Hello everyone, my name is Ryan and you're listening
to The Vegan Report. Today we're asking a fun
and maybe slightly provocative question. Are
vegans smarter than most people? You've probably
seen those articles listing brilliant minds who
were vegetarian for ethical reasons. People like
Einstein, Tolstoy, Mary Shelley or Leonardo da
Vinci. And if you've been with us for a while,
you might remember episode 37, where we talked
about one of those great minds, the literary
genius Al -Ma 'ri, often considered the first
vegan in recorded history. So today we're wondering,
did their intellect lead them to the ethical
principles we hold? And beyond these outliers,
Do we see the same pattern in the general population?
To explore this topic, I'm joined by Chris Bryant.
Chris is a social scientist and an expert on
meat reduction and alternative proteins. He leads
Bryant Research and he's also a prolific creator
on YouTube. I actually joined him during one
of his livestreams to record this episode. It
was my first time doing a livestream, so that
was an adventure in itself. You can find links
to connect with Chris in the episode notes. In
our conversation, we talked about the relationship
between intelligence and veganism. We got into
talking about psychopaths, the dangers of animal
activism, cannibalism, his experiences debating
the meatheads of the internet. and a whole lot
more. Make sure to follow and subscribe to the
show so you never miss an episode, and share
this episode with the smart vegans in your life.
If you enjoyed the podcast, leave a 5 star review,
it really helps. And feel free to email me your
thoughts or reactions at theveganreportpodcast
at gmail .com. I read every message. Someone
recently emailed that the mid -episode ads were
too annoying, so I turned them off. Always happy
to make your listening experience better. Thank
you all so much. Enjoy the conversation. The
first one was co -authored by that Gale professor
who I tried to get on my podcast. I messaged
her, I sent her like a thousand emails, but she
never responded. And I feel like there was some
tension between the researchers in doing that
research. I don't know why. I'm reminded of reading
something about how there was tension between
those researchers, how they did not agree on
lots of things about animal rights and veganism
and all of that. Anyway, so maybe that's because
that's why she never replied to my emails. And
then you also shared a study about cognitive
decline or something like that related to meat
consumption. So yeah, maybe to start, you could
maybe discuss, we could discuss those two studies.
How did they come? on your radar and why did
you decide to share them on LinkedIn? Yes. All
right. Yeah, let's get into it. Yeah, the last
part of the question is an interesting one. There
was definitely some people who were pleased to
see this news and some people who are certainly
not pleased to see this news of the association
between a higher cognitive function and likely
to being vegetarian, basically vegetarian or
vegan. So there was two, there was So I shared
three studies and then I also commented on a
fourth, which I think is what we were talking
about with the cognitive decline, which somebody
else had shared. So the first two that I shared
were associations between meat consumption and
lower cognitive function, as the authors gently
put it. And those are just correlative and showing
that generally people who were self -identifying
as vegetarian or vegan performed better at various
cognitive challenges that are given. So there
was some, almost like a test within the survey
that people took and the people who self -identify
as vegetarian or vegan did better in the test.
Now, funnily enough, a lot of people, I connect
with a lot of what I call meatheads. on the,
on LinkedIn, just because I like a bit of back
and forth and I like a bit of debate on the posts.
I see them in your comments. Yes, indeed. Yeah.
Yeah. And so there was a lot of them coming on.
And the main thing that they seem to be commenting
was that this is correlative and it's not proof
of causation, which to me was strange because
I had never interpreted these as being, you will
become more intelligent if you go vegetarian
or vegan. That's not. what I ever thought of
it. I always assumed that if anything is probably
the opposite, right? You have some level of intelligence,
which is largely genetic. And if you have a higher
level of intelligence, you're more likely to
go vegetarian or vegan. So I was always thinking
of it as the other way around. So the main bit
of criticism that I was getting from, from the
meatheads that I didn't really think was particularly
relevant. Yeah, that's so weird because When
we, when it comes time to define intelligence,
we don't agree on much, but we do agree that
it is biological. It's genetics. It's you're
born with a certain level of intelligence and
it's a constant in your life. There isn't much
you can do about for increasing IQ points or
sometimes there's a decrease too, but it's marginal.
So yeah, you can't become more intelligent by
eating a vegan diet. Yeah, that should be a given.
That's super interesting. Okay. I'd assumed there's
probably some things that you could do to move
it a little bit in either direction, but you're
saying it's pretty marginal compared to basically
a genetic baseline, hey? Exactly. Yeah. You inherit
that from your parents. That's a immutable trait,
your height or the color of your eyes. Okay.
Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. So yeah, that main criticism,
and I think a lot of the pro -meat people are
used to and programmed to make that criticism
because that's what they say to a lot of the
health evidence that's shared where vegetarians
and vegans have lower risk of cancer and heart
disease and overall mortality. And they like
to say this is associative, it doesn't prove
causation, which is true in a sense. But if you
have a ton of epidemiological evidence showing
that there's these associations with living longer,
basically, and eating a plant -based diet. And
then you have some also some plausible mechanisms
by which that happens with LDL cholesterol and
stuff like this. And you do have some randomized
studies where you see eating meat or eating plant
-based meat instead of meat. low LDL cholesterol
and lower BMI and stuff like this over a relatively
short period, it starts to build a pretty solid
case that, okay, there probably is some causation
going on here. So those are all things which,
yeah, again, I think that the pro -meat people
are quite reflexively make that criticism, oh,
you can't prove causation from this. And in this
case, we're not saying that going vegan is going
to make you smarter. You're more likely to go
vegan if you are smarter. That's the claim. And
someone said to me, in that case, what's the
point? Like, why is this compelling? Why is this
something worth sharing? And I said, I think
it's like, it ought to give people pause to think.
If vegetarians and vegans tend to be smarter
on average, maybe they've got a point. And the
example I gave was to say that if I read a study
that said, flat earthers have 10 IQ points more
on average. I might think. Maybe I should have
another look at that Flat Earth stuff. They seem
to know what they're talking about. So those
are the first two and then the third study was
really more likely showing causation in the other
way as we discussed where children with higher
IQ were more likely to grow up to be vegetarian.
I think there were IQ tests at the age of 10
and then those with higher IQ were more likely
to be vegetarian at the age of 30. So again,
it's the intelligence causing the vegetarianism,
veganism, not the other way around. So those
were in line with what I had theorized about
intelligence. And then I saw that other study
about cognitive decline, which did seem to be
saying that there's more something going in the
other direction. I guess cognitive decline in
older age is probably a bit of a special case
because clearly you are having some change in
IQ, which presumably is influenced to some extent
by environmental factors. And this was shared
by somebody on LinkedIn just like a week after
I had been doing my own IQ posting. And that
did seem to suggest that basically plant -based
diets have some sort of protective factor for
against cognitive decline in old age. So it's
possible that there is some sort of causation
going in that direction, particularly when it
comes to old age. But yeah, that was a novel
angle on it for me. I don't know how much we
can differentiate intelligence and certain cognitive
functions like memory. I think it's expected
that you will lose certain abilities going up
because of aging and also environmental factors.
If you hit your head, or if you decide to make
a career out of boxing, then expect to lose some
cognitive abilities. But then does it affect
your intelligence per se, like your intellectual
potential that I don't have an answer to that
question. Yeah, interesting. And there's a bit
of different types of intelligence and different
types of cognitive functions that, from my understanding,
they tend to correlate together such that like
higher IQ people tend to have better memories,
although they're distinct functions. I'm interested
to hear more from you about what you think of
all of this as the intelligence expert here.
I'm not an intelligence expert, but I've read
more about this topic than most people. And yeah,
I think there are so many preconceived ideas
around intelligence. The reason why that association
I mentioned earlier, the Quebec Association for
Giftedness exists is because many people who
are born gifted are not born with the psychosocial
framework to manage their giftedness and their
cognitive abilities. What do I mean by that?
I've seen so many cases of, let's say, school
children getting bored out of their mind in the
classroom and developing some behavioral issues
from that. And so they can't follow what the
teacher is saying because they are already 10
steps ahead. and so they start doing other things
and then the teacher notices that behavior doesn't
know a thing about intelligence or giftedness
and so recommends the child to a psychologist
who also doesn't know a thing about giftedness
and the child gets diagnosed as ADHD or I've
seen schizophrenia, I've seen a dissociative
disorder. There's a long list of false diagnosis
that are put on gifted people and it's damaging.
They carry that their entire life, ignorant of
their own self. And so yeah, there is that. I've
seen so many cases of self sabotaging. So you
have school children who are trying to fit in.
And in order to do that, they stop using big
words. They put the wrong answers in exam questions
because they don't want to be the child with
always the A+. They feel like that would ostracize
them even more. In some schools, they will take
the child and put that child in a higher grade.
