[0:02] Hello beautiful community.
[0:05] He said doing his best Vlad Wexler.
[0:09] Can you hear me?
[0:13] Can people at chat hear me?
[0:15] Give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down,
[0:17] please.
[0:19] Can you hear me?
[0:23] All right, I see one person saying yes.
[0:25] I see only one person saying no.
[0:31] Got it.
[0:32] Okay, I think we are rolling and that is
[0:35] terribly exciting.
[0:37] Thanks everybody for your patience. So,
[0:39] the problem if you care was that I had a
[0:43] I had another camera app open on my
[0:45] computer just to get a preview
[0:47] um and it was interfering with the
[0:50] routing to YouTube.
[0:52] If you care.
[0:54] But you probably don't.
[0:56] So, let's start talking about things you
[0:59] do care about.
[1:01] Oh, Pop-Tart. No, no, no. Hey, come
[1:02] back.
[1:04] Hey, this is this is your show. Hey,
[1:05] come on. Pop-Tart, come on.
[1:08] Oh, yeah. I prepared for this. Come on,
[1:10] you got to be here for the beginning.
[1:11] Come on. Up, up, up, up.
[1:13] Okay.
[1:14] All right, sit.
[1:16] Thank you.
[1:17] Okay.
[1:19] You feel good?
[1:20] You ready for this? All right, I'm ready
[1:21] for it.
[1:24] All right.
[1:29] Sh- sh- sh- sh- sh- sh- sh- sh- sh- sh-
[1:30] sh- sh- sh-
[1:33] Good seeing y'all.
[1:37] All right.
[1:38] How you doing? You ready? You ready to
[1:40] do this? All right, let's do this. Okay.
[1:42] It's the Adam Ragusea podcast episode 56
[1:45] coming to you from the couch in my
[1:48] wife's home office, which is one of the
[1:50] spots where we usually hang out with
[1:52] Pop-Tart, the Labrador Retriever. She's
[1:55] here on the couch with me right now.
[1:58] She's uh
[1:59] not quite a year old and yes, her name
[2:02] really is Pop-Tart.
[2:04] We let the kids name her and I do think
[2:06] that Pop-Tart is a great name for a dog.
[2:09] Though it puts me in a fraught position
[2:12] vis-à-vis the Kellogg's company, maker
[2:15] of the toaster pastry product marketed
[2:18] as a Pop-Tart. Right here. You want
[2:20] another one? Come on, dog. Over here.
[2:22] You guys stay in the camera frame. Over
[2:23] here. Come on. It's right in front of
[2:25] you, dog. Aw, there you go. Sit.
[2:29] So, I feel like someone in my position,
[2:32] if I was going to have a dog named
[2:34] Pop-Tart,
[2:36] I I really should have tried to get some
[2:38] like fat corporate dollars for that.
[2:40] Like I should have unleashed my agent,
[2:43] Colin the Best West, to see if he could,
[2:46] you know, shake some money out of the
[2:48] C-suite up in Battle Creek, Michigan
[2:50] for uh you know, naming rights for Adam
[2:53] Ragusea's new dog. Or at the very least,
[2:56] we could have uh secured some
[2:57] permissions.
[2:59] Cuz yeah, I don't know if Kellogg's is
[3:01] going to sue me for using their
[3:03] trademark in reference to a dog in
[3:05] published works such as this. I'm not
[3:08] sure if they could legally sue me and in
[3:10] our defense, we do style the name
[3:12] Pop-Tart in reference to the dog as all
[3:15] one word, capital P at the beginning.
[3:18] And that's all. In contrast, the name
[3:21] of, you know, Pop-Tart brand toaster
[3:23] pastries is styled as two words,
[3:26] hyphenated with the first P in pop
[3:29] capitalized and the first T in tarts
[3:32] capitalized and
[3:34] the name of the product itself is
[3:35] pluralized. They are officially
[3:37] Pop-Tarts plural.
[3:40] Pop-Tart the dog is singular, all one
[3:43] word and only the initial P is
[3:45] capitalized the way that we style that
[3:48] around here. I mention that so that
[3:50] everybody in the live chat can style
[3:52] Pop-Tarts correctly, which I'm sure you
[3:54] all will. We are recording this episode
[3:57] of the Adam Ragusea podcast live on
[3:59] YouTube. So, there are people in the
[4:01] chat box right now. Hi, everybody.
[4:04] I'm going to talk about dogs and food
[4:07] for like 20 minutes before I start
[4:09] engaging with folks in the chat
[4:12] for the remainder of the episode. Uh I
[4:14] will read audience questions and
[4:15] comments from the live chat, but
[4:18] hold your fire. I will not be looking at
[4:20] anything in the chat for another 20
[4:22] minutes or so.
[4:24] So, if you're there, you know, feel free
[4:25] to chat with each other, but don't say
[4:27] or ask anything expecting me to like see
[4:31] it and respond to it. Yeah. So, anyway,
[4:33] dogs and food. It's okay, you can go.
[4:36] You can go. You're done. You did your
[4:37] job.
[4:38] Okay. What what?
[4:40] I have nothing else. Well, that's a lie.
[4:41] I've got something else if if necessary,
[4:43] but uh
[4:44] dogs and food. This is not going to be a
[4:46] rap about uh
[4:49] you know, dog food. It's about food and
[4:51] uh and dogs.
[4:53] Hello. Oh my goodness. Yes. Is it so
[4:55] interesting to you? Okay, here. I've got
[4:57] another one.
[4:58] Here, come on up. Come on.
[5:01] So, you may have seen lately a
[5:02] bioethicist
[5:04] named uh Dr. Jessica Pierce talking
[5:07] about pet happiness in the news. Dr.
[5:11] Pierce writes a blog about pet-related
[5:13] issues for Psychology Today, which is a
[5:17] magazine that I grew up around because
[5:19] my dad is a clinical psychologist, so we
[5:21] always, you know, got Psychology Today
[5:23] at the house.
[5:24] But, uh Jessica Pierce has a number of
[5:27] books and, you know, scholarly articles
[5:29] and stuff out there talking about the
[5:31] ethics of pet ownership. Oh, you're
[5:33] going to be over there? Do I have to
[5:35] reframe the shot for you, dog?
[5:38] See, these these are my placards for the
[5:40] sponsorship segments. Okay, come on.
[5:43] Here.
[5:44] I'll move everything over here, okay?
[5:45] And you can just stay right there.
[5:48] Right. You good?
[5:50] You good? Okay, let's proceed.
[5:52] So, uh Jessica Pierce, Dr. Jessica
[5:54] Pierce, uh scholar, ethicist, uh
[5:56] bioethicist, has a number of books and
[5:59] scholarly articles about the ethics of
[6:01] pet ownership and how those ethical
[6:04] questions kind of intersect with the uh
[6:07] you know, animal cognition and
[6:09] interspecies communication stuff that
[6:11] people study. And uh Jessica Pierce, Dr.
[6:14] Pierce, was the primary source for a Vox
[6:17] article that you may have seen published
[6:18] recently called the case against pet
[6:21] ownership. Uh that article was by a
[6:24] fella named Kenny Terrell. Hope I'm
[6:27] saying that right. Uh Kenny writes about
[6:29] animal issues for Vox with a focus on
[6:31] like meat and meat alternatives. And I
[6:33] gather that Kenny's piece was a big hit.
[6:35] And so, Dr. Jessica Pierce, the primary
[6:37] source for that article, has been making
[6:40] the rounds lately, right? She's I heard
[6:42] her on uh an NPR show called Here and
[6:45] Now, which is uh that's US public radio,
[6:48] you know? I used to work on the other
[6:50] side of the cubicle wall from where Here
[6:53] and Now is produced in Boston.
[6:55] And I always loved how the show's
[6:57] producers used to just like yell and
[7:00] scream at each other in order to get
[7:02] their show on the air every day because
[7:04] a daily live legacy broadcast program
[7:07] only persists as a result of just a
[7:10] series of minor miracles simply willed
[7:13] into being by the producers and the
[7:15] editors who make the show possible.
[7:17] Anyway, I loved listening to Here and
[7:19] Now scream at each other in the lead-up
[7:22] to showtime. Here, you want this dog?
[7:24] Come on.
[7:25] One one I've got one more. Come on up.
[7:27] Used to love listening to the Here and
[7:29] Now folks
[7:31] scream at each other in the lead-up to
[7:32] their show. And then immediately after
[7:34] showtime, they would go back to loving
[7:36] each other like siblings again.
[7:38] And that's how you know the the the
[7:39] leaders of the program have fostered
[7:41] like a really good, you know,
[7:42] team-building environment so that
[7:45] people, you know, love and trust each
[7:47] other enough to yell at each other like
[7:49] they're family
[7:51] when necessary. Though certainly,
[7:53] yelling is less necessary and less often
[7:56] necessary than most of us tend to
[7:58] imagine that it is in the heat of the
[7:59] moment. That's an important thing to
[8:01] keep in mind. Anyway, dogs. Dr. Jessica
[8:03] Pierce,
[8:04] her basic argument, if she'll forgive me
[8:06] for summarizing it crudely, her basic
[8:09] argument is that based on everything we
[8:11] know about like animal cognition and
[8:13] emotions and social structure and
[8:17] instincts and all of that, her argument
[8:20] is that our pets, and particularly our
[8:22] dogs, are probably not as happy as we
[8:26] imagine them to be. They may in fact be
[8:29] among the most miserable animals on
[8:32] Earth for the bulk of their lives. I
[8:35] mean, we imagine the life of a house dog
[8:37] to be exceptionally sweet.
[8:39] Who would not want to laze on a couch
[8:41] all day with their best friend?
[8:44] Hey, that's you and me.
[8:47] Seems like a much nicer life compared to
[8:49] the violence and deprivation, no doubt,
[8:52] suffered by a dog out on the street.
[8:55] But I remember back when we lived in
[8:57] Macon Georgia
[9:00] which was one dog ago. That was your
[9:02] forerunner, Pop-Tart, lived with us in
[9:04] Macon.
[9:05] I just used to drive through this very,
[9:08] very poor neighborhood near my house in
[9:10] Macon where there were just legions of
[9:14] street dogs.
[9:16] Like if you've if you've only ever been
[9:17] to the northern United States, you don't
[9:20] know how bad the stray dog problem is in
[9:22] the southern US and in cities
[9:24] specifically, especially poor poor ones.
[9:26] There's just more people poor poor
[9:28] people in the south and there's more
[9:30] rural people in the south and, you know,
[9:32] even when they live in cities, they are
[9:34] often in the south generationally closer
[9:37] to life on the farm, where people are a
[9:40] lot less precious about their dogs. You
[9:42] know, you may own a dog,
[9:45] but the dog lives like a free life,
[9:48] roaming around and doing whatever dog
[9:50] stuff the dog wants to do most of the
[9:52] day, which may include making puppies
[9:54] with another dog. Poor people may be
[9:57] less likely to sterilize their dogs,
[9:59] spay and neuter them, because that, you
[10:00] know, costs money.
[10:02] Oh, did I say the bad word?
[10:04] Sorry, it's still a fresh memory.
[10:06] Mhm, close your ears.
