WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.180 Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:06.379 and this is your special Wednesday Science of 00:00:06.379 --> 00:00:10.660 Activism episode. For today, a group conversation 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:15.279 with two research scientists from Stanford University's 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:19.820 Humane and Sustainable Food Lab, Seth Ariel Green 00:00:19.820 --> 00:00:24.420 and Jacob Peacock. We discussed some of 2025 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:28.620 news and trends that affected animal advocacy, 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:32.640 such as artificial intelligence, the election 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:36.219 of Donald Trump, the rise of the Maha movement, 00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:40.340 the popularity of the vegan nudges concept among 00:00:40.340 --> 00:00:44.119 researchers, cultivated meat, and much more. 00:00:44.439 --> 00:00:48.619 Seth and Jacob also tried to convince me to start 00:00:48.619 --> 00:00:51.780 a cult. Don't miss that piece of the conversation. 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:56.079 Please learn more about Seth and Jacob's work 00:00:56.079 --> 00:01:00.119 by visiting the episode's notes. A special mention 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:03.640 of Seth's excellent substack regression to the 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:07.239 meat. It is an excellent read. Follow the show 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:10.079 for more Wednesday Science of Activism episodes. 00:01:10.579 --> 00:01:13.879 Share the episode with the vegans you know. Leave 00:01:13.879 --> 00:01:17.420 a good review. Any gesture of support counts. 00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:21.760 Thank you. Let's start this conversation by talking 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:26.040 about some of the highlights of 2025 and I wanted 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:30.480 to begin with artificial intelligence. That's 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:35.700 one of the big buzzwords of 2025. There have 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:39.680 been a few initiatives and things happening at 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:42.340 the intersection of AI and animal rights. There 00:01:42.340 --> 00:01:48.780 was the Amplify for Animals initiative. I am 00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:52.120 going to release an episode with Thomas Richardson, 00:01:52.819 --> 00:01:56.180 who was one of the teachers for that initiative. 00:01:57.219 --> 00:02:01.980 I know of Ben Mazaya, who is training you know, 00:02:02.079 --> 00:02:06.420 chat GPD to become a vegan activist. So all great 00:02:06.420 --> 00:02:10.099 initiatives to support advocacy work and the 00:02:10.099 --> 00:02:14.379 work of animal rights organizations. And then 00:02:14.379 --> 00:02:18.639 a few comments, discussions on public forums 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:23.560 and on podcasts about, you know, artificial general 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:28.919 intelligence and how that could help resolve 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.960 the problem of animal exploitation forever. So 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:36.199 what are your thoughts on artificial intelligence? 00:02:37.099 --> 00:02:40.800 And what do you think we can expect for 2026 00:02:40.800 --> 00:02:47.819 with that technology? I saw this going my way. 00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:50.819 Um, you know, I'll just give a big copy out here. 00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:54.520 This is not my area of expertise or focus. Uh, 00:02:54.580 --> 00:02:57.580 but, but I can say that especially in terms of 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:00.020 the effective altruist milieu, I have thought 00:03:00.020 --> 00:03:02.960 about the intersection of animal welfare and 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.719 artificial intelligence. And one thing to think 00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:09.599 about here is maybe the distinction between the 00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:11.560 sorts of really valuable work that people are 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:14.020 doing right now to get animal advocates to work 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:15.819 more efficiently and embrace this potentially 00:03:15.819 --> 00:03:20.439 very productivity increasing tool. On the one 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:21.840 hand, and then on the other hand, we have things 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:25.189 like how do we make artificial general intelligence 00:03:25.189 --> 00:03:27.330 or superintelligence or whatever you might call 00:03:27.330 --> 00:03:31.949 it, A -S -I -A -G -I -T -A -I. How do we make 00:03:31.949 --> 00:03:34.349 that a transformative artificial intelligence? 00:03:34.889 --> 00:03:37.229 And these are all just debated terms of what 00:03:37.229 --> 00:03:41.449 exactly they are. How do you make that go well 00:03:41.449 --> 00:03:45.530 for animals? That's a really tough question. 00:03:45.710 --> 00:03:49.689 I think the first one is not easy, but it's relatively 00:03:49.689 --> 00:03:52.909 easy. You know, we got to train people to use 00:03:52.909 --> 00:03:55.729 an LLM to write the first draft of this marketing 00:03:55.729 --> 00:03:57.370 email so they don't spend an hour drafting it 00:03:57.370 --> 00:04:00.310 up. They spend 10 seconds getting the chat should 00:04:00.310 --> 00:04:02.069 be T to make a draft and then 20 minutes editing 00:04:02.069 --> 00:04:04.090 it. And they save some time. Time is money for 00:04:04.090 --> 00:04:06.629 animals or something like that. And they can 00:04:06.629 --> 00:04:10.370 help more animals doing that. Transformative 00:04:10.370 --> 00:04:14.780 AGI. That's. Really tough. I think it's really 00:04:14.780 --> 00:04:17.079 unclear how to make that go well for animals. 00:04:17.819 --> 00:04:20.259 From talking to people who do more work focused 00:04:20.259 --> 00:04:25.420 on AGI and AI safety, by and large, people don't 00:04:25.420 --> 00:04:29.079 think too much about what a post -AGI world could 00:04:29.079 --> 00:04:31.560 look like because it's just so mind -boggling. 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:34.100 No one knows. No one's really sure of that at 00:04:34.100 --> 00:04:38.139 all. And people found it relatively intractable, 00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:43.389 is my sense. beyond your utopias and dystopias, 00:04:43.610 --> 00:04:44.990 like broad strokes. But I don't think people 00:04:44.990 --> 00:04:47.529 have many tools to distinguish between those 00:04:47.529 --> 00:04:50.449 different possible outcomes. And where that leads 00:04:50.449 --> 00:04:53.470 for animals, in my opinion, is more likely bad 00:04:53.470 --> 00:04:56.629 than good, unfortunately, which I fear may be 00:04:56.629 --> 00:04:59.230 a theme. I did listen to Seth's previous appearance 00:04:59.230 --> 00:05:01.550 on the podcast before this, and he ended with 00:05:01.550 --> 00:05:04.750 a bucket of cold water, was your phrasing. It's 00:05:04.750 --> 00:05:12.129 like, oh, wrong guy for the job here, too. One 00:05:12.129 --> 00:05:16.370 view here is that AI is going to take on the 00:05:16.370 --> 00:05:19.910 values that are sort of vaguely endemic to human 00:05:19.910 --> 00:05:24.149 society as it is now, which is not good for animals, 00:05:24.949 --> 00:05:28.910 or as it is when AGI is created. Obviously, that 00:05:28.910 --> 00:05:30.990 could be not that far away, and it's relatively 00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:33.949 unlikely if AGI is 50 years away or even 100 00:05:33.949 --> 00:05:37.610 years away. The chances of us making massive 00:05:37.610 --> 00:05:39.790 moral changes for animals in the next 50 years 00:05:39.790 --> 00:05:42.870 that would change how AI operates a lot seem 00:05:42.870 --> 00:05:47.050 relatively low But all of that's quite speculative 00:05:47.050 --> 00:05:51.829 quite speculative Yeah, so after you have anything 00:05:51.829 --> 00:05:54.310 anything you should add to add their Contradict 00:05:54.310 --> 00:05:57.250 yes, I've decided that because I'm on a podcast. 00:05:57.329 --> 00:05:59.029 I'm going to give the un -nuanced version of 00:05:59.029 --> 00:06:06.149 what I believe The Bloomberg journalist Zeke 00:06:06.149 --> 00:06:08.569 Fowkes had this really funny line about long 00:06:08.569 --> 00:06:10.509 -termism in general, which is like trying to 00:06:10.509 --> 00:06:13.569 forecast into the future and think about what 00:06:13.569 --> 00:06:16.170 is going to make that work for people, is that 00:06:16.170 --> 00:06:18.189 he said, this is regarding Sam Beckman Fried, 00:06:19.550 --> 00:06:22.230 that it allows each of us to be the star of our 00:06:22.230 --> 00:06:25.569 own sci -fi story where like our choices can 00:06:25.569 --> 00:06:28.310 change the world because you multiply the consequences 00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:32.500 by like the continuity of all existence. I think 00:06:32.500 --> 00:06:34.980 that's a very nice way of saying the phrase, 00:06:34.980 --> 00:06:37.959 but the phrase intellectually masturbatory really 00:06:37.959 --> 00:06:40.259 gets right to the point of what I think he's 00:06:40.259 --> 00:06:44.759 getting at. I think AI is cool. I use Claude 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:47.579 like every day to do stuff that I don't feel 00:06:47.579 --> 00:06:51.279 like doing. Like, sometimes, I mean, increasingly, 00:06:51.439 --> 00:06:53.019 I think the answer to that is going to be like, 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:56.779 my research is going to be like, well, why am 00:06:56.779 --> 00:06:59.199 I still here? I wonder that question about as 00:06:59.199 --> 00:07:03.810 researchers. As to what some kind of transformative 00:07:03.810 --> 00:07:07.149 AI system is going to do for animals, this is 00:07:07.149 --> 00:07:09.870 like a category error to me. It's not even the 00:07:09.870 --> 00:07:12.629 right, it's like the wrong terms are being applied 00:07:12.629 --> 00:07:15.009 that doesn't even make sense. Like describing 00:07:15.009 --> 00:07:17.350 one idea is taller than another, like no, ideas 00:07:17.350 --> 00:07:20.649 don't have height. What's going to happen when 00:07:20.649 --> 00:07:24.610 AI happens? There's no evidence that that's going 00:07:24.610 --> 00:07:27.149 to happen. There's just this projection stuff 00:07:27.149 --> 00:07:29.540 and then how will that affect animals? anything 00:07:29.540 --> 00:07:32.779 is possible. So I don't understand it. I don't 00:07:32.779 --> 00:07:34.480 understand why people find it so interesting, 00:07:34.699 --> 00:07:36.660 except for the previous sociological story I 00:07:36.660 --> 00:07:40.339 just told. And you mentioned a bunch of stuff 00:07:40.339 --> 00:07:42.459 at the beginning of this, like people who are 00:07:42.459 --> 00:07:44.639 working on this. I have to confess, I haven't 00:07:44.639 --> 00:07:46.920 heard of any of those people. I'm sorry, I just 00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:49.019 really don't think this is the right thing for 00:07:49.019 --> 00:07:52.720 us to be focusing on. Not that you shouldn't 00:07:52.720 --> 00:07:54.519 have asked us that question. Thank you for giving 00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:57.100 me the chance to cut this off my chest, but like, 00:07:57.100 --> 00:08:01.610 I just don't get it. Interesting. Have you heard 00:08:01.610 --> 00:08:07.850 of the organization, Science Futures? No. They 00:08:07.850 --> 00:08:13.089 tackle with the issue of AI becoming sentient 00:08:13.089 --> 00:08:18.129 and the concerns around that. Have you given 00:08:18.129 --> 00:08:25.410 any thoughts to that? Beloved internet weirdo 00:08:25.410 --> 00:08:27.829 Brian Thomasick wonders if we should be killing 00:08:27.829 --> 00:08:30.649 NPCs in video games. They have some utility. 00:08:31.009 --> 00:08:33.049 I actually think this is a relevant consideration, 00:08:33.169 --> 00:08:36.149 which is like, do we know that AI is not already 00:08:36.149 --> 00:08:38.129 sentient? Do we know that the next generations 00:08:38.129 --> 00:08:41.769 of video games characters will not be sentient? 00:08:45.490 --> 00:08:51.029 I don't see any way to contribute to this question 00:08:51.029 --> 00:08:57.220 meaningfully until we observe more facts. What 00:08:57.220 --> 00:09:01.860 about you, Jacob? Are you polite with your AI 00:09:01.860 --> 00:09:06.879 when you use it for work? Okay, so I've actually 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:08.720 had explicit arguments with friends about this 00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:10.440 because some people say that I'm not polite with 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:14.759 my AI when I work with it for work. I'm very 00:09:14.759 --> 00:09:19.580 direct in most avenues of my life, and I'm especially 00:09:19.580 --> 00:09:24.799 direct with AIs because I don't think it... causes 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:26.779 much harm if i don't say please and thank you 00:09:26.779 --> 00:09:29.779 necessarily to an ai in fact it benefits me by 00:09:29.779 --> 00:09:33.000 keeping me under my token limit uh so no i'm 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:37.139 not like uh scrupulously polite i'd say uh am 00:09:37.139 --> 00:09:40.519 i like screaming at claude cursing them out when 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:44.059 they do things wrong uh no no but uh i definitely 00:09:44.059 --> 00:09:46.820 am direct and talk a lot and we'll say things 00:09:46.820 --> 00:09:50.080 like stop talking say this instead uh that i 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:52.679 would say to a person yesterday i said to claude 00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:55.580 what the fuck, you can't do that, because it 00:09:55.580 --> 00:09:57.720 was making some stuff up for a grant application, 00:09:57.879 --> 00:09:59.940 which is like, OK, you can't. And then the response, 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:02.100 you can see it thinking it's like, the user is 00:10:02.100 --> 00:10:05.080 absolutely right to be furious. What a sycophant. 00:10:05.460 --> 00:10:08.840 I mean, good Lord. So apparently it likes it 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:13.759 when we're mean to it, so who cares? Yeah, so 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:18.659 I guess to the point on AI sentience, Again, 00:10:19.039 --> 00:10:22.279 not, you know, speculating here and outside of 00:10:22.279 --> 00:10:24.259 things that I really have too much familiarity 00:10:24.259 --> 00:10:31.279 with. But is it possible? Probably is my sense 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:34.759 here. At least it gets very fuzzy and hard to 00:10:34.759 --> 00:10:39.899 think about. If we think that pretty simple organisms 00:10:39.899 --> 00:10:43.080 are sentient or have a chance of sentience, you 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:44.879 know, shrimp are pretty complicated, probably 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:48.419 sentient. but we can keep going down the ladder 00:10:48.419 --> 00:10:50.399 to organisms that seem less and less likely to 00:10:50.399 --> 00:10:53.500 be sentient, different types of mollusks, cephalopods, 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:59.039 probably sentient, sea hares. Not clear how sentient 00:10:59.039 --> 00:11:02.659 they are. What's a sea hare? It's kind of what 00:11:02.659 --> 00:11:06.659 it sounds like, but it's a type of roaming mollusk 00:11:06.659 --> 00:11:08.799 that, oh, sorry, a hare like a little rabbit. 00:11:09.419 --> 00:11:11.519 It's kind of a big blob. I'm holding this up 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:15.480 for the camera that won't hear this. Yeah, so 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:17.899 it's kind of a rabbit -shaped blob tends to be 00:11:17.899 --> 00:11:20.759 darker in coloration that crawls around the ocean 00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:28.779 floor eating things up So If we think that it's 00:11:28.779 --> 00:11:31.820 possible that really simple organisms have some 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:33.659 degree of sentience and sentience probably isn't 00:11:33.659 --> 00:11:37.019 a binary it's probably scale and Then we can 00:11:37.019 --> 00:11:40.559 make really complicated machines artificial intelligences 00:11:40.559 --> 00:11:46.299 that perfectly simulate one of these animals, 00:11:46.899 --> 00:11:52.019 are they then making a digital sentience? Not 00:11:52.019 --> 00:11:55.500 clear. I don't know. But it seems like a distinct 00:11:55.500 --> 00:11:58.279 possibility that this could happen. Although 00:11:58.279 --> 00:12:00.179 it's not clear that it's coming soon. And it's 00:12:00.179 --> 00:12:04.360 not clear to me that it's likely. Okay. Another 00:12:04.360 --> 00:12:09.139 big highlight of 2025 was, of course, the election 00:12:09.139 --> 00:12:15.799 and the election of Donald Trump. I know you 00:12:15.799 --> 00:12:21.320 have written about the Maha movement, Seth. I 00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:24.320 feel like the vegan movement as a whole has not 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:30.279 yet considered seriously how to do outreach to 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:34.360 conservative audiences. And maybe it's a bias 00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:39.639 since most of us identify as liberals, according 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:45.240 to the studies out there. and define our veganism 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:50.179 or our compassion for animals as being something, 00:12:50.179 --> 00:12:53.799 you know, politically on the left. I've seen 00:12:53.799 --> 00:12:58.720 that too. So what do you think of the idea of, 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:02.679 you know, reaching out to conservative audiences 00:13:02.679 --> 00:13:07.720 and making the case for plant -based living to 00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:13.179 those, to conservative people? Sure, sure. Broadly 00:13:13.179 --> 00:13:16.500 speaking, I'm all for it. I have no qualms with 00:13:16.500 --> 00:13:19.940 people working with anyone to encourage them 00:13:19.940 --> 00:13:22.059 to eat more plant -based or animal -based products. 00:13:23.639 --> 00:13:25.059 There's always going to be an effect of this 00:13:25.059 --> 00:13:27.960 question, but from the evidence we have, my sense 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:31.399 is that it's not that strong a moderator. There's 00:13:31.399 --> 00:13:33.559 a couple of studies that use that as a moderator. 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:39.679 My recollection is modest effects. And yeah, 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:42.799 generally all for it. For our non -scientist 00:13:42.799 --> 00:13:46.620 listeners, a moderator effect is like, would 00:13:46.620 --> 00:13:48.480 it be stronger for this group than that group? 00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:51.980 So the question is, does an appeal to plant -based 00:13:51.980 --> 00:13:54.519 dining work better on liberals than conservatives? 00:13:55.059 --> 00:13:57.399 There is, as Jacob said, some very messy evidence 00:13:57.399 --> 00:13:58.820 on this. I don't really know what to think about 00:13:58.820 --> 00:14:01.259 it. I think it's true that in general, liberals 00:14:01.259 --> 00:14:04.669 are more likely to be vegetarian. I think vegans 00:14:04.669 --> 00:14:06.250 are weird enough that I'm actually not sure I 00:14:06.250 --> 00:14:07.929 have a good sense of what our politics are overall. 