00:00:00 Speaker 1: We're back better than ever, right, Phil, Yes, we're back. We're better than ever. It's t HC. Thanks for sitting through the best ofs. We appreciate it. Had two great years of podcast. We're gonna have a third even greater year, and so we're excited about that. We're gonna get rolling. We've got a lot of things we want to talk about this year, a lot of things that covered we've been back here. The Mediator office is planning playing some cool trips, segments, cool interview guests, trying to get the best of the best. We got a lot of great through lines and topics we're gonna try to cover this year. We're gonna try to include a lot of controversies, a lot of interesting people, keep doing what we've been doing in the past. So keep this as our promise, Phil, Really it's Phil's promise to make this the best year ever. That's true. That was my idea. I pitched it to you. I said, hey, Ben, what do you think about making the best year of THC? Was like, absolutely not. I am tired. I took some convincing, but yeah, I think he came came around. So we're gonna We're gonna make it the best yer. We're we're dedicated to make this podcast better. Come along for the ride with us in But for now this episode, we're talking about uh fills a backstabbard. There's a poem involved. We have two teenagers out of Pennsylvania were being charged with animal cruelty over a video of them abusing a deer that they had shot. We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna get into that, uh, pretty crazy turn of events. And then we're gonna talk to Dr James Tantillo from Cornell, a pretty famous ethicist. He's done a lot of thinking on hunting and hunting ethics and philosophies and why hunting makes us better people. So stick around to hear that as well. We're getting going episode in joy. I guess I grew up on an older road, a pedal to the meadow. I always did what I told until I found out that my brand new clothes a game second hand from the rich kids next door. And I grew up fast. I guess I grew up mean. They have a thousand things inside of my head I wish I ain't seen, And now I just wanted to a real bad dream of being and like I'm coming apart of it seems. But thank you Jack Daniel, No hey, everybody welcomed Episode ninety seven The Hunting Collective. It's we're back and better than ever. We're in a month, Hig eight is Joe a month? We were gone a month? Did you miss us? Well? You I was here though, Yeah, I didn't miss you. You didn't miss me because I saw you. Yeah, you saw me. Everybody else missed you. Yeah, I hope you. Guys, we were still coming at you every week, but it was best ofs and we know best ofs aren't all that exciting to some people. Other people, maybe they are. But we're back. I think we're better than ever. Phil, you think we're better than ever. I think it's yet to be seen. I think we'll find out. We intend to be better than ever, and I think that's it's the thought that counts. So we're gonna spoil you, spoil you listeners with gifts in that's the way we're gonna bribe you into leaving us good reviews and doing doing good things for the podcast. So so don't worry. But we were joined by Anthony Locado Ben fresh back from Mexico. Yeah, I was I was terrific. Man. We were um down in Sonora, Mexico, just um south of Arizona, hunting, cous dear. It is a spectacular country, really fun hunting. You've done it. Um the deer so cool. It's challenging, interesting and um man, it's just beautiful. You know you're hunting on these uh hunter on this massive cattle ranch and it's uh, it's a little bit like going back in time. You know, you're staying in old stone building. This ranch is off the grid. It is worked by traditional cowboys that care um on horseback, who do not when their pictures take it. I found out last year and like, I'll take your picture. That'd be cool or great for the graham. Nope, it pointed to his gun, like I'm just gonna keep riding. You're not gonna do anything, but you'll be out there hunting. And then you run across uh, you know with a carrol on a horseback with a couple of dogs and you know, old lover action rifle on a scabbard, and you know he's just making his loop and living out there. It's a it's a real special place. It's it's a wonderful thing, especially those of you that are, you know, hunt locally only. When you can travel to hunt like that, you get immersed in the culture of the place and kind of what you transport your style of hunting to a place in a different you know, and like you said, it's kind of like a different time down there. Yeah, it really is. Crossing the border is always interesting, and so I'm glad you guys got to go. I paybody needs an update. Not yet, I'm honestly not yet a father because I'm already a father. I'm not yet a double father, not two time father, one time father. As of right now, I think you could technically call me a two time father. We've had for those who been asking, a lot of people preached out via the instagrams and even a couple of emails as to how everything's going. I want to say it didn't go. It's not going great to this point, but everybody is is relatively happy and healthy, and we're looking to have the baby anytime now. So just a quick update. You don't want to hear my sob story about what we've been doing. But while uh, Anthony and team and Cal and Steve were all down in Mexico, I was hanging out in the hospital. Um, and so just quick thanks to the folks in the Bozeman Hospital. Like nurses and doctors are legit heroes. We all know this. Yeah, we'll talk about that, and they do good work. We wanna talk about that enough. We talked about sports and musicians. My wife wanted to watch last night the SAG Awards, and I just felt ill watching these people even know if that is Screen Actors Guild. We just watching these people that really just played around for a living, pretend to be important. And I just after spending days with real important people, who whose lives a lot of people depend on for them to save them for me, we're in there asking questions, how do we do this? What do we do to have this child safely? And all these things? It's amazing. So thanks to those folks. And my god, if you see one, thank a military member you see him. If you think see a nurse or doctor, thank them too, because my god, they they do some of the most important work on this earth. I would say. So we're gonna get into the show and we're gonna keep doing this no matter what happens. Here's uncollective. Um, phil, have you ever been to New Zealand? Hey have not would you like to go? I love to I know that there are dragons and elves? What and Hobbits? What are there? Not? They're not? Oh I've been misled. What do you mean? Uh? If I took you to New Zealand, you'd want to go, like tour the Hobbit town or whatever? For sure? Ye? What what else is there to do? Can you get in here? You would't want to go to hobbiton? In all honesty, it looks gorgeous and I have a I have a feeling you have more to say on the topic. It's a big, big deal. Uh, First Light. You guys all know First Light. Um, they're gonna send somebody out there in listener Land or elsewhere to New Zealand, and they're gonna send them there with me. I'm just gonna go, Joe, I'm just gonna go. I'm just gonna go and watch. Probably nobody's telling me if I'm gonna get to do what I'm gonna get to do. But I'm definitely gonna go watch a lot of movies on the plane and then walk behind whoever wins. You're gonna watch Lord of the Rings on the way there, I'll probably do. You can study the landscape, yeah, because that's yep, so I'll know it's like scouting, ye, watching that purest form of the scouting there is ye. So that's what's happening. You can win a nine day, eight night that's a long time hunt. People don't win hunts for that long. So I'm a little nervous about who might go with me. So they're the hunter. I just assumed you were the hunter and they were just your guiding gun bear. But yeah, you know, if I was making a call, you'd be like one one eight night guided trip where you walk behind better Brian when he shoots whatever he wants. You have to carry his gun most of the time. You carry his gun late night foot massages, and you'll hang his clothes up when he gets sweaty. But now, in all honestly, you're gonna get a weather be rifle package. You're gonna get some stuff from bench made knives, and you're gonna get kidded out in first light. And we're going to fly across the world the Southern Hemisphere, and we're gonna go to the South Island, New Zealand. We're gonna hunt Himil and Tar, which I've done a few times. It is beautiful. Have you ever been there? I've had been in New Zealand and hunted tar Um. Oh my god. The mountains are spectacular and those animals are incredible best and they're delicious. Don't let their smell look their general presence full you. They're delicious. Yeah, they're big, hairy goat ye kind of deal. And um, they are delicious. They smell, but they're delicious. Uh. And so you're gonna get all of that and we're gonna do it sometime in May. You have until February twenty nine of this year to enter. And if you go over the first Light dot com, it's first Light dot com slash Tar Hunts Sweet Steaks. Is it this May? This coming May? Wow, that's fast. That's fast. You're gonna win. And then all of a sudden you're just gonna be there with me in a tent. Can I win that? Yeah? I'm adding this to the to the legal stipulations. You can't like peas. If you like peas, you can't go don't want to be around these types of people. You know what I'm saying, Phil, I don't peas are just just fantastic. And I'd like whoever whoever goes to start growing a mustache right away. So we'll put that in the legal addendum at the end when you win. Either way, you can do that if you go to first light dot com slash t A R shit t h R there's no ship in the thing t A h R h u n T sweepstakes Tar Hunt sweepstakes don't include ship. If you type that in there, you're not gonna get anywhere, but it's gonna be fun. I'm excited. I'm honored that that First Light would want to include me and something like this. I don't see a whole lot of giveaways out there in the space like this one ever. Yeah, that is. That is Joe was saying, that's a fast turnaround you put in for like a sweepstakes, you wait a year and then you might get a phone call and then you have to wait another six months. But no, you've got to put in your your time off at work right now, even before you win week off right now. Go to your boss and be like, I've taken this week off, I've preemptively want to hunt with better. Brian's confidence right there, and so we're gonna do a lot We're back. We're back. I'm still looking for that some listener to send me a compilation of all the email things from my computer. On every show, there's one of them, and so you might I might be able to just give you a spot on the New Zealand Hunt if you can put that compilation together. Again, not legal, all all kidding aside. Please want um that's it, man, I'm excited. We're gonna go keep checking back from more details, but first you have to enter. We're gonna do a lotical stuff on the podcast around this hunt with the winner. So hopefully you are well spoken and you love hunting. That's really that all that matters. And we're gonna go have a good time with First Light. So thanks First Light. We're gonna go now, Phil, we gotta talk. Okay, this doesn't sound good. Yeah, it's a little bit of a come to Jesus. We're gonna keep Anthony and Joe in the room as mediators. That's gonna say, as witnesses. Will happen because I might it might get violent. I just watched The Irishman last night and this is a worrisome introduction to a conversation. Yeah, it is for sure. I got we got an email. It's entitled Phil is a Backstabber. Now we and we've taken, you know, some time off from actually recording each week. You got the best of shows we enjoyed. This takes some time off. I've been been very busy with my family, and it seems like Phil his allegiance is slipping a little bit. I think we've had something the truth like this conversation in the past. Yeah. Yeah, I would you like to expand on on this thought. What's what's happening? There was a guy wrote in, A guy and his name is Mike Hartman. He wrote in and the emails Phil as a backstabber. Uh, he's At first, I would like to point out that there has been there's been an advertising ms from Nella Energy pouches and you're included on that. That's true, and recently you were on a full podcast with the met Either team. Mike also points out, Uh, yeah, that's true. Huh. I'm not gonna lie. This is bad. This looks bad. It looks bad. And in recent resent podcast you pledge your allegiance to this show. Don't give me a looking offered, just awkward