[10:11] There's uh there's just more poor people
[10:13] in the South, more rural people in the
[10:14] South, and, you know, it affects these
[10:16] things and
[10:17] and uh you're just more likely to have
[10:19] stray dogs leaking out of the human
[10:22] systems here in the South. And once
[10:23] they're out, their odds of survival are
[10:26] pretty darn good compared to the odds
[10:29] faced by a stray dog in, say, like
[10:31] upstate New York or something. That dog
[10:34] is not going to survive the winter,
[10:37] and not going to live to make puppies
[10:39] with some other dog. But in Macon, that
[10:41] dog absolutely will survive the winter
[10:43] and live to make puppies with some other
[10:46] dog. And in parts of Macon, you just
[10:48] have like packs of wild feral dogs
[10:51] roaming around. And when I would drive
[10:52] in this really poor neighborhood near my
[10:54] house, there was a street called
[10:56] Columbus Road, where a lot of the
[10:59] buildings were abandoned and
[11:01] dilapidated. It's
[11:03] rough area, but there was
[11:05] uh an auto junkyard where this
[11:07] absolutely lovely guy uh I recall his
[11:09] name was Caesar, if I'm remembering that
[11:11] right. Um
[11:13] it's a nice guy, collected like dead
[11:16] cars and mined them for parts, um or or
[11:19] or that's what his business appeared to
[11:21] be to me. And he always had a bunch of
[11:22] like stray dogs lazing around in front
[11:25] of his shop, cuz he put out food for
[11:27] them sometimes, and he put out like
[11:29] blankets and old mattresses and stuff
[11:32] for them to lie on. I imagine that they
[11:35] provided a valuable service in return,
[11:37] right? They probably scared away any
[11:38] potential thieves, which is basically
[11:41] why the wild ancestors of dogs first
[11:44] started hanging around human encampments
[11:46] in the first place, 1 or 200,000 years
[11:49] ago. Cuz you know, cows and pigs and
[11:51] sheep and such, um you know, people
[11:54] started domesticating them with the
[11:55] agricultural revolution about 10,000
[11:58] years ago, which really was not that
[12:00] long ago in the scheme of things. In
[12:01] contrast, they keep pushing back the
[12:04] date on the domestication of the dog
[12:07] because they just keep finding older and
[12:08] older evidence of dogs and humans living
[12:10] together. Um the domestication process
[12:14] starting,
[12:15] you know, at least 100,000 years ago
[12:17] with dogs and potentially much much
[12:19] earlier. With farm animals, it only
[12:21] started about 10,000 years ago. Anyway,
[12:22] I would drive by these
[12:24] feral,
[12:25] you know, miscellaneous brown and black
[12:27] mutts hanging around in front of this
[12:29] guy Caesar's uh bone yard, and at first
[12:33] I would feel really bad for these dogs.
[12:35] I would think, oh, these poor guys, you
[12:37] know, they don't have any shelter. They
[12:38] don't have any flea and tick medicine.
[12:40] They don't have steady, high-quality
[12:43] feed or vet visits or baths or walks or
[12:47] snuggles or anything like that. That's
[12:49] what I thought at first.
[12:52] Then I kept driving by these dogs day
[12:54] after day,
[12:56] and I kept thinking, you know,
[12:58] for a dog, that could be an awfully
[13:01] sweet setup. And then one day I was
[13:03] coming down Columbus Road, coming up on
[13:06] the dogs, and one of them gets up off of
[13:09] Caesar's little front stoop, and the dog
[13:12] just darts across Columbus Road almost
[13:15] right in front of my car. Like I barely
[13:17] missed hitting this damn dog. And as I
[13:20] drove past, I looked in my rearview
[13:23] mirror to see what was so important
[13:27] that the dog had to spring across the
[13:29] road at that particular moment, risking
[13:32] its life and limb.
[13:34] Why did the stray dog cross the road,
[13:36] right?
[13:40] So, I look back in my mirror
[13:42] and I see the dog emerge from the tall
[13:45] grass on the opposite side of the road
[13:47] with a giant, apparently full
[13:52] McDonald's bag in its mouth. Like,
[13:55] probably full of trash, this McDonald's
[13:57] bag, but I would bet that there was like
[13:59] a piece of bun soaked in special sauce
[14:01] or something in there, or some spare
[14:04] fries, or a half-eaten McFlurry. I mean,
[14:07] probably not a half-eaten McFlurry
[14:09] because
[14:10] we all know that ice cream machine is
[14:12] still is not working, but
[14:14] there was probably like a wealth of
[14:16] scraps in that bag. That dog had struck
[14:18] the jackpot, and he knew it, and he was
[14:20] not going to wait for me to drive past
[14:22] before claiming his prize. And at that
[14:25] moment, I wondered, you know, is this
[14:26] the life that my dog wishes she was
[14:29] living?
[14:31] And indeed, Dr. Jessica Pierce, pet
[14:34] ethicist,
[14:37] an ethicist who concerns herself with
[14:38] pets. She's not a pet herself. So,
[14:41] Dr. Jessica Pierce, ethicist working on
[14:44] pet issues, argues that yeah, like feral
[14:47] dogs probably are living their best
[14:50] life, or they're living something much
[14:51] closer to their best life than the lives
[14:54] that we provide dogs inside our homes.
[14:57] And she's not just like arguing from her
[15:00] gut. She has data to back this up. She
[15:02] looks at behavioral and physiological
[15:05] markers of stress recorded by
[15:08] veterinarians and such, and she
[15:09] concludes that most house-kept dogs,
[15:13] like the kind that was right here on the
[15:15] couch next to me until she decided that
[15:17] she wasn't ready for her close-up
[15:18] anymore,
[15:20] Dr. Pierce concludes that most house
[15:23] kept dogs are going completely batty
[15:25] these days and acting out and chewing
[15:27] everything in sight because we are
[15:29] restraining them from acting on one of
[15:31] their most basic impulses, which is to
[15:34] forage for food.
[15:39] Dogs are scavenger hunters. They'll
[15:41] chase down some live prey, but they'd be
[15:44] just as happy nosing around for an old
[15:47] dead whatever in the grass to eat,
[15:50] right? It's just something they were
[15:52] born to do, to roam around with their
[15:54] pack combing the ground for something
[15:57] disgusting to lick up.
[16:00] Dogs have a lot of mental energy and
[16:02] sensory capabilities set aside for doing
[16:04] exactly this. And when they can't use
[16:07] those capabilities, they have to turn
[16:09] them to something else, like finding
[16:11] socks of yours to destroy. And when you
[16:14] take those socks away and the dog
[16:16] eventually just plops down and goes to
[16:17] sleep, it might not be the peaceful,
[16:20] contented sleep that it looks like. In
[16:23] fact, for the live audience here, let me
[16:26] show you where Poptart is these days.
[16:29] There she is.
[16:31] You're welcome to come back up, Poptart,
[16:33] if you ever want to rejoin the program,
[16:35] okay?
[16:37] All right.
[16:38] Glad we talked about that.
[16:41] So,
[16:44] there's reason to think that most of our
[16:46] house dogs are leading lives of quiet
[16:49] desperation, and Dr. Pierce says it
[16:52] wasn't always this way. This is a unique
[16:55] feature of contemporary
[16:57] canine husbandry. Cuz back just a like a
[17:01] generation or two ago, most people who
[17:03] had dogs like didn't dote over them as
[17:07] much as,
[17:08] you know, maybe we do today, and they
[17:10] didn't contain them so much. They didn't
[17:13] worry so much about where the dog goes
[17:15] when the dog goes outside, right? This
[17:18] is how it was in my family uh growing up
[17:21] in a rural Central Pennsylvania, we had
[17:24] two Labrador retrievers in succession.
[17:27] We had Bess, who died when I was I think
[17:30] in second or third grade, maybe. And
[17:32] then we had Sophie, who died the day
[17:34] before my wedding.
[17:36] She made it real long. Uh we lived out
[17:38] in the woods
[17:39] and when we let the dog out, we let the
[17:43] dog out. Like there was no rope, there
[17:46] was no chain, there was no fence. She
[17:48] would just wander, probably like a mile
[17:51] or two away sometimes, cuz sometimes
[17:53] we'd go outside and we would call her
[17:55] back home and it would take her a long
[17:57] time to come home and sometimes she
[17:59] wouldn't come home, you know, for hours.
[18:01] And
[18:01] sometimes she'd come home smelling of
[18:03] the rotting deer carcass that she'd
[18:05] found,
[18:07] which is what she was born to do, for
[18:09] God's sake. Indeed, us kids grew up the
[18:12] same way.
[18:14] All of us
[18:15] in our little neighborhood in the woods
[18:17] in Central Pennsylvania, there was like
[18:19] four or five families out there who all
[18:21] had kids around my age, which was a
[18:22] miracle in retrospect. And we grew up
[18:25] leaving our houses and getting on our
[18:28] bikes and riding miles and
[18:31] literally miles away from home with no
[18:33] cell phones, no maps, no money.
[18:38] Um and doing this like as young as my
[18:40] kids are now, this the older one. Like
[18:43] we would just vanish into the wooded
[18:45] mist, like the kids in Stranger Things.
[18:49] I mean, Stranger Things is about my
[18:51] childhood
[18:53] up to and including all of us learning
[18:55] how to play Master of Puppets on our
[18:57] guitars. I am filled with so much
[18:59] gratitude for my feral childhood and I
[19:02] am filled with sorrow knowing that mine
[19:05] was among the last generation of at
[19:07] least American kids to grow up with that
[19:10] kind of laissez-faire parenting. You
[19:13] know, lots of kids still get neglected
[19:15] these days, of course, but that is not
[19:17] the same thing. Like, my parents were
[19:19] not neglectful in the slightest. They
[19:21] were boomers, right? They were ex-hippie
[19:23] boomers, all into feelings and positive
[19:26] reinforcement and Mr. Rogers stuff, you
[19:28] know? They were really very involved in
[19:30] my life.
[19:32] You could even call them helicopter
[19:33] parents at times, but I would still get
[19:37] to be a latchkey kid who came home from
[19:39] school alone when I was really little,
[19:41] and I'd wander into the woods with no
[19:44] real restrictions as long as I got home
[19:46] for dinner at 6:30.
[19:49] And to do the same with my kids now
[19:52] seems
[19:53] completely insane. Like,
[19:57] if they didn't get hit by cars
[20:00] or shot by armed neighbors enacting the
[20:02] castle doctrine or whatever, there's a
[20:05] chance that they would just get picked
[20:07] up by cops, and we would be charged for
[20:09] reckless endangerment or something, you
[20:11] know, child neglect, child endangerment.
[20:13] I'm sure there are still places in the
[20:15] United States and in countries like the
[20:17] United States where kids do get to grow
[20:19] up beneficially wild, but those places
[20:23] are few and far between nowadays, or at
[20:25] least they're they're thinly populated,
[20:27] which is why the feral childhood works
[20:30] there but
[20:32] you know,
[20:33] in that situation, not very many
[20:35] children can grow up in a thinly
[20:37] populated place because if a lot of them
[20:39] get there, it would become thickly
[20:40] populated. Thick-er. Um
[20:43] you know, most most US kids these days
[20:46] grow up in suffocating suburbia, where
[20:50] automobile-oriented development creates
[20:53] an environment where cars are just
[20:55] whizzing by around your ears at speeds
[20:58] that virtually assure death in a
[21:01] vehicle-on-pedestrian
[21:03] collision. It's not safe to walk, and
[21:06] there's nowhere to walk to because
[21:08] there's no woods, there's no wild land
[21:11] where kids can just like throw rocks
[21:13] into ditches or do whatever they want to
[21:15] do without some grown-up hassling them.
