, how do you construct your own value systems around you know, animals being equal to Yeah, so I think because come back to the question of sentience, and you know that is the hierarchy, you know, based upon something that's relevant or is it based upon something that's that's that's arbitrary and therefore discriminatory. And so you know, if the question was you know, if it was literally you know that we kind of hear that, you know, maybe the gotcha questions of like, oh, would you kill a bug to save a dog's life or something like that, and it's like, well, uh, yeah, I I think we would because the dog is is going to have a longer life and have a more rich experience or like, you know, to get to really like some you know, some dark places, like if there was a human being who was you know, had a disability or was just in some horrible shape and you literally had to choose one versus the other type of a thing you know than that. But but in terms of but but but often that's not the choice that we're taking right when you say, like, well, can if you can choose not to harm an individual, I think we should choose not to harm an individual. And if we could construct our society and the way we view animals in such a way that can can lead us down that path. I think we should do so. And I think that historically, what we've seen time and time again is that when we do expand the rights of a certain class of individuals raised, gender, and so on, that that that the individuals within within that elevated class are therefore better off. And there's I think there's every reason to to assume that the same would be the same, you know, with animals. Yeah, I think there's something we definitely agree on. And I don't know if I've ever said this on this podcast or really on air at all, but I do. I do. I've always I talked to my parents about this some. I do feel like if you look back through history, the progressive ideas definitely societally and culturally kind of always win when it comes to and it's I'm an independent person. I don't think in a progressive way. I don't think in a conservative way. I just try to look at things pragmatically and then figure it out. But when you start to look at they could the conservative social feelings of you know, discrimination or racism or whatever they're those things are are over time like they're receding. They always have. You can't. You can't fight that. That's just history. If you, if you read understand history, you understand that we've we've progressively become better at treating each other well and being social and understanding that the individual rights are important. So I'm sure that a lot of people will hear me say that and and label me a certain way. Have at it, go for it. I don't really don't really care. Yeah, yeah, you berkey, what's in the water here? Um, So you haven't taken a drink at the well, Yeah, maybe I'll get worse. It'll get worse if I started drinking. But I do believe that. But I also believe in a lot of conservative ideals and a lot of ideals around uh, gun rights and hunting and all these other things. So I'm, you know, complicated, being as we all are. So I guess they say all that to say what I would what I would like to discuss a little bit is one I think we should we shouldn't gloss over jump over the activism part. I think we should talk about what you guys do, what what you do on the ground, um, and then talk a little bit about factory farming. Briefly because we're gonna probably agree on it and then and then get the things we don't agree on but talk about. You know, Prea has we talked about. She has some felonies that she's facing. The founder of your organization has some felonies that he's facing him likely um spend some time in jail because of those things. To take us through like why that is, Um, we kind of understand your motivation at this point, but like take us through how you do it and why you do it and what's the outcome. Yeah, absolutely, so we you know, like I said, we expose what's happening inside of these farms and we'll we'll rescue sick and injured animals. And uh, it's it's it's kind of kind of following and you know some of these uh movements of the past where we're individuals have been granted rights. It's it's come via folks making this kind of sacrifice and and defying unjust laws at times. Although interestingly, we actually have a legal argument that what we're doing is legally justified, but it's not being viewed as such that the ordinary people actually can go in and help animals the same way you'd help a dog in a hot car, you break a window like, that's not that's not vandalism. So why is it illegal? Yeah? So it um so, Actually whether or not it's illegal in the state of California is actually a question. But but even even if it was illegal, um, you know, there is a place for for civil disobedience and there is a place for that, and uh, you know, it's it gets the media attention when when when people are are when people are being locked up much more so than you know, even uh, you know, a mass catastrophe of animals, like tens of thousands or millions of animals suffering is you know, doesn't get the attention that literally like one person you know, potentially getting felony charges it might result in prison, will get that sort of thing. And and it, uh you know, it plays on our species. Is um that that ordinary people like you hear You can't even hardly wrap your head around how many billions of animals are in a factory farm. But when you meet Pria or you see you know, an interview with Pria, it's like she's about to go to prison. That really has that powerful effect on people, and it really is like wow, these these folks are willing to to make a big sacrifice. Maybe there's something to this. Um, you know, it plays a lot better than if you're sitting at the table with you know, somebody who's just like a picky eater. The other the other big part of this is just understanding that, like the really intrinsically what you're willing to sacrifice. And it seems like you're willing to sacrifice just about anything. Yeah, I think that, you know, I personally just try to hold myself accountable to you know, being objective and and and ultimately if you're not discriminating, and this is going some real deep stuff. But it's like, don't you know, like why why is my you know, I have one life to live. I'm doing my thing here and frankly, even even in facing the felony you know, and I'm I'm not you know, main reason I'm not facing felony charges. I'm doing the press work when everybody else is not getting arrested. I'm like ready to go. But it's just anyway, just a good thing. But you know, I mean, even you know, to to put it in a certain context, you know, even facing those felony charges, it's like you're eating but your son, you're