laugh. I've been off rearing a child. It's something like that, attempting to here you are, he wrote a poem for you, okay, Mike did, I'm gonna read it. You're ready, go ahead. The room is filled with a stench from Phil's countless lies. Oh you're to tell Ms Joe Brian he would be faithful to his side first on th HC, Phil the Engineer did we applause, even though Ben made fun of his stash and man go of the dog. We've greatly appreciated his being on th HC. But the faithfulness of Phil has was never meant to be behind you. Mr O'Brien. We will all stand. Should you aspire to turn fill the engineer, inform him that he's fired, or request that he makes a symbol to show that he is true to stand behind TC, our love could be renewed. I think this is so dumb. You're not a poet, I guess I mean no, Listen, I'm impressed, and I am honestly flattered, even though it's mostly uh, it's called poem d Phil what? Okay? Anyway, thanks Mike for writing in and being concerned because I've been off doing really important things, and Phil has been dabbling around with other folks. Uh, what if I were to tell you, Ben that I also work on Ryan Callahan's podcast. I don't care. I also work Remy Warren's podcast. I'm not even looking at your You're not no, I'm looking away, Ben, I Phil, I'm still I'd like to think that I'm still You're my number one boy. Boy. That didn't help, Okay, that hurt. Anyway, We're gonna just put a number on you. Ben can move only called me tell me a boy or something. Um, we're gonna move on. Phil. Just just know that we're watching you. Mike Hartman is watching you, and he's writing poems. I imagine he wrote that in his basement or something. Mike, Mike I said it was dumb. But honestly, that's that's that's great, and you're not wrong. That's pretty good, pretty good. Moving on to more degree, just more agreed, just things out there in the honey world. But we're watching you, Phil. Just know that. UM, I should say we have Cornell Cornell ethicist Dr James Tantillo coming on soon. We're so we talked about a lot of things. We talked about hunting, ethics to try acknowledge within hunting and a lot of really some some topics for reaction, but a really good conversation around the philosophies the deeper philosophies of hunting with with Dr Tantella's will stick around for that. But before we get to that, Joe Fernado is here too. Give us a bit of a news report. I'm not gonna call it a news report because we're gonna do some more research after this. But there was a video that came out not too long ago. When did it come out, Joe November? This video came out of two young men in Pennsylvania. I think you could actually describe it as abusing a deer one of them had shot and wounded. They filmed it, posted it on social media Snapchat, snapchat to be exact. Um, give us any other details you think are pertinent, Joe Um. So they videoed themselves like laughing hysterically well while kicking this dear um multiple times. And in the full video that originally was posted, there was some more egregious acts like them really stepping on its throat and like pulling it by the antlers and stuff like that, And it was a really brutal video to watch something that has hunters and you know, people that care about wild animals and wild places and stuff that it was just really disturbing, didn't enjoy it. Uh hit home. But they have now been charged with multiple crimes apiece four felony charges against each of them. Um yeah, yeah, aggravated cruelty to animals, two counts for each of them, and then aggravated cruelty to animal conspiracy. So in Pennsylvania. Yeah, one of those eighteen one was seventeen, So the seventeen year old is technically a juvenile eighteen year old being considered adult legal substances, and so this has become there's a lot of things to go around this, but I think maybe we should watch the video. I will say that since this video came out, I've gotten dozens, if not a hundred or so messages from people saying that we need to discuss this or or gone about it. So it is a serious thing. Hundreds of thousands of people have watched it too, and there's petitions on the internet, and it's it's a very serious thing. Part of this, I think goes to there's there's a lot of threats social media being a big one. UM, these two young men being exactly that, being young men. Um, and then just internet outrage and how that influences things in this case. But let's let's quickly just watch the video and we can comment on it. UM. For those who haven't um seen it. I'm not gonna han hand the link out. You can go find it somewhere, but we'll watch it really quick because we just need to kind of go through this and and look at what's happening. So they blurted out in this video, but this kid, this deer is wounded, looks like it's maybe he spined it paralyzed that the kid film me is giggling. Wise. Friend takes two or three steps and punts this deer in the head. They're cussing really easy, oh my, and grab, don't get I'll try. And so now he's trying to grab. This deer is fully alive, clearly paralyzed. They're trying to grab his horn. They already broke one off. This is and it's clearly animal abuse. It's as a hunter, the opposite of everything you'd want to see. It's pretty gross and appalling. UM, I don't know any other comments. Yeah, it's it's gross and appalling and it is hard to watch um. And it's just um, you know, if you've hunted um long enough, there's there's a good chance that you've come up on a dude that you've shot that has that is not dead. And it's hard to imagine, you know, that's happened to me. And you know, the into the feeling that I feel immediately is like kind of revulsion and and like you're a little sick about it, and you're you're like you're worried and you feel bad. And my first thought is, you know, how do I kill this dear as quickly as possible right now? And it's just hard to imagine, um, someone having the opposite reaction that it's an opportunity to sort of abuse and cause more pain um to an animal. It's it's I don't understand it other than you know, clearly there's something wrong with these two individuals. Um. You know, it's it's very hard to watch if you're old enough. In this case, age being being a big thing that I think about, Like what was I doing when I was at age? I was following the examples of the folks that we're taking me honey. And so these guys are old enough to grab a rifle and get a license and go hunting there, old enough to treat wildlife with respect that it deserves. This is just a beyond. It's just beyond. And the the hubrist to post it online. You just I think that's one of the big issues there too, because everybody goes to snapchat because it disappears after you know, five or ten seconds, and it has that facade that you know, sense of safety posting stuff that you don't want people to see for a long period of times. But you know, once you put something on the internet, it's always going to be there, you know. And there's the there's the tired tropes of like anti hunters will see this. This isn't to me, this isn't that. This is what is wrong with these two kids, I mean their kids. One of them is eighteen, but it's still that's still young. And how do they get to to this point. I'm not gonna I don't know them. I can't pre judge them in any way. Um My assumption is they're feeling real bad at this point. But in the moment to see that, dear and for your mind to go to I'm going to get my phone out and film someone. I mean, I never used chap Snapchat. I don't know how you post to it. I don't know if you film live like you do Instagram, or whether they filmed it and then later posted it that. I don't know. Well I'm not sure about that. But in the moment, for you to see a suffering be it doesn't need need to be the animals, any being suffering at your hand, and to to increase that suffering for a laugh, it's pretty sick. It's very sick, pretty sick. Um. I don't think there's any more to say about that. Anybody that sees that video, which these these folks voluntarily put out on the Internet, that shows another kind of warped way of seeing their own actions. Anybody sees it is sickened by it. Any Hunter the season, I think probably is doubly sickened by it, because you know the responsibility you have in that moment, and this is, in fact the opposite of what your responsibility is to that animal. Um is piste off like that pisces me off, pisses me off a lot. Um. But Joe, you have the you found it changed out orc petition and what's it say? So it was written by guy Mike Wolfe. Uh. He opens it up with saying, recently two monsters from Brookville, Pennsylvania, UM, which I think is a very strong word to use right in that opening line, like he's he's getting it out there that people need to associate these two kids as monster. Criminal charge. The title of the changed out petition is criminal Charges for violent Monsters who tortured innocent wildlife. Yeah, so, he I mean, in my mind when I'm watching this video, I'm thinking these these are little monsters like I do. I would think that just by like the visceral reaction watching the video continue Joe, and I totally agree with you there. And then you know, he goes on to say they committed sickening acts, which I totally completely agree with, and is calling for people uh to sign his petitions, saying charges need to be filed with maximum sentencing. UM, charges need to be pressed posting in the case it gets to their their posts, get the lead. He just yeah, he ends up was saying and all caps charges need to be filed with maximum sentencing. And then this petition has been signed by seven hundred and seventy one people. Yeah, like that's a that's a big thing. There's a lot of people seeing this petition. And I mean, I don't know if you guys saw on social media on your own channels and everything when this first came out, just the outrage. I mean on my personal channels, I had friends, um for sure, posting petition saying we need to throw the book at these kids, just get him out of here. And yes, Um, it's disturbing, it's disturbing. There there has to be some there's been some separation between how outrageous this video is and how we treat these these gentlemen in in in a judicial manner. There there has to be some some way. But you often have UM, public officials who are reading this. We're feeling the backlash. We're getting the emails. I know in this case, Joe, you were telling me that that was happening. Um, the local officials that were set to prosecute these two kids, we're feeling the pressure. And they were getting a lot of emails as to why haven't you done something sooner? Why isn't the investigation more swift? Why haven't these from some of my preliminary research to a lot of people have been thinking, you know, in that court of public opinion, people have been thinking that it's been because the older kid, the eighteen year old, is the steps on of uh Brooksville sheriff. So people thought there was you know, some special treatment going on or something like that, which it was assured by the police department that that wasn't happening. And then the game Commission is the one investigating, not thet It just takes longer for some of the stuff to happen than people realize. From Yeah, and it seems like they did a very thorough investigation before they came forward. We were charges and the charges that you said there in the beginning, Joe face a maximum penalty of thirty seven years in prison? Is that correct? All? Right? About that? Right about? So for for Alexander, he's the eighteen year old, so he has four felony charges against him, plus eat more seven more charges misdemeanors things like that that would in total if you got max penalties on all of them and was found guilty on all of the charges, Uh, it could lead to thirty seven years and it What do you think about that, Anthony? Well, what I think I'm not punning here, but what I think is that's not for me to say, right, that's um, those laws were written in a certain way for the maximum penalties, and UM that's the way our legal system works, where laws are passed with sentencing guidelines and then the trial happens and there's a whole process for a judge to um determine what is the best sentence. And so UM, what I think is, you know, I understand people are angry and it angered me and you think, oh my god, these kids are horrible. Throw the book at him. I get that, UM, but I don't know the full story. I don't know, um any other circumstances. And I you know, I trust that that's what the trial and the sentencing process and the judge that's what their job is. They are the experts on that, not me. Yeah, this all this goes weirdly connects to President Donald Trump. Uh that he signed it back in