 It's Fisher f***ing dumb. I'm sorry. Fisher are very unintelligent animals. You would be the ideal candidate for this humane meat. Would it be cruel for me to take your life from you for a sandwich? Me is halal, being vegan is just a mental thing. This guy's crazy. You have this mental ideology that push veganism amongst people. You have a contradiction. No, that's very good. That's actually a very good argument. That's a very intelligent argument. I'm actually surprised. Hi, my name is Joey Carbstrong. I'm a vegan who has spent the last seven years trying to convince people that animal cruelty is wrong, without as much success as I hoped. So I thought I'd try a new, completely opposite approach. I'd pretend to support animal cruelty and harness the power of reverse psychology. You're deleting your brainwalk. What? This is how it went. What's going on, bro? Coming in. What do you think of the sign? Well, I actually have two questions for you first. First, I think definitions are important. What do you think animal cruelty is? Let's just use an example, like, take chickens. Right. I think chickens are pretty sentient. Like, they're like birds or whatever. They've got pain receptors in the brain and that. You know, they've got a spinal cord connected to the brain and nerve endings and things like this. And they experience the world. I would say taking a chicken, putting them in a factory farm, making them grow really fast, and then putting them in a slaughterhouse and eating them. I would call that cruelty. I honestly don't think that... I don't think there's anything wrong with it. And most people here don't think there's anything wrong with it either, because they will pay for it. Well, you know, that's interesting that you say that. Because I noticed while I was waiting to talk with you, your cameraman over there has a vegan tattoo. I know. And you got a tattoo on your ear that says Megan, but the M is with Sharpie, so I think it says vegan. So, I think what you're doing is... You're too smart for your own good, buddy. What can I say? I'm a very observant individual. Are you a meat eater? Yes, I am. And what did you first think when you saw the sign? I thought it was an abhorrent message, certainly. You know the example I gave you of animal cruelty, right? Yeah. The example is one that most people here in London and the world... Right. ...most of the world support. So, they must... They either think it's wrong and they support it with their dollar, or they're just acting in discord with their beliefs. I think it might be the latter. I'd say it is a bit hypocritical. I'm a migrant worker, and I come from Seattle originally. I'm from the PCC, which is all local. If cruelty is inflicting unnecessary suffering to an animal, cruelty-free meats. It's much harder to maintain that at London, but when I am in Seattle, I try to eat cruelty-free when I can. Let me ask you this. You're free-ranging. You look pretty cheery. Yep. I mean, I don't want to make assumptions, but you seem like you're in good well-being. Of course. You would be the ideal candidate for this humane meat. That is fair. So, can I ask you, would it be cruel for me to just kill you right now to eat you? If you did it with, like, a morphine shot in a way that would be painless. I think if I did not have a concept of life and death, certainly, but... Just you right now. I'm just saying, like, would it be cruel for me to take your life from you for a sandwich? I think that that would be cruel, but how... I do also think... Sorry, let me figure out for myself. It is hard. Because, you know, you've already exposed a bit of a double standard there. There is a definite double standard. I certainly think that with... I don't support factory farming at all. I think... Well, you do. Well, I do. You don't in your belief, but you do in your actions. That is fair. That is fair. I think society doesn't really. It's very hard unless you're kind of well-established in an area where you can get local cruelty-free meats to... We just established you wouldn't be cruelty-free if I killed you for a sandwich. So why is it okay for a cow? Because they don't have a concept of life and death. If you kill them painlessly, they don't know that they're going to die. They don't know that they're living. They just know pain. They know hunger. They don't have more complex systems like that. Yeah, but not all humans can. So are you opening the door for human meat, are you? And the caveat is if you don't understand complex systems. Well, humans have a much higher... Our brains are much more advanced than, let's say, a cow's. And I think there are some animals where it's much... You shouldn't kill them because they also have a higher understanding. Elephants, even pigs. I think there's a definite argument for the pigs. I'm