living in Berkeley, it's in a you know, and then like yeah, maybe at some point it's it's a year prison or something like that. I mean, and you contrast that again with with tens of billions of animals suffering. I think that it's, you know, when you kind of force yourself to really not even be objective, but be like a little closer to objective, you put it in in context, and it's it's it's not actually that much of a sacrifice. You guys put yourself in a hard situation, right, I mean, that's it's like feeling the weight of all I mean, I guess I'm not being presumptives say all animals. I mean, you're not separating anyone like that. We're not separating wild animals from farm animals. And you're talking about animal person hunt in itself, so that's a that's a huge weight. And then I always in one of the arguments, one of the questions a lot of people that follow me, we're asking is as a hunter, I'm not. I don't. I have a feeling that I want everyone to understand hunting. I want them to understand why I do it. Why it enriches my life and makes it better. Why I feel like the meat uh feeds my family and makes us more connected to the natural world, to our natural resources. Um. We discussed a little bit, and we will discuss further kind of how we view these beings in different lights. But I just want people to understand how it's enriched my life and accept that. Right. I don't want everybody to be a hunter. In fact, if everyone's a hunter, tomorrow would be no animals left. We would we would have killed them all to give hunting tags to every person on the earth. So I differ from you and that I'm not out to I'm out for understanding, right, I'm not out for change really, UM, I would like everybody to try hunting, and if they like to go and pursue it, I'd like to make sure there's open access for them to do so. But I'm also not I don't feel like everybody needs to come to my side to be right. I just want them to understand me and I think a lot of people on my side and me included, to be flat honest with you, like it's it's it's a heavy life to live to feel so strongly about this thing to want it to to feel like everyone else has to come to that also, come to that conclusion about how we see an animal. So just talk through that, because I think that's you've you've you haven't landed on a passion that's light and it's loafers something landing on a passion that there's like a there's like a worldview changing thing to believe that's heavy, right, Yeah, it certainly is. And um, yeah, it's it can be heavy. I mean there's way, you know, with community support and whatnot, I think there's ways that it can can lighten that load. And and certainly the fact that it's heavy, you know, doesn't speak to it being right or wrong. I'm not saying that at all. Um, and um, you know, I mean it sort of comes to this fundamental question of you know, like you know, forcing your views quote unquote. And again we look back at some of these social movements throughout history, and it was very right for there, for the anti seggregation is too, to sit in at those lunch counters and enforce their views and say, hey, no, racism is wrong. We're not going to accept this, and and and and opposing slavery and so on. So I think everybody can agree that there is a time and a place for for quote unquote forcing your views, and then it's just it's the conversation of where when is that right time in the place, and uh, why we're here? Yeah. No, that that in itself makes sense to me. Um that that's once your worldview is is? So, I mean your worldview is. I mean I was just doing some studies with some human evolutionary biologists. Two million years ago, humans were hunting and learning, like our our brains developed from the protein rich resources, and our motor skills developed from throwing rocks, you know, two million years ago in the savannahs of freaking. So we have this like deep connection with hunting and deep connection with pursuing both harvesting wild foods and then harvesting wild animals and eating them, killing them and eating them. So we have this like very long history with that, and it's it's if you believe in human evolution, you believe that it's intertwined these two things. Hunting allowed us to become really allowed us to become by petle and then allow us to become Homo sapiens, and then allow us to go on and on, and of course now we sit at a time where we have the modern luxuries to have these ideas, um to think about animal personhooded animal rights we have, we don't. We're not hungry. We can go down to the brother's son or you know, the butcher's son and get get a sandwich. So for us, I don't like to make again, I'll go back to the progressive. The history is progressive, I feel. So I don't like to make that. I don't like to generally make there and we always did it, so we should always do it. I think that sometimes can be valid, but in this case probably not. As Valida. So I'm not gonna of you that. I'm not gonna give thank you. I'm not gonna give that because it doesn't make sense to you that because there's like you can all you gotta do is be like slavery. We did that for a long long time. We don't do anymore. Um logical foulsies and all they are. So I don't I don't want to do that. But I just think that it weighs heavy on your ideologies, that there's millions of years of doing these activities now removing just just talking about hunting and removing factory farming because that's industrial evolution onward. Um, there's I just think you have a lot to explain, Like you have to to make the jump from racism to species is m seems like like such a gigantic gap to me, you know, from from understanding and African Americans right to eat at the same counter to say a pig's right not to be slaughtered. There's a huge gap. And there's all there's no human history too to back it up, right, So I'll set that up for you. Yeah, I mean, I think we should explore you know what you know, I can understand it. It feels like a huge gap. Uh, and so you should just like explore exactly what that is. And I think, you know, just just you take like discrimination by the book, I think it it fits. It's it's just group A, it's group B. You're not saying, you know, you know, like the activists will always say, like name the traite, Like what is the trade? Don't not the group, but what is the trait by which we you know, respect right, the right to life, the right to bodily autonomy, the right to freedom. And there really is nothing but we haven't touched that term bodily autonomy. What's yeah, I mean, it's just it's just like I nobody can do anything with my body that I don't consent to. You can't, you know, you know, from cutting the tail off of a pig or you know, or you obviously just killing animals like that sort of a thing. Um. So that goes