November signed a federal animal cruelty bill called the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act five days before this happened. It was signed into law. This is all I mean, this goes back to this. One of these two kids being a step son of a law enforcement official. Then you have this five days before it happened. By this is a bipartisan bill, and this is what it says. This expands a two thousand ten laws signed by President Barack Obama that banned videos that show animals being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, and pale or subjected to other forms of torture. Now, intentional acts of cruelty shown in videos are also felony offenses. And it's obviously a reaction to things like this. So obviously a react action to social media, to the uprise and people filming everything they do. And now you have a case in the hunting space that connects directly to this legislation. It was bipartisan legislation for once in our damn lives. Um, and I absolutely agree with with the way this is stated in the bill and the way it was passed in the law. And now you have, uh, these two kids, they're gonna face it. They're gonna face the wrath of of this legislation and of everything that they did in that video. UM. So we're gonna do some more research on this. We're gonna continue to look into it. I think there's just so many Some of these stories just have so many threads and entanglements not only in our culture, but in how we treat criminals. And in this case, it's just a really interesting story. So hopefully Joe and I will break off at some point and get an article in media dot com to kind of go through the details of this and get everything exactly right, talk to the individuals involved, and kind of lay this out in a way that makes sense, because again, the thing that worries me is that the quarter of the opinion when there's a video that's this damning, becomes ravenous. As we see with this petition, it's very easy. It's very easy. Like signing a petition sounds like a serious thing, but all you have to do is put your basic information into fields on the Internet and you have quote unquote signed a petition on change dot org to punish these kids. Um. You know that that may or may not weigh on the actual decision when it comes down as to what punishment they get. But um, that's just another example of what I feel is just reckless chord of public opinion, especially when there's something this gross out there in terms of the video. But the legislation backs it up. So I think it's just a story that we're gonna continue continue to look at. So please write it's at THHC at the mediator dot com. Let us know what you think. Let us know what you'd like to know about this that you don't already know, because there's a lot of details we left out here. There's a lot of little idiosyncrasies and things, um, and good journalism, good report would bear out that we need to go and get that stuff and present it because I think this is an important story, not only for for these two gentlemen and what they did, but also for social media and for what we post and how we post, for our images hunters, um, how we penalize, and how we charge people that do things like this. Um. There's a lot that goes into it, and it's I I would take it very seriously. I don't think there's any joking joking in me on this subject. UM. So right in, let us know what you think. We're gonna break off and do some research and come back with even more information on this situation at a p A. Phil you want to take us home? What do you think? I mean? I know one of them is seventeen, but even like everywhere on this table kept preferring to them as kids. I'm sorry, man, you're old enough to know one of them is not a kid legally. I was moved out of my house and I was seventeen. Oh, ship, Phil, we're feeling an onion back. Just not only are there is I'm gonna say that they're not children, but they are young enough to have grown up in this social media landscape like snapchat and Instagram and Facebook. Uh. The fact that they committed the abuse and then thought that it was a good idea to put it on the internet because they're like their small circle of friends would think it was funny or something. I guess. Uh. And then it seems like like there's not kind of what I get is that you seem upset about this change dot org petition. That's like, oh, it's like they were coming at these kids with with pitchforks and torches. But I think they invited that on themselves. Change dot org petition is is nothing. It's it's only a way to call attention to something. Uh. And they wanted attention called to what they did, and now they're getting it. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, you know, part of the thing. Um, when I look at this, I just I think seven thousand people just to notes the power of the digital age, Like people are gonna see this, man, if you post something online. And we've seen this, I don't know how many times we've talked about on this podcast where others we have seen this time and time and time again, criminals posting illegal things on the Internet and getting caught like it is ridiculous. There's a lot of dumb people in the world. And and I don't it's it's alarming to me. The language and the vitual here is alarming to me. But you're not wrong, phil, Like you bring that on yourself when you do stupid things. Um, you live with the consequences. And and I don't know if this I don't know these two kids gentlemen whatever we're gonna call them, but not gentlemen, Like I don't know these people, but I could tell you that to to think that you can do this and post it for others to see, the disconnect with reality that is present there. That I'm gonna post this for other people to see is is unbelievable. Unbelievable that that they wouldn't stop in the moment and say, like posting this on the internet, even if it goes away and whatever it is twenty four hours or whatever, the snapchat set up is the wrong thing to do. Just like it. I just didn't even understand that I can't do it. I can't can't either. It's sick to think that. I I just know because, like you know, the the argument being like, oh, well we all did dumb things, like dumb things when we were that young. Uh yeah, well that's like that's a line. There's dumb and then there's evil. I and if I got if I saw someone posted a picture on Facebook of me in a dorm room and there was like a beer can in the background, I would go to that person and be like, hey, take that picture down please. And like so these guys like tortured an animal and had no problem like sharing it with the Yeah it's this, It's just awful. I don't know that the first time I've ever been presented with like what do they deserve? It's it's clear that most people that watch this, me included, I think they deserve a harsh punishment. I don't know. I just don't know, I don't. I can't say that thirty years in jail will fix it. I just don't. I don't know. But they do deserve to be punished. So we'll go back. We're gonna look at this. We're going to um talk to as many people as we can that were involved, and we're gonna find out as much as we can about it and trying to present this this case to everyone UM as it lays out, because there's a lot that we don't know. UM. Which is the case with a lot of this stuff, is there's a lot that we just do not know. But you know, you know how I learned how to what not to post on the internet. When I've got my first job out of college in the hunting industry, The lady called to the HR lady called to tell me I got the job. She said, Hey, you got the job. Congratulations, I'm all excited. She said, but you're mice face page has a few pictures. You might want to take down my space. Yeah, she was like, yeah, see, Joe doesn't even know what my space is. A mini who was in your top eight? Ben? Oh, I don't know that there was a time when you couldn't change it but then it was man when when you could make your own top eight, you had to think about your circle of friends and who would give you bad I was just like eight chicks that I liked a single. That's that's how you flirted. Yeah, that's how I told him I was into it. Um, that's good. So then I went and I looked, and there's me doing beer bonds, me doing all this you know, college age type business, and I just deleted the whole thing. I was like, this is not worth None of this is worth the benefit that I might get from people thinking that I do beer bonds on the end, especially when you figure out that your employers are looking at that. Yes, this is like twelve years ago, and so um for any young folks out there or anyone at all, My god, everything you put online as a press for these everything, so take that from this. And also I don't think we could lecture people and not kicking wounded animals. This is what we don't need to do that. But UM, a lot to learn from this, and we're gonna continue to look at it great now. James Tantillo from Cornell it's a really great conversation. We got him on the phone a couple of weeks ago. We talked about a lot of things, including philosophies around hunting, a lot of his thoughts on ethics and the modern hunter. So enjoy James Tantillo. I guess I grew up on an all day road. Jim, how are you good? Good? Well, thanks for joining us. We're we don't do many phone interviews here on the Hunting Collective, but I wanted to make sure that we had this conversation. And we tried to hook up on the East coast and it didn't work out. But thanks for taking the time to to chat today. My pleasure. UM, we want to break into a little bit of your background and what you've done in the academic circles and also uh in in the hunting space. But I guess first, we've talked a lot about ethics on this program. We talk a lot about why we do what we do in our motivations, intrinsic and extrinsic, and the things that uh we believe to be true. But could you explain to somebody UH that may not understand ethics your version of ethics when it when it comes to hunting. Well, you know, I mean, I'm a trained ethicist. And you know, I used to give a lot of talks and I would make the point that when it comes to hunting ethics, there's only two or three genuine ethics issues, and that's hunting safely, and it's a general you know, sort of a general respect for the law and UH and the clean quick kill, and then beyond that a lot of it. You know what, what what hunters tend to think of as hunting ethics is really more aesthetic questions about what type of technology do you see? How many shells in the gun, whether to shoot on the wing or on the water, and and those kinds of questions. Yeah, and those are the questions I think that persists because they are at least for me, important to talk about and to compare perspectives and our cultural the culture significant to some of those ideas. Um, do you feel that that's what's going on? Why? You know, most of those you could call them de baits, you could call them quandaries, whatever the issues within hunting, those things persist in the conversation. Do you feel like that's just because we're always trying to gain those perspectives? You know, I think that's part of it. But I also think there's basic human nature at work. We're you know, many times we criticize what we don't understand or you know, and and a lot of I get sort of irritated at hunters pointing the fingers at other hundreds and saying, well, I don't like the way you hunt, so let's ban the way you hunt. And there's this sort of it's my way or the highway mentality, and I don't think that does anybody any good. Um, you know, in an ideal world, I'd love to see hunters tolerate other hunters and other hunting behaviors, even if they personally don't approve of them, or don't engage in them, or you don't don't care about them. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's something that continues in our in our community, and just there the lack of tolerance. We've talked about this recently, where you wonder if these differences were always there, there's just laid bare with modern technology and the internet and social media. Our differences were always there. We're always you know, culturally different and in the South versus the West, for example, but now those things are being laid bare because we're all connected and we can see these practices and that's kind of accelerated those differences. And there's larger social trends, you know, just you know, independent of hunting. Apart from hunting, you know, there's a there's less toleration I think of differing viewpoints and perspectives and and people are more quick to judge, and there's a lot of self righteousness. And I think that's that's true across the board. Yeah, for sure. Well before we get much deeper into that, because we'll probably go quite deep on that line thinking, can you just talk about you know, right now, you're you're at Canal you Cornell University, you've been in the Department National Resources since two thousand and one. Could you kind of talk about why you landed where you did in academia? Why ethics, UM, why environmental history, environmental ethics, virtue ethics. There's a lot of things that you deal with that UM are interesting to me and would love to know why you landed where you did. Sure, probably long answer to that question. I'll give you the park Notes version as much as possible. Right I I started out in college as a history major at William and Murray in Virginia. UH dropped out of college once the leave of absence, found myself working at Walden Pond Stay Reservation and Conquer Math home of Emerson in the Row, and uh transferred to Cornell as an undergraduate and dropped out yet again. I was on sort of the tenure plan for my bachelor's degree, and then when I finally went back to school, I stayed there and got my master's and my PhD at Cornell. And it just worked out that my PhD advisor was retiring. I took over his teaching and I've been there ever since. It was just sort of being in the right place at the right time. Yeah, And when you know, we've had I've had a lot of good conversations around why um folks that are biologists or that professionally um that used the professional time to go outside and study the outside world of the natural world. You know, when was the point in your life that that you that you knew that's what you wanted to do was? But was there for you? Was there a point in your life where you knew that this that this path was It was it before that you that you got into this or or during your time you know some of them both my parents or teachers. My dad was a high school principle. My mom taught special at I think teaching is in the blood. Um, you know, it's just I think there's there's a sense in which it was meant to be. I think and and have you. When you look at ethics and your study of them, is that connected you more to the outdoors? Do you feel like you you understand a little bit more of the push and pull what's going on out there? Um, as you think of it, I don't. I don't know that ethics by itself, you know, deepens or heightens my appreciation for the natural world, you know, having studied thorough for so many years, you know, he was a sort of intellectual jack of all trades and was interested in natural history. He was interested in philosophy, he was interested in religion, history. And uh, I think I'm a little like that in terms of wanting to know everything about everything. And you know, I know very little about a lot of things and much more of a generalist I think, which kind of goes against the grain somewhat of academic work, because a lot of academics no more and more about less and less. Just they're they're hyper specialized and I have very broad interests. When when was the first time you really started thinking about um, you know, looking at And I was telling you before we hit record that I read a paper that you sent me from two thousand one called Sport Hunting, Pneumonia and Tragic Wisdom. And as I read that, I know it's it's decades old by now, um, but as I read that, it struck me as a lot of the things that I've been thinking about and talking about articulated better than I probably ever could. When did you When was the first time you thought about that this was a need or this was something that you you know, talking about sport hunting and the idea of it and the ethics of it. When was the first time you thought that it was either a need of the intellectual academic community or a need of the hunting community. When did that start to happen for you? Right? You know? When I went to graduate school of Cornell UH in the early nineties, I didn't intend to write my PhD on hunting. I was actually more interested in studying animal rights philosophy, believe it or not. And the more I studied animal rights philosophy, that more and more convinced I was that it didn't hold up and I didn't grow up hunting, so I came to hunting as a thirty year old adult. I got invited to go along to watch with my fellow graduate students, and it just blew all the stereotypes out of the water. These you know, it wasn't a bunch of beer guzzling highway signs shooting yahoo's. The people that I met who hunted were very thoughtful and reflective about it. It meant a lot to them. And then when I tried it myself, you know, it became a passion and it's been a passion ever since. So, you know, along with all that, I started reading some of the philosophical discussions about hunting and hunting ethics and the morality of hunting, and I realized there was a real need for for, you know, a more nuanced kind of discussion about the philosophy of hunting. Around the same time, Jim Swan had published his book in Defensive Hunting, and while that's a very very good book, um, you know, at the time I thought, I don't I don't know that that is adequate to the task. And so that's when I sort of decided Man, that's a good, good PhD topic. Yeah, it's been a topic that we've well I don't know if I have a PhD in it, but I've definitely run my mouth on quite a little. I'm pretty I'm sure you're close to it anyway. I don't know if I ever get there. But that's why, that's why I want to have this conversation. I'm interested though, now you say this, um what? And I've been thinking about this a lot. Like I traveled to Berkeley, California over the summer and did some podcasts with some animal rights folks and a vegan philosopher named Robert C. Jones and talked about the animal rights philosophy and the ideologies of it um in depth, and we just kind of we there's a lot I think we agree on with vegans. I think the animal rights philosophies, as you just said, have lots of holes in them and can and can relatively easily be broken down philosophically once you start to go that direction. What what did you find as you looked at that early on? Well, you know, I used to argue that the hunters share much of the animal welfare perspective with uh so called animal rights activists. Many animal rights activists don't really believe in rights, they just believe in reducing animal suffering. And hunters are the same way. No hunter, I think, in good conscience, goes out in the morning with the conscious intention of shooting a deer in the ass and having a crawl off in a ditch to diet angering six weeks later. You know, hunters want the ideal of the clean, quick kill. We don't always managed to to do that, but you know we we generally try for that. You know, so if all goes well, you shoot an animal who doesn't know you're there, and then the animal just falls over and never knows what hit it. So, you know, I used to make a point of emphasizing that that hunters and people consider concerned with animal welfare, it's share an awful lot in common. Yeah, for sure, did you find that where where did they Where did they fall apart? For you? Where did that line of thinking that just fall apart in terms of the in terms of the rights perspective. In terms of the rights perspective, Yeah, I think there's a the rights perspective is sort of you know, ignorant about basics about animals in a lot of ways. And you know, you can treat animals as little you know, people trapped in animals bodies, you know, um and anthropomorphized animals, you know, the so called Bandi syndrome. UM. But I think people who work with animals, people who um, you know, have hats, people who are thoughtful, I think know that there's a a genuine a line or a distinction between human and non human animals. UM. So I think that's probably the first place where the animal rights sort of philosophy goes wrong. Yeah. I went to a place called the Dingo Den when I went to Berkeley, and I got to interview an animal rights activist and he was he uh, he had been too. He had been charged, I believe in and some of the leaders of his organization were looking at federal charges for doing some breaking into factory farms and and other things. And they I found that they thought that was a badge of honor, that was something to be that they were fighting for for what they believed to be mass murder. And they were they wanted a constitutional amendment saying, you know, killing an animal was akin to murder um, and and spoke about that sometimes flippantly like that wasn't a huge thing for our our world, that we could just move past killing animals, much like we moved past slavery. Um. And I was very uncomfortable with those comparisons. Well, you know, I respect their motivation and I believe those folks are as well intended as anyone else. So I think that here's where we get back to the ethics topic, that you know, what a hundred chooses to do in his or her own mind, you know, as regards killing an animal, you know, that's that's sort of on the hunter and the hunter's conscience. And while I understand there's a role for society to play and trying to prevent animal cruelty, there's a big difference between animal cruelty and legitimate forms of animal use hunting, uh, you know, farming, raising beef cattle, using sled dogs to pull sleds, uh you know, or what have you, and so you know, and and those activities generally don't harm other people. They don't harm the animal rights activists. So that the animal rights activists starts at a disadvantage because it's very difficult for them to prove that, you know, the act of hunting out in the middle of the woods, miles and miles away from the near town, you know, has any impact on them at all? Yeah, Yeah, And I think that they often and was my experience to choose the straw man are their factory. Farming is their straw man, and that's what they go towards. And they'll they'll play that up and and use that as an example and and all that says. I disagree with that as well. It's a part of my activity of hunting is to disassociate from those that that those mass slaughters and not knowing where my meat comes from. So, as you said earlier, I think something that everyone that listen to this podcasts know that that I believe wholly that vegans and animal rights because we share. We don't share a certain tact, we don't share a lot, but um, we share this animal welfare idea, UM very strongly. Um. All right, Well, I think moving moving into the ethics conversation, moving into the paper that you're at two thousand one, and I know a lot of these things have have stood the test of time and and really can can be a big part of of our conversation around ethics and hunting. Do you do? You want to quickly just explain, um, what you determined to be the benefit of Honey, which you describe is the realistic awareness of death. I thought that to be a really you also talk about tragedy a lot, but I think that realistic awareness of deaths a nice place to start. Sure, you know, I back up a little bit, you know because in a lot of different places in twenty years ago, thirty years ago, and still you know, people would say, well, why do you have to kill an animal? Why not just use a camera or use paintball, um, you know, with the camera, if you want to really dress it up, you know, you can pay cross areas on your camera lens and and show you at the kill, shot right at the heart, and let the animal live. And so how I got into the topic was wrestling with this question about why why death? Why is the death necessary? And the classic sort of line comes from the Spanish philosopher Jose or takeing Ego Sette and Meditations on Honey, where he says, you know, we don't hunt to kill, we kill in order to have hunted. And you know I used to make this point a lot. You know, you get somebody who's farther along in their hunting career. They may trophy hunt, they may be holding out for antlers. They may go five or six seasons without killing a deer, but there's always that possibility that they might have killed had the right deer come along. And it doesn't mean they weren't hunting. And you know, so to me, you know, I I really did wrestle with this. You know, why do you need the death? And to me, there's a whole bundle of virtues that are sort of packaged in, you know, with the act of taking a life, the conscious decision of taking the life, uh, and then dealing with the fallout, the repercussions, the emotional sort of part of it. So in that paper, you know, I talked a lot about this idea of the sort of tragic ambivalence that at the moment of the kill, the hunter is both glad for having done something the right way and a clean, quick kill, but at the same time there's a there's an ambivalence, there's a sadness, there's a twinge of regret that