EDIT: JT has now finished. Thank you all for coming. The thread will remain open for chats to finish then we'll be locking it for preservation at some point after 24 hours. Thank you JT for joining us!
JT will be answering questions below, due to a scheduled appointment that couldn't be changed he will be starting a little late, answers will begin roughly 1 hour after the post starts.
Like usual there are no strict time limits set for this so JT will come and go as and when his time allows, if he doesn't get to your questions be patient! This post will be edited here when things end.
JT's posting account for AMAs is: @Secondthought_JT .
Be sure to check out The Deprogram if you haven't already! Available wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Deprogram | Second Thought | First Thought
I love The Deprogram podcast, have been listening since the beginning, and was a subscriber to all 3 respective youtube channels long before the podcast started. One thing that has kinda irked me to put it mildly, is that you guys sure do talk about food a lot. That in and of itself is no problem, but whenever it comes up, it's invariably talk about how great certain fast food chains are and specifically how tasty the animal meat they killed and commodified is, which to some of your vegan fans is disappointing and even legit nauseating at times. I know to most it's just humorous chitchat about something the three of you enjoy, and I get it, but I also know I'm not the only listener really put off by it.
I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what to talk about on their own podcast, but as a listener, I find myself consistently wishing you would seriously address leftist arguments for veganism and recognize the intersectional nature of socialism and non-human animal welfare. I remember Yugopnik saying some really positive things about veganism briefly in one of the livestreams (I can't find which one now) when asked about it but then shortly after, in a regular episode he's going off about how yummy veal is and even forgetting what animal it's made from.
Do you think you could ever get some vegan comrades on the show to take you to task for your unexamined carnism? lol
I want to add, more for some of the readers than for JT. Since someone always says the thought terminating cliche, I realize there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but most leftists recognize there is a spectrum.
Ehhh yeah, I understand what you're coming from, but as bad as it sounds it's just not as pressing an issue as the liberation of humanity. I'm sure we'll have someone on at some point, but only if we can find someone who won't make our audience feel attacked for not being able to afford plant-based alternatives. We have listeners from all over the world and from all sorts of different backgrounds, and while I think all of us can agree that animal rights are important, not everyone is able to live that lifestyle
There's a huge difference between telling everyone regardless of their circumstances that they need to "live that lifestyle" and recognizing how problematic your advocacy of the opposite of "that lifestyle" is on a show where you have significant influence. The constant unironic stanning of Chic Fillet and Mcdonalds and drooling over chicken tendies, all without any examination is why I stopped my patreon support and eventually stopped listening.
Because absolutely none of your audience is vegan, huh?
Because plant-based alternatives are universally more expensive, huh?
Because informing people of the extreme harm that carnism causes and even how it impedes human social justice means they will feel attacked, huh?
Because all of those socialist vegans are always keen on attacking people, it's almost impossible to find ones who go out of their way to be kind and understanding, huh?
I really hate it when people are so certain of what is the most pressing issue. Like when people say a socialist revolution in the imperial core is more pressing than addressing racism there. Or those who say getting free healthcare is more pressing than stopping the exploitation of the global south. The people who say it always do so not to advocate for the thing they feel is the most pressing issue (and that's not to say it isn't a pressing issue), they say it to disparage the importance of another issue. Different issues can be addressed simultaneously, believe it or not. We don't need to bring about the liberation of the entirety of humanity before we can start working to end the suffering of other sentient life that happens on an unimaginable scale, in large part thanks to capitalism. Not only can we work towards both at the same time, both goals are better served by doing so. That's the nature of intersectionality.
Your response is really telling, comrade.
You can, so if you feel it's important then why are you eating the teddies?