down to like just consent basically. Yeah, And and we wouldn't, you know, you would you would never dream and a million years of saying, you know, because a human is you know, you name, it doesn't doesn't communicate the same way you do, or isn't as smart as you, or has some sort of disability, or is less intelligent. However, you know, however we measure intelligence less intelligent than a pig. You know, never in a million years would we dream of saying like, okay, forgot him, you know, and in fact, we'll go through a great expense to to enrich the life of that human, you know, great expense to to make sure that they, you know, have have a meaningful life and have these rights. Um. And so yeah, I mean I think that uh, you know, it probably sounded like a big jump for for white people to say, wait a second, these these these slaves, like we're gonna give them rights Like that feels like such a jump, Like I can't how they wrap my head around it. And it's a very strange concept. And it takes time, and it takes a lot of these kind of conversations, and it takes activism and eventually, um, you know, society shifts when we look back and it all seems so obvious. Um, like I said, I don't I'm not blind to that that that that's happened. What I am. What I don't understand is how we get from from a to be there. And it seems circular, and it's and it's logic um circular if if so if if an animal is a person and a person is an animal. Where it seems circular to me is that animals kill other animals, right like if if if I was to say, like, it's more natural for me if I am, if I'm the same thing as a deer, the deer is the same thing for me. It's more natural for me to act as in the predator prey you know, relationship that's been around for as long as we've been around, as long as we've been cohabitating with these creatures, it seems to me more logical that I would fall into and I don't. I don't usually use this argument, but if you were to level the playing field and there's one species, right, every everything is the same and it's rights in the way that it's treated, I then feel that I fall into what a grizzly bear feels about. You know, like if you asked a grizzly bear about it elk, it would say delicious. Yeah, so so so with human beings, you know, to take to take the analogy, so you know, I think you and I would hold the value that all humans, you know, deserve this right to personhood. And the fact that maybe there are humans on the other side of the planet who, because they don't know any better or for the sake of survival, are killing one another, that doesn't change our view that that all humans should have basic personhood. Yeah. But but a grizzly bear, it's innate, and a grizzly bear to kill like I've been around, grizzly bears, have been around wolves, have been around mountain lions, apex predators. In their totality, it is in their being to kill like that's what they do. If they don't reason it, they don't feel it emotionally. A grizzly bear is a grizzly bear, and part of its being is to part of it's it's grizzly bareness. If you will is to kill things like it that you can't remove, you will, you would? You can never sit down with the grizzly bear and red is in it. Out of eating a fawn from a pregnant deer or killing killing the cubs of a sal eating I'm you know, I've seen this and have a lot of friends have seen this. A grizzly bear or a you know, brown bear will kill cubs of a stal to make that stile go back and heat. You can't. You couldn't remove that. You couldn't remove that from the grizzly bears. You can't. So my argument would be, if we're the same as a grizzly bear, you wouldn't be able to rumber that from us. And if if you can remove that from us, are we are we? Then not? We're then we're different. If I'm able to remove my predatory instinct that has been built over hundreds of thousands, millions of years. If I can remove it from me, that makes me different than the bear. Well so, so um, we could again take take the same conversation and you'd say, well what about you know, how how did how did I get here today? Well, you know, in addition to consumption of animals and hunting of animals, I got here today by a product of all sorts you know, the winners of wars, you know, by through or through all sorts of violence, all sorts of rape on down the line. Do this is how I became who I am? And so this you could argue that this is innate in all humans do is extreme violence towards other humans and we but we don't fall back on that and say exactly that's my point. My point is we can innately change. We have the ability to innately change that predatory instinct. We've changed it through technology, the advancement our civilizations. How we think about and relate towards animals has changed over time because we have changed over time. I haven't seen a grizzly bear or been around a grizzly bear from a hundred thousand years ago, but I imagine that it's the same thing like grizzly bears, aren't. I promise you you'll never find a grizzly bear that you're gonna be able to convince over time, through technology, through advancement, through through even better sentience, not to kill and eat. And so I think what you're saying kind of makes the point if if, if humans are able to change the way we feel about animals in the way that you would like to that that just by the ability to do that makes us different than animals. Yeah, against like uh, I think you could again make the human comparison like there are just like there are some animals named you know, bears in this example, who you're not gonna be able to change. There are some humans who you're not gonna be able to change. So some so you do take the the animal kingdom, and and you subdivide and say some can, some can't take the human species will some can, some can't. Some some humans are you don't have a mental disorder or whatever. And that doesn't change what's income in upon us, you know, individuals with moral agency to say like, hey, like you know this, how what's the right way for us to live? And and and the question of you know, what do we do with with these individuals who have you know, whether it's humans who have violent tendencies or not our animals who have have it in aid in them to be violent. That's an extremely complicated question. But I think that where where I think many people fall short is that they say, well, it's complicated, so therefore we throw our hands in there, we say it's fine, or even say it's beautiful frankly, you know, and there's there's funny things about nature of seeing the non beautiful parts. Yeah. Yeah, I think what I struggle with in that idea is a grizzly bear must have it must have it's it's a carnivore, it must have that dear to live. It can't it's digestive system, the way that it functions. It can't remove