[21:19] Every inch of ground is owned and
[21:21] protected by someone with a ring camera
[21:24] and an AR-15. So, the environment is not
[21:28] wild enough to get lost in, but at the
[21:30] same time the environment is too wild
[21:32] for actual urban living. You know,
[21:35] suburban kids can't walk down to the
[21:37] corner store to buy candy like city kids
[21:39] can because there is no corner store in
[21:41] suburbia. Or maybe there is. Oh, hey
[21:43] dog. You want to come back?
[21:45] Or maybe there is a corner store in
[21:47] suburbia, but it's like an
[21:48] automotive-oriented convenience store,
[21:50] and there's literally no safe way to
[21:52] walk to it. There's no sidewalks,
[21:54] there's no crosswalks. It's just an
[21:56] endless moat of parking or whatever.
[21:58] This is in contrast to how like true
[22:00] city kids grow up in actual city centers
[22:04] with dense mixed-use development and
[22:07] pedestrian infrastructure.
[22:10] So, what I wonder is like is the world
[22:12] really more dangerous for kids now or
[22:15] have we just gotten more sensitive to
[22:17] the dangers that were always there,
[22:19] right? Cuz we're not having eight or 10
[22:22] kids like our great-grandparents did.
[22:24] We're only having one or two kids, and
[22:26] therefore each kid is way more valuable
[22:28] to us. We can't afford to have one kid
[22:31] hit by a train or something while he's
[22:33] out wandering. So, we protect the kids
[22:36] that we have
[22:38] to a fault, I think. I mean, maybe we do
[22:40] that. Maybe we've just gotten more
[22:41] civilized and therefore softer.
[22:44] Um more sensitive to
[22:47] the injury of a child, right?
[22:49] Hey, dog. Stop eating that. Hey,
[22:51] Pop-Tart. Hey.
[22:53] Hey.
[22:53] No chewing.
[22:55] That's a pen, you ding-dong. No, come
[22:57] here. Hey, you donut. Come here.
[23:00] Hey.
[23:01] Come on.
[23:02] I don't have time for this. I got to do
[23:04] my thing. You're eating a pen. Got it.
[23:07] There's the pen. Okay.
[23:11] Maybe we've gotten more civilized and
[23:13] therefore softer, right? Soft is the
[23:16] goal. Most of us don't want to live in
[23:19] the kind of environment that makes
[23:20] people really hard.
[23:22] I'm guessing that it's all of the above,
[23:24] right? The reason why I don't want to
[23:26] stick my kids out the front door the way
[23:28] that my parents did to me when I was
[23:30] little. Regardless, I absolutely do not
[23:32] feel safe kicking my kids out of that
[23:35] front door and I definitely don't feel
[23:37] safe kicking Pop-Tart out the front
[23:39] door.
[23:40] Pop-Tart, the new dog in the Ragusea
[23:42] house if you're just joining the live
[23:44] stream late. Here she is. She's right
[23:46] there looking for trouble. Mhm.
[23:49] So, in our neighborhood in Knoxville
[23:52] dogs do get out all the time
[23:55] and the neighborhood Facebook group is
[23:58] on it. Like the second a dog gets out,
[24:02] you're going to see a whole bunch of
[24:05] just like blurry phone photos
[24:08] that say, "Oh, this poor baby is is lost
[24:11] near Sycamore Lane or whatever."
[24:15] So, if I just kicked my dog out the door
[24:17] to wander and if she didn't immediately
[24:20] get flattened by like an oversized SUV
[24:23] on the road, well, all the neighbors
[24:25] would freak out and eventually get mad
[24:27] at me, right? They'd tell me that I'm
[24:28] abusing my dog. They'd tell me that it's
[24:31] only a matter of time before the dog
[24:33] attacks someone, you know, attacks a
[24:35] cat, attacks, you know, just jumps
[24:37] good-naturedly on an old lady and knocks
[24:39] her down or something. And those are
[24:40] valid concerns, right? So, this is why I
[24:42] bought a house with a large fenced-in
[24:45] backyard.
[24:47] Or it's one of the reasons I bought a
[24:48] big fenced-in backyard. Brits would call
[24:50] it a back garden, of course.
[24:52] So, I've got a fenced-in yard and yet
[24:55] I won't put the dog in the yard by
[24:57] herself
[24:59] because I've seen what she gets into out
[25:01] there.
[25:02] Like, I've seen what she destroys.
[25:05] I put a lot of work into the landscaping
[25:07] at my house and I don't want all my
[25:09] flowers dug up. I don't want her eating
[25:11] the mushrooms or the groundhog poop or
[25:14] the rocks or the dirt. This dog
[25:17] literally chews rocks unless I stop her.
[25:21] Now, in her defense, she is she has
[25:22] shown something of a preference for like
[25:25] old chunks of concrete or blacktop that
[25:28] she finds as compared to, you know,
[25:30] naturally consolidated rocks. I'm
[25:32] guessing the concrete is a little more
[25:34] crumbly. It's a little easier to chew.
[25:36] Is that what it is?
[25:38] Pop-Tart has standards. You have
[25:39] standards. Yeah, you do.
[25:43] That's what she does with me standing
[25:44] right there next to her in the backyard.
[25:46] Lord knows what she would do if I left
[25:49] her out there alone to engage in the
[25:52] scavenging behavior for which she was
[25:55] born, right? Like, even if I didn't care
[25:57] that much about her well-being, I
[26:00] wouldn't want her barfing that stuff
[26:01] back up again inside the house. She's
[26:04] still a big puppy. She'll probably chill
[26:06] out in a couple of years and then I can
[26:08] start letting her go out back by herself
[26:10] a bit, I'm sure. But, most other like
[26:13] urban and suburban dog owners make very
[26:15] similar calculations in their own heads
[26:17] and now our dogs rarely get to wander.
[26:20] Right? We take them for a couple of
[26:22] walks a day. Don't eat the computer.
[26:25] We take them for a couple of walks a
[26:26] day. I run with Pop-Tart sometimes just
[26:29] to tire us both out, but you know,
[26:31] physical exercise is not really what she
[26:34] needs. What she needs is the mental
[26:36] exercise of looking for food,
[26:40] which is something she is supposed to
[26:42] spend most of her waking hours doing.
[26:47] And when she can't, she goes looking for
[26:49] pens.
[26:51] Or is this some kind of like cosmetic
[26:54] device from under Lauren's
[26:57] desk?
[26:59] I don't know.
[27:00] Anyhoo,
[27:04] Dr. Jessica Pierce, noted pet ethicist,
[27:06] says that when she takes her dog for a
[27:09] walk, the dog is in charge, right? She
[27:12] lets the dog sniff out a trail in any
[27:15] reasonable direction, and she follows
[27:17] the dog, and they move at the dog's
[27:18] pace, which is usually very slow cuz you
[27:21] got to sniff, right? I've been trying to
[27:23] do that with Poptart lately, just let
[27:25] her lead the walks.
[27:27] And I provide her with all the comforts
[27:29] that a dog could expect, and monthly
[27:31] flea and tick medicine, and heartworm
[27:33] medicine, and trips to the vet. I'm sure
[27:36] Poptart will outlive any of the feral
[27:38] mutts hanging out on Columbus Road back
[27:41] in Macon.
[27:43] But,
[27:45] a mature view of life and death observes
[27:50] that death isn't anywhere close to being
[27:53] the worst thing that can happen to you.
[27:57] And comfort isn't the best thing that
[28:00] can happen to you.
[28:01] Like grass-fed beef cattle,
[28:04] grass-fed beef cattle raised the right
[28:07] way by conscientious humane ranchers,
[28:10] right? Those cattle may indeed live
[28:13] better lives, all things considered,
[28:15] than the life that Poptart will live,
[28:17] right? She's going to live longer
[28:20] cuz most beef cattle these days only
[28:22] live a couple of years, max,
[28:25] sometimes a year and a half, right?
[28:27] But, the cattle born on a good ranch
[28:29] spends their the days that they do have
[28:32] doing 100% what they want to do, which
[28:36] is to stand in a green field and chew
[28:39] grass. That's what the cow wants to do.
[28:44] And pedants, yes, I know it's not
[28:46] literally a cow.
[28:48] Cattle.
[28:49] Pop-Tart almost never gets to do exactly
[28:52] what she wants to do. Her life is a
[28:55] constant comfortable captivity.
[28:59] And how does that sound to you,
[29:01] honestly?
[29:03] Cuz death isn't anywhere close to being
[29:05] the worst thing that can happen to you.
[29:08] And comfort isn't the best thing that
[29:10] can happen to you. That's true for dogs
[29:12] and it's true for people. Sometimes I
[29:14] wonder if our modern highly
[29:16] dysfunctional human relationship with
[29:19] food
[29:20] is rooted in the fact that we are born
[29:23] scavengers, too. Just like the dog. I
[29:27] mean, look it up. We humans have the
[29:30] level of stomach acidity that you would
[29:32] normally see in animals like dogs that
[29:35] eat old dead things, right? We are
[29:37] hunter-gatherers, just like dogs, you
[29:39] know? We hunt a little, but we might or
[29:42] mostly supposed to spend most of our
[29:43] waking hours just wandering around
[29:45] combing the ground for anything to eat.
[29:48] We're supposed to have food on the brain
[29:51] most of the time because we need to be
[29:54] constantly looking for food just to get
[29:57] barely enough food to survive, right? At
[30:00] least that's how it worked on the plains
[30:02] of East Africa for which every single
[30:04] one of us humans
[30:07] was evolved. That is home for all of us,
[30:10] right?
[30:12] Most of us are very, very far away from
[30:14] home now. Food is everywhere. Food is
[30:16] everywhere. You don't need to think
[30:18] about it all the time, and yet we do
[30:20] because we're born to. And usually that
[30:23] ends up with us just eating way too much
[30:25] food or spending way too much on food or
[30:29] wasting way too much time watching food
[30:32] videos on the internet.
[30:36] So, with that, I think that uh I'll
[30:39] start reading some questions and
[30:40] comments from the live chat.
[30:43] For the moment, I'm going to prioritize
[30:45] dog-related content in the group chat
[30:48] for the sake of uh you know, a smooth
[30:50] transition out of what we've already
[30:51] been talking about, but eventually we'll
[30:53] just go with the flow. And the flow
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[31:41] dog combs the land for putridity to
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[32:41] Now, dog, that's a piece of plastic. You
[32:43] can't have that to eat. Thank you.
[32:48] And uh let's check out the uh
[32:51] Let's check out the chat box. Okay, so
[32:58] people are asking some specifics about
[33:00] Dr. Pierce's research um and uh you know
[33:04] how how they measure dog happiness and
[33:06] stuff like that and I would simply
[33:07] prefer you to you one of her many books
[33:09] on the topic. Uh you know, not really
[33:12] not really uh
[33:14] my area of expertise.