00:14:09.529 --> 00:14:13.889 In America, the fastest growing vegan segment 00:14:13.889 --> 00:14:17.470 is African Americans. Jennifer Chanin told me 00:14:17.470 --> 00:14:21.549 that recently. Very interesting. African Americans 00:14:21.549 --> 00:14:23.529 also tend to have more socially conservative 00:14:23.529 --> 00:14:26.590 views on questions like gay marriage. So there's 00:14:26.590 --> 00:14:29.690 like something that's like maybe there might 00:14:29.690 --> 00:14:32.450 be, if we really dug into this stuff, real vegans, 00:14:32.889 --> 00:14:35.129 as opposed to vegetarians, we might discover 00:14:35.129 --> 00:14:38.789 it's less of a liberal monolith than we expect. 00:14:41.549 --> 00:14:46.470 But in general, I said I was going to do this, 00:14:46.549 --> 00:14:49.009 that I was going to start reaching out to Maha 00:14:49.009 --> 00:14:53.110 Podcasts. And my basic reasoning was that I think 00:14:53.110 --> 00:14:58.309 a general distrust of orthodox thinking about 00:14:58.309 --> 00:15:01.639 medicine and health is a really good starting 00:15:01.639 --> 00:15:04.919 point for thinking about what's wrong with factory 00:15:04.919 --> 00:15:07.200 farming. I think we could also make, especially 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:09.980 on impacts on communities, I think we could also 00:15:09.980 --> 00:15:15.639 make a really good case that there is a proper 00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:19.919 relationship between humankind and animals that 00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:24.039 is custodial and guardian -like, and that we've 00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:30.039 really messed that up. This isn't a novel idea. 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:32.179 There's a conservative writer named Matthew Scully 00:15:32.179 --> 00:15:34.440 who wrote a book called Dominion, not affiliated 00:15:34.440 --> 00:15:36.360 with the documentary that makes this case that 00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:39.399 we have these obligations to animals that we're 00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:43.320 under by God that we're not fulfilling. And that 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:46.460 doesn't seem to move the needle much. So what 00:15:46.460 --> 00:15:49.759 are we going to do? I don't really like... Sure, 00:15:49.860 --> 00:15:51.879 it's promising. I just don't have any concrete 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:54.960 ideas about how to make this happen. And I think 00:15:54.960 --> 00:15:57.070 the... general obsession with protein, which 00:15:57.070 --> 00:15:59.470 I would call one of the big 2025 trends pushes 00:15:59.470 --> 00:16:02.350 in the other direction. I would add and thank 00:16:02.350 --> 00:16:04.769 you, Seth, for flagging on my on the jargon there. 00:16:04.850 --> 00:16:12.830 I will try to keep things layman friendly. I'd 00:16:12.830 --> 00:16:16.230 add there that the there's always this kind of 00:16:16.230 --> 00:16:19.429 trade off in designing meat reduction interventions 00:16:19.429 --> 00:16:22.110 where you can target those people who you think 00:16:22.110 --> 00:16:24.470 are most propents to change and most likely to 00:16:24.470 --> 00:16:27.039 change. In this case, you might say, oh yeah, 00:16:27.059 --> 00:16:28.639 we're going to try and work with liberals to 00:16:28.639 --> 00:16:29.779 get that, because they're already interested 00:16:29.779 --> 00:16:34.980 in the climate. They don't eat as much meat already, 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.360 so maybe they're more interested. If you do that, 00:16:40.940 --> 00:16:43.320 you might get less impact just because there's 00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:45.539 less impact to be had. They already weren't eating 00:16:45.539 --> 00:16:48.159 that much meat. So even if you eliminate all 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:50.980 their meat consumption, you won't have that much 00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:54.509 impact. Well, we should really go for the high 00:16:54.509 --> 00:16:57.470 value targets. There is a study a few years ago 00:16:57.470 --> 00:17:01.190 that suggested an 80 -20 Pareto distribution 00:17:01.190 --> 00:17:04.410 where 20 % of people eat 80 % of the red meat. 00:17:04.529 --> 00:17:05.829 And there are some people that just eat beef 00:17:05.829 --> 00:17:08.390 on beef on beef on beef. So he's trying to get 00:17:08.390 --> 00:17:12.049 these 20 % of people to change. And that's where 00:17:12.049 --> 00:17:13.529 you get the opposite problem, where it's like, 00:17:13.750 --> 00:17:15.970 sure, it's the most magnitude of effect to be 00:17:15.970 --> 00:17:18.829 had, the most impact to be had, focusing on those 00:17:18.829 --> 00:17:21.119 people. but they're probably the most intransigent 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:23.259 they're eating beef for three meals a day so 00:17:23.259 --> 00:17:25.500 it's kind of be potentially quite hard to get 00:17:25.500 --> 00:17:28.140 them not to eat beef for three meals a day very 00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:31.400 hard to imagine that eating beef three meals 00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:34.079 a day yeah i've had yeah i've had i ate me at 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:36.900 one point in my life but like a hamburger in 00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:41.019 the morning i guess steak and eggs or whatever 00:17:41.019 --> 00:17:42.740 you can like you could figure out a way to put 00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:45.740 it in but Well, to be clear, I was being facetious. 00:17:45.859 --> 00:17:47.920 I don't actually know that the study documents 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:49.759 people eating, but the numbers are such that 00:17:49.759 --> 00:17:51.799 that would almost have to be true because I think 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:53.740 it's like my recollection is it's like 20 % of 00:17:53.740 --> 00:17:56.599 people eat 50 % of all beef. The average American 00:17:56.599 --> 00:17:59.359 eats like almost like two thirds of a pound of 00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:01.599 meat per day. So if we have someone who's eating 00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:03.740 a lot more than that, that means they're probably 00:18:03.740 --> 00:18:06.759 eating more than a pound of anyway, this is a 00:18:06.759 --> 00:18:08.500 hard problem. I don't really have a good like 00:18:08.500 --> 00:18:11.359 anthropological theory of people who are that 00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:13.950 most serious carnivores. yeah except for the 00:18:13.950 --> 00:18:16.069 Jordan Peterson types who are like really they 00:18:16.069 --> 00:18:20.250 really are eating steak three times a day on 00:18:20.250 --> 00:18:22.670 the like outreach to conservatives more generally 00:18:22.670 --> 00:18:25.549 i'll say that i do think there are some reasonably 00:18:25.549 --> 00:18:29.309 promising ideas that people are pursuing here 00:18:29.309 --> 00:18:32.509 and i say reasonably promising in so far as we 00:18:32.509 --> 00:18:35.309 as a movement basically have almost nothing currently 00:18:35.309 --> 00:18:37.410 it's like very very very minimal no one's doing 00:18:37.410 --> 00:18:43.940 anything so i know someone's just at uh conference 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:47.220 doing some tabling there just to get the word 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:49.720 about animal welfare out and uh indicated they 00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:53.619 had a lot of success um you know and go ahead 00:18:53.619 --> 00:18:56.160 and white coast white coat waste as well i think 00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:58.559 that they're doing like getting rid of animal 00:18:58.559 --> 00:19:01.160 testing which is like maybe they're on ramp yep 00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:03.559 yeah using a kind of libertarian approach of 00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:05.299 like this is wasteful government spending and 00:19:05.299 --> 00:19:09.339 we should you know eliminate this waste um And 00:19:09.339 --> 00:19:14.180 to be clear, I'm not unaware of the pitfalls 00:19:14.180 --> 00:19:16.599 of this sort of work, especially Turning Point 00:19:16.599 --> 00:19:20.279 USA is a pretty controversial organization for 00:19:20.279 --> 00:19:24.019 good reason. And we should be wary of supporting 00:19:24.019 --> 00:19:29.240 them in some ways. But I think that is a consideration 00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:33.319 that one has to measure, I think. Yeah. Shout 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:36.700 out to the Wilberforce Institute. They were the 00:19:36.700 --> 00:19:40.910 ones. doing activism and the turning point events. 00:19:42.369 --> 00:19:44.650 Recently, I think they had a big summit and they 00:19:44.650 --> 00:19:47.470 were present talking about veganism and animals. 00:19:49.710 --> 00:19:54.069 If I'm an investor and I have some money in alternative 00:19:54.069 --> 00:20:00.609 proteins in specifically lab grown meat, the 00:20:00.609 --> 00:20:04.390 results of the last election would make me feel 00:20:04.390 --> 00:20:09.339 a bit anxious. Do you think the maha crowd is 00:20:09.339 --> 00:20:12.619 going to be an obstacle for the introduction 00:20:12.619 --> 00:20:16.880 of lab -grown meat to the diet of everyday Americans? 00:20:18.779 --> 00:20:21.480 Yeah, my sense, and I haven't looked into this 00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:23.940 that much, but my sense is absolutely, I die 00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:29.920 hard to oppose it, right? Yep. I mean, America 00:20:29.920 --> 00:20:32.700 is not the only market though. Like in many ways, 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:35.650 entrepreneurs tendency to focus on America because 00:20:35.650 --> 00:20:38.289 we're wealthy, which makes sense because if you 00:20:38.289 --> 00:20:43.309 were like selling a, um, like a startup or whatever, 00:20:43.309 --> 00:20:46.769 you know, a software, but everybody eats. I would 00:20:46.769 --> 00:20:48.589 say take this to the, take this to like Israel 00:20:48.589 --> 00:20:52.930 or Singapore and try to build from there. Yeah. 00:20:53.009 --> 00:20:55.269 And Singapore has been discussed especially for 00:20:55.269 --> 00:20:58.230 their limited domestic agricultural production. 00:20:59.309 --> 00:21:01.910 So this would be like a self -sustaining thing. 00:21:02.329 --> 00:21:05.819 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't really understand. 00:21:06.839 --> 00:21:08.960 I mean, I get, I don't like, what is it? It does 00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:12.359 still take. Okay. So you're building your artificial 00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:15.660 meat company. You're like soil and disgusting 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.420 thing or whatever. And it's like a, what? A huge 00:21:18.420 --> 00:21:20.400 vat? Is it like in a skyscraper? That's terrible 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:22.480 marketing for cultivated meat. You're building 00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:26.259 a brewery full of rich, nutritious. Is it like 00:21:26.259 --> 00:21:29.460 a brewery? And that's the metaphor that's most 00:21:29.460 --> 00:21:33.849 often used. I'm gonna try and reverse that metaphor, 00:21:33.970 --> 00:21:37.430 but... Okay, it is fundamentally a... Actually, 00:21:37.549 --> 00:21:39.089 well, it's a fermenting process, so that makes 00:21:39.089 --> 00:21:40.470 a lot of sense. You just have to have, like, 00:21:40.650 --> 00:21:43.609 some kind of exposure to sugars and whatever 00:21:43.609 --> 00:21:46.349 is happening. Well, the cell culture process 00:21:46.349 --> 00:21:48.250 is different from the fermentation process. There 00:21:48.250 --> 00:21:51.630 are multiple approaches for making all proteins. 00:21:51.849 --> 00:21:55.750 Okay. Yeah, I know. That's a little... I'm thinking 00:21:55.750 --> 00:21:58.420 of... Okay. And neither here or there but yeah, 00:21:58.420 --> 00:22:00.519 my point is that Singapore probably still wouldn't 00:22:00.519 --> 00:22:02.819 have the space to be self -sufficient on the 00:22:02.819 --> 00:22:04.720 food front Even if it did do this, it would probably 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:07.000 help but you're still gonna anyway still gonna 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:12.019 take land. I Would guess that as well I certainly 00:22:12.019 --> 00:22:14.819 haven't yeah, I just saying you could vertically 00:22:14.819 --> 00:22:20.519 you can go up better Yeah, yeah Yeah, I certainly 00:22:20.519 --> 00:22:22.579 haven't seen and although I wouldn't be shocked 00:22:22.579 --> 00:22:24.740 if like GFI or someone has an analysis out here 00:22:24.740 --> 00:22:28.930 of like, you know what would be the land use 00:22:28.930 --> 00:22:32.049 footprint for cultivated meat, hypothetically. 00:22:32.809 --> 00:22:35.630 But I will say for my part, I'm just not super 00:22:35.630 --> 00:22:37.470 optimistic about cultivated meat in general. 00:22:38.769 --> 00:22:42.589 Obviously, I would prefer that Maha not block 00:22:42.589 --> 00:22:45.309 people from selling cultivated meat, even just 00:22:45.309 --> 00:22:48.430 on free market reasons. Not that I'm a die -hard 00:22:48.430 --> 00:22:50.690 libertarian by any measure, but yeah, I generally 00:22:50.690 --> 00:22:52.170 endorse the idea that people should be able to 00:22:52.170 --> 00:22:55.579 sell. things if they want to sell them and there's 00:22:55.579 --> 00:22:57.079 not some obvious reason they shouldn't be able 00:22:57.079 --> 00:23:01.660 to And obviously if it can help animals that's 00:23:01.660 --> 00:23:03.519 much much better. They should definitely be able 00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:06.140 to sell those things that they help animals And 00:23:06.140 --> 00:23:08.980 I think cold baby could do that, but not sure 00:23:08.980 --> 00:23:11.140 it's terribly likely that will do a whole lot 00:23:11.140 --> 00:23:13.779 Jacob do you want to tell us about three? Commonly 00:23:13.779 --> 00:23:15.660 cited reasons that you do not believe will be 00:23:15.660 --> 00:23:19.299 sufficient for takeoff of cultivated meat Well, 00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:21.720 that's so funny that you said that. How many 00:23:21.720 --> 00:23:25.920 was it again? What a coincidence. So some folks 00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:27.759 might have heard of this and actually wrote this 00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:30.140 paper focused on plant -based meats. But I do 00:23:30.140 --> 00:23:32.420 think they probably apply somewhat to cultivate 00:23:32.420 --> 00:23:36.180 meats as well. There's this pervasive idea in 00:23:36.180 --> 00:23:39.740 the alternative protein space that if only we 00:23:39.740 --> 00:23:43.519 could achieve plant -based alternatives. that 00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:46.380 competed on price, competed on taste, and competed 00:23:46.380 --> 00:23:48.779 on convenience with animal -based meats. If we 00:23:48.779 --> 00:23:51.839 could hit those three criteria, something really 00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:54.359 good would happen. We get a lot of people switching 00:23:54.359 --> 00:23:59.240 over. We get a really bulk shift. The details 00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:02.940 vary from source to source, but the implication 00:24:02.940 --> 00:24:05.420 and the way it's presented is if we hit this 00:24:05.420 --> 00:24:12.430 trifecta, then we kind of win. start eating plant 00:24:12.430 --> 00:24:14.069 -based meat alternatives, cultivate meat, plant 00:24:14.069 --> 00:24:16.849 -based meat, fermented, and stop eating animal 00:24:16.849 --> 00:24:21.890 -based meat. And I did a review of this thesis 00:24:21.890 --> 00:24:25.430 conjecture to try and understand the evidence 00:24:25.430 --> 00:24:28.589 supporting it. And unfortunately, the evidence 00:24:28.589 --> 00:24:30.970 is really quite weak, and a lot of the evidence 00:24:30.970 --> 00:24:35.009 in those sorts of scenarios suggests that the 00:24:35.009 --> 00:24:38.380 effects might be quite small. to give a really 00:24:38.380 --> 00:24:40.839 brief overview of that. Fundamentally, there 00:24:40.839 --> 00:24:43.380 is this idea that was put forward in various 00:24:43.380 --> 00:24:47.019 places that human food choice is mostly dictated 00:24:47.019 --> 00:24:49.980 by price, taste, and convenience. That's sort 00:24:49.980 --> 00:24:54.839 of the 80 -20 or 95 -5 of human food choice. 00:24:56.039 --> 00:24:58.460 But empirically, that's just not really true. 00:24:59.140 --> 00:25:00.880 Conceptually, it doesn't make a lot of sense, 00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:05.559 conceptually. But most importantly, Empirically, 00:25:05.859 --> 00:25:07.819 that's just not the case. There's just so many 00:25:07.819 --> 00:25:09.619 factors that go into human food choice. It's 00:25:09.619 --> 00:25:11.980 pretty complicated It's got a lot of interactions. 00:25:12.460 --> 00:25:14.359 It's not really this kind of straightforward 00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:18.660 economical rational human process It's just a 00:25:18.660 --> 00:25:22.099 much more complicated situation Okay, but allowing 00:25:22.099 --> 00:25:23.859 that maybe there wasn't like great foundational 00:25:23.859 --> 00:25:27.079 evidence for this sort of theory We can look 00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:30.599 at what would happen Do we have some tests hypothetically 00:25:30.599 --> 00:25:33.519 or in like some conscribed environment if we 00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:35.819 did provide these alternatives that were taste 00:25:35.819 --> 00:25:38.480 competitive and priced the same and about as 00:25:38.480 --> 00:25:41.559 convenient. And across the board, when we look 00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:44.819 at this in the more optimistic studies, which 00:25:44.819 --> 00:25:46.359 you might talk about the ways they're more optimistic 00:25:46.359 --> 00:25:51.299 in a bit, you're looking at like maybe 15, 20, 00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:55.720 25 % of people eating those alternatives. Maybe. 00:25:56.059 --> 00:26:00.400 But then in the More realistic studies that reflect 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:03.039 what happened in a dining hall like what people 00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:06.059 actually chose at a university dining hall Even 00:26:06.059 --> 00:26:08.079 with a bunch of advertising a bunch of climate 00:26:08.079 --> 00:26:11.940 -related promotions You could be looking at just 00:26:11.940 --> 00:26:14.700 a few percentage points or or no effect at all 00:26:14.700 --> 00:26:16.259 in terms of do you have in mind when you're Saying 00:26:16.259 --> 00:26:20.619 that which studies Oh specifically mal in 2020 00:26:22.659 --> 00:26:27.779 Malin, it's in the 20s, is the big one. M -A 00:26:27.779 --> 00:26:30.519 -L -A -N, right? M -A -L -A -N, yeah, we can 00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:32.779 put it in the show notes. And that's the big 00:26:32.779 --> 00:26:37.339 one that uses ground impossible meat in a UCLA 00:26:37.339 --> 00:26:41.660 dining hall to test. And then we have some of 00:26:41.660 --> 00:26:43.180 these, they're called hypothetical discrete choice 00:26:43.180 --> 00:26:47.779 experiments. I'm not gonna rattle off the whole 00:26:47.779 --> 00:26:50.259 list. I can put the whole paper in the show notes. 00:26:51.149 --> 00:26:53.490 Or if you want to talk about any of this specifically, 00:26:53.690 --> 00:26:55.289 Seth, I'm happy to rattle off the list if that's 00:26:55.289 --> 00:26:57.309 helpful. No, no. I did have a couple of questions, 00:26:57.329 --> 00:26:58.490 though. It's interesting, first of all, that 00:26:58.490 --> 00:27:00.589 you're talking about. You initially distinguish 00:27:00.589 --> 00:27:02.910 between plant -based. By the way, for our listeners, 00:27:03.130 --> 00:27:05.210 this is like Jacob and I talk about. This is 00:27:05.210 --> 00:27:08.029 what we talk about. You distinguish between plant 00:27:08.029 --> 00:27:10.470 -based meats and cultivated meat. But my recollection 00:27:10.470 --> 00:27:13.569 is at least some of the survey evidence you pointed 00:27:13.569 --> 00:27:16.549 to in the study, like the survey of Swedish people, 00:27:16.890 --> 00:27:21.059 was like blurry on this question. it asked them 00:27:21.059 --> 00:27:23.839 like, what would you eat something that was like 00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:26.019 a like a fossil? I can't remember the specific 00:27:26.019 --> 00:27:27.799 wording, but I don't think like, do you think 00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:29.539 the evidence is really clear on this distinction? 