Sentientism

By: Jamie Woodhouse
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  • Summary

  • We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined. Find out more at https://sentientism.info/ or join a group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism. Also on YouTube!
    Jamie Woodhouse
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Philosophy Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • "Factory farming... is impermissible in Islam" - Altamush Saeed - Sentientism 216

    "Factory farming... is impermissible in Islam" - Altamush Saeed - Sentientism 216
    Oct 18 2024
    ⁠Altamush Saeed⁠ is an animal and environmental law professor. He teaches Pakistan’s 1st Animal Law Advocacy Course and is Founding Managing Partner At Environmental and Animal Rights Consultants, Pakistan’s 1st dedicated Animal and Environmental law and policy firm. Altamush is known for his non-profit work on Interspecies Justice for which he has won multiple awards. He also co-founded the Charity Doings Foundation, a non-profit that aims to save all life, be it human, animal, or the environment in Pakistan. Amongst many other advisory roles he serves as a strategic academic advisor and advocate for Muslim Veganism and Environmentalism at Green Islam. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?" Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 00:00 Clips! 01:11 Welcome - Islam and non-human animals - Animals as survivors/victims of natural disasters 03:00 Altamush's Intro - 3 masters degrees: animal, environmental and human rights law "I always see the three disciplines as together" - Teaching law - Founding and running a non-profit and a law firm - Becoming a documentary film-maker 05:00 What's Real? - "I've had multiple identities" - Growing up in Pakistan - Doctor parents... a good education... privileges - "Animals are kind of invisible" - "this anthropocentric mindset... fuelled by the idea that you're unable to see beyond your own needs... until they're met at a proper scale... it's hard for people to see beyond human beings... that's the lived reality in Pakistan." - Pakistan as an Islamic nation "part of our constitution... we have laws on Islam... laws on animal rights in Islam... codified, however not implemented properly." - "Initially I didn't see animals... that's how I started my non-profit" - "A cat came into my life... even though I physically rescued her she was the one who mentally rescued me... that's the day when I started seeing animals for who they really are..." - JW: Religious belief based on faith/revelation/authority or on evidence and reason? - "It's actually both of them... I do believe in the text... the Quran... taught about that from a very young age... we pray... community... good human rights stuff" - "All Muslims are khalifa which is basically a ruler. But the actual word is steward... a sovereign who has responsibility for everything..." - "That's not normally how it's read... you are the most superior being... everything has been made for you... you have divine permission to do anything including eating animals." - "I used reason... the most driving reasoning for me was the mercy of Allah... there are constant references that his mercy overpowers his anger" 13:05 What and Who Matters? 17:00 Who Matters? 41:52 A Better World? 01:04:48 Follow Altamush - ⁠Altamush on LinkedIn⁠ - ⁠Altamush on Instagram⁠ - ⁠@earcpakistan⁠ - ⁠Charitydoings.org⁠ And 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...
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • 78: "A whole new relationship with non human animals that will blow people’s minds!" - Jonina Turzi - Sentientist Conversation

    78: "A whole new relationship with non human animals that will blow people’s minds!" - Jonina Turzi - Sentientist Conversation
    Oct 11 2024

    Jonina (@JoninaTurzi) is cofounder of Lancaster Farm Sanctuary, a volunteer district leader for HSUS, & a doctor of physical therapy & yoga educator.

    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:

    0:00 Welcome


    1:24 Jonina's Intro

    - Lancaster Farm Sanctuary, physical therapy, yoga teaching, sobriety, queerness


    2:33 What's Real?

    - Hippie parents, social justice, civil rights

    - Catholic father & schooling, more cultural than doctrinal

    - Brethren Church family history

    - Parents with a spiritual appreciation without buying into religious doctrine

    - Feeling the freedom to explore "I just want you to be happy"

    - "It felt like a human construct"

    - Identifying as an atheist as a teenager

    - Finding a beauty in the human body (& a sense of spiritual meaning) through an anatomy class

    - Being bullied, as a "young queer kid", by members of "Youth for Christ"

    - "I have no idea what's real"

    - The lower & upper case "Self" in some Yoga practice

    - Some things might always be unknowable

    - Reverence, wonder & awe... openness


    17:10 What (& who) Matters?

