WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:06.680 Today is about challenging appearances and assumptions of extremism and normality. 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:10.480 Today is a lesson in unlearning. 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:21.220 Anytime we make a living being into a machine, a supplier of inventory, the bottom line will 00:00:21.220 --> 00:00:27.620 always be profit. And increasing profit means increasing output and increasing efficiency. 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:34.820 The bodies of layer hens give out prematurely from the extreme demands of production. 00:00:35.820 --> 00:00:42.660 Every aspect of their lives is regulated to ensure maximum output. From controlling their laying 00:00:42.660 --> 00:00:49.040 cycles with days and days of persistent light followed by long periods of complete darkness, 00:00:49.040 --> 00:00:55.270 to starving them for weeks at a time to force yet another egg cycle from their worn out 00:00:55.270 --> 00:00:59.870 bodies, to the outright manipulation of their very genetic makeup. 00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:06.440 We’ve optimized our machines, you see, and we've bred one kind of chicken for meat and another 00:01:06.440 --> 00:01:14.080 kind for eggs. Because of this, the egg industry produces millions if not a billion unwanted 00:01:14.080 --> 00:01:20.100 male baby chicks every year. Male layer chicks can’t lay eggs. So they are of no use. 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:27.000 To “dispose of”—as they say—these baby chicks, they are either painfully gassed, 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:32.590 slowly suffocated in plastic bags, or they are ground up alive. We’re talking about 00:01:32.590 --> 00:01:37.090 the cute fluffy yellow baby chicks we adore come Easter time. 00:01:37.090 --> 00:01:39.840 They are not even granted three days of life. 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:43.660 This is standard practice all over the world. This is standard practice all over the world. 00:01:43.670 --> 00:01:46.990 This is standard practice all over the world. 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:52.800 The sisters of the egg industry’s discarded sons get to live out their short lives in 00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:58.310 cramped battery cages, unable to even extend their wings. Of course nowadays we hear about 00:01:58.310 --> 00:02:04.590 the rise of free-range and cage-free facilities. But in truth, the only comfort these labels 00:02:04.590 --> 00:02:10.729 bring is to our own conscience. Cage-free birds are crammed into tiny sheds and have 00:02:10.729 --> 00:02:14.020 twice the mortality rates of battery raised hens. 00:02:15.460 --> 00:02:23.100 I hope you are starting to see the power of this lie. Of presenting cruel confinement, 00:02:23.110 --> 00:02:28.870 starvation, abuse, the barbaric murder of day-old babies and the slaughter of one-year-olds—themselves 00:02:28.870 --> 00:02:36.810 still children— as something completely normal and kind—packaged in perfect little orbs. 00:02:38.380 --> 00:02:45.300 And we have the audacity to decorate them in celebration of new life. To fawn over the 00:02:45.300 --> 00:02:50.730 very chicks who were ground up alive for their production. To mix them into treats for our 00:02:50.730 --> 00:02:55.720 children and loved ones. To start our day with the products of abject misery and call 00:02:55.720 --> 00:03:02.360 it “sunny side up.” We might as well start our day by throwing chicks in a blender. 00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:07.500 And people say veganism is extreme. 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:14.560 The animal products we perceive as mundane, when reverse engineered, reveal a perversely 00:03:14.569 --> 00:03:19.930 complex and, to put it lightly, ethically challenging, journey from genesis through 00:03:19.930 --> 00:03:26.720 processing and production to the end product. That is to say, from the animals’ birth, 00:03:26.720 --> 00:03:32.940 through confinement, abuse, slaughter and denigration of corpses to the shiny, happy, 00:03:32.940 --> 00:03:37.160 store-ready products we literally eat up without even a single thought 00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:38.780 as to what the animals went through.