00:00:00 Speaker 1: Oh hey, everybody, and that's the Hunty Collective. Another week, another show, episode seventy one this time, and we're gonna start you off with a little behind the scenes, a little life and time to fill the engineer. There's been a big movement around the country to keep Phil on the podcast, so I figured, if we're gonna people are gonna be hashtagging my boy Phil, we better find out more about what he thinks about things including peas, Game of Thrones, and other really interesting items. And then we're going to once again transport ourselves to Berkeley, California, where we're gonna hear from a vegan professor philosophy, Robert C. Jones, and learn about what he thinks about hunting, about ethical veganism as he calls it, and some of his greater philosophies. It is a long, deep, and awesome conversation, so stick around for that. But before we get to that, it is summertime, and if you there's part of this podcast coming up where we talk about a certain sparkly beverage that I've come to be a real big fan of. And the perfect cooler to put in put that sparkly beverage in is the brand new day Trip lunch bag by Eddie. Now, you guys all know that I have a long history with the Eddie. I love their products, I love their people, I love their company. You might ask eighty dollars for a lunch bag. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm telling you, man if but you get over the sticker on this. I mean, this is one of the more the least expensive YETI products out there. It's a great way to have YETI with you all the time. And for as a father who is running to all kinds of swim camps and bike camps, and running my kid to the river to go fishing, taking him on road trips to spot elk and and doing it just everything with my little guy, this is the perfect thing to have with me because he likes he likes water, he likes juice, he likes milk, and so do I all the things, and so it's it's it's a great product for that reason, and it's a product I would recommend. So go to eddie dot com and check it out. So, without further ado, Episode seventy one, let's go. I guess I grew up on an older road. A ped'll do the medal. I always did what I've told until I found out that my brand new glows the game sec in hand from the rich kids next door. And I grew up baths. 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 want to do a real bad dream or being a like I'm coming apart of it seems. But thank you, Jack Daniels, Oh No. Seven, Tennessee. Who Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Hunting Collective. I am, of course, Ben O'Brien, and I am joined by Phill the Engineer. Hey do Ben, it's good now, Phil. We got a lot to talk about. I'm excited to hear this, a lot to talk about. You have been a recurring guest for how many weeks? Now we're like four weeks. I think this is number four, and there's a little bit of a movement afoot hashtag keep Phil. I saw that pop up a couple of places. A lot of people were um giving you props for the way you handled the public versus private land conversation as well as the way that you handled the animal rights conversation. Yeah, well, I can tell you my secret. My secret is to let the people who have way more knowledge and experience about these topics to talk for thirty minutes and then I come in. Yeah, no, no, I say one vaguely intelligent things like generalized, generalize, I I and then people applauded. I say, yes, that's my whole career point. I'm just kind of like, yes, a great point, fell oh expert, That's that's how I roll. Um. But anyway, you're you know, like the movement to keep Phil is strong, and we're gonna I never I don't think I ever suggest that we wouldn't keep Phil, or maybe I did, but I think the first episode was a little rocky. I think there was an insinuation that maybe I would be around. Well, now I'm turning the heat up on you, Phil. Great. Now, there's no one else to except for me to do any talking. We don't need Ryan Callahan or Steve Ranella, who are these whatever? Whatever? No, No, don't need Yannis, but tulis in here, yucking it up. Just me and Phil, just me and Phil. Now, this is gonna be a long episode because the interview with Robert C. Jones Vegan philosopher vegan. Uh, he's not a vegan professor. He's a professor of philosophy but also a vegan, and he teaches classes about veganism and ethical veganism, has written some papers on the subject. He's going to be our guest. I will say before we get any anything else, that I really enjoyed this conversation man likes as much as I've enjoyed any other conversation I've had with anyone really on this podcast, Maybe because I was coming off of a very confusing time that I spent with manimal rights activists from episode seventy. So if you haven't listened to that, please go back. Listen to episode seventy. Hit pause right now, Phil and I will take a break and let's you do that, all right. Welcome back. That's a long break, Yeah, welcome back. Uh. You've now listened to episode seventy with Matt Johnson from Direct Action Everywhere, and know that I kind of left that one confused, a little bit, a little taken aback by some of the points made. Some of the assertions around human slavery and animal rights, some of the assertions around disabled humans and animal rights left me a little bit taken aback UM and wondering if I was doing the right thing and highlighting those ideas I left. I will say that I left that podcast thinking exactly that it was that is just the right thing to do to let someone like that have my platform to espouse those ideas. But luckily, the next day I met with Robert C. Jones, who you're about to hear soon, and he helped me get through some of the issues I had and I came to a better place. And I think this to our conversation with Robert Jones was about as productive as they come between a hunter and a vegan, and hopefully you'll think the same thing. So we'll get to that in a little bit, but before we do, I got a couple of emails that came in regarding that last podcast. UM. One of them just says it's from Demetrius man as SR. He said in regards to the point made that we give disabled people rights that they don't understand, and why wouldn't we do the same for animals, I think we could offer a counterpoint that the disabled humans will typically have a caregiver or family member that does understand those rights. There is not another animal that will understand what those rights are and dictate them or champion for that animal. Just my two cents. Thanks for all you do. Demetrius from Ohio. Yeah, that's fine. What do you think about that, Phil? I think that solves that problem. Uh, solve it. I mean it's like, it's a good point that I don't think was was raised last week. But yeah, it's just more to chew on. Yeah, I think it's a yeah, yeah, it's it's there's there's again. I think part of the reason why I was made uncomfortable that because there is really no logical way to dance through that that idea. I haven't. I've thought about it a lot since that conversation. I hadn't thought about it at all coming into it. And so now one of the good, um, one of the good things about the conversation, Matt Johns was I was able to think through that assertion and I still have. I I see no validity in it. I just don't. So we'll move on from it. Another guy, Dennis White wrote in and he was and he said, Hey, Ben, I was really looking forward to this episode, and when you announced that you were going to talk with someone from that world, I just finished it, and I was honestly a little let down. I think his answers were just cookie cutter responses that he has followed away in his brain just to use them against any argument, any time with anyone. If he compared animal race to slavery one more time, I was going to jump out of my skin. I don't remember a response that he gave that didn't involve slavery. In the end, the mental gymnastics that man has to play just to make a point with little or no credence must be extremely exhausting. I don't know he goes. I can feel that frustration, and I think a lot of folks that wrote in voiced that around that podcast. But but at least now we know kind of where someone like Matt Johnson is coming from, and we can work through the things we agree with and the things we don't. So we'll leave that behind and we'll look forward to Robert C. Jones. But before we do, we're gonna find We're gonna find a little bit about Phil, the mysterious man behind the keyboard, or it's not that's not really keyboard, is it? Phil? What is? What would you call that? That is a mixing a mixing board, a mixing board. Yes, And if there's gonna be a movement around someone, then we gotta we gotta know who they are. So Phil, we're gonna go through your entire list story to your entire life story. All right, I've been preparing my whole life. Where were you born? I was born in a in a city outside of Portland, Oregon, that's actually in Washington State called Vancouver. Whoa hot bed for hot bed for undercover animal rights access it. Yeah, but vegan butcher shops and the like. When you mentioned in Portland, that's like the woke capital of the world. And so maybe are you Maybe we just discovered the real reason you're here. Uh okay, this is where I grabbed the microphones in the mixing board, scream something, scream something about it slavery, slavery, and you run away. All right, Well that's playing out your childhood went over there in Oregon or Washington, Washington. Yeah. The reason I related to Portland is because whenever I say Vancouver, people automatically assume Vancouver, British Columbia, which is the bigger, the bigger city. But Vancouver, Washington, it's a it's a nice little suburban area. It was like relatively um quaint childhood. No, yeah, man, I yeah. I went to school there, came to school, uh college, and in Bozeman, went to the film school out here. Um and uh yeah. I worked in television after that for almost six years. And now I'm now I'm here and I've been lucky enough to be using my film degree in Montana, which is that just kind of rare? Most most of my friends fled to New York or l A or the like. Okay, film out of the important stuff. Okay, ready you like pas? Yeah? What what kind we're talking? Snap, we're talking just kind of like an ushy These are good? All right? That's a strike against you running thing. Are you aware, Phil? If you're gonna be a part of the show, you should be aware that I have a I don't say I hate peas. Where did this come from? Who are you? Yes? Showed me show me on the pod where the hurt you? Um? Listen, there's a thing called Shepherd's pie. You ever had that? I enjoy Shepherd's Have you ever had Shepherd's pie with a P in it? It's like a little it's just like a ruinous little green ball that comes out. You find it to be delightful. It's very delightful. I do not. I find the Shepherd's pies like my favorite thing. And I never understood why. There was like some bites I enjoyed a lot, and then other bites I thought, well, this is am I eating garbage? Am I eating poison? And then other bites would be like, this is the best thing I ever had. And I realized the bites without the peas where the bites that I enjoyed, and the bites with the piece for the pies I did not enjoy. Now there's been some people right in uh a feller named Simon Lester. That's his Instagram handle. At least is it chating me because he's like in the p industry, we're friends with pea farmers that I'm like ruining their lagoon love or like there they profit from it, and also says there's good deer hunting on pea farms around the country. So okay, maybe I've been proven wrong. But doesn't make me like peas anymore? Is it? Is it a texture, a taste, a combination, all all of it? You hate all of it, all of it. The only thing that I don't hate is the color green, but when applied to peas, I hate the color green. That's a shame. I feel like the specific shade of green that you know is a part of the pea is it's it's bright looks, it looks nutritious and delicious, and I would say that it's both. Oh my god. All right, Well, moving on. So you know we're in a peak Canary right now. Yeah, there is an entire festival in Bozeman that is named after the p unbelievable. So I think you're in the wrong city. It's misguided. I mean, for sure we could agree on that, right Phil, Nope, Nope, can agree on that. Okay, Um, bald eagle or wild turkey? Which one would you choose? Bald eagle? Well? Are we talking about eating not eating? No? Just in general, Like if I put two things beside you, you would choose the bald eagle. Okay, that's fine. Are you pro or anti apple pie? Very pro? Boy? Wow, I think I'm over four. What's going on? You don't? But you don't think that like apple pie is overrated? I mean, I just are you just eating like off the shelf grocery store apple pies. If you know, I've had a lot of homemade apple pies and I just don't feel. Man, you get that all the mode, and you don't you know, you get the perfect and that is delicious. But I don't mind all the mode. But I do mind apple pie, like apple pie is being built up as like this American tradition. No I don't. I don't. I don't buy into that. I don't be Americans apple pie now, but it's a I think it's a very good dessert. Let me put a few other pies out there for you. Okay, Rhubarb pie not as good as apple? Oh my? Oh alright? Uh, cherry pie not as good as apple. Oh ah. I'm just thrown off now because this is not going well. I will tell you I like the like like a key lime. Yes, better than apple. Good? Good. There we finally feel something. There we go. You're a taste maker, Phil. Uh. Let's see what else I got. I'm just coming up stuff off the flying that you like cheesecake. I do. Are your listeners enjoying this conversation? Okay, Phil, here's another guy that wrote in I'll find it on Instagram. But you send me a message and it was one of the more interesting messages he was. And then the question just basically was do you consider your listeners when you're making a podcast? I was. I think this conversation answers that question. I mean, yeah, I consider that they're there. But do I always just do? Sometimes I go off onto terrible, weird rabbit holes. But I think that's respectable. And I think you know the your your your true fan base will appreciate that you know you're not catering to them. They come to you because what you do get what I want to talk about. Here we go, Um, okay, what do you drive? Phil? I drive a two five Honda Pilot? Al right, shout out the Honda. Yeah sponsor us uh wait, hold on, speaking of sponsors, the trans that she lined up. That's why speaking of sponsors, we're gonna close this this part of the show out before we get to Robert C. Jones and this this this Roberts Jones. The reason why I wanted to talk about peas and apple pie and what we're about to talk about because the Robbers Jones interview gets deep as you would imagine me and a philosopher for professional philosopher own veganism might get it got real conceptional and real deep. So we gotta I want to give you guys a little bit of candy before your vegetables. Here peace peace. Um. There's this product out there in the lexicon of sparkly drinks called white Claw. And now it was maybe about three weeks ago. I had no idea what white claw was. I knew that there was a billboard outside of Bowsman that had white Claw, and there was like a I think it was like a real nice looking young lady looking happy. She was looking really, I'm in fit tan happy. It sounds like an advertisement. Yeah, And I thought up, m hmm, maybe if I drank that I could be fit, tann and happy. And so I was at a buddy's house. His name's Omar, and he started whipping out these white claws. And there's a myriad of flavors. I don't know how many flavors are a white claw endless. They're adding new ones every day or so I hear. And I think if I might have been sitting around a fire when I first put my lips on this, I mean, just astonishingly tasty beverage that is known as white Claw. Well do you do you want to explain to the listeners what white Claw is if they haven't, I haven't had the pleasure. Again, I don't really if they look it up, I've got time to explain everything to you. But now, white Claw is a drink, is a beverage. Um, let me just look up. Let me just go to its website. Because I don't know a lot about I'm not gonna lie. I only know that it's delicious and refreshing on a hot summer's day. It is what the industry calls a spiked seltzer, I think is the term. This is being thrown around hard Seltzer. Hard Seltzer made pure. That's five percent alcohol bi volume, which is more than four and less than six hundred calories I think per thing, and only two grams of carbs, which is what I want out of my booze. Um. So that's that's it. I mean, it's and it's uh, it tastes like a little taste like alcohol water. It's yeah, it's like a Lacroix with a little a little a little friendly handshake. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's like how would you yeah, so like, how would you describe it? Well, it's you know, it's yeah, it's like that Lacroix Seltzer water type. You know, it's completely it's there's no sugar, well besides the alcohol, there's no added sugar or anything like that. Um, it's not flavored, naturally flavored essenced Uh, you know, just trying to watch the calories. I think it's a good option the hot summer's day. Uh, I am. I haven't told you this yet. I am actually a very big white cloth fan as well. I am a proponent. I think this is a good product. This is it's a great product. It's a great product because there are so many now, so many different brands are and you know, companies are making their own version. You know, actually like big craft breweries are making their own hard selters now because beer isn't selling as well, and so like a local big Sky brewery Ada, Missoula, just started making making their own version. It's it's it's hot, it's popular. Yeah. I was told a couple of times I was posting a lot on the internet about white clothes trying to get sponsored. They didn't, I mean they didn't yet. They haven't yet. Maybe they'll hear this. They haven't yet responded to my many d ms on Instagram. Okay are you are you verified on Instagram? Do you have that little blue checkmark? I think that might help you out? Do you think so? Yeah? I think so. I think you could get verified? You think so? Yeah? Have you have? You We don't have to you don't have to talk about it, but I think you should try to get verified. And I think white Cloud would be much more. I had to check who they like, who is this check marked fellow? I think they would be crestfallen. They's like, oh no, he's not worth the crap a you're worth the check or they would they probably don't even look. You know, there's so much competition. I think they'd take the advertising. I think they'd take this thing. So yeah, all right, well listen guys, I'm gonna bleach my hair start wearing some pastel colors. M I feel like that would go appropriately with my white claw. C Yeah, some like Sperry like get that yacht look going. I think, yeah, the white Claw is kind of like the yacht of well, it has a whole water theme. I think a white claw that's like a name of a kind of wave. Right, It's get that white Cap white Claws. Look at their label. Hey, you've you've enlightened me. I've you know, all no laws when you're drinking claws man there, see look at that. Why aren't they paying you already? Anyway, we've we've digressed way far away. Anyway, if you're listening to this and you are happy to be employed at a little company called white Claw, hit me up t C at the media dot Com. We'd love to discuss a sponsorship package that includes me get my hands on a bunch of free white Claw. Yeah. And I think since I was a guest on this episode where you, um, there would be I mean, were you introduced this idea, there would clearly be some overflow. That's all your position. Now we could get a little white Claw fridge to go underneath your board over there in the podcast studio. Uh yes, or even just on tap maybe. Oh why do they do that? We should say, like we're under extreme conditions here at Meat Eater. The podcast studio is about five degrees right now. I could go on for another twenty minutes about the the adventures that that I've been going through to um make this podcast studio you know, sound proof, sound friendly and A lot of that has to do with the h VAC air conditioning system, which right now is pumping out way too much cold air. Oh, I got an idea where crowdsource. Okay, here we go. We got we got an h VAC. If we have any h VAC professionals and or um insulation professionals and or park A companies out there listening, we could use help in all those categories. Because it is like, I'm of course wearing flip flops? Are you bring I'm not? No, No, you're wearing sweet? What kind of shoes are you wearing? That could also be part of the you know, they're just like like a trail running shoe. Um, I don't who makes them. You don't even know. I don't even know. Let let's see this is this is the problem here. They look well worn, Phil, I've used them a lot UM's definitely exercising New Balance a lot um. You can any we We'll just say they're New Balance shoutouts they are. They are not sponsor us. If we get sponsored by New Balance and white Cloth, dude, we would be the new Jobs. Buddy. I feel like he's he's kind of the perpetual New Balance sponsor even in the afterlife. All right, here we go. Um, anything else I missed? No? Um? Uh you know, just for future reference. You know, uh, I know you talk about Game of Thrones on this show, even though yeah, the show is over. I heard a story about you trying to explain it to Steve and then him being almost offended. He just didn't even doesn't like serial dramas, didn't understand the dragons. No, but if you ever want to go into a throne's deep dive on this show, I've been asked several times. I've been asked several times since that episode because people don't always listen every week, so they'll like catching up. They'll be like five weeks behind. Did you comment on the ending of Game of Thrones? I say no, because it was terrible. I mean maybe the worst, Like the last two seasons were just not they were terrible television. I mean just the writing just went off the rails that the acting went all the rails, proc the actors were reading the reading the scripts, like what am I happy to? What do I have to say now? Like the last episode was just I thought I read a spoiler of that last episode and I thought it was a joke. I thought, well, that's not, that's not They're not gonna do that brand as the King are you talking about? Didn't you hear Terry and he has a good story. That's like some ridiculous Hollywood writer that had to save the crappy storyline. Uh well, see, here's the thing. He doesn't even have a good story. He was one whole season the show. He wasn't even in uh huh what he was underground, wheeling towards the learning about he's becoming. I don't know if you heard he's the three eyed raven. Now wells like you will never walk again, but you will fly. I'm thinking this two is gonna be work into a Dragon. No, didn't work into a dragon or into a raven and just watched the Battle of which watched here's a share. The last season had many problems. I am not. I did not spies it. I think it had good moments. Of course it did that were overall. Of course it did plagued. Yeah, that's a condensed last two seasons. I think if they would have honestly stretched it out, Phil, that's like saying, well, my car drives most of the time, but it broke down six times last week. It's there's so many big, huge, fat problems. I'm not gonna argue, but this this could go on a while, Yeah, it could. We may, we may come back to this. We gotta get to we gotta go to Berkeley, we gotta get to Robert C. Jones. Again. This is a big time commitment, folks. You're gonna be with us for another two hours. So um, I'm not apologizing for that, but just get get prepared. Maybe take a break after this segment is over. Crack a white claw, crack a white claw. Get cozy by the fire. If there's a beach around, go to the beach, sit and get one of those chase lounges. Get in there. Um, I get ready because this is going to get If you thought last week, if he's at last week was a deep and interesting conversation about kind of the ideological differences between animal rights slash vegan folks and US hunters, this one is much much deeper. And again I'll say before we get to it that Robert Jones, I hope we can do more with him. I would take this conversation we had on the road, um and let anyone hear it live record, it doesn't matter. I think it's an important one. I think he is a pretty open minded guy. And and he did he compliment. He called me brilliant one time in the podcast. That's probably why I like him so much. And so, UM, I really hope you enjoy it. I really enjoyed it. I hope to have Robert back, but until then, enjoy this two hours Vegan the Hunter in Berkeley, California. I guess I grew up on an alder road. Robert, how's it going, Hey, Vn's good to see it, good to be here. Yeah, it's good to meet you too. I have been reading a lot about you and watching some of your videos and and going deep into the category of veganism. And we were just talking before we hit record. I'm I'm fresh off the heels of an interview with Matt Johnson from Direct Action Everywhere. Learning about species is m and learning about um animal personhood, things of that nature. So my my mind is let's forgive me, my mind is spinning right now. UM. But I do, as we were saying before, I do very much want to learn about these things that I haven't open curiosity. There's absolutely nothing about me being a hunter in a mediator that makes me want to know less about this or fight against it. I'm I have a legitimate, open curiosity about what you do and what Matt does. So before we get going, give us a quick rundown of of your background, um in both philosophy and then also veganism as it were. Well, I can tell you, and the short version of the story is that I know I grew up in a basic, basic American household, meet three times a day. And um, my mother, she would always tease me because after I became vegan, she would say to me, I remember when you were a teenager and I didn't serve meat at a at a meal, and you would say, I would say to her, mom, this isn't a real meal. You're supposed to have meat at a meal. So I so, now, of course she would now she looks at me, but um, yeah, So I grew up in that, you know, basic American lifestyle, grow growing up on the East Coast in Philly, and then I moved to um To l A. And I had a friend who worked at a natural food store. And the first thing that happened was he showed me a little brochure of a veal crate. You and I eat a lot of veal because that was somewhat part of my food, the old cut lance reveal Scalapini called. My mother was Italian, so um. So I was like, oh, I had no idea. They put these little things in little creates, and so that sort of planted a seed in my head. And I was like, oh man, I kind of feel bad, like I don't know if I could eat view anymore. So that was the first exposure. And then I read a book called Diet for a New America written by John Robbins. I don't know if you know John Robins. John Robbins, he was the heir to the Baskin Robbins ice cream throne. His father and his uncle started basking Robbins, and at some point in his development he decided to be a vegan and animal rights person, and he he actually renounced. He turned down the family business and moved to Hawaiian and grew plants. But anyway, he wrote a book called Diet for New America, and and really I had one of those like Road to Damascus moments, like the scales fell from my eyes. I read this book in like two days. It just laid out like, here's the animal rights argument, here's the environmental argument, here's the all of the argument. And I just I was it. I was just like, this makes perfect sense. I don't want to cause unnecessary suffering. I want to decrease it. And I just on the spot kind of became a vegan. Yeah, how old were you then? It's in my twenties, the early twenties. Yeah, And I think we're talking about again before we recorded that there is there is this idea that that that I want to fight against that all, you know, like you kind of fringe, you assign that fringe motive to all the thing you don't agree with. And I think it's good to hear your story and other stories about how you came to this, to one you know what it's like to eat, mean, you understand what it tastes like. You didn't. You didn't grow up in a liberal incubator in l A. And Jane and Jane Fonda is not your your mother, so like she did sit in our tank a few times outside the house. Well, well you know, let's see thats reaffirms at all vegans, No Jane Fonda, but yeah, I mean for us, I wanted to set that up. You know who you are and how you came to what you believe, because I feel very strongly that my path came to my passion a certain way, and you you came in your own You got to your passion in your own way. Um, and your and your studies in your own way. So I mean it's it's it's critical to that, to that understanding your story is critical. I think for hunters to understand, well, I have hunted too as a teenager. As a teenager, I hunted just locally in Pennsylvan. You know Pennsylvania obviously, hold on a second, Oh yeah, yeah, you take a drink of water. Believe it in me, Like the vegan guy can't. He's unhealthy throat his drive because he doesn't have twelve So you know, as you know, Pennsylvania's a hunting state, and I grew up, Um, you know, people would go up to like Scranton and they would go hunting, and deer hunting is a big, big deal. And um so I did I've actually killed animals with a gun? Yeah, so mm hmm. I mean I do feel bad about it now when I think about it, as a little innocent I just they were just lit. They were like sitting ducks. They had no idea that I was ready to kill them. And so but I was doing it as a teenager where I was like it was fun, like I got I got a certain kind of gratification from it. So I do have that in my background as far as what happened with me, Like how did I end up, say, being a professor who's writing, you know, professional philosophy on animal rights after I did that whole you know, kind of vegan thing. I read that book. Then I started to Then I discovered that there was actually there were there were philosophical arguments that would undergird these beliefs. So rather than saying something like, you know, animals are like you and they have rights and stuff, when I started to dig deep into it, and I started to read sort of the classics, which would be Peter Singer Animal Liberation and Tom Reagan The Case for Animal Rights. Then I started it into like the nitty gritty because I've always kind of been analytical. And so then I went to graduate school and I, um, I just want to get a master's. But my professors, they they encouraged me to do the PhD thing, and you know, I'm a blue collar guy. I applied to a bunch of schools and I got a phone call one day from Stanford saying You're in, you know, the PhD program. And I was like, I was like, wait, I know there's a lot of Robert Jones, isn't Maybe there's another Robert Jones. There was no way I did it. So that was like they made me an offer I couldn't refuse. So when I went there, I you know, animal rights in the even in the in the world of philosophy, it's itself fringe. There's not a lot of philosophers who do this work. I mean, there's more now, but this was in nine nine years is and this is all It's like I got accepted to you know, it's like twenty nineteen years ago. So so what I'm getting at is that um is that at the time, I thought, I'm just gonna write my dissertation. My dissertation is called the Moral Significance of Animal Cognition. So I really got into like the moral the relationship between cognitive properties of non humans and how we value them. That was something I got really obsessed with. But what I decided was I thought, there's no one whoever went to Stanford in the philosophy department who did animal rights. So I'm going to be that person. And I'm going to use the cash of you know, West Coast Ivy to kind of legitimate in a certain way aspects of animal rights. So so that's how that's so I've been doing that now for you know, I've got this job in two thousand and eight, so it's been eleven years since i've been you know, quote professional philosopher. And yeah, it's I mean, I I think there's a lot there. I think I think the issue of the moral sort of the moral status of non human animals, it's a really complicated issue. It's super complicated, and I think, you know, I'm drawn to those complicated issues. I think that's where the meat of our humanity and like the things that we're really tugging at us, even as yeah, I'm just trying to make you squirm tofu kill stuff too. We'll get there and get there. Um. I just think these issues are you know, I'll keep saying the meaty and and that's where like, that's where we can really get to the things that tug at us philosophically. I feel at least there's a lot of things that tugg at meat philosophically about hunting, and I'm just n abashed at trying to explore them. Just happen to do it in the public forum. But I mean there's really if I were to sit down and be like, what, you know, what worries me about hunting personally intrinsically? What what is it that that just just makes me ache? And it's just like, boy man, this thing is it's my it's the industry I'm in, it's the lifestyle I've chosen. It's the thing I'm most passionate about. Is the thing I think the most about, and it involves killing things and ripping their guts out. And so is that you know, historically, if I look at the span of history in thirty years, if we can look back at me and be like, what was this