And that may be damaging to the development of
that child because all of a sudden you're with
another age group. And so it is a struggle. It's
an incredible struggle when you start getting
into the nuances of what it feels like and what
is it like to be a person with a giftedness or
higher intellectual potential. By the way, the
definition for that, the clinical definition
for that is basically being, if you have a curve
in IQ distribution curve, the bottom 2 .5%. Here
in Quebec, Canada, the number that we have selected
is 2 .5%. In France, it's 5%. But 2 .5 % at the
bottom are considered what we call intellectual
disabled people. It's an official diagnosis,
they get support from the government, including
financial support to go through life. There are
some institutions that, you know, screen for
that, for instance, the army, you cannot, you're
not admitted in the army if you're considered
intellectually disabled, but then there's the
top of that curve at the top 2 .5%. And that's
what we consider being gifted or having high
intellectual potential. And that's where it gets
tricky because if you look at the difference
between the bottom of that curve and the average
IQ, it's the same difference as the average IQ
and the top of that curve. And so you understand
how those people live Bit in a different world
bit in a different dimension. So they're very
much part of that of what we call the neurodivergent
spectrum yet, I think Society has the wrong reaction
to intelligence. They think of it When you say
my child is gifted you get some bad looks from
people around because it feels like you're bragging
about your child. You're not bragging. It's actually
the cognitive reality of your child. Again, it's
just like any other trait. Your child is tall.
He's also gifted. He was born like that. We're
also in a culture, Christian culture, where humility
is really important value. Talking about being
gifted is not very popular. So it's not a very
popular thing to highlight the struggles of gifted
people, but it's essential because there are
some theories that have been studied and people
have been writing about that since the 1800s
of how The average IQ in a society is the greatest
indicator of the success of that society, of
that country, how it is related to wealth production
of higher standards of living. And so you need
to value the smartest people in your society
and give them a space where they can be themselves
and not feel like doing self sabotaging stuff
and in order to fit in. Yeah. That's how I would
summarize the current state of intelligence and
high intellectual potential. And so what got
me interested going back to the topic of vegetarianism
and veganism is you see so many of those outliners
like Einstein, Newton, Mary Shelley, and also
I've seen people who were officially diagnosed
as gifted in the community of that association
and so on, being interested or being vegetarian,
being vegan or being interested in that. And
the reaction I generally I get from those people
is different from that of the average person,
which is a reaction of openness to the idea of
becoming vegan or vegetarian. usually people
are defensive but those people have already thought
of it and have considered becoming and actually
you don't need to argue with them because they
feel that you're right and so yeah it's easier
to make the case for vegetarianism or veganism
like with that crowd. That's so interesting.
Yeah. There's so many, there's so much in there.
I'm sure people listening will be pleased to
know people with all their various mental health
diagnoses will be pleased to know they're in
fact just gifted. That might be the case. Yeah,
that could well be the case. They're so interesting
thinking about like the different mechanisms
by which these things might be connected. Cause
it feels intuitive to me that There is a connection
between high intelligence and being vegetarian
or vegan that seems like it makes sense. It maps
onto the reality of what I see around me. Like
the, all of the vegans and vegans I know tend
to be pretty smart people. I'm a little, there's
a little bit of selection effects. I've worked
in the field and so they're all professionals
and stuff like that. But certainly if I think
of the stupidest people I know, that's a very
low rate of veganism amongst them. The openness
thing is definitely. There's something that's
been proposed as a, as a mechanism for that critical
thinking also where it's much easier to accept
for it's true. You've got to be careful with
the polite words to speak about this way. Average
intelligence people that say there's lots of
signals that everybody else eats meat. And so
it must be fine. That's a midway of thinking
about it, right. And that seems to be correct
and doesn't like you have to be a little bit
smart to think that you know, that doesn't follow.
That's not how that works. Sensitivity also somebody
has proposed like more intelligent people tend
to be more sensitive, more sensitive people to
tend to be more, more empathetic, I guess, more
like to be vegetarian and vegan. So there's all
of these potential like plausible mechanisms
that connect the two. I've also heard it said
that I don't know how true this is, but higher
intelligence people can actually be better at
doing cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning.
Because if I want to think of a reason why it's
okay for me to eat meat, I can think of loads
of them straight away because I'm smart. So there
could be some things going in the other direction,
but it's not like what you reflect in the data
where you'd see all the intelligent people less
likely to be vegetarian. But yeah, there's all
these things, openness, sensitivity, critical
thinking that appear to be. Ways that could happen
and does seem to happen. Yeah. And we should
say being smarter doesn't mean that everything
you do or say is smarter. Yep. But the thing
is most smart ideas out there innovations and
so on usually come from smarter people. That's
a bit of adding some nuance to, to all of them.
And yeah, the point about hypersensitivity. Yes,
definitely. It's a kind of a defining characteristic
of being having a higher intellectual potential
is hypersensitivity. And that means a greater
connection to the realities of other people around
you, including animals. There's also a definition
of intelligence as greater ability to adapt.
to different realities, conditions, environments.
That's interesting. That means there's more flexibility
and more space for change in your life. It's
not very rigid. You can definitely switch to
a vegan diet easily than maybe a person with
less of that intellectual, cognitive flexibility,
adaptability. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah. More, you'll be more able to actually deal
with it and do the things that are necessary
to live in a different way and stuff like that.
One thing that I noticed on those posts and related
to something that you said, a lot of people were
very, I don't know if defensive is the right
word, but critical of the idea that IQ or intelligence,
let's say IQ. the idea that IQ is relevant or
like maps onto anything that we care about. It
seems to me obvious that it would, right? You're
going to tend to be able to have a higher income
and have like pretty more able to maintain social
relationships and stuff like this. I would have
thought that IQ is awfully well correlated with
a lot of the different outcomes that we might
care about, but a lot of people seem to contend
that's not the case. I don't know if that's just
cope or what do you think of that? I think it's
a stupid idea. That's what I think as a baseline
SAT scores. I don't know if you have that in
the UK, a version of that, but academic success,
most exams in the academic field are basically
IQ tests. If you do good in those exams, you
get better grades and better chances in life
because you have a higher degree. So just as
a baseline, we can agree that is a true sign
of success. If you're able to succeed in school
and succeed in completing those little IQ tests,
then yeah, you will get better prospects in life.
And then yeah, there is a lot of pushback against
the IQ tests. but there are also lots of myths
around IQ and it's a whole history and I think
the IQ test has been misused in the past in so
many contexts. There are qualified psychologists
and neuropsychologists that specialize in giftedness
and that can basically administer IQ tests to
patients who might be gifted. And I think that's
the best. If we want to talk about IQ tests,
that's the best IQ test that we have out there.
Those tests done under the supervision of those
qualified professionals, health professionals.
That's the golden standard. And then anything
else, there is a subject for debate. Mensa has
an IQ test. Mensa is this organization where
I think you need 130 IQ to get in or something
like that. So they have an IQ test. Their members
have to complete successfully in order to get
in. But again, that's not a test done under the
supervision of health professionals. That's not
a test that was crafted by experts in the field.
There is skepticism around those kinds of IQ
tests and of course there are so many IQ tests
online that you can try for free. Now it has
become common to administer IQ tests to potential
employees for potential job prospects. Again,
I feel like that those kinds of tests have no
legitimacy to them. They're not a real indicator
of intelligence and intelligence is cannot be
only captured by a test. It's also creativity.
How do you measure creativity in someone potential
to imagine and be innovative? That's IQ tests
are not designed for that. Yeah. I would say
some words of caution about IQ tests, but let's
not reject them completely. Yeah, that makes
sense. And I can see why people would, I can
see the motivation to be skeptical of it. Like
it's not a particularly comforting story, particularly
if it is like largely genetic and there's not
much you can do to change it. I can see why people
would not want to believe that this is something
that's going to be heavily correlated with all
sorts of success in your life. But yeah, you
mentioned about the school tests and the military
tests and everything like clearly this is something
that's considered by institutions to be of relevance.
So yeah, I think I would be terribly surprised
if IQ is not important in a lot of things that
we care about in life. But it's also I can see
why it's fraught to talk about. I can see why
it's like not politically correct to talk about
like me teachers having a lower IQ, for example.
I agree. And the thing is, again, those preconceived
Notions about intelligence is just a trait. It's
more fundamental to your identity than height,
because it's your cognitive structure. It's deeper
than that. But what are your priorities in life?
Do you want to be happy? Because being intelligent
is not a guarantee of happiness. Far from it.
There's so many studies that show how Smarter
people get more depressed, more anxious and the
list goes on. So why? Yeah. Yeah. And even the
flavor of depression that smarter people experience
is one of the worst ones, which is existential
depression. How do you address existential depression?
So hard not to crack. So yeah, it's just one
other trait of your identity. And I think we
put too much emphasis on that. Yeah, that's interesting.