00:27:32.339 --> 00:27:35.359 Some of the evidence is some is not. Yeah. Like, 00:27:35.500 --> 00:27:37.980 for example, there is one study in there, I believe 00:27:37.980 --> 00:27:41.259 Van Loo, where they actually included a cultivated 00:27:41.259 --> 00:27:43.720 meat in the choice set. So it's like, Oh, would 00:27:43.720 --> 00:27:45.720 you want this cultivated burger, this animal 00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:48.460 based burger or this beef burger? And in that 00:27:48.460 --> 00:27:51.839 case, obviously, it's not clear at all. And the 00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:53.519 way it was reported, I wasn't able to tease out 00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:55.420 just the effect of the plant -based burger. So 00:27:55.420 --> 00:27:57.559 I was optimistic. I was like, imagine there's 00:27:57.559 --> 00:28:00.359 this additional option. And I'll just give that 00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:05.539 for free, if you will, in terms of... But yeah, 00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:08.220 the Carlson study, I don't remember the exact 00:28:08.220 --> 00:28:10.500 phrasing, but it's possible it's kind of ambiguous. 00:28:10.900 --> 00:28:13.599 I forget to. My guess would be I can probably 00:28:13.599 --> 00:28:16.069 pull it up because I have this paper. at hand. 00:28:16.890 --> 00:28:18.809 My guess would be that most participants would 00:28:18.809 --> 00:28:21.769 not interpret it that way. Yeah, they're going 00:28:21.769 --> 00:28:23.609 to think like some fake meat, but not like some 00:28:23.609 --> 00:28:28.930 science experiment. My other question is, are 00:28:28.930 --> 00:28:31.309 you making a claim about absence of evidence 00:28:31.309 --> 00:28:33.630 here, or do you believe this is an evidence of 00:28:33.630 --> 00:28:39.369 absence, or sorry, EOA or AOE? Yeah, so just 00:28:39.369 --> 00:28:42.109 to give some background here, what Seth's asking 00:28:42.109 --> 00:28:45.009 is, am I claiming that we don't have evidence 00:28:45.009 --> 00:28:49.410 that if the plant -based meats were at price, 00:28:49.609 --> 00:28:50.990 taste, and convenience competitiveness, they 00:28:50.990 --> 00:28:53.990 wouldn't displace animal -based meats? Or am 00:28:53.990 --> 00:28:56.690 I claiming that we do have evidence that if these 00:28:56.690 --> 00:28:59.690 conditions were achieved, not much would happen? 00:29:00.069 --> 00:29:02.349 Yeah, it's a question of do we not know or do 00:29:02.349 --> 00:29:04.930 we know that this would not work? Yeah, and I 00:29:04.930 --> 00:29:06.869 think it's closer to the latter. I'll add the 00:29:06.869 --> 00:29:10.109 evidence I adduces in the shape of the ladder. 00:29:11.210 --> 00:29:13.049 Maybe that answers the question right there. 00:29:13.589 --> 00:29:18.950 I adduce a bunch of evidence, so yes. There is 00:29:18.950 --> 00:29:22.190 evidence to this effect and across the board, 00:29:22.410 --> 00:29:25.069 I think the evidence points. I generally just 00:29:25.069 --> 00:29:29.890 use majority, so 50 -50 as the threshold of like, 00:29:30.069 --> 00:29:31.650 I'd say certainly in some of the ways this kind 00:29:31.650 --> 00:29:34.000 of conjecture has been phrased it sounds like 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:35.920 it would be a lot more than half so half felt 00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:38.480 pretty conservative to me and the evidence we 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:40.599 have pretty strongly suggests that the effects 00:29:40.599 --> 00:29:43.819 would be under half yeah but you and i both know 00:29:43.819 --> 00:29:45.619 that when people make those kinds of claims they're 00:29:45.619 --> 00:29:48.440 being deliberately slippery right they're saying 00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:51.720 like a cascade but a cascade isn't a number so 00:29:51.720 --> 00:29:53.359 it's actually kind of an it's like a hard thing 00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:55.460 to like you're you're right to try to say like 00:29:55.460 --> 00:29:57.559 what is the threshold where we would count it 00:29:57.559 --> 00:30:01.519 but like for us I would say like if 20 % of people 00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:04.500 converted to this kind of the plant -based analogs, 00:30:04.519 --> 00:30:06.519 I'd be stoked about that. Absolutely. That would 00:30:06.519 --> 00:30:09.259 be like, yeah. Yeah, I would be very happy with 00:30:09.259 --> 00:30:12.940 that. And to your point of the cascade, by nature 00:30:12.940 --> 00:30:15.220 of having some evidence on this and direct evidence 00:30:15.220 --> 00:30:18.660 at that, or more direct evidence, the paper really 00:30:18.660 --> 00:30:20.819 focuses on current consumers, right? Because 00:30:20.819 --> 00:30:25.480 for want of crystal balls, I'm unable to say 00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:27.920 what future consumers would do. But that's not 00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:30.319 to say that there's not ways to collect evidence 00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:32.940 that might inform our expectations of future 00:30:32.940 --> 00:30:37.039 food chefs. But I think that's quite a bit more 00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:41.319 speculative than what we have now. I think I'm 00:30:41.319 --> 00:30:43.720 more optimistic on the PTC thesis than you are. 00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:47.759 But there is a sense in which what I understand 00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:51.079 to be the contribution of this paper is that 00:30:51.079 --> 00:30:54.740 a lot of these claims are really maximalist. 00:30:54.799 --> 00:30:57.220 And let's say, what kind of effect sizes should 00:30:57.220 --> 00:31:00.720 we expect? you know, as I've said in other contexts, 00:31:01.140 --> 00:31:03.660 like one to two percentage points at the scale 00:31:03.660 --> 00:31:05.799 of reductions in meat at the scale of Costco 00:31:05.799 --> 00:31:08.759 is a big deal, but it's not like radically changing 00:31:08.759 --> 00:31:12.779 factory farming. But if this were like, I would 00:31:12.779 --> 00:31:18.619 say like, if we achieved PTC price, taste, convenience, 00:31:18.920 --> 00:31:22.039 parity, and of course, by the way, the T is the 00:31:22.039 --> 00:31:23.940 tricky one because taste is a matter of like, 00:31:24.190 --> 00:31:26.609 I don't like it, even if it passes a blind taste 00:31:26.609 --> 00:31:29.690 test, people still might say, no. Oh, interesting. 00:31:30.029 --> 00:31:33.230 We should get into this. Go ahead. I disagree. 00:31:33.769 --> 00:31:36.009 Taste is not just this. It's not just your mouth. 00:31:36.250 --> 00:31:38.809 It's like, I have a taste for authenticity or 00:31:38.809 --> 00:31:43.589 whatever. That's what I believe. I would expect 00:31:43.589 --> 00:31:47.789 10 % to 20 % shifts within 10 years of that. 00:31:48.029 --> 00:31:50.730 Wow, 10 % to 20%. Yeah, that's right. If parity 00:31:50.730 --> 00:31:53.369 were, if we really had parity, but I just think 00:31:53.369 --> 00:31:55.970 that parity is like this. And I think people 00:31:55.970 --> 00:32:00.630 will, you know, like how many, do you know anybody 00:32:00.630 --> 00:32:02.609 who still drives a stick shift? Cause they like, 00:32:02.750 --> 00:32:04.250 like a feel of it. And it's like a couple of 00:32:04.250 --> 00:32:06.349 them. Yeah. It's like, that's like a thing. It's 00:32:06.349 --> 00:32:07.869 like, is it, is it easier? Is it better? Like, 00:32:07.970 --> 00:32:09.329 no, you're a lot more likely to still on the 00:32:09.329 --> 00:32:12.549 highway, but like people like it. Okay. So the 00:32:12.549 --> 00:32:14.970 thing that I said that I disagree about is I 00:32:14.970 --> 00:32:17.289 really think that the convenience is the more 00:32:17.289 --> 00:32:21.140 slippery one. I think we actually probably agree 00:32:21.140 --> 00:32:22.640 with issues with taste, but we should talk about 00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:25.500 it more because I really liked some of what you 00:32:25.500 --> 00:32:27.400 wrote in one of your taste regression to the 00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:32.680 meat posts. But the convenience one is really 00:32:32.680 --> 00:32:34.619 slippery. And it's funny, one of the reviewers 00:32:34.619 --> 00:32:37.079 of the paper complains that I like to complain 00:32:37.079 --> 00:32:44.920 rightfully complained. Were you one of the No, 00:32:45.019 --> 00:32:46.819 no, I didn't they would not ask me to review 00:32:46.819 --> 00:32:49.000 your I was gonna say it wouldn't make any sense 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:51.859 It's like although it's like not that big a field 00:32:51.859 --> 00:32:54.160 it could happen someday to us. Oh, definitely 00:32:54.160 --> 00:32:57.539 But but anyway, I'm not complaining about that 00:32:57.539 --> 00:33:00.880 as I'm happy I made the edit I'm telling an anecdote 00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:03.099 here about how helpful the reviewer was. So hopefully 00:33:03.099 --> 00:33:06.700 they won't be offended So they're like, yeah, 00:33:06.700 --> 00:33:08.599 you really need more citations about convenience 00:33:08.599 --> 00:33:11.559 and what it means to be being in and it's like, 00:33:11.660 --> 00:33:13.299 well, part of the problem here is no one's saying 00:33:13.299 --> 00:33:15.319 what's it mean to achieve convenience parity. 00:33:16.079 --> 00:33:19.119 And lo and behold, someone also ran a systematic 00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:21.400 review on the definition of convenience in food 00:33:21.400 --> 00:33:24.779 choice studies, and came up with the same situation 00:33:24.779 --> 00:33:26.920 where they're like, yeah, people just say convenience, 00:33:26.920 --> 00:33:30.319 and it means all sorts of things. So I think 00:33:30.319 --> 00:33:34.119 like, when to get to like a croc Seth on like, 00:33:34.119 --> 00:33:36.279 Oh, do you think like, believe it more than me? 00:33:36.279 --> 00:33:40.380 Or do I believe it more than you? The PTC hypothesis 00:33:40.380 --> 00:33:43.539 that is you really have to get into these like 00:33:43.539 --> 00:33:46.119 really annoying brass tacks of C and T especially 00:33:46.119 --> 00:33:50.480 but also P where it's like convenience does that 00:33:50.480 --> 00:33:53.799 mean like one feasible interpretation if it's 00:33:53.799 --> 00:33:56.480 equally convenient anywhere you go in the world 00:33:56.480 --> 00:33:58.920 and you want to buy a piece of meat right next 00:33:58.920 --> 00:34:02.000 to it is like the same product but plant -based 00:34:03.129 --> 00:34:04.869 And if that's your definition of convenience, 00:34:04.869 --> 00:34:07.069 that's like a huge change in the world. That's 00:34:07.069 --> 00:34:09.670 like the entire supply chain has doubled. There's 00:34:09.670 --> 00:34:12.110 a extra supply chain for plant -based meat. There's 00:34:12.110 --> 00:34:15.170 a plant -based meat analog product for the hundreds 00:34:15.170 --> 00:34:17.809 and thousands of meat products that are in the 00:34:17.809 --> 00:34:19.389 world and animal products that are in the world. 00:34:19.610 --> 00:34:21.230 Okay. So I think what people probably actually 00:34:21.230 --> 00:34:23.309 mean when they say convenient is like, eh, not 00:34:23.309 --> 00:34:25.650 too much work. Not like convenience parity, but 00:34:25.650 --> 00:34:29.090 like my personal informal definition of not too 00:34:29.090 --> 00:34:33.559 much work. Yeah. I agree that's what they mean, 00:34:33.559 --> 00:34:36.380 but I don't agree that's like sufficient to actually 00:34:36.380 --> 00:34:38.739 stake a disagreement on because like Oh to me 00:34:38.739 --> 00:34:41.280 convenient is every restaurant I go to has it 00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:43.400 Otherwise and again, I'll have like search around 00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:45.820 for the right restaurant just today I left one 00:34:45.820 --> 00:34:48.059 grocery store because they didn't have me on 00:34:48.059 --> 00:34:50.980 me and I went to another like it's that's inconvenient 00:34:50.980 --> 00:34:54.579 So we're not at convenience parity. Yeah, so 00:34:54.579 --> 00:34:58.400 I Was gonna ask if either of you has read Warren 00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:02.769 Velasco's food the key concepts. No All right. 00:35:03.110 --> 00:35:06.969 This is a book whose main, one of whose theses 00:35:06.969 --> 00:35:11.690 is that the main drivers of food are not PTC, 00:35:11.869 --> 00:35:14.469 but rather identity, convenience and responsibility, 00:35:14.949 --> 00:35:17.070 with identity and convenience being the big two. 00:35:18.570 --> 00:35:21.409 If I might read, Velasco defines convenience 00:35:21.409 --> 00:35:23.949 as, convenience encompasses variables such as 00:35:23.949 --> 00:35:26.750 price, availability and ease of preparation, 00:35:27.030 --> 00:35:28.929 which are all related to the requirements of 00:35:28.929 --> 00:35:31.630 energy, time, labor, and skill. In other words, 00:35:31.789 --> 00:35:34.289 convenience involves concerns such as, can I 00:35:34.289 --> 00:35:38.210 get it and can I afford it? So for him, this 00:35:38.210 --> 00:35:40.190 is like, I actually think that that's probably 00:35:40.190 --> 00:35:42.030 the right way to think about convenience in the 00:35:42.030 --> 00:35:46.630 sense of price is part of like, eh, how easy 00:35:46.630 --> 00:35:48.869 is it to get this versus like, what do I have 00:35:48.869 --> 00:35:56.449 to give up to get it? Out of curiosity, Has anyone 00:35:56.449 --> 00:36:03.289 of you ever had lab grown meat? No, no, interesting. 00:36:04.130 --> 00:36:09.349 No, never. Um, okay. There was a moment when 00:36:09.349 --> 00:36:11.409 it was like available at mission Barnes grocery 00:36:11.409 --> 00:36:13.909 in Oakland. But I talked to someone who worked 00:36:13.909 --> 00:36:16.530 at or sorry, yeah, I think it was someone who 00:36:16.530 --> 00:36:17.949 worked at one of those companies. And they said, 00:36:18.110 --> 00:36:22.429 like, this is all just for show. Like they can't 00:36:22.429 --> 00:36:24.510 produce it at enough rate. Like it would be hundreds 00:36:24.510 --> 00:36:26.610 of dollars per pound if they were actually putting 00:36:26.610 --> 00:36:28.389 it in the grocery store. So this is just like 00:36:28.389 --> 00:36:32.250 a marketing thing. Oh yeah. I sort of took that 00:36:32.250 --> 00:36:34.710 as a given. I didn't know that. I thought it 00:36:34.710 --> 00:36:36.389 was going to be like dozens of dollars, like 00:36:36.389 --> 00:36:38.429 something I would like maybe buy. Oh, I see. 00:36:38.590 --> 00:36:41.650 I see. Yeah. But if I had, you know, if I was 00:36:41.650 --> 00:36:46.510 in charge of that whole enterprise of introducing 00:36:46.510 --> 00:36:51.320 lab grown meat, I would send samples to researchers 00:36:51.320 --> 00:36:55.340 at the front line of studying the effects of 00:36:55.340 --> 00:37:00.619 my product on markets and people. Yeah, I feel 00:37:00.619 --> 00:37:09.380 it's not smart to not have you partake in that 00:37:09.380 --> 00:37:15.739 experience of tasting their product. It might 00:37:15.739 --> 00:37:17.780 be because they actually know that people will 00:37:17.780 --> 00:37:24.500 think that it is not achieved taste parody Yes, 00:37:24.539 --> 00:37:30.880 interesting Okay, um this is a very fascinating 00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:35.539 and clarifying conversation because I've been 00:37:35.539 --> 00:37:38.380 torn all throughout, you know this past year 00:37:38.380 --> 00:37:42.619 about this issue. I actually released an episode 00:37:42.760 --> 00:37:47.699 uh, which was a debate hosted by, um, poultry, 00:37:48.460 --> 00:37:51.239 poultry concerns, something like that. Um, you 00:37:51.239 --> 00:37:53.440 might know the organization, they hosted the 00:37:53.440 --> 00:37:57.159 poultry concerns United. Yes, exactly. Um, did 00:37:57.159 --> 00:37:59.719 the debate, you know, are you for or against 00:37:59.719 --> 00:38:04.800 a lab cone meat? And I, you know, reposted that 00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:08.440 debate and there are, you know, actually a big 00:38:08.440 --> 00:38:12.519 chunk of the vegan uh, community and vegan activists, 00:38:12.820 --> 00:38:15.940 animal activists who do not believe in lab grown 00:38:15.940 --> 00:38:21.579 meat. Um, for ideological reasons, I don't think 00:38:21.579 --> 00:38:25.039 that, I think they are skeptical about, you know, 00:38:25.199 --> 00:38:27.780 the success of the product, uh, in the market, 00:38:28.219 --> 00:38:32.900 but, um, at the end, they don't believe in that 00:38:32.900 --> 00:38:35.719 as a solution, they believe in, you know, changing 00:38:35.719 --> 00:38:40.179 minds. And that's how in converting people to 00:38:40.179 --> 00:38:46.599 a vegan lifestyle and not in the market and the 00:38:46.599 --> 00:38:50.340 economy, making the shift that we all need to 00:38:50.340 --> 00:38:56.000 see happening. What do you make of their position? 00:38:57.659 --> 00:39:02.769 That's dumb. I don't have a That's obviously 00:39:02.769 --> 00:39:06.949 dumb like no wrong, but like luckily this is 00:39:06.949 --> 00:39:09.030 that this is like I even if it's a mainstream 00:39:09.030 --> 00:39:14.309 opinion among vegans it's like It only matters 00:39:14.309 --> 00:39:17.829 if someone who matters says it like when the 00:39:17.829 --> 00:39:20.230 you know new all person in the office of tenant 00:39:20.230 --> 00:39:23.010 protections in New York City says that like Private 00:39:23.010 --> 00:39:24.769 property is like a white supremacist tool. That's 00:39:24.769 --> 00:39:27.809 like, whoa This isn't this is like left Twitter 00:39:27.809 --> 00:39:31.440 and it's like part of policy If some vegans get 00:39:31.440 --> 00:39:33.139 into power and start saying this thing, which 00:39:33.139 --> 00:39:35.380 again, I think is dumb, then it's a problem. 00:39:35.460 --> 00:39:36.840 Until then, it's like, okay, whatever, they're 00:39:36.840 --> 00:39:40.559 talking on the internet. Yeah, I mean, I also 00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:44.119 don't agree. I think that cultivated meat's a 00:39:44.119 --> 00:39:47.820 perfectly good solution. I say perfectly good 00:39:47.820 --> 00:39:50.440 solutions and it is in itself a reasonable solution, 00:39:50.500 --> 00:39:53.940 even if it might have issues that prevent it 00:39:53.940 --> 00:39:59.960 from being a good solution. I don't see... And 00:39:59.960 --> 00:40:02.980 trying to steal man the argument, right? Some 00:40:02.980 --> 00:40:06.059 cultivated meat companies still use fetal bovine 00:40:06.059 --> 00:40:09.239 serum. The industry is moving away from this. 00:40:09.519 --> 00:40:12.519 Nonetheless, even if it did require a fetal bovine 00:40:12.519 --> 00:40:15.780 serum, it's a tremendous improvement. It's much, 00:40:15.780 --> 00:40:19.139 much less animals would need to be harmed to 00:40:19.139 --> 00:40:22.340 generate FBS for cultivated meat. But again, 00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:24.360 the industry is already moving away from that. 00:40:25.920 --> 00:40:28.820 Some people might object to just taking cells 00:40:28.820 --> 00:40:32.619 from animals, period. I think that objection 00:40:32.619 --> 00:40:39.039 is pretty far -fetched in terms of that sort 00:40:39.039 --> 00:40:41.300 of procedure is incredibly non -invasive and 00:40:41.300 --> 00:40:45.280 not very painful at all. Is it like a check -swap 00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:48.119 effectively? I don't know what approach they're 00:40:48.119 --> 00:40:52.219 using exactly. either it be a very small biopsy, 00:40:52.360 --> 00:40:54.440 which is slightly more invasive, or a cheek swab, 00:40:54.659 --> 00:40:59.900 or a small skin swab. In any event, it's much 00:40:59.900 --> 00:41:02.800 less invasive than the current system of chopping 00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:06.800 off 100 billion chickens' heads. So I don't know, 00:41:06.900 --> 00:41:10.760 guys, which one do we do? And the scale there 00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:12.719 is much smaller, right? That's the whole idea, 00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:14.579 is you replicate the cells so it's not like you 00:41:14.579 --> 00:41:16.780 need a chicken every time you make this product. 