guy doing? Um? So that talks to me and I'm not you know, I'm open about it. I'm not ashamed of that. It's like probably should because if I'm going to do something as serious as go out into the you know, go out into the woods and find an animal to pick the animal, I'd like to kill go and kill it and then dismember and bring it home and feed to my family. That's a pretty complex and serious thing to go and do. It's not it's not a bike ride, you know. It's a pretty three dimensional kind of like way to to way to like recreate or to to to find joy in the world. So it's something that I that talks at me, and I think that's probably like we probably have this same kind of quandaries within within our consumption, within the what we're really involved. Then it's just like you look at the world and like, I got some problems with this. How can I solve those problems? Um? And I think that's where most vegans, I don't know about you, most vegans and me kind of a line like we're just there's we see the issues with consumption and the human engine that we are, and we're trying to solve those things. Yeah, do you think so? I read I want to talk about that. We'll probably talk about this forever, But I read veganism as an aspiration, and I was like clapping during most of it because I think I think what I'd like to do is first set up what most hunters are most folks might think about vegans and and and veganism, veganism as an aspiration. You knock a lot of those right over, like, at least in my opinion, you do. Um, So give us your like the two forms of veganism that you can see there to be there are two different ways that people can conceive of veganism. Yeah, so in that paper, and I want to say I I co authored that with Lori Gruin. Yes, she's she's a uh, one of the giants in the in the world of animal way and I owe her a lot for that. Um. But actually I've I've since developed that idea a little bit more. Nay, it's been a while, I should say that. I'm sure there's there's lots of Yeah, I've developed some stuff. But basically the way I was, the way that I conceived of veganism, the way that Lori and I conceived of it, and then I've been thinking more about it is so let me ben, let me just say first of all that it's so I feel like I've kind of gone around the circle on this. I've gone around the wheel. And what I mean by that is when people say, like, do I identify as a vegan because of the way that the term and the concept vegan has sort of traveled through the culture. It's almost like I distanced myself these days because veganism, in many ways, and I talked about it in the paper you're talking about, veganism is in some ways well, first of all, veganism, at least today in in popular culture, it's about It's about food choices, right, It's about the choices you you make when you when you go to purchase food or make food. And in many ways it's divorced from the issue of justice. And I see quote animal rights or animal ethics issues as it as a social justice issue about non human animals. And so I'm reluctant to use veganism interchangeably with animal justice or animal ethics because you know, Beyonce's a vegan, and all these people are vegan and they eat plant based foods, and so what I argue in that paper is, you know, you can think of yourself what I call like identity vegan or lifestyle vegans. So there are there are vegans. I mean, I don't know that this is not scientific by any means, but there is a stigma attached to vegans where people think that vegans are kind of zealous, self righteous kinds of people, and they think I'm holier than now, and I sort of I have clean hands because I don't consume any animal products. I don't wear leather, I don't eat honey, I don't use wool, I don't write and and and I know all this stuff because I lived it. Right, So it says in the papers that these vegans have an air of moral certitude and moral superiit artye, So so there's a certain, whether it be factual or not, at least there's a certain caricature of vegans that they have a kind of moral superiority. And I was at at the butcher's son shout out to the how did you like it there? It was good? What did you well? I'm curious, I'm so curious. What did you What is your order? I had? Uh, hopefully you can give me some more like some more dope on what's really going on there. I had the chicken grinder, which is a is a nice sandwich with some kind of chicken for sims. Suddenly they're like, whatever that was? I didn't really, I didn't have time. I was like, I gotta eat lunch and we gotta go over recorded podcast. I don't have really time to take this menu and kind of like, but I took a picture of the menu, said go back and look at the ingredients and kind of break down what was what. But it was good. I would eat there every day. Ain't problem with that. I just why did they We're gonna go, We'll go down this rabbit hole because we should. Why do they Why do they say chicken though, like I didn't anything. I understand. Why would you Why would you say that it's chicken when it's not. I don't understand. And they also said, like much like you're saying, we don't like the term vegan. When I was talking to the cashier's like, yeah, we don't really we say vegan. It's in there, but we don't really like to say it anymore. It's plant based, That's what he was saying, and much the same the much the same way you're saying it, and I think plant based, and I'll I want to go back. I want to go back to that issue about this where they say chicken and and the butcher's son, I mean, I I don't know if people who are listening to the podcast but your son is a fully vegan Delhi in Berkeley, and I don't know if it was when you were there. Every time I've been there, it's it's a pretty pack. You can get a table. And in fact, the guy that the folks I was with from direct action everywhere, they were like, this is the this is the slowest we've seen it. It's good, and it's it's all I care about good food. It's good. It's great food. To me. I just was like a bit like, why we just tell me what's in it? I want to know what I'm eating. It's not chicken, I know that, So I just like to know if it's a wheat based you know, like shred or whatever it is. I just like to know that. I don't don't You're not tricking me, but what you are doing is confusing me. I think I think we're going This is a good point I had you brought up there, the plant based thing, because this touches on exactly what I was talking about, and that you know, within the vegan movement there is like the plant based. Now, when you say plant based, usually not always, but usually what that implies is that I'm a vegan for these reasons. Um, it's not so much focus, say on animal justice issues as much. And it can be they overlap, there's a lot of overlap, but it's it's it's more about perhaps maybe health reasons, or it could be something like environmental reasons, environmental degradation, and and it's associated with or I should say factory industrial produce, agriculture and environmental degradation. So plant based for me, if if you looked at my diet, if you just said, Robert, write down everything you eat for a week, it would look like a plant based person. But I personally, I feel like my cause is a political cause. It's a social justice cause. It's not about diet, right, so so so going back to our original questions, So and I really what I don't ben, what I definitely don't want to do is come on this podcast and pile on vegans and because they're already demonized enough. But what I want to say is the version of veganism that I advocate for, and I'm writing on it now. I'm actually I've been struggling with writing this book for a year, which is which is thinking about the social justice aspects of of this issue. But um, veganism as as a liberation movement, not so much as a food movement. Right, So veganism as a political stance rejecting things like uh, corporate consumer capitalism, and environmental degradation, all these things are all tied together human health issues. So the picture is very big if you're a vegan. And I mentioned this all the time when I give these talks, like let's say you're a vegan, and by vegan, what you mean is that you do not consume and I mean that literally and figuratively with regard to say, purchasing, you don't consume animal products. So you might think I'm I've removed myself from the cycle of suffering, right, because I don't. I'm not causing any offering. However, let's say you, for example, you go to Walmart and you buy a cotton T shirt because it's cheap, and that cotton. To produce the cotton is really environmentally it takes a lot of resources to produce cotton. And then there might be a young a young girl who's inn Indonesia making you know, crap wages um to produce that that clothing under this kind of you know, um, global corporate capitalist economy, and so if you think that withholding your you're voting with your dollars. If you're voting, you're saying I'm gonna I'm gonna avoid suffering. Because most vegans who are ethical vegans, and I don't mean I mean non like health plant based versions, I mean of veganism. But most people who say if I say to you, why are you a vegan, and you say because I don't want to cause unnecessary suffering. So there's an implication that by refraining from eating animal products, I'm decreasing the suffering in the world. But all of our purchases. This is what I say, And I think that's the paper where I say, I say, we all have blood on our hands. Yeah, there's have some great quotes in here and some things like that. That's where I'm reading them. Like, look, I think I think conceptually veganism is great, Like i'm I'm I think it's a if it's it's like, it's a choice, is the thing I want to do. Conceptually, it's great because it's you are metering or limiting in some way your impact on the world, and you're doing it for altruistic reasons. But the big argument that I've always that most people, most even ford facing folks that I know, you're like, listen, you can't your your hands aren't your hands aren't clean, they just aren't, you know, and you look at like say, oh, keenwa, right, was mostly produced in the Andes. I mean there's when the when there's more higher demand for keena, the price goes up for the that are using it and eating it where they are, you know. Mexican avocados is another great example of like, you know, the more demand from Exicano avocados raise the prices and screws with a lot of things, right, and deforestation comes from people like I'm I gotta prove more avocados. Let's just get rid of this far at and so there is there's just this this acknowledgement of that is a good Like when I was reading through that, I'm like, this acknowledgement helps to mitigate almost everything, almost everything we disagree on, at least the core basic issues. I think most hunters are, most meat eaters have with the It's like the moral superiority thing is just that's where I get off the bus, you know, That's where most that's I think that's where most folks get off the bus. So if you could start the conversation by saying, yeah, we get it. We had a lot, a lot of things to figure out here, but this is just my way of trying to better the world by consuming in a better way. I think that's that's understandable because that's what I'm doing. Yeah again, I see, I think that, And I don't know. You know, I don't know the hunting culture ben as well as you do, obviously, but I'm I would say if I had to guess, both in the animal rights world and in the hunting world, the kind of thing that you and I are talking about is not the predominant view, at least from my experience. It's not like i'd say this in the population in general. Most people, most consumers don't think about the interconnectedness of all these kinds of industries and human endeavors as the impacts that they have, right So, so I think it's important for no matter where you're where you come down on this issue of hunting or um animal rights, we're all involved in this cycle of destruction. You can't get out of the cycle of destruction. You can't have seven and a half billion people, nine billion people by twenty eleven billion people by the end of the century. You can't have that many people and have the place be sustainable. I mean, you know, you may have heard the statistic if everyone on the planet lived an affluent Western lifestyle, we would need five planet Earth's as like resources. Right, So so we're all we're all in this together. So the fact that I might refrain from purchasing or be activist, be an activist in trying to prevent animal suffering, that doesn't remove me from from animal suffering. It doesn't remove me from suffering or human suffering or degradation of the planet. However, I do want to say if here's what I think is important. And this is my friend John Sapan Matsu, who is a great animal philosopher in Boston, animal rights guy. He has a whole paper that I highly recommend it. It's called The Animal of bad Faith, and he talks about how many of our moral decisions talk reflect a certain kind of what John John Paul the philosopher called bad faith, and that is we want to tell ourselves a story in a in a way that um, it's like think think about like this. It's we're just we're we're deceiving ourselves. So so when you think about normal bad faith, you think bad faith. If I make a bad faith contract with you, I know, in advance of premeditatively say yeah, if you, you know, build this thing, I'll pay you. But I know I'm not going to pay you. That's not the kind of bad faith. This kind of bad faith is a bad faith when I'm acting contrary to what my morals are, but I deceive myself. I tell myself a story. So in the case of the vegan, I might say, oh, no, I've removed myself from the cycle of suffering. And so it's okay that I buy this iPhone that has slave minerals in it, where I buy this BMW that has just plastic, there's no anim there's no leather. Or you might be a meat eater that says like, oh animals are you know, they're here to be eaten, and and I think all of those are examples of no, let's let's just let's at least put our cards on the table and say you can't escape the suffering. That animal doesn't want to die, it wants to live. So let's not make pretend that that you know, that's what it wants to do and so once we if we can shed at least the bad faith and have a quote good faith discussion. Yeah, that's that's where. That's where, that's where it starts. That's a huge and great point. I love, like I love the cards on the table because I there again like if I would have and I and I've made this mistake in my past, like the air of moral periority, I kill an animal there. I just go out there and I find this animal. It eats naturally, lives naturally, and I remove it from that landscape. And isn't that in itself the best way to go and get your food. If I were to take that towards and blow that up to the environment. I'm wearing you know, textiles, I have, you know, rubber in my boots. I'm driving a combusting engine vehicle out to go and get this thing. There's so many like lay those cards out on the table, like yes, you know, and I feel that way. I think about veganism too. I mean, if you were to lay the cards out on table as you just have and say, like I understand that that it is impossible to to fully mitigate all these impacts on the world around us. Let's lay that out on the table and be like, Okay, we can probably all agree on that. And I feel like that's kind of where hunters a lot of times that vegans can start, like we kind of start from the same place and just like see the world around me. I want to know it better. You know, I'm gonna try this way. This is like a adaptation of eating meat in in a way for a lot of like new and adult onset hunters what we call them, people that are picking hunting up in the thirties. It's a way, it's a way to like find themselves. It's a way to solve the same problems that I think that you're trying to solve. So there's just a lot of similarities in it. But I love the idea of laying the cards out on the table, the airs of superiority that we have in the hunting space and conservation and eating the meat and the organic nature to meat, whatever I think I could. I could poke holes and those all day, and I often do so in the same way that like your you can be self critical of your community. I could do the same thing hunting and lay those self critical cars on the table won't be like it ain't perfect, boy, it ain't close, and then we can get to the root of, like philosophically, why we're doing what we're doing. And no, it's not, it's just it's just dawned on me that something else that's interesting is, you know, like I said, I really want to as much as I have for the past few years, sort of made these critiques of a certain kind of veganism. I also and I and I so in doing that, I want to say, I also feel protective and I don't want to pile on because as