you know, jeez, I just took this animal's life, and and there's a sadness and uh, you know that that to me is is very very similar to the classic, you know, thousands years old explanations of the reactions to tragedy. And that's that's how the tragedy thing came about. Yeah, and you bring up like Aristyle and his insights about tragedy, right, and talk a lot about tragedy and some of the virtues that you talk about their emotional and their intellectual. Right, there's crucial you say that, you know, honey is especially well suited for promoting a range of crucial intellectual and emotional virtues, which I think is is a great way to kind of start that lay out the groundwork for for what these are. Um, you've already talked a little bit about them, but is there any other way you kind of plane exactly the intellectual emotional virtues that we expecture. One of the themes that I sort of have pushed for the twenty years since that paper was published, you know, this idea of tragic wisdom, the idea of wisdom coming out of the moment of the kill. You know, and we talked about the you know, the person who eats meat but goes to the grocery store and sort of sees the meat and the shrink wrapper and the soul of fane and goes home and never gives it any thought. That's a very careless and thoughtless sort of mode of consuming meat. Whereas somebody who's actually been out there for three weeks and has waited to the final day of a deerer and ax season, harvested an animal and and and deal with you know, the gutting and the butchering and and all of it. Um. You know, there are insights both about animals and about food and about one's own character that you don't get just shopping at the grocery store, um, you know, and and and there's an emotional depth to the experience that is also absent when one is simply you know, you know, eating eating food from the grocery store, going to McDonald's for a hamburger for that matter. You know that there's a reason they call it fast food. Do you feel That's something I've been thinking about a lot. It's not really covered in your paper, but it's something I've been been wondering. And I know it's a model. In the modern sense, we as humans are we're given an option, you know, we have the option to kind of disregard where our food comes from, and really most of the things that we interact with where how they're made, or where they come from or kind of the genouis of how they come to be. We have that option, right, we can. We can check out of our consumer how we consume things only from food to products, to whatever you might put in that bucket. And I think we have this option to to walk away from that and live, you know, live a modern life without understanding where our impacts, or we can do what is increasingly different call, which is dive into these these difficult connections we have with every action we make and the impact that it has not only our environment, but on our society, the people around us, whatever. So I think Honey is just now a part of that conversation how do we uh stay connected as humans when every advance that we have, both in technology and and really every part of our sciety, every advance moves to disconnect us, right, And I think Honey just just sits in that vacuum. Well, and there's a larger sort of do it yourself ethos that's at play. You know, nobody could be a hundred percent self sufficient throw himself proved that to his own satisfaction under fifty years ago to walden Um, you know, I mean you head back at the times of Marcus Polo and Genghis Khan. You know, with the global spice trade, you know, people get stuff from other places. On the other hand, you know, generating at least a portion of one's own food again leads to a kind of intelligence or at least awareness, you know, And I made the point in the paper that whether you're pulling the trigger on a deer or pulling carrots out of your own home garden, you know you're you're getting something. There's there's value added there that that you're getting and and it can lead. It doesn't automatically lead, but it can lead to a kind of deeper wisdom, a deeper knowledge about the way of the world. And death is part of the world. And that's where you know, I make the point that some of the militant vegetarians who don't sort of see the the cost and animal lives of a field tilled for soybeans, for example, you know, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of bowls and moles and mice and shrews, and you know, all of it that that that die for a field of soybeans to make tofu. And you know, there's no generally no awareness. I'm not saying it never, but mostly not not there. It's hard. It's hard to enact anything in your life that that stands to to remove the fact that you're a consumption engine. That's what you do. You wake up at the morning and you consume the world around you in order to live. And so that disconnection is is the one thing that bothers me the most because I think it it just at the end of the day, you must understand. You know, we say these things and a lot of philosophers have said the better than eye, but you know, life eats life and all this that we say that, but that really is the truth. And it's how we come to terms without and how we decide to to move forward with that idea and move forward with how we see the world that's important. I think, um, and I think you ask a question here that um everyone should should has tried to answer. I think, which is why does here's the why does hunting give us pleasure? You know, what is the thing about it that gives us pleasure? And how do you how would you explain that from this, here's where you start getting into the deeper or philosophical question about the essence of hunting. And Ortega himself said, hunting is not you know, it's a type of diversion. And I think what he meant by that is it's as recreation is fundamentally a form of play, whether in your own mind you're re enacting the days of the settlers or Davy Crocket or Daniel Boone, or there's a primitivism or an atavism about it, um that that is essentially a type of play acting. You know, you're you're sort of playing at your role of being a predator within, you know, the broader ecological landscape. And the pleasure is in part derived from the difficulty of the task itself, the challenge, the effort, you know, and and and here's where again the philosophy of play and games and sport give us a very good understanding of how complex games can generate a depth of enthusiasm and appreciation. You know, the cliche that you know chess is better than checkers, it's because you know, chess has many more dimensions in terms of strategy and in terms of moves and in terms of complexity and thinking five steps out or ten steps out, um and and hunting has that kind of complexity. You need to understand animal behavior, you need to understand plant biology and geology and hydrology. You need to understand the weather, You understand when you know, you need to understand scent. If you're a bird hunter, you need to understand how your dog works. Um. You know. So all of that package together makes hunting an incredibly enriching and rewarding activity. That's that's that's unique. You can't really get that. You know the places. You know, you can go backpacking on the Appalachian Trail and you know you're sort of flying through the landscape trying to you know, put in your twenty miles and you're not really stopping to smell the roses or understand much else other than just pounding out miles. And you know, hunting really immerses you in a landscape and in a habitat, in an environment where you know you. Immersion is a good word for it. Yeah, And we just talking about it being a three dimensional experience. There's so many things you add to it. If you were to to ride on a roller coaster, you get a thrill, You get excitement. It's two dimensional. It doesn't really have depth to it. Um and critics of hunting, you know, the roller coaster comparisons really neat because a lot of people who don't hunt think about how hunting is all about killing and you're just killing for thrill or killing for fun. And you know what most non hunters aren't aware of is the hours and hours and hours and hours that go by. Where As Ortega says, you fight the beast's absence, and I think that's a wonderful line, because you know, and and people who make the mistake of watching hunting shows on TV, all they see is the moment of the killing. They don't see the thirty hours of sitting around with cold feet waiting for that to happen. And uh, you know, so that's another thing that lends to the sort of almost character building part of it. You know. It teaches you humility, you you have to learn patients. I think to be a to be a good hunter, among other things. And I've always wondered, you know, why hunting stuck with me among other things. You know, my brother is never, never hunted, and it's not interested in it. My father kind of went away from it until I got interested in it, but did it as a child. His grandfather never really did it that much, So why why did it sticking me? And I don't know what my young mind was thinking, but I know now as an adult, I'm sticking with it because of of what you're just saying. And I feel like it's it's transformative for me and if I can somehow relate that the people around me and others, I think that's exactly what our society and culture needs. And you also say in the book, you say the ideals of tragic pleasure and tragic knowledge lead ultimately to my articulation development of the idea of tragic wisdom hunting. I think we've already kind of talked around the idea, but can you talk a little bit about tragic wisdom. Well, you know this. You had mentioned how the philosophers will say, you know, life eats other life. And now Albert Alfred North the Whitehead, was the one who said life is robbery, and and again your point that life exists at the expense of other life. And I think that wisdom in part has to do with the recognition of one's own place in the cosmos and one's own one, one's own place in the sort of the hierarchical chain of being, you know, kind of an old fashioned notion um, but also in awareness of one's own one, one's own word reality. You know. Uh, that animal on the ground, Someday that's gonna be me. And you know, it's often commented on how his hunters get older and more mature, and then as they age, uh, sometimes they occasionally get less and less willing to pull the trigger, or more reluctant maybe is a better way to put it. And I find that with myself that as time has gone on, I'm I'm somewhat ambivalent about pulling the trigger. You know. I'll watch twenty or thirty deer go by and and there's a part of me that says, well, not today, you know. And it doesn't mean I'm not hunting it just, uh, I don't know. As Mike Gaddis says, I think I quote him in that paper, you know, the life you take is not all that different from your own. Yeah, I think that I've run into that a lot. What do you speak of a lot of my the hunters. I admire some of my idols within hunting and the outdoor space have have softened in their older years, have have either lost, you know, the gumption of youth or have become more philosophical in the way that they approached death, and therefore, you know, don't want to experience it as much as they might have earlier. Do you feel like that's that that's that persists throughout hunting's history. Yeah, I think that's part of it. But I also think you know, your your skills improve as a hunter and you get better at it. You know, I fell in love with grouse hunting. And part of why I fell in love with grouse hunting because it's so damned difficult. To me, it's the most difficult kind of hunting to try and locate grouse, have them hold over a point, then shoot him on the wing, and every single grouse I to shoot if and when it happens. That's a trophy. Um. And you know, after you know, fifteen years go by, you get a certain amount of competence at it, and all of a sudden you realize it's not really about a body count. You know, it's it's not to just sort of show hey, I can do this, because you know, you can do it. And that's where I think hunting turns into more of an art form and you get more and more interested in the questions of technique and how you hunt. And so this is you know, people say this with big game hunting all the time. You know, you start out with a rifle, and once you get really good at that, maybe you switch over to archery and you use a compound bow. And then once you get pretty competent at that, maybe you switch over to a recurve or a stick pow um. And those additional refinements are a way of keeping your interest in the game but making the game