Earthling Ed, We Need to Talk 

Humane Hancock monkeys and gorillas and elephants and sloths and many others, they are happy 😃, most of the time ? You living in London, packed with people 😡🤪🙁🙂.... 10 years in England, I hate it !!! South America I love it, Surinam 🇸🇷, Panama 🇵🇦... Best country !!! Of the animals are happy (= . That’s not fair in London. Travel around 🌳🦜🐒🐘🦏🦍🦒🐵🐡🐿🦝..... 👈I have I have many times

Humane Hancock I like your approach, i’m vegan, 5 he is vegan. But this is not right. London is absolutely the worst thing. The animals are happy, most of the time.

Humane Hancock happy gorilla ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_X57lHbQP6k.html please it’s 5 minutes !!! 👍😃

I find your argument to address individual suffering interesting as an antinatalist vegan. Pragmatically though I see no way that humans can intervene in nature to anything like the degree necessary. I think the focus should be on what we can change...the meat, egg and dairy industries. I feel as humans we can’t play god with nature, it is way bigger than we are.

Caring for individuals has lead us to be extensively overpopulated species on the planet, as a result we are just destroying the whole planet.... Therefore it's not just practical to care about individual suffering of trillions of wild animals, therefore the ways nature operates and balances the ecosystem is more important than individual suffering in the wild... We must care about individual suffering of our own species and the ones we domesticated and eventually because we care about individual suffering of those in our civilized vegan world. . Domestic animals wouldn't exist anymore maybe in few centuries because of sterilization as we wouldn't need to breed them into existence... Now for the wild ones, we must focus on protecting their habitats and rewilding, instead of their individual suffering.... Because suffering makes their genetics stronger, since they're free in the wild.

Until we deal with what we humans cause, what we create is our first responsibility.

Ro Ku agreed. Which is why I think this whole topic is very interesting but irrelevant.

A gorilla suffering from starvation or illness doesn't care about our "responsibility". If we can help, and we can justify our action, we have a good reason to act. That's enough to act. Hiding behind responsibility won't do anyone any good.

The way I see it, not only what we cause, but also what we can prevent, is to some degree our responsibility. So if you for example walk by a child that is drowning, but don't bother to save it, I see that as having acted morally irresponsibly (though if you drowned the child yourself, that would have made you even more responsible). That being said, I think we're forgetting about what's more important if our focus is simply "what can we be blamed for?" instead of "what matters for having the world be a good place to live (for all beings)?". The young animal that is eaten alive doesn't care if its suffering is caused by a human or a hyena - it just wants the suffering to stop.

Tor Barstad the incorrect assumption here that suffering should not happen at all and this would create the best world for everyone involved animals and humans. Who are we to say that suffering should not exist? We do our best to eliminate it where we can , but not all suffering is unavoidable. The reason Humane keeps going on and on about this completely ridiculous topic is because he seems to hold belief that suffering should not exist at all in animals not humans and this is the basic error the arguments are being constructed upon. Truth is suffering is a part of life and nature and our only responsibility is to eliminate avoidable and unnecessary suffering. We cannot do this if we start with the premise that all suffering is unnecessary. It’s easy to argue with extremes of children drowning that we ignore but a more realistic scenario would be - should we not let teenagers date because they may get their heart broken and will suffer greatly- the moral thing to do is to not allow relationships as this is the only way that suffering can be eliminated. If we allow children to ride bicycles or use roller skates chances are they will at some point fall over and hurt them selves and suffer. Should we ban children from doing these things? The assumption that animals want us to end all of the natural suffering in the world is a false one . Suffering is an evolutionary mechanism which has allowed species to become vigilante and stronger by knowing what pain is and how to avoid it. It is part of how life works. Factory farm and animal agriculture is not part of this natural order so we are duty bound to stop it. But we are not duty bound to stop all natural suffering in animals or humans as experiencing suffering is an unavoidable and necessary part of life. Jumping to extreme to say allowing any suffering is the same as permitting all suffering is where the confusion is occurring in this conversation. No, we avoid and stop pointless and unnecessary suffering like animal agriculture and do our best to manage unavoidable suffering like heartache and bereavement. Or if we take this argument to it’s logical conclusion we should really avoid all relationships with one another as we will suffer at some point either if the other person leaves or dies or gets hurt etc. I really don’t think it’s cool the way Humane is misusing traditional vegan defence arguments to try and win this point. It’s been disproven over and over.

Very well put.

Excellent points about what happens to the predator animals, turning nature into a sanctuary and all the old animals. Interfering with nature will destroy it.

It's not arrogant to try to control nature. Nature is not our friend, nor our enemy, and we can and do go against it when it benefits us (coronavirus vaccine, contraception, etc.). Why not with other animals too, if there is some way we can help?

@@sergior. What u gonna do? Round up all the true carnivore predators and say now you get nothing to eat? trillions upon trillions of herbivores breeding willy nilly, you can't get round them all to give them contraceptives. ( neither will you be able to find or catch many many of them) I picture you running after a hippo to give it a pill !! There will be chaos and in the end wild life will be wiped out. Nature has a complicated balance and does a great job if humans can be stopped over breeding and pinching their habitats.

I agree with your points here, but I'd disagree that it's even an appeal to nature; it's allowing autonomy to animals and respecting their right to consent. Forcing our views onto animals, no matter how well intentioned we think they are, is immoral. By forcing our view of "civilization" onto them, we're doing no better than the white Europeans who forced "civilization" onto the people of Africa through colonialism. The only possible way to implement this would be mass domestication and elimination of predators. This is a very dangerous path to be on.

@Will Wilberforce sure and he does that in many videos, but in this one he's addressing joe rogan himself, md he is using his own points against them. Since joe rogans argument is that he does it for the environment and ecosystem its a good thing that Ed destroys those arguments

@Will Wilberforce yeah but not everyone cares about the ethical side of things. If you speak about every positive thing veganism has to offer you will be appealing towards many more people, ultimately helping more animals.

@@SkitzLewiss Yes, multiple angles can always be approached, with emphasis on the foundation, which can always be falled on. Evey sub-category is pointing to the ideal.

Because everything he says is the truth, say something to His face and he Will find multiple answers to all your questions, i have never seen him lose in talking, sorry for My English

@@TheJimmyswe150 your english is good man dont worry!