that from the way it is. It can't just all of a sudden decide well, I don't want to eat these things anymore. It is programmed. It is in its DNA, it's in its genetics. Now I'm not I'm not saying I agree with the bears feelings, but but the bear is the bear, right, And so I see it more pragmatically, and I gotta look, and I would encourage you to look at the animal, you know, not compared. Can I keep comparing the animals to the human, the animals to the human, look at the animal like that the animal they are what at all? They are, what they are, they function, how they function, and being close to nature in the natural world, and understanding that predator prey and understanding the mating habits and where they sleep and what they eat and kind of how all that comes together, which Honey has done for me. It's allowed me to kind of understand these things. And I'm happy for that. You know, I'm not necessarily happy for having killed dozens hundreds of animals. That's not where I get my happiness. I get my happiness been able to. It's changed the way I value animals. It's changed the way that I see them and I feel about them. It's changed the way that I understand their role in my role in the in the natural world. I see them. I think we said we differ here for sure. It's like I see them as a resource, you know, I see them as if I take one and there's a thousand healthy ones that that makes me happy and I feel like I've I've taken part in and this dance that that is valuable to our world, and it has been shown to be valuable to our world. So that's I think that's you know, that's part of where we come up at odds. But I think you have to think about the animal, like even if you removed humans from the equation, which would probably be the best thing we could do for any of these animals, because we eat up their habitat and we plant roads, we are we pay a road as we build houses like this one and destroy their habitat. So in thinking about the animal, like remove if if you can, and then tell them if you can't, like remove the comparison to humans. If if we were to then say these things are gonna live and thrive, how would they do it without killing each other? How would they do it without without the predator prey relationship and the food chain? And so I think it Yeah, like you rightfully point out that it is, it's very complex, like to just just wrap your head around, like how is such a thing even possible? And I think that you know, um, you know, you you use the term pragmatic, and I think that you know, again, I just think gets just apt. So like you know, if you like, well, what are we gonna do if we if we free the slaves, and so it's not pragmatic. These people like how are they gonna get jobs? They're not educated, Like it's just such a huge problem and it was just this this rationale to just try to stay in trenched and what we're doing right now. And so you're you're right. So I think that you know, you know, to do what you might call pragmatic, a pragmatic solution, it really dismisses, you know, what's possible, and the fact that we can do so much more and as far as like what do we actually do about these animals to stop them from eating one another? Extremely complex. I mean there are like, you know, we have some hints of some solutions of things like you can do like um, you know, like you can do like highway over passes or like like uh, wildlife can can crawl, you know, walk underneath roads, or you can have there's like high pitched sound emitters that you can do on on machinery so that animals run away. But frankly, we're not even like scratching the surface of that. So so my perspective is that if we can move from a place where we good animals as just it means to to our ends, and then we can shift the whole narrative, the whole game around that, and we say animals are individual persons and they have a right to to bodily autonomy and so on. That's when we bring in the experts. We bring in the the animal behaviorists, the biologists that you know, the Silicon Valley techie people, and and we we look at all these solutions. Is there a way to to control their breeding, Is there a way to maybe change their genetics, Maybe maybe animals can be bred away from from some of these habits and that that sounds like some sci fi stuff right now, but you know, like we we we've we made it to the moon, and we we got the Internet, and we got airplanes, and so you know, as much as as you rightfully point out also that humans are so destructive towards animals, I think we have the capacity to do great good if we were to you know, prioritize, prioritize doing it. The way that I look at the natural world is like it would be sad for me to change the grizzly bear, or I keep saying that that's not the only animal out there. It's like some reason I have a fixation in this conversation on grizzly bears. Um, it would be sad for me to to take that, to change an elk from being an elk, or change a deer for being a deer, or a songbird from being a somber. It would be sad for me because I like, like, I want to preserve the way that they are, right, um, And I don't want to adjust them in any way to kind of meet any feelings of of of what they should be. And so you see this when you remove apex predators from an environment, right, you see what it does to the prey. The prey. Part of an elk being an elk is that it has these forces that are fighting against it. Winter kill, we say, And in the and wildlife management, there's winter kill, there's predation, there's all these things that that affect animals, but they also make those animals what they are now. You may argue through history animals are changing based on additioning different conditions and different influences on those animals. But the animals the way that they are now, I kind of feel I would like to preserve that way. Like if I can kill one or two, or be a part of the management of one herd of elk, and that allows those elk to be elk forever. I would be happy with that. I wouldn't want to just for the sake of not killing them, change what they are, or change their breathing, or force them to be like that. That seems seems counterintuitive. I think it's. I mean, I I don't see that. There's not like a rationale behind it. It seems that seems sentimental frankly, and just just say like I I like, I like to appreciate the elk, and I want the elk to stay the way the elk is. It's like it isn't wouldn't there be their right to kind of their naturally? I haven't. Again, I don't. I don't want to just like hone in on only species be hunt. But that's that's my perspective. I don't when I see that when I see elk, I'm almost a preventionist in the way that I look at wildlife. When I see an elk, or I see a bear, or I see a mountain lion, I don't go to go I don't want to change that. I want