Actually, that's interesting to mention because
I've seen research talking about the link between
vegetarianism and depression. And I think that
is the likely mechanism. I don't think it's ever
been proposed that is some sort of nutritional
deficiency that makes you more likely to be depressed
or something like that. It's more both of those
things are correlated with higher intelligence
or higher sensitivity. Yeah, if you are, if you
have that kind of mind, you're more likely to
be vegetarian and you're also more likely to
be depressed. And that's like the link between
those things rather than anything else, which
people like to suggest all sorts of reasons why
that might be. But yeah, that makes a lot of
sense. Do you think that bottom line talking
about veganism and vegetarianism as something
adopted by more intelligent people, do you think
that harms the cause? or will get more positive
attention around the cause? Yes, good question.
I'm open to being either way on this. Somebody
said to me, vegetarians and vegans already suffer
a bit from their reputation of being holier than
thou and higher mighty and stuff like this. Maybe
this is not really something like an idea that
you want to be popularizing, which certainly
could be true. I think from my perspective, the
most likely effect, if there is one, and I think
it's probably pretty marginal, is this idea that,
hang on a minute, if that's what the smart people
are doing, maybe there's something to it, right?
And like I said, if there was a higher IQ amongst
flat earthers that might give people reason to
think twice about that. So I think to me, that
seems like the most intuitive thing. Really,
if there's any pattern of beliefs that are associated
with people from our IQ, I would think that's
worth having a look at. But yeah, who knows on
like aggregate, is this just something that will
upset people more and make people dislike vegetarians
and vegans more? It's worth saying as well. I
think that people can put too much stock in what
makes veterans or vegans more likable. Like certainly
that's relevant to some degree. You do want to
be the type of person that people want to be
like, I suppose, is how that translates onto
kind of advocacy. But I really think that people
can do that too much to the detriment of other
things. If you're encouraging people to look
at factory farming and slaughterhouse footage,
People don't like that and people won't really
appreciate if you hold that up to them while
they're eating their dinner But that will make
them more likely to get vegetarian or vegan if
they are forced to look at it Likeability for
if you're vegetarian or vegan can only get you
so far. I think and there's People It's nice
to be liked right people like to be liked and
people it's nice to be nice and stuff like this.
I think that especially probably vegetarians
and vegans tend to be, I actually haven't looked
at data on this, but I imagine more agreeable
and more wanting to be, have peaceful interactions
and stuff like this. So I actually don't think
that it comes very naturally to the type of person
who goes vegetarian or vegan to do the confrontational
kind of activism, for example. And certainly
it doesn't probably make you more likable, but
I do think that it's a good thing from the perspective
of animals. And yeah, I think it's If I had to
bet, and again, I'm guessing here, if I had to
bet it would be a similar thing on pointing out
that vegetarians and vegans tend to be more intelligent,
that it may not make you the most popular person
in the room to say that, but it might well be
giving people pause for thoughts and thinking
maybe that's something else to think about more.
Interesting, because I know that the other side,
big ag or pro meat people, they often use intelligence
as an argument to promote meat eating. and they
use it to disparage, basically becoming vegan
or vegetarian. They talk about eating plants
as a trigger for reduced cognitive abilities.
The Jordan Peterson of this world talk literally
about brain shrinking. I've heard that a lot.
Interesting. So they are using intelligence against
us. So why not fight fire with fire? Yeah, a
hundred percent. So as you haven't heard too
much of that version, I've heard people say meeting
me to enabled us to evolve our brains and stuff
like that, which okay, that's not going to be
that relevant for today's context or like on
an individual level. This is going to make you
more intelligent or something. People often try
to make that inference, but yeah, but yeah, I
think I agree with the spirit of what you're
saying. There's definitely all sorts of things
in this category where the idea is tell vegetarians
and vegans shut up about that. And we know that
we can get you to shut up about it if we give
you the idea that it will be bad and her vegetarianism,
right? People say, Oh, if you show me the slaughterhouse,
I'm going to eat more meat. It's like, are you
really going, presumably you're eating as much
meat as you want to eat. Are you going to now
eat more meat than you wanted to eat because
of the vegan upset you? Probably not. So I think
that more often than not, those like hypothetical
dangers of bringing up a sensibly pro vegetarian
or vegan talking points are just that like efforts
to put you off from talking about it. I've seen
a bunch of evidence that looking at slaughterhouse
and factory farming footage makes people more
likely to go vegetarian or vegan. Like it seems,
it seems too obvious to say. And yet, it's not
a rare idea that, oh, actually that's going to
make people dig in and give people cognitive
dissonance, and they're going to be more likely
to eat more meat and stuff like this. That's
just bollocks. And that is exactly what I would
say if I was trying to get vegetarians and vegans
to shut up about that, because I don't want them
to say that, because I want my meat company to
sell more meat, for example. So I always try
and think about what the other side do, what
the other side is saying, exactly as you mentioned.
And yeah, I think it's too easy sometimes to
put off vegetarians and vegans from doing the
thing that is very effective by just lying and
saying that it's not effective or that it's counterproductive.
That's such a relevant point because we behave
too much as if the enemy, so to speak, is inactive,
is passive, completely passive and is not listening.
Like I've had the discussion with a guest once.
I feel torn about having those all of those great
animal rights activists on my podcast, including
you, to discuss animal rights activism, because
I know that Big Ag might be listening to all
of those conversations and taking notes as they
should be doing. And so am I helping the enemy
by putting everything on public display? Am I
doing more wrong than good? I don't think so.
I think certainly once you get to a certain size
of audience, it's sensible to assume that the
enemy is listening to anything that you're doing
publicly. There ought to be a lot of stuff that
we don't necessarily say publicly that is useful
for us to know inside the animal movement, but
that we wouldn't publicize or want to make a
headline out of, for example. We had hoped that
your guests are exercising some discretion and
not saying those things publicly. But yeah, I
think they're, they're certainly, they ought
to be listening if they're not right. It would
make sense. It's going to be, maximize their
goals. But that said, I think that there are
some things that are worth communicating anyway.
And yeah, we get, we're speaking more to the
people on our side and it's, we're speaking in
mind with the enemy might be listening, but we
can't let that. stop us from speaking to each
other at all publicly there's a bunch of stuff
that's useful for us to say publicly and useful
for us to promote and pay for posters and get
the message out as far as we can then there's
a smaller set of stuff that's useful for us to
say to each other in private but not on a live
stream so yeah then there's stuff that you should
probably keep between yourself and your guard
Animal Liberation Front Press Office, North American
Press Office. If you visit their website, they
have a whole section dedicated to online privacy
and how to stop some prying party from stealing
data from you or surveilling you or spying on
what you're doing. And I haven't found that anywhere
else through those steps we could take of cybersecurity,
for instance, to just protect ourselves against
the big ag hackers out there who might be interested
in our data, what we're sharing in our group
conversations and all of that. And so maybe that's
something we should put in place more widely
the movement. Yeah, that's a good point. I think
it's prudent to assume like in vegan Discord
servers and stuff like that, for example, be
aware that the enemy might be listening. I've
always considered that it would be a great honor
to be on some sort of list, some sort of hit
list for the for the animal egg industry. If
I start seeing Cars with blacked out windows
parked down my street. I'll go good. I'm doing
the right I'm doing I'm upsetting the right people.
But yeah, that's I haven't got to the level yet
I don't think where security is a concern like
that, but i'm guessing that it must be for Some
of the top guys some of the gary erofsky's nerfling
heads and stuff like that. They must be It's
prudent to take some amount of security concerns,
right because again our enemy is killers We know
that I don't have one side was going to be more
likely to just flat out murder the other. It's
not going to be the peaceful vegans doing that,
is it? Yeah. Hopefully I'll get to the stage
where that becomes a concern. That'll be an honor.
I've asked that once to Dr. Crystal Heath, who
is behind Our Honor. And yeah, she said, I'm
scared of getting attacked or followed or she
was assassinated or something. I'm reading right
now the autobiography of Gale. Sorry, I'm forgetting
her last name. She was an undercover investigator
for so many years. She wrote the book Slaughterhouses,
and she mentioned how in many occasions she was
scared for her life. Some slaughterhouse owner
would find an opportunity to kidnap her or something.
So yeah, those are concerns in our movement,
definitely. And there are, of course, instances
of assassinations and kidnappings and so on that
were documented that happened to some activists.
Reagan, something from Canada more recently was
rolled over by a trucker who was transporting,
I think, pigs. The guy did not go to prison for
that. I don't think so yet. I don't know too
much about that. I assume that was more of an
accident than an assassination, right? Yes, you're
right that it's, it is an accident. It was an
accident, but was it really like, yeah, she was
in the middle of the road. So yeah, that makes
a wonder. Yeah, for sure. There's a couple of
things to say on that. One is that I think it
would be a great shame if people were to not
speak up for fear of this kind of stuff. and
self -censor for the remote possibility that
there could be the wrong person from Animal Ag
trying to get your address or whatever else.