saying that if you're more intelligent, you shouldn't kill them based on intelligence. Yes, and if they're less intelligent, you shouldn't kill them in a way that's painful and going to cause unnecessary suffering. So only kill the dumb animals. Yes. And the smart animals let them live. It's a bit of a strawman, but yeah. Well, okay, I don't want to misrepresent your position. I just said it in a more blunt, simplistic way. Indeed, indeed, but it is a bit more nuanced than that. It's okay to kill dumb animals. But that is a bit of a strawman because that's a more blunt way to put it, a more simplistic way to put it where there's a bit more nuance. Well, they don't have a... So if there were human beings... Yes. Let's create a hypothetical... Right. That had the same thought process as a cow. I think you're sort of underwriting the complexity of a cow. You don't know much about cow intelligence, maybe. But even if you didn't... That's a bit of an ad hominem, but I'll... And because you said pigs, right? Right. And cows and pigs aren't too dissimilar. They are completely separate. They're not even in... They're not intellect. The only thing they share about them is that they're mammals. They're very... They're two separate types of... Well, I don't think a cow and a dog are dissimilar in the way they learn or intelligence. They are pretty dissimilar. In what way? Their neurologies are completely different. Yeah, but I mean like in the way that they learn. Like a cow can learn their name, they can... They can get happy and excited, can learn to sit, can learn to turn on taps, can open doors. Yeah, but it's a... What level of intelligence do you need to be smarter than a dog? Well, that's like... That's for instance equating like let's say a TI-84 and a... I don't know, an iPhone. They both can do very similar things. So a dog's here, you wouldn't say killing a dog is okay because of their intelligence level. So let's just say a cow is here. It's okay to kill them? I think that there's a bit more of a separation there. So let's just say this is the graph. Right. Dogs are here, where are cows? And where's your line to kill? What? There's no unit. You're not providing units with your hand. Well, I mean that's the only way I can visualize. That's fair. At what point can we kill an animal in your subjective... A cow's got to be the threshold. You don't eat, you must not eat pigs. No, I don't eat pigs. Don't about it for a sec. At all? I have eaten pigs in the past before, but... You have a rule not to eat pigs at all? No. And I'm Jewish. And you're Jewish? That's a pretty good reason. That's a pretty good reason. Okay, no worries. So it's not because they're smart? Well, I think it's both. If it wasn't for religious reasons you would... No, because I think there is... I think kosher laws are based off of humane. Okay. Killing. Like the whole point of kosher slaughter is to kill an animal in the... Like before we had let's say anesthetic and morphine and all that stuff to kill them in the most painless manner. Yeah, it's similar to hello slaughter in a way. Kosher slaughter in a very similar sharp knife. I've seen that. Have you witnessed that? I've seen videos. Of cows being killed kosher? Yep. What did you think? I thought that it's better than the alternative of factory farming. Well, factory farms are not slaughterhouses. Slaughterhouse is factory farms. Any animal cruelty as you said. Yeah, yeah. So basically we're getting off the topic here. We've gone to slaughter, right? But we were debating intelligence for a second there. So do you think... Obviously like we can debate a practical point on how intelligent a cow is. I think you're going to have to look into that yourself because I think we're just going to go back and forth. Right. Because you'll say they're not smart. I'll say they are. And I don't know how much less smart than a dog you'll have to be to not kill them in your eyes. Because you don't have a metric. You're just saying they're a cow. They're probably dumber. It's okay to kill them. Well, there's less conclusive evidence that cows mourn. And there's a lot of conclusive evidence that dogs mourn. There's no conclusive evidence... No, no, no. I did not say no conclusive evidence. I said less. There is some evidence. Animal neurology is a very, very hard topic. It's because we can't talk with animals in plain English. It is a very tricky topic. So cows are maternal animals, yeah? Maternal. Maternal. They have a nine month pregnancy like humans do. I believe so. And you don't think that they feel anything when you take their calf from them? I think that's more of a motherly thing than a lost thing. Because when most animals, from the hyperintelligent to the like, the fish... I'm sorry, that was the... Fish are not smart. The fish are