[33:17] You know, people will you know, I I
[33:19] guess I could talk a little bit about
[33:20] food.
[33:21] Um you know, like is it is it ethical to
[33:24] feed your dog uh the stuff that we
[33:27] usually feed dogs, which is not Hey,
[33:30] charging bricks at expensive Apple
[33:32] charging bricks. We do not eat those.
[33:34] No, no, no. We do not eat those.
[33:38] What do we eat?
[33:39] We eat kibble, right? So, the dog eats
[33:41] kibble
[33:43] and
[33:45] you know, um the thing about kibble
[33:47] mixtures is that in addition to being
[33:48] like very efficiently produced, you
[33:50] know, um I'm I'm sure the profit margin
[33:53] on dog food has got to be fantastic cuz
[33:55] it's just so
[33:56] you know, they're they're just using
[33:57] byproducts from other industries mostly
[34:00] and which is not a bad thing. Efficiency
[34:02] is good, you know. Efficiency is good.
[34:04] And uh and they're they're those feeds
[34:06] are perfectly formulated for the dogs.
[34:08] So, if they only eat that, they're going
[34:10] to be fine. They're going to get all
[34:12] their macros and all their micros. And
[34:14] if you diverge from that, right? Like if
[34:17] you you know, every now and then give
[34:18] them a
[34:20] you know, some human food, then yeah,
[34:22] you risk kind of diverting them from
[34:24] that uh
[34:25] from that perfect diet. But then again,
[34:27] for God's sake, it's just a dog,
[34:31] you know?
[34:33] It's just a dog. And indeed, okay, so
[34:35] who's asking this? So, oh, I I lost your
[34:39] I lost your chat. Oh.
[34:42] Oh, I'm so sad. Okay, so somebody asked
[34:45] something that's really important, which
[34:46] is like why essentially like how you how
[34:50] I personally square the ethics of like
[34:52] doting over my dog while I also like
[34:56] kill and eat animals, which is a
[34:58] perfectly fair question. And I'm not I
[35:00] don't want to get into like all the
[35:02] specifics of my
[35:04] ethical calculations on meat eating. I
[35:06] mean, that's that that deserves its own
[35:08] very long episode that I I don't even
[35:10] really want to do, but I'll do it at
[35:12] some point cuz it's it's important,
[35:14] right? Um you know, but I don't know if
[35:16] you all saw it, but like there was um
[35:18] I believe it was a sub-organization
[35:21] within PETA, People for the Ethical
[35:23] Treatment of Animals, did this like
[35:25] viral social media campaign where they
[35:28] pretended to be and forgive me, PETA, if
[35:30] this wasn't you.
[35:32] Um I I might I just recall that it was
[35:34] you. Um but it was a it was an awesome
[35:36] it was a very clever campaign. So, the
[35:37] clever social media campaign, I don't
[35:39] know if you saw it, was
[35:40] they had like these beautiful dogs in a
[35:44] picture and it's like, you know, here we
[35:46] are down at Farm Dogworth or whatever
[35:48] and these these uh dogs have, you know,
[35:51] lived a wonderful rich life out here on
[35:53] the pasture and uh now their time has
[35:57] come and it's we're ready to harvest
[35:58] them for meat, right? And let Let us
[36:00] know how many pounds of dog meat you
[36:01] want. And the intent of this very clever
[36:04] kind of advertising campaign was to
[36:06] point out how hypocritical it is that
[36:09] some of us
[36:10] dote over our dogs and yet we kill and
[36:13] eat animals who are easily as
[36:15] intelligent. Like like look it up. Dog
[36:17] intelligence, dog cognition is not
[36:19] remarkable. Like they're not that
[36:21] they're not notably smarter than other
[36:24] mammals about their general description,
[36:27] you know, size and everything, okay?
[36:28] Hey, please do not eat the brick. Come
[36:31] here. Come on.
[36:32] You can't eat it. It It It can't happen.
[36:34] You can't be eating this.
[36:36] Anyways,
[36:37] and that's what the intent of the ad
[36:40] campaign was,
[36:42] but the funny thing was that all it did
[36:44] was basically reinforce to me the notion
[36:47] that the way we treat our dogs is
[36:48] completely insane, right? Like Like I I
[36:51] am a humanist.
[36:53] Card-carrying secular humanist. I
[36:54] believe that humans are fundamentally
[36:57] very, very special. Um you know, quite
[36:59] possibly the most special thing in the
[37:01] entire universe is the human race,
[37:03] possibly.
[37:04] And we are more important than they are,
[37:07] okay? I don't believe that they have
[37:09] that they're
[37:10] all that sentient.
[37:13] Like I'm sure it's I'm sure it's a
[37:15] spectrum or gray area, right? I don't
[37:18] think that they're that intelligent or
[37:20] sentient, and I'm not that concerned
[37:22] with their well-being, honestly. I
[37:23] didn't even really want a dog, um
[37:25] another dog. Like our dog back in Macon
[37:27] was was a lovely dog, but she was, you
[37:29] know, a traumatized shelter dog, and we
[37:31] dealt with a lot of problems. And I, you
[37:35] know, the reason that I consented to get
[37:36] a dog when Lauren wanted to get one was
[37:38] that I do think that like kids should
[37:40] grow up with animals. I think that's
[37:41] important for them developmentally on a
[37:43] number of levels, and I wanted to get
[37:45] chickens, but Lauren didn't want
[37:46] chickens, so we compromised on a dog,
[37:48] okay? I or I wanted a goat. I might
[37:49] still get a goat. We'll see.
[37:51] So anyhoo
[37:52] you know, I I I I kind of think that
[37:54] like
[37:55] what I try to remember is that we have
[37:57] the dog for us, okay? The dog is here to
[38:00] serve us.
[38:01] Um that's why we have them, and so why
[38:04] we invite them into our homes, even if
[38:05] we think we're doing otherwise, that's
[38:08] not really true. It really is about us,
[38:11] and so
[38:12] yeah, I don't really care. And I mostly
[38:14] see the dog as like a thing
[38:16] where children can practice empathy in
[38:20] seeing how things that they do cause
[38:22] pain to another living being or make
[38:24] another living being feel good. And I
[38:26] don't think that that's intrinsically
[38:27] super important. Like I love Pop-Tart,
[38:29] but I don't Yeah, I know. I was talking
[38:31] about you. But I you know, I don't think
[38:32] it's really that important if you are
[38:33] well treated in the scheme of things. Um
[38:36] what's more important is that like
[38:38] the kids get the opportunity trying to
[38:40] learn how to treat you well so that they
[38:42] can then apply what the those skills to
[38:45] how they treat humans later in life,
[38:46] which I think is a lot more important.
[38:48] But I also think it's important to treat
[38:50] animals well. You know, I always say to
[38:51] the kids, you never hurt an animal with
[38:53] no reason. Right? Cuz kids instinctively
[38:55] just want to pull the wings off of flies
[38:57] and stuff like that and I'm just like,
[38:58] "No. You never hurt an animal unless you
[39:00] have a good reason to." And uh needing
[39:03] food
[39:04] is broadly speaking a good reason. Now,
[39:07] is
[39:09] does that logic justify like the
[39:11] industrial meat making apparatus as it
[39:14] has evolved in the United States and in
[39:16] similar countries uh or countries that
[39:18] have imitated the United States
[39:19] subsequently? No, I don't think it does.
[39:21] Like I I really, you know, I I I
[39:24] weigh less meat now than I used to and I
[39:27] get it mostly from places I really trust
[39:29] and I think that that's important, but I
[39:30] also don't presume to lecture you about
[39:33] that because only you know about your
[39:36] situation and how much money you have
[39:38] and you know, what what you need to eat
[39:40] in order to be healthy, what you
[39:42] specifically need to eat in order to be
[39:43] healthy and I That's that's for you to
[39:46] kind of figure out for your for
[39:47] yourself, you know?
[39:49] So, um yeah. Brandon Vincent says, uh
[39:53] "Nowadays we are so far removed from
[39:56] what meat is. My grandma would never buy
[39:58] a chicken breast or a boneless, skinless
[40:00] thigh. She buys the whole chicken and
[40:03] breaks it down." Yeah, that's awesome. I
[40:05] do wonder if if pe- treatment of animals
[40:09] was more hu- like farm animals was more
[40:12] humane
[40:13] back in the day when uh most people were
[40:16] kind of rearing and and killing their
[40:18] own animals, I wonder if
[40:22] doing that actually de- de- de-
[40:24] humanizes the animal more in your eyes
[40:26] and you end up treating it even more
[40:28] callously because you're just living
[40:30] every day in the harsh realities of the
[40:32] farm, which always makes me think of if
[40:35] you've ever seen like st- stop watching
[40:38] this right or listening to this right
[40:39] now if you've not seen it, but um
[40:42] the old footage of Werner Herzog, the
[40:44] document the German documentarian, or is
[40:47] he Austrian? I don't know. Werner Herzog
[40:50] um
[40:51] in the jungle making a documentary about
[40:53] the jungle and saying that like it's
[40:54] it's just violence. It's horrible
[40:57] violent profanity and fornication and
[40:59] violence. And I
[41:02] but I I don't hate the jungle. I love
[41:04] the jungle. I love I I love the jungle
[41:07] against my better judgment.
[41:10] Um
[41:11] yeah. Anyway, the point is is that like
[41:13] nature like like the nature is cruel.
[41:15] Like we are the least I I would guess
[41:17] that we are the least cruel as a people
[41:20] than we've ever been at this very moment
[41:23] and it's because prosperity has made us
[41:26] soft in a number of ways. And you know,
[41:29] in general, I think it's good. Like no
[41:30] one no one people think they don't want
[41:32] to be soft just like people think they
[41:34] don't want to be old, but as they you
[41:36] know my
[41:38] uh physician says as I get get older is
[41:41] uh you know, old is the goal. Old is the
[41:43] goal, right? You want to live long. Soft
[41:45] is the goal cuz you want to live the
[41:46] kind of lifestyle that makes you
[41:49] soft, morally soft, right? Like
[41:52] sympathetic. Living an easier lifestyle
[41:55] is what leads to that to some extent,
[41:57] you know? Cuz you have the you have the
[41:58] time, you have the latitude, you have
[42:00] the privilege of being able to consider
[42:03] lots of things other than your own
[42:05] immediate needs.
[42:07] Oh, thanks. Are you okay?
[42:10] How are your immediate needs over there?
[42:12] Come here. It's all right. Just get out
[42:13] from underneath it. She She collapsed
[42:16] the uh stepstool onto her, which sounds
[42:18] way worse than it is. Would you just
[42:19] come over here?
[42:21] I'm not going to get up and lift it off
[42:22] you.
[42:23] All right. What else is saying?
[42:25] Uh So, Lemonhead says plant-based meats
[42:28] like Beyond and Impossible are touted as
[42:30] being more environmentally friendly than
[42:32] beef, but they have their own
[42:34] environmental costs, too, with the land
[42:37] use, water use, and GMOs, et cetera.