I agree. I notice that a lot of his ponits are structured around the individual's own perspective and beliefs

@@sanjayw9878 I agree also. This is not Ed's only perspective. Ed is reflecting Joe's own comments and centers on the interference of man to natural order. Although small in Joe's case it's still valid and a symptom of a larger notion that man should survive outside the famed circle of life. Of course animals die in nature, but a cow's entire synthetic man-made existence in isolation, pain and death does not equate to a happy, grazing cow possibly getting torn apart by wolves. I believe isolating this one aspect -the cruelty of nature- only serves to convolute the the message that we shouldn't be slaughtering animals in the first place.

Ed's points on "trophy hunting" are dead wrong. First off, for an animal to reach trophy status it must remain in the population a number of years meaning ample opportunity to spread their genes. This means protecting them while they are young. Second, "trophy hunters" are a tiny minority of hunters. Most hunters are happy to take the first legal animal that comes along.

no he doesn't strawman ed at all. HE DID ADVOCATED FOR REWILDING LAND WITH SENTIENT SPECIES, which is good just on the plants aspect and corrupt on sentients aspect (breeding them condemning sentient organism as wolves and deers rabbits etc into dogfightings and starvation and USELESS certain death), so this guy critiqued-judged justifiably that aspect separately.

"he's rebutting pro-hunting arguments" => Wolfes are hunters. They just aren't human. So Ed is pro-hunting, he just doesn't want it to be done by humans. And a thought experiment for you: if humans hunters were able to kill the same number of elks than wolf hunters, would that be a satisfactory solution ?

@@F4ucon the problem then, is the moral dilemma. The wolf is an obligate carnivore and the human is not. One needs it for survival, the other does not. Sure let's say we kill off wolves and kill the same amount of elk they do. From a numbers perspective you are killing the wolf and the elk, which equals more death. If we follow morality, we simply take only what we NEED from the ecosystem (this includes plants too).

@broccoli is it not speciest to only look after the well-being of prey animals and not those of the predator?

@@so27109 one predator must kill quite a few prey animals over it's life. thousands even. Either a predator is worth 1,000's of times more than other animals (and if so, under what basis??) or their both equal (non speciest) and predators aren't worth the cost.)

@@so27109 There are more prey animals suffering than predators throughout the life of the predator. It is only rational to give attention to the well-being of the prey animals than to the predators. A predator will ensure an absolutely horrific fate for dozens or more of their preys. Also, the pleasure the predator will get by devouring an animal alive has less value than the suffering the prey animal will have while being devoured alive. Ergo, there is nothing wrong with prioritising and optimising our suffering-reduction strategies in favour of preys instead of predators.

Couldn’t disagree more

There is actually proof that reintroduced predators help the ecosystem.

@@ASMRyouVEGANyet who said otherwise?

My thoughts exactly!

@@ASMRyouVEGANyet did you watch the video ?

youtube recommends him to me every now and then, I always thought he was a big youtuber. Now i took a look, 12.000?? no way

@@gudarstorst169 I keep mistaking it for 120k and I have to do a double take lol

That is almost always the case with RU-vid...the viewers generally don't subscribe to the good content 😅😅

how the heck is it so low!!!? that's crazy

Unfortunately, the most followed vegan RU-vid channels are often the smoothie bowl photographers who have no animal liberation content! Animal rights RU-vid channels in general are criminally undersubbed.

@Fiona's Quirky Circus I was 100% with you until the last 2 lines. My motto is: When faced with multiple options, try to choose the least shitty option. Just bc something feels impossible, I don't think we should then just not try. We should try to reduce suffering where we can. I would caution you on your bit of a slippery slope viewpoint here as it can be a fallacy. In animal rescue, we have a saying... "You can't save all animals, but I can save this one.". You don't have to save them all or eliminate all suffering to leave the world in a slightly better place than when you lived here. We can all do better. Humans need to encourage each other to be better and do more than just nothing especially in the face of suffering

@Fiona's Quirky Circus I don't know. But that's why talking about it is important.

@Fiona's Quirky Circus are you up for a chat on Discord? Maybe a better place for a discussion like this than the comment section of RU-vid

@Fiona's Quirky Circus we can, it's called efilism

@Fiona's Quirky Circus my life is fine, this has nothing to do with efilism, are you a vegan who cares about suffering because of bad life? and deserving so why? Talking about immature responses

I don’t believe he advocated for no control of deer populations, but instead other methods to control overpopulation such as contraception. In regards to your last point, I do agree that it can be arrogant for us as humans to think we know it’s best for an animal population, that’s why I think it’s good to question things such as bringing in new predators back into an ecosystem where they were no longer present. This video has definitely taken me by surprise as a vegan and has brought up new perspectives that I have not looked into before, but I don’t think that his arguments were inherently wrong in terms of challenging the way we view animal lives that are not historically farmed.

​@@ellensirca9915 Nature is brutal but it is also "clever" when left to its own devices (I mean as much as humans acting like they live in a bubble, believing they are the centre of the universe, as this no longer serves them, relating to outcomes in nature, i.e. the state of disconnection). Much more "intelligent" than anyone here. that intelligence is also key to reducing overall suffering. Eliminating suffering completely is a ridiculous notion apart from following through by killing everything, which goes against veganism and is thankfully generally not shared as a desired action!

Yeah, his arguments seem a little naive. Let the natural ecosystem exist as naturally as possible, as is already happening in any still wild place. We don't need to add to that by systematically breeding them and genetically modifying them for an early death. Our animals aren't eaten alive, but they're killed alive (sounds like an oxymoron, but it's true).

is it good (correct like 2+2=4) or it's bad (corruption, wrong answer like 2+2= absolute preferences only) ,, that dinosaurs don't exist on earth to CONTINUOUSLY rip eachother or starve in a battle of survival. at least corect species like elephants have some comfort or correct behaviours relative to their environment, while behaviors of piranhas (inferno species) corrupt species would be dead end for themselves and environment (to be easier as calculation, daybreakers and bloodcoffe would be a good theoretical example) and monstrosities by selection.

Well said. As long as there is life, there will be suffering. When there is no life, no one is suffering, and no one is screaming "please bring me into existence so that I can suffer, bring another being into existence and then die a horrible death and be gone forever."