I mentioned, the vegans are kind of like vilified and seeing as wackos, but also in in you know, in certain certain parts of the culture, hunters are seen as I feel, you bro like trophy hunting and that like really liberal, moral superior vegan kind of in this same pretty much the same bucket, depending on which which one you So there's there's there's probably if you again this isn't scientific, I would imagine there are a lot of Americans if you said, you know, what do you think about vegans, Oh, they're the extreme wackos. Oh, and what do you same person, what do you think about hunters? Oh? They just like the shoot ship and kill things, right with the elephant tail Donald Trump Junior at Elephant Tale, Like, well, sure he did, but that's just one guy. Um. Yeah, I mean and you see Pamela Anderson throwing blood on people. Yeah, but that's just one person, right, So I think it it's it's something that I can I've certainly I think in your work you have too. It's just like you kind of could turn inward and you know that some of the like some of the conversations with in the communities, these communities that are this tight, our insular, and there is you need to kind of turn out for a minute, look around and go why don't people dig this as much as I do? Like, why do they think the way they Why does the common person, you know, just a independent individual, if you were to posit those things to them, Why do they think the way they do? Why is it they think hunters are a bunch of redneck shooting fools and vegans are a bunch of you know, they're walking around protests and with buckets of blood. It's like why, why? And what can we do to help help those things? Um? And I'm glad we've we've already we're already in the same we've arrapped at the same place this quickly. But anyway, I think that's my I think that's my main question if you, if you were too in your own mind, kind of like lay out the similarities between a hunter like Steve Ornella have you met and we're a part of his Stars in the Sky documentary, and even well you know about me and and what we do at our companies. There would you if a Vegan said, what do you know about these guys? How would you lay it out in a way that you know that maybe they would understand there is a different version of Well, I would say that, um, from my you know from my And once again it's a limited perspective. I'm not like community. I'm not hunting for a compliment I get. But what what I would say is that what I discovered, UM, because I've known as I mentioned, I grew up in Pennsylvania and I've known hunters. I've been to people's homes where there's like you go in the room and there's like the bear, there's all the heads on the walls and all the trophy hunting, and um, one of the things I discovered about Ronella when I went out there to Montana was and looked into that that world. And then when I heard about the podcast and listen to you, then, um, what what I was surprised about was the sort of thoughtfulness, Like it wasn't merely the stereotype of like basically you're just an arm of the n r A and you are basically here to promote guns and killing, and that was that's that's an easy rout. But what I discovered in hearing your podcast and even you and I had talked before the podcast before I even agreed to go meet Steve and being the film was I was I was wary. I thought like, oh, this is gonna be an ambush. They're going to get an animal rights philosopher edit the film to make him look a galunatic. But so I didn't find that. So so when I talked to Steve and and we had conversation before we did the film, I felt like, this is a pretty thoughtful guy. We we we disagree about certain important what I would consider like ethical implications of what we do, but but this is the kind of person where I I felt like when Steve and I were having a conversation he was fully tuned into like he I felt like he was like I want to learn about what like the way you think he wasn't like I didn't get the impression that I just want to throw this vegan dude on on the in front of the camera and make him look like an idiot. So and likewise, you know, we just met. But in listening to your podcast a few times, I thought the thing I the thing I think about is with regard to your being a hunter is here's what I mean, my my general my first impression was like, oh, there are hunters out there who are actually thoughtful and think about this stuff rather than um kind of stereotype where no matter what in my experience I have and as you have probably with with animal rights, people's like there's a there's a sort of you circle the wagons and any kind of question like well there's wildlife management really like there's your license? Is that the best way to help animals? And and there's like the party line what I heard with you on yours and Steve is like not that you might you might disagree, but you And here's what I tell my students in my critical thinking class. I'll say, and I teach an animal rights class. I say the same thing I say when you come into this class in in September and then you leave in December, I'm not I'm not I'm not interested in your like your views from September you actually change. What I'm more interested is if you come in September with certain views about animals. And I teach a Cheeko State, which is in northern California. It's a big a community, big hunting community. And I have a lot of students because my class the animal. I teach a class called Confronting the Animal, which is in the g pathway they call food study. So I have all these agg animal science hunters taken my floah exactly what the hell? But here's what I tell them, And this goes to what we're talking about. Is that what I if I had to choose, if you left in December and you still felt the same way about hunting as when you came in, or you still felt the same way about meat eating, but you you actually had reasons, and you had you could you could think about now I understand why I believe this, or now I understand why this is more valuable to me that to me is is more important than saying, Oh, in fifteen weeks, I'm gonna make you into a vegan. And so when working, you know, listening to you and talking to Steve, it's like it's like having that kind of thoughtful conversation where you interrogate, like why do I do this? And is are my beliefs lining up with the world. As a vegan, I might think when I PLoP down my money and I go to the butcher's son and get a quote chicken sandwich, am I really helping the planet as opposed to just going on autopilot and going, oh, yeah, it's vegan, so it's good. Oh it's hunting so it's bad. Yeah, it's like this intellectual weightlifting you're doing. You know, I would say that I, why are you Why are you going over there? Why are you going over to the belly of the beast, Because I was like, I'm I spent all this time talking into a little microphone and trying to figure out if I'm right or wrong or trying to to judge how to approach a lot of different situations, and I'm like, if I can't take these beliefs over and test them on people that I respect and say like, let's let's throw back and forth and let's see what I can learn. If I can't do that, then I'm then I'm wrong. Like then if i'm if, I'm just gonna come and say, well, concert wise, hunting great, Well you know what, Robert conservation, you know what else? The meat? You know what else? The adventure. Oh, it's also fun. It's really fun to do. Like you said, when you went hunting as a kid, you had a good time. So those are those are the party lines, and those party lines I believe I believe in. But I also believe there's depth behind them, and there's holes in them that I'd like to fill in um And how better to fill them in than to to run right at them and just see see if they stand up? Because I don't want to be sitting around thirty years. I met a lot of hunters I met, well, not a lot, but I've met a number of hunters I very much respect that are getting up in age sixty seven years old and quit hunting and just start taking pictures of animals, you know. And so I would ask myself, why is that is that going to be me? Am I going to get to a point in my life where I've killed enough And why would that be if that is me? Why would I get to a point where I'm sixty five and I'm just done with it? Is? What's that say about the practice? Um? And so those questions, I think you are key to either one side being on the right or you know, at least intellectually sound with what we do. For sure, Yeah, I think part of it is being it's being critical of always being critical of whatever your beliefs. When when when you're fully entrenched and you think I've now reached the point where I don't need to question anymore than then you're in danger at that point, that's a great point. Then there's I think that's you see that, and I think you see it on the internet. Man, people, the rage machine is the internet is it's it's a bastion. I mean, anytime you have anonymity and then you can you can that's dangerous people they get you, um. And what's worse is we listen to them. That's what I wanted to go back to the other thing you're talking about chicken, because I know it's the chicken thing, because why and I want an answer to this that makes sense to me, and I will pursue it. It's like, I go in there and I got a lot of message from people and on Instagram as well, It's like, why why is it called chicken or steak? Why is it a steak and cheese if it's not steak? Isn't that on its face? It seems disingenuous. It seems confusing for no reason. And I did learn and going in there that you know, a lot of people that I live on what we think is a vegan diet, like you said earlier, don't like the label. So my assumption is like there's something in there that I need to understand, But I didn't just read the menum like it seems strange. Yeah, and and there is, I mean, just you know again, going you and I are part of what we're doing is like breaking the notion that there's a monolith on any of these issues, right, there's not there. There maybe you know, a consensus among hunters, but it's not a mono. Length And there's and same thing in the animal rights world. There's yeah, there are there are plenty of people who think, you know what, we shouldn't even name it chicken, like it's a vegan place. It's a sandwich. It's modeled after, you know, a chicken and things sandwich. You know, kind of you said it was a grinder, but um, but it's not chicken, so en I would have eated just the same if it was like a wheat grinder. Yeah, yes, it's good. Wasn't peppers? That's good? You know. Yeah, I didn't need I didn't need to be coerced and eating the sandwich. I would eat it. I was there because I knew what it was and I'm like, I'm down to try whatever and also taste really good. So what I don't give a ship what's in it? So is that what's the well? I think there's a number I know this is actually been This is a really I think it's a lot more complicated and I totally dig your I totally to get Let me just say I can acknowledge that there can be an aspect of this where do you think, wait, is this intentionally deceptive? So you have some person, let's imagine they wander in off the street and they don't know it's just because it looks it's a nice it's a nice restaurant. It's really nice. There's a lot of nice looking people in their nice looking people. They're not like I thought they might be a bunch of pale people can barely get out of their chairs. Well you know vegans, you know, they're just yeah. They I went in there with a bunch of beats, well pills, and nobody would take it. I go in there and I just it's like a very nice restaurant. It's like, go to this thing you would not and even to eat it. You're like, yeah, okay, this is like a kind of like a stake um back when I was a kid. Yeah, and so that's all there for what reason? You know? What's the facade? Yeah? And I think I think so let me just say I acknowledge that I can. I can totally get where someone might look at that and say, what the hell are you? Are you trying to like deceive people and make it right? But let me let me let me before you get on. Now. I think there's this is why I was thinking of what I was eating this chicken grinder, and it was like eating this and like this port wheat basted chicken. It was pozzitive to maybe laugh. But there's also a thing. There's a thing we do in hunting that we've discussed on the one Steve's podcast and this one as well. So it's like we we say harvested animal as as as a way as normenclature kind of too put up a facade for some people like I harvested that elt, but yeah you didn't, you killed it. You should say that you killed it. That's that's my belief. I think a lot of people use the term harvest to soften and activity. So my that's my wondering. I'm like, we do that in our world to kind of soften the blow of what's exactly going on here. I'm like, is this what they're doing? Are they trying to soften that it's a vegan place? So that's that's that's where I started in my own mind. So that's great, and I think, and Ben, I'm glad you brought that up because earlier we talked about the issue of like not living in bad faith, and I do think that I and I talk about this in other places where you know, using the word harvest it's a euphemism. Just let's just come out and say, like I agree, let's just say it's killing. Harvesting is a euphemism. For what's happening. It's killing. And I tell people, you know what I do, what I've done hundreds of times in my life, and what you do when you kill an animal. One of the first things that you do to dress it you cut its asshole out. I've cut out hundreds of assholes. Am I supposed to like just gloss over that. I'm ripping hearts out and I'm pulling, you know, intestines out, and I'm cutting tongues out to eat like that? Well, don't you maybe can you can come come up with a new you're your hold or you're removing that, You're you're disorganized. I like that, but disorganization. But yeah, but do I need to come up with I'm not comtab with words for those, and I'm just not talking about it like I'm harvesting the animals. You No, I'm shooting in. I'm walking over to it, I'm ripping its guts out, I'm cutting its asshole out, and I'm splitting its pelvis. I understand that, and I think the gritty nature of that helps me understand the animal, helps me understand what I'm doing in my partner process. So I feel that's important to see it and talk about it and not and not rip it away by saying oh harvest or or not talking about the gritty, bloody nature of being a hunter. I mean, is this it's unavoidable, So why I try to avoid it? No bad I I mean, that's that's you're not living in bad faith. And that's that's that's not common. But but going back to look, I think, let me just say, I think this is actually it's a little more complicated. The surface the surface critique. I understand. It's like you guys are just deceiving. It's not chicken call it, uh, you know, satan based or wheat bit right, But let me let me, let me try this. See see if what you think of this. I'm gonna pull up the picture I took of the men um. So yeah. So now here's a couple of things. So I don't know if you're familiar with there's a whole. There is an entire strand there are within the world of animal rights, philosophy, ethical theory, there's different strands. Now, there's a woman who wrote a book, um, she's a friend of mine, in very influential book called The Sexual Politics of Meat. Her name is Carol j Adams. She's she's she's big time. Now. She has an interesting theory about the relationship between I won't I won't even get into the sexualization and and sort of the the sexualization and feminization of food products and animal products. That that's not that's not the reason I'm bringing up her book. The reason I'm bringing up her book is because she she uses this really in important concept that she calls the absent reference. And this is where I think the answer to the chicken thing is going to be found in. So let's think about chicken is an interesting example. But let's go back to you mentioned steak. So steak is a dead cow, right, so you have so let's think about the production of this object. So you go to a restaurant, you order, you order this object. It has a name on the menu, steak. They bring it to your plate. It's cooked, it's dress, it's all nice, right, and and it smells great. Now that and this is Carol's work on the absent reference. That object there used to be a subject, used to be a living being who had a subjective life, who had experiences, who had joys, who had who you know as a cow and licked its baby in the sun right has had all these things. Right, So now we get this object that is an object of literal, literal consumption. It's it's it's purpose is to be consumed by humans. And so the the referent meaning the thing to which that steak refer the living thing that steak refers to the cow back