to preserve its relationship to other animals and to me and my my hunting is a better way to understand all that and be involved in that. And again going back to the value system, you know, emit a value on that animal that's more than just it being there. Like when I kill it, I hang it on my wall, so I so it can be a part of my life, It can be a part of my story. Um I eat, I eat it's flesh, so it can be a part of feeding my family. And I see that, and I can see how you guys see that as like a barbaric act. I get that, and I understand that that's, you know, something something that I'll have to and probably the rest of my life. Even explained to my son, Hey, look this is what I've I've done and been doing my basically my whole life. My dad did it, my granddad before him did it. This is is as much part of me as anything. But I still that still doesn't give me the right not to rationalize it, not to think it through, not to understand what it means. And so in that way, I'm with you, you know. So it's just like I want to just distinguish between you caring about the individual elk or the individual animal. And and you know, the continuance of the you know, the elk, the elk that's that's before us today, isn't thinking about, you know, the continuance of species. It isn't you know, I mean, the scientific the definition of the word species is all the individuals who can uh copulate and reproduce viable offspring. Like the elk has no no, no, no notion of how many elk live in the world, the continuance of of the continued life of future elk, Like the elk isn't thinking about that. So the elk doesn't care or have any consciousness or even thought about the future elk or non elk or other animals or whatever. So the you know, so focusing on that elks existence. And I just I think that to just have an attachment to particular species, like I think there's not any species that really matters. The existence or not exists of any species only matters to the extent in my view, that it affects the individual you know, other individuals, so they're sentient. Like yeah, I think the principles of bio I think you're talking about like the principles of biodiversity, like the natural world needs all types of species working in in concert, even if they don't know it with each other. When in honeting, we talk about biodiversity all the time, and that's something that I think the hunting community has gotten better at understanding, but still needs, still has some ways to go as understanding. Not only do we care about the things that feed our families and the things we go out and take out of the herd and bring home, but all the other things in these ecosystems that we go out and we removed things from. And I feel very strongly that you know, we were talking earlier about harvesting versus killing, we are going out into a landscape and removing something that we didn't put there, right, So there there is a relationship to that that differs from just going out and looking at through a pair of binoculars, are looking at through any other device. So there's a closeness that I have with with goals that I would posit that most people just don't have. UM. I feel that's a that's an additive to my life, an added it's a way I think about animals UM and that's something that hunters always argues, like, guys in your position, there may not be a way for you to kind of understand these animals in the way that I might understand them. And I just want to get your what's your reaction? I mean, I uh so, so for one thing, I um, I just I would I don't want to conflate. I don't know if you are, but I think people might interpret like a conflation with you know, whatever fulfillment you get out of animals, like that's that's great, and like I get, you know, fulfillment out of my relationship with the dogs downstairs and that sort of a thing. But what's what's important is like, is that an exploitative relationship or is that not? So? You know, I mean, humans who work in a facility for for disabled people, they might draw some fulfillment out of that, and you know, that might be a fulfilling thing for them due to help those individuals. But but that's not where that conversation starts. You didn't like build a facility and say, okay, let's have this facility for people to help them, and you know, have that be the purpose of it was for the betterment of those those humans. So I think that like it's great that it makes you feel good and that gives you these the sense of fulfillment in this closeness that you refer to. But I don't think that in and of itself is a no, no, no, not at all. And I think that I think all that, really, all that relationship does is make me feel way more intensely that I've got us. I've got to earn that, Like, I can't just go out and frivously kill animals. I've got to understand the ecosystem. I've got to understand um, I've got to understand our society and our culture. I've got to understand cohabitation. I've got to understand how an animals body works and what parts of his flesh I can eat and what I can't. I've got to understand conservation, how to make sure that there are the proper amounts of land for the proper amounts of animals. I gotta understand how how many elk do there need to be, how many uh songbirds don't need to be I feel pressure as a hunter to understand those things. So, yes, you're right to conflate like to to continue to say like hunting enriches my life that's my relationship with this animal. I feel like it's deeper than other people. That's not a conflation of our justification of hunting. That's that's the my honest take on the result of my hunting if and that's just my personal experience. I can't speak for all hunters in that way. My personal experiences I've gone hunting. The killing of the animal is not a fun part for me. I don't I don't jump up and down. In fact, people that know me, I get get really calm when it happens, and I sit over the animal and I think about it, and I say thank you, and I go about my business, and so I do that. Um. But yes, completely agree that I would never conflate anything that happens to me through hunting is some justification for doing it. I'm also trying to think of this thing enriches me, but it does it also do good for the animal, for society, and I think society in the way that you guys challenge hunting. It's it's the quite and is like, is this good for society? Is this good for our collective group? You know? Is this killing of animals good for everyone? And to the point where we can say the point where like you or someone else might say no to that. I disagree, But I think is that the question? Well, so I think I think that you are you know, I think we're both trying to answer the same question, you know, as you alluded to, And I think there are certain circumstances