There are several proposals. David Pearce's The Hedonistic Imperative is one: www.hedweb.com Suffering exists because it has increased the reproductive success of the organisms capable of creating a mind simulation of the world (sentient beings). But it need not be. Whatever role suffering plays could be replaced by something else. Also, we already have examples of humans who feel no pain or anxiety due to specific genetic mutations. See the case of Jo Cameron: www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-47719718 There are many other such cases, with mutations in other genes, such as the SCN9A gene. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/family-feels-almost-no-pain-180971915/

@@LiberacionIgualdad big up David Pearce!

This is the exact issue with Marxist-ish arguments dealing with human societies, and the thing that people like Jordan Peterson keep talking about to deaf ears. Heirarchies are BUILT into societies. It's not some invention of the patriarchy or the bourgeois, although they can take advantage of heiarchies by building their own. Taken to it's logical extreme, Marxist-ish thought would lead to the conclusion that either humanity or the human condition would need to fundamentally change - so much so that what would exist would cease to be human anymore, or that humanity should be eradicated. The same applies when talking about any sentient life. As long as humans are human - you will have heirarchies and you will have suffering. The way to mitigate this is to diversify the heirarchies so that individuals with different abilities and aptitudes, who may be at the bottom of one hierarchy, can rise to the top of another.

This is why I always think animal activist movement is wrong in many ways... of course humans should try to cause the less suffer possible to animals but there's always going to be some because even the fact of not intervening at all in animal's life is going to cause them suffering

no it doesn’t

Sure, let the crazy lunatic who goes by the name of nature run amok lunatic

What a stupid comment

@@boysteacher3818 Very convincing argument - you definitely seem like someone who knows what they're talking about!

@@jdb5961 Thanks! I do this often to users who posts stupid comments that isn't worth anyone's time debating/discussing.

You are assuming the outcome you want, not what Humane Hancock or other viewers might want. Hence why it seems useless to you.

The sheer number vertebrates in the wild will easily tell you the amount of suffering eclipses the suffering in factory farming. It's still early stages in terms of practical solutions to this issue, the only take away is that IF there is something we can do that results in positive outcomes for the individuals in the wild then we should do it. Also reintroducing predators is definitely counter intuitive to reducing suffering.

smurfpiss If you didn’t have natural predators they might die of starvation which may be even more painful. And the numbers of animals in the wild suffering is obviously higher because there is more area with nature than with farms. And I agree that we should do something if we could, but I don’t really see what that could be other than going out and killing wild animals.

Hancock got half way to Efilism and then said: " Hang on a moment , why don't we just give all the animals all the medical care and luxurious available to us and alleviate their suffering as far as is practicable ?! " And thus Ultra Welfarism was born .

Hancock indeed advocates eliminating all life - see his discussion with cosmic skeptic

Iain Lobb so he is basically criticizing Ed for wanting to do the best with the situation we’re in. I think I agree that “pushing the big red button” might be the most ethical thing to do, and Ed mostly agrees with this (listen cosmic sceptic’s podcast with him). But that is just not realistic.

I totally agree.

No, you obviously don't want that. That's why you want to immediately shut down even the slightest attempt to reduce the suffering of others.

Yes, I agree. Vegan's should focus their energy on convincing others to stop using animals for their use. Until factory farms are eliminated, innocent animals will continue to be tortured and murdered. Elimiinating things like canned hunting should also be the focus . So much suffering caused by humans in our world.. It's exhausting.

"We should just let nature be free to do its thing because it has for millions of years"? Humans have eaten meat for a 100 000 years though. When something has lasted for millions of years, as opposed to "just" 100 000, it's no longer a problem?

You were making a good point until the very end when you were making an appeal to tradition fallacy

It’s definitely an interesting approach, I feel almost like the speaker is Vegan 2.0 in terms that he not only wants to reduce all animal suffering caused by humans but also animal suffering caused by nature and other animals. I can see how maybe years down the line and in a vegan world we will be able to all be vegan 2.0s but right now it does seem quite philosophical

Right?

Omg yeah

They’re both clam, collected people who want to help animals.

Even same accent inflection. Close your eyes no difference lol

THIS!!! Very well said

I legit was about to comment “Well said” but 2 other people beat me to it. U should be proud of ur self man lol.

I disagree. Earthling Ed has been promoting re-wilding and the reintroduction of predators for quite a while now and I think he genuinely believes that conservation is a good thing by itself, regardless of how much or little suffering animals naturally endure. I think this is a mistaken idea, especially for animal advocates who reject speciesism: we would not, under any circumstance, make these kind of arguments when confronted with the suffering that other humans may 'naturally' be experiencing, be it by predation, illness, injuries, environmental disasters, etc. I think that the main barrier for people to take the suffering of wild animals seriously is this sort of conservationist and 'nature-loving' assumption that permeates societies, nature documentaries and most people's beliefs. I believe that we *have* to call it into question if we are ever to make progress for free-living animals.

@@LiberacionIgualdad Yeah I dont disagree with you, I just think we need to pick our battles. The overwhelming majoirty of people just dont see wild animal suffering as bad - they may not like the idea but they think its in some way balanced (and therefore, for some reason - good). I just think that factory farming which is so much easier to connect to human responsibility, simply has to be the first and major battleground. I know the numbers might not add up - there is presumably far more wild animal suffering - but the fact that factory farming is man-made and so clearly cruel surely means that it logically has to be the first domino to fall? My point mainly being that I hadnt considered wild animal suffering as in any way bad at all before turning vegan, it was only after I accepted the evil of factory farming that these extra points became clear - I dont think I'm alone in this and just think its important to keep that pathway open for people. Like I say, theres clearly room for both, though if what you say about Ed explicitly advocating for this is true (Im not sure it is - I suspect he just mentions it off hand in certain situations where its a perceived lesser evil) thats dissapointing.

