Latest / Ridiculous History / Animals On Trial, Part 1: Tons of Animals Went to Kangaroo Courts

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Animals On Trial, Part 1: Tons of Animals Went to Kangaroo Courts · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for our guest super producer,
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Speaker 1: a superstar in his own right, mister Paul. Mission control decands.
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Speaker 2: Right. Sorry, sorry, I had I had something in my throat.
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Speaker 2: Now that was the sound of uproarious applause for Paul
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Speaker 2: and Ben. I have to say, this is a kangaroo court.
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Speaker 2: It's a travesty. This is justice is not being done
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Speaker 2: today on Ridiculous History.
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Speaker 1: And uh and uh they call me Bed. You're Noel Brown,
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Speaker 1: and we are now we are not gonna take it anymore.
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Speaker 1: It's time to talk about something that's been on our
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Speaker 1: minds as well as on the mind of our amazing
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Speaker 1: research associate, doctor Z. What a great setup, nol. We
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Speaker 1: have been encountering the legal system a bit unexpectedly. That's
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Speaker 1: a true story actually on the show, and part of it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Max isn't here right right, And let's oh we should
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Speaker 1: just leave it there. We'll let Max explain himself. He'll
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Speaker 1: he'll provide his own facts on that one. Anyway, long
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Speaker 1: story short, folks, fellow ridiculous historians. Recent events got nol
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Speaker 1: and doctor Z and Max and Paul and I thinking
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Speaker 1: about court, and not just about court, but about how
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Speaker 1: court can turn some people to animals.
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Speaker 2: Well that's true, literally and f and then you know,
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Speaker 2: kangaroo court nothing to do with kangaroos. They don't put
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Speaker 2: a little wig in the in the give a little
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Speaker 2: gabbl to them the whole in their little pause. I
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Speaker 2: picture also having a little miniature version of that inside
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Speaker 2: the pouch, you know, kangaroo litigators. The best I can figure,
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Speaker 2: the etymology just refers to like a kind of jumping
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Speaker 2: around in terms of like you know, cutting corners, you know,
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Speaker 2: a court that does not follow the prescribed rule of law.
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Speaker 2: But it was real bummed to find out that I
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Speaker 2: had nothing to do with kangaroos in any way, shape
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Speaker 2: or form. But today, while we're not necessarily talking about kangaroos,
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Speaker 2: we are talking about animals in court in one way
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Speaker 2: or another.
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Speaker 1: Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. Yes, it turns
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Speaker 1: out that over the past few decades there have been
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Speaker 1: some really exciting breakthroughs in the world of animal cognition.
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Speaker 1: Human beings are changing their understanding of what is considered
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Speaker 1: in intelligence in other species. You know, we talked about
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Speaker 1: this on stuff they don't want you to know. We
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Speaker 1: did an earlier episode on legal personhood and what we've Yeah,
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Speaker 1: what we found there was that researchers seemed to be
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Speaker 1: consistently discovering non human species emotions, their intelligence, their empathy,
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Speaker 1: their behavior, all this stuff that was once thought to
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Speaker 1: be solely the realm of humankind.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out when you boil a lobster or
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Speaker 2: a crab alive, they feel that real bad to do,
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Speaker 2: for sure, And goldfish.
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Speaker 1: Remembers stuff for longer than you think, and an octopus
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Speaker 1: can dream.
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Speaker 2: That's right. Elephants of course, the famous you know elephant
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Speaker 2: never forgets some truth to that as well. But I
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Speaker 2: was particularly taken aback by the crab revelation. There was
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Speaker 2: an episode of one of the Gordon Ramsey cooking shows,
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Speaker 2: I think it was Hell's Kitchen, where there was a
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Speaker 2: contestant who was of Hindu faith and in this mystery
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Speaker 2: box challenge to crab, and she started freaking out because
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Speaker 2: it was a live crab. And she admitted on TV.
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Speaker 2: You know, of course she's like, no cut the cameras away,
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Speaker 2: but of course they still find a way to film
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Speaker 2: out of course that's what they do. And she said
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Speaker 2: she never killed a living thing in her life, and
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Speaker 2: so I thought it was really odd because Gordon Ramsey,
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Speaker 2: he's very he's pretty kind. But ultimately the goal is
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Speaker 2: to get her to kill the crab. And once she
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Speaker 2: kills the crab, she's like, I'm so proud of myself,
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Speaker 2: and me and my girlfriend were like, for going against
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Speaker 2: the tenets of your faith on national television kind of
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Speaker 2: felt bad, But yeah, I mean, and it's so interesting
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Speaker 2: that we are so I mean, obviously human race, human civilization,
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Speaker 2: very human centric. It's a little hard for us to
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Speaker 2: get our heads around the idea that something of another
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Speaker 2: species could experience the world in the same way as
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Speaker 2: we do. And that's what today's episode's all about, is
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Speaker 2: the idea of animal personhood and some very intense fights
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Speaker 2: for that right, you know, to party.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, the law is in general going to treat subjects
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Speaker 1: as one of two things, people or property. Right now,
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Speaker 1: there's no third category, and the idea of legal personhood
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Speaker 1: argues that a certain level of intelligence or sapiens should
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Speaker 1: guarantee a life form certain rights. Property doesn't have those rights.
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Speaker 1: Domesticated animals are treated as economic assets. So the law
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Speaker 1: for quite some time has always regarded people as people
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Speaker 1: and everything else, including animals, as property.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's also not forget the incredibly embarrassing and brutal,
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Speaker 2: brutal time in American history where many people were considered property.
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Speaker 2: So we know that these laws can change, or there
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Speaker 2: are ways to re contextualize, you know, our thinking around
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Speaker 2: these kinds of things. And thankfully that particular one did change.
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Speaker 1: Yes, thankfully. And you know there are lawyers, there are
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Speaker 1: animal rights advocates and in geos who say the time
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Speaker 1: has come to fully implement concepts of legal personhood for
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Speaker 1: so many smart animals. We're both huge fans of all
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Speaker 1: kinds of animals. I mean, I think you even based
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Speaker 1: on our friendship, I think you've given corvids a pass
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Speaker 1: in the bird anathema thing.
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Speaker 2: Well, as long as they don't come at me, as
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Speaker 2: long as they don't come at me toom, well, I
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Speaker 2: don't know, man, if they had a beef with me,
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Speaker 2: but I'm doing everything I can to stay away from
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Speaker 2: corven beefs. But yeah, there's a really great article in
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Speaker 2: the Economists that we're pulling some info from called gradualoiusly nervously,
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Speaker 2: courts are granting rights to animals. A little bit of
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Speaker 2: a teaser there for what's to come. But it's true
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Speaker 2: this is happening slowly but surely, based on certain tests,
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Speaker 2: right that, Like, the courts have decided that okay, if
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Speaker 2: we're going to determine whether something is property or you know,
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Speaker 2: a person, it has to meet certain criteria, you know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is something that was incredibly surprising to me.
