Sentientism

Paige is Communications Director for the streaming platform UnchainedTV. After initially going vegan “for the environment” Jane became an ethical vegan after attending her first vigil with LA Animal Save. Paige later became a Contributor for JaneUnchained News where she reported on vigils, PETA protests, VegFests, book launches, Cubes of Truth & vegan conferences. Paige then became Booker for LunchBreakLIVE, a daily cooking show & Senior Booker for JaneUnChained News. Now, as UnchainedTV Comms Director & co-producer/co-host of the Plant Based In the ‘Burbs show, Paige brings inspiration, humor & humbleness to the kitchen, showing simple swap outs & easy recipes to inspire people to bring more plants on their plates. She also works with Gwenna Hunter who launched the first vegan food bank in Southern California.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

02:00 Paige's Intro

05:09 What's Real?

- Paradigm shifts & language

- Cultural differences re: dog & horse meat & values

- Living on a cattle ranch w/grandparents "hard work & love"

- California to Tennessee & back

- "I'm more #spiritual than religious"

- Agreed meanings of "humane" "so that humans can feel comfortable eating these animals"

- "A lot of systems are breaking down" some in a good way, some not so good

- #COP27 #greenwashing 

- The Farm Bill, animal agriculture subsidies, lobbying

- How bad ethics & bad epistemology feed each other

- A sunday school teacher aunt

- Corporal punishment "for me there was a Bible & a ruler"

- "Pretty much buying into the American way... & #christianity "

- A spiritual workshop

- #thesecret & Michael Beckwith & the Agape International Spiritual Centre "A Baptist/Buddhist experience... this really fits my heart... commonality & peace"

- #transcendence & interconnectedness in both naturalistic & spiritual ways of thinking

- JW: Risks in spiritual movements that focus on "#manifesting your own future... so if bad things happen to you it's your fault" & high control & dangerous leaders & coercion

- "If we take personal responsibility we can socially change... stop blaming others"

- "Everything that has ever happened to me I take full responsibility for... even child abuse."

- "A brother who took his life at 19"... "losing both parents to brain injury"

- "I'd rather be empowered"

- Risks of victim-blaming, even when the victim is ourselves

- "There are situations where there are victims, perpetrators... (JW) & systemic influences we have very little control over"

- Children working in US slaughterhouses

- "Work towards justice for others"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Lori is Executive Director of The Kimmela Center and Founder & President of The Whale Sanctuary Project. She is a neuroscientist and expert in animal behavior and intelligence, formerly on the faculty of Emory University where she was also a faculty member at the Emory Center for Ethics. She is internationally known for her work on the evolution of the brain and intelligence in dolphins and whales and marine mammal welfare in captivity, as well as cognition in farmed animals through The Someone Project. In 2001 Lori co-authored a ground-breaking study with Diana Reiss offering the first conclusive evidence for mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins, after which she decided against conducting further research with animals held captive in zoos and aquariums.

Lori has published over 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers, book chapters, and magazine articles on marine mammal biology and cognition, comparative brain anatomy, self-awareness in nonhuman animals, human-nonhuman animal relationships, and the evolution of intelligence. Lori has appeared in several films and television programs, including Blackfish; Unlocking the Cage; Long Gone Wild and the upcoming documentary about Corky, the orca held captive by SeaWorld since 1969.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

- Guest links e.g. Kathy Hessler https://youtu.be/R5eZebUAsQg

01:52 Lori's Intro

- A central question: "What is it like to be another animal?"

- "I ran into ethical issues that shaped how I conducted my career"

- Science then science-based advocacy "it's all based on facts"

04:12 What's Real?