00:41:17.360 --> 00:41:20.159 Well, they do present those arguments against 00:41:20.159 --> 00:41:23.099 lab -grown meat, but I think it has to do more 00:41:23.099 --> 00:41:26.000 with what Seth alluded to, which is, you know, 00:41:26.539 --> 00:41:32.239 this anti -capitalist ideology. Which I'm against 00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:34.380 in all of its guises for the record, not just 00:41:34.380 --> 00:41:38.639 this one, but please, Jacob. It's funny that 00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:41.840 I'm being asked about anti -capitalism and... 00:41:41.550 --> 00:41:45.389 Marxism capitalism again in the same week In 00:41:45.389 --> 00:41:47.170 the new year because it happened like at the 00:41:47.170 --> 00:41:48.750 New Year's party as that too and I was like, 00:41:48.750 --> 00:41:51.809 oh man I really never felt like I developed a 00:41:51.809 --> 00:41:53.429 level of sophistication to have like a nuanced 00:41:53.429 --> 00:41:56.989 view in this argument So I'll just make make 00:41:56.989 --> 00:42:02.210 an easy maybe an easy cop -out to say like Yeah, 00:42:02.210 --> 00:42:04.429 I just don't think these terms end up being defined 00:42:04.429 --> 00:42:07.889 very effectively or it's you know, very few people 00:42:07.889 --> 00:42:11.610 actually endorse like a absolute free market 00:42:11.610 --> 00:42:16.389 that's utterly unregulated and vice versa. I 00:42:16.389 --> 00:42:18.750 don't know the extent. I'm sure many people endorse 00:42:18.750 --> 00:42:21.690 like fully centrally planned economies, but in 00:42:21.690 --> 00:42:28.110 practice, like very few of either exist. So yeah, 00:42:28.349 --> 00:42:31.150 I definitely think like planned economies probably 00:42:31.150 --> 00:42:35.429 less good than free markets. But that said, there's 00:42:35.429 --> 00:42:39.139 like weird niches where Walmart just runs a massive 00:42:39.139 --> 00:42:44.159 internal planned economy and seems to do a pretty 00:42:44.159 --> 00:42:46.920 good job of it. But they're also effectively 00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:51.440 a dictatorship, so that's not ideal from a different 00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:56.599 perspective. But generally, it seems far -fetched 00:42:56.599 --> 00:42:58.800 to me. I'm not too worried about the fact that 00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:07.280 it's a capitalist solution to the problem. a 00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:10.960 general comment. Ryan, I think that a lot of 00:43:10.960 --> 00:43:13.719 this stuff boils down to expressive benefits. 00:43:13.940 --> 00:43:16.699 Most of politics can be explained in terms of 00:43:16.699 --> 00:43:18.900 expressive benefits, in terms of what does it 00:43:18.900 --> 00:43:26.239 feel good to say and be seen saying. This is 00:43:26.239 --> 00:43:28.659 very speculative, but like when I think about 00:43:28.659 --> 00:43:31.500 vegans, I know they're coming at it from like 00:43:31.500 --> 00:43:35.239 two camps. There's the people who have a strong 00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:38.960 moral intuitionist sense about animals' dignity 00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:42.519 and worth. And then there are those of us, and 00:43:42.519 --> 00:43:44.179 I'm putting myself in this category, and perhaps 00:43:44.179 --> 00:43:49.079 Jacob, although, you know, my heart also hurts 00:43:49.079 --> 00:43:52.159 for animals. We're like the abstract camp. We're 00:43:52.159 --> 00:43:55.699 like the, you know, 80 billion is 80 billion 00:43:55.699 --> 00:43:58.380 times, a chicken's dead is 80 billion times worse 00:43:58.380 --> 00:44:01.960 than a single chicken being hurt. So like, we 00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:05.480 have these sort of big picture considerations 00:44:05.480 --> 00:44:10.000 that require many layers of abstraction to understand. 00:44:11.920 --> 00:44:15.539 And this is as opposed to populist thinking, 00:44:15.679 --> 00:44:18.960 which in its leftist vegan form comes out as 00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:22.619 that's bad, that's gross, that's capitalist. 00:44:23.139 --> 00:44:26.079 No abstraction necessary. That's like just those 00:44:26.079 --> 00:44:29.760 are the bad guys. Don't do that. I think this 00:44:29.760 --> 00:44:31.900 kind of politics is really harmful when Trump 00:44:31.900 --> 00:44:34.320 does it, and I also think it's very harmful when 00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:40.159 vegans do it. But, like, I don't think that... 00:44:40.159 --> 00:44:42.099 I don't take it... I don't worry about it too 00:44:42.099 --> 00:44:44.739 much because I think, again, a lot of it is just, 00:44:44.739 --> 00:44:46.880 like, the benefits of being seen saying this 00:44:46.880 --> 00:44:50.460 on Twitter or whatever. Yeah, I guess I'm a little... 00:44:50.460 --> 00:44:52.760 That feels a little cynical to me insofar as 00:44:52.760 --> 00:44:56.000 I imagine... Again, not knowing the actual people 00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:58.340 saying this. So I imagine a lot of them are saying 00:44:58.340 --> 00:44:59.739 this on Twitter, but it's not really to like 00:44:59.739 --> 00:45:02.320 some grand audience. Although maybe that makes 00:45:02.320 --> 00:45:05.039 it all the more aggressively beneficial. Yeah. 00:45:05.380 --> 00:45:08.579 You ever been to vegan circle jerk, the subreddit? 00:45:09.079 --> 00:45:14.880 No, don't spend time there. Yeah, anyway, I just 00:45:14.880 --> 00:45:17.800 think it's like a situation of much like cage 00:45:17.800 --> 00:45:20.260 free. A lot of vegans have opposed cage free 00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:24.820 for a long time. incremental progress seems good. 00:45:25.360 --> 00:45:29.860 Winning things seems good. And not saying do 00:45:29.860 --> 00:45:33.019 that at any expense, compromise any value. But 00:45:33.019 --> 00:45:38.000 I think one needs to identify the clear and concrete 00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:41.039 harms or at least clear and reasonably likely 00:45:41.039 --> 00:45:45.539 harms beyond this is capitalist. Therefore, we 00:45:45.539 --> 00:45:48.079 should be an aesthetic objection. It's about 00:45:48.079 --> 00:45:52.670 like it's like qualities of unbeauty. I'm not 00:45:52.670 --> 00:45:54.710 sure like I don't sure that's like the position 00:45:54.710 --> 00:45:56.889 I don't know maybe that's the like expressive 00:45:56.889 --> 00:45:59.389 belief position but I think like the steelman 00:45:59.389 --> 00:46:01.849 position is something like, you know, this is 00:46:01.849 --> 00:46:05.650 enforcing a Like capital -driven hierarchy. Yeah, 00:46:05.650 --> 00:46:08.789 it's like dot. It's not well Yeah, no, there's 00:46:08.789 --> 00:46:10.329 a version I mean and personally I would like 00:46:10.329 --> 00:46:12.650 the part of this that I am on board with is that 00:46:12.650 --> 00:46:17.150 I think that blended meats There if blended meats 00:46:17.150 --> 00:46:21.309 which are like, let's say 30 % mushroom blend 00:46:21.309 --> 00:46:26.070 and 70 % beef. If those have the capacity to 00:46:26.070 --> 00:46:29.909 replace rather than compliment meat demand, I 00:46:29.909 --> 00:46:31.670 would like to see that demonstrated rather than 00:46:31.670 --> 00:46:35.989 assumed. I kind of think, I kind of, my picture 00:46:35.989 --> 00:46:38.889 of blended meats is I don't, I see them like 00:46:38.889 --> 00:46:41.869 rising in parallel to meat consumption as like 00:46:41.869 --> 00:46:46.309 a specialty product. Like might be wrong, but 00:46:46.309 --> 00:46:49.579 I'm not like very excited. I'm skeptical until 00:46:49.579 --> 00:46:53.480 we see evidence of displacement. Yeah, I guess, 00:46:53.599 --> 00:46:57.579 um, to close the conversation on politics and, 00:46:57.579 --> 00:47:02.059 um, you know, conservatism that we started earlier, 00:47:02.579 --> 00:47:06.019 um, I know of an initiative that will launch. 00:47:06.199 --> 00:47:10.960 I won't say more than that. Um, I think that 00:47:10.960 --> 00:47:16.059 efforts to get conservative on board for, you 00:47:16.059 --> 00:47:20.199 know, on the about veganism and plant -based 00:47:20.199 --> 00:47:26.820 living and all of that are going to take a new 00:47:26.820 --> 00:47:32.739 scale. So yeah, I think those investors are aware 00:47:32.739 --> 00:47:37.480 of the obstacles ahead and I think that's my 00:47:37.480 --> 00:47:42.840 theory that they want to start making more outreach 00:47:42.840 --> 00:47:45.400 efforts to conservative audiences. So we'll see 00:47:45.400 --> 00:47:50.670 more of that. Um, and, you know, about the, the 00:47:50.670 --> 00:47:55.789 more anti -capitalist crowd, um, I guess my position 00:47:55.789 --> 00:47:59.230 is there's lots of energy, you know, if we look 00:47:59.230 --> 00:48:03.989 at it from, um, amoral, just, you know, politically 00:48:03.989 --> 00:48:08.809 cynical way, um, there's a loss of energy, uh, 00:48:08.809 --> 00:48:12.610 with that crowd and they're in good position 00:48:12.610 --> 00:48:15.690 for appealing to people who also share their 00:48:15.849 --> 00:48:21.469 belief system. And so I don't want them to sabotage 00:48:21.469 --> 00:48:27.309 efforts from other vegans or animal advocates 00:48:27.309 --> 00:48:31.989 who have great initiatives. But at the same time, 00:48:31.989 --> 00:48:37.489 I feel like they should have a place under the 00:48:37.489 --> 00:48:42.250 animal advocacy movement umbrella. What do you 00:48:42.250 --> 00:48:48.650 make of that? I very pro big tent I think to 00:48:48.650 --> 00:48:52.130 the extent possible and you know, I as someone 00:48:52.130 --> 00:48:54.570 who's been publicly critical plant -based meats 00:48:54.570 --> 00:48:57.449 Some might say that I'm not practicing what I'm 00:48:57.449 --> 00:49:00.769 preaching But you know, I will I do disagree. 00:49:00.769 --> 00:49:04.309 I think like reasons discourse and disagreement 00:49:04.309 --> 00:49:08.269 is valuable and you should do it and I'm not 00:49:08.269 --> 00:49:11.250 suggesting that these will say anti -capitalist 00:49:11.250 --> 00:49:14.079 vegans who oppose cultured meat are not engaging 00:49:14.079 --> 00:49:16.340 in recent discourse. I don't know what discourse 00:49:16.340 --> 00:49:18.500 they're engaging in. You just told me this happened, 00:49:18.519 --> 00:49:20.900 so I don't really know too much about it. So 00:49:20.900 --> 00:49:22.860 I think having a reasonable discourse about that 00:49:22.860 --> 00:49:28.780 is fine. But I do think we should avoid open 00:49:28.780 --> 00:49:33.400 sabotage of one another's efforts. For example, 00:49:33.480 --> 00:49:37.179 in my work, I've taken great pains to... Not 00:49:37.179 --> 00:49:39.500 that it was really hard to do, but instead of... 00:49:39.519 --> 00:49:43.099 tried to be very careful to focus on the empirical 00:49:43.099 --> 00:49:44.719 and scientific issues surrounding plant -based 00:49:44.719 --> 00:49:47.820 meat, as opposed to the movement and advocacy 00:49:47.820 --> 00:49:49.719 issues of like, oh, you know, who says what, 00:49:50.039 --> 00:49:52.840 who are the actors and whatnot. I've tried to 00:49:52.840 --> 00:49:57.760 maintain my interests as primarily what is the 00:49:57.760 --> 00:50:00.119 human psychology and human behavioral science 00:50:00.119 --> 00:50:02.599 that underpins the interaction of plant -based 00:50:02.599 --> 00:50:06.559 meats with animal -based meats. Very much agree 00:50:06.559 --> 00:50:08.599 with that. I think what Jacob and I fundamentally 00:50:08.599 --> 00:50:10.800 share in common is a commitment to empiricism. 00:50:11.400 --> 00:50:12.739 The kinds of issues that we're interested in, 00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:14.460 if I might speak for both of us for a second, 00:50:15.179 --> 00:50:20.400 can be resolved with experiments. Like we believe 00:50:20.400 --> 00:50:23.840 that plant -based meats, if they achieve XYZ 00:50:23.840 --> 00:50:27.480 conditions, will move the market's Q amount. 00:50:27.860 --> 00:50:31.139 That's like a testable proposition. And if I'm 00:50:31.139 --> 00:50:34.400 wrong, I will say, I'm wrong. I was wrong. It 00:50:34.400 --> 00:50:37.300 was better or worse than I expected. I do not 00:50:37.300 --> 00:50:41.960 have much interest in the, I know this is very 00:50:41.960 --> 00:50:47.980 dismissive, more like aesthetic view of social 00:50:47.980 --> 00:50:50.420 change where it's like it's like thinking about 00:50:50.420 --> 00:50:52.940 this broader system stuff in a way that's like 00:50:52.940 --> 00:50:56.039 people find like inequality inherently unlikable 00:50:56.039 --> 00:51:00.079 so they want to get rid of it. I don't. And likewise 00:51:00.079 --> 00:51:02.119 recently there was a debate where I think it 00:51:02.119 --> 00:51:05.690 was like farm kind Said something criticizing 00:51:05.690 --> 00:51:08.889 for January and like on social media. I saw some 00:51:08.889 --> 00:51:13.789 people can like Seeming to get up in arms about 00:51:13.789 --> 00:51:16.530 this now There are of course two confounding 00:51:16.530 --> 00:51:18.510 factors here The first of which is that there's 00:51:18.510 --> 00:51:20.190 performative outrage and the second of which 00:51:20.190 --> 00:51:22.590 is that the algorithm rewards performative outrage 00:51:22.590 --> 00:51:24.570 So I have no idea what people actually think 00:51:24.570 --> 00:51:26.949 about this, but whatever I saw some of this on 00:51:26.949 --> 00:51:30.730 the internet and I was thinking like farm kind 00:51:30.730 --> 00:51:36.400 is doing There's like an empirical question here 00:51:36.400 --> 00:51:39.480 Which kind of messaging works better? I don't 00:51:39.480 --> 00:51:42.880 know and Because I don't know like it's interesting, 00:51:42.900 --> 00:51:45.639 but I don't like I don't care You know what? 00:51:45.659 --> 00:51:47.019 I mean? I don't mind like personally invested 00:51:47.019 --> 00:51:49.300 in the question of the January versus whatever 00:51:49.300 --> 00:51:50.760 farm kind was saying instead I would just say 00:51:50.760 --> 00:51:53.719 like there's an answer to this question. I don't 00:51:53.719 --> 00:51:56.360 know what it is I'm curious about that, but till 00:51:56.360 --> 00:52:00.519 I know I'm like, you know Gnostic Definitely, 00:52:00.539 --> 00:52:06.269 there's lots of pathos around those issues. And 00:52:06.269 --> 00:52:08.909 yeah, we should be more intellectually minded 00:52:08.909 --> 00:52:12.750 about them. Well, should we like I share, I have 00:52:12.750 --> 00:52:14.650 my values that I don't have any basis of saying 00:52:14.650 --> 00:52:16.489 it should be yours. Like this is, you know, you 00:52:16.489 --> 00:52:20.590 get it. Or anyone's. Well, you know, that's the 00:52:20.590 --> 00:52:23.909 reason why I started the science of activism 00:52:23.909 --> 00:52:26.909 initiative on this podcast, because I I felt 00:52:26.909 --> 00:52:30.320 strongly that there was uh, too much, you know, 00:52:30.699 --> 00:52:34.559 this is my personal opinion. Um, and I will, 00:52:34.679 --> 00:52:39.539 um, just scream about it online and, you know, 00:52:39.780 --> 00:52:42.420 people will react emotionally and it's just the 00:52:42.420 --> 00:52:48.059 never ending thing. And, um, when you have so 00:52:48.059 --> 00:52:50.820 many researchers, actually studying those issues 00:52:50.820 --> 00:52:53.519 and coming up with answers, not just questions 00:52:53.519 --> 00:52:58.800 and, um, emotional arguments. Um, it, you know, 00:52:58.800 --> 00:53:01.900 it feels good. It makes you smarter and it's 00:53:01.900 --> 00:53:08.820 clarifying. So yeah, I, I, I do tend to bring 00:53:08.820 --> 00:53:12.639 the discourse more on the intellectual side and, 00:53:12.639 --> 00:53:17.780 and just calm down people, like, um, bring down 00:53:17.780 --> 00:53:21.860 the temperature. in terms of all of those debates 00:53:21.860 --> 00:53:25.440 going on with people who have their hearts on 00:53:25.440 --> 00:53:29.860 their sleeves. And yeah, I guess those are my 00:53:29.860 --> 00:53:32.860 thoughts. I don't know, man. We always said that 00:53:32.860 --> 00:53:34.860 the meta question is not resolved. We don't really 00:53:34.860 --> 00:53:36.960 know whether empirical research is a superior 00:53:36.960 --> 00:53:40.659 method of changing the world rather than online 00:53:40.659 --> 00:53:43.099 shouting. That's also an empirical question. 00:53:44.119 --> 00:53:51.820 Well, you I want this podcast to be this big 00:53:51.820 --> 00:53:54.599 tent and representative of different opinions 00:53:54.599 --> 00:53:59.420 and views. At the very least, researchers and 00:53:59.420 --> 00:54:03.340 research and empirical studies should be included. 00:54:04.579 --> 00:54:06.800 And there are so many influencers out there. 00:54:06.800 --> 00:54:12.159 How many make the effort of giving voice and 00:54:12.159 --> 00:54:16.650 attention to that side of the world of activism, 00:54:17.510 --> 00:54:22.030 not that many minority of the minority. And so, 00:54:22.489 --> 00:54:25.510 uh, I, yeah. Well, I guess I'll ask you both 00:54:25.510 --> 00:54:28.409 a question. Pretend you could, you're like set 00:54:28.409 --> 00:54:31.369 your life is D and D in this little scenario 00:54:31.369 --> 00:54:34.010 and you can set your character stats to whatever 00:54:34.010 --> 00:54:36.710 you want. And then you can maximize into something 00:54:36.710 --> 00:54:40.190 else. If you, and you still have your, like your 00:54:40.190 --> 00:54:43.070 current goal of making a vegan world, what would 00:54:43.070 --> 00:54:45.019 you be doing if you could do anything, like if 00:54:45.019 --> 00:54:46.920 you were skilled at whatever you want to be skilled 00:54:46.920 --> 00:54:54.739 at. Like, I think I might be doing more delicious 00:54:54.739 --> 00:54:58.099 vegan food. I'm just not a very good cook. Like 00:54:58.099 --> 00:55:00.139 I'm doing what I do because I can't do other 00:55:00.139 --> 00:55:03.500 things. Do you have something else in mind that 00:55:03.500 --> 00:55:09.219 you would do if you could do anything? Yeah, 00:55:09.219 --> 00:55:12.380 I think maybe, Jacob, you feel the same way, 00:55:12.380 --> 00:55:16.619 but I'm already doing what I can and what I know. 00:55:17.579 --> 00:55:19.579 Yeah, but my question is, what if you could do 00:55:19.579 --> 00:55:24.559 anything? Well, you know me well enough, Seth, 00:55:24.599 --> 00:55:26.199 to know I'm just going to nitpick this question. 