more interesting and more challenging, requiring more skill or different skills, different levels of effort. Uh. And I think hunters who go through that kind of metamorphosis, I think continue to find that the hunt enthralls them and engages them in the absence of a body count. Yeah, and it's it's fun to if you even think about those around you, you know, folks that you're hunting with, folks for a long time to watch other hunters go through those changes and to start, you know, I've watched and talked to a lot of through through our current efforts here at the unecollectible. A lot of adult onset hunters, will we call them? I think we got to create a different name, probably, but something more, something more appealing. But adult onset hunters. How quickly they moved through the process that took me two decades to move through. How you know how quickly they moved through just wanting to be safe and understand what's going on, to to wanting to study the natural world, to then wanting to understand death, and then being jumping into the culinary aspects of it. And that it starts to just enrich started life in ways that they would never have imagined. And so it's good to kind of here you articulately the philosophical um bounds in which that all happens. Yeah, you know, that's been my experience anyway. Yeah, you say you you quote Richard Palmer in this piece um that the tragic form generation. Yeah, theory of tragedy, and it starts by saying an essential part of tragedies unresolved and unresolvable emotional paradox. Right, you talked about that a little bit. Yeah, this would be that twinge of regret at the moment of the kill when I was doing my PhD, the dissertation research. Um I ran across an old Victorian print. I think I might even describe it in that article or in other places, where it shows a bird hunter and he's got the double you know, the double barrel shotgun just cracked open, a little whisper smoke coming out of the breach. He's holding a bird, I believe it was a woodcock, and he's got his center at his at his knee, and he's looking at the bird kind of funny. And and it's at the you know, the moment of the killer. He's just harvested this bird. And the title of the print was the moment of regret. And again it's that idea that you know, hooray, I just I did it. I got what I was out for. And at the same time, now I wish I hadn't done it, or I wish I could throw this bird back up in the sky into incident replay, you know. And and again it's not that the kill validates the hunt. It's just it's the hunt itself that's the pursuit. Is the thrill of the chase, you know, that really old fashioned notion, The thrill of the chase, and uh, you know, people who run hounds are probably the most articulate about this, whether you're hounding bears or raccoons or rabbits with beagles or with you know, hounds with mountain lions. You know, a good friend of mine was a Montana biologies years and years ago, and he, you know, it wasn't himself a mountain lion hunter, but he had gone along on a bunch of mountain lion hunts, and he says, you know, the first time, the houseman will take a sport out and then the sport they'll tree a mountain lion, and the and the guy from out of state, will you know, shoot a mountain line so that he can say he's done it and take the pelton whatever if the if the the hunter comes back the following year and and they reenact the hunt, he says, more often than not, they'll tree a mountain lion and the hunter will elect not to kill the mountain lion, and his friend of mine seawan. He says, that's the closest thing I've ever seen to catch and release hunting. And what he was describing was the fact that what's exciting about mountain lion hunting is listening to the damn hounds and following you know, in a jeep or on a horse or on foot, even with GPS on all the collars and all of it. You know, that's the excitement. The shooting of a cat out of a tree is anticlimactic. You know, there's there's just nothing to it. And uh And I think that that also captures something of this idea of the you know, again, it's the pursuit, you know, it's it's it's that that's what matters. Yeah. The content you touched on here too is the respect right when when when that moment of regret comes, and we try to depict that as a hunting community, we're also trying to depict there's some respect there, right, and that and that you you talk about this paper, but I know, you know, like there's a lot of anti hunters and that's scoff at the idea of the respect you can have for an animal you're just killed, right right. Yeah, And I think that's again partly people criticizing what they don't experience or don't understand, you know. And I think the idea of respect at the moment the killers, why you go through such efforts too. You know, um, clean the animal and get it quickly on ice or cooled and you know, packaged and frozen. You know, in part you're honoring the animal, uh, and not just that individual animal, but the you know, the species. You know, if you kill a deer, that that individual deer you've just killed is kind of a totem for deer in general and the game suppers and the celebration of the lives that have to be sacrificed to sustain our lives. Uh. You know, that's part of that respect, that's part of that honor and and all of that's you know, highly ritualized. It's it's a type of cultural uh selli ration, but it's another very important part of hunting writ large. It's it's it's part of the total package. And I think you when you start talking about death again, you get back to that kind step and then you have a respect for death, um and what it really means, what it looks like in its raw form. Because I think we've taken a lot of we've talked about this on this program, we've taken a lot of new hunters out. And the thing that struck me about that's fairly consistent about this and that struck me the most. I guess that you could say struck me emotionally the most is the idea that you might drop an animal on the spot. There may be some some muscle twitch, you know, a leg may jump. You know, we've all seen it as hunters. You know, you kind of know what's happening. This animal is just the last vestage of its life. It's it's dead, but um, there's still a little bit of life left. I've seen a lot of new hunters struggle with that. And and when I was a twelve year old boy, I'm telling my dad, shoot it again, shoot it again, shoot it again. I've seen that from a lot of other new hunters. Is I've I've taken out folks here in a recent decade. What do you think that is? Do you think that's just us, you know, being confronted with death and not wanting to see it, not wanting to understand that there is a struggle there. Yeah, that's partly it. But I think you know, I mean not answer your question very directly, but I'll answer a different question that you haven't asked, you know, about hunter recruitment and bringing young people into hunting and not hunters in a hunting you know, I think a lot of times when we make the mistake or the hunting community does by by pushing people to hunt big game right off the bat, you know, hunt deer, you know, and you get these six year olds on YouTube hunting deer, and you know, twelve year old you know whoever? Girls, boys, And the older tradition of starting youth out with small game, whether it's rabbits or squirrels. Um, you know, the emotional impact what you're you're you're you're easing them into that emotional ambivalence at the moment of the kill if you start small or smaller, you know. And I think if you start with rabbits, or you start with pheasants, or you start with pen raised quail or chucker, and move your way up slowly to the point where, you know, you tackle big game down the line, and I think that would make it a lot easier, you know, if we allowed young hunters to go through that progression, uh, you know, so that they don't sort of overreact at that moment of death when the legs, you know, of the deer kicking. Yeah, you know, and and and so I don't think we do them any favors by by sort of pushing that process. How about yourself in your in your own life when you're you know, we've we've talked about this in the past and the podcast, how we're kind of comparing the experience of being an adult onset hunter the way you're able to acknowledge some of the entanglements whereas a twelve year older, just as this is how I came to it just following my father. It was more about being with him and being around and it develops into other things, but it's certainly there, and folks that are coming to in the thirty five or forty or older are able to appreciate the entangments and walk when they're getting into it. How did you find that in your early experience? Well, you know, I don't know. And here's another case where I'm probably not gonna answer that question, but a different one like it has to do. You know, we have different motivations with different kinds of hunting. So for grouse hunting, you know, I'm gonna do everything the one true correct way. I always make a big joke of this, you know, it's with a double gun shotgun of Parker, you know, built nineteen ten over an English center and only in the air and a sixty engage. And you know, so to me, the artistry of grouse hunting is partly what motivates me to get out in the woods, you know, versus deer hunting. I'm more about filling the freezer, you know, the first year that comes along seven oh one on opening day. If it's brown, it's down. And I'm not as interested in making you're hunting a kind of art form, whereas I have other friends you know who you know, they'll still hunt deer, they'll track them in the in the snow, they'll they'll you know, do the entire archery season waiting for mobi buck to come along. And and that's what defines them as hunters. Um you know, duck hunting, you know, you can carve your own decoys out of cork and build your own duck calls and shoot them on the wing. Or you can put a bunch of plastic flamboat deeks in the water and sluice the first mallard to swing among your decoys, you know, And and it's all good to me. This is where we get back to the thing about hunters pointing their fingers at other hunters. You know, everybody, you know, most hunters are purest about one or two different kinds of hunting. Um, but it's rare that somebody is the purest about absolutely all of them. You know, when I'm grouse hunting, I'm usually by myself. When I'm goose hunting in January, on my back in a cornfield, there's by for six guys with me, And partly what makes that fun is the group hunt part of it. Yeah, and I'm not a very social person. I don't generally like the group hunt, but goose hunting is the one, uh place where I just I love it. That's become kind of a passion for me. Yeah, And it's funny how those things go in your life, where that you're introduced to something, and to me, it's it's time and access or time and opportunity often are big factors in it. But you know, for me, I I love to be I really love sitting in a tree stand for twelve hours. I mean, you just don't there's just it's there's a meditation there. Whether you accept it or not, it just doesn't happen. You can walk around and ask a million people. Have you ever sat in a tree all day? And and all of them will probably tell you know, And so there's some But I also love being in a deer camp with a bunch of guys and sharing that experience. And I've increasingly been more drawn over the last couple of years to be in with a lot of people while I'm hunting. We're before it was a more solitary thing. So I guess maybe hunting it can be a reflection of where you're at in your life in that way, you know what, I think, what do you value? I think that's really true. Yeah, And like I said, it's fun to kind of compare and contrast with other people when they came into hunting, where they value it and and how that's moved around. I love that conversation because I think it provides all kinds of perspectives. Um that we were talking about you one thing you we've brought up a bunch I don't know that we've explained it as well. You explain in your paper hunting is a serious art. Um and you quote Joyce Carol Oates and she says she speaks of the awareness of life's tragic ambiguity that serious art provides and she makes an argument then about the sport of boxing should be considered a serious art, and you argue that that hunting And we've talked. You mentioned that hunting is is a serious art. Can you kind of talk through that philosophical construct Yeah. The Joy's Carol Oates book, by the way, it is just tremendous and if you don't know, you should go out by it today. It's I mean all that there's there's about four or five books I've read Ortega, but some of these