- Raised Roman #Catholic as an Italian American in Brooklyn NY "Church on Sunday"

- "I started to question the whole proposition... that there's some sort of a god"

- Heaven, hell, sin "It's not light hearted... it's dark"

- Becoming a recovering Catholic

- "If there is a god, it's on vacation" & the #problemofevil 

- Becoming #atheist "that's what I am today... I don't see any reason to propose that there's anything supernatural out there"

- #agnostic "what does that even mean?... I'm atheist in the same way that I don't think that there are purple dinosaurs walking around in my room & talking to me... I'm not agnostic about that."

- "I didn't ever draw my ethics from religion"

- Catholic "#ethics but from a very weird point of view"

- The psychological needs motivating religious belief

- Teenage dabbling in #pseudoscience

20:45 What and Who Matters?

A Better Future!

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Kathy is Assistant Dean, Animal Legal Education at George Washington University Law School and Director of the Animal Legal Education Initiative. Kathy has been a clinical law professor for 30 years and has been teaching animal law for 22 years. She is the first law professor hired to teach animal law full-time. Kathy helped develop the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School (L&C). For fourteen years she taught there and directed the Animal Law Clinic. She also created and directed the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative and is the co-founder of World Aquatic Animal Day along with Amy P. Wilson. Kathy co-authored “Animal Law in a Nutshell”, “Animal Law – New Perspectives on  Teaching Traditional Law” and the amicus briefs submitted in the U.S. v. Stevens and Justice v. Gwendolyn Vercher cases. She has written numerous law review and other articles and teaches and lectures widely across the U.S. and internationally.

Kathy was a board member with the Animal Legal Defense Fund; helped found the Animal Law Committee of the Cuyahoga County Bar; and was the chair and a founder of the Animal Law Section and the Balance in Legal Education Section of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS). She was also a co-chair of the Clinical Legal Education Section of the AALS, is on the board of the Center for Teaching Peace and is a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

- Randall Abate 

01:30 Kathy's Intro

- #animallaw professor & practitioner

- #nonviolence activism

- "This is one area of law where students can do something today... to change things"

- "& they're implicated... what we eat, what we wear"

- "It's hard to say 'all day I'm talking about protecting animals' & go home & eat them"

06:39 What's Real?

- Raised #Catholic & #republican "Rules bounded, status quo, respected authority... dogmatically religious"

- "You weren't supposed to question"... just listen to parents & nuns

- Noticing inconsistencies  (in one place girls can be altar servers, in another they can't)

- Mid to late #1960's "A lot of questioning"

- #Vatican II

- Liking justice aspects, not liking treatment of women/indigenous people

- Questioning in college

- "If people who told me that god existed... were wrong about women... they could be wrong about god"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Carol is an author, artist, animal activist and scholar whose work focuses on the reality of animals’ lives as important contributors to the biodiversity of this planet. She is Professor Emerita of Design and Dynamic Media and Critical and Cultural Studies at the Emily Carr University of Design, Vancouver, BC. CANADA. Her most recent book is The Creative Lives of Animals.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

- Other sentientism guests: Marc Bekoff, Lori Marino (forthcoming!), Jessica Pearce

02:11 Carol's Intro

- Starting out as an actress but "I didn't like saying other people's words"

- Printmaking, art, animal rights activism, animation, writing "I felt like I had a lot to say"

- #TomRegan & Nancy & "The Dante Series"

- Criticising biotechnology & bioart (people using animals as objects in their art) "lots of friends in the arts who no longer are really my friends"

- Helping develop #Criticalanimalstudies 

- #ecoart 

- "It's very new for people to take animals seriously"

- Writing Creative Lives: "Animals are individual creative beings"

- Anthropocene & biodiversity

- "I was writing so much about animals as victims... [they] are much more than that"

10:30 What's Real?

- Italian Catholic upbringing in #pittsburgh 

- Rational father & "strongly emotional" women

- "Eating the body of Christ"

- "I'm not a practising Catholic"

- Informed by Buddhism "but not a practising Buddhist either"

- "The naturalistic way of looking at things - it's really important"

- "Creativity itself is an unknown quantity"

- "A universal, multi-species creativity?"