00:55:26.400 --> 00:55:30.639 I mean, anything? Besides just like using your 00:55:30.639 --> 00:55:33.800 force power to persuade people. Yeah, just get 00:55:33.800 --> 00:55:37.300 the objective. I mean, among human abilities 00:55:37.300 --> 00:55:42.679 that exist. Okay. Use for me to career change 00:55:42.679 --> 00:55:44.440 all together and I'm a little bit in the middle 00:55:44.440 --> 00:55:46.360 of a career change So this is a little bit of 00:55:46.360 --> 00:55:48.480 a live question to some extent I'm sure you would 00:55:48.480 --> 00:55:50.300 do think about this because you you're smart 00:55:50.300 --> 00:55:52.679 Jacob You can you can be something else if you 00:55:52.679 --> 00:55:57.599 want to be so yeah Yeah, I'm a little bit open 00:55:57.599 --> 00:55:59.260 -minded about it. I've looked into going to donor 00:55:59.260 --> 00:56:02.739 relations donor development Just to help move 00:56:02.739 --> 00:56:05.820 more money into amlavixi and amlavixi research 00:56:05.820 --> 00:56:10.760 perhaps ideally I've also thought about working 00:56:10.760 --> 00:56:14.679 as a campaigner. So just upping my skills as 00:56:14.679 --> 00:56:17.599 a campaigner to actually run the campaigns that 00:56:17.599 --> 00:56:20.500 a lot of animal advocacy work relies on. What 00:56:20.500 --> 00:56:27.059 do you have in mind? Yeah, KTree is a classic 00:56:27.059 --> 00:56:29.639 campaigning issue, but, you know, people have 00:56:29.639 --> 00:56:32.420 campaigns against cosmetics companies for animal 00:56:32.420 --> 00:56:36.960 testing, campaign against SeaWorld famously for 00:56:37.400 --> 00:56:40.139 holding captive animals. I'm not sure those are 00:56:40.139 --> 00:56:41.880 the campaigns I personally would pick to work 00:56:41.880 --> 00:56:47.260 on, but all campaigning skill type things. How 00:56:47.260 --> 00:56:56.300 about you, Ryan? Well, I kind of do some things 00:56:56.300 --> 00:57:00.079 around that with my current work in fundraising 00:57:00.079 --> 00:57:05.980 with Dharma Voices for Animals of the organization, 00:57:06.039 --> 00:57:11.440 but I think I would uh, adopt like a position 00:57:11.440 --> 00:57:15.539 of a religious leader of some kind. Um, and then 00:57:15.539 --> 00:57:18.099 preach the good word about animals. It's a great 00:57:18.099 --> 00:57:22.159 answer. Uh, I, I do think there are so many parallels 00:57:22.159 --> 00:57:26.340 between, uh, major religions out there and what 00:57:26.340 --> 00:57:29.980 we're trying to do. Um, starting with, you know, 00:57:30.059 --> 00:57:32.739 diets, uh, constraining diets. We were talking 00:57:32.739 --> 00:57:40.110 about, um, convenience of a vegan diet. Well, 00:57:41.070 --> 00:57:44.389 did religious groups throughout history tackle 00:57:44.389 --> 00:57:50.610 that question? You know, Jewish sects or Muslim 00:57:50.610 --> 00:57:54.750 immigration waves coming to countries where they 00:57:54.750 --> 00:58:02.050 don't have the same dietary values and they safeguarded 00:58:02.050 --> 00:58:05.349 their values and propagated them successfully. 00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:09.679 Um, what happened there? Um, also what we're 00:58:09.679 --> 00:58:13.119 asking from people is very much akin to converting 00:58:13.119 --> 00:58:17.539 to another religion. Um, you know, it's a, it's 00:58:17.539 --> 00:58:21.440 a big asks to become vegan and completely transformed 00:58:21.440 --> 00:58:25.679 the way you interact with, uh, different species 00:58:25.679 --> 00:58:29.559 and change your, uh, dietary habits and also 00:58:29.559 --> 00:58:33.159 your, you know, cosmetics and all of that. Um, 00:58:34.389 --> 00:58:36.570 Religious conversion is the closest thing that 00:58:36.570 --> 00:58:41.650 comes to money in terms of comparisons. I'm totally 00:58:41.650 --> 00:58:43.250 down with this. Like, you're going to start a 00:58:43.250 --> 00:58:45.610 cult and then instead of the cyanide pill you 00:58:45.610 --> 00:58:48.190 get like some tofu. It's like, this is the big 00:58:48.190 --> 00:58:52.789 reveal. Exactly. I mean, where is the vegan cult? 00:58:53.269 --> 00:58:54.670 Where is the vegan cult? That's a great question. 00:58:54.989 --> 00:58:57.650 We need more. I think they were called the ZZX 00:58:57.650 --> 00:59:01.150 and they weren't so good. Yeah, and Zazian's 00:59:01.150 --> 00:59:03.789 and DXE has also been accused of being a cult. 00:59:04.110 --> 00:59:09.809 So I know there are some options. DXE is direct 00:59:09.809 --> 00:59:15.449 action everywhere. They do good work. Well, you 00:59:15.449 --> 00:59:19.170 know, it needs to have the potential to scale 00:59:19.170 --> 00:59:23.329 up. So the leader needs to die and become a martyr 00:59:23.329 --> 00:59:25.789 of some kind. Yeah, I mean, the most successful 00:59:25.789 --> 00:59:30.250 cult in history is indeed very successful. Like, 00:59:30.469 --> 00:59:33.570 how pretty Christians are there. Exactly. I mean, 00:59:33.690 --> 00:59:39.070 so if we could start our own cult or, you know, 00:59:40.889 --> 00:59:44.389 inject our values through a cult, through, you 00:59:44.389 --> 00:59:47.489 know, a mainstream religion and see it propagate 00:59:47.489 --> 00:59:53.429 through those already existing structures, I 00:59:53.429 --> 00:59:57.420 think that's That's the closest thing to checkmate. 00:59:58.599 --> 01:00:01.900 The less cynical version of this just adds the 01:00:01.900 --> 01:00:04.539 URE onto that and talks about culture. We talk 01:00:04.539 --> 01:00:07.360 about identity and something that I personally 01:00:07.360 --> 01:00:09.639 think we could do more of is that like, let's 01:00:09.639 --> 01:00:11.780 pretend that you were running this is hypothetical, 01:00:11.800 --> 01:00:13.739 of course, pretend you were running or in the 01:00:13.739 --> 01:00:16.679 middle of designing a default study at a prominent 01:00:16.679 --> 01:00:21.059 Catholic university in the Boston area. Then 01:00:21.059 --> 01:00:24.480 one thing you might do is you might have a religious 01:00:24.480 --> 01:00:28.199 studies professor come and talk about why Catholicism 01:00:28.199 --> 01:00:30.280 and plant -based diets are consistent with each 01:00:30.280 --> 01:00:33.079 other. We can like layer these things on top 01:00:33.079 --> 01:00:36.340 of each other. And that's an issue where credibility 01:00:36.340 --> 01:00:39.739 matters. Like no one's going to care what I think 01:00:39.739 --> 01:00:44.480 about Jews and veganism. It's just, but like 01:00:44.480 --> 01:00:46.300 someone else can talk credibly about this. And 01:00:46.300 --> 01:00:49.800 that's good. I think it's very promising. I think 01:00:49.800 --> 01:00:53.730 I might know the name of that professor. I just 01:00:53.730 --> 01:00:55.989 have a hunch too. Can we get some initial stuff? 01:00:56.769 --> 01:01:00.550 Yeah, AG, not SG, but like, you know, there's, 01:01:00.550 --> 01:01:02.869 you know, there's like the center. Okay. So at 01:01:02.869 --> 01:01:04.750 first I haven't talked to Aaron about this, but 01:01:04.750 --> 01:01:06.869 Aaron Gross, professor at UCSD is a religious 01:01:06.869 --> 01:01:09.869 studies professor who also does food stuff. And 01:01:09.869 --> 01:01:13.769 there's a way to make this case that we can bet 01:01:13.769 --> 01:01:18.130 like the values you already hold are consistent 01:01:18.130 --> 01:01:21.329 with eating more. plant -based diets. I mentioned 01:01:21.329 --> 01:01:23.150 earlier, Matthew Scully, who's doing the same 01:01:23.150 --> 01:01:26.590 thing for Christianity. I think this is really 01:01:26.590 --> 01:01:29.809 hard. And I think it's like a long patient conversation. 01:01:31.409 --> 01:01:33.690 But I think this is a problem. I think that in 01:01:33.690 --> 01:01:35.809 conjunction with like convenience, this is a 01:01:35.809 --> 01:01:40.889 good one. I think it's also a hard sell for the 01:01:40.889 --> 01:01:44.610 advocates out there, since you know, I think 01:01:44.610 --> 01:01:50.800 73 % of animal advocates uh, consider themselves 01:01:50.800 --> 01:01:55.659 as non -religious or atheist. And so, you know, 01:01:55.920 --> 01:01:59.920 do they believe in making a difference with religious 01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:03.639 communities? Maybe they're more skeptical about 01:02:03.639 --> 01:02:08.260 that. Well, I think how much of that, go ahead. 01:02:08.400 --> 01:02:12.340 I just came back to the same vein of like, um, 01:02:12.579 --> 01:02:14.980 anti -capitalism. I imagine some of these 70 01:02:14.980 --> 01:02:18.219 % of atheists of vegan atheists are, uh, anti 01:02:19.619 --> 01:02:22.360 So they might have some principled view against 01:02:22.360 --> 01:02:26.139 it as well. But those of us who are utilitarian, 01:02:26.440 --> 01:02:30.119 who are total empiricists have to say like, well, 01:02:30.719 --> 01:02:34.539 if it gets the job done, that's our ideology. 01:02:34.940 --> 01:02:36.619 Whatever gets the job done. The good news is 01:02:36.619 --> 01:02:41.230 you already have a microphone, Ryan. I mean, 01:02:41.230 --> 01:02:43.750 yeah, that's, that's the beginning. You're so 01:02:43.750 --> 01:02:46.489 mild mannered. You're very pleasant to talk to. 01:02:46.590 --> 01:02:53.250 Let's get more spirit. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, 01:02:53.250 --> 01:02:57.050 we were talking about hypotheticals. I'm not 01:02:57.050 --> 01:03:00.230 planning on becoming a cult leader anytime soon. 01:03:00.829 --> 01:03:05.210 We were ready to join. Well, I'm already, you 01:03:05.210 --> 01:03:12.059 know, on the Buddhist wagon. It's not as energetic 01:03:12.059 --> 01:03:17.360 as evangelists or Islamists or something like 01:03:17.360 --> 01:03:21.880 that. So yeah, maybe that explains my mouth manners. 01:03:22.460 --> 01:03:27.940 But you know, you see the Dalai Lama had so much 01:03:27.940 --> 01:03:33.460 and still has so much momentum and popularity. 01:03:34.660 --> 01:03:38.039 And he's not, he's not, he doesn't even speak 01:03:38.039 --> 01:03:45.019 English yet. You know, his presence has triggered 01:03:45.019 --> 01:03:48.360 that much support around the world, which is 01:03:48.360 --> 01:03:51.659 incredible. Well, if we could gain him to our 01:03:51.659 --> 01:03:56.559 cause that, that would do lots of good. I mean, 01:03:57.280 --> 01:04:01.369 I imagine he's pretty close. Like if he's not 01:04:01.369 --> 01:04:03.929 vegan, he probably eats very few products from 01:04:03.929 --> 01:04:10.070 factory farms in Dharamshala. That's also what 01:04:10.070 --> 01:04:14.409 I think. I do believe that he's a prime target 01:04:14.409 --> 01:04:18.530 for that. I believe that Buddhism as a whole 01:04:18.530 --> 01:04:22.909 is a prime target for that. But you know, I'm 01:04:22.909 --> 01:04:25.690 blowing my own horn. Yeah, but on the other hand, 01:04:25.809 --> 01:04:27.710 I remember once upon a time I was in a political 01:04:27.710 --> 01:04:29.800 science program and graduated for graduate school 01:04:29.800 --> 01:04:32.559 did not pan out, but I tried. And there was a 01:04:32.559 --> 01:04:34.500 professor who brought this mystery forward that 01:04:34.500 --> 01:04:37.480 was like two Buddhist countries. I think it was, 01:04:37.480 --> 01:04:42.699 um, or it was like leadership in Myanmar is crushing 01:04:42.699 --> 01:04:45.440 the Rohingya. This is not consistent with Buddhist 01:04:45.440 --> 01:04:49.679 values. Why? And it was like, cause they're people. 01:04:50.280 --> 01:04:52.619 You know what I mean? Like they're, I don't know. 01:04:52.619 --> 01:04:54.719 I lived in Thailand for a year. They ate a lot 01:04:54.719 --> 01:04:56.500 of pork. I don't think they treat their cat, 01:04:56.500 --> 01:05:00.469 their pigs very well. It's like people like me. 01:05:01.630 --> 01:05:04.929 Yeah. I mean, if you look at early Buddhist history, 01:05:05.210 --> 01:05:09.389 people sent assassins to the Buddha. There were, 01:05:09.389 --> 01:05:14.989 you know, warring factions in the monastic order 01:05:14.989 --> 01:05:17.829 he founded, and that was during his lifetime. 01:05:18.409 --> 01:05:22.409 So yeah, people are people. That's just how things 01:05:22.409 --> 01:05:24.150 are. That's interesting. I didn't know that. 01:05:24.590 --> 01:05:30.150 Yes, even his cousin, you know, tried to assassinate 01:05:30.150 --> 01:05:34.369 him and take over as the Buddha. Anyway, there's 01:05:34.369 --> 01:05:38.690 a whole history that we can point to. Jacob, 01:05:38.710 --> 01:05:41.150 did you want to add something before we change 01:05:41.150 --> 01:05:45.090 topic? No, I'm happy to shift that my religious 01:05:45.090 --> 01:05:48.929 knowledge is quite limited. You're part of the 01:05:48.929 --> 01:05:57.639 73%. Yeah, guilty as charged. Okay, so one last 01:05:57.639 --> 01:06:02.320 highlight of 2025 that I really wanted to discuss. 01:06:03.599 --> 01:06:06.280 Something that was also dominating conversations 01:06:06.280 --> 01:06:15.500 in my podcast in 2025, the concept of vegan by 01:06:15.500 --> 01:06:20.590 default and nudges. Lots of You know, I even 01:06:20.590 --> 01:06:24.449 attended the last AVA summit. That was a big 01:06:24.449 --> 01:06:28.449 thing. You know, I kept reading nudges, wondering 01:06:28.449 --> 01:06:33.690 what was that about? So what do you make of that 01:06:33.690 --> 01:06:38.789 new trend and new tactic of advancing the cause? 01:06:39.190 --> 01:06:43.250 Do you believe in it? What does data say about 01:06:43.250 --> 01:06:45.949 it? Oh, Seth, you have to take this one. You 01:06:45.949 --> 01:06:47.969 just wrote the post. I did, right. I recently 01:06:47.969 --> 01:06:51.800 wrote something called, I wrote a newsletter 01:06:51.800 --> 01:06:54.300 called regression to the meat. It's a pun on 01:06:54.300 --> 01:06:56.360 the phrase regression to the mean, which is the 01:06:56.360 --> 01:07:00.179 tendency for subsequent samples pulled after 01:07:00.179 --> 01:07:03.340 extreme initial samples to be more likely to 01:07:03.340 --> 01:07:06.460 the true underlying average tendency. And the 01:07:06.460 --> 01:07:09.219 regression to the meat pun is my, is the, is 01:07:09.219 --> 01:07:11.699 actually, I was thinking about defaults and not 01:07:11.699 --> 01:07:14.099 just when I thought of it, which is we have a 01:07:14.099 --> 01:07:17.119 lot of default studies and nudge studies. So 01:07:17.119 --> 01:07:20.440 the archetypal default study, and this is a situation 01:07:20.440 --> 01:07:22.400 where I really think defaults work, goes like 01:07:22.400 --> 01:07:25.000 this. You're at a university, you sign up for 01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:29.159 a conference, and then they give you a free meal 01:07:29.159 --> 01:07:31.679 for part of the conference. And the free meal 01:07:31.679 --> 01:07:36.340 says, tofu with string beans. And then there's 01:07:36.340 --> 01:07:39.059 a little thing that's like, please email us if 01:07:39.059 --> 01:07:41.940 you would like a meat option instead. So the 01:07:41.940 --> 01:07:45.099 basic idea is that you have to go out of your 01:07:45.099 --> 01:07:50.800 way to get meat. I believe this probably reduces 01:07:50.800 --> 01:07:54.000 meat consumption at the conference by about what 01:07:54.000 --> 01:07:56.460 the study's expected to, which is sometimes up 01:07:56.460 --> 01:07:59.579 to 73%. Most people just don't feel like it in 01:07:59.579 --> 01:08:01.639 terms of going through the effort to write the 01:08:01.639 --> 01:08:06.260 email. What we don't know is what they then eat 01:08:06.260 --> 01:08:09.139 at the next meal. Is there any probability that 01:08:09.139 --> 01:08:12.440 being defaulted into plant -based food at time 01:08:12.440 --> 01:08:16.470 one makes you perhaps more likely to have meat 01:08:16.470 --> 01:08:18.550 at time too? I don't know the answer to that 01:08:18.550 --> 01:08:21.470 question. I think at conferences, plant -based 01:08:21.470 --> 01:08:23.949 defaults probably work. I think in New York City 01:08:23.949 --> 01:08:26.729 hospitals, plant -based defaults probably are 01:08:26.729 --> 01:08:29.829 good. Because that's a time when you've targeted, 01:08:30.430 --> 01:08:32.470 somebody's had a health scare, they're in the 01:08:32.470 --> 01:08:34.229 hospital overnight, and then basically how the 01:08:34.229 --> 01:08:35.829 plant -based default system works. And the New 01:08:35.829 --> 01:08:38.550 York City hospital is the person, let's say you're 01:08:38.550 --> 01:08:41.810 bedridden, the nurse comes to your desk, your 01:08:41.810 --> 01:08:46.470 bed, and they're like, We have this like nice 01:08:46.470 --> 01:08:50.109 mushroom ragu, which by the way, not plant based, 01:08:50.149 --> 01:08:51.810 that was a terrible example. Mushrooms are not 01:08:51.810 --> 01:08:57.590 plants. But whatever. And then you say, no, I'd 01:08:57.590 --> 01:09:00.369 like something else. And they say, we have broccoli 01:09:00.369 --> 01:09:03.449 and General Tso's tofu. And then you have to 01:09:03.449 --> 01:09:06.210 say no like three times before they actually 01:09:06.210 --> 01:09:08.369 serve you meat, before they offer a meat thing. 01:09:09.770 --> 01:09:14.500 This I think is a pretty good time to be giving 01:09:14.500 --> 01:09:16.739 people plant -based defaults, because, you know, 01:09:16.739 --> 01:09:19.159 they're already, like, in the hospital. They 01:09:19.159 --> 01:09:22.819 probably are thinking about, like, mmm, am I 01:09:22.819 --> 01:09:24.779 living in the healthiest way? Like, this is a 01:09:24.779 --> 01:09:26.640 good time to reach people with, like, a new way 01:09:26.640 --> 01:09:28.399 of trying things. And it's very possible some 01:09:28.399 --> 01:09:31.359 of them are like, hmm, we're good. I'll try. 01:09:31.439 --> 01:09:34.880 I'll make this at home. But what about, like, 01:09:35.060 --> 01:09:39.180 restaurants and universities? There, I would 01:09:39.180 --> 01:09:43.300 say I'm a skeptic. Because first, the big reason 01:09:43.300 --> 01:09:46.600 is that like a default just don't work as well 01:09:46.600 --> 01:09:48.619 when you're thinking about like, imagine you're 01:09:48.619 --> 01:09:53.279 going into Chipotle and they say like, our burrito 01:09:53.279 --> 01:09:56.279 comes with tofu. Please let us know if you want 01:09:56.279 --> 01:09:58.199 one of the following meat options. Like in some 01:09:58.199 --> 01:10:02.399 ways that's a default, but just saying, I'd like 01:10:02.399 --> 01:10:05.779 some chicken, please, is incredibly easy. Like 01:10:05.779 --> 01:10:07.460 most of these default settings, like when you 01:10:07.460 --> 01:10:08.939 actually think about scaling up, you should think 01:10:08.939 --> 01:10:12.090 about. times when it becomes really, really easy 01:10:12.090 --> 01:10:14.750 to get the meat. You don't have to say it like 01:10:14.750 --> 01:10:17.090 four times. Because if you were at a restaurant 01:10:17.090 --> 01:10:20.750 and they made you have four interactions every 01:10:20.750 --> 01:10:22.909 time you wanted to order meat, you're going to 01:10:22.909 --> 01:10:25.550 go to another restaurant. Any restaurant that 01:10:25.550 --> 01:10:28.149 knows this is not going to make it very hard 01:10:28.149 --> 01:10:30.829 to get meat. So as things like scale up, I think 01:10:30.829 --> 01:10:32.729 we should expect the defaults to just become 01:10:32.729 --> 01:10:36.369 less default D and more just like a selection 01:10:36.369 --> 01:10:41.850 of choices with one preselected. And second, 01:10:44.789 --> 01:10:48.289 well, this is really the same point. People like 01:10:48.289 --> 01:10:52.010 meat, and as they're going about their normal 01:10:52.010 --> 01:10:54.970 lives, they're going to make the effort to get 01:10:54.970 --> 01:10:59.810 it. Like this is just, everybody who knows someone 01:10:59.810 --> 01:11:01.149 who eats meat is going to say like, oh yeah, 01:11:01.210 --> 01:11:03.390 that person eats meat because they like it, not 01:11:03.390 --> 01:11:05.029 because they're just like going through life, 01:11:05.149 --> 01:11:06.869 just going like with their eyes closed, just 01:11:06.869 --> 01:11:09.880 eating whatever is served to them. I just don't 01:11:09.880 --> 01:11:11.380 think that's a good model for how people eat. 01:11:11.800 --> 01:11:15.140 So I don't think this whole like nudge mindset 01:11:15.140 --> 01:11:18.739 of trying to get people to choose plant -based 01:11:18.739 --> 01:11:21.840 and then like unconscious automatic way. I don't 01:11:21.840 --> 01:11:23.340 think that's a very good model for how people 01:11:23.340 --> 01:11:26.300 choose food. Yeah, that's what I want you to 01:11:26.300 --> 01:11:29.060 go first. No, I agree with so much of what you 01:11:29.060 --> 01:11:31.840 said and I think it's a really good answer and 01:11:31.840 --> 01:11:36.819 gets to like one of my most fundamental defaults 01:11:36.819 --> 01:11:40.649 views, which is like defaults are not a very 01:11:40.649 --> 01:11:44.050 coherent class of things. It's very idiosyncratic. 01:11:45.310 --> 01:11:48.329 The conference ones, yeah, they seem really trenchant. 01:11:49.789 --> 01:11:52.710 And like a key aspect of all nudges, well, not 01:11:52.710 --> 01:11:58.470 all nudges, but conscious nudges, like a default 01:11:58.470 --> 01:12:02.149 that your brain has to do some processing to 01:12:02.149 --> 01:12:05.369 interact with and for the effect to happen to 01:12:05.369 --> 01:12:09.390 some extent. is that salience is really important. 01:12:10.909 --> 01:12:13.609 So to the extent that in a conference setting 01:12:13.609 --> 01:12:15.770 where you're like given these two options and 01:12:15.770 --> 01:12:17.310 it's like right there in front of you and you're 01:12:17.310 --> 01:12:19.569 like, oh, either I need to just go with this 01:12:19.569 --> 01:12:23.090 default or I need to choose to send this email. 