in a very very immediate term type of sense where it's you know, I think and I know you've made the point that people who hunt care more about animals and people who don't hunch. I think reverencing referencing people who eat. I don't want to put it that. I don't want to put it that. I think I know it. Yeah, I was gonna clarify. I think you mean like people who eat factory farm animals and don't don't like you said we were saying earlier at lunch. And I think this is a good point to be made that if I were one questions like, I'm not gonna get you done to go hunt with me, and I probably are. I'm probably not going to go to an animal rights Actually I might do that, who knows, um we're not going to get there. But one thing I would ask of you, and I'm asking this of you I'm not telling you this that you should feel. I'm saying, like, if if someone was gonna eat me, do you feel that hunting is a better way than all the other ways. I that's a tricky question because I think, like all the concerns that you raise, you know, it probably is pretty pretty pretty certainly actually causes less immediate term suffering. There are some complicated questions around, um, when you kind of normalize animal use. So so you know, in another context, you have these companies like Whole Foods that that tout everything is humane and make people feel really good about consuming animals and in some ways like maybe their farms are a tiny bit and I do mean a tiny bit better. Um, But at the same time, it's it's kind of I think there is a harm done in terms of making people feel good about you know, a kind an idea ideology that that you know, a bottom line at the end of the day, we want to see overthrown. And so I mean, I think you're certainly correct, You're certainly more thoughtful than the average person, and you're certainly causing less harm less suffering toward to animals than the average person on the street. So um, you know, it's it's a complicated it's a complicated thing. But I mean, you know, we're in terms of opposing factory farm you know where you know A long ways. When I when I see let's see the documentars on factory farms, and you see some of the even in some of the videos I've seen that you guys have produced, you just don't I don't feel I feel cheated, man. I feel like society wants to to cheat me and trick me, like it wants to present this reality that isn't true. I feel I don't know where it began. I haven't looked, but I don't feel as though the drive through with Chick fil A wants to present me with the reality. I feel like it wants to just sell me. It's wears and we were talking about it earlier. It seems silly to me to put a cartoon chicken on a bag with a dead chicken in it. I mean, it doesn't it seems silly. So I I just feel as you feel. I'm sure that is this a disingenuous nature to a way that our industries, factory farms and others present the reality of these situations, And and how could you be in that situation conveniently forget to make sure everyone understood that there's a dead chicken in that bag, you know, And so what's what's the rationale for that? I feel. I feel the rationale is more people will buy the chicken sandwich if they're not connecting it to a dead chicken. Yeah, it's I mean, you you just look at kind of like what's what's normalized around people? And they, you know, the same people if they saw what was going on inside a chicklay farms, they they'd be totally put off by it. And then you know, maybe that caused them to change or maybe they kind of forget about it a few hours later, and the whole the rest of the world is continues to to normalize it. So you end up with a lot of good people participating in some some bad stuff. Yeah, and there's there there there's a self destructive nature, I think, to humanity. And and we we have taken over the last part four decades, we've taken cigarettes and made them, you know, and out at them and said, look look at what this is. Cigarettes is not good for you. They are not good for you. The the the tobacco industry has been deceiving you intentionally for decades. But even then, even after all that, even after forcing them to put pictures of decaying lungs on their product, people are still hitting the hitting the sick in twenty nineteen. And so there's something about there's something about that intentional deception of the of of like an industry or industrial nature that is always going to work on on some people enough to make it worth it for that industry to deceive you. It seems. Um, you go to the line, you can see the line of Chick fil A's out the door, you know. Um, And so yeah, I mean that we agree on that all day. I my my values around animals are always shifting and changing, and I'm always having to go back and think about why am I killing this thing? What am I doing with it? How can I do that better? So I guess for for folks that are that are there and watching them watched this whole time, I would say that that part of why this podcast exists. And I think part of the new generation of hunters that I've seen, part of what we're trying to do is understand ethically and morally what we're doing. We're in generation generations before us that wasn't there as much. Honey was a thing we always did and it was accepted. I think now we're starting to question more. I think that leads to this conversation. Yeah, it's certainly good that those questions are being raised. And I think that you know, I mean, to me, there's so there's this question there that it's you know, what what what what what is this this trait of that that you know, we wouldn't we would never justify. You know, humans are overpopulated, and so we're going to you know, we're we're gonna we're just gonna just gonna shoot him down, like hey, this is all this is the best we can do. Whereby you know, that is what we say with animals and even look at um, you know, even people who who are who are putting a lot more thought into it than than than than most you know, most of the rest of the world is um. You know, there is this species is m where you're looking at them as an object, as a means of entertainment. I mean, you look at something like bow hunting in general, like even if we said like okay, let's just you know, grant, okay, they the best thing to do is to kill off these animals. You know, this animal right here, like you know why you do this bow hunting thing where you have like blood tracking and in many instances where you're like chasing down for days and it just seems like you're trying to like make this like fun little human game out of it, this human centered thing game out of it, instead of just saying like, Okay, if you've come to that place, which is a huge if that you have to kill these animals, you need to do it, and it is this most efficient way possible. Yeah, we