I think that the other side would love that and
they would probably not grow too much cold water
on the idea that was a deliberate murder, for
example, because they might think it's going
to benefit us if vegans think that we might bloody
murder them and then they'll shut up a bit. So
probably they wouldn't mind that idea being out
there. And of course it would be A great shame
to have people self censoring for fear of that
kind of thing. I, for me, I think I would, what's
the thing I'd rather live on my feet than die
on my knees, that kind of thing where you don't,
I don't think there's any, I think the threats
would have to get pretty severe before I would
even curtail at all what I, what I talk about.
So that's one thing. And the other thing is it's
pretty. If you try to think about what, occupy
the mind of somebody who wants to do something
nefarious to someone on the other side, right?
Maybe we, if we were to hatch a plan to go and
get Mr. Tyson or whatever, right? One of the
top, one of the top dogs, we would probably quite
quickly find that it's not really worth us going
down that road at all, because we're going to
take immense legal risk for some pretty marginal
benefit really. If you would take out the top
guy. There's going to be another top guy waiting,
right? It's not going to be anyone. The incentives
are not aligned for anyone, even if they're like
paid and work for one of these companies. Why
do I want to take the risk to go and kill some
activist that is having a negative impact on
my industry broadly? Like, why am I going to
be the one to go and take that risk? It's not,
it's almost like a tragedy of the commons thing,
right? Let someone else do that, right? It's
affecting us all. Why should I take the legal
risk? So I don't think that. Realistically, it
is quite difficult, and it's fortunate this is
the case, it's quite difficult in a developed
society to actually be doing anything that illegal
or nefarious. Now, they do lots of nefarious
stuff within the bounds of the law about spreading
disinformation and lobbying and all this kind
of stuff that anyone would say on reflection,
this is bad, but it's very carefully done within
the bounds of the law. there's no legal risk
for these people to take basically. Yeah, I would
be surprised if it would be worth any paid hitman
or anyone paying a hitman to do this kind of
thing for activists. There are some other things
that we might be concerned about. I think that
there probably are saboteurs and like undercover,
like fake animal welfare activists or fake animal
activists. And one thing I like to think about
that is If you were going to go to the vegan
conference or be in the vegan community and be
trying to disrupt and create bad outcomes of
veganism or create good outcomes for animal ag,
what might be the ways that you would do that?
Now, you'd have to be subtle. You have to avoid
detection. So you can't just say, hey, everyone,
let's forget about veganism. You have to be subtle.
You'd have to do things that could... conceivably
be something that a vegan might say or think,
but that would in fact be bad for vegans and
bad for animals, good for the industry. I think
one example of that is anti -welfarism, for example.
I don't know if you have particular views on
that, but I think that it's quite easy seemingly
to have a lot of vegans saying, our bollocks
to any sort of welfare reforms or like cage -free
commitments or anything like that because it's
still bad the animals are still being exploited
and we should basically be against this and it's
actually quite easy to whip up a decent part
of the animal movement to being extremely counter
productively opposed to welfare reforms which
are going to be expensive for the industry to
implement and put up the price of animal products
and make plant -based products more competitive.
So that's something that you could do. Another
one is this idea about like saying It's bad to
show slaughterhouse footage. That's not going
to make people go vegan, stuff like that. There
seems to be a decent amount of, I don't know,
people like to think that things are more counter
-intuitive than they are sometimes. Oh, you would
think this is helpful, but it's actually no,
it is helpful. It is helpful. And there's a couple
of others that I could think of as well that
are like, plausibly a vegan would say this, but
it's actually very counterproductive. The thing
is, if you come across these ideas, if you find
people who are Like anti -welfareism, for example.
The chances are they're not a saboteur. The chances
are they are probably an earnest vegan who has
the wrong ideas. And of course, if you were a
saboteur and you're doing your job right, there
should be 20 times more earnest vegans who you
managed to persuade and repeat the ideas, right?
Plant -based meats are processed. That's another
one that a lot of vegans are fond of saying.
Plant -based meats are all processed foods. That's
like a hobby horse of mine. where yes, okay,
they're in this category called ultra processed
foods, they're also healthier than meat. That's
the main thing that we should all be saying plant
based meats healthier than meat. There's a lot
of evidence on that point now. So yeah, there's
a few of these ideas around that are unhelpful,
but plausibly something that a vegan might say.
And I think disruptive and I think can be cause
for division and stuff like this. But yeah, that's
what I would do if I was a meat industry saboteur.
On that on the website of the ALF press office
and North American press office. They actually
have another section called, I think, snitches
something, just exposing the many FBI agents
that went undercover to infiltrate ALF cells.
Now, that's interesting. The whole conversation
about sabotaging this movement is incredibly
interesting. I think at the very least. we should
have some strong cyber security rules, standards
put in place. Have you read about the construction
of, I think, the African Union headquarters?
I think they're based in South Africa. I'm not
sure. But it was built by a Chinese company and
the members of that union, of that assembly political
institution have found at some point mics inside
the walls, potentially coming from Chinese spies.
So when they built the building, they added mics
everywhere behind the walls. And I would be just
terrified to think that Mercy for Animals or
PETA or whatever organization is being listened
to by big PR agencies or whatever organization
exists out there. And so I think that at the
very least, we should just make sure that our
cybersecurity measures are in line with industry
standards. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I haven't
heard of that case. But yeah, that makes that
make sense. Countries do be spying. Yeah. So
I guess there's something that happens. And I
do I like to put my conspiracy hat on and think
about there could well be plants within animal
organizations that again this is something that
would totally make sense to do if you're the
president of tyson or whatever right like big
meat it would totally make sense you want to
like plant people within organizations and i
think the key thing is the ideas and that's why
it's so important to have clear thinking on what
ideas are helpful for animals and what ideas
are not helpful for animals because The way that
you would do it, I think, is just to try to infiltrate
with bad ideas, try to get the animal movement
to misspend its resources, right? They've got
a limited amount of resources. Let's get them
all thinking that this is like some really impactful
thing to do. And so that they waste their resources
on that. That'd be a great strategy if you're
the animal industry. Yeah. Like putting them
off the ideas that are helpful. deliberately
holding up organizations. Like there's, yeah,
we should read about this. I'm sure there's resources
on what a spy would do, what a saboteur would
do. We can be on the lookout. Yeah, that is,
it reminds me of the tree body problem book theory.
The aliens are listening. Yeah, a tricky situation.
And I want to add something about the danger
aspect of being in this movement. Yeah, I do
believe that it's rare that you're attacked or
something like that. But I think it's also context
dependent. If we're talking about ecologists
in Brazil, opposing ranchers, then yeah, you're
going to get murdered. I'm sorry, but there are
like thousands of them that have been found assassinated
with their entire family. It's horrible. So yeah,
if you're an undercover investigator, you should
be careful again. It's riskier. But if you're
just on social media or attending a protest or
doing some more safer stuff, I think you can
just be can be effective at that, make an impact
and still make sure to be safe in a safe, safer
context. I want to, how much time do we have
left? All the time in the world. I've got nothing
but time. I'm going to carry on streaming after
we finish speaking. So yeah, we can go and go
as long as you've got time. Let me bring back
the conversation to intelligence. Another aspect
of it is how so many people have titles like
special titles, PhD and stuff and use that as
a way to discredit this movement. medical doctor
at distance nutrition, and I'm here to tell you
that eating plants is really bad for you for
this and that reason. And I think it's another
way of using intelligence against this movement,
finding the intelligent people out there and
making them say that veganism is silly and bad
and the animal cost is stupid. So yeah, what
do you make of that? Yeah, there's definitely
a phenomenon that you've seen. We've watched
a couple of debates from Sean Baker, who's an
MD in a carnivore. And there's that Paul Saladino
guy as well, who's also an MD. And I guess quit
being a carnivore because you had health problems.
Jordan Peterson, you could put into another example
of this, like in the meter sphere, who I believe
also has health problems from being carnivore.
So yeah, their credentials. It is true what you're
saying. And that's why I have PhD in my YouTube.
channel name, it gives you a bit of credibility,
doesn't it? It makes people listen to what you're
saying a bit more. So it's really interesting
because it seems obvious to me as a person who
is doing that, that doesn't necessarily mean
I'm right about any given thing. Like I could
totally be wrong about some of the stuff I'm
saying. I have frequently discovered things in
which I'm wrong through doing this. And actually
I maybe have the same thing with the vegan report.