f***ing dumb. I'm sorry. Fish are very unintelligent animals. You're getting into... I would say that there's a lot you don't know about fish. What don't I know about fish? They actually beat... What type of animal? Chimpanzees. Chimpanzees and their scientist four-year-old daughter in the colored plate experiment. It's called the colored plate experiment. The animals think whatever primates they were, they had to learn to eat off of one colored plate first and both colored plates would stay. So if they ate off the red plate, both plates would stay. If they ate off the blue plate, they would lose a plate of food. All right? I think it was like a hundred tries for the fish. They beat the primates and they beat the four-year-old... the scientist's four-year-old daughter at this colored plate experiment. Well... An octopus. Yeah, how smart they are. Well, the octopus and fish are completely separate animals. You mean like the fish that swim, the vertebrate? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, in terms of the color plate argument, I'm assuming you're being truthful. I don't think you'd lie. I haven't read this study, but based off of what you are saying here, I don't know how conclusive that might be. It's from the book What a Fish Knows, and there's a bunch of research in that book, What a Fish Knows. Well, I think I will have to educate myself on that a bit more, but either, either, either. My argument is not contingent on this intelligence thing. I think it's a very bad argument. I don't think someone's rights should be contingent on how smart they are. I think it should be on your capacity to experience the world and to suffer and to basically experience. That's what gives you rights. Because if you're smarter than me, you sound pretty smart, you shouldn't have better rights than me. Well, should you? That's an interesting argument. I think it might be slightly tiptoeing into a strawman argument, but I do think it's a very interesting thought experiment. There's a bell curve of intelligence between us. Some are smart, some are not. That is true. Some are born with a disability. Children, they grow to be smarter, but as a baby, they're no less smart than a baby chick. Like a baby chicken. Baby chickens are smarter in some ways than a six-month-old human. One metric. And they can recognize their sibling upon hatching, and also they know when something has disappeared. Object permanence. Object permanence. That babies think that scorn and they pick a boo sort of stuff. Pick a boo, yeah. Well, without further information, I can't really draw any conclusive... You're an evidence-based person. I am a very evidence-based person. But my principal point doesn't need any of this research. And what do you think about the principal point? The principal point of the fact that... Intelligence shouldn't dictate the way someone is treated. I certainly think that with everything, there is nuance. And it's much harder to argue like dog versus human or pig versus human than it is human versus bug or fish. I understand where lines tend to get gray, but you were debating with me about a cow. Cow is very far away from certain insects. And they're a lot closer to us. I can say that cows are definitely on the line. On your line? On my line. So your line is like just above cows? Certainly, and I mean... I mean, God. If... So I mean, but I think that line's a much more strict standard than what most people have. Don't you rectify the argument from marginal cases then? Because... Marginal like cows. They're a marginal case human beings. Right, oh. Who have a capacity less than a cow. And they do exist. If you don't believe they do definitely exist, but if you don't believe they do, create the hypothetical human, put them just below a cow in your metric, is it okay to kill that human? From a Georgian standpoint. For a burger. For a burger. The same reason we kill cows. That's pretty funny. Kosher. Certainly. Kosher slaughter too. Well, I'm just going to say painless slaughter. First I want to approach it without the burger. Well, that's the only reason we kill cows. Generally? Well, there's medical research as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think... Small percentage. I think it is... I think it is okay to put them down. That happens a lot in the medical field. Doc Sigmund Freud was put down. Oh, you mean... You mean euthanizing... Yeah, Kvorkian. I don't know if Kvorkian is... It's like a... Mercy killing. Yes. We're not talking about mercy killing, man. We're talking about killing them against their will for a needless product. Well, if they're at the point where they're cow level... I support killing mercy killing. That is mercy killing. If they're at that low of a level, if they can't function, if they're just, like, in misery, in a