other great Yeah, no, it's a great, great book. But you know, when I was doing my dissertation work and thinking through this kind of theme, I look to other blood sports and other activities for sort of analogous ways of interpreting hunting. And the thing that really struck me was the Spanish bullfighting and the bullfight literature. Unlike the American hunting literature or even the global you know, whether it's German or you know, people who thought about hunting, recreational sport hunting, the bullfight literature is the most self aware collection of accounts of people interpreting the bull fight, not as a bull fight, not as killing a bull not as waving you know, a cape around, but just how to interpret the larger sort of cultural phenomenon of the bullfight and how to assess its meaning. And to me, the Spanish people in general have been very conscious of the sort of larger symbolism of the bullfight for hundreds of years. I mean now sadly a lot of that is slipping away, and they're they're starting to ban the bullfight in more and more locations. But at least for a long while there there was an awareness of the bullfight as a type of artistic dance and again all highly ritualized and all choreographed, and every little move down to the pirouettes, that they each have a unique meaning. And an excellent book in English languages is Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. Um. And to me, that was what was missing from the sort of American you know, philosophy of hunting, uh literature. You know, mentioned Jim Swan, There's a host of others, Ted carros Oti, David Peterson, all of them, and most of them don't interpret hunting as a cultural phenomenon, you know, they interpret it sort of is a biological act of harvesting food, and I think that just leads to a set of blinders where you fail to sort of recognize hunting's true greatness at you know, provoking these larger themes and these larger thoughts and this deeper awareness about about you know, the human place and nature. Um, you know, hunting can generate that. It doesn't often, but it can, Yeah, if you allow it to. It definitely can if you see it for what it for what it is and can be. Definitely can and not always, and it will more often than not provide that. There's there's difference. You know, you have reflective hunters and you have people who are unreflective hunters. But that's not unique to hunting them. That's true in society and role. You have a lot of people who they're just not reflective. They don't think in sort of like philosophical ways. And that's okay. I'm sure you can boxing too. I mean there's probably a lot of boxers that think it's a sweet science and there's others that think, well, I have to do this to win. Were people on the outside looking and they're just like, that's two idiots beating the snot out of each other. It's like, you know, which miss is basically the whole point. So do you feel like these things that you know, hunting is one of those things that needs to that has depth and if you want to understand in the way that that you've articulated and understand it, you have to spend time with it, and you have to be around people that that really appreciated it in this way, much like bullfighting. You know, I wonder if if our society because how complex and difficult this is, and there are so many other options out there that if we just like naturally move away from it. Um in a sense, dude, you know, I wrote that three hundred fifty page dissertation and I handed it to my mother and she read it, and she hands it back and she summarized it in ten words. She's like, your arguments basically, don't knock it until you've tried it. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that was an instantly humbling moment, because you know why I just spent you know, X number of years and three pages on an argument. Um. But I don't think you absolutely have to hunt to understand, honey. I think it's possible for a non hunter to grasp some of the essence of what hunting means to other people, even if it's not their taste. And I'll go back to that or take quote, um man does not hunt to kill. He kills in order to have hunted him. During my dissertation, and my wife, God bless her, didn't grow up hunting. You know, she's a suburban Connecticut you know, uh urban uh vegetarian. For a long while, you know, the hunting was about as far from what she wanted to be thinking about as any it could be. And I would mention that or take a quote to her and she's like, I don't get that. That doesn't make any sense. That's sort of stupid. And I thought about that for quite a while and then it finally hit me and I had an analogy. I said, when you know, it's a little it's a lot like shopping, right, And she likes to shop. You know, she grew up going to suburban Connecticut mall. As I say, you know, you don't shop to buy Comma, you buy in order to have shopped. And all of a sudden, it's like you could see the little light bulb go off and over her head and she's like, yeah, that brings me so much. It brings me so much joy to hear do you say that? Because I say it to my my wife all the time. I'm like this, this it's the Black Friday things like opening Day, dear season, you go to the mall, you know, and you are some sort of browsed, and you come home with some shrinking. It's like, Okay, you know, that's validates what you did. And and and and even though she's never hunted, you know, I think that moment was an eye opener for her. She finally kind of got I think at least you know that that truth that dynamic. Yeah, and and I haven't conducted the hunt right or even shopping. If you really appreciate it, you'll you can you can do it better. If you understand that that that's what you're after, then you can really appreciate those smaller things. And I've certainly over the last couple years trying to hunt slower um and be more deliberate and and treat it like a craft, because because that's how I feel it is for sure. And and the conclusion of your paper, you you said something that I think is the crux of this show, kind of the genesis of why I felt like this is a worthy uh worthy to have a podcast, a weekly podcast. You said, the complation, the contemplation of death and hunting can be a tragic pleasure. Hunters and philosophers of the of the hunt consistently agree about the necessity of the kill, but they often disagree about why why do we hunt? And why it's hunting a good thing? And I think that's something that we could tear down and build back up forever. But um, it's a great discussion. Yeah, do you think that do you think that we'll ever be able to to collectively understand that that each of us has a why, but there's also this macro why, this collective why that that we can all articulate together. I mean, I know that's a struggle for for all of us. And we started off in the beginning saying social media has kind of highlighted our differences and it makes it hard to understand why for everyone. Yeah, I think so. You know, I used to have this conversation with people in the Natural resources department. You know, for years and years, you know, the last twenty or three years, wildlife managers have been panicking about hunter recruitment. Oh honey, you know, the the age of the hunters is going up. We're not recruiting young hunters. The number of licenses sold every year is going down every year. And I used to sort of respond with hunting will never go completely out of fashion, mainly because it's such a compelling activity and there's absolutely no other way that one can experience nature firsthand. You know, that sort of total immersion experience. You know, when you're actively seeking your prey, wandering aroun the woods, you're participating in a way that you're not when you're just hiking. And that I and that's you know, that's I don't know. There are people like Jim Swana or others who think, well, that's genetically encoded in our gene. I don't know if I buy that, But I just think that people will always find that experience um valuable, and so I don't. I don't think hunting is ever going to go away. I really don't. Yeah, I wonder about its future and where it will go. We're certainly gonna move, we're certainly moving further from it, I feel, um. But there's also the idea that as we become more urban and disconnected, there will be this need for that medicine, This need I returned to these ideas, and hunting will be there to kind of to catch that spasmatical. Well, we gotta go back, We gotta go back and understand the natural world. So honey will be well. And you know you are just like you mentioned. I mean, the whole local board movement is very encouraging, just the fact that you have people who care about their food. They care about what they put in their bodies. You know, to have organically grown deer meat or elk meat or goose meat, you know, is a lot different than you know, the unknown stuff that you're buying at the store. You know, and a lot has been made recently about the so called impossible burger and the veggie burger and all, and you know, people are failing to grasp this is a one of the worst developments food nutrition wise. You know, you've got this totally one hundred and five uber processed piece of food with you don't know what chemicals in it. People have think, oh, this is great for the planet. Nothing dies diagnosis five years from now, when people start getting lumps in their lips or whatever. That's my my, my favorite thing. If I was trying to have the impossible Burger CEO on for some reason you want to come on there you go. It was weird that he denied our as, but I was gonna ask. I was gonna say, you know, no animals were killed by this burger, but we are going to die. And if and if you're going to create a burger and immediately sell it a Burger King, that's not very that's not gonna do you well on the marketing side, because anything because Burger King is not necessarily worried about our health too much. So good luck, good luck with that. There's some false prophecy there, right, I mean, I think people are trying to well. The thing there that complicates it is this, uh, the fear factor of the you know, the linked climate change. And I think there's a lot of bad information and misunderstanding about climate change and you know how bad it will be, and and and and so it's you know, that's your sort of fighting fake news in a lot of ways. Yeah, for sure. And and you know the reasons people step into that world, that the world of veganism and trying to you know, disconnect from death and and stop suffering. All those things are impossible to achieve. And now you're now, we've we have lab grown meat, we have you know, all these things are gonna are gonna come up. And I've told people, I don't know what you think about this, but I'll tell people that I wouldn't mind if there was an alternative to store bought meat for everyone, if it was plant based, that's okay, But we need to realize that's gonna be as hard as it is to get rid of factory farming and mass. You know, I don't mind. I would much rather have, uh, a veggie based hamburger than eat a factory farmed version. But I'm also not gonna sit there and think it's a guilt free sandwich. Right. Um? Do you think about that often? Like, how do we get that through to people? How do we understand that, you know, even though certain movements, certain lifestyles might make you feel good, they're not necessarily what they purport to be. Well, there again, you get back to the you know, people not being very self reflexive or or self aware about those kinds of thing. A lot of people just don't want to, you know, have to do that kind of thinking. That's fine, that's true, that's true. Yeah, and it is. We know, we know the answer to this question. If you would ask somebody, is not killing something virtuous? Most people say, well, yeah, if you don't have to, it certainly is virtuous. You asked this question. I think it's it's an important one. Can killing be virtuous? You know? M can you try to explain the question and the answer there there Again, I think the hunter owns up to the death that he or she causes, you know, so at the moment you pull that trigger, you own it and and you accept that responsibility. And you could elect not to pull the trigger. So like this, dear season, you know, I not pulled the trigger more than I pulled the trigger. Um. And that's a very different kind of moral ownership than the casual vegetarian who passed him or herself on the back and says, well, how virtuous I am look at me, and is wholely unaware of the cost in animal life of basically factory vegetable farming. You know that that again the soy uh you know soybean analogy. They're incredible cost of