Like it's quite good having these conversations
in public. Sometimes the critical comments are
the most useful because you say, oh yeah, I didn't,
I've been saying this thing. And now if you're
only saying in private conversations, it's quite
rare that someone's going to say to you in the
conversation, no, you're wrong about this. But
if you have a comment section, people can say
that. And sometimes it's useful. Oftentimes it's
not, but sometimes it's useful. Right. But yeah,
there's definitely the phenomenon of like borrowed
credibility being weaponized. against the animal
movement. And I think, I don't know how much
of that is orchestrated and bought and paid for
by the industries. Again, I would think that
it's something worth them doing if they don't
have Paul Zaldino on their payroll. They probably
should, right? It would be seen well worth investing
like the cost of a few PhDs or MDs to repeat
their propaganda. And so yeah, I think that's
certainly something that you see. But yeah, I
think coming from somebody who does this to some
extent, it's just obvious that doesn't mean that
they're right. So I think that's something to
really keep in mind with that. I think, yeah,
I don't know what else to say about that really,
but yeah, clearly having those credentials is
no guarantee of being correct. Yeah, and it's
not necessarily correlated with higher intellectual
potential. There is a rule of thumbs in psychology.
I'm not sure how solid that is in terms of data
and evidence and studies, but it says that one
third of high intellectual, high potential intellectual
potential people do great in academics. They
become high achiever. The other third are leave
school. and become entrepreneurs and go on being
successful at whatever independent lane they
have chosen. And the last chunk of gifted people
end up homeless and basically failing at life
in the most tragic ways possible. And yeah, it
doesn't mean being very smart. doesn't mean that
you're going to be great at school. Maybe school
is not the right institution for you. And I have
many problems with school, but just think about
the quality of the schooling you get. Maybe you're
very smart, but you live in an area where school
education is very low quality and so it's not
very stimulating. What if the structure of school
of schools itself is not a match with your personality.
It's too authoritative, too hierarchical, too
rigid to allow you to truly blossom. So school
itself and diplomas, I don't think it's, we should,
we give too much importance to that. And with
AI and everything that's happening, I think it's
losing a lot of importance. Like colleges have
lost lots of importance of society and legitimacy,
I feel, because so many people are succeeding
without college degrees and also so many people
with college degrees are making a fool of themselves
publicly. And so, yeah, it's that people should
be aware of that, should be cautious. Yeah, that's
a good point. The other thing I would say on
the borrowed credentials point You can find an
expert to take any opinion basically, right?
And the existence of one or two carnival remdes,
that doesn't really tell you anything about their
tendency to follow that lifestyle, right? It
can well be the case that there's a correlation
between higher educational achievements and more
plant -based diet, but somebody has been motivated.
And on the nefarious level, maybe some organization
has paid Sean Baker and the others to be like
doing the propaganda, but also just on is demand
led, right? If there is, if there's like consumer
demand for a doctor to say, Hey, you can eat
loads of meat and there's no problem, which clearly
there is demand for that. Then some idiot will
rise up and start saying it and using their credentials
for that. So yeah, I think if you can point to.
particular examples of someone with a PhD who
says it's okay to eat meat. That doesn't really
tell you anything about the tendency on general.
If you are, if you were to use that as a proxy,
like all of the evidence that I've looked at,
we do a ton of surveys where we ask about diets
and also educational attainment and consistently
you see higher percentage of vegetarians and
vegans amongst those with more advanced degrees
and lower percentage amongst those who are like
some high school level. I think that that's what
I mean by the exception that proves the rule.
And I should mention an organization they're
called, let me just confirm the name, changing
markets. They have released a few reports and
I think they have confirmed that Sean Bakers
and his gang of meatheads are on the payroll
of Big Ag. Yeah, it's incredibly interesting
to read those reports. I've welcomed on the show
the person that works. focus. You should invite
her on your show. But yeah, very interesting.
And I wish we had like animal rights organizations
doing that type of investigative work, not just
environmental organizations like changing markets
are their concern is the environment less than
animal welfare. Another thing on that, sorry,
just while we're on the point of the credentials.
It's very easy to say things when you're not
being challenged. It's very easy to speak to
whatever kind of agenda that you want to try
and promote. So I have a Google sheet of meat
industry professionals who have refused to debate
and a couple of names from that changing market
reports. That you mentioned Frederick Leroy,
he's a big purveyor of misinformation on meat
and the environment. Frank Mitlona as well as
a guy at UC Davis who does the GWP star like
some, some made up metrics so that they can say
that cows are not bad for the environment. And
I've challenged these people like, let's come
on then let's have a conversation about it. Let's
have a debate. And they didn't want to do it.
They run away because they know that actually
if you're in a conversation where somebody can.
point out the flaws in what you're saying and
hold your feet to the fire and force you to make
sense, then it's not so easy just to just to
say your talking points and leave it at that.
And I searched the other day on YouTube for Frank
Mitlona debate, and there aren't any he hasn't
done any debates. And if you search for Frederick
Leroy debate, he's done one in which he and against
a lady called Irina Herson. in which he ends
up giving at least two major concessions that
are never things that he would want to say when
he's just on his own talking to his audience
on Twitter or whatever. Like she got him to say,
we do need to reduce the scale of livestock production,
which he must have ended that debate and go,
oh my God, I can't believe she made me say that.
He's never done debate before or since, as far
as I can tell. I actually have a website, which
is, let me screen share this with you real quick.
Oh, I have your Map Your Health website here,
but I just want to show as well. Whoops. I'm
going to call back here. That's what I want to
do. This is my website for how long has Frederick
Leroy avoided Chris Bryant dot com. That's so
funny. So there you go. There's my counter since
I first asked him to debate in November 20, 24.
And he's now blocked me on LinkedIn. And yeah,
this will probably count up to infinity now.
My one regret with this website is that I could
have got three years of this domain at a discounted
rate, but I only bought one year and now I'm
paying the yearly rate. So there you go. We live
and learn. I don't know how you would debate
him because you don't agree on the facts. You're
living in alternate realities. How can you debate
someone who, you know, it is disconnected from
reality. So the trick is, so the, this is a lot
of the pro meat stuff, a lot of the carnivore
stuff. It's all the same kind of trick. You have
a narrowly constructed sentence, which is technically
true, but ignores all of the context of what
is actually important. So To give an example
from Frederick Leroy, he wrote a document called
the Dublin Declaration, which is a very misleading
document in defense of meat. And they've published
it in a journal and they take it and do the lobbying
with it and so on. And they have a few great
phrases in there, which are good examples of
this. They have a phrase in there that says,
animal products are a source of essential nutrients.
And you read that in isolation, you think, okay,
that probably means we have to eat animal products.
They're not saying animal products are an essential
source of nutrients. They have nutrients in them
and some of those nutrients are essential nutrients.
They're not actually saying you need to eat animal
products to be healthy, but that's what people
are reading and they know that. So animal products
are a source of essential nutrients and if you
don't have anyone sitting opposite you to push
back and say, yeah, that's true, but that's not
really relevant. Like you don't need animal products
to get those nutrients. The gravel on my driveway
is a source of essential nutrients because it's
got iron and zinc in it, right? It's such a stupid
thing to think of. Another one that I came across
a bunch of these when I was researching for a
carnival debate that I did recently. One of their
narrow, we should come up with a phrase for this,
something that's narrowly true, but it implies
something that is not true. Fiber is not an essential
nutrient. Now, again, that's narrowly true in
the food science definition of essential nutrient
is something that we can't synthesize in our
bodies and there's a specific deficiency for
not having enough of it. And fiber, there's not
a specific deficiency disease for fiber deficiency.
So fiber is not an essential nutrient. And that
makes you think, wow, we don't need to be consuming
fiber. It's also true that not consuming enough
fiber is going to massively increase your risk
of getting cancer. So it is like true in isolation
and like plants contain toxins. This is another
one that was a big phrase that they have to say.
They have these like bits of language on the
hard drive, like just these very narrowly true
sentences, which don't mean what they think it
means. Or in the case of someone like Frederick
Leroy, there's the difference between disinformation
and misinformation, right? There's the disinformation
people like Frederick Leroy. He knows what he's
doing he knows he's being misleading when he
writes that. And that's disinformation is created
this meme now which other people are going to
believe and repeat uncritically and then the
misinformation is the people who are repeating
uncritically and they don't really know they
don't really understand. Okay five is not an
essential nutrient but it's still doesn't mean
that it's not healthy to eat it and it's going
to increase your risk of a bunch of diseases
if you don't have enough fiber so. Yeah, there's
these things which are like narrowly true, but
it's so simple. It's just the one question away
from collapsing on it by just saying, Oh, okay.
So does that mean that we need to eat animal
products to be healthy? No, actually that doesn't
mean that's not the case. Livestock systems can
provide ecological services. That's another phrase
that they have. Well, that makes you think, Oh,
wow. It's really important to have livestock.
This is an intuitive thing about symbiotic relationship
with the animals and the plants and stuff like
that. livestock can provide ecological services.
Again, that's true in a narrow sense, but there
are no livestock production systems which are
net carbon negative, for example. They're providing
some narrow services, but they're providing much
more harms over here. And it's not the case that
we need livestock in these systems. There's all
sorts of these silly things which are narrowly
true sentences. craft them and present them in
a certain way. So you give a certain, certain
picture of the world, but it's just completely
pulse. If you scratch at it and ask like a very
simple question to them. So they're all sneaky
lawyers. It's interesting that kind of stuff.