[42:39] Thoughts? Thank you, Lemonhead. I
[42:43] boy, that is so complicated and it it
[42:45] really depends on the specific meat
[42:48] alternative product you're talking about
[42:50] and you know, and compared to what? Like
[42:53] you're eating the Impossible meat
[42:55] compared to what? And so, there's it's
[42:56] You cannot give an accurate blanket
[42:59] answer to a question like that. And I
[43:02] Personally, I think you should be really
[43:04] suspicious of anyone who does, right?
[43:07] Cuz it it it Any content creator or
[43:09] whoever, I mean, unless they're like an
[43:10] actual freaking scientist with
[43:11] credentials. If it's just a dude like
[43:12] me, and they say that clearly this one
[43:15] product is environmentally better than
[43:17] the other, unless they've really
[43:18] interrogated that and they give a lot of
[43:20] detail to that assessment, I would be
[43:23] suspicious of them.
[43:25] You know, cuz beef I mean, even the case
[43:27] against beef, the environmental case
[43:29] against beef, is really complicated, and
[43:31] that's something I will do a whole video
[43:33] about at some point if I feel like I can
[43:35] wrap my head around it and find the
[43:37] right experts. But, you know, the basic
[43:39] thing is you know, the biggest
[43:41] environmental you know,
[43:43] in most experts' opinions, and certainly
[43:45] in my opinion, for what it's worth, like
[43:46] the most The biggest hazard
[43:49] environmental hazard that the beef
[43:50] industry poses is its contribution to
[43:52] global warming, which is, you know,
[43:54] cows, as they are digesting their grass,
[43:56] they burp uh and to a lesser extent,
[43:58] toot. Um
[44:00] Uh oh gosh, what is the hydrocarbon that
[44:03] they toot? It's called
[44:05] Oh, who Somebody in the chat knows.
[44:08] Methane, right? So, methane.
[44:11] You know? Oh, thank you. Uh Dank Dank
[44:13] Jeb. Oh my god, is Dank Jeb like Jeb
[44:17] Bush, but he smokes?
[44:19] That's awesome. I love that image. Okay.
[44:21] Uh methane. So, methane is like an
[44:23] incredibly powerful greenhouse gas. It
[44:26] has a much stronger I think it's
[44:28] something like a six times the
[44:29] greenhouse effect of an equivalent
[44:30] amount of just carbon dioxide, right? Um
[44:34] and that's that's real bad, right? But,
[44:37] on the other hand, what you could say is
[44:38] that when cattle are grazing off of
[44:41] grass especially
[44:43] um they're contributing to
[44:47] a closed carbon cycle, right? There's
[44:50] surface life stuff. There's surface
[44:52] carbon-based matter on the planet that
[44:54] we mostly organic material, right? And
[44:59] life forms on the surface are constantly
[45:01] eating that carbon and then putting that
[45:03] carbon into the atmosphere and then it
[45:05] gets sucked back out of the atmosphere
[45:07] into the plant that the cow is going to
[45:10] swing back and eat again the next day,
[45:12] right? Like the grass cannot grow
[45:14] without taking carbon out of out of the
[45:17] out of the atmosphere to contribute to
[45:18] its own growth, right? So, what like the
[45:20] beef industry apologists will say, and
[45:23] it's not the argument is not totally
[45:25] without merit,
[45:26] in my opinion. Um
[45:28] take it for what it's worth cuz I'm just
[45:29] a dude on the internet.
[45:31] Um
[45:31] what the beef industry apologists will
[45:33] say is that cattle are not contributing
[45:36] any new carbon to the environment.
[45:38] They're participating in the closed
[45:40] surface and atmospheric carbon cycle.
[45:44] Um and the the reason that, you know,
[45:46] fossil fuels are so incredibly injurious
[45:49] to the climate is that that's that's not
[45:51] surface carbon. That's what they call
[45:54] sequestered carbon. Carbon
[45:56] that has been trapped for millions of
[45:58] years under the ground and to bring
[46:00] bring all up to the surface at once,
[46:02] which is what we've been doing since the
[46:03] dawn of the industrial revolution, and
[46:05] that, you know, the last 200 years
[46:07] counts as all at once in geological
[46:09] time right?
[46:11] Um,
[46:11] so when you bring it all up at once,
[46:13] then yeah, you have the potential to
[46:14] like introduce a lot of new carbon to
[46:16] the atmosphere, and that could really
[46:18] mess things up, and seem it seems like
[46:20] it is really messing things up.
[46:22] Uh,
[46:25] cows are not part of that. They're part
[46:26] of the closed surface carbon cycle.
[46:28] That's what the beef industry apologists
[46:30] will say. Now, the counter argument to
[46:32] that is that the cows are not just
[46:35] burping carbon dioxide, they're burping,
[46:39] oh, I'm so Would you just get out from
[46:40] under the the ladder if you don't like
[46:42] it? Like you could literally just walk
[46:43] away right now.
[46:46] Like just make it
[46:48] All I'm asking is that you own your
[46:50] choices, dog, okay? Just own your Can
[46:53] Can you own your choices?
[46:55] Thank you.
[46:56] See, barely sentient. Anyway,
[46:58] uh,
[47:00] the counter argument to that is that the
[47:02] particular kind of methane that dog that
[47:05] that cattle cattle
[47:07] uh, burp out, the particular kind of
[47:08] carbon is methane, which is far more
[47:11] powerful of a greenhouse gas than the
[47:13] carbon dioxide that would be released if
[47:15] you simply burned that grass instead of
[47:18] feeding it to a cow. And therefore,
[47:21] that's why, you know, very smart people
[47:23] think that the beef industry is probably
[47:25] contributing very substantially to
[47:28] global warming, and that ain't great.
[47:30] Um, I find myself increasingly when I do
[47:33] eat meat, eating beef,
[47:35] um, because I have fewer animal welfare
[47:38] concerns with beef. Um, beef that's, you
[47:42] know, that's where I get it from guys
[47:43] that I trust, like that that that that
[47:45] cow has lived those cattle have lived
[47:48] incredibly, you know, cushy, nice lives,
[47:51] and were killed quickly and humanely,
[47:54] and I have no problem with that. Um, but
[47:56] I still worry about it chiefly from a
[47:57] climate perspective. But you can't
[47:59] answer the question
[48:01] is beef bad for the environment without
[48:05] first dealing seriously and
[48:08] realistically with what you're comparing
[48:10] it to. What would people eat instead of
[48:12] the beef? What would they grow on that
[48:14] ranch land instead
[48:17] in other than beef? Would they grow
[48:19] anything? A lot of ranch land is really,
[48:21] really, you know, dry and semi-arid in
[48:24] the United States, certainly, right? You
[48:26] really can't do much else with most of
[48:27] the land that we use for grazing. Or at
[48:29] least that's that's what the ranchers
[48:31] like to tell us. Don't know how it true
[48:33] it is. I imagine it's somewhat true,
[48:35] right? Uh, you know, what So, what would
[48:37] we grow instead? And where would we grow
[48:39] it? If we were if we weren't growing cow
[48:42] meat there. We'd probably be growing
[48:44] another thing somewhere else, and it
[48:46] might be just as bad for the
[48:47] environment. We It's I doubt it. So, I
[48:50] generally encourage reducing meat
[48:52] consumption, and that's what I'm doing
[48:53] in my own life, cuz I think it's
[48:55] probably the safest bet, you know? And
[48:57] maybe I'll stop eating meat entirely one
[48:58] day. I don't I don't know. I certainly
[49:01] don't don't really need it anymore, you
[49:02] know?
[49:03] Okay.
[49:04] So, I should go ahead and answer some
[49:07] more questions in the chat. Uh,
[49:10] buh buh buh buh. Okay, so Blood Alchemy
[49:12] says, "Question: You've talked about
[49:14] YouTube sponsorships before. Last year
[49:17] video started showing the white graph
[49:20] with what parts of a video are popular
[49:22] or unpopular, and did that change my ad
[49:25] contracts?" Uh, no, it didn't, cuz if
[49:28] you look at the what I think is the
[49:30] graph that you're referring to, which
[49:32] shows the like most viewed parts, which
[49:34] mostly is an indication of either
[49:37] you know, you you would be able to see
[49:38] some drop-off with that if people are
[49:40] just leaving, but mostly what you see is
[49:42] the parts that people repeat. And if you
[49:44] look at it in videos like mine that have
[49:47] like in-video sponsorships where I'm the
[49:49] one delivering the the
[49:51] the most viewed um
[49:53] spot in the video is always the end of
[49:56] the sponsorship.
[49:58] Because people are checking back in to
[50:00] see if they got past it, if they forward
[50:02] if they were able to fast forward past
[50:03] it. And when they can't, they have to
[50:05] sort of, you know, watch the end of the
[50:08] of the ad a little bit and then they get
[50:09] back into the show. And
[50:12] you know, to me it it's up to my
[50:14] sponsors to decide how best I can help
[50:16] them, you know, move some product,
[50:18] right? And if they are concerned about
[50:20] that feature or want to respond to it in
[50:22] some way, then I would be happy to work
[50:24] with them. But what I imagine is that
[50:27] it's probably not hurting their business
[50:28] cuz, you know, when people
[50:30] rewind to find the spot where the ad
[50:33] ended,
[50:35] they're going to be watching for the
[50:37] call to what they call the CTA or the
[50:39] call to action, which is where you say,
[50:40] you know, go to this website to save
[50:42] this money and get your buy your widget,
[50:44] whatever it is. And that's like the most
[50:47] important for them part of the ad for
[50:49] them to watch, and it seems to be the
[50:51] most popular part of every video that I
[50:53] put up for the reasons that we have
[50:55] discussed, and I would imagine that
[50:57] that's just fine for my fine sponsors,
[51:00] which of course includes
[51:02] Indeed, other sponsor of this episode.
[51:06] Go to uh indeed.com/ragusea
[51:11] to go ahead and get yourself a $75
[51:14] sponsored job credit so that you can
[51:17] heart start hiring now with Indeed.
[51:20] Indeed is a job board, but the best one,
[51:23] right? Oh, that offer is good for a
[51:24] limited time, I should say.
[51:27] If you're hiring for your own business
[51:29] all on your own, you're doing something
[51:31] that's really much harder and more
[51:33] consequential than the live podcast
[51:36] hosting that I am doing right now, which
[51:37] is really quite hard, especially when
[51:39] the dog is acting up for reasons
[51:41] previously discussed on the program.
[51:43] What you're trying to do, trying to hire
[51:45] people for your business, that's even
[51:46] harder than what I'm doing right now.
[51:48] You just need to breathe, you got to
[51:49] take it easy, you got to keep it simple.
[51:51] If you're hiring, you need Indeed, and
[51:53] here's why. You can attract, interview,
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[52:21] are
[52:21] over 80% of employers get quality
[52:24] candidates whose resume on Indeed
[52:26] matches their job description the moment
[52:28] that they sponsor a job, and that's
[52:30] according to Indeed's US data. Thank
[52:32] you, dog. I know you're so interested in
[52:34] this
[52:35] advertisement, an advert as the Brits
[52:37] would say.
[52:39] Let's say that Indeed spits out exactly
[52:41] the right person for you.
[52:43] What you can do then is message that
[52:46] potential employee through Indeed. You
[52:48] know, invite them to apply for your job,
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[53:38] Question for you, Adam, from TK. TK
[53:41] says, "I love your deep dives into food
[53:44] history.