earlier in the line, that cow is gone from the whole experience. Not only is the cow missing from the experience, it's not even called a cow, it's called something else. Right, So it's it's an invisifying or it's a wiping away of the subjectivity and the sentience of that original being. So so now you have this notion, say of like you go there in your order like a steak, and it's not really steak. Um. So when I talked to Carol, Carol and I haven't had a discussion about about uh. I mean, you know, you're you're out here in California. You're out here in the Bay Area. There's a woman named Miyoko, and Miyoko produces all vegan dairy products, and I gotta tell you they're really good. The vegan butter, Miyoko's vegan This is not a commercial I'm just telling you it's really good as as someone who's eating butter, you know, for many years and who stopped. So Carol and I were having this conversation and I said, she she said, oh, this Mioko's cheese is really she said Mioko's cheese and I said, sort of pejoratively. I was like, you mean, you know, like the fake cheese, and she said to me, no, it's cheese. The notion that cheese has to come from, you know, either a goat or like, like, we are actually upsetting the paradigm. So when we say this is cheese, what we're saying to you is we're trying to change the concept of what cheese is. So when you look at this object that it's made from, like coconut milt, however you know it's made in plant based, to call it fake cheese is too is to capitulate to the to the sort of species ist, anthropocentric paradigm that says cheese has to come from an animal goat, right, right, And so there's there's a kind of political act in saying, no, motherfucker, this is cheese. I'm calling it cheese. If you think cheese requires dairy that's welcome to the new world. Cheese doesn't have to be dairy. Of course, in response to things like Mioko, the dairy industry are trying all across the country right there, passing these labeling laws. You can't say this thing is cheese. You can't use the word even like soy milk. Right, you can't use the word milk. You have to say it's soy derivative. Right. So so now what I what I'm trying to what I'm trying to say here argue, is that calling that chicken thing chicken. You could see it as deceptive, but I think there's a deeper way to think of it. There's a way in which that's a political act to say this is this is chicken. You know, accepted baby, this is chicken. And you might want to go, no, it's deceptive. Chicken is this animal? And you go, no, this is also chicken. Because you see, when I go to a restaurant, I order a real chicken. That is an object that has been separated from the chicken. So so the fact that it carries the same word the chicken from the living being to the chicken on my plate. What I have on my plate is radically far away from the chicken. It's from the animal. And so I think part of what's going on, at least what I want to say is this is this is a this is a fuck you to the paradigm to say, welcome to the new vegan world. It's chicken, like it or not. It's not deceptive. It's meant to push you to rethink what chicken, what pork is So I think I think I think that's where it's comed very existential. Yeah, it is existential. It is it is forcing you to to confront what, what the hell? Why do I believe what I believe? And why do I think that chicken has to be that thing? And is that thing on my plate when I ordered when I go to a quote, you know, regular non vegan restaurant and I order a hamburger, No hamburger. Hamburger is most hamburger other than those that are you know, let's just say a vast man. The majority of ham burger come from cows who underwent stress and were slaughtered and in in suboptimal conditions. Despite with Temple grand And wants to say, and then they're ground up and they're put on a plate. That's what hamburger is, right, and so I get this object that I call hamburger. And what what your son wants to say is we have hamburgers too. They just don't. They don't. They're not. I don't I understand what you're saying. I would just say I would just tell them, like, yep, you got a very like that approach is very existential and probably hard for most people to pick up, or almost a possible just for the regular person to go in and pick all that existential, you know, meandering up what they would pick it up. You'f like chicken substitute or wheat based, you know, supposed to be chicken, saying like this is a replacement for what you normally Isn't this good? You know, it's like almost if you just said to me, if you if you came to me and he said, if you only have to eat this, if you would replace this with chicken, because I don't really eat a whole ton of chicken, because you know, my wife and I have a big argument at home because she would buy a chicken. I'm like, well, I don't want to don't buy a chicken at the store. That's not what we do. We eat wild game. That's all we eat at home, That's what we do. She's like, well, do you haven't killed enough you know, chickens, turkeys? Man, ye, do your job, You're fool. So I would say, okay, well, then next year I need to kill ten turkeys and on this many pheasants and this many quail to kind of offset that thing. But I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't. I would. I don't know if I can compare that, But that's just that's just me trying to say, I understand white meat is something that I'm going to consume, and I'm trying to change that up adversely to the restaurant. You're like, wow, if you just said this is a ken, this is a possibility to replace the chicken that you eat. Yeah, but hold on, hold on then so it's like there's a replacement theory there. I get it. But what I so, let me just clarify. I don't think I agree with you. You you said something interesting. You're like, look, the average person is not going to do these kind of like philosophical existential gymnastics. But what I want to say is that you don't have to, So so let me you don't have to go through this whole thought process. It's just a it can be seen as a political act. So let me let me give you an example. You mentioned that you have a small child, so let's fast forward thirty years. You have a son or a daughter son, So now your son is your age, she's is in the mid thirties, and and now he goes, hey want some chicken, and it's this stuff you ate at the at the butcher's son. And everyone says and then people go, like chicken, they used to eat those stickam in cages. So now look what Look at what has happened over time, and this has happened. This happens in a lot of justice movements, is that a term gets reappropriated and there's no reason, there's no politically, there's no reason to go this is a chicken and substitute because in the future, if that's what chicken is, that's what chicken becomes. And now look what you've done. If you're a vegan, right, you've you've maintained this the concept and the food thing, the concept of food to eating, and you've and you've decoupled it from that animal that's been suffering. So what I want to say is I don't think you need to do all that. All you gotta do is see it as they're trying to change there. They're subtly trying to change things. So in the future it's acceptable to say, hey, do you want some cheese and they bring out some whatever vegan cheese rather than going do you want some cheese substitute? At that point, you're saying this isn't real cheese, and they want to go No, dude, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go down that road. Yeah, I would imagine like that. That seems like I say, I disagree with that. It seems weird to me, just for the same reason that harvest and kills seem weird, Like why don't we just say this is a substitute. We're trying to substitute this for chicken. We don't believe. We believe that the most chicken that you eat, or any chicken you're gonna eat, was killed and suffer, and no matter what you do, it can't free range, let it run around the yard, whatever you want to do. It had to suffer to get to your play. Kind of a it's kind of a thing that's based on vision like I didn't see it get here. It had to suffer to get here, right, And so I would like just say and I would sell the butcher son like if I think it would be just as effective just to say straight out. You don't have to say substitute, but you could just say wheat based sandwich. Or it's almost like to give up that you know your believe. I believe that no one should eat chicken ever. But I gotta be real subtle about it to get out of there. I gotta like, I gotta be real subtle to kind of like overtime change the meaning of the thing, rather than just being flat out honest with people, be like, don't eat the chicken, and let's let's have that. Let's let's you know, as you said, let's be fair and and and have good faith in our in the way we approach it, rather than subtly trying to move it to a point where there's a third year old person that doesn't understand what chicken used to be or what it is. It's kind of change in bad faith over time. Just tell me what it is. I don't care in fact, if it's good it's actually to me, It's like I could go home and tell my wife, you know what, instead of getting chicken, why don't we get this thing here? What is this grinder thing? Why don't we get the grinder and we'll vaccine that ship up and whenever and whenever I've been a terrible hunter and we run out of turkey, then we'll eat this for some the substitute that tastes like chicken. Our kid will love it. He'll never know. You won't have to go to the store and participate in factory. For me, I'm not going to feel bad as a shitty hunter, and we've got this thing here that can help us. And so I see when I'm eating that, I'm like, dude, you guys are missing the freaking point here, Like this is somebody like me who believes my consumption is very important. I would take part in the chicken grinder. Everything you know and some you know, some products, some vegan products. They for example, I don't I don't say the brand, but they have chicken patties. It's like c H I K. And right. So it's like it's like stopping chicken the thing because I would argue, like I said, I would argue as a mediator that I wouldn't much rather eat the vegan version of chicken as it stands now than eat actual chicken. It would be either wild turkey or a plant based replacement. That's cool. I love to eat plants. I eat them all the time, you know, So let's let's let's give me the chance to get at that. And it even removes my own kind of My wife would be like, well, that says chicken on it, Like it's not chicken. Then I have to explain the existential crisis. I'd much rather be like, this is some wheat ship or what a jackfruit or whatever it is. It tastes really good. You're not gonna worry about it. This is what a jackfruit is. Just eat it. And she's like, yeah, that's great. No, I get it. Yeah, And look, I'm with you. I see what you're saying. Again. I just think it's a way of seeing it as a political statement, as a subversive act. I think that, and I just don't. I don't think it's necessary. I would argue that like veganism in itself is like, it's not a bad thing, and especially in the way that you present it, says like, let's let's just embrace it in a way that because there's a lot of people like me that don't feel like, hmm, if you're trying to if you're telling me this is a chicken, what aren't what? Also aren't you telling me you know what other submersive things you're trying to get me to believe? You know, it seems seems just ingenuous. But I did enjoy to go back to the butcher. Sound great job on the chicken sandwich. I took, Yeah, I eat half of them. Took the other half of the hotel chickens are that sandwiches are so big you can giant I got. I was there not longer. I got the It was like a rubin, which I think is like I guess I had the menu people because people were like, what are you talking to? This is insane. I'm like, oh, it's not insane. It's good. It's actually good. If they would just say, like good food made of ship you don't normally eat. They are like hot garlic, lemon, chicken, pesto, pulled barbecue, pulled pork. That was like, uba, now you say that, you bab um. Hot roast beef. I didn't say what that is, and it doesn't even say what it is. It just says slice soured with grilled onions, little gem blood. It It says like all the ingredients, but not what the beef actually is. And that was confusing to me. I'm like, I just what is it? Right? Tell me? I'd love to because I'll be making it at home, you know, if I run out of if I miss an elk this year, I'll be I'll be eating. But if you if you went to a restaurant ben and and like a lot of people don't know. I once again, I'm just I'm kind of talking out my ask. But what I'm trying to say is there are people. There are people who don't know. Does everyone know that like beef is a cow and pork? I mean, I'm sure most people do. But what I'm getting at is if you go to a regular restaurant and says like all beef hot dog, does it say dead cow and you just go it's beef? Right? Yeah? I mean, but then you would say, like people are calling it beef to make a political statement. No, they're just that's what they call it. But I'm saying I agree with you. You're saying, Look, I'd like to know what the hell this thing is made of. And I think a lot of people that I present that to on Instagram or that too, like what is jack fruit? Is good? Can I cook with it? Could I if if I run out of venison, crack that thing open and have a nice venison facimile for dinner. I don't know. It's not on the menu. So that was It's just one of those other things that for me, it would make it more approachable for me, would make it less like you're trying to tell me make the statement, because if you're not totally wrong, And even in this conversation, I'm having a bit of like, oh I would eat that ship. I should figure out what that is because I only killed four turkeys this year and I was aiming to kill ten. So eventually, you know, even for me, my wife and I get like the preciousness of the meat. She we got a thing called an Insta pot. Yeah, man, the inst which I like. I like the Insta pot. I like that. I live in an age where Insta pots a thing. She put some turkey in the Insta pot. She has a little child run around, happened to forget it was in there, came out not so good, and she you and I always get mad at that. I can't help, but I have some anger towards that, And she's like, why are you so mad? Because I can't just go out and get that now, like that that was the thing that I can't replace, and so it becomes much more of a replucious, a precious thing. And if some real smart vegan at the butcher's son was like, hey, man, I have found a replacement and it tastes great, and your kids will eat it and your wife will eat it, and you don't have to participate in any kind of bullshit, per do. I'm like, okay, sweet, let's go put some peppers on it. Let's hit it. So that's something it was. I'm glad I went there, and I'm glad to have those conversations. Um, let's get it. Let's get to you know, more of your academic stuff and and some of the things that you said and um in the paper. And I think that, like I said, I'm reading a lot of this stuff. I'm like, man, there's a whole lot in here that I can get with. You went through in there and I said, it's been years since you've written this, but it kind of what you're stated support for vegan ethical veganism, and and kind of the reasons that you got there. And as I looked at it, it's a it's a man, it's weighty, it's heavy, you said, um, and you stated work that you support ethical visas as empowering response to the cost in terms of violence, suffering, exploitation, domination, objectification, commodification of animals for food, the destruction of the environment, the placement of animals in the process, as well as the cost of our own health and the health of the planet. Then these things call for media affect them decisive action at the personal, collective, and policy levels. I mean, that's who wrote I wrote that cheese was a good day. I mean, that's like to read that. I read that like yeah, I mean, I yeah, I'm I'm with you. There's not a whole lot that I can pull back from in that, Like I want all the things that that you want to talk. As I said, it's been a while since that was those words were strung together, but imagine that's still typifying. Yeah, no, I haven't. I haven't. So just talk about that the whole of what moves you to this, because we know now that you've eat meat, you've hunted and done things, killed things, And I just this that that paragraph was was was powerful to me to read. Well, I think, first of all, as far as I think, the motivation for ethical veganism, for most of us who are ethical vegans, is that we have a desire two two um decrease unnecessary suffering in the world. So, you know, I walk, you know, whatever lifespan I have, I