I would not expect like gifted people or people
with a higher IQ to fall for that. There are
so many survivors of cults that have started
podcasts or doing conferences and they always
say intelligence is not a guarantee of being
protected against the cult or against fraud and
all of that. And I would push against that. I
think, yes, I agree with them, but I think that
higher intelligence is actually a form of protection
against those forms of manipulation. And one
argument for that is there are studies showing
that people with a higher IQ tend to be less
religious. They are unable to enter into dogmatic
thinking and adhere to some strong dogmas and
group think. So yeah, and that's another relation
to this movement. Most vegans out there, vegetarians,
I think would consider themselves as non -religious.
And so maybe That has to do with intelligence
again. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen evidence on that
points to a higher proportion of atheists or
agnostics amongst vegetarians and vegans compared
to the general population. And yeah, again, it's
going to be, and you do see some religious justifications
of meat eating, of course. Guy debated a couple
of weeks ago has. We didn't get on to talking
about this in the debate, but some of his views
are around meat as a blessed food in the Bible
and stuff like this, which. Honestly, I didn't
really even know how to engage with that because
it would require a whole other conversation about
religion. I'm not going to, I'm not going to
persuade him out of being religious presumably,
but yeah, it's just one of the many things that
is not, not getting you to the conclusion that
you think is getting you to. Don't get me started
on that because that's what I'm. doing right
now, faith -based activism. And I think that's
a lane that's such an unexplored lane. We have
so much work to do with religious communities
and we're not able to connect with them. I think
because of that, because we are mostly non -religious
and so it's difficult to ask a vegan to go and
advocate for veganism to a priest when they don't
even believe in God, when the vegan doesn't even
believe in God. So there needs to be some common
ground in order to establish communication and
then try convincing that religious institution
or religious leader to make positive changes.
To finish our discussion, I want to talk about
the link. I want to talk about animals and the
link between intelligence and animals. That's
an argument we often hear that animals are not
intelligent and that justifies all the harm and
exploitation that is done against them. I would
love to hear your thoughts about that and also
about how that hypersensitivity aspect and that
capability of adapting to different environments
and people helps IQ people, gifted people to
better connect with animals, to understand them
better, to have to be able to establish a relationship,
an actual relationship with animals when other
people will only see a toy. Even if they have
an emotional connection with that toy, it's just
a toy at the end and are not able to perceive
so much the personhood of that creature. When
I've noticed, I don't think there have been any
studies on that from personal experience. So
many gifted people just are invested so deeply
in the relationship or their perception of animals
and of cruelty against animals. It touches them
deeply. So yeah, we'd love to hear your thoughts
about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting.
A couple of thoughts on that. I used to speak
to this guy who goes by ask yourself on YouTube
and he, I don't know if you've come across this
person, he has, he's YouTube famous for an argument
that he calls name the trait. And the challenge
to the meat eater is to name the traits that
makes it acceptable to name the traits that is
Absent in animals that if absent in humans would
make it acceptable to kill humans for food and
I think intelligence is probably the most common
answer that people first give to that and then
of course the reply the entailment of that is
if you have a human with the same level of intelligence
as a cow for example, and there are disabled
intellectually disabled people who to whom that
might apply Do you find it acceptable to kill
them for food? And of course everyone says no
And then, okay, but it can't be that intelligence
is the trait, right? And you go around again
and people come up with different things and
they say, they say all sorts of things, ability
to form civilizations and language and stuff
like this. You can say, okay, if you have a person
who can't speak, okay, no, it's not acceptable
to kill them. But yeah, intelligence seems to
be like the level one answer that people give
to that. That's the intuitive thing that people
think, yeah, it's because we're more intelligent.
So yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Only amenities would
think that's a bad thing to say, right? We were
cannibals a minute ago in human history. That
was not like a shocking idea, eating your neighbor.
There were rituals around it. There was a whole
community spirit built around eating your neighbor.
So yeah, the intelligence is certainly not the
trait that stops us from eating someone. Yeah,
yeah, I guess so. Yeah. So there's all sorts
of, I don't know, there's all sorts of things
that could be said about that. And of course
there's presumably more and less intelligent
animals in the animal kingdom and people don't
seem to make much differentiation on that. Now,
some people might say, okay, you don't want to
eat dolphins or monkeys because they're too close
for some sense of intelligence. But yeah, I think
people would, maybe people would be surprised
by the cognitive abilities that actually are
demonstrated by a lot of the animals that we
do eat. Like the problem solving capacities of
chickens or the emotional relationships and friendships
of cows. The very blatant similarity of pigs
to dogs who we love. So yeah, I think that there's
all sorts of dissonance and confused thinking
going on there when it comes to thinking about
the intelligence of animals. It's also occurred
to me before that we assume that humans are the
most intelligent animals. But there are animals
with much bigger brains that just don't have
opposable thumbs. Like whales have brains like
the size of a double decker bus, but they live
underwater, so they can't have computers. Do
you know what I mean? Elephants have bigger brains
than humans as well, but they've got these big
flat hooves, so they can't type anything else.
And who says that we're the most intelligent
animal? Yeah. And who is qualified to discern,
understand what... higher intelligence means.
It's how, what kind of measures are we going
to put in place in order to define that higher
intelligence and who is qualified to make that
assessment? You need, basically what I'm saying
is you need to be smart or as smart or smarter
to decide that your fellow person is of that
intelligence or lower. Yeah, for sure. And then
I like what you said about the hypersensitivity.
It almost feels like more imagination seems like
too loose a word for it, but like you can simulate
what it might be like to be in the consciousness
of another type of animal. Like when I think
a lot of people have this probably intuitively
with their dog, oh, he's hungry or he's bored
or whatever he's scared. So a lot of people have
it on some basic level, but to really spend a
minute like inhabiting that and imagining it
at length and say, for example, a pig who is
in a farrowing crate and can't turn around for
weeks and weeks at a time. What was I doing eight
weeks ago? I can't even remember. It's such a
long time to be trapped in that situation. And
it just goes on and on. I might stream for another
hour now, then go have some food and then blah,
blah, blah. There's so much that I'm going to
do in the amount of time that this animal is
just there in the cage, just trapped. It really,
you need a bit of imagination or just willingness
to stick with that thought, I guess, to properly
simulate anything like what it might be like
to be in that kind of situation. So yeah, I think.
I imagine that low intelligence probably also
correlated with selfishness, where it's just,
I've only really got the capacity to think about
my needs and I'm hungry right now and I'm late
for whatever. But yeah, thinking about the experience
of others and what that must be like for them,
let alone thinking about how our actions impact
on the abilities of others and stuff like this.
A lot of this seems like quite basic, though
you might tell your young child, but many adults
don't seem to have ever had that lesson. Yeah,
I agree. You need some cognitive power to be
able to give life to that kind of scenario, to
that kind of story. And that's why another defining
trait of higher intelligence is again, creativity,
innovation. Most innovation comes from that 2
.5 % at the top of the IQ curve. So yeah, it's
a fascinating thing to consider. We depend so
much on that crowd of people for humanity's progress.
Yeah, it's stunning. Chris, I'll just, I would
love to talk about map your health before. Yes,
we didn't get to the map yet and the Dharma stuff
that you're doing as well. Yeah, of course. Do
you want to start with map your health? Yeah,
let's do, I can screen share the website here
so that you can talk to us about it. Oh, here
we go. Wonderful. Yeah. Basically this is the
waiting list. This is the webpage to sign up
to the waiting list for map your health. And
this is the web version of map your health. Now
it needs some updates, including that updates.
Some of them will happen actually tonight and
in the following days, a lot will happen on that
front. But yeah, so Basically, the concept is
to track and monitor environmental health risks
in your surroundings. That includes virus outbreaks,
that also includes pollutants emitted by your
local industries, the quality of your tap water,
the quality of your air, and so many other aspects
of environmental health. I think that We put
lots of emphasis and for the right reasons on
physical health, staying fit on diet, very important
to, but on mental health, another important one,
but what about environmental health? That's our
blind spot. Yet it is such a big player in our
health, big factor in influencing how long we
are going to live and what kind of quality of
life we're going to enjoy and so yeah this is
the first and only tool to offer that kind of
information that exists so very excited about
this project and to connect it maybe with animal
rights as some of the listeners know factory
farming is linked to lots of detrimental effects
on our health. Usually we talk about cancers
and diabetes and other chronic illnesses, but
what about public health? What about zoonotic
diseases? What about resistance to antibiotics?