01:12:23.550 --> 01:12:27.069 It's a very salient situation. And exactly as 01:12:27.069 --> 01:12:30.869 you outlined Seth, like in Chipotle or even worse 01:12:30.869 --> 01:12:35.159 in the grocery store, it's like. What are we 01:12:35.159 --> 01:12:37.939 doing here? How do we make some? Yeah, I don't 01:12:37.939 --> 01:12:39.859 know exactly I have no idea what that like maybe 01:12:39.859 --> 01:12:42.159 you like put them like a head or something and 01:12:42.159 --> 01:12:44.239 you put like the meat behind it but like even 01:12:44.239 --> 01:12:47.739 then Well, I don't get it and I guess the good 01:12:47.739 --> 01:12:50.039 news is we can exploit the diversity of the term 01:12:50.039 --> 01:12:52.640 default here because people You know do people 01:12:52.640 --> 01:12:54.460 do serving size defaults so you can call that 01:12:54.460 --> 01:12:56.739 a default and that's more amenable to like a 01:12:56.739 --> 01:12:59.000 grocery store context Or you could make the serving 01:12:59.000 --> 01:13:02.039 size smaller by default I'm very amenable to 01:13:02.039 --> 01:13:03.520 this kind of default. I think this is a good 01:13:03.520 --> 01:13:06.079 one. Like just make the spoons smaller or whatever. 01:13:06.699 --> 01:13:10.520 Yeah, yeah. Now, but that's like, I will say 01:13:10.520 --> 01:13:12.140 in the grocery store, that's like kind of unpopular. 01:13:12.260 --> 01:13:13.920 People don't actually like it when you make the 01:13:13.920 --> 01:13:16.319 food that you sell smaller, by and large, like 01:13:16.319 --> 01:13:18.340 shrink -flation. Yeah, they call it, exactly, 01:13:18.560 --> 01:13:21.060 shrink -flation, right? Like people will notice 01:13:21.060 --> 01:13:23.840 when you take the meat away. Yeah. Well, if it's 01:13:23.840 --> 01:13:26.199 salient, you could just do it a little bit. But 01:13:26.199 --> 01:13:31.819 yeah. It's like, oh, it's just, it's not sick. 01:13:31.960 --> 01:13:38.079 It's 15 .85 ounces of prime riff. I haven't been 01:13:38.079 --> 01:13:43.539 doing for ice cream for years. Um, so yeah, I 01:13:43.539 --> 01:13:45.579 think it's really hard to talk about defaults 01:13:45.579 --> 01:13:47.760 and nudges, good ideas, bad ideas, because it's 01:13:47.760 --> 01:13:50.600 just incredibly nuanced. And that's the other 01:13:50.600 --> 01:13:55.000 big issue with this idea is it's I'm remiss to 01:13:55.000 --> 01:13:56.899 even call it an idea because it's a dozen ideas. 01:13:58.239 --> 01:14:00.260 And then we get to the measurement and evaluation 01:14:00.260 --> 01:14:03.840 problem, which turns out to be a big problem. 01:14:03.899 --> 01:14:06.880 It's really hard to run the high quality studies 01:14:06.880 --> 01:14:08.659 that are needed to validate that these things 01:14:08.659 --> 01:14:12.020 work. It's very expensive. There's not a lot 01:14:12.020 --> 01:14:13.899 of people willing to do it. It's not very fun 01:14:13.899 --> 01:14:18.479 to do by and large, I'll say by most accounts. 01:14:19.710 --> 01:14:22.090 I can speak to this personally, getting a university 01:14:22.090 --> 01:14:26.489 to randomly assign meals is hard. They've got 01:14:26.489 --> 01:14:28.310 their own thing. They've like got their, like 01:14:28.310 --> 01:14:32.189 for them, like just keeping the ship afloat is 01:14:32.189 --> 01:14:34.810 hard. Like it's a lot of work to run a university 01:14:34.810 --> 01:14:37.109 dining hall. And then like, you know, I, some 01:14:37.109 --> 01:14:39.090 researcher from some school come in and be like, 01:14:39.270 --> 01:14:41.050 well, would you consider allowing us to evaluate 01:14:41.050 --> 01:14:44.670 the following? And then it's like, some schools 01:14:44.670 --> 01:14:49.869 say yes, but it's a lot of work. And randomizing 01:14:49.869 --> 01:14:52.210 is one thing, that's hard. But just counting 01:14:52.210 --> 01:14:55.890 is a huge barrier. We worked on this at Stanford 01:14:55.890 --> 01:15:00.970 where we're doing some counting of animal product 01:15:00.970 --> 01:15:03.890 usage and it's incredibly difficult. It's just 01:15:03.890 --> 01:15:08.989 a very hard thing to do. Oftentimes, generally 01:15:08.989 --> 01:15:14.609 speaking, you end up with packages where all 01:15:14.609 --> 01:15:18.420 the record the university have is this, and it's 01:15:18.420 --> 01:15:20.760 seafood medley frozen. And there's not even going 01:15:20.760 --> 01:15:22.439 to be vowels in there. It's going to be like 01:15:22.439 --> 01:15:28.920 S -A or S -F -D -F -R -Z -N medley. Yeah, this 01:15:28.920 --> 01:15:31.359 lack of data granularity continues to befuddle 01:15:31.359 --> 01:15:35.819 me. As in you're not sure what's going on with 01:15:35.819 --> 01:15:38.699 that, like why it is that way? Yeah, like you 01:15:38.699 --> 01:15:41.039 think that someone at the dining hall has a sense 01:15:41.039 --> 01:15:43.819 of like, oh yeah, it's like seafood frozen medley. 01:15:43.939 --> 01:15:46.279 That's like, OK, we could we could you could 01:15:46.279 --> 01:15:50.359 figure out theoretically how much pounds of seafood 01:15:50.359 --> 01:15:52.359 that translated to when you talk about units 01:15:52.359 --> 01:15:56.000 of frozen medley someone could it's just that 01:15:56.000 --> 01:15:58.100 the information is really dispersed in a huge 01:15:58.100 --> 01:16:01.699 bureaucracy Oh sure and like the other factor 01:16:01.699 --> 01:16:04.619 with a product like that for example it's sort 01:16:04.619 --> 01:16:07.260 of the chef special approach potentially where 01:16:07.260 --> 01:16:08.840 a manufacturer has a bunch of seafood to get 01:16:08.840 --> 01:16:10.300 rid of and they're like great here's the seafood 01:16:10.300 --> 01:16:13.159 medley it can change contents over time so it's 01:16:13.159 --> 01:16:15.989 really quite pernicious like that so figuring 01:16:15.989 --> 01:16:19.609 out if these things work is really hard. And 01:16:19.609 --> 01:16:21.590 calling back to when Seth was on the podcast 01:16:21.590 --> 01:16:24.210 previously, you gave a really good example with 01:16:24.210 --> 01:16:26.770 the social norms literature, which is also in 01:16:26.770 --> 01:16:30.869 the nudge domain. And there's just a huge amount 01:16:30.869 --> 01:16:33.869 of heterogeneity within the social norms nudge 01:16:33.869 --> 01:16:36.069 literature, where you get, oh, yeah, it worked 01:16:36.069 --> 01:16:37.529 at this dining hall, didn't work at this dining 01:16:37.529 --> 01:16:40.770 hall, and there's no obvious explanation of why 01:16:40.770 --> 01:16:42.329 it worked in some place and why it didn't work 01:16:42.329 --> 01:16:46.130 in others. which makes it makes it a really hard 01:16:46.130 --> 01:16:48.609 path to go down because then you really need 01:16:48.609 --> 01:16:52.649 evaluation at each and every stage and maybe 01:16:52.649 --> 01:16:55.510 contrast that with say like a very effective 01:16:55.510 --> 01:16:59.329 drug where you run a clinical trial the drug 01:16:59.329 --> 01:17:01.890 seems to work great doesn't seem to be associated 01:17:01.890 --> 01:17:04.390 with any serious adverse side effects or anything 01:17:04.390 --> 01:17:06.810 you put it out into the world sometimes you do 01:17:06.810 --> 01:17:12.000 some post you know post -tracking of distribution, 01:17:12.079 --> 01:17:13.739 make sure there aren't any, now that you're testing 01:17:13.739 --> 01:17:15.760 in more and more people, there weren't any serious 01:17:15.760 --> 01:17:18.239 outcomes. And then you're kind of good to go. 01:17:18.319 --> 01:17:20.460 You just, you're a doctor and you say, hey, you've 01:17:20.460 --> 01:17:22.479 got this, here's the drug, it works really well, 01:17:22.760 --> 01:17:24.859 problem solved. And you only need to run one 01:17:24.859 --> 01:17:28.520 very expensive clinical trial at the start. If 01:17:28.520 --> 01:17:30.920 it's possible that for nudges, it's like, oh 01:17:30.920 --> 01:17:33.739 yeah, we figured out one for this one place and 01:17:33.739 --> 01:17:36.979 it works. We spent a lot of time and money designing 01:17:36.979 --> 01:17:38.979 it and testing it and showing that it works. 01:17:39.350 --> 01:17:41.609 And we have no idea if it'll work elsewhere on 01:17:41.609 --> 01:17:44.289 the next one the sociologist Peter Rossi makes 01:17:44.289 --> 01:17:46.829 exactly this point in his like essay about which 01:17:46.829 --> 01:17:49.670 comes up with this like iron law of social evaluate 01:17:49.670 --> 01:17:53.369 of evaluation is that like any program as it's 01:17:53.369 --> 01:17:59.090 scaled up the expected impact is zero if He Jacob 01:17:59.090 --> 01:18:00.949 specifically says like there's no social program. 01:18:01.090 --> 01:18:03.229 That's as effective as a small pack spike small 01:18:03.229 --> 01:18:07.409 pox vaccine. Yeah, and there never will be like 01:18:07.409 --> 01:18:11.060 context really I mean I just read a nice paper 01:18:11.060 --> 01:18:13.880 in by Hunt Alcott called Site Selection Bias 01:18:13.880 --> 01:18:16.520 in Empirical Economics. And its basic point is 01:18:16.520 --> 01:18:23.960 that the researchers choose, have choices about 01:18:23.960 --> 01:18:27.399 where they make things happen. And they like 01:18:27.399 --> 01:18:30.260 the very qualities that make like, okay, let's 01:18:30.260 --> 01:18:32.199 say that we had a good experiment at Stanford 01:18:32.199 --> 01:18:35.649 because we have a willing partner there. correlated 01:18:35.649 --> 01:18:38.829 with propensity for eating plant -based foods 01:18:38.829 --> 01:18:41.890 in a way that does not necessarily scale to other 01:18:41.890 --> 01:18:47.189 locations. Yeah, it's very pervasive and it's 01:18:47.189 --> 01:18:49.729 a real problem for running that sort of work. 01:18:50.270 --> 01:18:51.890 I think it's still a good idea, I think it's 01:18:51.890 --> 01:18:54.409 still worth pursuing. It's interesting, recently 01:18:54.409 --> 01:18:58.229 I was actually considering founding a charity 01:18:58.229 --> 01:19:04.199 to work on getting grocery stores corporations, 01:19:04.399 --> 01:19:08.020 food service businesses to make pledges to reduce 01:19:08.020 --> 01:19:10.640 their meat usage. And as I was thinking about 01:19:10.640 --> 01:19:13.739 what that could look like early on, my conclusion 01:19:13.739 --> 01:19:16.220 was basically the first couple of years of this 01:19:16.220 --> 01:19:18.500 charity might involve no pledging whatsoever. 01:19:18.819 --> 01:19:23.039 It's just counting. All we do is count. And the 01:19:23.039 --> 01:19:25.079 counting issues are really, really difficult. 01:19:25.960 --> 01:19:28.520 It's perhaps quite underrated, in my opinion. 01:19:29.340 --> 01:19:31.880 maybe among like the, I'll say the vegan public, 01:19:31.920 --> 01:19:34.859 if you will. I was just like, how do we figure 01:19:34.859 --> 01:19:41.539 out what helping looks like? It's quite hard. 01:19:41.640 --> 01:19:46.619 I might add to that. A area of personal interest 01:19:46.619 --> 01:19:50.039 is universities that have made net zero commitments. 01:19:50.319 --> 01:19:53.060 So they say like, no, no carbon, no net zero 01:19:53.060 --> 01:19:57.859 carbon emissions by XY year. don't include food 01:19:57.859 --> 01:20:02.699 in that category and like on paper many of them 01:20:02.699 --> 01:20:06.060 are also like signatories to some like food reporting 01:20:06.060 --> 01:20:08.659 guidelines where they like should be tracking 01:20:08.659 --> 01:20:11.800 that stuff but like just getting a simple answer 01:20:11.800 --> 01:20:17.239 of like how much beef went into the dining hall 01:20:17.239 --> 01:20:21.819 last year so far we've been getting like we don't 01:20:21.819 --> 01:20:25.350 know Yeah, like schools, maybe some schools know 01:20:25.350 --> 01:20:27.670 but they certainly won't share it with others 01:20:27.670 --> 01:20:31.470 and I think that a lot of them like Jacob said 01:20:31.470 --> 01:20:37.729 like they have Metrics that are like a spreadsheet 01:20:37.729 --> 01:20:44.569 where it's like BF next row 279 and that's it. 01:20:44.869 --> 01:20:48.970 Yeah, and fundamentally the needs of Animals 01:20:48.970 --> 01:20:52.090 are not centered in the way university dining 01:20:52.090 --> 01:20:54.510 halls or any dining halls or any food business 01:20:54.510 --> 01:20:57.310 works by and large which is not surprising right 01:20:57.310 --> 01:21:00.649 when you sell frozen seafood medley you mostly 01:21:00.649 --> 01:21:02.630 keep track of how many boxes of frozen seafood 01:21:02.630 --> 01:21:04.649 medley you sell and when you buy frozen seafood 01:21:04.649 --> 01:21:06.689 medley and beef and a thousand other things from 01:21:06.689 --> 01:21:09.010 a dozen different suppliers mostly keep track 01:21:09.010 --> 01:21:10.789 of how much you paid and how many shipments you 01:21:10.789 --> 01:21:14.529 got more so than you know what species of fish 01:21:14.529 --> 01:21:16.949 was it how much did each individual fish weigh 01:21:16.949 --> 01:21:19.170 in the box and that's the sort of information 01:21:19.170 --> 01:21:21.750 that you need to understand the impact of those 01:21:21.750 --> 01:21:24.789 sorts of policies on animals. Once we get to 01:21:24.789 --> 01:21:26.409 fishes and crustaceans, this whole thing falls 01:21:26.409 --> 01:21:29.970 apart. It's so much easier to talk about, like, 01:21:29.970 --> 01:21:34.470 you know, like, land animals have some real virtues. 01:21:34.989 --> 01:21:38.470 Yeah, in terms of trackability. I don't know 01:21:38.470 --> 01:21:40.409 how much time we have, but there's two areas 01:21:40.409 --> 01:21:43.369 that I'd really like to talk to, like questions 01:21:43.369 --> 01:21:45.729 I want to ask you, Seth, if we if we can hard 01:21:45.729 --> 01:21:48.489 pivot. But I also, Ryan, if we have other things 01:21:48.489 --> 01:21:54.430 to cover. Well, not too much time. Okay, guys, 01:21:54.550 --> 01:21:56.670 cut it later. I want to hear what Jacob, I love 01:21:56.670 --> 01:21:59.590 being asked questions. We can always just call 01:21:59.590 --> 01:22:02.590 each other too. That's an option. Yes, that would 01:22:02.590 --> 01:22:05.470 be great. I will add it to the conversation because 01:22:05.470 --> 01:22:08.689 I, sorry, I have to leave now. No problem at 01:22:08.689 --> 01:22:13.609 all. Okay, great. Let me end by saying this was 01:22:13.609 --> 01:22:15.909 such an interesting conversation and I learned 01:22:15.909 --> 01:22:21.189 so much from you. Again very clarifying so many 01:22:21.189 --> 01:22:24.989 insights and Yeah, thank you so much for your 01:22:24.989 --> 01:22:27.329 work. Thank you for all of the research you're 01:22:27.329 --> 01:22:32.029 doing I hope I'm doing it. I will do and I'm 01:22:32.029 --> 01:22:36.989 doing a good job at you know bridging the divide 01:22:36.989 --> 01:22:40.789 between the researchers and the data and the 01:22:40.789 --> 01:22:43.529 activists because the activists are not up to 01:22:43.529 --> 01:22:47.380 date with whatever is studied, they're not even 01:22:47.380 --> 01:22:52.220 engaging with the studies, not as much as I wish 01:22:52.220 --> 01:22:56.720 they did. And so I am happy and honored to play 01:22:56.720 --> 01:23:02.640 a role in facilitating that conversation. So 01:23:02.640 --> 01:23:05.340 Seth, Jacob, thank you so much. This has been 01:23:05.340 --> 01:23:07.880 a pleasure. Yes, and Ryan, that's a beautiful 01:23:07.880 --> 01:23:11.380 mission statement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank 01:23:11.380 --> 01:23:13.529 you so much, Ryan. Yeah, hope we didn't alienate 01:23:13.529 --> 01:23:17.810 them too much with our crankiness. Not at all. 01:23:18.149 --> 01:23:22.869 I think they're used to some challenging conversations. 01:23:24.090 --> 01:23:27.250 I mean, I've had a few challenging ones before, 01:23:27.970 --> 01:23:31.670 so it's okay. But I always want to be called 01:23:31.670 --> 01:23:36.170 challenging. Love it. Thank you. Take care. Thank 01:23:36.170 --> 01:23:39.899 you. Bye bye. See you around. Okay, so first, 01:23:40.600 --> 01:23:45.880 when we're talking PTC, I have this hunch that 01:23:45.880 --> 01:23:51.199 for taste tests that are designed to identify 01:23:51.199 --> 01:23:53.479 plant -based meats that would reduce the most 01:23:53.479 --> 01:23:56.760 meat consumption if they're introduced and made 01:23:56.760 --> 01:24:02.100 available, that we should be testing in unblinded 01:24:02.100 --> 01:24:07.479 taste tests, so informed taste tests. with the 01:24:07.479 --> 01:24:09.539 idea that we would like actively shift beliefs, 01:24:10.039 --> 01:24:12.119 because like in a blind taste as you could theoretically 01:24:12.119 --> 01:24:14.180 afterwards say, by the way, that was plant based. 01:24:15.479 --> 01:24:19.979 Yeah, you could. Okay. But no, I want I want 01:24:19.979 --> 01:24:23.520 the taste as as they'd experienced it with the 01:24:23.520 --> 01:24:26.619 taste with the mind and the bias and their beliefs. 01:24:26.680 --> 01:24:28.079 And I have a couple different arguments for why 01:24:28.079 --> 01:24:30.500 I think this is and that the macro level view 01:24:30.500 --> 01:24:32.680 is just like, Yep, this is the way the world 01:24:32.680 --> 01:24:35.119 is and like people don't eat burgers blinded. 01:24:35.420 --> 01:24:40.189 So why would we measure them blinded? For the 01:24:40.189 --> 01:24:42.090 purposes I'm outlining. I do think there's other 01:24:42.090 --> 01:24:43.369 things for blind taste tests that are really 01:24:43.369 --> 01:24:46.750 useful. What else? Why on that do you want to 01:24:46.750 --> 01:24:52.289 see this taste test blinded? Number one is just 01:24:52.289 --> 01:24:54.310 naturalisticness. This is like the way people 01:24:54.310 --> 01:24:57.149 eat burgers, and to the extent that that's the 01:24:57.149 --> 01:25:00.569 case, we should test their burger eating in that 01:25:00.569 --> 01:25:08.189 way. is that blinding in for plant based meats 01:25:08.189 --> 01:25:13.069 is probably like fails adversely. So you don't 01:25:13.069 --> 01:25:15.550 actually get the like a pure estimate that you 01:25:15.550 --> 01:25:18.609 want like the blinded estimate. Because in practice, 01:25:19.189 --> 01:25:22.430 people will successfully guess like which ones 01:25:22.430 --> 01:25:25.029 the plant based meat and animal based meat. Or 01:25:25.029 --> 01:25:26.989 now we're not talking about culture meat in this 01:25:26.989 --> 01:25:29.029 context, we're talking about like the next generation 01:25:29.029 --> 01:25:32.390 of beyond meat products, right? Sure, sure. Yeah, 01:25:32.390 --> 01:25:36.109 we could. we'd go with that. Yeah, I haven't 01:25:36.109 --> 01:25:37.729 thought about this as much for cold -fade meat. 01:25:38.949 --> 01:25:40.149 And it's kind of interesting, and I haven't worked 01:25:40.149 --> 01:25:42.869 out all the implications of this, but if you 01:25:42.869 --> 01:25:45.050 have a really bad plant -based meat, then you 01:25:45.050 --> 01:25:47.029 get more de -blinding, obviously, because people 01:25:47.029 --> 01:25:48.869 like this as a piece of rubber, not a piece of 01:25:48.869 --> 01:25:51.949 meat. But if you have a quite good one, then 01:25:51.949 --> 01:25:56.130 you get less de -blinding, and then you get closer 01:25:56.130 --> 01:26:03.229 to your blinded estimates. just think about it 01:26:03.229 --> 01:26:08.149 now for the first time perhaps ever. I actually 01:26:08.149 --> 01:26:10.109 think that there are many situations in which 01:26:10.109 --> 01:26:13.069 people do blind test food and that's like not 01:26:13.069 --> 01:26:15.810 at all crazy like it to me like because you might 01:26:15.810 --> 01:26:19.189 go to I mean I can't think of any but like I 01:26:19.189 --> 01:26:22.840 just feel like You're just a nerd. Your friends 01:26:22.840 --> 01:26:25.739 do this. Yeah, I did. Oh my God. I did have a 01:26:25.739 --> 01:26:28.300 friend from high school who went to college and 01:26:28.300 --> 01:26:30.300 he conducted a double blind randomized control 01:26:30.300 --> 01:26:34.399 trial blowing weed smoke into a bottle of vodka 01:26:34.399 --> 01:26:36.979 to see if that would produce additional effects 01:26:36.979 --> 01:26:41.600 beyond just getting drunk. And it did. But he's 01:26:41.600 --> 01:26:43.939 a big nerd. I'm not I would never do how did 01:26:43.939 --> 01:26:46.119 he find that then the weed would be so obvious 01:26:46.119 --> 01:26:48.020 I think it's not enough that not I think if it's 01:26:48.020 --> 01:26:49.939 pretty like it's weed smoke I think it's like 01:26:49.939 --> 01:26:51.659 maybe you the other person might have actually 01:26:51.659 --> 01:26:54.979 worn a blindfold But I think you taste the weed 01:26:54.979 --> 01:26:58.479 smoke and smell it In the bottle, I actually 01:26:58.479 --> 01:27:00.640 wonder about that. I should ask him. It was 16 01:27:00.640 --> 01:27:08.979 years ago so We There might be situations in 01:27:08.979 --> 01:27:11.140 which you go to a restaurant and they're like, 01:27:11.140 --> 01:27:13.380 hey, do you want to try this new thing? And then 01:27:13.380 --> 01:27:16.399 they're like, by the way, it was frog or whatever, 01:27:16.619 --> 01:27:22.000 they'd say. But okay, putting that aside, I like 01:27:22.000 --> 01:27:25.520 this. I don't have a strong opinion about this 01:27:25.520 --> 01:27:27.760 question. I think we could test this itself because 01:27:27.760 --> 01:27:30.640 ultimately what we're trying to do, you're trying 01:27:30.640 --> 01:27:34.279 to go with naturalism. There's two different 01:27:34.279 --> 01:27:36.430 estimates we could be talking about. the first 01:27:36.430 --> 01:27:40.810 is your opinions towards plant -based meat and 01:27:40.810 --> 01:27:43.149 the second is this other thing which is in which 01:27:43.149 --> 01:27:45.590 the taste test is the thing we're trying to test 01:27:45.590 --> 01:27:48.750 it's like the updating not like would i go and 01:27:48.750 --> 01:27:51.229 try this at a restaurant but like sure sure like 01:27:51.229 --> 01:27:53.609 this is oh wow it's plant -based cool in which 01:27:53.609 --> 01:27:55.430 case like i'm not sure whether being blinded 01:27:55.430 --> 01:27:58.289 or not matters i think you're going for the first 01:27:58.289 --> 01:28:00.029 which is like yeah going to a restaurant and 01:28:00.029 --> 01:28:01.729 like trying it like oh whatever let's see how 01:28:01.729 --> 01:28:05.619 we go let's see how it is Yeah, so it's an estimate 01:28:05.619 --> 01:28:07.840 for general consumer acceptance. Yeah. Yeah. 01:28:07.979 --> 01:28:11.579 I generally like arguments in favor of keeping 01:28:11.579 --> 01:28:14.100 the design simple and saying like, this is what 01:28:14.100 --> 01:28:15.579 people are actually going to do. We should keep 01:28:15.579 --> 01:28:18.340 it that way. So then, but then we have the downside 01:28:18.340 --> 01:28:20.680 with that. We have like people's pre we're like 01:28:20.680 --> 01:28:23.020 more likely to activate those prejudice and not 01:28:23.020 --> 01:28:25.500 be able to go around them in the first place. 