wheelchair... No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking about suffering. I'm talking about mental capacity. I never said that we're wanting to kill them because they're suffering in this state. They're just... I'm trying to create this hypothetical being that is human, that has less complexity of thought than a cow because that was your metric. Right. Just to see if you're consistent. And I'm not talking about mercy killing or euthanasia because they're in pain. I'm just talking about they're just existing in pretty good well-being. And we go up... We round them all up and kill them for the same reason we kill cows. Is that justified in your opinion? Well, there... I know that in the medical field there have been mercy killings of such individuals. And if they are happy... Like, the mercy killings I'm referring to have been like people who kind of just are in wheelchairs slobbering all over themselves, not being able to kind of process. I'm like... Cows are not like that. I know that's what I'm saying. They're better than the other cow. So they can feel happiness. Of course cows can feel happiness, suffering. Cows can feel a whole range of emotions if they care for their young. You see them dancing out in the grass when they get used to the barns, you know? Well, in that case, I'm going to have to say no. That wouldn't be okay. I'd have to say no. Okay, okay. So it's not okay for the... That's a good argument, by the way. Because you're a logical man. I wanted to bring it down to logic because you have a contradiction there. No, that's a very good argument. That's a very indulgent argument. I'm actually surprised. Sorry, that sounded insulting. I wasn't trying to insult you. Don't take my rights away and eat me. That was a bomb. That was certainly a bomb. Well, I don't know. You might bomb this approach on it too. But from a food chain perspective, it's the way of life. Humans have eaten cows. We are omnivorous creatures. So you said humans have eaten cows. Are you going to appeal to history or tradition? No, not tradition. Well, nature. Are you going to appeal to nature? I'm appealing to nature. I want to see how you approach this. I don't care what happens in nature. I care what's ethical and what we ought to do in civilization as it is now. I don't look to nature to dictate my morality, to dictate my health care. I don't look to nature and go, hey, you know what? There's no medicine in nature. I'm not going to have medicine. Hey, I looked at lions mating with lioness without consent. It doesn't matter to me what happens in nature. What we've done historically or traditionally, these are all just logical fallacies. That's a pretty good argument. It wouldn't matter if we were omnivores either. It wouldn't matter if you believe we were natural omnivores. But we are. If you believe that, that's... I don't believe that. That's fact. Would I call us omnivores? Would I call us opportunistic scavengers? Because we're not built like an omnivore and with teeth we don't hunt down our prey. We don't have omnivorous instincts either. Vultures are still carnivorous and they are scavengers, yeah. They are mostly scavengers, yeah. But they're carnivorous. They eat rotten flesh. We don't behave like omnivores is what I mean. The only thing we do is we eat dead flesh. We sanitize it so there's no bacteria. We don't act like natural omnivores. So we're closer to like fake omnivores, wannabe omnivores. Scavengers. Scavengers, necrovore, maybe. But scavengers and necrovores. Necrovore, we eat dead flesh. It's already dead. In nature. And primates do other primates. Our closest relatives. And to me, whatever you believe we are or whatever scientifically we are, it doesn't matter. What matters is what is ethical to do. Right. What to do. And I don't think it's obviously not bad for our health to not eat meat. Well, it's not ideal, but it won't kill you. I mean, I'd say that eating meat probably might. I'm going to do a little bit. I'm sorry. This is a logical fallacy. I'm going to do a bit of a appeal to authority. My father is one of the top gastroenterologists nutritionists in the country. And it's a very interesting argument. And not this country, America. Before you go on, I'll let you go. Right. Do you think it's required for us to be of general well-being health-wise to eat animals? Well, it is, as you're saying, with modern technology. Meat is halal, being vegan is just a mental thing. It's already halal, being vegan is halal. Animals are upon this earth to be... Fred, we can't eat certain animals because of certain things, but animals are there to be... Vegan is halal as well. Being vegan is halal as well. Yes, because in Islam, you can have a half vegan lifestyle and also eat meat or not every day of the week. As a human body, as a human, your