​@@jay13thstep I think you raise some fair points. It's plausible to think that if we are not willing to stop torturing and slaughtering animals then we will not take animal suffering in general seriously. I think it's also the case that humans tend to see ethics as a social signal or a personal matter rather than as an impartial way to deal with morally relevant issues - that's why we prioritize those issues we are or may deem to be responsible for instead of others, even if objectively the latter are much more urgent. But I think it's also plausible that *because* we fixate on issues we are responsible for, we may be *more opposed* to admit that we are in the wrong, say, about animal farming than about the idea that we should help animals living in the wild. Evidence for this view can be that most people working at 'wildlife' rehab and care centers are not vegan or even vegetarian. Also, cases such as the bush-fires in Australia, where a lot of people donated and volunteered to help animal victims of the fires. Why aren't they donating to farm-animal charities? Probably, at least in part, because they are responsible for the horrendous suffering these animals endure (which may also help to explain why we are more concerned about forms of cruelty that *other people do* - such as whale and dolphin hunters or cat and dog 'meat' traders and consumers - than about equally unethical actions we are responsible for). Now, obviously, caring about (some) wild animals doesn't necessarily translate into caring about farmed animals. But neither does the opposite. Just look at the other comments on this video. Many vegan and animal-advocates are actively opposed to helping wild animals. I think the conservationist/environmentalist narratives are a big reason why. The fact that prominent animal advocates such as Ed promote these ideas too, can only be negative in my view. A lot of vegan advocates will now be calling for rewilding and reintroducing predators due to his influence. Is this truly necessary to advance the plight of farmed animals? I think not. Say someone says that hunting is necessary as certain animal populations "must be" controlled. Well, why not say, instead of "let's bring some wolves to do the killing for us", that there are non-lethal population control methods that we could and should be using; that *if* that was truly what drives hunters, then why aren't they volunteering to work on the implementation of such methods? Why aren't they shooting contraceptive-laden darts instead of bullets and arrows? A similar thing can be said regarding the argument that animals would have even worse deaths than what they experience at the hands of hunters. Instead of saying "well, it's only natural for them to suffer and die in nature, that's how a healthy ecosystem works, therefore it's good", why not admit that this is terrible but we don't have any good ways to deal with that problem just yet - although we might in the future - but that if hunters really cared about that, why aren't they euthanizing animals? Why, again, don't they shoot old and suffering animals with sedatives and then perform a painless euthanasia? Well, obviously because that's not what they really care about nor the reason why they hunt. Just to clarify, I don't think that advocating for farmed animals is a bad thing or that we should stop. I think we can advocate for all animals, promote the reduction of suffering and anti-speciesist ideas *consistently*. And even if one chooses to focus on one area, one can do so without disregarding or making other areas worse-off. I recommend you to read this article about biases that might play a role in why we don't prioritize wild animal suffering: magnusvinding.com/2020/07/02/ten-biases-against-prioritizing-wild-animal-suffering/

That’s why I’m wondering what the alternative scenario would be. What I mean is, what is the alternative to wild animals killing each other in this argument.

All we're saying is that if there is something we can do that results in positive outcomes for the individuals in the wild then we should do it. The nuts and bolts of how is not yet researched or worked on enough but it's something we should be working towards as the scale of suffering is immense. Ed muddied the waters of the vegan message by mentioning environmentalist ideals like reintroducing natural predators, that is simply counter intuitive to reducing suffering.

Yeah humans should just let nature do its thing because its bigger than all of us, we should stop trying to control it and interfere with its natural processes.

He not opposing Ed's position on hunting. He's opposing Ed's concept of natural ecosystems being optimal and using logical fallacies to support his statements. I think you missed Hancock's point.

Yep I can't believe this is an actual serious take and people are agreeing

I hope it doesn't become mainstream for sure!

Well said . We can't have one without the other . Environmentalism is inherent in veganism

caring about the ecosystem is causing harm to the individuals , like introducing predators to reduce the population size

but if instinct is causing suffer then it should stop , having a free will does not justify the hell they are living in the wild

I don’t know what to say other than no

Simply disagree. There is nothing free about a perpetual evolutionary suffering and death cycle.

You give a deer the choice between your romantic notion of "freedom", and not getting ripped to shreds by a wolf, and then you tell me they're "freedom loving" creatures who should be left alone.

@@MrAwawe And when we remove all prey for the wolf, then what? Human morality does not belong in healthy balanced ecosystems. Whatever we touch and try to "improve" we usually destroy.

@@erictorbet8104 I don't know; it's a complex issue, but saying animals want to freeze to death, starve, or be torn to shreds and eaten because you can't come up with a solution is just lazy. Why do you get to use your human morality to say that a system full of death and suffering is a "healthy balanced ecosystem"? That's a value judgement you're making. You've decided to make yourself the arbiter on what is "healthy", purely out of some aesthetic infatuation with the natural world. I want you to ask yourself "do I want to be part of a "healthy balanced ecosystem?". Do you want to be running around the savannah, gnawing on the bones left behind from a lion kill after the lion and the hyenas are done with them? Chasing gasseles, and chewing on barely edible roots? Surely not; you want to live in a society which was designed with your well being in mind; a system which values not merely the propagation of genes, but the interests of you as a sentient being. If you were to go back 250 thousand years ago, when we lived in the same abject misery that all wild animals do today, a society like ours would be just as unthinkable, and as unnatural, as caring for the wellbeing of wild animals is to us, but they had to start somewhere, and so do we.

@@MrAwawe I trust the scientists on this matter, not the philosophers. They all extol the benefit to ALL species of a balanced ecosystem. This includes predators, which serve to cull the weak and diseased. Do you think the wolves are eating the prime specimens? It's only deluded humans who select the best meat specimens, because we think we're omnivores, when we're actually herbivores. Herbivores are hardwired to select the choicest specimens. Remove humans from the world and the world will THRIVE.

He cares about some animals like deer, but doesnt really care anything about the carnivores. He wants a world without suffering but I feel like that is just a dream that will never come true.

@@Freakyjohnsson1 never did he say he doesn’t care about carnivores, stop putting words in his mouth and try to think more critically for a change

@Tom ultimately, when and where we can, why not.

@@TeChNoWC7 Well he only talked about what to do about the herbivore animals. Also what he was is an unreaslitic uptopia that does not even work ecologically.

How? And, also if it results in more suffering bottom line?

@@Gwendolan I think an interesting point is that artificial ecosystems are inherently unstable and prone to failure, leading to it's complete demise.

@broccoli I would save my pets and humans, if I know the person well enough then I would, if he or she is a random person then I might, but depending the situation and danger you put yourself in to save an animal or human could be life threatening.