- Differing perspectives on the same reality

- #EdYong 's "An Immense World"

- Reading Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" after a bad car accident

- #Physics & "On creativity" by #DavidBohm & "spooky action at a distance." "We are all connected... in a way we're not aware of"

- "Once you start reading... you start to be critical of things... my parents... never loooked into what I was reading :)"

- Becoming sceptical of #catholicism quite early. 8th grade "I gotta get out of here"

- Dante's Inferno as a metaphor for animal experimentation

- Humility is critical

- #Wicca & #witchcraft & #spirituality 

- "Animals are struggling just like we are"

- The dangers of reifying animals or "nature"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Dan is the host of Truth Wanted, a call-in talk show that's part of the Atheist Community of Austin.Truth Wanted focuses on how and why people believe what they believe - and how we can talk about beliefs in more effective ways - whether it’s karma or Christ, Bigfoot or crystals.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

We discuss:

03:08 Dan's Intro

05:07 What's Real?

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Karen was an animal rights advocate and president of United Poultry Concerns. UPC is a non-profit organization founded in 1990 to address the treatment of domestic fowl in farming – including chickens, turkeys, and ducks. Karen also ran an animal sanctuary. She was the author of several books on veganism and animal rights, including Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (1997) and The Holocaust and the Henmaid's Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities (2005).

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:23 Karen's Intro

-  @United Poultry Concerns  

- Meeting Viva the chicken

- "A lifelong affinity for birds"

- Seeing a friend's father killing a hen

05:05 What's Real?

- Growing up in Pennsylvania

- Catching & killing wildlife "my parents never objected"

- Everybody went to some kind of church "that's what we did then... respectable people go to church"

- Sunday school "for parents to have some time to themselves"

- Parents not very religious

- "God didn't make rats, the devil made rats" to rationalise killing

- "I was never a believer"... "If I joined the church... I could wear stockings instead of socks"

13:08 What Matters?

- "I was always directly affected by others whether they were human or other than human"

- Childhood distress: a duck being run over, baby birds falling from nests

- #empathy & #compassion as a moral core 

21:02 Who Matters?

- Father & brothers hunting pheasants, squirrels & rabbits

- Realising what father was doing in the cellar

- Arguing at the dinner table "I wasn't thinking about who was on my plate"

- Father: "Everything hunts the rabbit"

- "I relate directly to other creatures - I don't need any belief system at all"

- Reading "The First Step" by #leotolstoy . Giving up animal products as the first step of #nonviolence ... "that was really it - I didn't want to eat animal flesh any more... that was in 1974"

- #Animaltesting . #EdwardTaub 's primate research #SilverSpringmonkeys

- Nurses having to do animal experiments to qualify

- Do you need to have a psychopathic detachment to be a vet/doctor?

- Being a juvenile probation officer

- Being traumatised by SPCA literature on #harpseal slaughter "This was my eye opening experience of institutionalised animal abuse"

- Witnessing seal culling in Canada in 1974

- National Geographic asking photographers to damage Beaver habitats to get a good story

- Brian Davies' book "Savage Luxury"

- Lisa Kemmerer

- Cultural/traditional/religious justifications for causing harm...

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Anthony or A.C. is a philosopher and author. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities. Anthony is the author of over 30 books including The Future of Moral Values, What Is Good?, The Meaning of Things, The Good Book & The God Argument. He was a fellow of the World Economic Forum, & is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature & the Royal Society of Arts. Anthony is a vice-president of Humanists UK & an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:50 Anthony's Intro

- "I agree wholeheartedly with... Sentientism"

- #humanism 

- #Supernaturalism, #naturalism , value & #morality 

03:43 What's Real?