body is able to consume these things. But you have this mental ideology to push veganism amongst people and you're deluding your brain world. This isn't a shit. Have a good day. Have a good day, my brother. Take care. Bless you. Wow, I can't finish my logical fallacy. Being vegan is also halal because you don't drink alcohol. But anyways... Yeah, you're dead. It's not like people, obviously, can live as vegan. Obviously, we don't have a bunch of dead vegans proving otherwise. But it is, from a health perspective, ideal to eat meat. And I mean, with modern technology... What do you mean ideal? With modern technology, we can get nutrients that are in meat that we need such as... I can't just use an example, but not as bioavailable. For instance, Coenzyme Q10, it's very necessary in our body's anti-oxidation cycles. I've never heard of that, by the way. Coenzyme Q10. With the Academy of Nutrition Dietetics in America, the largest group of nutrition professionals on earth, doctors and nutritionists, I think it's about 50,000. Would they know about it? Coenzyme Q10, yes. So why haven't they... Why have they brought out a big peer-reviewed position statement saying that vegan diets are only healthy for all stages of the life cycle? Why have they done that? Impancy, pregnancy, adulthood, elderly, athletes? Because, again, with modern advances in technology, we can get stuff that is only, like, nutrients that we usually get from meat in nature. But, again, it's not as bioavailable, so it's harder to maintain a vegan diet. They didn't mention this enzyme in the position statement. Coenzyme Q10, it's a very, very, very... Like, my father uses it to treat patients all the time. It's a very, very, very critical of... And he, my, earned, for instance... They made a mistake then in their position paper. It is feasible, and it's harder to maintain a vegan diet, but it is feasible to do so. I'm not saying that you're going to die if you aren't vegan. That would be a stupid position. If you found out you could be healthy as a vegan, do you think it would be the thing we ought to do morally? Well, to be fair, I think in 10 years we won't have to have this conversation. In lab-grown meat, advances in lab-grown meat, it's becoming more feasible to have commercial lab-grown meat. So, in 10 years, we won't even need to have this conversation, luckily, because, again, you know, you do bring up a very interesting ethical dilemma. But, you know, it's going to be a moot point in 10 years. I appreciate what you say, but I didn't appreciate an answer to. Right, okay, so ask me the question again, I'm sorry. Should we be vegan from a moral perspective if you found out that you could be healthy? Sir, I would change your mind. Is it the thing we ought to do morally? Again, I think it really depends on the animal and how you kill them. Because, obviously, factory farms in slaughterhouses don't do it in the most humane way. They do it in a very cruel and unusual way, I'd say. Local farmers, kosher slaughter, rabbis that do the kosher slaughter, they do it in a pretty humane, painless way. I've witnessed kosher slaughter. Right. One of the most sickening types of slaughter I've seen, actually. Really? I've witnessed, yeah. Well, from a medical perspective, it is from the animal's perspective. You know, the RSPCA here in the UK, who I don't actually agree with as an organization, in general. What is that? The RSPCA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I think I've heard of them. Yeah. Well, they actually don't allow non-stun halal slaughter, because it takes a minute for the animal to die. It's a minute of suffering. They're not equivalent, though. They're almost identical. No, that's actually a very common misconception. So what is different about kosher? I don't know enough about halal slaughter to be honest, to give you the deeds. Halal is a super sharp knife, and they cut really quickly through a bunch of nerves, and they expect that the animal will stop receiving a message to the brain. But that's actually not the case. So it's basically just slashing a lamb or a cow's throat open without any stunning. They just slashed them with a sharp knife, I think, across the throat. Either way, I still think painlessly taking someone's life from them is not right. And I think you agreed when we try to equalize the human to a cow. Obviously, cow... There is a lot to debate on cow terms, but I'm assuming you also don't eat fish, and the color plate, I can't really say anything about that chick thing you brought up earlier. The color plate argument, that means nothing to me in terms of intelligence, because color perception and intelligence are not inherently correlated. Well, I don't care about intelligence when it comes to moral discussions, and we already tackled