This is just as much important, if not more than
those chronic illnesses that develop at the later
stage of life. And I think we need a tool to
let people know that there are factory farms
and slaughterhouses around them, and that those
places are actively impacting their health and
their quality of life. And so, yeah, that's basically
the concept of map your health. Nice, that's
super useful. And yeah, we've done a project
before where we've looked at evidence on negative
health outcomes associated with living near to
factory farms, essentially. A lot of it is ammonia
pollution, and that has an effect on people with
asthma and COPD, like a lot of respiratory conditions
that can get a lot worse if you're living near
to a factory farm with all of the air pollution
coming from that. So yeah, I tried to bring a
couple of places in the UK, but it didn't come
up. But do you have any? areas that are online
for this or this is waiting for the update? This
is waiting for the update. Basically, you subscribe
to the waiting list for the app, which is the
final version of this. But yeah, I have a web
version available that is going to be updated
with more locations and more data points than
it currently has. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Okay.
Nice. We'll look out for that. That's mapyourhealth
.info. If people want to check that out, I'll
put that in the chat as well. So people can sign
up for the waiting list. And yeah, hopefully
this is going to be something that brings delight.
Yeah. A lot of the health, negative health impacts
of living close to factory farms, basically.
Yes. And I think we are ill prepared for the
next pandemic, which is going to happen. Like
people are in denial. But there's a big one coming
at some point. Could be 10 years, 20 years, hopefully
50, 100 years, but it's coming sooner than later,
sadly. And we need to be prepared for that. And
we're not ready. I think that COVID -19 was a
disaster in terms of communication, of risk communication
from authorities, from media outlets. That was
a complete circus. and we played a lot with people's
lives because of political agendas and all sorts
of private interests and so on. And yeah, I think
we need a tool, an independent platform to communicate
truthfully, rightfully, and in real time, those
kinds of environmental health risks. Yeah. Do
you ever worry, like speaking about intelligence,
because it seems to be, if you'd look at social
media, you would... be forgiven for thinking
that the vaccine was a disaster and that the
vaccine didn't really work and it gave people
health problems and all this kind of stuff. The
COVID vaccine did work. It does work. Like it
reduced the rate of COVID transition. It ultimately
enabled many of our societies to open back up.
If you look on social media, you think that the
opposite is the case. It's crazy. Do you ever
worry? And now, you know, I've just been reading
in my, I suppose in my country, broadly in the
UK, I was going to say my local area. Like anti
-vax is on the rise more and people there's a
lot of kids in the schools getting measles now
for that We've had a vaccine for this for ages
It's been near universal coverage now people
are suspicious about vaccines again And so vaccine
coverage is going down and now there's measles
outbreaks in schools. It's never worry that We
there are some things where we are by the mercy
of stupid people. Oh, yes all the time I think
One of my favorite critique of politics and society
is the movie, Idiocracy. It's so funny, but it's
such a reflection of reality. And actually worldwide,
we have a lowering of average IQs across the
US, Canada, and so on. So people are really,
yes, they are getting dumber. Oh no. That's not
good news, is it? That's not good news. And again,
it's worrying because if higher IQs are related
to correlated or cause greater production of
wealth and better living standards, then that
means we're looking at such a bleak future ahead.
I think it's not only about intelligence, it's
about distrust of authorities. I think that people
witnessed a lot of dumb things happening from
authorities. bad policies, bad communication
around COVID -19. And that has caused a lot of
distrust from the population. And that distrust
is cancer spreading to different areas of healthcare,
including then vaccines. If they lied, if they
were stupid enough to say this, if they lied
about that, then maybe they also lied about the
vaccines. They also lied about those more fundamental
stuff. And so I think it's natural instinct from
people to become distrustful of authority. But
yeah, I blame the politicians. I think the politicians,
our politicians are so stupid, truly are that
pandemic happened and they just were not thinking
long term. They don't have a They think about
their career. They think about their next campaign.
They think about outside perspective and how
to have great positive public relations. But
they don't think about civilization. They don't
think about existential threats and how to go
forward as a society in 10, 50, 100 years. They're
trapped in that ego mindset, and those like very
small political calculations. And that does a
big disservice to all of us. Yeah, yeah, I agree
about those grades, like case study for a lot
of this stuff, because there was so many things
in there where you can see it's almost like short
term benefits of Lying basically like the mark
the masks was the big one right that is obvious
that you want health professionals to have enough
access to medical masks and that if everybody
like rushes the market and buys up all the medical
masks not gonna be a good thing for the health
care system and so early on there was like The
advice was don't wear masks and masks are ineffective
and maybe that should make it worse because then
you're gonna be touching your face more is Even
at the time I was like that doesn't make sense
We're wearing masks. I'm going to do this. And,
but then that became so, yeah, again, there were
clear incentives why you wouldn't not want to
have all of the public knowing the actual truth
about that. But again, if you think critically
about it, you can think, okay, I can understand
why they're saying that advice, but that if I'm
interested in my own protection, I'm still going
to wear a mask. Another thing was panic buying
food. Of course you want to tell the public don't
panic buy food. there's going to be enough food,
food supplies not going to be a problem and so
on. Of course, that's what you want to say to
the public. And I was like, no bollocks of that.
We're getting tinned food. We're filling up the
garage with tinned food. And of course, like
a week later, all the supermarket shelves are
empty now. Now, there's a little bit of chicken
and egg there, right? Because of course, people
do panic buy and that's kind of what caused it
to some extent. But yeah, there was a couple
of instances where that trust was lost where
I don't want to say that they needed to lie,
but you could see their incentives for lying
in that sense. And the long -term cost was so
much worse. I remember that. I remember the masks
episode. It happened in Quebec, Canada, where
I live. The government made it clear, like very
clear that masks were ineffective and don't go
purchase masks. And then they did a 180 without
any explanation and justification. and started
saying that masks were essential to protecting
yourself. Like, how do you explain that? And
I think the biggest sign of just stupid policies
coming from the government was how they closed
down all of the mom and pop shops around because
of sanitary reasons to stop the spread of the
virus. But then... Costco was open and you had
this huge crowd in Costco. That was such a blatant
nonsense. What are you doing? This is like mad
scientist stuff, like just putting out like the
craziest policies. Restaurants, so many of them
disappeared completely. Montreal used to be amazing.
It's improving. It used to be amazing in terms
of food that was available. The restaurant quality
was amazing. After COVID, it became horrible.
It became very boring. Now it's improving. But
so many restaurant owners took their life because
of financial despair. Who was held accountable
for that? no investigative commission or something
to examine what we've done in terms of policies.
And why did some people push certain agendas
on us? If you're not doing that, then how are
you going to reestablish trust in the government?
And then their solution is to enforce limitations
on free speech. That's how we're going to put
back. We're going to shut them up and that's
how, you know, they're going to trust vaccines
again. I'm sorry, but you've just made yourself
even more untrustworthy. Like now you're becoming
a hostile entity to your people. So yeah, I don't
know who is advising them, but it's not a smart
person. Yeah. That short -term thinking, I think
about that with respect to a lot of the meatheads,
the Freddie LeRoy's and Frank Mitt learners and
so on. They have some sort of short -term incentives
to be spreading disinformation that kind of implies
that there's no need to reduce our meat consumption.
But then I think, do these people not want a
habitable planet for their children? Do you know
what I mean? It's so short -term. Do you not
care if you're increasing the chances that there's
going to be another pandemic? Do you not care
if like you're Sean Baker and you are like definitely
increasing the risk of heart disease amongst
all of the young men who listen to you and stuff
like this? It's a combination of like selfishness
and just short -term thinking. I'm particularly
for the environmental guys, because Frank Mitlohner,
who does the methane cycling and all of the disinformation
around that, like implying that, oh, maybe cows
are actually good for the environment. Like he's
a smart guy. He knows what he's doing. Does he
not think about what the actual implications
of me doing this in 50 years time? or a hundred
years time. My kids and grandkids are going to
have to live on this planet that I'm teeing up
for them. It's so short -sighted, surely. It's
mental. I don't know what to say about that.
It's just, yeah, its own form of stupidity. Yeah.
Or maybe they just don't care. And it's a form
of psychopathy. That's something else that deeply
fascinates me. How many psychopaths are out there
and why, as a society, haven't we done our homework
of just detecting them. Just as we filter out
people with intelligence disability from the
army, we should look at the healthcare world
and filter out psychopaths from there. Like a
psychiatrist should not be a psychopath. Yeah,
that seems like a good rule. They should not
be in contact with vulnerable populations. They
have predatory behaviors that It's just reality.
We understand that we've studied that in depth.
And I think that as a society, we should come
up with some kind of policy to, to manage that.
But we're just, we're just in denial of that.
We pretend that psychopaths do not exist and
that they're not actually influencing how things
go in our society. And we're made. stupider for
that and in dangerous situations because of that.
Because those people genuinely don't care. It's
not their fault. I'm not saying they should be
punished for that. Absolutely not. It's just
how their brain is wired. Yeah, that is frustrating
to ponder on that. Yeah. How easy is it to avoid
it? If you're stupid, it's not that easy to avoid
detection. If you open your mouth, you're pretty
good. I was going to reveal it. Like if you're
a psychopath, is it easier to avoid? You can
act like a non psychopath or no? They say you
have met at least a few psychopaths in your life,
every one of us. And there are people when I
think about it, I think we're pretty much psychopathic
in their behaviors. So yeah, I guess that answers
the question. They're really good at disguising
themselves, really good at fitting in and manipulating
us. And also they're not, I think they're not
wired for deep committed like relationships.