01:28:26.199 --> 01:28:28.880 If we let people bring all that to the table. 01:28:30.650 --> 01:28:33.569 Yeah, potentially although and it really it is 01:28:33.569 --> 01:28:35.170 interesting because it gets into like some really 01:28:35.170 --> 01:28:40.189 nuanced design questions Like if we go with like 01:28:40.189 --> 01:28:42.069 a sort of lady -tasting tea design and it's like 01:28:42.069 --> 01:28:44.270 yeah, you're gonna taste like You know three 01:28:44.270 --> 01:28:46.869 products one of them. I'm not sure I'm sorry. 01:28:48.210 --> 01:28:51.029 It's But I'll just explain the design itself. 01:28:51.050 --> 01:28:56.100 It's not But basically, if you're going to give 01:28:56.100 --> 01:28:58.399 them, say, a sequence of products, some of which 01:28:58.399 --> 01:28:59.939 are plant -based, some of which are animal -based, 01:29:00.239 --> 01:29:01.920 and say, hey, can you classify which are plant 01:29:01.920 --> 01:29:09.180 -based and animal -based? Then if they get flagged 01:29:09.180 --> 01:29:13.420 off, if they have a hunch that one of them is 01:29:13.420 --> 01:29:15.979 plant -based, then you're going to get a lot 01:29:15.979 --> 01:29:18.039 of those biases in. Even if it's blinded, they're 01:29:18.039 --> 01:29:20.100 going to project their expectations, potentially. 01:29:21.579 --> 01:29:23.319 And, but the other interesting caveat here is 01:29:23.319 --> 01:29:25.199 like, do you inform them ahead of time? Do you 01:29:25.199 --> 01:29:26.720 just have them walk into your room? Be like, 01:29:26.840 --> 01:29:29.680 here is an item to eat. Here's a piece of food. 01:29:29.680 --> 01:29:33.800 Eat it. What do you think? Well, it's more like 01:29:33.800 --> 01:29:35.939 you walk into a Chipotle like setting and you'd 01:29:35.939 --> 01:29:37.479 say like, Hey, we're trying this new thing. We're 01:29:37.479 --> 01:29:39.420 like, you know, and by the way, it's available 01:29:39.420 --> 01:29:42.779 for purchase. Like we can imagine that it's like 01:29:42.779 --> 01:29:46.060 a free sample at the door. Sure. Sure. Yeah. 01:29:46.060 --> 01:29:48.560 It's reasonable. I don't know. It's interesting. 01:29:49.119 --> 01:29:51.159 I think we both agree that taste is more than 01:29:51.159 --> 01:29:55.000 just like a fat. It's like taste is in the mind 01:29:55.000 --> 01:29:58.319 as much as it's on the tongue. I'm not sure. 01:29:58.939 --> 01:30:00.420 And I think that's like a very underappreciated 01:30:00.420 --> 01:30:02.760 fact in general is that there's so much psychology 01:30:02.760 --> 01:30:05.699 of taste. And that's why these sorts of designs 01:30:05.699 --> 01:30:08.800 appeal to me in general, because since the psychology 01:30:08.800 --> 01:30:10.859 of taste obviously influences consumer acceptance, 01:30:11.619 --> 01:30:14.340 having a design that captures the psychology 01:30:14.340 --> 01:30:19.880 in addition to the purely But and I guess my 01:30:19.880 --> 01:30:21.939 only pushback is it is totally plausible that 01:30:21.939 --> 01:30:25.300 Chipotle might or whoever Taco Bell might might 01:30:25.300 --> 01:30:27.340 say like hey, we have a new product We're not 01:30:27.340 --> 01:30:28.600 gonna tell you what it is. Do you want to try 01:30:28.600 --> 01:30:32.159 it? And yeah Burger King has actually done that 01:30:32.159 --> 01:30:34.420 for the impossible burger Like they did a little 01:30:34.420 --> 01:30:36.420 campaign like this a while back. Oh, is it like 01:30:36.420 --> 01:30:38.479 try our burger or whatever? Well, that's yeah 01:30:38.479 --> 01:30:40.220 by what? Yes Yeah, that's what so you should 01:30:40.220 --> 01:30:42.500 see but I do think that's gonna be the vast minority 01:30:42.500 --> 01:30:47.079 of trials in all cases You know, so it's certainly 01:30:47.079 --> 01:30:51.420 like You know outside of it and and like that 01:30:51.420 --> 01:30:53.279 whole deal has a little bit of a Hawthorne effect 01:30:53.279 --> 01:30:55.659 too Or it's just which is good good time to our 01:30:55.659 --> 01:31:00.479 next next question Where it's like, oh, hey Sorry, 01:31:00.520 --> 01:31:03.260 you're about to divide it. Oh sure, you know 01:31:03.260 --> 01:31:06.640 the fact that you're an experiment and the the 01:31:06.640 --> 01:31:08.699 Observation of that contrivance then influencing 01:31:08.699 --> 01:31:11.880 your opinions so you can imagine if you Were 01:31:11.880 --> 01:31:13.920 just went to the store window and they handed 01:31:13.920 --> 01:31:16.119 you a burger and it they'd actually secretly 01:31:16.119 --> 01:31:17.920 coin tossed whether you'd get impossible or beef 01:31:17.920 --> 01:31:20.359 burger it'd be quite a bit less skeptical. You're 01:31:20.359 --> 01:31:22.119 just like, oh, this is, of course, the burger 01:31:22.119 --> 01:31:25.960 that I ordered. Whereas if someone, go ahead. 01:31:26.140 --> 01:31:27.819 A lot of the best experiments, like the one you 01:31:27.819 --> 01:31:30.039 just proposed, are impossible because we don't 01:31:30.039 --> 01:31:32.319 want to kill people due to allergens, which sucks. 01:31:32.319 --> 01:31:37.119 Oh yeah, totally. If only we could take a few 01:31:37.119 --> 01:31:43.829 losses. For science. For the cause. Whereas at 01:31:43.829 --> 01:31:45.670 the door, when some guy's like, hey, you want 01:31:45.670 --> 01:31:48.449 to try our new product? Here's a sample. That 01:31:48.449 --> 01:31:51.130 triggers people's awarenesses. It's a sort of 01:31:51.130 --> 01:31:54.689 demand effect in a sense. It's like, oh, well, 01:31:54.689 --> 01:31:56.350 I'm trying a new product. I'm going to really 01:31:56.350 --> 01:31:58.170 think about the flavor in my mouth and that sort 01:31:58.170 --> 01:32:05.180 of thing. A funny anecdote on it one time I left 01:32:05.180 --> 01:32:08.960 some slices of like vegan Tofurky meat like sliced 01:32:08.960 --> 01:32:11.439 meat in their refrigerator And I'd made pancakes 01:32:11.439 --> 01:32:13.319 that's that morning at my parents house And my 01:32:13.319 --> 01:32:15.899 dad just came home and it was a round brown thing 01:32:15.899 --> 01:32:17.560 in a container and figured it must be a vegan 01:32:17.560 --> 01:32:19.979 pancake So put maple syrup on it and ate it with 01:32:19.979 --> 01:32:22.000 a fork and knife. I was like, huh? those are 01:32:22.000 --> 01:32:24.140 some kind of chewy vegan pancakes, but whatever 01:32:24.140 --> 01:32:28.180 they kind of had a Weird mouth feel like it's 01:32:28.180 --> 01:32:32.340 just a totally different product It was pretty 01:32:32.340 --> 01:32:34.500 far away and I swear my vegan pancakes aren't 01:32:34.500 --> 01:32:36.399 that bad. Do your parents think you're like their 01:32:36.399 --> 01:32:38.060 dipshit vegan so they're like, oh, he's making 01:32:38.060 --> 01:32:41.880 whatever bullshit he's making. My parents are 01:32:41.880 --> 01:32:45.159 done with whatever it is on again. No, no, they 01:32:45.159 --> 01:32:47.260 really appreciate it. They're pretty, pretty 01:32:47.260 --> 01:32:50.319 good. They did a lot of vegan cooking for me. 01:32:51.380 --> 01:32:56.939 I've won them over on a lot of dishes. Okay. 01:32:57.239 --> 01:32:59.260 Cool. Well, anyway, it seems like, you know, 01:32:59.260 --> 01:33:01.140 there's no, you don't have any screaming objections 01:33:01.140 --> 01:33:04.119 to that. No, no. I think that like you're asking, 01:33:04.239 --> 01:33:06.560 I have no problem with you asking an unrelated, 01:33:06.560 --> 01:33:09.079 like a related, but separate question, which 01:33:09.079 --> 01:33:11.640 is what this boils down to earlier when Jacob 01:33:11.640 --> 01:33:13.439 and I, this is for our listeners, we're discussing 01:33:13.439 --> 01:33:15.340 estimates and estimate is the thing you want 01:33:15.340 --> 01:33:18.479 to estimate. When we're talking about this in 01:33:18.479 --> 01:33:20.960 an experimental context, we're talking about 01:33:20.960 --> 01:33:23.939 every experiment is a little like microcosm of 01:33:23.939 --> 01:33:27.560 the world that you actually want to test. And 01:33:27.560 --> 01:33:30.560 you can imagine very different things. Like when 01:33:30.560 --> 01:33:33.760 we were talking about defaults earlier, one kind 01:33:33.760 --> 01:33:38.199 of default tests extrapolates up to one set of 01:33:38.199 --> 01:33:40.180 environmental conditions and others extrapolate 01:33:40.180 --> 01:33:42.079 out to others. So what we're talking about here 01:33:42.079 --> 01:33:44.979 is which question do we really care about testing? 01:33:45.100 --> 01:33:48.840 And I'd say both are interesting. Both trying 01:33:48.840 --> 01:33:52.199 plant -based needs blind and trying them bringing 01:33:52.199 --> 01:33:54.979 the full set of your beliefs to bear? I think 01:33:54.979 --> 01:33:59.119 they're both fine and good questions. Yeah. Well, 01:33:59.119 --> 01:34:00.800 I guess my question is, which has more bearing 01:34:00.800 --> 01:34:04.880 on consumer acceptance? I don't know. Fair. And 01:34:04.880 --> 01:34:06.859 ultimately, that's an empirical question. I think 01:34:06.859 --> 01:34:10.140 my hypothesis is that the informed trials have 01:34:10.140 --> 01:34:12.979 more. Yeah. But we could set up a design around 01:34:12.979 --> 01:34:15.979 this. You could have those are your two options. 01:34:16.260 --> 01:34:18.220 You could either get blinded or not blinded. 01:34:19.880 --> 01:34:22.239 There's a word for this Solomon to group design 01:34:22.239 --> 01:34:24.659 or something along with that. It's not quite 01:34:24.659 --> 01:34:30.920 a Solomon. Anyway, sorry and then Test like how 01:34:30.920 --> 01:34:33.640 much were you surprised by what you tasted or 01:34:33.640 --> 01:34:36.699 something like that? You said a Solomon two groups 01:34:36.699 --> 01:34:39.819 is a Solomon a solid for group design is one 01:34:39.819 --> 01:34:41.560 in which you have half the group half treatment 01:34:41.560 --> 01:34:43.939 and half control both take a pretest so you can 01:34:43.939 --> 01:34:47.789 it's It was analogous but not the same. We are 01:34:47.789 --> 01:34:50.930 describing a two by two factorial design in which 01:34:50.930 --> 01:34:54.670 try the fake meat, try the not fake meat, blinded 01:34:54.670 --> 01:35:00.289 or not blinded. That makes sense. Next question 01:35:00.289 --> 01:35:04.149 was about your blog post on experimenter demand 01:35:04.149 --> 01:35:07.340 effects. which I will summarize for the audience 01:35:07.340 --> 01:35:09.640 when we get up to this question. Oh, even better. 01:35:09.739 --> 01:35:12.220 Why don't you, yeah, you can summarize and then 01:35:12.220 --> 01:35:13.800 I'll ask the question because it might answer 01:35:13.800 --> 01:35:15.420 my question, which was somewhat like, oh, what 01:35:15.420 --> 01:35:19.079 do you mean by this term? In the social sciences 01:35:19.079 --> 01:35:21.119 and the behavioral sciences where Jacob and I 01:35:21.119 --> 01:35:24.920 work, it's common to try to throw people off 01:35:24.920 --> 01:35:28.060 the scent when you are testing them on something 01:35:28.060 --> 01:35:33.439 because you don't want them to do give you the 01:35:33.439 --> 01:35:35.659 answer that they think you want to hear, which 01:35:35.659 --> 01:35:37.520 is a real thing that happens in laboratories. 01:35:37.960 --> 01:35:40.659 People are like, you know, eager to please, and 01:35:40.659 --> 01:35:42.600 you get the guy with the white coat or the woman 01:35:42.600 --> 01:35:44.199 with the white coat coming in and asking these 01:35:44.199 --> 01:35:45.960 questions, and you're like, oh, they're an authority 01:35:45.960 --> 01:35:48.000 figure. I'll tell her what I think is the right 01:35:48.000 --> 01:35:52.140 answer to the experiment. Sometimes you can exploit 01:35:52.140 --> 01:35:54.220 this for your own benefit. As a researcher, the 01:35:54.220 --> 01:35:57.079 Milgram experiments on shocking are really about 01:35:57.079 --> 01:36:01.029 the white coat effect. But when Jacob and I are 01:36:01.029 --> 01:36:04.869 doing things, we don't want people to know that 01:36:04.869 --> 01:36:08.210 we're trying to get them to eat less meat because 01:36:08.210 --> 01:36:13.970 they might say, we, oh, like, okay, yeah, sure, 01:36:13.970 --> 01:36:17.010 I'll eat less meat. And then when we're not watching 01:36:17.010 --> 01:36:18.970 them go eat more meat, we want to get like the 01:36:18.970 --> 01:36:23.250 true effect of how much like the experiment itself 01:36:23.250 --> 01:36:25.829 as opposed to the thing being tested as opposed 01:36:25.829 --> 01:36:28.369 to the experimental apparatus is changing their 01:36:28.369 --> 01:36:32.850 behavior. In general, having run some studies, 01:36:33.369 --> 01:36:37.329 I am less worried about experimental demand effects 01:36:37.329 --> 01:36:40.210 than I used to be because I basically think that 01:36:40.210 --> 01:36:43.510 most people believe eating meat is a natural 01:36:43.510 --> 01:36:46.770 and fine thing. And if some experimenter wants 01:36:46.770 --> 01:36:49.109 them to not eat meat, you can be like, that's 01:36:49.109 --> 01:36:51.970 a weirdo. I don't care. And basically people 01:36:51.970 --> 01:36:54.750 tell the truth or like that's one story I just 01:36:54.750 --> 01:36:56.270 thought we could tell many possible stories. 01:36:56.949 --> 01:36:59.689 I think people when you ask them, like, are you 01:36:59.689 --> 01:37:01.970 planning to eat meat tomorrow? Even if you, like, 01:37:02.050 --> 01:37:03.930 give a whole spiel about why, you know, meat 01:37:03.930 --> 01:37:06.010 is bad for the environment, I think a lot of 01:37:06.010 --> 01:37:07.890 them tend to say, like, yeah, okay, well, I do 01:37:07.890 --> 01:37:11.729 plan to eat meat tomorrow, so deal with it. Interesting. 01:37:12.970 --> 01:37:15.569 Okay, so I do think there's some survey evidence, 01:37:15.569 --> 01:37:19.010 or if you ask people, like, I think I almost 01:37:19.010 --> 01:37:21.529 wrote a mean Twitter joke about this once because 01:37:21.529 --> 01:37:23.649 some people do annual surveying about, like... 01:37:24.100 --> 01:37:26.479 New Year's resolution intentions. Like a huge 01:37:26.479 --> 01:37:28.460 chunk of people intend to reduce meat consumption 01:37:28.460 --> 01:37:30.420 every year. Like a third will report it or so. 01:37:30.680 --> 01:37:34.779 Absolutely. Intentions to behavior are not... 01:37:34.779 --> 01:37:38.460 That extrapolation is... You're right. I guess 01:37:38.460 --> 01:37:40.000 the example I gave was misleading because it's 01:37:40.000 --> 01:37:43.739 not really like... Like I was talking about intended... 01:37:43.739 --> 01:37:45.399 Like what do you intend to eat tomorrow? Yeah, 01:37:45.439 --> 01:37:47.060 that's why I was surprised. They might lie to 01:37:47.060 --> 01:37:49.300 themselves about that question. What I mean rather 01:37:49.300 --> 01:37:52.619 is... In which case you are also caught up in 01:37:52.619 --> 01:37:56.949 the... Not lie, they'll tell a story. Like, you 01:37:56.949 --> 01:37:59.409 know, as people, back when Netflix used to have 01:37:59.409 --> 01:38:03.670 queues, DVD queues, as opposed to just you can 01:38:03.670 --> 01:38:06.069 get all the content, whatever you want, people 01:38:06.069 --> 01:38:09.229 would like, you know, have Citizen Kane on their 01:38:09.229 --> 01:38:11.689 queue, and then every single time they would 01:38:11.689 --> 01:38:13.550 just order Happy Gilmore or whatever. This is 01:38:13.550 --> 01:38:15.909 like a known phenomenon that like the you who 01:38:15.909 --> 01:38:18.569 is planning is different than the you who is 01:38:18.569 --> 01:38:22.640 choosing. Definitely. In that case, I think that's 01:38:22.640 --> 01:38:25.560 real. I'm talking about the differences like, 01:38:25.760 --> 01:38:28.680 what did you eat in the past 24 hours? I think 01:38:28.680 --> 01:38:32.720 people basically like those results basically 01:38:32.720 --> 01:38:35.039 line up with the alternative, which is like watching 01:38:35.039 --> 01:38:38.579 somebody eat or observing it through like, you 01:38:38.579 --> 01:38:40.539 know, a video camera or something. Secret observing. 01:38:40.979 --> 01:38:46.590 Yeah. Okay. All right. So let me just recap. 01:38:47.029 --> 01:38:49.310 So if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying 01:38:49.310 --> 01:38:52.729 you find 24 -hour recall self -reports credible. 01:38:54.130 --> 01:38:56.789 More credible than I once did, yeah. More credible 01:38:56.789 --> 01:39:01.850 than you once did. If we had something really 01:39:01.850 --> 01:39:08.170 good and some intervention that we really believe 01:39:08.170 --> 01:39:12.109 worked based on 24 -hour recall, I would then 01:39:12.109 --> 01:39:13.529 say, OK, well, I'm sorry. I've got to see some 01:39:13.529 --> 01:39:16.430 real -world evidence. But I'm saying that when 01:39:16.430 --> 01:39:19.229 people tell us, rather than when they, when we 01:39:19.229 --> 01:39:23.229 see evidence of, for the, this is hard to articulate 01:39:23.229 --> 01:39:28.390 precisely. For the most part, when we run these 01:39:28.390 --> 01:39:33.170 interventions, people self -reported me, changes 01:39:33.170 --> 01:39:37.189 are very small. They don't tell us that like 01:39:37.189 --> 01:39:39.949 some big thing is, but it just happened. They 01:39:39.949 --> 01:39:42.949 seem to like report null results most of the 01:39:42.949 --> 01:39:47.539 time. That lends credence to the idea that they're 01:39:47.539 --> 01:39:49.479 not just telling the experimenter what they want 01:39:49.479 --> 01:39:58.039 to hear. But if you found evidence of big results, 01:39:58.819 --> 01:40:02.140 you might think, okay, well, maybe this one in 01:40:02.140 --> 01:40:04.979 particular was really good at eliciting experimenter 01:40:04.979 --> 01:40:11.010 demand effects. counter -argument there to the 01:40:11.010 --> 01:40:13.149 null results, like the meta -analytic null results, 01:40:13.470 --> 01:40:15.729 which is to say like meta -analyses that show 01:40:15.729 --> 01:40:19.090 not much of an effect on average. In both self 01:40:19.090 --> 01:40:21.010 -reported and objectively reported outcomes. 