that. It's kind of beside my point. That is beside your point. Fish is still sentient and feels pain and suffering. In ten years this will be a moot point. Why does it matter now? I want to get your opinion on that. I don't want to wait ten years. You don't want to wait ten years. I think right now, we have the power. The only reason lab-grown meat is when people are taking action and going, okay, we've got to make meat obsolete. There's people out there advocating there's different forms of activism all helping culture change, and I want to be one of those people that I didn't wait for. I want to be on the right side of history and not go, oh wait, I waited for culture to change before I acted morally. What was I doing back then? There's a reason you don't go around kicking dogs and stomping on and I don't want to act anymore. I wouldn't want it done to me. You have your own moral system. I suggest you contradict it. I don't think I just contradict it. I think that again, I think we both laid out that there is certainly a double standard in society. But I think it's a much more nuanced topic. It's a very nuanced topic. There's obviously an interesting line drawing aspect. There's the health aspect. Certain point where the lion becomes grey. Yes. And it definitely ain't our cows. It definitely ain't our cows. Well in terms of factory farming, yes. And we trade equal as the human you wouldn't even want to kill them. Even if we killed them painlessly. For a burger, that was for sure. He said for mercy killing, it's okay. I think from a very weird ethical standpoint I personally would never eat a human burger. But it's like organ donors. If you have a cannibal and there's a human that's already dead that you didn't kill just for the meat, then you should provide the cannibal with the dead human. I don't have a problem with roadkill. People eating roadkill. The only problem I would see is that they would start to eat a product and it would slow it very slow. But generally, if there's a dead bird there and someone wants to eat it, I don't protest it. If they kill the bird against the bird's wheel and then eat the bird then I have a problem with it because there's other things to eat. Unless they're in a survival situation you're not. So then would you also agree that if a human's already dead like roadkill for instance I personally wouldn't eat a dead animal or a dead human. I don't see animals as food or humans as food. If I see a dead pigeon I would put them in the ground. I'd feel very sad about it. If I see a dead human I would respect their body. I don't see dead animals or dead people like that. I don't look at it like that anymore. I changed the way I completely view animals. There's no chicken as food anymore. I'm sure if there was a dead chicken here with feathers on it you probably would go urgh. An omnivore would start licking their blood and start chewing into the... I don't know. It depends on how rotten it is. We eat dead animals. When you boil it down to the gritty it's gross but that's just how it is. That's how nature is. That is an appeal to nature. I don't care about nature. I know you do not. There's good things in nature and disgusting things in nature which is why you can't point to it and say this is ethical because of nature or this is healthy because of nature My point was that a human probably millennia ago if they saw not moldy chicken on the ground they probably would have licked their lips but we have society now surviving doing what they can they probably eat each other back here and there probably I definitely see your point about society evolving I think it's certainly a very solid point It's certainly a good intellectual topic to chew on but in the 10 years that it's going to take that's just an estimate obviously a number I'm throwing out of my ass but in the 10 years it's going to take to get lab grown meat for health reasons mostly for health reasons obviously there's the greedy reason of it taste good which would be a bit dumb for me to argue People do, you'd be surprised that's one of the number one things I get they taste good this is just some practical help you probably have the utilities to be able to look this up but if you're interested I don't think it's justified to do what we do I will certainly read some of your thought ideas I will think about them critically I always like listening to different paradigms you have a security detail behind you do you want to debate him it was great talking with you you really made me think today I never in America, I live in Seattle I never get intellectual conversation never never never it's impossible to find it I'm getting up if you want to talk with him yeah I guess I won't hug it was a pleasure to talk with you I won't hug you anymore I'll let someone else have that joy