- A non-religious family

- Encountering religions at 13 yrs "preference for one kind of candy vs. another"

- Evangelical chaplain at boarding school "he galvanised me" & provided a reading list. "I've read everything & I simply cannot understand how you can believe this stuff"

- How Christianity remixes stories from other mythologies. "That demolished the pretentions of Christianity"

- "Religions keep their hold mainly by brainwashing the young"

- Malign effects of religion e.g. blocking science; "a kind of mental prison"

- Joining the #NewAtheist debate with #richarddawkins , #christopherhitchens 

- Do gods exist?, should we have a #secular society?, should we have a #humanist morality?

- Why atheists & humanists still hold other dogmatic beliefs

- "All claims should be defeasible"

- "Instead of talking about knowledge, let us talk about rational belief". Belief ratioed to the weight of evidence

- There may be fairies in your garden but "it is profoundly irrational to believe it"

- The ethics of rationality

- "You often hear religious people saying you can't prove there is no god... I'm going to do it now." "in the empirical sense proof means test... like proving steel"

- #CarlSagan 's Dragon in the Garage "the claim turns up empty"

- Standards of "discovery" in physics

20:57 What Matters?

- Spanning the #Is-Ought chasm "I emphatically disagree with Hume"

- "Very few people on the planet like to be cold, hungry, alone, in pain, oppressed... tortured... those few people who do like those things are weird"

- Mirror neurons, theory of mind & #empathy 

- "There is a deeply naturalistic basis to the possibilities of moral behaviour... it takes culture to mess them up"

- Tightly linking the good/bad of feeling with the good/bad of ethics

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Sandra describes herself as a vegan foodie, content writer & editor and wife on a mission to empower others to make small, meaningful decisions & actions that will help make the world a better place. She is co-host of VEG Networking Canada, a place where plant-based & vegan companies connect & collaborate. Sandra is the author of the book “Vegan Marketing Success Stories“.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:15 Sandra's Intro

- Filipino-canadian

- Literature, PR, marketing, writing

- Meditating: "This booming voice came to me... & said you're vegan now & you'll always be writing"

- Sandra's "The Content Doctor" business

- Writing "#vegan Marketing Success Stories"

03:41 What's Real?

- "A very #catholic household"

- Catholicism in the #phillipines due to #colonisation by Spain

- 13 years of Catholic school

- Church every Sunday

- Sermons: Fundraising & "We don't really welcome gay people" #homophobia "Two of my best friends had just come out"

- "That was the last service"

- "I never did believe in heaven & hell... metaphors"

- "I do believe in an afterlife"

- "There's a problem with the whole [Catholic] institution"

- Intuition & connecting to past ancestors "they're giving me signs... still here & watching over us"

- Why do colonially imposed religions retain such popularity?

- The Filipino disapora, challenging colonial restrictions, reclaiming indigenous practices (e.g. tattooing)

- Joining #nxivm... later discovered to be a dangerous #cult "If it feels painful - move towards it!"

- A clear image from a recently deceased grandfather

- Being guided by a deceased cousin in Montreal

- "From the little I know of #quantumphysics physics this is all very possible... that's why we have #ghosts "

- "The big bang... earliest atoms... that's my definition of god... the creator"

- "The potential... of love... we all come from stardust"

- Risks of religious & spiritual beliefs

- Scams, cults, crystals, alt-medicine, #antivaxx 

- "Critical thinking caps" & #redflags 

- #Conspirituality podcast. #Yoga #wellness #spirituality 

33:46 What & Who Matters?

- "Be a good person as much as you can vs. just being consumers"

- "I did not care very much for animals"... now vegan

-  Documentaries: "Watching #earthlings ... hit me really hard... stop eating meat"

- "As soon as the idea of becoming vegan hit my brain... this is it!... it took me 11 years"...

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Jill has been a leading voice in digital media for more than a decade. She’s been published in outlets including MTV, The Huffington Post, and the Village Voice. She served as Head of Content for a popular vegan media platform from 2017-2020, with a reach of more than 50 million per month. She has worked with a number of impact media platforms to help build their traffic and positioning, as well as with leading brands and celebrities working to make the world a more sustainable and ethical space. Jill is the co-founder, CEO and Head of Content for Ethos.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:42 Jill's Intro

- Immersed in digital content

- Co-founding https://the-ethos.co/

- Vegan media & natural foods industries

- The #Conspirituality podcast & #DavidWolfe 

03:42 What's Real?