@broccoli I wouldn't kill the predator and more likely try to scare it off, but it depends on which predator we.are referring to, bears for that matter means you should stand your ground and make yourself big as possible.

@broccoli and I have to ask, are you vegan? Your pfp pic makes it look like you are but I have seen people with pictures of foods like celery in stuff like that and they say save the plants! Just curious.

Well written, I totally agree with your points

dude ,, the extreme irony of you acusing falsely of arrogant worldview. appealing to nature fallacy. the cops or armies should let violators and serial killer and gangs of corruptions and traffickers etc do their natural selection !? considering that intervention alterations by hunting BY HUMANS already happens and altered beyond of nonreturn, wouldn't that mean OR RESULTS that it's better to intervene CORRECTLY with spaying neutering or tracking etc (similar as endangered species assist programs that already happen) !? just don't mix together false excuses of colonialists invaders with real moral authentic inter-civilisations contacts explorers (or explorers used as tools and pitbulls of invaders without their decision ). even then why it's not always wrong to invade a group of "nazis" or cannibalistic tribes creating and breeding forcefully concentrations camps for efficiency of cannibalism as "food". dependency on corpses is CLEARLY A FALSE EXCUSE AND NONARGUMENT. for example cats in australia managed to clear into extinction few birds SPECIES. they shouldn't intervene (doesn't matter if it's a problem of humans or not, considering that human intervention alterations happend NATURALLY similar as lion alterations and cat alterations on native species). nature is a NONARGUMENT. skyscrapers are natural exactly as ants skyscrapers. we should ask ourselves why we shouldn't keep and defend vampiric species like piranhas and predators and serial killers violators from any species etc on this earth ecosystem or any space station system only on the false excuse of meat corpses dependency (like atrocitie of piranhas and ticks). why don't you go and be their food if you support and like them so much !? or your childrens and parents !? aaaa it's just and only if it's "other" victims huh !? not mentioning the timeline aspect or the deadend of atrocious species breeding inferno exploiting "other" species similar as ticks and violators serial killers natural slavery etc. just be careful what timeline or strategy or behaviours etc do you support bc it might be your place there as a result or consequence.

No, he’s not. You’re missing Hancock’s point.

Ed supports killing Babies.... vegetable are Poison. Ed sells books and propaganda. If Ed cared about animals, he wouldn’t advocate on destroying their land,destroying water with chemicals,mass globalization of pollution.

"Make them all go extinct?" If that were actually possible - explain the problem when doing so * * Your answer isn't allowed to draw upon some kind of mythical prime directive.

Dammit Thanos, I reject your version of compassion XD

@@JB.zero.zero.1 for the same reason its not acceptable to make jews/ the the humans of africa go extinct id imagine: theres violation of the self ownership of others. thats my answer, what do you think?

@@tigerlilly3727 What happened to Jews during WWII is not comparable. Holocaust aimed at killing of already living people. On the other hand, extinction of a species means that no new individuals of given species come into existence. And species don't have any "self", let alone self-ownership. Only individuals/subjects can have this capacity.

@@WackyConundrum lets not get into to the holocaust thing, its too pedantic, and its been discussed to death by hancock already - it never seems to yield anything productive becsuse people just dont agree on the definition of the word holocaust. what i said applies to any other human group too. my point with self ownership: by ending species by killing or sterilization you are violating their right to self ownership of individuals, because its them you are tampering with. you dont sterilize a species, you sterilize a series of individuals. they dont wanna be sterilized. so you have to force them. hence its an act of aggression. an act of aggression that is moral in coercive central planning/ authoritarian collectivism, but not liberty. imagine if we replaced animals with handicapped people. sterilize them, or destroy them in our endless benevolence, because we dont think their lives have meaning/arent worth living?

Appealing to evolution, it is only bad if the carnists do it.

@@guystryche 'appealing to' is such a buzz word. Using evolution as an argument is not inherently bad if the logic holds up.

"Would this benefit the species ?" Should we care about conceptual abstractions such as a "species" or should we care about the mental experiences of individual sentient animals?

Samuel Álvarez so if by intervening in wild animal suffering future “individual sentient beings” are made worse off then should we care about this ? Should we ignore the potential knock on effects of our actions because it makes us feel good to believe we have benefited and individual animal even though we have disadvantaged all other future individuals ?

@@Jdman5000 Yes to the first question, no to the second. Of course we should care about the repercusions of our actions but in regards to the experiences of animals, not regarding conceptual abstractions such as the good of species, populations or ecosystems. If our actions make wild animals suffer more, then we failed. This is a reason to be mindful and careful when pondering how we'll participate in these processes, not a reason to do nothing; which is, in any case, a false alternative because we are already transforming the world in countless ways, with the important difference that we are doing it not for the betterment of all sentience and trying to reduce suffering, but totally indifferent if not actively trying to harm other sentient beings. And no, we shouldn't be considering this issue from the perspective of what makes us feel good, but from the perspective of how can we best alleviate/prevent/reduce instances of intense involuntary suffering as much as possible. It may very well be that it isn't at all possible, or that it can only be done partially. But to know that we have to do our research first, not stop before even starting. I recommend following the work by Wild Animal Initiative: www.wildanimalinitiative.org/ Also of Animal Ethics, linked in the original video. The how we can help animals living in the wild and whether it is feasible to do so is a different question from whether we should care about them at all. The point here is to argue in favor of the case that we should actually care about them. Are you against the latter or are mainly expressing preliminary concerns? Because the people working on this topic have obviously considered these things. They are not dumb or ignorant.

Would you consider freedom a more important factor for someone than the wellbeing of that individual? In other words: would you prefer a free life, full of suffering over a life of captivity and comfort? The way I see it, not only is it our moral obligation to stop suffering that we cause but also to prevent suffering that is in our ability to prevent. For example, I would call someone who sees another person drowning, possessing the full ability to help the individual in the water, with the minor inconvenience of getting their clothes wet and chooses not to act, morally reprehensible. I carry this same distinction for anyone, including vegans, who have the full ability to reduce the suffering of animals, and choose not to. And finally, would you be pleased to hear someone justifying the hyena's action of ripping YOU to shreds, fully conscious, with "symbiosis though"? After all, the hyena possesses no moral agency and can do whatever it wants, right?