[53:45] What is your approach when going down
[53:46] the rabbit hole of investigating the
[53:48] origin of food or a food custom?"
[53:52] So, he TK is not
[53:54] asking about my research process
[53:56] generally, but but specifically as it
[53:57] applies to food history videos, which I
[54:00] don't do enough of. I would like to do
[54:02] more of those. Usually, that involves
[54:06] for me finding a scholar, a specific
[54:09] scholar who is working on that topic.
[54:12] Like and usually, I can find someone
[54:14] that's their whole life's work is, you
[54:16] know, for example,
[54:18] where did the modern concept of the
[54:19] restaurant come from? Right? That's a
[54:21] video we did with an Indiana University
[54:23] professor, uh Dr. Rebecca
[54:26] something German, Speer something. I
[54:29] don't know what it was. But, she did a
[54:30] great job. Um and I I just, you know, I
[54:33] find the right scholar, I go put a
[54:34] camera on them, I help them sell a few
[54:37] books as a courtesy, and that's usually
[54:40] what I do. And that And that works.
[54:42] There's a couple of tricks there,
[54:43] though. Um one, you got to make sure
[54:47] that the scholar you're going to talk to
[54:48] about a historical topic, or really any
[54:50] topic, is not like a fringe figure,
[54:52] okay? And if they are a fringe figure,
[54:55] that doesn't necessarily disqualify
[54:56] them, but it requires that you're going
[54:58] to have to add a lot more context to
[55:00] yourself, and you're probably going to
[55:01] need to interview some more mainstream
[55:03] scholars in that field, unless you have
[55:06] the ability to really tell um BS from
[55:09] non-BS, which I I don't in in most
[55:11] things, right? I I I defer to expertise
[55:14] excitedly, willingly, you know? And
[55:16] that's
[55:17] Is that an appeals to authority fallacy?
[55:20] No, I don't think so, but maybe me and
[55:22] Vlad Vexler could talk about that
[55:24] sometime on the channel. I'm going to
[55:26] call you, Vlad. Anyhow,
[55:28] um
[55:28] so, you got to make sure that the
[55:31] scholar you're interviewing is not is
[55:33] not a fringe figure who's going to be
[55:36] representing the the history really
[55:39] differently than the way everyone else
[55:40] in the field would represent it, right?
[55:42] And that can be tricky
[55:44] um because sometimes you're I'm after
[55:46] doing something that's so niche, a
[55:48] historical topic that is so niche that
[55:50] there's really only like one person
[55:52] who's written a book about it or
[55:53] anything like that and they're kind of
[55:55] the only game in town and I just kind of
[55:57] have to hope that they're not crazy, you
[55:59] know? And I try to rely, trust in the
[56:02] systems of university tenure review and
[56:06] you know, peer review for publication
[56:08] and stuff to make sure that nothing
[56:09] completely insane is going to get um you
[56:13] know, boosted by my channel and I'm sure
[56:15] sometimes it does. And then the other
[56:17] thing you got to be careful for is to
[56:20] see
[56:21] look at the sca- I have to be careful
[56:22] for is when I look at the scholar or the
[56:24] expert that I'm interviewing for that
[56:25] food history video and I have to ask
[56:28] myself is this person an outsider
[56:31] when it comes to what they're talking
[56:32] about? Like are they inside the
[56:34] community that is being written about or
[56:37] are they viewing it from the outside?
[56:39] And if they're viewing it from the
[56:40] outside in some way, I have to make sure
[56:42] I get some kind of inside perspective
[56:44] and when I don't, I always live to
[56:46] regret it. So an example, and this is
[56:48] this is not an expert screwing me, this
[56:50] is just me screwing myself as usual,
[56:52] would be a podcast episode recently
[56:56] where I talked about the wonders of
[56:58] Brazilian steak houses, which are
[57:00] awesome and I love that and I I liked
[57:02] that episode and I don't think I said
[57:04] anything really wrong or anything. What
[57:06] I messed up was I was giving the history
[57:08] behind um the Brazilian steak house
[57:10] institution and the particular
[57:12] geographic area that birthed it, which
[57:14] is called the Pampas.
[57:16] Uh you know, a an area of
[57:18] perfect for cattle ranching that's
[57:19] around uh Buenos Aires in in Argentina
[57:22] but uh the southern province of Brazil
[57:24] is part of it other other countries have
[57:26] parts of it. But anyway, so I talked
[57:28] about sort of how the Pampas got
[57:30] populated by cattle and and by cowboys
[57:33] called gauchos. And what I didn't
[57:36] mention was the indigenous people of the
[57:38] Pampas who were driven out by that
[57:41] activity. And apparently, like it's not
[57:44] a mistake that I missed that. Um the,
[57:47] you know, uh powers that be in Argentina
[57:50] and elsewhere have worked really hard
[57:51] apparently to kind of expunge that part
[57:53] of
[57:54] their history from the record. And so
[57:57] and they succeeded. And they they they
[57:59] fooled me. They duped me. I just didn't
[58:01] I didn't When I was reading up on
[58:02] Brazilian steak houses, I I did not read
[58:04] up anything about any indigenous
[58:06] population of the Pampas. And I guess I
[58:08] assumed that there was very little if
[58:10] any. Which you know, which is not crazy
[58:12] for me to assume because I believe the,
[58:14] you know, indigenous population was much
[58:16] more concentrated on the uh western uh
[58:19] west coast of South America pre-Columbia
[58:22] um pre-Columbian exchange. Exchange
[58:24] Columbian exchange. That's such a benign
[58:26] way to describe
[58:28] mass murder. Um
[58:30] Anyhow, I guess I should just go ahead
[58:32] and move on. But anyway, sorry to the
[58:34] indigenous people of the Pampas. Uh
[58:36] that's the way that I screwed up because
[58:38] I didn't I didn't consult an insider,
[58:41] right? The way I should have for that.
[58:43] And I guess I didn't think I needed to
[58:45] cuz it was just kind of an offhand and
[58:47] casual podcast where I was just talking
[58:48] about how much I liked my dinner at a
[58:50] Brazilian steak house. Um but it I I I I
[58:54] it suffered because I didn't look it for
[58:56] somebody inside.
[58:58] So, uh let's see. Smiliest Prid,
[59:02] Smiliest Prid is asking, "Would you ever
[59:04] have Vsauce on the pod?" I'd love to.
[59:07] Vsauce is awesome. Uh lovely, lovely
[59:10] guy.
[59:11] Um and
[59:14] we There's a I don't know if I should
[59:16] tell you.
[59:17] Well, I can alert you to the existence
[59:19] of it as long as I don't throw you a
[59:20] keys. But there's like a Discord server
[59:22] where a lot of um us, people like me,
[59:25] you know, food tubers hang out and talk
[59:28] and you know, we talk shop and help each
[59:30] other out a little bit, you know, give
[59:31] each other
[59:32] thumbnail feedback, whatever. And uh and
[59:34] Vsauce is there and is awesome. Um I the
[59:37] trick
[59:39] the trick with the podcast I have found
[59:42] is that very rarely do guests draw
[59:45] audience. Topic is what draws audience.
[59:49] Um something that you can say in three
[59:51] words on your thumbnail that is going to
[59:54] pique people's curiosity and make them
[59:56] want to click. And even a big get
[59:59] interview
[60:00] has not historically done that for me
[60:02] when I've tried it. Now, my gets are my
[60:06] idea of a big get is like Vsauce, right?
[60:10] And and maybe if I thought a little
[60:12] bigger, if you know, the idea of my my
[60:14] idea of a big get was Gordon Ramsay or
[60:17] something, like I bet a lot of people
[60:19] would click on a video that promised a
[60:21] conversation between me and
[60:23] Gordon Ramsay, right? But it's never
[60:25] going to happen cuz I for any number of
[60:27] reasons. Like he's like he's like I try
[60:29] to be really happy and smiley in my
[60:30] public persona, but like
[60:32] Gordon Ramsay is pretty much the only
[60:34] like food world personality that I will
[60:37] consistently talk crap about in public
[60:38] cuz I just think he is so he's been such
[60:41] an overwhelmingly negative force on the
[60:43] world. Like his net effect on the world
[60:46] has been really negative, I suspect. Um
[60:49] and I just
[60:51] Anyhow,
[60:52] um fun fact, got another email from like
[60:56] a casting agent who is looking to cast
[60:59] the next victim for a Gordon Ramsay
[61:01] reality show and they were very they
[61:04] they saw my channel and they're very
[61:06] impressed by my content and they're
[61:08] curious if we could get on the phone to
[61:09] talk about me giving up, you know, four
[61:12] months of my life or whatever it is, you
[61:15] know, to live in uh
[61:18] an isolated bubble, which is what you
[61:20] have to do when you do those reality
[61:22] shows. if you didn't know. Like to have
[61:23] to give them your phone maybe, you know,
[61:25] cuz they don't want people
[61:27] they don't want people uh
[61:29] breaking the news about who won who win
[61:31] the show. Who won who don't people doing
[61:33] spoilers for the show. So, you have to
[61:35] live like a sequestered juryman for like
[61:38] for a few months while you're filming
[61:40] the show while Gordon Ramsay abuses you
[61:42] and humiliates you no matter how good
[61:43] you are at what you do. And uh
[61:47] yeah, I I no. I can think of many things
[61:50] I would do before Gordon Ramsay program.
[61:53] And uh that list of things that I would
[61:57] rather do includes hitting myself in the
[61:59] face with a hammer.
[62:03] All right. Uh we can take like a couple
[62:05] more questions and then we got to we got
[62:07] to go ahead and wrap this one up.
[62:11] Um Hannah Dow asks, "How come in your
[62:14] oven fries video, you instruct to add
[62:17] vinegar to the boil water to cook the
[62:20] potatoes slower? Why don't you just cook
[62:21] them for less time?"
[62:24] Is that what I did in that video?
[62:27] I don't remember doing that in that
[62:29] video, but that sounds like the kind of
[62:30] thing that I would do. Um so, Hannah um
[62:35] so, pH affects the breakdown of lots of
[62:40] the chemicals that kind of glue plant
[62:42] foods plant foods together. Um and for
[62:48] example
[62:49] acid, low pH will inhibit the breakdown
[62:52] of pectin, which is one of the reason
[62:55] that we use pectin in like sour fruit
[62:58] preserves and such. It's so effective
[63:01] there. The acid essentially protects the
[63:03] pectin.
[63:05] And it's it's way more complicated than
[63:06] that, the chemistry. And you know, so
[63:07] don't don't quote me on on that
[63:10] in my show that I'm going to publish.
[63:13] That is being broadcast live right now.
[63:15] It's almost like it's radio or
[63:16] something. Anyhow,
[63:18] um
[63:19] the
[63:21] Oh god, what was I talking about?