- "The religion that governed my house was #bobdylan "

- Parents raised #Jewish, father became atheist, "7/11 jewish" mother

- Kicked out of hebrew school "one of my father's more proud moments"

- Living with dad after parents split

- Child of the 80's "you're on your own journey"

- Constantine Sandis https://youtu.be/iy0UdN7WTxc

- Becoming a mum

- Animals' different realities

- "We're the chosen people... an egregious statement... how can one group matter more?.. after so much suffering"

- #Israel & #palestine 

- Fond memories of Jewish culture but "as a rule to live by... not at all"

- "this omnipresent god... directing every moment of my life... I wanted the autonomy"

- #Agnostic. Open to the idea of "some sort of god"

- #dogma 

- The risks of the #wellness / #spirituality worlds. #antivaxx, #Qanon, #alternativemedicine 

- Open-mindedness, evidence & gut-feel

- #DavidWolfe shows a #moonlanding #conspiracy video

- Distrust of authority

- Scepticism about vaccines didn't seem too serious "to each their own". Then #covid19 hits

- "I very much prefer to have science in my corner... but sometimes you can just tell"

- A denial, scepticism, gullibility spectrum?

- David Wolfe "leveraging science when it supported his narrative but slamming it when it didn't"

- Gossip as "a way to keep the tribal community safe"

- "Conspiracy theories... we use them unconsciously to defend ourselves"

32:10 What & Who Matters?

- "I don't think you need religion to know good from bad"

-  @Sam Harris  

- Raising a #vegan child "she asked what it was and I said that used to be a pig's stomach or back..."

- "She seems very much to understand that basic level of compassion"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Thanks Graham.

Matt is Press Coordinator and an investigator for Direct Action Everywhere (DxE). As part of his activism he has conducted animal farm investigations, been threatened with prison for rescuing farm animals from abuse and pranked NewsMax and FoxNews by posing as the CEO of Smithfield Foods – exposing to millions of viewers the damage their industry does to non-human animals, human animals and to the planet.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

02:50 Matt's Intro

- DxE press & investigations

03:28 Eyes open to animals

- Deer hunting uncles. "Factory farms everywhere" in Iowa

- 4 yrs old "I don't want to eat animals"

- Family push back

- A religious family "God gave us animals for food"

- Being "a silent vegetarian" at school... in secret... feeling shame

- "Good friends of mine... through 13 yrs of grade school... never knew I was vegetarian"

- An aunt: "you're going to die if you don't eat animals"

- Uncles painting a dead deer's nose red for Xmas

- "These people around me are monstrous"

- The dissonance of "be kind" messages in kindergarten

10:24 What's Real?

- "In adulthood I'm not a religious person"

- New atheists, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris

- As a child: "The ethics smacked me in the face" (Problem of Evil)

- As an adult "facts & rationality"

- Jehovah's Witness dad... "I was hating the prospect of doing the door to door evangelising"

- Shunning. It's worse where the JW community has more power

- "#Freewill is an illusion" so "I don't... have any anger towards anybody"

- JW "We have will, we make choices, but they're not 'free'". Removing #retribution from the justice system? #MoralLuck

- An investigation "As cruel a practice as you can imagine" #VentilationShutDown... "The COO shows up ... I was straining my free will determinism in that moment" 

- "Guilt & shame can be useful"

25:11 What & Who Matters?

- #Utilitarianism ?

- "High-minded philosophical ideals... often used to launder right-wing ideas"

- "Sorry humans... but I have to put my energy towards the 99.99%"

- #Offsetting & totalising utilitarianism

- Animal agri as a core case most ethical systems should reject

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Thanks Graham.