talk about that a lot of the time. We talk about an argument, We talk about fair chase right. And I'm been open on this podcast in past episodes of talking about fair chase right? Is fair to fair to what? Like you know, there's there's there's a lot of oxymoronic things that go on with this this topic in general. And I will say before I get to that, we have archery seasons, so so more people can go hunting, they can hunt longer. Right with with archery tackle, your efficiency is going to be lower. And that's how state game agencies, state governments, and even the federal government get into how do we have an archery season than a muzzle older season, which is which is a less efficient firearm than a high powered center fire rifle. So we have different levels of hunting to allow for us to say, the state game agencies and and the state governments will go in and say, okay, Colorado, you can kill this many elk, and this unit, this many elk can this unit. They do that through population surveys and other things, harvest surveys from hunters as well, So they do those things, they identify how many elk they can kill, and then they allot those l per season. Right. So that's a human center. It's not it's all. No, I would say it's most definitely human center, but it's also animal centered. It's centered around We're not doing that because we like bows and we like guns. We're doing that because we do want the most hunting opportunity. We don't like Hunters don't see it the way that that you guys see it, so we don't see it as a bad thing. So we think more hunting opportunity the better, right, But there is I mean, and I've said this on this podcast in recent weeks, there is an issue with the hypothesis saying, hey, I want the meat. Well, if you want to me, why don't you just go get in the most efficient way possible. So I'm not I'm really probably not in a place just just totally disagree with you there. But at the same time we have there's a million things you can do as as a hunter in the experience of hunting before you get to the killing that doesn't seem to make sense or that doesn't seem to to get up to the killing part. And so what I argue generally is not fair chase. I'm not trying to be fair to the animal in my pursuit of the animal. I want to kill it as efficiently as humanly possible. In the pursuit of the animal, which is oftentimes a very hard thing to do, I'm thinking in different terms than when I get to the actual killing of it. I'm thinking, if I just wanted to kill animals, I would find animals on the side of the road and just shoot him and put them back in my truck, cut him up and eat him if that's all I was there to do. There's other benefits that I tellt that mean a lot to me, And as I said, that's humans. Those are human centered things. But at the end of the day, I can sit back and go, Okay, that question is is this thing I'm doing good? Right? It's good for me? Yes, Personally, it's good for me. It's great for me, and it has done things for my life that no one could understand. I imagine that that isn't that hasn't been with me for those experiences. So you have that part it has. It has been good for me, it's been good for my family. It's fed him a lot. Then they love it. Um has it done good for the animal? Yeah, I mean there's more wild turkeys, there's more elk, there's more deer, there's more Mallard ducks than than a hundred years. But I think that the whole like notion of like the further who his species is also a human centered because they think, again, the mallard duck doesn't think how many more Mallard ducks? I mean, why wouldn't they think how many more ducks? Why don't they how many more animals? Why wouldn't they you know, like the mallard duck. The individual mallard duck doesn't well yeah, yeah, the individual mallard duck doesn't. But that individual mallew duck also doesn't understand that it needs other mallard ducks. It needs nests, it needs wetlands, it needs the prairie pothole region. And we as humans, because we are different than the duck, can go and say, hey, what does that duck? We have organizations the Duck's Unlimited Um and Rocky Mount Nulk Foundation that are there to say, okay, what does that Even though I'm a hunter and I'm I'm out to when i'm hunting kill them, what can I do to make sure that we maintain this not just that individual duck. And again, I think this is where we will continue kind of bounce off each other. Not that individual duck. That individual duck matters, but it only matters as part of that whole because that because those species matter to the ecosystem, that ecosystem matters to the greater ecosystem. And if we can take care of those individual species and the individual habit that's in a way that we'll make a whole lot of sense, then we're gonna be will we just find these animals will be just fine, and we'll have taken the thing that enriches us, the human center part will have participated in that, but only if, if, and only if the human center part also benefits the greater population of animals. And that's that's that's I think the concept of hunting and we'll I think we know where we just don't line up there. Yeah, so so I think like that that's moving us in a good direction though, so it's not you know, the greatest goods. So basically like kind of this net sum of maximum kind of well being in happiness and minimum kind of suffering, whether that means zero mallards or a billion mallards, like whatever, that net sum is, like, that's what we're kind of after. And to me, um, you know again, it's just that it's always been the case that when you elevate the a class of individuals, you know, the rights of the individual within that that that the entire class of an individuals on the whole has been better off. So I don't see, you know an argument I mean, number one, an argument where it's not logically consistent to did you know, too, did we deny rights to humans that we don't give to other animals? And number two like why if we did do that, why it wouldn't follow the same results that we've seen with all these movements throughout history were like, you know, nobody's saying like, oh, we should go back and you know, remove rights from X, Y Z individual Like I don't see a world where we have animal personhood, where where there's just not a massive improvement in the overall well being of life on Earth. Like I said in the very beginning, like it's weighty for for any movement to change. I mean, this is a would be if twenty years from now we're animal personhood is a thing that would be a huge, huge sea change in our culture and society and our humanity. Uh, it would be, it would be monumental, will be probably one of the biggest changes in our species ever. Um. And so that's I mean, you know, I coul said, actually, be like prove that. But