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Speaker 1: Animals have been in court throughout history all the time.
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Speaker 1: There's this great book doctor Z found called The Criminal
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Speaker 1: Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals by an author named
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Speaker 1: Edmund P. Evans, and Evans points out, it's so nuts.
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Speaker 1: All sorts of animals went to court, They got excommunicated,
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Speaker 1: they got penalties up and up to and including the
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Speaker 1: death penalty, capital punishment like insects, reptiles, it larger animals
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Speaker 1: of course, dogs, cats and so on.
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Speaker 2: Whatever happened to that murderous Edgar Allan Poe ape sorry
7:49
Speaker 2: spoiler alert for a one hundred year old plus, Yeah,
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Speaker 2: it was it was the ape that did it, That
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Speaker 2: did those murders in that titular morgue. But yeah, I
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Speaker 2: mean joking, But obviously this is true. This stuff does
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Speaker 2: date back much farther than one might think. I think
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Speaker 2: in addition to what did you mention insects? Ben's yeah,
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Speaker 2: crazy crazy, Let's maybe we start there. Yeah, Memoirs of
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Speaker 2: the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Paris published by Buria
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Speaker 2: Saint Prix, and it's well done. I hope Casey would
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Speaker 2: be proud. But yeah, there are multiple missives in this
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Speaker 2: publication outlining some very strange cases, quite a few, in fact,
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Speaker 2: ninety three cases beginning at the start of the twelfth
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Speaker 2: century into the middle of the eighteenth century.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this stuff includes hundreds, hundreds of prosecutions resulting in
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Speaker 1: excommunication or even execution, and it's still admittedly not a
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Speaker 1: complete record. Who went down? Who got popped in court? Well, caterpillars, flies, locusts, leeches, snales, slugs, worms, weavils, rats, mikes, moles, nkes, cocks,
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, dogs, cocks, and astes.
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Speaker 2: The parlance of the time we are in the book
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Speaker 2: were in the book. I love a weavil, you know,
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Speaker 2: I mean cotton didn't like them. Now they decimated crops.
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Speaker 2: And you gotta wonder if some of these were getting
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Speaker 2: accused of crimes against humanity, you know, for like infestations
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Speaker 2: and things like.
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Speaker 1: Sure, if it was a sort of theatrical or kangaroo
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Speaker 1: court turtle doves, goats, mules, turtle dove ever, did anybody
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Speaker 1: they know what they did? That's fair, that's very unfair
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Speaker 1: to turtle doves, I'd argue. So the prosecution of these
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Speaker 1: various insects occurs in all sorts of places. They are
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Speaker 1: prosecuting fifteen nineteen, in seventeen eleven, in seventeen thirteen, in
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Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, in as far as like eighteen sixty
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Speaker 1: six in Slavonia, And to your point about the idea
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Speaker 1: of prosecuting animals for unfortunate events. In Posega in Slavonia
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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty six, a large locust was seized and
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Speaker 1: put to death by being thrown into the water as
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Speaker 1: a representative of the entire species after a particularly unfortunate
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Speaker 1: swarm of locusts eight the entirety of the crops, like
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Speaker 1: years earlier, I guess it got held up in paperwork.
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Speaker 1: And then but several years later they were like, all right, well,
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Speaker 1: kill the big one.
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Speaker 2: I have to ask, though, Ben, like aren't these just
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Speaker 2: cases for extermination? Like, isn't it pretty progressive thinking for
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Speaker 2: this period in history to even have a semblance of
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Speaker 2: a notion of personhood for these types of creatures. I mean,
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Speaker 2: we know that people in the old days killed willy nilly,
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Speaker 2: usually without asking questions like why are these animals being
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Speaker 2: put on trial?
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Speaker 1: It's true, and it's a good question because we have
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Speaker 1: to remember this is at a period in history where
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Speaker 1: church and state were relatively inseparable, So there is some
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Speaker 1: symbolism to it. There's this idea power right right, We're
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Speaker 1: showing the authority of God by symbolically punishing this one
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Speaker 1: representative of these terrible, terrible locusts.
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Speaker 2: That makes sense. A similar situation in eighteen sixty for
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Speaker 2: at the UH. I'm gonna do a silent pe on
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Speaker 2: this one. The letter Nika in UH in Slavonia involved
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Speaker 2: a pig being tried and executed for having bitten the ears.
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, that's a horrible, horrible thing to have happened,
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Speaker 2: to be disfigured in this way. Bitten the ears off
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Speaker 2: of a baby? Not well, yeah, both ears off of
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Speaker 2: a one year old I guess that's not that's still
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Speaker 2: a baby toddler press. Yeah, man, that's I mean, I'm
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Speaker 2: sorry now I really feel bad about laughing. And basis,
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Speaker 2: that must have been terrifying experience for the child that
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Speaker 2: probably will you know, carry trauma along with them for
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Speaker 2: their entire life, not to mention the lack of ears.
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Speaker 2: The flesh of the the condemned pig was was thrown
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Speaker 2: to the dogs, and the the basically the man who
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Speaker 2: owned the offending pig was was essentially forced to pay
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Speaker 2: some you know, let's call it a They call it
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Speaker 2: a dowry here, which is interesting because that's such an
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Speaker 2: antiquated and I guess you know, that is the kind
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Speaker 2: of thing you start paying into early in a child's life,
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Speaker 2: you know, in a female child's life. It's almost like
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Speaker 2: a you know, saving for college or something, right, because
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Speaker 2: isn't it isn't it essentially like this raises the stock
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Speaker 2: of the individual by saying you have this big old
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Speaker 2: fat dowry you're gonna get if you marry this one.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's like a yeah, it it commodified romance
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Speaker 1: and romance as as we understand it in the modern
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Speaker 1: West today. Wasn't so much a thing back in this time.
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Speaker 1: You know, marriage is very much a social contract. And yeah,
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Speaker 1: the court was doing their best. They said, look, you
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Speaker 1: own this pig. This pig mutilated this child, and our
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Speaker 1: concern is the court, is that it might get in
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Speaker 1: the way of her being married later. So you've got
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Speaker 1: to put some money in it, because what else you
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Speaker 1: gonna do, right, that's what I Yeah, well what are
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Speaker 1: we are? We gonna let her be an engineer? Not
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Speaker 1: in Slomonia?
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Speaker 2: They said they did. They did say that. It's quoted
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Speaker 2: in the piece. So that's an example of a big
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Speaker 2: who definitely did a bad thing being squashed under the
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Speaker 2: iron fist of the law.