@@WhollyWill The moral obligation to help someone from drowning does not translate to helping a prey animal from being eaten by a predator. When you help someone from drowning, the water is not affected, as it is not sentient. There is only one victim who is spared suffering, the one who would drown. If you were to prevent a predator from eating prey, you would be negatively affecting the predator; actively harming them in fact, as starvation is suffering. It takes a lot of calories and strength for a predator to chase and kill prey. They often go days or weeks without a meal because of this. Prey animals, however typically eat vegetation and can graze constantly. If you help one, you are hurting the other. We are not advanced technologically or infrastructurally enough to keep animals from harming each other and to feed them synthetically, so none will starve. Therefore there are two options: kill all animals so that there are none left to suffer, or: to abstain from interfering with nature all together, and focus on human morality rather than animal morality.

It absolutely does translate. Throw the predator a corpse that died of natural causes, some lab grown meat, or even plant-based meat. All else is the same just with an extra step of ensuring the water is satiated. Helping one is not automatically harming the other if you're solution is slightly more creative than just removing the prey from the predatory situation. Just because you yourself see only two options doesn't necessarily mean there are only two options. I don't know where you've pulled "animal morality" from in the first place because neither HH nor I have mentioned it, please explain? It seems to me that you're confusing animal morality with animal suffering somehow?

@@WhollyWill The choice you presented of "a free life, full of suffering or a life in captivity and comfort?" rests on the assumption that you can fully eliminate suffering, which I don't think is possible. Aging brings about suffering, lack of agency brings about suffering, the death of family and companions brings about suffering. Certainly, there are ways to reduce suffering, but it's not up to humans to decide which suffering animals should and shouldn't be subjected to when it comes to wild animals in nature. Also, the fact is that humans would have differing opinions on the choice you presented, so why are we to assume all animals would value captivity/comfort over freedom/suffering? And I'm not sure what your point is about the hyena. I wouldn't expect anyone to blame a hyena for eating a human, because they are carnivores and eating other animals is what they've done for millions of years. At the end of the day, this is highly unachievable. From HH's numbers we are drastically outnumbered by wild animals in nature, not even including sea life. It's not possible to turn the entire natural world into a animal sanctuary, nor should we try. Also, wild animals are not consenting to this. The contraceptives, the altered diets for predators, the confinement and restriction of movement, etc are all infringing on the individual animal's rights. THIS is speciesism (just in the opposite direction), to believe that humans know best and to change the lifestyles for wild animals who have been living a certain way for millions of years. It's the same thinking that drove White Europeans in their colonization of indigenous lands. The idea that WE know best, so WE are going to decide how YOU live.

@@rickysandwich Well, evolutionarily speaking, animals, including humans, have developed a drive to avoid suffering and seek comfort. I think this drive trumps our other drive for freedom over captivity. So I do think animals would choose comfort over freedom given this. Your thoughts? Perhaps logically without any sentimental attachment to the person being mauled by the hyena you wouldn't blame the hyena for the attack, but this is hardly the case for someone who does have an attachment to the individual being mauled. My implied point with the hyena analogy was that it's easy to say "that's the way it is and has been for millenia" or "symbiosis though" when it's not you out there having your life stolen from you. "Infringing on the animal's rights"? Saving them from death is infringing on their rights? So then dying brutally is their right?🤔🤨 Why is "it's the way they've been for millions of years" relevant? Just because it's traditional in the middle East to mutilate the genitals of women, I doubt you'd say it being practiced for a long time is of any relevance to the abhorrence of the practice? Presumably you bring up the point about white colonizers because you sympathize with the indigenous victims of their colonization, NOT the colonizing perpetrators. Yet your using it to DEFEND THE PERPETRATORS of violence rather than the victims of said violence in the case of non-humans. That's some admirable gymnastics right there😅. Regardless of your red-herring that "this mindset is the same as that of white-colonizers", do you believe that we don't know better than non-human animals?

No it's just something we have to keep in mind, there aren't many practical solutions yet but suggesting we should reintroduce predators is simply counter intuitive to veganism.

Yes. I agree. Earthling Ed is dealing with the problem now. Humane Hancock is dealing with the problem in the future. We need to concentrate our minds on now. Ending factory farming. Building a Vegan world. Should that ever happen we could then move on to the future and deal with all the complexities of wild animals. At the moment we need a structured plan. We need a sequence of logical steps and that starts with now.

Indeed, this is an issue we MIGHT be able to deal with far into the future when we aren't as stupid as we are now. It will require some kind of planet wide "Gaia" artificial super intelligence system with nano bots or some other fantastic sci fi tech to watch over every little creature and keep them from harm. Not very realistic in this time and age where most people won't even stop eating animal flesh...

I feel you're either purposely splitting hairs here, or you've taken everything Ed said very literally.

I feel Ed speaks in the way he does to try to reach people with traditional views, etc. He's not speaking literally.

Simple but very powerful observation!

What about doctors who intervene in the human body, in the attempt to fix disease. When people started to do medicine, it might have been possible for people to appear oh-so-wise by saying "fix one thing in the body with medicine/surgery, and you will make something else worse, so there is no point in even trying/researching this". But while this is true of many medical interventions, it's lazy/simplistic to simply assume that therefore it's hopeless to improve health through medical intervention. Similar things could be said about nature. Because yes: nature is complicated. There are intricate cascading effects, and interventions that reduce the suffering of some can often increase the suffering of others. But that doesn't mean that there aren't interventions that can reduce the total amount of suffering.

Tor Barstad please elaborate by way of enlightening us as to the specifics of these non-suffering interventions?

@@motomaggs7164 Humane Hancock, the guy behind this channel, made a video about the topic here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cp1qpzXe2Yw.html. I have my own thoughts, some of which go beyond what he gets into there, but since for each intervention I could write about there are objections/follow-up-questions, I don't feel like it's worth the effort to explain elaborately in a youtube-comment. If I ever write an article about it I'll try to remember to add it here. It's ok if you aren't convinced that anything can be done that on the whole is beneficial to the welfare of wild animals, but I would caution against ruling out the possibility that something can be done (similar to the analogy with medicine).

@@motomaggs7164 He doesn't have to. You have to show that ALL interventions bring no improvement.

Veganism is about us not causing animal harm through exploitation of animals, not about policing the savannah against caracal cats eating birds. That’s why I’m really scratching my head over this one.