have this kind of footprint I leave and hopefully I can be as I can be, as as low impact as as I as possible. Of course, none of this is perfect, right, Like I drove here, it's not, and it's not somethingly back clean like I drove here today to meet you. How many insects I must have killed hundreds of them on the freeway. So I'm killing just driving here. I have an automobile, it's using fossil fuel and so so. So this is what I say in the paper, what Laurie and I say, is that we're all involved in this, in this endeavor of destruction. Now does that mean that I just throw up my hands, go fuck it, it doesn't matter. Just eat whatever you want, Just drive freaking fly everywhere, right, No, it doesn't mean that, right, So they're the connection. So if if I'm motivated by this kind of imperative to say, I want to be as gentle as I can, I want to cause as little suffering as possible, if it's possible, whatever I can do whenever I make decisions, especially as a consumer in you know, affluent in an affluent you know, the most affluent country in on the planet in history. Um, what kind of choice can I make that will reflect, um, the ethic of of of you know, non mouth feasance of of decreasing suffering. When I look at the way that food is produced, particularly with regard to animal based food, as I mentioned in there, what I see is on so many levels there's so much suffering and there's so much destruction. The animals themselves are as I mentioned there, there's violence involved. And I'll use chickens as as an example since we were talking about chicken. I mean, chicken are the most abused animals on the planet. The number of chickens, it's hard to wrap your mind around. Just in the United States, there's about nine billion chickens, right, so more than the entire population of the Earth planetary wise, it's like forty billion chickens. These are annual you know figures. So the way the chickens are treated is abominable. There's no no one who has a heart whatever wish that upon a sentient being. Right, So when I say that there's violence involved, there's domination involved. There is commodification, right, commodification meaning that And this goes to what we talked about a little bit earlier. It's like the being, the sentient being, the you know, chickens are and and and this is what I I I'd like to think. You know, we think like, oh, chickens are not that smart, but but ben just think about all the all the organisms that live on the planet Earth. Right, There's like micro organisms, there's little things that live on like our eyelids, and then there's like human beings right in the grand scheme, there's like carrots and grass. Chickens are pretty fucking smart, right, I mean, like compared to all that ship right, like treating Okay, well, they can be ruthless. Um, you know, I don't know who would be the most ruthless species. We could probably have a debate about that where um but uh or a discussion but but but anyway. So my point is that, um, the chickens are commodified, and that they're turned into command they're turned into things to be there's there. Their sole value is the value they have in in markets to to create profits and stuff like this. So that process of taking a living sentient being and and dominating it, and and and perpetrating a kind of violence against it and co modifying it, that just doesn't align with my values of wanting to walk on the earth and decreased suffering. So with that aspect, I feel like I just don't want to take that chicken into my body. It's it's not something that I could even bring myself to do. Does it taste good? Have I eaten millions of pounds of chick? Yeah? Is it the Yeah? But that's not the point right now with regard to that yet passage that you read that system, that the system that produces that chicken, let's say that brings it to the table at the restaurant or brings it to the supermarket. That system, in my estimation, speaking of pretty is ruthless. It's it's it's ruthless. The the there's it's at the expense of not only the health of the planet, but our personal health. Right. So you have this industry that's producing in the United States nine billion chickens a year, polluting our water, um, polluting our air. It's one of the one of the highest fossil fuel producing products is animal products, right, And and and draining the actifers aquifers um increasing antibiotic resistant uh you know, um organisms. So so then I look and I'm like, wait, this isn't only a about me feeling like I don't want to cause suffering to that chicken because I want to be as nonviolent as possible. But here I am contributing to the destruction of the planet. I'm like, wow, So my consumer choices as as as a as a consumer, even if I'm a vegan, right, this will anyone who's a consumer has to have this kind of at least I believe, has to have this kind of mindset. And then there's issues of health and and and I know I we haven't talked about this, but I know you, I know you're going to agree with this. It's like, just just take human beings, Homo sapiens, who we've been here a quarter of a million years, which is a blink blink in the eye of the eye in in in geologic time, and then like how long have we been eating ship? Like we rip open a plastic thing and eat this shin and throw it and then go to this store and get this Like that's gotta be a hundred years or so. Well, it's the way it breaks down, is it. I think it's like a hundred thousand. I always get just number. I'm pretty sure it's I always think it's crazy to think of, but hundred thousand generations of people lived as hunter gatherers. Then you get into the industrial revolution, basically there's about two or three generations there, and then processed foods, there's about two or three generations in there. There's a lot of play, I'm sure in that in that run. But that's that's what's that's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with the matriculation of time. Like all the time we were one thing and now we've found ourselves and only six versions of people, so far away from the thing we always were, that there's so many luxuries that we just never had and so remove from our own humanity in so many ways, not just the way we eat, but all the things that it's you know, it's strange to think of these crises, crises and you know, and you know, self identity like what are we and why are we here? And you know, and so for me, that's led to a lot of things. But I'll tell you what I mean, Honey, hunting led me to garden. I never gardened before I was before I hunted, and I I was looking like that, that's cool to know where that came from. Boy, I better? Why am I? Why would I be so involved in knowing where this piece of steak came from and then not know where that carrot came from or not know you know, and hopefully you know why was my wife and I are done having children, will have chickens and other things that helped to mitigate those things. So it's kind of led me down the path of isn't it hypocritical for me to, you know, do this, like to say, hold up my hand and be like, look at my meat. I know where that came from, and then ate grass when that ridge over there? And but but this carrot funk, I don't know? You know? Or this you know? This macaray and cheese I don't know. And so as you're saying I mean, there's just something about knowing that we're the engines of consumption. We wake up in the morning, we just consume. We consume the air, consume everything. Um. And there's layers to our consumption. If you can peel back a few of the shitty layers or your consumption and get down to the raw form of what you're eating, why wouldn't you? It is my question, because it seems fucking lazy, not supposed to cut anymore? People don't were you cousin, I wouldn't even pay because I've heard your part. I know, I told I was told recently that that. But I I think I got kids. I probably shouldn't say for it, but um, it'll take me a while to get out of it. But anyway, fuck it. Um we're like, that's that's the type of being that we are, Like we've are. We've reached a point now and intellectually where we can kind of start peeling back the layers of our consumption where when we were hunter gatherers we didn't have the luxury to peel back those layers. And so there's And I told our animal rights folks the other day, I said, I think history is progressive, and I think I don't think that I know, and I just I've read it that I've experienced it and seeing that, you know, the progressive idea, let's move past slavery, let's move past you know, Jim Crow, Let's move like we've we eventually get there. So there's it is a part of me that wonders whether and Steve openly wondered it in Stars in the Sky documentary you were part of. Is is there a time we moved past this hunting thing or or is it so barbaric? I would argue this like it's not, in my opinion, like there's barbaric parts of it, but it's intent is not barbaria um and it has a lot of it does a lot of good for for wild life. So I think that's that's probably where we should get to next. Like when you think of hunting, you know, well, we could probably get together and whack factory farms over the head all that. In fact fruit In fact, I said yesterday that I just I've always founded hilarious if he would go to like a Chick fil A and inside the bag is a dead chicken. Part this there's some thing you pulled off a chicken on the bag? Is it cartoon chicken? Like? What like if we yeah, like a chicken, it's like, Hi, what's up? And they have like these cartoon cows that are saying eat more chicken? Like, are we so divorced from the idea of what that thing is that we would one likes make it into a cartoon? I get I get that. Why would we put it on the outside of the bag where the dead chicken is. We must not understand or or or or we might un we Again, this can go back to the bad faith is it's it's uncomfortable. And so by employing things like cartoons are having the cows on the billboards saying eat more chicken, we can laugh at it. But I think the laughing um if the lies this this other level of discomfort because in most people know, you don't have a chicken who was you know, running around in a yard like in the old you know, right, So I think I think it diffused. There's something about the making it into humor, you know, trying and attempt what I would call a sick and twisted attempt at humor is is to diffuse the you know the kind of cognitive dissonance or that. But anyway, yeah, so yeah, I think it's you know, we agree on that and yeah, just to put the closure on this is before we move to the next thing, is um. Yes, So when I think about veganism and I see the interconnectedness between the individual animals suffering and dominated, and it's it's violence and and the commodification and then the degradation of the environment with industrial food production and animal agriculture, and then the health aspects and then walking into a store and ripping open a thing and throw on the It's like we are so we have we as human beings are so far away from anything that is would be considered um, I would say, like nonviolent or peaceful. There's there's aspects of all of this consumption that aren't just sucking ship up. And so what I what I want to argue in that paper is as a vegan, every opportunity I can within reason, right, I want to try to decrease my my suffering impact, you can't and realistically, and this is one of the things that some philosophers argue is a problem, right, is like they call it it's too demanding. So if you really want to live like this, How could you even like move out of this little room because I'm gonna walk out there, I'm gonna maybe step on in it. Like anything I do at some point is going to interact with some kind of suffering and cause some kind of suffering. But I don't think. And this is the thing is veganism is not to me as I mentioned, as you know reading the paper, It's not about perfection. There is a notion like people will say like, oh, you're not really vegan because you take antibiotics. But no one says, no one, no one at least who's thoughtful about veganism, says that veganism is is perfectly withdrawing yourself from the cycle of death and suffering. No one's saying that. Veganism to me is saying again, is how can I how can I decrease unnecessary suffering? Right? So so, so I accept that there's going to be suffering and death caused by my choices. I just happen to think that by by not contributing directly two animal suffering, as you say, we can we can beat up um factory farming for days. But but by not contributing to that, I have a lighter footprint now when it comes to what you're mentioning with regard to hunting, and this has always struck me this way, and it's not I don't think it's different with the way that you think of veganism in the way maybe the way I think of hunting, maybe the way I think a hunting is different than other folks. But what with what you just said and what you just kind of described is veganism from you? For me? You could take the word veganism, remove it from all the things you just said, put the hunting in there and be the same damn thing. And and it just the way that I think of hunting I think of And it's almost as if veganism would be if we started back to back agreeing in the way that I think we agree. I don't know if you if you will see if we agree, And like what you said, my my feeling about hunting now in like the modern sense, because I can't go back and be a subsistence hunter. One of my goals in life is trying to understand that, really, really and truly, but I can't. So I think of if we started back to back and we understood the reasons why we would go and do a thing, you know, I'm I'm I feel by killing one elk, I am not only participating in there being more elk, but participating in less cows dying. Right Like if I went and just want to the I just went to the store and bought a steak, I get, you know, a hundred and twenty pounds of meat ish off of al If I kill a moose, it's more than that, you know, So I can I can make that into sausage. I can make So that's all the sausage. I don't have to go to the storm vibe. And I'm also understanding that I take part in this this great system that we've set up. It's it's one of the fallacies. And the hunting logic is it's not it's not voluntary. If you want to hunt, you gotta pay. And it's so it's not altruistic. You're just taking part in the process. But the process leads to something good. So I think of it is if we were standing back to back and both understanding, like we want to do good, we want to decrease suffering, we want to decrease these like exploitative ways of our world. And this disconnection from what we really are on this planet, and maybe disconnecting ourselves from ourselves a little bit around impact that I'm walking backwards and you're walking forwards. It's like I'm walking back towards our humanity for millions of years, and back towards community with nature and being a part of this, being a real and tangible part of the natural world, in the circle of life, in the predator and prey relationship, and just taking part in that as a way to kind of walk back and to also escape the same thing you're trying to escape. I'm just walking back towards what I what we used to be. You're just walking forward to something we never were. And as we get further away from each other, that's where we can't never we forget to turn and look back and be like, hey, remember where we started, Remember where we started in that same spot where we're both like, we don't like exploitation, we don't like commodification, we don't like each ship that came out of some weird plastic thing and throwing the thing away and not understanding what's going in our mouth. And I don't like I don't like knowing that I'm being tricked by the chicken people, Like I don't want the chicken people to trick me. Fuck then, um, And so that's that's I described that to this dude, Um, Simon Roosevelt, who is I think the great grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, just doing a random phone call that out he was on and I said this kind of thing, and he's like, I wrote that down. I was like, ship, this means It's like, that's a smart guy. And so I've held onto that because of that affirmation that that that there's this idea that that's what we're doing, you know. And so that's why I respect the ship out of vegans. Even if that v and be like, you know, quit quit doing what you're doing it like, yeah, I still respect the idea and I won't remove you know, my respect for that idea won't be removed no matter what if you you know, if family Anderson throws blow to me or not, I don't. I still think there's right in both of them and you're just kind of doing different things. Well, Ben, I do think that that metaphor, I have to say, that's pretty brilliant. Like when as you were describing starting together and then walking in these different