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Speaker 1: Right. Yes, the meat grinder of justice.
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Speaker 2: Yes, usually grinds pretty slowly, but in this case it
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Speaker 2: seemed to we're in a pretty steady clip, a little reactionary.
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Speaker 1: But also, you know, you can't grow back ears, not yet.
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Speaker 1: So okay, we know that during the the term dark
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Speaker 1: Ages isn't the most accurate term, but during some let's
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Speaker 1: say nadiers or low periods in the Middle Ages, courts
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Speaker 1: had a lot of problems. They still have a lot
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Speaker 1: of problems. Obviously, we live in the United States. The
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Speaker 1: courts of the time in the Middle Ages in Europe
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Speaker 1: were pretty spotty, with the record pretty fast and loose
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Speaker 1: with things. It's tough to know how often these courts
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Speaker 1: convicted animals of some sort of perceived crime, and will
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Speaker 1: probably never know the weirdest punishments that were given to
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Speaker 1: them as a result of this, but we do have
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Speaker 1: for the historical record a small percent a sneak peek
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Speaker 1: on some specific cases of animals on trial.
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Speaker 2: Ah, yes, many of which were assembled by I'm sorry
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Speaker 2: I ever did at that time, but sorry, still trying
15:35
Speaker 2: to make Casey proud of me and some others you know,
15:37
Speaker 2: who did investigate some of these cases throughout history and collected,
15:42
Speaker 2: you know, some accounts. So there were often examples of
15:47
Speaker 2: animals being condemned to be burned alive, which we also
15:51
Speaker 2: know happened to people.
15:52
Speaker 1: And which is also known as cooking.
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Speaker 2: That's right, that's correct. That well for yeah, exactly. The
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Speaker 2: terminology is difference, doesn't it, you know? With an animal, Well,
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Speaker 2: I mean it's usually eat slaughter an animal before you burn it,
16:04
Speaker 2: but not in a lobster or a crab though you
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Speaker 2: have to boil that thing alive. It's the only way
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Speaker 2: to do it. My kid was like, we're watching it.
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Speaker 2: Is there no other way? Dad? Is there no other way?
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Speaker 2: Can't you kill it humanely? I mean, I guess you
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Speaker 2: can't because of the nature of the shell. I would
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Speaker 2: think you could like stab it with an ice pick
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Speaker 2: or something, then that would mess up the shell, and
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Speaker 2: the shell's part of the presentation.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there are all right. Your your mileage may vary,
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Speaker 1: but as far as I know, like in my own
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Speaker 1: personal experience, the most humane way to kill the lobster
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Speaker 1: is to place the tip of the knife behind the
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Speaker 1: lobster's eyes, right right around where the claws meet the body.
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Speaker 1: Interesting halfway halfway to was it the first joint?
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Speaker 2: They don't even mention that on the Gordon Ramsey Show.
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Speaker 2: Shame on them, because yeah, I mean, you know, you
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Speaker 2: don't want your seafood to have been dead for these
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Speaker 2: certain kinds, like muscles and stuff to have been dead
17:05
Speaker 2: for too long, because then that's bad. Like muscles, if
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Speaker 2: they're closed, I believe that means they're dead and they
17:09
Speaker 2: can be really bad for you they have like rotted
17:12
Speaker 2: or whatever. But if you kill it immediately and then
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Speaker 2: boil it, what's the harm in that? Sorry, I'm on
17:16
Speaker 2: this whole crab and lobster humanitarian kick here. Ben.
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Speaker 1: The thing is, they're delicious, though, they are really really are,
17:22
Speaker 1: really really good.
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Speaker 2: So during some of what is being referred to in
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Speaker 2: this account as the darkest periods of the Middle Ages, yeah,
17:34
Speaker 2: that's when we have some of these discrepancies in records.
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Speaker 2: So we have beasts being burned alive. We have that
17:41
Speaker 2: taking place kind of in the back half of the
17:43
Speaker 2: seventeenth century, which is actually, you know, as many of
17:47
Speaker 2: you may know, where people start to get a little
17:50
Speaker 2: more enlightened, people start to exhibit a little bit more empathy,
17:54
Speaker 2: so it's a little unusual to kind of have such
17:58
Speaker 2: a cruel treatment of animals, which obviously, you know, as
18:02
Speaker 2: time progressed and people started getting a little smarter, animals
18:06
Speaker 2: were looked at with much more empathy and treated with
18:09
Speaker 2: much more kindness. You know, the whole idea of like
18:10
Speaker 2: the spit turning dog and all of that sort of
18:13
Speaker 2: went out the window, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And look, they were always burned alive. Sometimes they
18:20
Speaker 1: would be slightly singed, like toasted a little and then
18:25
Speaker 1: asphyxiated before they were thrown to the flames. Because dying
18:29
Speaker 1: by fire is just a terrible death. And then sometimes
18:33
Speaker 1: they were even buried alive, which seems part of the
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Speaker 1: dark pun incredibly inhumane. In fourteen seventy four, in a
18:46
Speaker 1: magistrate crew sentenced a rooster to be burned at the
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Speaker 1: steak for quote the heinous and unnatural crime of laine
18:56
Speaker 1: and egg. I'm sorry, yeah, it's just the rooster was
19:00
Speaker 1: caught with an egg, and so they said the rear legs.
19:04
Speaker 1: They don't it was just around the egg. And they said,
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Speaker 1: this is not God's work. I see, I see, And
19:12
Speaker 1: I get the feeling. I'd love to hear your thoughts
19:14
Speaker 1: on this, folks, get I get the feeling here that
19:17
Speaker 1: a lot of these trials are show trials, meant for
19:22
Speaker 1: the community right for them to say, Okay, someone is
19:27
Speaker 1: doing something.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, a little less brutal, but
19:33
Speaker 2: something along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition, you know,
19:35
Speaker 2: where it's meant to make an to make an example
19:40
Speaker 2: out of certain individuals in there. But it's weird, though,
19:42
Speaker 2: because you know this, this implies a lot of sentience
19:46
Speaker 2: on the part of the animals. It's like, look here,
19:48
Speaker 2: other dogs, see what we've done to your to your littermates.
19:52
Speaker 2: You know who wronged us. Now you go behave yourself.
19:55
Speaker 2: Now at that for this example that we've made, will
19:57
Speaker 2: teach you to eat children's ears. Yeah, well you hang
20:01
Speaker 2: around eggs, you cock. I'm sorry, I'm never gonna know.