@@roku3216 Yep - because most people refuse to tag the life experience as a dire & negative system, without any actual merit.

I prefer to focus on cruelty rather than suffering

@@roku3216 This is essentially: individual liberty &self ownership VS coercive central planning! how interesting :)

@@tigerlilly3727 At the moment I'd just like to know how this would work.

Then the definition simply needs to be updated.

@@maomao180 I value nature very highly . Ultimately ,I even value it over logic . The goal of veganism isn't to do the most logical thing , it's to liberate the animals ,and there's only one place they can be liberated to . We have no right to interfere and the original definition of veganism clearly understands this .

@@isupportthecurrentthing.1514 If you value the meat grinder of nature, then I don't really understand your ethical position at all. It seems like you have wilfully capped your concerns? "You see we have no right to interfere?" That is meaningless - as you live & breath Terry, you interfere with processes.

@Sergio Sure but the meaning of veganism hasn't changed .

@Will Wilberforce The rest of that sentence has far stronger implications and since 'reintegrate' works as a synonym for 'reintroduce ' in this context , i'm more inclined towards my interpretation .

**** nature.natures a meat grinder and only pretty on surface you tree hugging gaia delusion snowflake wake up

**** balance.i don't accept evil

You know, before you try to insult someone make sure you're smarter than them first, or at least have the decency to fake it with correct grammar and spelling 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I don't see it as pure cruelty. I see it as balancing the field. Predators require hunting. Predators are part of nature. Should we exterminate all predators because they cause "pure cruelty"? If you advantage one species over another because of suffering, aren't you being speciesist?

@@Kami-oj6om Because you're not the one being eaten alive. Why would I care that predators are part of nature ? I don't idealize nature. Yes I think that in an ideal world, we should kill all predators. Would you re-introduce predators to balance a population of human beings ?

@@veganworldorder9394 Yes our ancestors made sure of that for you and me. Why would you care? I guess I thought vegans were compassionate for all animals. Maybe I'm assuming wrong. In your ideal world, you're the Hitler of animals? Is that where your name comes from? Irrelevant as we're already way past predators. But I would say no, because I care about my species, just like all predators care about their own.

what is the solution to the brutality in nature? Any evidence to show that it will work. Thx.

Because then their prey will likely just starve.

@@GS-lq2is Please check out Avi's discussions for killing predators on the AY Discord Archive on RU-vid as it would take me too long to type it down and explain/defend here. Don't mean to dodge but the discussions are worth a listen and it's kind of funny to see how everybody gives up at the end against Avi :) A very similar argument to the "prey would starve" argument comes up a few times too there!

Sounds like Avi's come up with another crazy argument . I'll have to check that out . His organic is carnist argument took five minutes to debunk . If they weren't so rude and unreasonable , I might go on that server and debate them .

@@isupportthecurrentthing.1514 they have never been rude to me and I haven't seen them being rude to people who didn't deserve it.

@@isupportthecurrentthing.1514 also how did you debunk his argument that organic is not vegan?

I think just asking those questions is good. I would imagine we take it slow and steady. It's hard to predict unintended consequences - good and bad. But if we agree on a goal - say, less suffering but not at the expense of other morally desirable aspects of lives - at least that gives us a framework. Whether you can get many people to do more than the minimum .... that's another question. But, if we don't destroy the planet, I'm guardedly optimistic on innovative solutions over time.

Predators are needed in yellowstone. Or flora and fauna fall out of balance and everything dies.

But abolishing animal agriculture is far from enough, because suffering in nature is bad. The goal posts are wider than you think; you should not move the goal posts such that the goal becomes narrower.

@@thatisSpiffy I don't think animals care about what should come first. Of course farm animals could want us first to go vegan, but wild animals could want us to first care about wild animal suffering. A wild animal welfare advocate who is not vegan, is like a vegan who does not care about wild animals. Concerning Tomasik: he is non-vegan at those points where strict veganism is more difficult to defend (in the sense of ethically more complicated).

Its interaction with algorithm.you help either way:)

And no. Meat industry is nothing compared to suffering in the wild.

@@justanotherutuber3 lol so toxic. If actually read my comment. I said NOTHING about, nor did I compare, the degree of suffering on the wild to suffering in nature. I just said that we cause suffering in the meat industry so we should solve suffering in the meat industry. We did not cause suffering in the wild so it's lower on the tier of, things that are our fault and also things that are actually possible. I bet you think I'm a meat eater. Well I'm not. Vegan 1 year. Stop trying to fabricate arguments, and maybe consider YOUR words before you type them out.

It should be on ending human cruelty to animals before we start trying to change animal on animal predation.

Ro Ku We can approach both problems at the same time. I agree that getting humanity to acknowledge human on animal exploitation as wrong is integral to us being able to wrap our heads around wild animal suffering when humans aren’t affecting it though.

@Sergio Which is a thing I already do, (all those repaired birds and rescued baby skunks can tell you stories of my ruined shirts and scratched hands). I've encountered too many environmentalists who eat animal products and want to convince themselves and others that "grass-fed" fixes everything (when we know it actually makes it worse). A healthy environment is essential to animal well-being- I just want to know how far anyone thinks is practical to take it.

Trying to reduce wild animal suffering is absurd and will only lead to more environmental damage. Humane Hancock seems to view predation as an unfortunate aspect of nature, when in fact it is a key ecological process that has existed since the beginning of life on this planet. You can't just get rid of it. He's trying to universalise human morality and apply it to nature, it's so misguided that I'm surprised any vegans are giving this a second of thought

You are deluuuuuuded.. if you think main problem is factory animals.

Excellently well explained.

They do. 😂 It’s funny how some people are similar to each other.

Most people value nature for what it is and ending suffering has nothing to do with veganism .

@@isupportthecurrentthing.1514 It has everything to do with veganism - it's just that many of you aren't willing to broaden your scope of concerns.

Terry Fandango dunno what point you’re trying to make if you are trying to make one. If veganism is concerned with preventable suffering, then wild animal suffering is a pressing question. As JB said, we have to continually broaden the ethical questions we ask.