01:40:22.289 --> 01:40:24.470 Yeah, yeah, is that maybe that's because the 01:40:24.470 --> 01:40:26.750 researchers took good protections against social 01:40:26.750 --> 01:40:28.750 desirability bias and like the designs were not 01:40:28.750 --> 01:40:30.850 all that susceptible to it, like blind was successful 01:40:30.850 --> 01:40:33.869 or something like that. Yeah, the problem is 01:40:33.869 --> 01:40:35.289 that - And the interventions don't work. Yeah, 01:40:35.329 --> 01:40:36.609 and the interventions don't. I think that one's 01:40:36.609 --> 01:40:38.789 more likely because - That's a given. Yeah, yeah, 01:40:38.789 --> 01:40:40.550 because a lot of these interventions are effectively 01:40:40.550 --> 01:40:45.609 impossible to blind to. Like, Jacob and Sethu, 01:40:45.609 --> 01:40:48.590 I think, was the last name. Your, like, re -analysis 01:40:48.590 --> 01:40:50.609 of smartphone analytics paper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:40:50.729 --> 01:40:54.010 I can set through 2021. You guys do these, like, 01:40:54.010 --> 01:40:57.630 or 2023, whatever it was. The interventions, 01:40:58.210 --> 01:41:01.399 you'd have to be so dumb. not to realize what 01:41:01.399 --> 01:41:03.399 the experimenter wanted when you're watching 01:41:03.399 --> 01:41:06.619 like, you know, like reading a pamphlet about 01:41:06.619 --> 01:41:12.399 why animal agriculture is bad, you know? Yeah, 01:41:12.399 --> 01:41:16.500 well, I do. I would say, right, that element 01:41:16.500 --> 01:41:19.199 is definitely very difficult to blind, but the 01:41:19.199 --> 01:41:21.140 outcome measurement could be more blinded. And 01:41:21.140 --> 01:41:23.720 in that particular study, it's not. It's I guess 01:41:23.720 --> 01:41:25.760 that does have it was in your meta analysis, 01:41:25.760 --> 01:41:28.180 right? So it has at least 24 hours of follow 01:41:28.180 --> 01:41:30.449 up. Yes, it does. But you can find the follow 01:41:30.449 --> 01:41:32.750 up more successfully. Like Maya and I did that 01:41:32.750 --> 01:41:35.350 in our documentary study where we followed up 01:41:35.350 --> 01:41:38.430 like almost a week later and with an unrelated 01:41:38.430 --> 01:41:46.289 survey. Yeah. Looking at the evidence that I've 01:41:46.289 --> 01:41:51.050 looked at, I don't see a lot of evidence that 01:41:51.050 --> 01:41:54.880 that was. strictly necessary because, again, 01:41:54.979 --> 01:41:56.699 in these situations where it is impossible to 01:41:56.699 --> 01:41:59.920 blind, we also see no results. And I'm also thinking 01:41:59.920 --> 01:42:04.819 about a paper by Astrid Dannenberg et al. from, 01:42:04.840 --> 01:42:10.920 I think, 2024 about observability in which they 01:42:10.920 --> 01:42:14.239 find that social pressure intended to reduce 01:42:14.239 --> 01:42:16.140 people's meat consumption combined with some 01:42:16.140 --> 01:42:18.279 metric where it's like whether you eat meat or 01:42:18.279 --> 01:42:19.880 not is about to be public in front of all your 01:42:19.880 --> 01:42:23.069 peers. That, in fact, increases meat consumption 01:42:23.069 --> 01:42:28.789 among some participants. And from this, I sort 01:42:28.789 --> 01:42:31.810 of am building a model of the world where you 01:42:31.810 --> 01:42:33.590 try to socialize. Even if people think there 01:42:33.590 --> 01:42:35.770 is social pressure to eat less meat, something 01:42:35.770 --> 01:42:39.189 about this issue is so deeply ingrained that 01:42:39.189 --> 01:42:45.270 they're just not having it. Sorry, can you elaborate 01:42:45.270 --> 01:42:47.810 on that? Do you have a sense of was that most 01:42:47.810 --> 01:42:50.520 of the participants? Good because i'm sure there's 01:42:50.520 --> 01:42:52.399 some participants had some reactants or whatever 01:42:52.399 --> 01:42:54.739 Yeah, it was mostly that my recollection of that 01:42:54.739 --> 01:42:57.180 is that it was male participants on average after 01:42:57.180 --> 01:42:59.239 being told that they were being observed in their 01:42:59.239 --> 01:43:03.039 meat choices were more likely to eat meat and 01:43:03.039 --> 01:43:04.960 that was independent of whether they also got 01:43:04.960 --> 01:43:08.079 the treatment telling them that uh many of like 01:43:08.079 --> 01:43:11.579 60 of their peers are vegetarian, so like that 01:43:11.579 --> 01:43:15.359 was just There's this like other effect in addition 01:43:15.359 --> 01:43:19.640 to social desirability bias. Okay Rather, social 01:43:19.640 --> 01:43:22.479 desirability bias does not obviously go in any 01:43:22.479 --> 01:43:25.319 direction here. Even if the experimenter wants 01:43:25.319 --> 01:43:27.300 the person to eat less meat and that's like dead 01:43:27.300 --> 01:43:30.100 obvious to the subject, they know that like in 01:43:30.100 --> 01:43:31.939 the world at large, eating meat is a cool thing 01:43:31.939 --> 01:43:36.340 that cool people do. Yeah, well, maybe maybe 01:43:36.340 --> 01:43:39.659 this is a good follow up question here, because 01:43:39.659 --> 01:43:42.539 this is something I'm confused about is like 01:43:42.539 --> 01:43:48.449 how to think about these different biases. So 01:43:48.449 --> 01:43:52.729 I can think of three distinct but interacting 01:43:52.729 --> 01:43:54.529 effects, and I'm curious if you think about them 01:43:54.529 --> 01:43:57.430 the same way. So number one, I think about the 01:43:57.430 --> 01:44:00.069 researcher's preferred hypothesis and the participant's 01:44:00.069 --> 01:44:02.050 beliefs about the researcher's preferred hypothesis. 01:44:03.569 --> 01:44:06.029 Number two, participant's belief that they're 01:44:06.029 --> 01:44:09.250 being observed in the experimental setting, like 01:44:09.250 --> 01:44:13.109 a Hawthorne effect. And then number three is 01:44:13.109 --> 01:44:15.739 beliefs about what is socially desirable and 01:44:15.739 --> 01:44:17.920 what society would think you should do in this 01:44:17.920 --> 01:44:21.319 sort of situation. Yeah, so okay, so we have 01:44:21.319 --> 01:44:24.020 three here. I'm going to repeat them. There's, 01:44:24.020 --> 01:44:27.699 you're a subject in the study. You have, I'm 01:44:27.699 --> 01:44:29.060 not really totally clear on how the first and 01:44:29.060 --> 01:44:30.800 the second are different, but whatever. The first 01:44:30.800 --> 01:44:34.140 is - I can elaborate, yeah. There's, you're at 01:44:34.140 --> 01:44:36.039 a study and you know what is the research you're 01:44:36.039 --> 01:44:38.600 hoping to find in order to get her paper published. 01:44:39.039 --> 01:44:40.560 Second, there's this sense that you're being 01:44:40.560 --> 01:44:43.279 observed, whether by the researcher or by like 01:44:43.279 --> 01:44:45.760 the scientific apparatus or whatever it is. Yeah. 01:44:45.779 --> 01:44:48.180 And the third is your broader sense of like, 01:44:48.199 --> 01:44:50.340 when you leave the laboratory, what is the normal 01:44:50.340 --> 01:44:53.779 thing to do? Yep. That sounds about right. So 01:44:53.779 --> 01:44:55.359 the second is different than the first, because 01:44:55.359 --> 01:44:58.279 it's like, just as pure, like, it's just the 01:44:58.279 --> 01:45:00.760 effect of someone watching you, not particularly 01:45:00.760 --> 01:45:05.390 the researcher. Yeah, and it's it's about the 01:45:05.390 --> 01:45:08.149 fact of being observed more so than what the 01:45:08.149 --> 01:45:10.069 researcher believes you'll do under observation. 01:45:10.630 --> 01:45:15.510 You might know what the researcher wants but 01:45:15.510 --> 01:45:17.770 nonetheless be totally sure of your anonymity 01:45:17.770 --> 01:45:19.670 because you have blinding in that direction, 01:45:19.789 --> 01:45:23.170 so the second is distinct. We look at these three 01:45:23.170 --> 01:45:25.869 biases, are you asking which is dominant or how 01:45:25.869 --> 01:45:27.710 to think about their relationship between them? 01:45:28.189 --> 01:45:29.909 Yeah, I'm especially interested in which ones 01:45:29.909 --> 01:45:32.710 you think are more or less applicable in analogous 01:45:32.710 --> 01:45:37.510 research. Apropos this so I wasn't totally sure 01:45:37.510 --> 01:45:40.329 Which of these you were referring to because 01:45:40.329 --> 01:45:42.550 okay, these are not all biases your beliefs about 01:45:42.550 --> 01:45:47.289 what society thinks you should do is a Behavioral 01:45:47.289 --> 01:45:50.989 determinant that's the treatment some treatments 01:45:50.989 --> 01:45:53.210 might try to alter that or this could provide 01:45:53.210 --> 01:45:58.270 a dampening treatment on Dampening effect on 01:45:58.270 --> 01:46:00.590 treatment, but that's it. That's verisimilitude. 01:46:00.590 --> 01:46:03.869 That's a real -world realism. Yeah So I wouldn't 01:46:03.869 --> 01:46:06.689 call that a bias. I would call that a context. 01:46:08.270 --> 01:46:10.930 Well, I guess to the extent that you're not expressing 01:46:10.930 --> 01:46:14.510 it genuinely, it could be a bias of like, oh, 01:46:14.649 --> 01:46:17.949 in combination with number two here, I know I'm 01:46:17.949 --> 01:46:20.130 being observed and I know this is part of a study 01:46:20.130 --> 01:46:22.050 and I know the right thing to do is eat less 01:46:22.050 --> 01:46:25.689 meat. So that's what I'm going to do. Outside 01:46:25.689 --> 01:46:33.800 the study, I wouldn't care. Yeah, again, I don't 01:46:33.800 --> 01:46:38.140 see a lot of evidence that people play ball when 01:46:38.140 --> 01:46:41.420 they think the researcher wants to see that they 01:46:41.420 --> 01:46:44.539 are eating less meat. This is totally an empirical 01:46:44.539 --> 01:46:47.220 question. We could design a study to assess the 01:46:47.220 --> 01:46:50.359 experiment or demand effects specifically. Yeah, 01:46:50.420 --> 01:46:52.039 I was surprised there wasn't more about this 01:46:52.039 --> 01:46:54.119 because it seems actually quite tractable. Not 01:46:54.119 --> 01:46:56.119 that I know of. I mean, it's just not that interesting 01:46:56.119 --> 01:46:59.300 because it's interesting to us, but it's not 01:46:59.300 --> 01:47:01.960 like... What would we do with that in terms of 01:47:01.960 --> 01:47:05.319 a campaign? Oh, design studies better. Yeah, 01:47:05.439 --> 01:47:08.600 that's true. Well, this would be to the point. 01:47:09.520 --> 01:47:12.859 Our study on Chipotle, where we include the decoy 01:47:12.859 --> 01:47:18.680 items, it's kind of designed to mitigate at least 01:47:18.680 --> 01:47:24.560 two of the three. Yeah, probably mitigates the 01:47:24.560 --> 01:47:28.680 first two better than the third, really. Yeah, 01:47:28.680 --> 01:47:30.899 so I guess one thing one version of this if we 01:47:30.899 --> 01:47:33.079 wanted to replicate it if we would run the study 01:47:33.079 --> 01:47:36.880 again in a new sample and The treatments would 01:47:36.880 --> 01:47:38.560 be the same as they are except there will be 01:47:38.560 --> 01:47:40.659 a fourth treatment group that didn't see any 01:47:40.659 --> 01:47:43.880 decoy questions Yeah, no decoys. Why should that 01:47:43.880 --> 01:47:45.600 be six treatment groups because we have to replicate 01:47:45.600 --> 01:47:50.439 the whole structure Yeah, yeah, well and you 01:47:50.439 --> 01:47:53.060 could also just analyze the people who got the 01:47:53.060 --> 01:47:58.659 target task first, yeah But we did do that, and 01:47:58.659 --> 01:48:00.800 we did not see any. Sorry. So for context for 01:48:00.800 --> 01:48:05.479 listeners, the experiment asked people to select 01:48:05.479 --> 01:48:08.319 from one of many possible taco fillings, some 01:48:08.319 --> 01:48:09.880 of which were plant -based, some of which were 01:48:09.880 --> 01:48:11.840 animal -based. And the treatment was how many 01:48:11.840 --> 01:48:14.100 plant -based options they saw, and particularly 01:48:14.100 --> 01:48:17.539 whether they saw a chicken analog thing called 01:48:17.539 --> 01:48:19.720 chickenitas that we came up with in a Chipotle 01:48:19.720 --> 01:48:23.310 -like setting. This was embedded in a series 01:48:23.310 --> 01:48:26.869 of tasks about selecting also t -shirts and pens. 01:48:27.390 --> 01:48:30.229 And we randomized the order in which people saw 01:48:30.229 --> 01:48:34.010 the questions about t -shirts, pens, and tacos 01:48:34.010 --> 01:48:38.770 with the intent to throw people off the scent 01:48:38.770 --> 01:48:44.210 about which one we actually cared about. And 01:48:44.210 --> 01:48:49.560 what we found was a that additional plant -based 01:48:49.560 --> 01:48:51.899 options reduce meat consumption by about one 01:48:51.899 --> 01:48:55.079 to two percentage points. And B, that it didn't 01:48:55.079 --> 01:48:57.079 really matter. My recollection is like no effect 01:48:57.079 --> 01:49:00.199 on net about which of these tasks you saw first. 01:49:01.340 --> 01:49:04.060 Yeah, yeah. Although I would say, you know, that 01:49:04.060 --> 01:49:06.020 comparison is much less powered than the main 01:49:06.020 --> 01:49:07.600 effects of the studies. Yeah, because effectively 01:49:07.600 --> 01:49:09.960 then we're dividing by nine because we have like 01:49:09.960 --> 01:49:11.699 people who saw the different treatment groups, 01:49:11.859 --> 01:49:13.220 the different amounts of meat, there are three 01:49:13.220 --> 01:49:18.039 options. Then we have divided by three again, 01:49:18.640 --> 01:49:21.060 based on which of the three tasks you saw first. 01:49:22.680 --> 01:49:24.500 I think that's right. I think it's only divided 01:49:24.500 --> 01:49:28.979 by three maybe. I don't think anybody's going 01:49:28.979 --> 01:49:30.520 to care about this besides us, so I'm just going 01:49:30.520 --> 01:49:33.600 to can that whole line. Sorry about for bringing 01:49:33.600 --> 01:49:40.060 it up. We'll let Ryan edit that out. But OK, 01:49:40.180 --> 01:49:41.960 cool. Well, that's at least helpful to get a 01:49:41.960 --> 01:49:44.239 better sense of where you're coming from. uh 01:49:44.239 --> 01:49:45.859 exactly and how you think about these different 01:49:45.859 --> 01:49:49.800 sources of bias um this all brings me like my 01:49:49.800 --> 01:49:52.539 last sub question of this section which is how 01:49:52.539 --> 01:49:56.340 do you apply all of this to the dominion study 01:49:56.340 --> 01:50:03.319 um like lisa kramer and peter landry landry work 01:50:03.319 --> 01:50:05.439 jacob is talking about a study in which people 01:50:05.439 --> 01:50:07.399 in which university of toronto undergrads are 01:50:07.399 --> 01:50:11.319 allowed to are encouraged to watch the documentary, 01:50:11.359 --> 01:50:13.060 Dominion, which is this incredibly upsetting, 01:50:13.079 --> 01:50:16.279 difficult documentary about how animals are treated. 01:50:16.899 --> 01:50:22.079 And then either right away or a week after they're 01:50:22.079 --> 01:50:26.800 given like a chance to get a meal, have a meal 01:50:26.800 --> 01:50:28.640 compensated for them by the researcher. So it's 01:50:28.640 --> 01:50:30.699 like this, it's called an incentive compatible 01:50:30.699 --> 01:50:39.850 measure. And - I was going to flag one other 01:50:39.850 --> 01:50:41.550 salient feature of the designer, salient to my 01:50:41.550 --> 01:50:45.430 mind at least, is that as is pretty common in 01:50:45.430 --> 01:50:48.149 econ for this sort of study, they actually included 01:50:48.149 --> 01:50:51.770 a honesty disclosure, where they implore the 01:50:51.770 --> 01:50:53.750 participants to respond honestly. And they say 01:50:53.750 --> 01:50:56.210 that some studies have found that effective documentaries, 01:50:56.430 --> 01:50:58.869 others have not. And as researchers are really 01:50:58.869 --> 01:51:00.850 agnostic, and we just want to get to the bottom 01:51:00.850 --> 01:51:02.270 of the matter, we just want to hear the truth. 01:51:04.110 --> 01:51:06.369 Which I read and I was like, I don't think they 01:51:06.369 --> 01:51:08.130 should have put this in there. I think that would 01:51:08.130 --> 01:51:09.949 make things worse rather than better. I don't 01:51:09.949 --> 01:51:12.390 know. And it's true that there's an element of 01:51:12.390 --> 01:51:15.250 lost realism, because then it's not just watching 01:51:15.250 --> 01:51:18.350 a documentary. I think whatever effects that 01:51:18.350 --> 01:51:20.409 had are probably negligible relative to the net 01:51:20.409 --> 01:51:22.350 effect, which is that people who watch this 10 01:51:22.350 --> 01:51:25.529 -minute or 16 -minute segment of Dominion a week 01:51:25.529 --> 01:51:28.670 later are like 13 .5 % less likely to choose. 01:51:29.470 --> 01:51:32.609 Maybe it's percent. Oh, yeah, 35%. less likely 01:51:32.609 --> 01:51:36.729 to choose pork in their sandwich. My belief tying 01:51:36.729 --> 01:51:44.069 this all together is that a week later, having 01:51:44.069 --> 01:51:47.350 watched this 10 -minute segment in a lab in a 01:51:47.350 --> 01:51:50.989 study a week ago, all sense of the researcher 01:51:50.989 --> 01:51:56.710 is watching me is gone. Or not gone, but very 01:51:56.710 --> 01:51:59.170 small, negligible. At that point, I think what 01:51:59.170 --> 01:52:03.939 really counts is how did this documentary affect 01:52:03.939 --> 01:52:07.300 how I view eating pork? But again, these questions 01:52:07.300 --> 01:52:12.859 are, you know, like, we don't know. This is not 01:52:12.859 --> 01:52:18.340 in the data. This is in our beliefs. Yeah, yeah. 01:52:19.300 --> 01:52:21.439 Yeah, I think my feeling there was that like 01:52:21.439 --> 01:52:23.520 this, since they have this voucher that they 01:52:23.520 --> 01:52:25.539 have to redeem, there's like this physical token 01:52:25.539 --> 01:52:27.720 of the experiment. So it could be more salient. 01:52:27.760 --> 01:52:29.989 I was just like... Oh, yeah, here's the special 01:52:29.989 --> 01:52:31.770 research voucher I was given after I watched 01:52:31.770 --> 01:52:33.649 that because like the documentary itself is very 01:52:33.649 --> 01:52:38.310 salient. Yes. And so an actual striking and the 01:52:38.310 --> 01:52:41.149 concern that Jacob is raising is that like if 01:52:41.149 --> 01:52:43.949 let's say we started it, we told like the Humane 01:52:43.949 --> 01:52:46.689 League or whoever that watching Dominion is the 01:52:46.689 --> 01:52:49.369 most effective thing that anyone can do for plant 01:52:49.369 --> 01:52:52.390 based advocacy. And then they run it and they 01:52:52.390 --> 01:52:55.130 see smaller effects than those were that were 01:52:55.130 --> 01:52:57.409 observed in the study. Subsequently they might 01:52:57.409 --> 01:52:59.689 ask why did why was that what's what's going 01:52:59.689 --> 01:53:02.489 on and one possible explanation is that like 01:53:02.489 --> 01:53:05.869 This is just this contrived experimental thing 01:53:05.869 --> 01:53:08.510 where what's actually what's being what's driving 01:53:08.510 --> 01:53:11.010 effects is not watching dominion, but rather 01:53:11.010 --> 01:53:15.869 Being an experiment Yeah, yeah and having a measurement 01:53:15.869 --> 01:53:18.010 that's followed up like directly and that goes 01:53:18.010 --> 01:53:20.250 back to the researchers and putting it all together 01:53:20.250 --> 01:53:23.250 with like the observability study showing that 01:53:23.250 --> 01:53:25.029 like being observed doesn't really seem to do 01:53:25.029 --> 01:53:27.300 much for a lot of people or rather has backlash 01:53:27.300 --> 01:53:29.699 effects for some people, or more meat rather, 01:53:30.140 --> 01:53:32.640 and like the general finding that in the meta 01:53:32.640 --> 01:53:35.279 -analysis that I co -authored with Benny Smith 01:53:35.279 --> 01:53:37.100 and Maya Mathur, and which I summarized on a 01:53:37.100 --> 01:53:41.520 previous episode, given that that paper found 01:53:41.520 --> 01:53:44.199 that self -reported and objectively recorded 01:53:44.199 --> 01:53:45.880 outcomes, including those where people did not 01:53:45.880 --> 01:53:47.699 know they were in an experiment because it was 01:53:47.699 --> 01:53:49.539 just like something that was happening at their 01:53:49.539 --> 01:53:53.479 dining hall, were about the same, I am not... 01:53:54.960 --> 01:53:58.800 I think whatever effects are here are negligible 01:53:58.800 --> 01:54:03.079 compared to the net effects of watching Dominion. 01:54:04.539 --> 01:54:07.779 Gotcha. Gotcha. Reasonable. But again, unknown. 01:54:08.800 --> 01:54:11.020 When we run experiments, we have to take guesses 01:54:11.020 --> 01:54:14.100 about what the data means. Sure. Unfortunately. 01:54:16.260 --> 01:54:17.939 Cool. Well, those are my other questions for 01:54:17.939 --> 01:54:20.520 you. Thanks for walking through them. Sure. Thank 01:54:20.520 --> 01:54:23.430 you, everyone, for listening. I kindly invite 01:54:23.430 --> 01:54:25.850 you to share this podcast with the vegans you 01:54:25.850 --> 01:54:29.470 know. Let's encourage more people to take action. 01:54:30.390 --> 01:54:33.050 Again, thank you so much for caring and I will 01:54:33.050 --> 01:54:35.609 see you next Tuesday for a new episode.