20:06
Speaker 2: But it's it's a little weird, like what were they
20:08
Speaker 2: what were they thinking? I mean, you did make the
20:11
Speaker 2: great point bend that it is also sort of the
20:13
Speaker 2: exercising of a sort of spiritual power. Perhaps that maybe
20:19
Speaker 2: they're they're expressing some kind of intent that will then
20:22
Speaker 2: in their minds carry over to the other animals. But
20:26
Speaker 2: to the point of the kind of community affair, like
20:30
Speaker 2: who are they demonstrating this for the owners of other animals,
20:33
Speaker 2: lest they, you know, harbor satanic impulses in their chickens.
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Speaker 1: I think it comes from humanity's great need to have
20:46
Speaker 1: bureaucracies look like they're doing something about our problem. So
20:50
Speaker 1: it's a big show in town. In the case of
20:53
Speaker 1: this poor rooster, the whole town shows up, the poor people,
20:58
Speaker 1: the wealthy people, they show up, and the executioner who
21:02
Speaker 1: is killing this rooster apparently finds three more eggs inside it.
21:08
Speaker 1: This obviously is apocryphal. This is probably a legend. A
21:14
Speaker 1: lot of these things are legend, but there are so
21:16
Speaker 1: many stories about animals being put on trial and executed
21:21
Speaker 1: in previous centuries leading up to the nineteenth century that
21:28
Speaker 1: it's it's virtually certain a couple of these silly, weirdly
21:33
Speaker 1: disturbing things did occur in real life, and it's something
21:39
Speaker 1: that the animal rights movement was aware of. If we
21:41
Speaker 1: fast forward hundreds and hundreds of years to the nineteen seventies,
21:46
Speaker 1: then we hit the modern animal rights movement, which I
21:51
Speaker 1: think puts a lot of gas in the fire for
21:54
Speaker 1: the concept of legal personhood.
21:57
Speaker 2: And it's interesting that these early examples of animal trials
22:02
Speaker 2: are not to the benefit of the animals at all.
22:05
Speaker 2: They're animals being used and abused publicly some sort of
22:09
Speaker 2: misguided attempt at making a statement, you know what I mean.
22:13
Speaker 2: They're not like really like the chicken was never going
22:16
Speaker 2: to get off, you know what I mean, Like that
22:18
Speaker 2: it was always it was always going to be curtains
22:21
Speaker 2: for the pig, that the baby's ears as it should
22:24
Speaker 2: have been, that was a menace. That pig was a menace.
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Speaker 1: Pn Do they get to testify though, Do they get
22:30
Speaker 1: to oint through their side of the story, the character, right,
22:34
Speaker 1: do they have someone show up like a babe and
22:37
Speaker 1: say it's that's that'll do?
22:40
Speaker 2: That was some pig, that was Charlotte's web. Yeah, they're
22:43
Speaker 2: very similar.
22:44
Speaker 1: They're a little the common out.
22:47
Speaker 2: They sure do U delightful film and delightful book and
22:50
Speaker 2: delightful animated film. But we digress. So now we're entering. Yeah,
22:54
Speaker 2: during the nineteen the twentieth centuries, we don't see much
22:56
Speaker 2: of this at all, understandably, but then once you start
23:00
Speaker 2: getting into to your point, ben, the idea of animal liberation,
23:03
Speaker 2: you have books like The Jungle, you know, that come
23:07
Speaker 2: out that really get people thinking about the inhumane conditions
23:11
Speaker 2: and the frankly you know, disgusting conditions in slaughterhouses and
23:17
Speaker 2: commercial you know, meat packing facilities and whatever they might be.
23:21
Speaker 2: Peter Singer comes out with a book in nineteen seventy
23:24
Speaker 2: five called Animal Liberation, and he kind of lays out
23:27
Speaker 2: this really interesting timeline of human kind or humanity's relationships
23:33
Speaker 2: to animals, you know, showing that they really are valuable companions.
23:38
Speaker 2: You know, the idea of amount you know, you know,
23:40
Speaker 2: a steed, whatever it might be, or like the way
23:43
Speaker 2: we've interacted with animals for just thousands of years.
23:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this brings a paradigm shift for a lot
23:54
Speaker 1: of people. Now, of course, the human experience is vast
23:58
Speaker 1: and it contains multitude, dudes, And we do want to
24:01
Speaker 1: shout out the multiple communities throughout history that have always
24:07
Speaker 1: refused to consume animal flesh. Right, there were precedents for
24:11
Speaker 1: this millennia and millennia back. Peter Singer argues that a
24:17
Speaker 1: lot of the justification for the way animals are treated
24:21
Speaker 1: today comes from speciism. It's a term he credits to
24:26
Speaker 1: a guy named Richard Ryder. Specism is basically humans having
24:31
Speaker 1: main character energy, Right, the prejudice is that we as
24:36
Speaker 1: humans are inherently better or more deserving of things than
24:43
Speaker 1: other non human life forms, which honestly is the way
24:48
Speaker 1: it goes, right, Like, it's not unfamiliar as a concept
24:53
Speaker 1: to many people. And Singer compares this speciism to fundamentally
24:59
Speaker 1: un clean things like racism and sexism, And he says,
25:05
Speaker 1: you know, if possessing a high degree of intelligence does
25:09
Speaker 1: not entitle a person to use another person for their
25:14
Speaker 1: own nefarious ends, then why doesn't that apply to humans?
25:18
Speaker 2: Right?
25:19
Speaker 1: Like, if you elephants are intelligent. Cetaceans are intelligent, the
25:23
Speaker 1: cephalopods intelligent. The more we learn about animals, the smarter
25:27
Speaker 1: they appear to be. There was also speaking of bees,
25:31
Speaker 1: a recent study I read that indicates the humble bumblebee phrase.
25:37
Speaker 1: I love the humble bumblebee has dreams and goals in
25:45
Speaker 1: a primitive form of consciousness.
25:47
Speaker 2: He made a whole movie about him, you know, with
25:49
Speaker 2: Jerry sein voiced by Jerry Seinfeld. You don't get voiced
25:52
Speaker 2: by Jerry Seinfeld for nothing, you know, unless you got
25:55
Speaker 2: a real story to tell.
25:56
Speaker 1: Wasn't there another film around the same time about an
26:00
Speaker 1: Well there was Ants.
26:01
Speaker 3: Oh oh, nailed it, and then they're out there, Well
26:04
Speaker 3: there there was a bugs life, and Ants was like
26:06
Speaker 3: basically identical to a bugs life and in a similar
26:09
Speaker 3: way that Charlotte's Webb and Babe have a lot in common,
26:12
Speaker 3: you know, it probably more parallel thinking than anything.