I don't want to do that. I don't I want to give the idea of the credence that I think it deserves, which is that that that there's a lot of people that believe that there's are people that that fight for it. And and to Joe's point, Joe and I talked about this all the time, and I talked about with all a lot of other people I believe, I truly believe humans are consumption engines, like most beings on this earth are consumption of ends. We were born into this world to consume things. There's nothing we can do about it, like if we if we stop consuming, we die. And so we know that, and we know that's the same for animals. We know that's the same for for most beings on this planet that they consume. And so I give all vegans of respect, and I would give you respect to the thing that like if if we're all looking at how we consume and we're being critical of it, and then I think that's that's that's being progressively good, like just saying I really got to figure out this consumption thing because I can't get around it. I can't stop consuming, but I could maybe better consume, you know, And I think generationally I want my kid to think like that. I went in to think, how can I better consume? How can I better treat animals? How can I better understand what animals are? What I am, my balance with them, except my argument where where we differ. My argument is hunting has helped me do that. But I could see how people would would wonder why that is um, and so I think my podcast and these conversations are just like a journey to be able to better articulate that. I think you challenging me in ways and me challenging you in ways will help us better articulate our beliefs later on. Then, Um, if, if, if this, and only if that and only that is what comes to this podcast, I think that's great. But I think probably more came from with than that. Yeah, absolutely cool. Well, I think, um, you know, I really want to elevate I think for your audience, for ours, Like I mean, in alignment in opposition to factory farming, is is something that that you know, i'd encourage people to get involved with. I think there's it's just undeniable that it's you know, frankly about it is unethical industry is could possibly exist animal agriculture, I mean, what's happening to animals, what it's doing the environment, even even to human health. Um, So I think that'd be a you know, I think for people to look into. Um yeah, I think that I think that is is big of an impact as that has in our world and who we are you better damn we'll be looking into it. You can't turn a blind eye to it, even if you don't agree with what Matt's saying. If you're like, yeah, but then you have a you have a bunch of retorts, and you think factory farming is useful and there's there's humane ways to do it. Yeah, I'm with you, okay, But you gotta look into it, man, You have to. You cannot turn away from it. You can't eat that bag of chicken and not be thinking about you can't. And and we all, we all have our things. Man, I like I said, I'll rip out a nice chicken sandwich and the airport like as good as anybody. But I'm always understanding of of I gotta get better. There's there's ways that I can consume that's better than this, and hunting has been one of hopefully the many vehicles for me to do that. But but but yeah, looking like you know, direct action everywhere, Like there's I watched all the videos, you know, I love the ones that we're on there. I watched them all because I just wanted to see, you know what in two and I will admit to having like meeting you guys and putting a face to your organization and putting a conversation and ideas to it has helped me not to like see those videos and we're gonna look at those extremists run around with chickens. It's like, it's not It's not that, man, it's not that. So those who are listening to this podcast that that may want to label Matt or or you know, those that are listening on d x c s the thing you want to label me. I would just encourage you to listen to the conversation's totality takes someone away from it. You go about your freaking day like you can learn something from this, I promise you, and you will be better for it. All right, all right, sounds great. Yeah, if you for anybody who's listening out there, direct Action everywhere dot Com, direct actually every on Facebook, definitely give it a look and I will certainly tag you in our stuff and get that promo going too. Awesome, brother, all right, thanks so much man, Thank you, Matt. I guess a cool up on an all day row. That's it. That's all another episode in the books, in fact, this time number seventy. Thank you to Matt Johnson and all his colleagues. That direct Action everywhere we covered kind of the reaction to and the results of the conversation. Like I said, there was parts that disappointed me, there was parts that were very enlightening. Um, it's a complicated situation and it's something that I'll continue to want to dive into just just because it's challenging. And again, what's what's it worth having ideas that you feel strongly about if you're not willing to test them on on on folks like Matt who think really the opposite of how I think, and their worldviews are indirect um conflict with mine. So I was driving away in their old rental car on the highway in Berkeley, California after the interview, just doing one of those damn it, I should have said this. Damn it, I should have said that. But I really, in retrospect think that was good for me and it was a good way to better articulate things that I might not have been able to before. I said that with Matt. So very very thankful to those guys to having that conversation and speaking on what they believe, because they believe it very firmly. What else, Oh, the meat eater dot com has a store. You should go to it. As always I probably say it every podcast, which would definitely go there and should get the Aldo Freaking Leopold shirt. You should get the pro Nuance, the anti bullshit t that's there, and there's some other hats. There's the yetty rambler with the Hunt Collective logo. There's lots of stuff there that you can go and check out, so please do it would be very much appreciate. On this end, and next week we're gonna be joined by vegan philosopher Robert C. Jones. You can see him on Stars in the Sky, the documentary by Steve and Ronnella, and then you and hear him on this podcast. It's another really good conversation, very very very very interesting, and I enjoyed him very much. So we'll see you next week. We'll leave you with old number seven by using your eyes off. Thank you, Jack Daniels. Oh number seven, Tennessee whiskey got me dragging in heaven and uh and just stopped to look good to me. They're gonna have to department to the far red, to the fire red, getting in the far drag in heaven.