directions that really I'm in fact, I'm gonna I'm gonna write that down. Uh, but yeah, I think, well, just a quick note Pam Anderson, she just gets naked for animals. Yeah, I can't stop using her. That's she just takes her clothes off. It for animals. But um, let me just say something. I would take my clothes off for animals. I felt that it would help. I think it probably wouldn't help anybody. Well, Ben, Um, I know you can't see this. Ben's actually taking his clothes off. We're in a hotel room. It's for the animals though, That's what I tell people what I'm walking around. Do you see this? It's for the animal I gotta I gotta help the animals out. But yeah, I mean that's something that's been profound of meat in the way of thinking about it. Um, I want to I want to touch on something you said about history being progressive, and I think if I can, if I can just expand on that or clarify. So when you say if I under if I'm understanding you when you say history is progressive, I think what you might mean, right, is that throughout history, the circle of those beings, those entities that we consider have moral value, who we value. That circle has been expanding. So at one time it might be like white people in Europe who are landowners for something, and then it's like, oh, you know women in or oh kids or you know, or people of color or of slave. Oh right. So so that circle of what what we call it in ethics, of the circle of of moral considerability, the things that we can that have to come on our radar. If you talked away, if you talk to a uh say, a plantation owner in Virginia and you know, eighteen twenty, and you say, oh, do you think that those people working out in your field are just as morally important as you and your family? They go, no, they're they're not in that circle. Right. Of course, now we look back and we say, wow, that was just either you know, either they were in bad faith or they actually didn't they didn't think that those were human beings. Right. But so what I want to say is when you're in with this metaphor you're talking about, and I think the animal rights movement in general is to say that circle it needs to be expanded even more because because and this touches on something you and I talked about before the podcast. Is the thing that gets you into the circle. It's not that you're a member of the species Homo sapien. It's that you're a thing that can suffer. And once you open that door, once you go, the things that are in that circle are the things that can suffer that. Now, I've, as you say, history is progressive on this view. I've expanded the moral the circle of moral consideration vastly. Now I have to go, does that bear suffer? Does that elk suffer? Now? It's in the club. Now. It's not to say that once you're in the club everyone is equal, because a lot of people will criticize, you know, like Peter and and and Ingrid new Kirk, who's the president of Peter will say, like a boy is a pig as a mouse? Oh, animal rights activists think that you know a mouse is the same, but don't put in jail. Yeah, but and and that's but that that's not I think the view is to say this is and actually I bet you. I think I think you're going to agree with this. And here's what I'm just guessing. So so sentient beings like non human animals, maybe you won't. But they're in the club of things that I have to consider. In other words, if I if I'm walking down the path and I kick a rock, You're not going to think anything of it. If I kick a little vole or like a little mouse, you might go, dude, what, what's what? And I can't just go, oh, it's just a mouse. You would go, you know, you have a if your son pulls the dog's tail, You're you're not gonna go that's okay, You're gonna go, hey, don't hurt. Right, So we agree that I think we agree that that circle actually is is pretty big. Now the question is this, Once we agree who's in the circle, then the question is who's more important in the circle, Like what's the hierarchy? Dude? I totally and as I listened to you, and I was, like I said, I was. I was talking to the guy, the animal rights guy, Matt Johnson yesterday, and I was confused by that point, Like I just couldn't get it accepting having the circle, accepting animals into where we are. It's confusing to me because I end up like I'm killing animals. I'm not gonna stop doing that if they're in the same circle as me, What the funk? And then there's all these issues of they're in the same circle as me. There's a lot we can get I mean, I can go for for days and days and poking holes and that idea, but we can get there if we need to. But what I would agree with in that idea is that, yeah, absolutely any animal was suffering belongs like being in the circle. But hunting is to me a good way to kind of live in this circle because I'm I'm taking one or taking few to help the many. And I think if I could talk with the l can be like we're on this circle, I'm gonna kill something of like I might just tell myself I'm not if I do certain things. But there's no way I can't see I can't say getting around that. Maybe any consumption engine I can't see getting aroun on me being the understanding life eats life and I can't understand I can't see myself getting around that. So what am I going to do? All right? And I think we probably can agree to get to that point. Then what are we gonna do? You have a different answer than I have. It's like, what are you gonna do? Not the animals. What I'm gonna do, I'm gonna kill wild animals and eat those to mitigate other animals that I have no vision over, no like vision of what they are. And I wrote this down to bring this up to you. I was like to me, it's this, it's this like vision issue. It's an issue of seeing within the circle. I can see my impact. I'm better at being in the damn circle. If I can't see my impact, if I'm choosing to take some walk walk away from my impact purposefully and then not look back at it, then I probably I'm probably not as good in the circle as other people. You know. So my vision the vision of cutting asshole out of an analym, the vision of pulling its cuts out. And so maybe for animal rights folks that helps them understand that I'm fighting for the same circle you're fighting for. It's just I'm not going to be so foolish as to think that I'm gonna live ever in a world well there's no impact, no human impact. Yeah, that said, you have to acknowledge that. Everyone has to acknowledge it. Um, And I just want to go back to something you said about it's true that life, life needs life. You know, life kills life to survive. And but most vegans, myself being in this areas, is that it's it's not the issue of of destroying life as much because plants are alive, but your plants aren't sentient. So let me let me let me ask you a question, just just just sort of theoretical thought experiment, is like you're in the circle, and all things being equal, you have to survive, and you could eat a plant or you can kill an elk. And and just in my thought experiment, do you have like a full nutrition. It's not like you need to sup it's like you can, you can survive, you can you can flourish. And so you're in the circule when you're like, I can do this thing or I can do that thing, separating out all the consequences. We were talking about factory farming. So I think that's that's a question I would have for you, is would you still choose, say that, to kill the elk over eating the plant or killing the plant for sustenance, and and if so, why and if not why not? Yeah, that's a good question. And I think most I think you never asked yourself that because it's it's there's never gonna be that time where I know that, But it's a thought experiment. In a thought experiment, I would say, yeah, man, i'd probably eat the plants. Yeah so so, And I think hopefully most people would think, like I said, like the substitute chicken seem that bad to me um and its principle and the way that it's presented seeing that bad to me. It's like this tastes like something cool, and it could be plants instead of a thing that has babies, and yeah great, yeah sure. But I think where people I disagree with vegans and and and people that are vegan get get off the train is the thought experiment thing. Like in in thought and theory, it's like what I like about you is you're not so connected to the thoughts and theories, like there's there's reality sitting right there alongside of them. It's important to have those thoughts and theories and then work through them, but it's also important to understand the reality of the world in which we live. I could change the world in which we live. I do a lot of ship. I'd probably be able to fly, I would have definitely have wings. I would also I don't know what else I would have, but would definitely have wings. But you know, if I could change those things and have those like what what would it be? I just can't And so I have to just examine, you know, what I can do, you know, And if I don't feel like I have to kill the elk, I don't, And then that would be disingenuous for me to say, like what if I don't kill the elk, then I can't be me? Boy, that'd be a tough line to walk. But I do think I've come to this and I feel comfortable in it because I've thought, and like I said, I challenged myself for a long time, is this right? Am I just doing this thing because other people I know do it? Um? And it's that's pregned out. I was going to bring up a comparison that would be confusing, but I think like that at the moment where you decided to walk away from it, I decided to dive back into it pretty hard, you know, I I just don't. The other thing I want to do is just explain, or at least try to talking about the thought experiment as being like theoretical, which it is. But I think the reason I brought the thought experiment up, and why the thought experiment is important because what it demonstrates. What I can infer from your answer to that thought experiment is that given the choice you actually given, given this like moral and ethical or moral choice, you think and correct me. And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but from what you said in that thought experiment, it seems like, do you think if you had to choose all things being equal, eating or killing the plant is less causes less suffering or is less heart? Right? Oh? Absolutely? And yeah absolutely, And I think most hunters, I think that's something that most hunters struggle with and would probably cringe to hear me say like what, yeah, oh my gosh. And also the thing about history being progressive, most hunters like, what's he's saying? Isn't he isn't isn't that kind of the argument this other guys making. But I think what I think it buttresses how I feel about this thing. Like I've if I felt killing elk was like somehow necessary or better than eating a plant, then I would have to admit to somehow like lusting for or holding up on a pedestal the killing of of an elk I don't and I don't do that. I don't want to do that. It's not hunting. It for me is many parts, you know, but it's not all parts, the killing, right, And so I think it would be disingenuous for me to say to say I would I would rather take an arrow and jam it through the heart of an elk then walk over here and picking your corn off of things, Like the two acts aren't equal, right. I think that's important, man, that's really important, because you and I, I mean, we're on the same page. And and if if someone said to me you had to kill an elk or you had to you know, there was like these children like, to me, it's a no brainer, like I have to kill the elk to sit right. So so I think we agree that that what if if I don't have to cause suffering, if it's mere really because of my appetite or whatever, just because I like bacon, or because I like to drive you know, diesel trucks just around. You know, we both agree that if it's not necessary like that, it seems like that that choice that's not that wouldn't be the right choice. So what I think is is really interesting here is that now you and I are looking at the world. We have similar at least and this and this venue we have kind of overlapping values. And now we're like, so what now? Now, now I have to look at the real world, and you're like, so, what is the way to decrease suffering? And as you said, my my view is, I'm like, well, I just want to remove myself from the killing of animals, and you think your view is no. By by actually adopting this, I'm actually decreasing suffering. And so I think that's where our disagreement is. And that seems like that's less of a philosophical that's more of like an empirical like is it the case that it seems like more tactile than anything? What's your tactic here? What are you going for? And I think mine and mine, like I said, if you were, you know, I think that's important for me to realize them, for you, and for folks listening, especially hunters, to realize. Boy, it would be weird to say. And listen, I'm sure people will right in after this and tell me why. Maybe it's not weird to say, but to me, it's weird to say that you would pick killing the elk. If if we're if if all things being equaled, you're standing in you're standing in a a baseless environment, and there's an elk over there, you're super hungry. There's an elk over there, and there's a stalk of corn. I just it would be super disingenuous for any hunter, just say they would go and take the life of that elk over picking the corn. I just think it would be disingenuous. But but yeah, then we get to the point where now we leap back into the real world. We're like, okay, now we're we're here. We can't we can't live in that world. We don't live in that world. And I think a lot of folks that look at vegans think that that's the world in which they live. They think they can live in a world, or you know, some version of the vegan person thinks they can live in a world where there is that choice. My I would say that there isn't. I have not run into a time where I could can make that choice. So now my choices are this complicated menu of have some of this, but over here this is gonna happen, right, have some of this, and over here this is gonna happen to have some corn, and over here, you know, corn prices are gonna go up, and wherever that corn came from, and some some migrant worker is gonna become poor because they can't afford corn now, and then they're gonna deal drug whatever or and now I'm never gonna see that. And that's why I say that. To me, it's like this vision experience. In embracing that experience, I've learned so much about myself, about what I can do as a person, about what an animal really can be, and how it can really value your life, what it can give you that you may not know if you never went through that. It's a freaking hell of a hurdle to ask anyone just to like, you know what, you can find all these wonderful things, but you gotta kill that thing. You gotta go over and walk over there, kill it. But here's what you're gonna get when you do that. Boy, I understand that's tough, and I would never ask. I don't ask people to do it unless they want to. I wouldn't be like, son, you're three years old, you better really love to kill stuff, or your life won't be as enriched as mine is no like. But if you want to take that monumental step to go and pluck the life of an animal, of something you didn't plant there, and you're taking it out of the natural world, you didn't put it there. If you want to do that, I can show you how to do it in a way that will enrich your life and and will be this version of consumption that helps you be a better part of the circle. And maybe it will be a small tribe of us in the future that does it. But if it's a tribe of people that understand it, it's impacts in a way that it can function for good. I think it can stick around. But again, you know, I mean there's I don't know if veganism is growing. I don't know the numbers. I'm assuming it is in the world wide scale. It's about worldwide's about but it's probably growing, right, I mean, it's it's supposedly growing. But you know, you don't know. But we know that hunting is like not. I think hunting is actually diminished the numbers of hunters, so we we know by every measure, there's not a standard of measure, which I wish there was. What there isn't. But we know by almost all the measures that we can can can have here in our country at least that it's it's diminishing and why. I mean, there's lots of reasons. But for me, if we could, if we could just hang onto that thing that is so enriching to my life, then we could make it work for the future. Do you Here's I'm curious about two because you're I mean, Ben, You're so thoughtful, and it's it's I'm just very impressed with you're the depth of your thought process about this. So as a non hunter, someone on the outside, I'm wondering about the issue of and again I'm sort of isolating. I know that I mean the way