26:14
Speaker 2: I think they actually came out almost at the same time,
26:17
Speaker 2: so I'm thinking, yeah, but yeah, apparently there there is
26:21
Speaker 2: a if you're into internet, Shenani Green, you can't find
26:24
Speaker 2: a gift of the b movie. That's the whole movie
26:27
Speaker 2: sped up to like five thousand percent and and and
26:30
Speaker 2: it's contained within a single gift, which I thought was clever.
26:34
Speaker 2: Is it?
26:34
Speaker 1: Is it watchable? You like?
26:36
Speaker 2: No? It makes your friend, it makes your brain, all right,
26:39
Speaker 2: And you don't get the delightful voice stylings of Jerry Seinfeld.
26:42
Speaker 1: Oh well, if they're not doing it with a sounding, yeah,
26:46
Speaker 1: it's a gift.
26:48
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
26:50
Speaker 1: So nineteen eighty three, this guy named Tom Reggie comes
26:53
Speaker 1: out with a book, The Case for Animal Rights, and
26:57
Speaker 1: argues along similar direction right that have been put out
27:01
Speaker 1: by Singer earlier. And so he delves into philosophical axioms
27:07
Speaker 1: and implications for this, and he says, let's think about
27:12
Speaker 1: Kant and the categorical imperative, which means a person is
27:17
Speaker 1: not simply a means to an end, but an end
27:21
Speaker 1: unto themselves, Like your presence is a present, and so
27:25
Speaker 1: you have equal rights as a life form in comparison
27:30
Speaker 1: to anybody else, be the pauper or be they prince.
27:34
Speaker 1: And this is interesting because the way that Reagan is
27:39
Speaker 1: writing about this, he's using cause as a foundational piece
27:43
Speaker 1: of his argument. Button the Kart and other Enlightenment philosophers
27:51
Speaker 1: they didn't give a penny farthy about animals they did
27:56
Speaker 1: not care.
27:56
Speaker 2: No, they certainly were more of the proponents of the
27:59
Speaker 2: idea of animals being lower, you know. But it's interesting
28:03
Speaker 2: because you can, you know, this idea of personhood and
28:07
Speaker 2: this you know, this idea of being a means to
28:09
Speaker 2: an end, and like what is the value of life?
28:12
Speaker 2: You know? Is the question here? And obviously we know
28:15
Speaker 2: that within the you know, the great game of nature,
28:19
Speaker 2: there are very brutal things that happen to animals of
28:22
Speaker 2: all kinds. There are very brutal things that happen to humans.
28:25
Speaker 2: We have evolved into doing it. It's a little bit
28:27
Speaker 2: more diplomatically and the things that we do to hurt
28:29
Speaker 2: each other, you know, rather than like animals literally feeding
28:32
Speaker 2: on each other, you know, for sustenance. But it is
28:36
Speaker 2: still all a question of like what is life and
28:38
Speaker 2: which life form is more valuable like in the eyes
28:42
Speaker 2: of some creator deity, Like where where does the question
28:45
Speaker 2: really originate? You know?
28:47
Speaker 1: Right? And who deserves to answer that question? Right? Who?
28:52
Speaker 1: And for whom are they speaking for? College us?
28:54
Speaker 2: Because we're people, because we're the best ones.
28:57
Speaker 1: Right in the language that we made, you know. But
29:00
Speaker 1: I bet whales when they decode whale song, they're gonna
29:04
Speaker 1: We're gonna learn so much about epic trash talk.
29:07
Speaker 2: Dude, they're so pissed. I mean, look at them now
29:09
Speaker 2: and you. They're attacking boats and stuff, and like, I mean,
29:13
Speaker 2: I know that you mentioned having a contact with I
29:16
Speaker 2: believe Noah or one of the you know, the weather
29:20
Speaker 2: kind of services. But like the way the oceans are
29:23
Speaker 2: heating up right now, it's bad because of human involvement.
29:27
Speaker 2: Let's just be real, Uh, it's really really bad for
29:30
Speaker 2: animals and for the ecosystem of the ocean. So you're right, Ben,
29:34
Speaker 2: if you could decode whale song and dolphin clicks, it'd
29:37
Speaker 2: be a lot of middle finger talk, a lot of
29:40
Speaker 2: f's and jeffs toward you know, guys like us.
29:43
Speaker 1: A lot of diss tracks guys like us meaning humans.
29:47
Speaker 1: And if you are listening and you happen to be
29:51
Speaker 1: an artificially created intelligence, well sorry, Bud, you're probably gonna
29:56
Speaker 1: get lumped in with us land lubbers as well count
30:05
Speaker 1: Descartes and other contemporaries of theirs, folks like Hobbes. They
30:10
Speaker 1: all said basically like you said, no, humans have no
30:14
Speaker 1: duty to animals, and content at some point says, well,
30:18
Speaker 1: you know, our treatment of other non human creatures. It
30:23
Speaker 1: might in some way inform the way we treat our
30:26
Speaker 1: fellow humans. And Descartes said, look forget it. You guys
30:30
Speaker 1: are crazy. You guys are bonkers and bananas. This is
30:34
Speaker 1: a kangaroo court. Animals don't have souls, they ain't got
30:37
Speaker 1: no souls, and they're automata, you know, So why are
30:43
Speaker 1: we talking this way?
30:43
Speaker 2: Well, A lot of stuff's from the Bible bend, I mean,
30:45
Speaker 2: the idea of the beasts of the field and all that,
30:48
Speaker 2: and the idea of that animals were put there for
30:50
Speaker 2: us to like, enjoy and to use, you know, I mean,
30:55
Speaker 2: I think, I mean, it has to to me. A
30:57
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff comes from descriptions in the Bible
31:00
Speaker 2: of you know, the order in which God created life,
31:04
Speaker 2: and there is a hierarchy, a very clear hierarchy laid
31:08
Speaker 2: out in Biblical you know, creation myths. I will call
31:13
Speaker 2: them no offense. That's just my take on it. I
31:16
Speaker 2: think I'm allowed to have that, and it reads like
31:18
Speaker 2: a myth. Whether you believe it to be accurate or not,
31:21
Speaker 2: you can still see it as something that fits into
31:24
Speaker 2: that type of story.
31:25
Speaker 1: One hundred percent Man, one hundred percent. And you know,
31:29
Speaker 1: these philosophers and these animal rights activists, they do have
31:34
Speaker 1: a lot of similar DNA and they definitely all have
31:37
Speaker 1: good intentions. If we look at Singer and Reagan along
31:41
Speaker 1: with other activists, we see that their investment in the
31:47
Speaker 1: idea that non human life forms deserve, you know, not
31:53
Speaker 1: to be terrified all the time. That idea, that exercise
31:57
Speaker 1: of empathy comes from an understanding that these creatures can suffer,
32:02
Speaker 1: they can experience pain, and if one can avoid inflicting
32:07
Speaker 1: pain on another living thing, why wouldn't you avoid it.