    - Oneness & interconnectedness

    - Unnecessary harm to sentient others

    - Might plants have a kind of sentience? "I'm OK with saying we shouldn't harm plants unnecessarily"

    - Seeing the similiarities between human and non-human animals through physiology

    - "The idea that non-human animals aren't sentient is so bizarre to me"

    - Movement & intent as indicators of sentience

    - Are Roomba's sentient?

    - Evolution, behaviour/comms, information processing as inferential evidence for sentience

    - Intrinsic & instrumental value

    - The ethical dangers of holistic/ecocentric thinking

    - "Spirtual Bypassing"... rushing to find a purpose/meaning/spiritual goal while bypassing compassion & understanding

    - Knowing very spiritual people who also own factory farms

    - A local factory farm with a Bible verse written on it

    - "The foundation of a spiritual practice is caring for others"

    - Stages of moral development: Ego, ethno, anthropocentric...

    37:30 Vegetarian to vegan

    - Rebelling against Jonina's mother's vegetarianism as a teenager

    - Being vegetarian. Not understanding dairy

    - Seeing slaughterhouse footage & going vegan together with Jonina's partner

    - Social indoctrination re: animal ethics & the supernatural

    - Climate change

    - The relationship between scarcity & morality. Is it harder to be moral under scarcity?


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

    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.

    Thanks for the post-prod Graham.
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • "That system will be history... Our job is just to speed that up" - Thom Norman of ‪FarmKind‬.giving - Sentientism 215

    "That system will be history... Our job is just to speed that up" - Thom Norman of ‪FarmKind‬.giving - Sentientism 215
    Oct 5 2024
    Thom Norman is the co-founder of FarmKind, a new non-profit focused on raising money for some of the best farmed animal charities. FarmKind is designed to help donors both have a big impact for animals and donate to the organisations they care about most. It allows users to split donations between an expert-recommended super-effective charity and their favourite charity, then provides a bonus on both. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?" Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 00:00 Clips! 00:56 Welcome - Cameron King episode 02:30 Thom's Intro - Co-founding @farmkind - "What's the thing I can do best... to tackle the issue of factory farming?"... "We believe the single biggest thing... is to donate to the right charities... we help people to do that" - Finding charities that do great work and making donating to those charities super-easy 03:44 What's Real? - A very, very religious family "church is an integral part... of their worldview... also social structures" - "Broadly a positive thing" - Anglican, Church of England Christian - Asking philosophical questions that "hit up against some bible verse or god - and that's the end of the conversation" - Conversations with some Christians about animals: "Humans are made in the image of god... we are above other animals... that is kind of the end of the conversation" - "As someone who increasingly... took the suffering of animals very seriously... I don't think that's where the conversation should end... and for many Christians that's not where it ends" - "You can think that humans matter more than animals and still think that animals do matter" - "We can still agree on basic things like 'suffering is bad'... 'animals suffer'... 'if there are things we can do to prevent suffering'... 'then it seems obvious that that's a good thing'" - The people working within religious communities to emphasise more universal sentiocentric compassion... #ahimsa, #stewardship, care and compassion, mercy - Reading religious apologetics and secular points of view - "I don't know what I think... a pragmatic pragmatism?... what version of the world do I see that allows me to operate... to move through it... even if epistemically or ethically that's not 100% perfectly logically sound" - Humility... "We need to be clear that we're not sure that we're right" - Donating to the most effective charities "is not the only thing people care about"... so FarmKind allows donation splitting... head and heart donations - The tension between different values... more rational and more intuitive / personal - "It's very important we don't disregard those emotional reasons" 15:03 What Matters? 26:00 Who Matters? 38:24 A Better World? 01:08:37 Follow Thom and FarmKind - Farmkind.giving (sign up to the newsletter!) - @FarmKindThom - Thom on LinkedIn And 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...
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    1 hr and 12 mins

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