I got roasted in the comments of my TEDx talk

back in early 2019 i gave a tedx talk called every argument against veganism and it did really well and now has over two million views however not everyone was so convinced by what i had to say so i thought in today's video as a celebration of going over two million views i would respond to some of the comments from those people who weren't so convinced now funnily enough i went to the comment section with a sense of trepidation i was expecting a barrage of negative comments and criticism however that is not the case the overwhelming majority of the comments are really kind and are really wonderful and have lots of positive stories contained within them so if you left one of those comments then thank you so much but they were there because of course they were always going to be there hidden amongst the positive stories of people going vegan with those comments from people who are not so convinced ranging from the outraged to the indignant to the just completely bizarre what follows are some of my favorites in that selection but before we get into the comments i want to tell you about ecosia because ecosia is a search engine that plants trees by using the revenue they gain from search ads they create simple ways for people to be climate active every single day and to date they've planted over 150 million trees and have over 20 million active users they've just launched a new content campaign where they are reaffirming their pledge to protect the planet and they will also be sharing statements from content creators and activists to generate a global conversation about what it takes to protect our planet and why this commitment is more important now than ever before they've also asked me to reaffirm my commitment by stating what it means to me to go all in for the planet and simply put going all in for the planet means eating a plant-based diet and advocating the merits and benefits of doing so so that others also do the same so make sure you go check out ecosia and their new campaign and thank you to akosia for inviting me to be a part of it okay so let's get back to the video and just a little disclaimer you will be bewildered so the first comment is it took him so little time to tell us that he is vegan now the reason i included this one is because i need your opinions is this a joke or is it not because on the one hand i can absolutely see this being an incredibly witty comment from a vegan but also on the other hand it would not surprise me at all if this wasn't a witty comment and this was just a straight deadpan comment from a non-vegan which if it is is absolutely amazing isn't it i know it's because we always get criticized for having to tell people that we are vegan but i was actually invited to talk about veganism as part of this tedx event and i can't even get a break in that scenario can i even when you're invited to talk about veganism and they say please come and actually talk to us about veganism you still get accused of having to tell everyone that you're vegan okay so this is the next comment and brace yourself this is honestly it's an absolute peach i love it so much my son is a doctor in general practice who has seen thousands of patients during his career thousands he tells me of certainty that he has never seen a vegan or vegetarian patient over the age of 75. other colleagues of his make the same statement food for fort all of you vegans out there now straight off the bat one of the best things about this comment is how what they're trying to say is that because this person has never seen any vegans or vegetarians over the age of 75 that means that when vegans and vegetarians get to 74 they just drop off dead you know the protein deficiency just kicks in at 74 and they can't make it to 75 because this person has never seen any vegans or vegetarians in their gp practice before isn't that just amazing the idea that we can't live to 75 but even better than that is what they're actually saying doesn't even make sense with the argument they're trying to make think about it this way the conclusion isn't that they're all dying the conclusion should be that they're not getting ill enough to go and see a gp or a doctor the only patients i keep seeing who are complaining of having angina are all meat eaters i guess this means the vegans must already all be dead all the other doctors in the gp are like yeah that's a really good point that's that's so strange when you think about it we spend all day dealing with sick and ill people and they're never vegan how weird is that and even though we should take anecdotal evidence with a grain of salt what would be more concerning was if the comment said my son is a gp and all day every day he only deals with vegans in fact he's dealt with thousands of patients and they're only ever vegan now that would be concerning the fact that your gp son has never had a patient over 75 who is vegan doesn't make me concerned if anything it makes me feel so much better so the next comment is it's called every argument against veganism but what about the argument of not accepting morals of course my bad how did i overlook that i can't believe i didn't include a rebuttal to the argument of what if i'm a sociopath who has an inability to empathize with the suffering and well-being of others how foolish and short-sighted of me now hopefully it should be relatively obvious why we should live with a sense of morals and an understanding of why the subjective experiences and well-being of others is important i mean surely you wouldn't apply that same logic if someone was trying to hurt you what if someone was trying to hurt you and then you said hang on a minute don't do that i don't want you to and they said yeah but what about the argument that i don't accept morals what would we do then imagine a world where this type of logic was actually thoroughly applied whereas consistently and logically applied that's a world about any judicial system a world about any rights or wrongs where anyone could do anything and that's absolutely fine as long as they say that they don't live with any morals now that's a pretty frightening world and a world that not even you yourself would want to live in imagine if this comment was on a video called every argument against abusing children and the same person goes but hang on a minute what about the argument of not accepting morals so the next comment is didn't address the biggest claim humans are superior to other animals and therefore what we do to them is our choice how silly of me however all humans are equal and treating humans improperly is a bigger deal now the problem with this logic and i hear this logic a lot is not only is it incorrect but the logical conclusion is that we can do anything that we want to an animal absolutely anything not just kill them for food but we could rape them we could burn them alive we could stab them and mutilate them like we already do we could do anything we want to animals and that's absolutely fine because we're superior