I think that it's always short term with them,
romantic relationships and also like friends,
friendly relationships. And so you don't have
much time to examine closely that person. It's
always so shortened that they got what they wanted
from you and that's it. It's very transactional
and they're gone from your life after that, hopefully.
How many slaughterhouse Tizen people executives
are actually psychopaths? That's a question that
is, I think, worth asking. I think there are
activists out there. who think we can gain them
to our cause and think that those big industries
are just looking for profit or something like
that. What if they enjoy inflicting pain and
that much death? What if that brings them joy?
I've heard one activist talk about how people
who own humane operations, like little farms
where they raise a few animals, they slaughter
them themselves. They, some of them are actually
very sadistic about this and enjoy the experience
of owning that animal and slaughtering it while
presenting themselves as humane. Now, is it too
far -fetched to suggest that some of the big
executives that in big arc world get some enjoyment
from inflicting that much pain and destruction?
Maybe not. That's yeah, that's another question
worth asking. Yeah, no, I can well imagine it.
Yeah, that's very troubling to think about. But
yeah, I think that's totally true. I think I
vaguely have it in my mind that a lot of CEOs
and stuff are psychopaths, right? I think that
there's some sort of correlation there. They
say that? Yes. Yeah. Actually, I work in the
nonprofit world and I've, I was expecting to
work with angels. I was expecting that everyone
would be this wholesome and dedicating their
lives to advancing goodness in society and making
this world better place. I know how cheesy that
sounds, but then I met so many people in positions
of leadership in the nonprofit world that are
very predatory, like extremely. And I realized
that they are attracted to the nonprofit world.
because they want to be close to vulnerable populations.
It's looking for jobs at the school or wanting
to become a scout monitor or something. Same
thing. Yeah, it is worrying that there is no
tracking system, monitoring system, public health
policy to track those personality types in our
society. Yeah, yeah. Damn. Well, that seems like
a problem too long, trust me. Do you want to
talk a bit about the Dharma stuff? Sure, I could.
I've been here for nearly two hours, so I won't
keep you too much longer, but I'm interested
to hear about what you're doing on that side
as well. Of course. Thank you for asking. Dharma
Voices for Animals was created by a bunch of
Buddhists who were wondering how come there aren't
more Buddhists who are vegan? And basically,
We make the Buddhist argument for veganism. We
inform Buddhist publications, institutions, and
leaders of what's happening with factory farming.
And we convince them to transition their institutions
to plant -based only model and to support advocacy
work related to passing animal welfare legislations
and so on. It's faith -based advocacy, not very
popular in the movement, but extremely impactful.
Like I've become convinced that this is the way
to make real lasting change. It's to change religious
institutions. Like we're spending so much time
and resources on street outreach, but we should
be reaching out to the religious leaders who
have a whole load of people that follow their
every word and look at them as a moral example.
Most people don't look at Peter Singer as a moral
compass. They look at the rabbi, their imam,
and their Buddhist monk. And that's, I think,
the most impactful way we can make a difference.
I truly believe that. So if we gain religious
leaders to our cause, it's a permanent thing.
It's not political advocacy. And they will speak
to a wider audience. And they are the ones that
set moral standards in society for most people.
So they should be the prime target of our advocacy
work. And we should, at the very least, hold
them accountable to animal welfare issues. All
of that, they should not be permitted to stay
silent on that very pressing issue. And now I
invite everyone to follow my example and look
into who are the religious leaders in your town
or neighborhood, like church leaders or who knows
who, and give them a copy of Animal Welfare and
World Religion from, what's her name, Joyce De
Silva. or start a conversation about factory
farming and try to convince them to maybe do
a screening of dominion in one of their church
gathering community event. Yeah, I think that
would make an enormous impact. And yeah, that's
what I'm doing. I'm doing what I'm preaching
and reaching out to Buddhist leaders and advancing
animal welfare through that. Yeah, that makes
so much sense. And I agree with you. It's a really
underrated like leverage points or bottleneck
you could think of because I feel like there's
a decent amount of now let's have doctors talking
about the health stuff. People trust doctors
to be authorities on what is going to be healthy
for you. And we do actually have figures who
people trust to be an authority on what's going
to be the right or moral or ethical thing to
do as well. But it's not really something that
we've done too much advocacy on it seems. Buddhism
seems like a good fit for it. It's like a lot
of this vegetarian at least already and Hinduism
as well, right? It's a tenet of the religion
almost. And I guess Jainism and there might be
another couple of other like typically Eastern
religions that are like this. Do you think it's
as tractable for Christian or Jewish or Muslim
communities? From my perspective, it seems like
there's a decent amount of justifying eating
meat with a religious basis from the Abrahamic
religions. Yes, I do believe so. And there are
so many incredible, passionate leaders out there
who, let me give you an example, Daniel Mascarenas,
that's someone I interviewed a couple of times
on my podcast. He's a Jesuit priest in training
based in Boston and a passionate vegan. and he
actually created the website called vegancatholic
.org where he presents the Catholic argument
for veganism. Now, he's really passionate about
this. He has done his homeworks. Like he knows
all about why Christianity goes hand in hand
with veganism and not exploiting animals. Who
is talking to him? What organization is featuring
him? Who is giving him funding? And the answer
is no one. Like that movie, Christspiracy, that
I won't call it a documentary. It's a docus fiction.
I think the technical term is for that kind of
media stuff. Never reached out to Daniel to talk
about what would be appealing for Catholics to
hear about veganism. went on and presented some
very unattractive arguments for Christians to
go vegan. Truly, that documentary is a huge indicator
of where we are as a movement because it was
celebrated by everyone, yet it missed the point.
It should have been made to appeal to the Christian
population, but it's not appealing to the Christian
population. And people like Daniel could have
been perfect to give their insight into how to
best convince Christians to consider veganism.
There are a hundred more people like Daniel out
there in Judaism with the Unitarian Church. I
don't know about the Catholic Church. I know
a teacher at Stanford who is doing some work
with different Catholic institutions and They're
receptive to him and his message. And so yeah,
the, it's just that you don't hear about it.
And I think it has to do with that bias of most
vegans, animal rights activists are not religious
or not interested in talking about religion.
And if they talk about religion, it's to talk
about how religion has participated in creating
this culture of exploiting animals, which is
true. But how is it productive for this movement
to keep religious people out of it and make them
the scapegoat for animal exploitation? Not productive
at all. So I do think there are powerful arguments
to present to Jews, Christians, and Muslims to
invite them to become vegan. There's another
book I could recommend. called Animals in Islam
was written by an imam who I think was based
in the UK. We lost him. I think he died now,
but he had a level of success. He was invited
to a few mosques where he gave presentations
about it. We have Zahra Abbas, another one who
is active on the Muslim front. who has founded
Green Islam, another great initiative. We have
Animetrix who is studying everything that has
to do with halal and how it aligns with animal
welfareism. And I mentioned Islam because most
people think that's the furthest religion from
the animal welfare message. Yet you have all
of those peoples, those people and active advocates
in that space. And so yeah, there is potential
the material is there we know what to say We
know what to do. We know who to target. We just
need support like financial support resources
and more media coverage Yeah, that's really good
news because yeah, of course Islam is the biggest
religion as well, right? I think it's 20 % of
people in the world or something crazy like that.
Like it's huge So yeah, really good to know that's
tractable and that there are people working on
it. And I agree with you, it's definitely going
to be an under explored area and an under financed
area and something that could do with a lot more
resources going into that kind of initiative.
Your organization's Dharma Voices for Animals.
Yes, Dharma Voices. Give that a Google. Yes,
please. And consider donating to the organization.
Always appreciated. Yeah, the employees are amazing
too. A good sign that an organization is in good
health is that is when their employees give back
to the organization. I give back to DPA even
though they are my employer and client and I
know the other employees too. And so that shows
you how much we believe in that mission and its
impact. So yeah, consider making a donation.
Awesome. Awesome. I just put the link for dumbvoicesforanimals
.org in the chat so people can check that out.
Awesome. Brian, thanks so much for the conversation.
This was excellent. We did two hours in the end.
Yes. Thank you so much, Chris. This was my first
live stream and I had a great experience. Yeah.
Invite me back whenever you want. Absolutely.
I'd love to have more of those conversations.
Awesome. Thanks so much for your time. I really
appreciate it. Wonderful. See you soon. Thank
you everyone for listening. I kindly invite you
to share this podcast with the vegans you know.
Let's encourage more people to take action. Again,
thank you so much for caring and I will see you
next Tuesday for a new episode.