[63:23] Hey, people in the chat, what was I
[63:24] talking about? Oh, the the vinegar,
[63:26] right? The vinegar for potatoes. So,
[63:28] what vinegar will do in your boil water
[63:30] for potatoes is that it'll inhibit the
[63:32] breakdown of pectin. It will sort of
[63:33] kind of keep the potato together, but it
[63:36] will allow for the breakdown of other
[63:38] things. And what you end up getting with
[63:40] potatoes, for example, is um
[63:42] cell sloughing, I believe is the
[63:45] technical term for it. Like, the cells
[63:47] of the potato will will break apart from
[63:49] each other, but they the cells with
[63:52] themselves will remain more intact and
[63:54] spill less starch into the solution,
[63:56] which would make things gummy and all
[63:58] kinds of things. And I I forget what
[64:00] exactly advantage it would have for the
[64:02] oven fries. But, the other the reason I
[64:04] took your question
[64:06] um
[64:07] is that I I want to emphasize that like
[64:09] I I I do not stand by my earliest
[64:13] videos, of which that is one. Like, the
[64:15] videos I was doing in my first year,
[64:17] basically, are just filled with all
[64:19] kinds of things that I would love to
[64:21] take back if I could, but the internet
[64:23] is forever. And even if I delete the
[64:25] video, it's just going to get reposted
[64:26] by somebody. So, it is what it is. You
[64:29] know, what's done is done, and you have
[64:30] to just improve and and and move on.
[64:33] But, I was so green in my first year
[64:36] doing this that I made all kinds of like
[64:38] technical mistakes and culinary mis-
[64:39] it's just so culinary mistakes, all
[64:41] kinds of things, and you know,
[64:43] uh bits of wisdom that I had absorbed
[64:46] uh you know, chef wisdom that I absorbed
[64:48] uncritically that I just kind of
[64:50] parroted uncritically in the videos,
[64:52] which is my early videos, which is not
[64:54] what I want to do. I'm kind of the
[64:55] opposite of that, you know? So,
[64:57] everything I do in an early video,
[64:59] please, for God's sake, take it with a
[65:00] grain of salt. Uh I don't even remember
[65:03] the oven fries video. I will never watch
[65:05] that video again because of how
[65:07] overexposed some of the shots are. I
[65:09] just can't live with that again.
[65:14] A human with a name says, "Goose,
[65:17] you're easily my favorite YouTuber.
[65:20] Because of you, I want to be a chef and
[65:21] maybe get a food science degree. I am
[65:23] writing a paper on your autolysis video.
[65:27] Will you bring back the Q&A's in
[65:29] comments?"
[65:31] Um so, thank you, human with a name, and
[65:33] that all sounds great. Uh I would
[65:35] absolutely encourage studying food
[65:37] science in college. That's got to be one
[65:39] of the just perfect undergraduate
[65:40] degrees.
[65:42] My god, awesome. Do it. And it it'll it
[65:44] would set you up so well for work as a
[65:46] chef. It would set you set you up well
[65:48] for
[65:49] you know, uh
[65:50] steadier and probably higher-paying work
[65:52] in the food industry, the kind of work
[65:54] where you get to like go into your
[65:55] office and then leave at 5:00, and
[65:58] that's it, right? So, I would encourage
[66:00] you to keep following your your heart in
[66:02] the direction of food science, and maybe
[66:04] it'll take you to some a better job than
[66:06] working at a restaurant. Working at a
[66:07] restaurant is really hard, and I tend to
[66:10] kind of consider it something like being
[66:12] a musician, uh which I
[66:14] was before I, you know,
[66:16] failed at it. It's where my life
[66:18] started.
[66:20] Uh the only reason to be a professional
[66:22] musician is if you're you're so good at
[66:26] it, right? That it's effortless, and
[66:28] people just lap it up. Like the the
[66:30] effortless stuff that you pump out
[66:32] there, people just love it, you know?
[66:34] Paul McCartney is
[66:35] in in that category, right? It's just
[66:37] it's just easy for him. It's so easy. Or
[66:40] in the case of like classically trained
[66:41] musicians, people like orchestral
[66:43] players, you know, there's people who
[66:45] can practice for 10 hours a day,
[66:48] and then get ready for the concert, and
[66:51] they kill it, and they sound beautiful,
[66:53] but they live a miserable life compared
[66:56] to the people who can who are so
[66:57] talented they can just show up with
[66:59] their violin and sight-read the thing,
[67:01] and they're they play it beautifully,
[67:02] and they're done, right? Um you get the
[67:04] same product in both result in both
[67:07] situations, but only one of those people
[67:09] had a good time that day.
[67:11] You know? And that was mainly one of the
[67:13] biggest reasons why I quit quit music
[67:15] was just it was just like I'm not I can
[67:17] be I can make really good music, but I
[67:19] have to work so hard at it. And there's
[67:22] people who do things just as good and it
[67:25] they just toss it off. It's just like
[67:27] breathing to them. And I should leave it
[67:29] to them. The other reason to like be a
[67:31] musician a professional musician is if
[67:33] like you you can't do anything else. You
[67:35] love it so much. You have so much music
[67:38] in you that you have to let it out or
[67:41] you will die. Right? That's that's a
[67:43] great reason to be a musician, too. I
[67:45] mean you're still probably in for a
[67:47] world of hurt in terms of your life,
[67:49] but you have no other choice. So you
[67:51] have to you have to do it, you know?
[67:53] It's like loving someone so much who
[67:55] Well, that's a bad example. I don't want
[67:57] I guess I I don't want to be a
[67:59] I don't want to be advancing abusive
[68:00] relationships. So forget I started that
[68:02] thought.
[68:03] What I really want to compare compare a
[68:04] music professional music making to is
[68:07] professional food making, especially in
[68:09] restaurants, right? Restaurant work is
[68:12] is so killer. It hurts people so much.
[68:15] Even the most successful people in the
[68:16] business
[68:17] are exhausted and their knees hurt and
[68:19] their restaurants usually don't make
[68:21] that much money. Even successful
[68:22] restaurants don't turn much profit. Uh
[68:25] and it's a rough life. And the only
[68:27] reason to do it is if it's
[68:29] easy for you and the public laps it up.
[68:32] Or if like you can't do anything else.
[68:35] It's what you have to do to actualize
[68:38] yourself.
[68:39] Any cost be damned, you know? You're
[68:41] going to live with the pain of working
[68:43] in a restaurant. So awesome. Do that if
[68:45] that's your calling, but otherwise,
[68:47] yeah, I'd say study food science and
[68:48] maybe you get a corporate job.
[68:50] Now, what Human With a Name also asks is
[68:52] will I bring back the Q&A's in the
[68:54] comments. So what he's
[68:56] what this person is referring to is
[68:59] I used to
[69:00] do like a an FAQ, like a fact, like a
[69:03] frequently asked questions. Do people
[69:05] say fact or FAQ? Or do people even say
[69:07] that anymore cuz that's like an internet
[69:08] 1.0
[69:10] term.
[69:11] Uh from the early days. But anyway, I
[69:13] used to do like an FAQ in the pinned
[69:15] comment underneath every video.
[69:19] I don't do that anymore, um human with a
[69:21] name.
[69:22] I consciously stopped for two reasons.
[69:25] One, I got better at anticipating
[69:28] what people would ask about. Or what
[69:31] their criticisms would be. Or you know,
[69:33] whatever they would say that would need
[69:35] to be addressed by me. I got better at
[69:38] anticipating what that would be through
[69:40] experience. And so what I try to do is
[69:42] do the Q&A that I would do in the pinned
[69:44] comment. I try to do that in the video
[69:46] now or the pod, right? I try to
[69:48] anticipate what people are going to talk
[69:50] about. And usually, you know, the big
[69:52] things that I would want to address, I
[69:54] have addressed now in the show. And
[69:56] that's why I just don't need to put in
[69:58] the Q&A most times. the FAQ. Um and then
[70:02] the other reason I stopped doing it is
[70:04] just I needed to
[70:06] I I I needed to stop engaging with my
[70:08] audience for my own
[70:11] good. For any number of reasons. And I
[70:13] had to like kind of go cold turkey on
[70:15] audience engagement and reading comments
[70:17] and stuff. And then I was able to kind
[70:19] of gradually rebuild that in my life in
[70:22] a way that was that was more healthy.
[70:24] Um and still isn't super healthy.
[70:26] But I've kept it reasonably healthy
[70:28] largely by ignoring most of it. And
[70:31] trusting certain people that I have in
[70:33] my life to surface audience complaints,
[70:37] comments, whatever that I I really
[70:39] should hear.
[70:41] Um but I just can't cuz I I don't want
[70:44] to look
[70:45] cuz it's just bad for me. And probably
[70:47] would be bad for you too if you were
[70:48] ever in the situation. People like to
[70:51] they'll say things like, "Oh god, these
[70:52] YouTubers, they have such thin skin." Or
[70:54] these politicians, "They have such thin
[70:55] skin." Like you you try it. Like you try
[70:59] you exposing yourself to that kind of
[71:01] mass public scrutiny even in the case of
[71:03] like relatively inconsequential micro
[71:06] celebrity like the kind that I enjoy.
[71:09] It's really rough and it takes it takes
[71:13] a lot of learning to to figure out a
[71:15] productive way to do it and maybe the
[71:17] best way is to ignore it. So
[71:19] I can answer I'm going to answer two
[71:21] more questions. Okay.
[71:23] Uh
[71:25] Ceiling fan asks Adam given that you're
[71:27] humanist how do you weigh animal welfare
[71:29] against human economic benefit of
[71:31] maximally efficient meat production IE
[71:33] factory farming?
[71:35] Yeah,
[71:36] you said it ceiling fan. What a smart
[71:39] ceiling fan you are. Oh, he's such a
[71:41] smart ceiling fan. He's so smart.
[71:43] Yeah it's
[71:44] uh
[71:46] I I certainly value
[71:49] I value human life and I value the
[71:52] continued
[71:54] sustenance of the biosphere as we know
[71:57] it way more than I value
[72:00] animal welfare. It's you know, that's
[72:02] not to say I don't value animal welfare.
[72:03] I do.
[72:05] But I think what happens to people is
[72:07] more important and I think what happens
[72:08] long-term to the whole biosphere is much
[72:12] more important. And if you can make meat
[72:15] and when meat production is more
[72:17] efficient when you when when farming in
[72:18] general and food production is more
[72:20] efficient
[72:21] there are benefits to be realized
[72:24] there.
[72:25] Not necessarily. There's all kinds of
[72:27] you know, conventional agriculture that
[72:29] is tremendously injurious to the
[72:31] environment among other problems.
[72:33] But you know, the constant fight between
[72:35] the organic farming crowd and the
[72:37] conventional farming crowd is really
[72:39] which is better or worse for the
[72:41] environment and there's
[72:42] as I understand it the science on that
[72:44] question is kind of inconclusive mostly
[72:47] because it it depends a lot on which
[72:49] specific food you're talking about and
[72:51] which specific eaters you're talking
[72:53] about and it's and how you're counting
[72:56] it right like what what how how wide are
[72:59] you drawing the circle around the
[73:01] knock-on effects of that food that
[73:04] you're examining.
[73:05] It's really hard.
[73:07] But there's a strong scientific argument
[73:09] to be made that like the more efficient
[73:11] the food production is, the better it
[73:13] probably is for the environment in most
[73:15] situations.
[73:17] And that could include factory animal
[73:21] farming that is unimaginably cruel um to
[73:24] animals and that's not great.
[73:27] So as a humanist, yeah, um I value these
[73:30] things more than I value animals, but I
[73:32] do value animal welfare and I am not
[73:35] down with modern factory animal farming.