animal life, you know, and that that's just you know, looking the other way. Yeah, it isn't, and it's hard to and we've talked about this a lot. You know how it's very hard to convince someone who just doesn't want to think about it, uh and a lot of times. And I wonder going forward, is it the least complex idea that's going to win in popular society? You know? Is is the fact that if you don't kill something, you don't have to kill something. You know, if you don't if you don't eat meat, something doesn't die. Um, that seems to be you know, hunting is shrinking, veganism is growing. We've we've talked about this on this show a lot. That's not exactly apples to apples, but but that is happening. So I just wonder how we're gonna over time fight this idea that we have this complex enriching thing on one side and a very pretty easy to since nationalize and understand idea. And if you're not if you don't eat this meat, something doesn't have to die. Right? Do you think there's an endgame there? You know? I don't know. I just I don't know how to answer that. I do think there's an evan a flow, you know, I think, you know, in my own career as a college teacher, you know, twenty years ago, I had a lot of students very interested in animal rights, and right now I have basically zero students interested in animal rights. They've moved on to other sorts of themes, And so part of my background is also in history and looking at sort of things like this. Historically, I suspect the pendulum will swing back again at some point in the future toward h more consumptive uses of wildlife and and recreational pursuits such as hunting and and uh you know, so you know. But there again, I'm more of an optimist in terms my personality, you know, I think I'm a half full kind of guy, and and pessimists might might not be so same. When I guess, well, Jim, I really appreciate the thought process here. Um, I know there's as I as I started to look into your work and read some of your more current writings, there's a lot that you're into. Um. I guess I'll apologize for only focusing on this one paper and this one idea, but like I said it, it's increasingly interesting to me. It's something I think we could obviously explore. Um. And there's so many references and so many sources that use in this paper. That's probably gonna take me a couple of weeks to try to pick up all these books and add them to my collection and and read some of those. What what are some of the some of your favorite books or resources out there that folks might be able to go to just to learn a little bit more of these kind of philosophic Yeah, you know, I'm a big fan of sort of the earlier turn of the century, uh, mostly East Coast hunting writers. You know, this is another interesting thing to think about. Historically about American hunting. The center of gravity used to be New York and the publishing world in New York, and so you had people in New England like William Harton and Foster who wrote you know, New England grouse shooting for example. UM. Over time and after World War Two, the center of gravity has shifted to the West, and now you have sort of hunting media and social media dominated by largely you know, sort of Western big game hunting. You know, Montana is the episode of all that's our fault of well, you know, there's a there's good there's good things about that, but there's bad things about that, right because increasingly you have the sort of vision of hunting being shaped by Montana big game hunting and elk hunting in particular, and you know, deer hunting is it's practiced in places like Pennsylvania and michig Getting, you know, which has more licensed hold license holders than there are Montana residents. You know, Um gets kind of short shrift, gets sort of shifted to the waist side, And to me, I think that's a little unfortunate. So, you know, I actually think the hunting community would benefit from a re engagement with a more geographically diverse instead of hunting writers. Yeah, for sure, we've We've tried very much here. We like at mediate especially and even on this show. We understand the leaning. Yeah, and and I've explained my aspirations to go west started when I was a little kid. Um And I do. I am happy I'm here, but I do as an East Coast guy, we're talking about my my upbringing, where I was from in Maryland. You know, I do understand that. I do know that most hunters see this is a once in a lifetime or once every year thing, and there's a lot of hunting, a lot of things that take place. Especially I always think of Pennsylvania, and I'm glad you brought them up. You know, it's kind of this vestige of a different way of hunting deer drives and they do bare drives. They're still exactly and these things are these things. There's a there's millions of hunters that take part in this, and we cannot forget that with our as we you know, aspire to kill an elk or you know, it's elk hunting is is great, but there's just as much value and what's happening there or in the South where they still hunt deer with hounds. I mean, you can go to South Carolina or Louisiana or Florida, you know. And you know, when I used to do the hunter ed presentations, you know, I used to emphasize, look, as hunter edg hunter ed educators, you're not just training people to hunt in your state, but eventually they're gonna get old enough to go hunt somewhere else as a non resident, and the hunting practices are going to differ from what they are where you live. And you can't sort of raise sort of ethical absolutists who say, well, the way we do it in Montana is the only way, or or the way we do it in Virginia is the only way. And you know, if you do bear baiting or you know, bait deer in Michigan, that's evil. Um. You know, there's a there's a topic for a whole another podcast. I got involved years ago with the bear baiting ballot referendum up in the state of Maine that the h s US was pushing. And you know, baiting is controversial, and there you had a classic case where you had hunters who didn't like baiting pointing their fingers at people who baited and said, well, I don't like the way you want, let's ban the way you want and hugged. I struggle with that. I've always struggled with that. I think baiting is the most fascinating conversation within within this, within these kind of you know, I guess you'd call them ethical arguments or arguments within hunting. I think it's the most fascinating because there's science that says if you bait for deer, and you know, there's close contact on natural contact between the animals, there's spreads of spread of disease. There's also this idea that if you want to be an ethical hunter, had the closest, easiest kill to dispatch the animal, then you would bait for bear. You would bait the bear um. And there's this idea that that's not sporting and what what really is hunting? And so it kind of gets baiting for it just gets at all of these cultural touchpoints in a way that is damn interesting to me. Well, you'd ever figure it out other than your explanation. Well, and in context matters, you know, even in ethics, there's this idea of contextual moral reasoning. You know, to be a have an organic garden in the South is a lot different than expecting somebody who lives above the Arctic circle, you know, Native Inuit to be an organic farmer because they're dealing with perma frost, you know. So you know, you have to think contextually. The context in Texas is going to be different than the context in Maine is different than the context and color. Have you thought much about how social media is really contributed or in negative or positive ways to yea topic? Yeah, social media is probably one of the worst things to happen to civilization ever. There you I love it. Quote me on that it favors soundbites and you know, the Twitter one characters sort of an instant responses where people just they don't give it any thought at all, but they just snap with the knee jerk reaction, and a lot of that's really bad. Um gone is the sort of the long form essay. You know, I mentioned those turn of the century writers. You know, they would polish their writing for a week before they submitted it. You know, even a podcast is better than Instagram type posts. I don't know. On the other hand, there is a type of consciousness raising. You know. One of the things that happened with hunting about twenty years ago, there was this idea just hide it, you know, don't go into the diner with your camo, don't strap the deer to the roof of your car. And I don't think there's anything to be gained by driving hunting underground, as if you're embarrassed by it. I think hunters need to just be themselves out in public and and and and in the public benefits. I think from an awareness of how many damn people hunt, and and and that and not evil people. They're not bad people. They're your neighbors, they're your friends. That's so yeah, I feel like that that idea came from my father's generation, or maybe prior to that. I don't know that this idea that if we just don't highlight what's going on, no one will have anything to attack, Like, wow, that's a super that's a reductive way to move through the world. That's really hard. And I think social media has forced us into these conversations a lot of ways. We gotta have them now because a lot of people are there's you know, eleven million hunters and a good portion of them or sharing what they do online. Um. And it gives us a lot to criticize, a lot to celebrate, and and I think has kind of have shifted the way hunters moved through the activity of of going out to kill something. You know, there's different little touch points that you gotta take a photo at the end, you gotta do this. If you gotta do that, it's kind of change the way that we do it, um in a lot of ways. So I like that, you like that you said that it gets the worst thing to ever have because I'm I can't couldn't agree with that anymore. Maybe they'll improve, who knows, we'll figure we'll get better at it. I mean we're probably be I think as hunters. At least we're better at it now that we were, and it's it's infancy, which we hadn't been around very long. I was in college when I first heard the word twitter, um, and we laughed a lot about it, so we got some time to go, um. Well, well, Jim, thanks so much for for checking in with us and taking the time. I I am not sure you know what I'll say this. I would say I'm not sure how how interested people are in ethics, but I will tell you this. I've done some speaking engagements and some live events where we talked about ethics and hunting and have very similar conversations to these, and I've found all the audience is to be engaged, often stay way longer than the allotted time, and people are just interested in this and um even excited by it, understanding that it will be uh, sometimes strenuous conversation. Sometimes we will not, there will be no answer. Sometimes it will be deeply personal um, but it's a conversation. I've been really heartened that people are willing to have and excited to have, so I appreciate you taking part in sure. Thanks, it was fun, all right, Thank you, Jim. All right, thank then, I guess that's it. That's all. Episode ninety seven is done. Thank you to Dr Tintillo. Thank you too, Anthony Locator editor in chief. Thanks to our community manager. His name is Joe Fernando. Um. The only thing I'll say is, don't forget to go to first like dot com slash tar hunt sweep steaks first, like dot com slash t A h R h U n T sweep steaks to enter to go to New Zealand with me. Phil is not allowed to go? Why mate, It's it's complicated. Okay, Well I'm disappointed. Well it was my idea to make the best here at th HC and now you're not even I'm not even gonna Phil's hurt. He'll get over it. We're gonna find some of some fun things to do with Phil to Phil about Phil to me. Can't wait. It's gonna be great. I promise you're gonna love it. Um next week, another great show coming at you. We I've been in churning on lab grown meat for a while, so you get the Metator dot com. You can read an article that I wrote about meat grown in a Petri dish it's crazy, it's sci fi, and it's coming for us. So go read the meat eater dot com. There's a story there I wrote about lap grown meat. Go over there and read it. That's your homework for next week because we're gonna talk about it. It's gonna be a good time here at th HC. We'll see you then, Bye long. Because I can't go a week without doing run, oh without absolute run, drinking out and run absolutely wrong, drinking in heaven, don't sit in at the Boston would start to grow root. I'm feeling like I can't hold on out Barros shoes all down one

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