32:13
Speaker 1: It's it's weird because like that sounds all well and good,
32:18
Speaker 1: and a lot of us listening today we are omnovores,
32:22
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, I get it. Factory
32:25
Speaker 1: farming is terrible, terrible, terrible. I do love a bacon cheeseburger.
32:29
Speaker 2: Though, It's true. And and you know, props to certain individuals
32:33
Speaker 2: like in the farm to table community or in the
32:36
Speaker 2: you know, culinary community, even like Gordon ramsay, you can
32:38
Speaker 2: come off it's a bit of a jerk sometimes, like
32:41
Speaker 2: in that episode with the crab that I was mentioned,
32:43
Speaker 2: even though he was he did try to talk her through.
32:45
Speaker 2: It was nice to her there is an episode of
32:48
Speaker 2: one another. He has so many shows, he's been on
32:49
Speaker 2: the air for so long, where he has his he
32:52
Speaker 2: he creates a turkey pen in his backyard and teaches
32:58
Speaker 2: his kids about turkeys for slaughter. You know, I mean
33:03
Speaker 2: it is an understanding from the start that they will
33:05
Speaker 2: be raised to be slaughter for Christmas dinner. So at
33:07
Speaker 2: the very least, it's teaching them where food comes from.
33:09
Speaker 2: And then not like it's some sort of magical thing
33:11
Speaker 2: that just appears, you know, shrink wrapped for you in
33:14
Speaker 2: the grocery store. So at the very least, like certain
33:16
Speaker 2: cultures that you know, it's very important for them to
33:19
Speaker 2: use every part of an animal that they kill, I
33:23
Speaker 2: think it's important to know where food comes from and
33:25
Speaker 2: at the very least to have respect for the creature
33:28
Speaker 2: that you're consuming killing. Not to get all peeda on anybody.
33:33
Speaker 1: Check out check out our earlier episodes on stuff they want,
33:36
Speaker 1: you know, because I think we are one hundred percent
33:39
Speaker 1: on the same page, or at least the same cattle pin.
33:43
Speaker 2: Here.
33:44
Speaker 1: The idea that the idea of legal personhood. It might
33:48
Speaker 1: sound wackado if you've never heard this concept before, because
33:52
Speaker 1: you would say, well, if it's not a person. How
33:55
Speaker 1: can it have personhood? We'll get to that. The best
33:59
Speaker 1: way to approach it is to realize that. Surprisingly, a
34:04
Speaker 1: number of court cases have tested this concept. They have
34:08
Speaker 1: expanded the legal standing of animals both as property and
34:14
Speaker 1: as thinking individuals, which is fascinating. You know, there's no
34:20
Speaker 1: shortage of people attempting to improve the lives of non
34:24
Speaker 1: human animals through things like animal welfare laws. Right, let's
34:29
Speaker 1: make things a little less horrifying for these creatures before
34:34
Speaker 1: they are executed and you know, cut into pieces and
34:37
Speaker 1: shipped off to the grocery store.
34:39
Speaker 2: That's right. And you know the charge for these types
34:42
Speaker 2: of efforts is usually led from places that you might expect,
34:45
Speaker 2: like California, where a lot of these progressive sort of
34:48
Speaker 2: ideas start. In this case, a ballot initiative also known
34:53
Speaker 2: as a referendum, was held that would require larger spaces
34:59
Speaker 2: for farm animals, you know, larger spaces for caged farm
35:03
Speaker 2: animals such as chicken, and even places such as the
35:09
Speaker 2: European Union, Taiwan, in India, some parts of Brazil and
35:15
Speaker 2: California have also banned cosmetic testing on animals. And I
35:20
Speaker 2: believe there are certain places as well ben that have
35:23
Speaker 2: cracked down on circuses using elephants. Yes, because of you know,
35:28
Speaker 2: those small kind of you know, the type conditions in
35:31
Speaker 2: which they're held when they're traveling, you know, on those
35:35
Speaker 2: kind of caravanning type vehicles, and just the fact that
35:38
Speaker 2: again to your point earlier been elephants know what's up,
35:41
Speaker 2: you know, they know, and they can be sad.
35:44
Speaker 1: Yes, they can be sad. They can also elephants do
35:49
Speaker 1: a lot of things that humans would fundamentally recognize. Elephants
35:56
Speaker 1: can become just like primates. Elephants can become acclimated to
36:02
Speaker 1: fermented drinks, they can get into booze and then they
36:07
Speaker 1: just run around and party whatever human settlement they have.
36:11
Speaker 1: They can get frustrated. They do remember, they remember across decades,
36:17
Speaker 1: very very smart animals. And so we see a lot
36:21
Speaker 1: of we see a lot of conversation regarding things like
36:26
Speaker 1: not just factory farming or the livestock trade, but we
36:30
Speaker 1: also see arguments that zoos are essentially a super max
36:36
Speaker 1: prison for animals, right, and are we helping or hurting
36:40
Speaker 1: when we keep some of these creatures away from the wild. Personally,
36:46
Speaker 1: and this is just my opinion personally, I believe that
36:49
Speaker 1: zoos and conservation efforts do a huge, irreplaceable and incredibly
36:56
Speaker 1: important job preserving biodiversity on this planet. And and there
37:02
Speaker 1: you know, the tiger, of course is not happy in
37:06
Speaker 1: a cage, But there are more tigers in Texas right
37:10
Speaker 1: now than there are in the entirety of the wild.
37:13
Speaker 2: Well, if I'm not mistaken, I know for a fact,
37:15
Speaker 2: like the Atlanta Aquarium and in the Atlanta Zoo, a
37:19
Speaker 2: lot of the animals that are in there, like couldn't
37:21
Speaker 2: survive in the wild because they've been injured in some way,
37:24
Speaker 2: or I think some of the beluga whales at Atlanta
37:28
Speaker 2: Aquarium were actually rescued from some like kind of weird
37:32
Speaker 2: Mexican Mexican amusement park. They were like held in some
37:35
Speaker 2: sort of weird, nasty tank under a roller coaster and
37:38
Speaker 2: they were from there. So to your point, I think
37:40
Speaker 2: that's it's easy to have that misconception, I think, And
37:43
Speaker 2: it can vary certainly depending on where where you're talking about.
37:47
Speaker 2: But there are definitely zoos and the zoo keepers who
37:51
Speaker 2: are there to do like a real service, you know,
37:53
Speaker 2: towards these animals and to have them have a quality
37:56
Speaker 2: of life. They wouldn't be able to have in the
37:57
Speaker 2: wild because they would probably either be like cast out
38:01
Speaker 2: of their group for having some you know, the disability
38:04
Speaker 2: let's just call it, I guess, or wouldn't make it
38:07
Speaker 2: because they don't have the you know, the ability to survive.