and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but they're they're the way I think about hunting, the way that this is not original to me. Gary Varner, who's an animal rights philosopher. I've tried to get Gary on the podcast and he he said he's retired. Okay, he's he's a smart dude. I mean, not because he didn't want to do the because he's retiring. Um, but you know, he talks about you know, what he calls therapeutic hunting, subsistence hunting, and sport hunting. There's three categories, right, and they overlap. Therapeutic hunting is, like we were thinning, we have to do this kind of conservation, we're hunting for that purpose. Subsistence hunting, of course would be like Inuit are doing, and then there's sport hunting, so and they of course overlap. But what I'm what I'm the the way that I'm thinking about this in this kind of nice neat categories is it seems like the easiest target, no pun intended for the vegan, is the sport hunter, right. So so and I'm not saying that there are people who just go out, I'm just gonna shoot and and and and kill the animal for this pure pleasure. But I would say right in that case, because what the way you're talking about hunting here, Ben, It's I don't know if your view is the majority view among hunters. It may or may not be. I mean, it's it seems to me from the outside like you're a particularly thoughtful hunter. But the fact that I live in a culture where it's perfectly legal, whether or not it's moral, that's a separate question, because legal and moral two separate issues. But I live in a culture where it's perfectly legal for me for no other reason than my own pleasure to go get it your ten point buck shoot it. I don't have to do any I can go bring it back to my place, chop its head off, throw it out, and put it on my wall. That just seems like talk about where we've gone fucking sideways somewhere, like the fact that that is okay, as opposed to saying, you know, the kind of fair chase rules and the hunter's ethics and stuff. That just seems like, well, that's we've gone way off track here if that's okay. So I wonder if you would agree with me and that that's a reflection just like the thing in the plastic bag, and you throw the fact that we have somebody with a higher powered rifle killing, puts his head up, doesn't give a shit about it. That would you agree with me that that's something that we should we should advocate against or I mean, am I putting you on the spot on the No? No, no, I'm like, I'm I'm putting myself on the spot by haven't you on? Um? But I do that, and so we can have this conversation. So I think there's a lot and I discussed this, and there's a guy who was just on We'll just have been on the podcast prior to this, who is the Hunter? And it was who is saying, like my granddaddy's way of being a sport, hunter's gotta gotta go, like we gotta change this. And and I see that, and I see and I see it, and I look at it and I'm like, I kind of agree with you. But but there's something that pulls at me a little bit that the culture, in the idea of hunting is born in all types of motivations. So like a it's I'll start by saying, like, at its core, I can't really disagree with that because that's not what I do. Right. So, like your version of vegans and that you have if somebody's practicing there out there saying like if you don't need vegans, you're going to hell, or if you don't need vegetables, you're going to hell, Like you don't agree with that if you don't want to strike it from the ledger because it probably has some it's doing some good. And then in hunting, I know for a fact that we've set up a system where that guy who just chops the head off he has to pay money, and that money goes back to making sure there's more animals. He is doing good, whether he wants to or not, like he is killing an animal that that Wildlife biologists on the state level have said, there are this many animals, there's this much land, there's this many resources. We must balance them. Let's use this hunter, this trophy hunter, as a tool to help us do that. That in that triphy hunter will pay us money, you know he has. He assigns a different value to that animal. Maybe it's not the meat or the experience that I have. He signs a different value to it. He'll pay for that. We'll put that money back into making sure that we have the things we need to make sure these animals, you know, we perpetuate these populations in the future. And so I would just admit to being conflicted over that. I don't. It's not something that I that I do. I wouldn't if if I said this yesterday with Matt Johnson's if you took away the meat thing, it would I probably would quit doing it. I don't know. I have never been that situation. But if you said, hey, you can only hunt things you can't eat, Like, well, what's what's what are we doing? Why are we doing this? That you better have real I better have to sit back down and re or reorganize my thoughts around why I'm doing it. So there's that point. So I just it's just it's something I'm gonna flict in. I see why it's good. I see the actual like levers and buttons that we've in the systems we've created to make that guy good. Let's call that guy an asshole. I've seen that. I've seen that it costs ago in a sheep hunt, and I've watched sheep hunters shooting shoot a sheep and just knowing they're not gonna take the meat, but giving the meat to the local native tribe or something, or a local poor family and lauding themselves for that. You know, it's like, yeah, okay, at least we've built in the hunting community, we have built this thing where you better at least you better, at the very least somehow make yourself seem good. It's because we don't tolerate that ship. If you're just whacking stuff and and rolling around, we don't really tolerate that. You better give money to conservation, you better give the meat to someone who needs it, you better do something to stay in the club. I'm comfortable there, but philosophically, I don't agree with that person. And I'm sure you could probably say the same with lots of lots of vegan folks. Um. So it's so it's definitely complicated that way. And I mean there's times where I've spoken out against certain groups and I've supported certain groups. And I'd love to see a time where we don't have to say the word trophy hunting, or we don't have to like have that conversation. But we're here, you know, and I wish, I wish we could have the full conversation, And like the mainstream, I wish we could really just have the full conversation, not just pluck the thing that you know that is controversial and push it, push it forward. Maybe if somebody can take that away from this conversation, like boy, it's not We're just not that far away. We never have been. I don't really think. Um, we can pick reasons why we are. We can say trophy hunting far away, you know, crazy naked liberal lady far away, but that's not really at the core world we're trying to get to, you know. That's the that's the friendship that we all point to, is that people that aren't smart enough to come up with their own ideas just point to that stuff. Um. But I think people that that follow our company and listen to this have thought this through and I've talked to a lot of them, and a lot of them are where I'm at there generationally moving away from what it used to be and trying to figure out what is ethics. You know. I've given some talks on hunting ethics and sporting ethics and a lot of people come and a lot of people have questions. And so I think there's a generation, not just our generation, but like a movement within the hunting world to better understand this stuff and be able to better articulate it, where maybe before it would be like there was a there was a principle when I was coming up that was I don't know if it was my dad's, but it was definitely his generations. I was like, don't talk about it because if you go hunting and you just keep it between us, like nobody will come and attack. And if it's if it's just us amongst us, we get what it is um and then social media game and then here we are, you know, vegan philosopher and a hunting bearded hunting guy talking. Yeah, but I really appreciated him. I feel like we've covered all the ground. Is there anything left on the on the plate? Uh? I mean we could talk for hours. No, I think I think for what we covered, yeah, I mean if if, if nothing else comes up this discussion. What I hope is that people who are listening who don't agree with animal rights or veganism or this kind of way that I look at the world, is that they at least I think that there's substantial body of of thought. It's it's it's it's not simply like animals are sacred and you're killing them and you're bad. It's it's if nothing else, they see that this is actually a nuanced, you know, view, that that is not merely like you said, throwing the blood on the I mean, it's not loony tunes what you're saying, what you're saying to me. At least maybe people, maybe this will be the end of my podcast Hall Hunters will be like this, dude, what the is he talking about but he didn't speak for us, but I don't only speaking for myself. And like when when where I'm in the room with you and we're talking like this, there's a lot of it that makes sense. And like I said, it wasn't I didn't. That didn't just happen to me. I thought that for for quite a while. Um, And so who knows how many people will will listen to this and have those realizations, but I think a lot will because I think it. We're just a lot closer than we thought, or most of us think. And taking a little bit of time to walk through it, that's all you gotta do. Take a little bit of time with vegan. If you're out there listening to this, then you've got a vegan aunt that just always yells at you about your steak, your venison. Sit down with her and have this kind of conversation. Be like and and if either of the two of you in the conversation hasn't thought out their ideologies enough, boy, you're gonna be like, oh shut I better go back to I'm pretty go back, I go bettert to go get get back in the idea, Jim, start lifting. Anyone who wants to contact me, tell him to my website. Yeah, what's your website? Where can people find? I just googled you and like started watching videos and reading your paper. Is there a better? RC Jones dot m E r C. Jones dot emmy. You know, I feel kind of embarrassed because r C. Jones dot com, it's arc Jones is common. The only thing they had left was me, And I'm like, sounds it sounds so like, you know, like narcissistic, like anyway, with a name like rcy Jones, all the other things were taken. So if it was like arc Jones dot awesome, Okay, I thought I'm awesome. All right, you're being a little presumptive. You're pretty cool anyway. R C. Jones dot me if you want to, and you can shoot me an email. What I mean, I I love to dialogue about this stuff because I think dialogue is I you know, we talked about earlier about living a life we're trying to you knows, as I say in the paper, aspiring to live a life of non violence and less suffering. I think modeling dialogue is rather than vitual and and this polemic and yelling and you're done and you know, I think part of that responsibility to non violence is to model. Yeah, and that's a great point. Yeah, And I remember early in my career. I mean, I look back a lot of stuff I've written in my career. I worked for the n r A, like when I first came out of college, and it was a great place, nice people. You know, they believe that they believe. And I still I believe very hard, whole hardly in the Second Amendment and all those things. Um, But there's just ways that I that I spoke and wrote at that time that I just don't know that I knew the gravity of of what I was saying. You know, anti hunters was a big thing, and this is it's like, yeah, okay, it's not. That might make me feel good like there's an enemy out there, but it ain't really going to get to the point of what I'm trying to do is make sure there isn't anti hunters. If I want to make sure there isn't anti hunters, I better not like close the bridge off, like I bet you. If if I want to make sure there's more hunters, I'd better not be so rigid in my ideologies that you have to think the way I think to get in the club. If I do that, then unless people are gonna come into the old, the old hunting club. So I think that's true for any you know, mechanism or hunting or anything like. You know, if we can open up, open the shades and be like, this is what's really going on in here. Some of it's really great, some of it not so great, all of it is complicated. Um, we embrace those things and we can we can do something, do something good. So well, I appreciate you coming. Thanks Penn. It was really nice of great discussion. It's really nice to meet you. Yeah, we'll have to do we'll have to do more and see what we can well too. And I think they're, like you said, we can do do a lot with this conversation. Take it further, or take this exact conversation and get more people involved. I think of you. It's an important thing. I like it all right. Thanks man, I guess I grew up on and all day row. That's it. That is all episode seventy one of the books. Thank you to Phil, Thank you to Robert Jones, Thanks to all of you for listening. I will say that the last two episodes are something that I thought about since the time that I I thought about doing this podcast, um for a bunch of reasons, but one to challenge my own ideas about animal rights and about veganism, to challenge my ideas about Berkeley, California and the people that live there, and to bring myself closer to the things I don't understand. So that's what I wanted to do. Hopefully I definitely achieved that for myself. I think having both these conversations with Matt Johnson and Robert Jones back to back helped me have a deeper perspective and and find real good meeting and in the time I spent with both those gentlemen and and moreover the time I spent in Berkeley, California exploring these ideas. So hopefully there's value in it for you. There certainly was valuing it for me, and I guess it's an aside. One thing I was thinking is that I would love to to go on the road with Robert C. Jones and take that conversation and and let people sit in the audience and listen to us talk and ask questions and make assertions and just open it up to to a larger dialogue. I just I just felt I'm sitting in a hotel room with with the guy. I felt that it was so much value in that room that he brought in his perspective that it would be great for other folks to see that. So right in, tell me either to send us out and let us do it, because that would be cool. Um. Also, you know, I'd have to ask Robert make sure he's got some time to go and do it. But that's that's neither here nor there. What else? What else? What else? Oh? Um? The Mediator dot com, you gotta go go to the metor dot com. I don't talk enough on this show about some of the content on the Mediator dot com. It's I work on it every day. I got a great team of people here, Sam Longdren Spencer, new Art, Morgen Mason, Joe Fernando. These guys are working on the website every day. We're posting a dozen or more articles a week there for you. That includes recipes, that includes a thing where we launch called fact Checker, where you right in and ask us um to debunk a myth that's out there. We have asked wire to hunt from Mark Kenyon we have a gear dump series we just launched where guys like Brian Callahan are dumping out his traditional archity traveling kid and guys like Brodie Henderson are showing you what he carries in his bucket when he goes fishing with his kids down by the lake. So all that stuff, it is too much content for you probably to take in on ada a league weekly basis, And we're gonna keep pumping it out for you over there at the meat eat or dot com. So so head over there, and while you're there, to go to the store and buy some th HC swag. That would be great. And I'll end with please please please right in th HC at the meetator dot com. Th HC at the meetor dot com. Tell us what she thought of this show. Tell us whether we need to keep feel or not. Tell us whether we need to talk about Game of Thrones. Tell us whether you like peas. Tell us whether you are enlightened by our conversation about veganism and animal rights. So next time we're going to talk to a very enlightening gentleman. His name is I fucking forgot his name? Hell Well, William von Hippell, Damn it Bill. We'll just keep this all in Phil. The thing I forgot William von Hibble. Sorry, Dr Ron Hipple. Your name is so it rhymes with nipple, so why would I even forget that. Anyway, We'll see you next week. Bye, Thank you, Jack Daniels. Oh I'm seven, Tennessee. Who whiskey got me dragging heaven and h and just got to look good to me. They're gonna have to department to the farade, Oh the far red, far dragging heaven,

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