@@BingBongWasheeWashee veganism is about ending human exploitation of animals not anything else, read the definition.

is not that nature=good is that what happen in nature have nothing to do with us, you dont have the right to abuse anymals either way you dont have the responsibility of what happens in wild

On the one hand, I appreciate what you are saying. I don't think we want a life where there are no hardships. Even with with my companion animals, I feel they want some challenges (not suffering, but puzzles like having to find their treats). But I think there is a middle ground. if someone falls and is hurting, we don't stand there and say, "Hey, life is suffering." We help. We're part of nature too, and there is lots of helping and cooperation in nature. While we wouldn't want to remove all hardships from individuals' lives, suffering is a terrible state of being, and I think out of compassion and concern, that's why we have EMTs and veterinarians as well as help others who are suffering in a myriad of ways, from being a helpful shoulder to calling 911. That urge to help out of compassion and concern is not some evolutionary flaw.

The Buddha said "life is suffering", but he also said "I teach two things, suffering and it's end". What's a call for compassion and helping for the Buddha is an excuse to be a selfish piece of shit for you.

Sophie Hektor agreed - humans always make things worse with their interference, there are some things humans do not have the ability to control.

Would you rather be given contraceptives if you had a mind that didn't and couldn't ever understand what contraceptives were?, or would you rather be eaten alive?. Those are the options.

​@@elizabethmoore195 I`m not sure that it is that simple of a question. his goal is clearly to reduce suffering. but if you want to determine what is a moral solution that reduces their suffering, you can`t just look to one species or one kind of animal. The question is what would the scenario exactly be for everyone involved? How exactly would you give the animals contraceptives? Which animals would get contraceptives and at what time? what about smaller animals like rabbits which mostly have their predators like foxes roam freely? How would you ensure, that they aren`t eaten alive? or does the mercy of contraceptives only apply to animals which are overpopulating? how would you keep them save?Would you build a fence around the habitat? Ship all the carnivores away? To where? What would they eat? and if you want to really be inclusive and also care about the suffering of insects, you have an impossible task since they eat eachother alive and can be very cruel. So I understand where he is coming from, but his logic aims ultimately to a world that is even more controlled by humans than it is now, with a lot of animals and insects that you would need to seperate from eachother, since they would kill eachother, and monitor everything whilst also providing medical care to all these animals. it is just not a simple question and I don`t think there is a moral way to control population.

Why should consent be regarded so highly? If I had a 6yrs old child who wants to cross the street by himself, I wouldn't let him do it, and it would still be the moral thing to do even without the child's consent. If we clearly know what's better for the animals, then we shouldn't be afraid to provide better wellbeing for them, with or without consent.

B B worded it very well, I couldn't have said it better myself

which arguments in particular?

Exactly! One step at a time... People are never gonna turn vegan if we begin with showing them this video... I know I wouldn't! It's waaay too philosophical

I agree. But it may still be worthy to discuss it "among ourselves." Is there some way we can reduce wild animal suffering without introducing counterproductive side effects? Attainable or not, what would be the ideal? No suffering? A small amount? (These questions apply to humans, too.) Would we be satisfied if fewer animals meant less suffering? I doubt it. But would that be a reflexive response, because we like the idea of birds singing in the trees? Are we underestimating wild animals' capacity for pleasure? A thought experiment: Is it possible that the recently deceased zebra would consider their life a good one, one they would "recommend to a friend," even though they were killed by a lion? What if they died of dehydration? While I agree that the general population (and maybe most vegans) are probably not interested in a makeover of ecosystems, perhaps there are entry points on which we do agree, particularly mitigations to the impact that humans have caused: wildlife crossing bridges (what if those resulted in a net gain of animals being able to get from point A to point B?), wildlife rehabilitation facilities, and so on. Moving from that....is it terrible to put out a pan of water for wildlife during extended droughts? Would we withhold that from animals based on the the theoretical concern that down the road, some other animal will suffer as a result? Anyway, even if we meet people where they are, there may be some entry-level interest in this topic. In fact, people seem to be more sympathetic to wild animals than to domesticated ones (possibly because our culture, and vested interests, spend more time denigrating farmed animals).

I-

@Sergio Agreed

Agree with your comment. If we accept evolution as the mechanism that produced life on earth, then animals are our less intelligent relatives. Presumably most humans would agree, that we should intervene, if mentally retarded people hurt each other. So trying to control what happens in nature is the next logical step. However it is a huge and complex problem to take care of. Do you know the channel Inmendham? Inmendham aka Gary established a philosophy called efilism. Efilism in a nutshell: The reproduction of sentient life should be stopped, because the suffering is outweighing the pleasure immensely. Inmendham curses a lot, freaks out frequently and insults people harshly. However if you accept his psychology and listen to his philosophy, you can see deep logic and intelligence, which however can be disillusioning. Here is a link to the Inmendham channel (currently on a RU-vid strike): m.ru-vid.com And here is a very short summary of the efilism philosophy: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5gNp2eEorIg.html

@@TheBigfoot2013 Thanks - will check it out

sure, suffering reduction does not require veganism however.

@@retwetwwetrwetr3885 you are right, I could say I think morally. It's wrong to unnecessarily cause animal abuse so I won't do it unnecessarily at all, or I abuse them once a week because I enjoy it. Both would be a reduction, one would still give me a personal moral dilemma. Some are fine with that I guess.

unlike *_your_* feeble attempts at defending the anti-vegan economic model of capitalism, Lois

@@taintmueslix You are thinking of our current system that is corporatism and state supported capitalism. Laissez-faire capitalism (I'd consider this true capitalism) would be a brilliant economic system for animal rights. If capitalism is so bad, what do you suggest switching to?

@ TaintedMucus You have thus far not presented a convincing argument against Capitalism. All you've ever done in the many threads you've stalked me on in numerous videos is criticized certain aspects of a certain brand of Capitalism such as that practiced in general by the U.S. and British governments) without ever demonstrating that Capitalism necessarily MUST be practiced in that same way. Therefore, your arguments have always been unconvincing and ergo, failures......IMHO.

Flameholder Laissez-faire capitalism and resource-based economies aren’t mutually exclusive if we are using the same definition of resource-based economy (majority of GDP from natural resources).

Flameholder I thought you may have been using the term in that way, I just used the definition of “resource-based economy”. I personally think that we should have privatized currency so that there is an incentive to slow or prevent inflation. I also think that labour classes are fine as they’re a voluntary hierarchy. I guess it is just a matter of opinion though.