to them and so it's our choice in effect there should be no such thing as an immoral thing to do to an animal we can do anything there should be no laws protecting animals there should be no moral standards protecting animals if you see an animal you can do absolutely anything that you want that animal because you're superior to them and it's your choice but what is it about humans that make them so superior to other animals that we have the right to tyrannize them and cause them harm unnecessarily and beyond that let's stop viewing humans as an abstraction what is it about an individual what is it about this particular individual who's commented this that makes them so special that all of animals in the world deserve to be subjugated and used as this person sees fit it certainly isn't based on any merit or achievement because it's not remarkable to be born into a body that you didn't choose to be born into so simply being a human in and of itself is not a justifiable reason to do whatever you want to other species so often when people make this type of argument it normally comes down to the fact that humans are more intelligent but is that really the way that we create our morals is it okay to do whatever we want to someone else as long as they're less intelligent than we are those aren't the moral standards that we live by and they're saying not the moral standards that we should live by and so even if non-human animals are less cognitively advanced than we are that doesn't mean that we have the right to arbitrarily tyrannize and use them as we please because after all in truth the reason why we as humans have moral consideration and why it's wrong to cause harm to another human is because causing harm to another human causes them harm they have a negative subjective experience as a result of harm being inflicted upon them and they are sentient conscious individuals that's why you and i and every other human in this planet deserves moral consideration and deserves to be treated with respect and compassion because we are these sentient conscious individuals having subjective experiences but so are the animals who we exploit and kill they too are individuals sentient conscious individuals who have the capacity to experience experience both positively and negatively things like suffering pain but also pleasure and happiness and what we do to them creates a negative experience in their life so the reason that we deserve moral consideration is not because of our advanced intellect it's not because we can make videos and use computers it's because we are sentient individuals but so too are the animals we use and kill the next comment is plants don't choose to be eaten as well they have defense mechanisms of course defense mechanisms like producing toxins to keep animals from eating them and their offspring seeds but bacteria and viruses have defense mechanisms as well so is it morally wrong to kill bacteria and viruses in the same way that it's morally wrong to kill humans and non-human animals too is it morally wrong to take antibiotics to kill bacteria because bacteria have defense mechanisms of course plants don't choose to be eaten they don't choose to do anything a plant doesn't choose to grow towards the sun a plant doesn't choose to photosynthesize a plant doesn't choose to absorb water and a plant doesn't choose to use their defense mechanisms these are biological functions initiated by certain stimuli take a venus fly trap for an example a venus flytrap will of course close around a fly but the reason they do that isn't because they've consciously thought to themselves hang on a minute that's a fly i'm going to close around it they close around anything that triggers the stimuli on those pads you can put a cigarette butt in there you can put a rock in there you can put your finger as long as you trigger that stimuli the venus fly trap closes because they don't consciously choose animals do make conscious choices though for example they will choose to consume some foods over others take rupert the hamster for example when i was younger i had a hamster called rupert and rupert the hamster liked certain foods like broccoli but he didn't like certain foods like kale now other hamsters out there in the world will have loved to eat kale but rubert the hamster didn't like kale because his personality and his likes and dislikes as an individual sentient animal meant that he had a preference for broccoli over kale so he would consciously choose to pick one food over another food part of the hypocrisy of comparing plants to non-human animals is that we never compare plants to humans but if we were using the logic consistently then comparing humans to plants would also be the same as comparing non-human animals to plants as well when we look at the experience of pain and suffering non-human animals have the same biological functions that we do that create the sensation of pain and suffering within them and from an evolutionary perspective they have the same evolutionary reason to experience pain and suffering as we do but just imagine how insane it would sound if a murderer was in a court and the judge said how do you plead and the murderer said well judge what about your front lawn don't you mow it but why is that insane well obviously it's insane because the suffering of a human is not even comparable to mowing the lawn which is the same with non-human animals as well they have the same biological functions the same evolutionary reasons to experience pain like we do so comparing consuming an incentive organism like a plant to a sentient conscious individual like an animal whether they be human or non-human is obviously not logically sound and besides all of that even if you disagree with everything i've just said you should still be vegan anyway because more plants are used in the production of animal-based foods than they are plant-based foods because all the animals who we farm are consuming plants as well so if you actually care about plants well then you'd be vegan anyway because vegans use less plants overall alright so that brings us to the end of this video thank you so much for watching i really do appreciate it let me know down below in the comments what you thought of the comments that i responded to some of them are particularly astonishing my favorite is that gp practitioner one i love it on so many levels but let me know down below what your favorite comment is alright guys thank you for watching i really do appreciate it and i will see you all in the next video [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Earthling Ed

Views: 105,531

Keywords: earthlinged, earthling ed, vegan, veganism, why, be, go, earthlings full movie, activism, tedx talk, debunked, every argument against veganism, roasted, roasting myself, reacting to comments, troll, debate, why veganism is a lie, hate comments, funny, funny reacting, vegans are wrong, why is veganism, peta

Id: EXBew0OPVIA

Length: 13min 15sec (795 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 13 2022