[73:38] Though it has made tremendous strides,
[73:40] like a lot of the really horrific, you
[73:42] know, Upton Sinclair type practices have
[73:45] been reined in considerably and that's
[73:46] not a matter of my opinion. That's like
[73:49] that's been researched. Like go Google
[73:51] Scholar that Like um a lot of the
[73:53] worst abuses have been reined in, but
[73:55] terrible abuses still happen and you
[73:57] could argue that the system itself is
[73:58] inherently an abuse.
[74:00] So that's why I increasingly buy meat
[74:02] from people I know who are raising
[74:04] animals, you know, out in the grass
[74:06] somewhere. I'm not sure if that's better
[74:09] for the environment.
[74:11] It's probably worse for the overall
[74:13] economy and the you know, the the
[74:16] of availability of sufficient material
[74:19] things for everyone in the world, right?
[74:21] Probably not great for that, but at
[74:23] least I'm pretty sure it's good for
[74:24] animal welfare, so that's what I why I
[74:25] do it and that's the best I can do.
[74:27] Uh and that's that's what I have to say
[74:29] about that.
[74:31] Uh David McDermott asks, "Do you ever
[74:33] wish that you had gone into food science
[74:34] as a career?"
[74:36] Uh no. No, I think that my the food
[74:39] science job that I have, which is kind
[74:41] of a food science job, is like way
[74:43] better than like anybody else's food
[74:45] science job. Like this is freaking
[74:46] awesome. It certainly pays more than
[74:49] most food science jobs.
[74:50] Um
[74:51] because ultimately it's not just a food
[74:53] science job.
[74:54] So no, I think I would not have done
[74:56] that. I do regret I really regret not
[75:00] taking more chem in college. In fact,
[75:03] did I even take chem in college? I
[75:04] didn't take o-chem in college. I took
[75:06] chem in high school I took like good a
[75:07] really good high school chemistry class
[75:10] that helps me a lot to this day.
[75:12] But I wish I had taken college-level
[75:14] o-chem at Penn State. Like I think so
[75:16] many things would be so much easier for
[75:18] me right now. Um
[75:21] but coulda woulda shoulda. It's hard to
[75:23] be mad about the choices that you made
[75:25] in your life when your life turns out as
[75:27] well as I feel like mine has.
[75:29] You know, what I regret is who I hurt on
[75:31] the way here.
[75:33] Um and that would include some animals,
[75:35] no doubt.
[75:36] Um so I'm going to take one
[75:39] more question.
[75:42] Bop bop ba.
[75:45] Well, here's a comment from Martin
[75:46] Raymond saying science communicators
[75:49] do a lot more to advance science than
[75:52] scientists do sometimes. Appreciate
[75:54] that, Martin, and I appreciate you
[75:57] qualifying that at the end, giving
[75:59] yourself some wiggle room, little weasel
[76:00] word by saying sometimes at the end.
[76:02] Good call. I would have done the same
[76:03] thing.
[76:05] Yeah, I mean there's science
[76:06] communicators that do incredible things
[76:08] and have done incredible things. Um but
[76:10] there's science communicators that have,
[76:12] you know, done a lot of harm, too. And I
[76:14] I hope I'm not one of those. Um
[76:17] it is remarkable to me how science
[76:20] communication is a radically different
[76:22] job than science. And I deal all the
[76:25] time with really, really gifted
[76:27] scientists doing incredible work who
[76:29] cannot express what they're doing to
[76:32] save their life.
[76:33] And that's okay. That's my job. That's
[76:36] what I'm here for, you know. I'm I'm
[76:37] thrilled that there's a job
[76:39] available for me to do and that's mine.
[76:42] You know, but at the same time, I think
[76:44] you and this is probably a good place to
[76:45] end this. Um,
[76:47] you, the audience,
[76:50] you need to be extra careful
[76:53] when you're watching, you know, science
[76:55] communicators or any kind of person who
[76:57] communicates esoterica for a living on
[77:00] the internet.
[77:02] Because you got to ask yourself, like
[77:04] does this person really know their stuff
[77:06] or are they just really good at talking
[77:08] about it? Because unless you are a deep
[77:11] subject matter expert,
[77:13] you have very little way to tell the
[77:16] difference, right? So, I ask myself this
[77:18] all the time when I watch Peter Zeihan's
[77:20] videos. So, Peter Zeihan, for people who
[77:23] don't know, is like a
[77:24] an international relations consultant or
[77:26] something. Um,
[77:28] and he has a YouTube channel. He does
[77:31] these absolutely delightful, very
[77:33] simple, first-person, you know, holding
[77:35] the phone camera up uh,
[77:37] to talk to it with a beautiful
[77:39] background behind him because he's
[77:40] always traveling cuz he's a consultant
[77:42] and that's what they do.
[77:43] They travel.
[77:45] And he'll, you know, say something about
[77:48] geopolitics in 10 minutes that sounds
[77:50] freaking brilliant.
[77:53] But like I'm not totally sure it's like
[77:55] right.
[77:56] And I'm not a subject matter expert in
[77:58] any of the things he talks about, so I
[77:59] don't know. I know lots of subject
[78:02] matter experts are often critical of his
[78:04] lens, his highly deterministic lens, his
[78:07] highly, um, geographic deterministic
[78:09] lens, which is a problem that I have
[78:11] myself. I've been accused of geographic
[78:12] determinism, so of course that's how I
[78:14] found Peter Zeihan. Birds of a feather,
[78:16] right? Um,
[78:18] and you know, but at the same time he's
[78:20] also respected by a lot of people. But
[78:22] for me, it's just kind of like, dude,
[78:24] you're just so good at this. You're so
[78:26] Peter Zeihan is so good at talking that
[78:29] he could be completely full of it.
[78:33] Have nothing real to say.
[78:36] And people would still watch him. I
[78:37] would still watch him because it just
[78:39] sounds so
[78:41] right and smart.
[78:43] And maybe it is right and smart and
[78:44] that's why it sounds right and smart,
[78:46] but
[78:47] it's also part of it is certainly just
[78:49] that the guy is a very gifted
[78:50] communicator.
[78:52] And
[78:54] I know sometimes he said things that I'm
[78:56] like, "I'm pretty sure that's not quite
[78:57] right."
[78:59] You know? Or or or it's like it's a red
[79:01] flag where I know from my experience
[79:03] that people who express thoughts like
[79:05] that with that level of certainty
[79:08] cannot be trusted.
[79:10] Or or or or you or you should
[79:12] it should be a red flag for you. Like
[79:14] you should you should trust but verify,
[79:16] right? When someone is really certain
[79:19] about a very complex topic and Peter
[79:21] Zeihan is
[79:22] 10,000% certain about most things that
[79:24] he talks about on the internet. And that
[79:26] might be because he reserves the most
[79:30] the things that he really knows about to
[79:32] talk about on the internet and that's
[79:33] awesome but
[79:35] my viewership of Peter Zeihan has made
[79:37] me really worry and wonder like do I
[79:40] actually know what I'm talking about or
[79:43] am I just really good at talking?
[79:46] I'm not even that good at talking as you
[79:47] can see. Like I'm good at writing. I'm a
[79:50] writer. I'm not quick. I'm not good off
[79:53] the cuff, right? Like this sucks.
[79:56] The second half of this show is freaking
[79:57] terrible right?
[79:59] Um I'm not good off the cuff cuz I'm not
[80:00] quick, but I I'm good at writing and I
[80:03] worry is that all I'm good at? Is that
[80:05] all I'm good at? You know? And how would
[80:07] you know
[80:08] if that's all I was good at? You you you
[80:10] unless you were an expert in these
[80:12] fields I'm talking about, you wouldn't
[80:14] know.
[80:15] So I only thing I can do is try to
[80:18] maintain humility and to try to defer to
[80:20] expertise and you know, when I say
[80:23] something like
[80:26] be carrying a lot of body fat is almost
[80:29] certainly really bad for your health
[80:31] um or it at least is strongly correlated
[80:33] with bad health.
[80:35] Like that's not my opinion.
[80:37] And people will challenge it as though
[80:39] it's my opinion. It's not my opinion. I
[80:41] You don't You shouldn't care what my
[80:42] opinion is about that stuff. All I'm
[80:44] doing is articulating the consensus
[80:46] scientific view, you know? Um, and I try
[80:49] to present it as such whenever I
[80:51] remember to. So that you know, that's
[80:53] all I'm saying. Like you should not care
[80:54] about my scientific opinions.
[80:56] Uh, unless it's like an experiment that
[80:58] I do myself in my kitchen and maybe you
[81:01] should care about what I think there.
[81:03] But even then, remember it's not a
[81:05] scientific experiment. It's for
[81:07] infotainment purposes only. And
[81:11] you know,
[81:12] it's awesome. The best thing about the
[81:14] social internet, which is what we're
[81:15] doing right now, is that it does I do
[81:18] think it helps keep people honest. Like
[81:20] I What I see is that when I screw up in
[81:23] a video factually on something, the
[81:26] correction rises to the top in the
[81:29] comments. And I try to help it there.
[81:31] You know, I'll I'll pin it often or I'll
[81:33] I'll like it or respond to it to boost
[81:34] it and try to get it up higher. Most big
[81:37] oopses I've had get caught by the
[81:39] audience really quickly and they float
[81:41] right to the top of the comment section.
[81:43] And that's
[81:44] that's good. That's a way in which, you
[81:46] know, YouTube's magic algorithms seem to
[81:48] be working right. And uh, and with that,
[81:52] I will thank you all very much for being
[81:54] here on the first highly experimental
[81:56] Ragusea live chat podcast. Um, I I don't
[82:00] know how well this went. Let me know how
[82:02] well you think this went and I might try
[82:04] it again. If you're wondering why you
[82:06] didn't hear about it in advance, it's
[82:08] cuz I wanted to keep the pool of people
[82:10] in the chat small and even that
[82:12] completely failed. Like there was It was
[82:14] just going by really, really fast. So I
[82:16] think if I do this again, I might do the
[82:19] super chat thing where people can pay
[82:22] like five bucks or whatever to get your
[82:24] question or comment in the in the chat
[82:27] like surfaced um so that I'm more likely
[82:30] to see it. And I would not be doing that
[82:32] to make money at all. I don't I don't I
[82:33] don't need your money. I appreciate your
[82:34] money, but I don't need it. Um thank
[82:36] you. I need your viewership or and or
[82:39] uh but I don't need your money. Um but I
[82:41] would do the sort of paid question
[82:44] posting thing as a way of managing
[82:46] demand. As a way of making sure that
[82:48] only the people who really want to ask
[82:49] the question are asking the question. Um
[82:52] and and and as a way of just limiting
[82:53] limiting demand, you know, so that I
[82:55] there's it's there's less there for me
[82:56] to have to comb through as I'm also
[82:58] talking off the cuff, which I'm not good
[83:01] at as we just discussed cuz I'm not
[83:02] quick. I'm slow.
[83:05] How slow were you to like stick out
[83:07] through this entire Adam Ragusea
[83:09] podcast? Oh my gosh.
[83:11] Where has your day gone? What poor
[83:13] choices you have made.
[83:14] Make better choices and I will talk to
[83:17] you again next time.
[83:19] Phew.
[83:23] Ooh.