38:10
Speaker 1: Right Like how a man eating tiger or a man
38:14
Speaker 1: eating lion is usually going to be a creature that
38:19
Speaker 1: has somehow maybe injured its teeth due to old age
38:23
Speaker 1: or something. It resorts to hunting humans because it has to.
38:28
Speaker 1: It is handicapped in some way. And you know, there
38:32
Speaker 1: there's really weird legal precedents here. Let's go to Iowa,
38:37
Speaker 1: the Animal Legal Defense Fund suit a private zoo for
38:40
Speaker 1: infringing on the Endangered Species Act that's supposed to protect
38:45
Speaker 1: wild animals in the United States, the ALDF one, and
38:50
Speaker 1: so the US Department of Agriculture took away the zoo's license,
38:55
Speaker 1: they revoked the zoo's ability to operate. And then the
38:58
Speaker 1: same organization, Animal Legal Defense Fund, went over to Oregon
39:03
Speaker 1: and they said, look, Oregon law lets victims of violence
39:08
Speaker 1: sue for compensation, sue for redress. So we are going
39:13
Speaker 1: to file a lawsuit on behalf of not an eight
39:16
Speaker 1: year old human, but an eight year old racehorse named
39:20
Speaker 1: Justice because Justice was found frostbitten and malnourished and their
39:26
Speaker 1: owner should be convicted of neglect. Now that court case
39:30
Speaker 1: didn't go through immediately, but it became the subject of
39:35
Speaker 1: an appeal. And if we look at the legal records,
39:38
Speaker 1: we see more and more places, like I was talking
39:41
Speaker 1: about this on stuff they want you to know in Germany, right,
39:43
Speaker 1: more and more places are legislating this idea. They're saying
39:48
Speaker 1: animals are sentient beings.
39:51
Speaker 2: That's right. And there have been laws crafted around that,
39:54
Speaker 2: referred to as sentience laws, which unfortunately have not had
39:59
Speaker 2: a whole heck of a lot of impact. In the EU,
40:03
Speaker 2: for example, something called the Lisbon Treaty, and also in
40:06
Speaker 2: New Zealand that would qualify as these kind of sentience laws,
40:12
Speaker 2: and again that they've had mixed results and largely not
40:16
Speaker 2: a whole heck of a lot of traction has been
40:19
Speaker 2: gained from them. For example, there have been zero cases
40:23
Speaker 2: that have come to court in New Zealand. But New
40:25
Speaker 2: Zealand did amend its Animal Welfare Act to give this
40:31
Speaker 2: sentient status to animals as recently as twenty seventeen, and
40:34
Speaker 2: in the United States, there are pet custody laws, which
40:41
Speaker 2: you know, govern I guess the idea of animal cruelty
40:46
Speaker 2: or just you know, because I mean there is a
40:48
Speaker 2: thing called animal cruelty, isn't there?
40:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely, And it's something that goes past the
40:53
Speaker 1: idea of health codes. Right, So you can get in
40:56
Speaker 1: trouble if you're killing animals and unhygienic way such that
41:02
Speaker 1: it might harm other human beings. And you could also
41:05
Speaker 1: get in trouble if it's clear that you are just
41:08
Speaker 1: being willfully cruel or you are you know, God forbid
41:12
Speaker 1: torturing an animal for some reason. And to a lot
41:17
Speaker 1: of animal rights advocates, many of whom are in the
41:20
Speaker 1: crowd today expanding these existing welfare laws writing new laws,
41:27
Speaker 1: it doesn't go far enough, you know what I mean, Like,
41:31
Speaker 1: it doesn't it's not quite there. We have so many precedents.
41:37
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of that divorce law too, Like what was
41:41
Speaker 1: it the animal custody laws. Divorce is never a happy thing,
41:46
Speaker 1: and one of the things you have to deal with
41:48
Speaker 1: is figuring out who gets what when you separate.
41:51
Speaker 2: So why did you just let the dog like run
41:53
Speaker 2: to whichever parent that they prefer heartbreaking. And at that point,
41:57
Speaker 2: come on, boy, come on boy, you know you love you?
41:59
Speaker 2: Who loves you? You love your daddy, You love your daddy,
42:01
Speaker 2: Come on boy.
42:03
Speaker 1: I hope no one has ever been of this.
42:05
Speaker 2: I mean, it's silly sounding, but you're right. It's also
42:08
Speaker 2: sad because, yeah, an animal that's purchased jointly is ultimately
42:13
Speaker 2: a you could consider it a piece of property. But
42:16
Speaker 2: in this situation, it is taking into account the animal's
42:20
Speaker 2: uh preference, which honestly, I mean, I'm not trying to
42:24
Speaker 2: be a jerk and safety well, yes, of course that's
42:27
Speaker 2: that's its own thing. But how can you really determine
42:30
Speaker 2: the animal's preference? Yeah, a lean that we can't speak dog.
42:35
Speaker 1: You know, it depends on the animal, right, And also
42:39
Speaker 1: what are you gonna Also what are you going to
42:41
Speaker 1: do in that hypothetical situation where you say, here, boy,
42:45
Speaker 1: come to the wood you like the best. If it's
42:47
Speaker 1: a cat, it doesn't matter because the cat's not going
42:49
Speaker 1: to run at you.
42:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, cat will eat all of our eyes when we die,
42:53
Speaker 2: I mean, sure, the.
42:54
Speaker 1: Or if you sleep too long, and I say, I
42:56
Speaker 1: got two cats right now, doctor Venkman. I don't like
42:59
Speaker 1: the way you're looking at. But the the other idea
43:02
Speaker 1: here that that you're getting, that that I really appreciate
43:05
Speaker 1: is you know, some animals don't express a preference. Are
43:11
Speaker 1: you gonna say, ooh, the the beta fish likes me
43:15
Speaker 1: more or we all know that Roderick, our hermit crab,
43:21
Speaker 1: loves me, not you. That's why we're breaking up.
43:25
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, exactly, that's the one thing you did this,
43:28
Speaker 2: Roger the gold fish. You broke our home in pieces
43:32
Speaker 2: with your obstinate ways. But like again, you know, it
43:35
Speaker 2: goes into the whole idea of what is sentience and
43:38
Speaker 2: what at what level does is something considered to be sentient?
43:44
Speaker 1: You know?
43:44
Speaker 2: And and and is it exclusively tied to feeling physical pain?
43:48
Speaker 2: Or is it about things like metacognition you know the idea, yeah,
43:53
Speaker 2: or to be able to acknowledge yourself as a self
43:57
Speaker 2: or get to in a minute. But isn't there a
43:58
Speaker 2: thing like like a mirror test the mirror comes into play.
44:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, the mirror tests. The video test is another
44:06
Speaker 1: version of that. And there's this idea. There's also the
44:10
Speaker 1: huge problem at the heart of the issue, which is
44:12
Speaker 1: that you know, humans still don't have a good definition
44:17
Speaker 1: of intelligence nor a good definition of consciousness. The more
44:21
Speaker 1: we learn about the bring, the more we realize that
44:24
Speaker 1: people have no idea what's going on up there.
44:27
Speaker 2: So I mean not really not in a real surface
44:30
Speaker 2: level understanding. But like even when we started getting the
44:33
Speaker 2: questions of like what is the soul? You know, we
44:35
Speaker 2: talked recently on stuff that I don't want you to
44:37
Speaker 2: know video about a book about DMT called I Believe
44:40
Speaker 2: the God Molecule where that posits that, like the pituitary
44:44
Speaker 2: gland is the seat of the soul. But even that
44:48
Speaker 2: is just like conjecture. You get to this point where
44:51
Speaker 2: science and kind of philosophy sort of intersect, but there's
44:55
Speaker 2: there's never really like a hard answer to what is
44:58
Speaker 2: a soul? But we do know that, like we have
45:01
Speaker 2: things in us that allow us to think about things,
45:04
Speaker 2: think about thinking, like to your point, Ben and to
45:07
Speaker 2: you know, have a sense of self in the sense
45:09
Speaker 2: of empathy, and what is that? Is that just a
45:12
Speaker 2: higher level brain function or is that something that you
45:15
Speaker 2: might call a soul? And if it is, do animals
45:18
Speaker 2: have that? And if they do, what makes them any
45:21
Speaker 2: different than us?
45:22
Speaker 1: Right? So it starts with philosophy, it goes into the
45:26
Speaker 1: legal system, and then it also enters the realm of
45:30
Speaker 1: scientific inquiry. You know, if you are an animal advocate,
45:34
Speaker 1: as we are on this show in full transparency, you're
45:38
Speaker 1: going to argue that a lot of these laws, well
45:41
Speaker 1: intentioned and narrow as they may be, a lot of
45:45
Speaker 1: them fail at the main mission. They don't protect animals
45:49
Speaker 1: from cruel treatment, they don't protect them from captivity, and
45:53
Speaker 1: some very highly intelligent species think of the great apes,
45:57
Speaker 1: think of elephants, the octopus, et cetera. They shouldn't be
46:00
Speaker 1: treated as property at all, but as fundamentally beings with rights. Again, know,
46:09
Speaker 1: it sounds a little crazy, but it's not as nuts
46:13
Speaker 1: as you might it might appear on first blush. A
46:16
Speaker 1: legal person does not have to be human. It's so
46:22
Speaker 1: weird and confusing, but think about it. Think about like
46:25
Speaker 1: citizens United. We've already done this with corporations. Companies have
46:29
Speaker 1: been legal persons for some time. I mean, I think
46:33
Speaker 1: it was what not just companies, but other like places
46:38
Speaker 1: like Fiddler's Green and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.
46:41
Speaker 2: Absolute.
46:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. Twenty seventeen, New Zealand again granted legal personhood to
46:48
Speaker 1: a river, and this was a move to boost power
46:52
Speaker 1: of the local community that was trying to protect it
46:56
Speaker 1: and preserve the ecosystem. It also reminds me of that, Oh,
47:00
Speaker 1: what's the tree itself? Yeah, that always comes to your callback.
47:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the tree that owns itself. But Ben,
47:08
Speaker 2: you mentioned the Wanganui River being granted personhood in order
47:14
Speaker 2: to allow you know, indigenous tribes the ability to protect it. Right,
47:20
Speaker 2: That's usually not what we think of when we think
47:22
Speaker 2: of like, you know, it's giving personhood to like corporation
47:26
Speaker 2: that's for the for their own protection, for their ability
47:29
Speaker 2: to a nefarious things. I like the idea of granting
47:31
Speaker 2: personhood to a body of water or perhaps a tree,
47:35
Speaker 2: to give the ability of others to you know, safeguarded
47:40
Speaker 2: against harm. In this very same year as the Wanganui
47:44
Speaker 2: River case, the High Court of Uttarakhand in India. Forgive
47:50
Speaker 2: me for not being native speaker and probably portraying that pronunciation,
47:55
Speaker 2: but they gave legal personhood to the Ganges River. You
47:59
Speaker 2: may have heard, very very famous and sacred river, you know,
48:03
Speaker 2: and the Hindu faith and the Yamuna River in that territory.
48:09
Speaker 2: But India's Supreme Court actually reversed that decision.
48:13
Speaker 1: Interestingly, and as we're going to see. There are many
48:19
Speaker 1: back and forths in this continuing conversation, from the ancient
48:24
Speaker 1: days of ceremonially butchering the biggest locust all the way
48:29
Speaker 1: to the modern day of does this elephant know it's
48:33
Speaker 1: an elephant? There's a lot more to explore. So we're
48:36
Speaker 1: gonna call this part one of our continuing series on
48:39
Speaker 1: animals on trial.
48:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, continuing at very at least for one more episode,
48:43
Speaker 2: but who knows. You know, we've been known to bring
48:46
Speaker 2: back these series willy nilly, you know, at our own discretion.
48:50
Speaker 1: If we find a good trial, oh yeah, you know,
48:53
Speaker 1: like next year.
48:53
Speaker 2: Then if we finally get that kangaroo trial we've been
48:57
Speaker 2: screaming about for this whole episode, we'll be there for it,
49:00
Speaker 2: you will. But in the means, I'm huge thanks to
49:02
Speaker 2: doctor Z for pulling research together for this epic two parter.
49:06
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to Max the freight train madman, maniac killo
49:13
Speaker 2: Kangaroo Court participant. Perhaps we don't know. We'll have him
49:17
Speaker 2: explain himself when he returns. Williams not to mention his
49:22
Speaker 2: brother Alex Williams, who composed this theme.
49:24
Speaker 1: And huge huge thanks to the Man the myth legend
49:27
Speaker 1: guest super producer Pull Mission Control Decans big thanks to
49:31
Speaker 1: Christopher Hasiotis Eve's Jeffcoat. Oh, Gabe Lucier.
49:37
Speaker 2: I can't forget about Gabe. Check him out over on
49:39
Speaker 2: this Day in History class. And Ben, thank you to
49:42
Speaker 2: you for being my co counsel on this litigious journey.
49:48
Speaker 1: Objection Sustain sustained Kangar record.
49:52
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, Pooks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
50:02
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
50:05
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.