24: “Breeding into suffering is the root of the problem.” – Sentient Media founder Mikko Järvenpää – Sentientist Conversations

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.

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Mikko is a tech start-up founder and CEO (now https://candle.to/). He founded & is now board chair of Sentient Media – an organisation dedicated to making the world a better place for all sentient beings through journalism.

Full show notes are here: https://sentientism.info/breeding-into-suffering-is-the-root-of-the-problem-sentient-media-founder-mikko-jarvenpaa-new-sentientist-conversation

In these Sentientist Conversations, we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”. Sentientism is “evidence, commitment & compassion for all sentient beings.”

The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

• Growing up in a political family (father a Finnish Member of Parliament)
• Early experiences with animals on the family hobby farm
• Founding Sentient Media & how farmed animal perspectives are neglected in normal media
• Studying philosophy of social change at the LSE
• The default state Lutheran religion in Finland, including religious education
• Learning science, evolution, astronomy as a child
• Finding religions fascinating & getting perfect marks in religious classes (great stories!)
• Learning to read from Dungeons & Dragons manuals
• The relief of formally resigning from the church as a teenager (w/ cooling off period)
• Evidence & ethics as triggers for challenging religion
• Reading Nietzsche at 16
• Trying on different religions. What would it feel like to believe?
• Is picking a religion arbitrary, like picking a sports team?
• Being overwhelmed by the idea of solipsism at ~10 yrs old
• Morality as something fundamentally social
• Utilitarianism. Measurement, probability, individualism, rationalism as “western”?
• Sentientism’s neutrality re: moral systems
• Early utilitarians often did consider non-human sentience
• Utility grounded in sentience
• “My best friends, as a kid, were the sheep.” Making assumptions about sheep. Then being accepted as part of the herd. Deepening understanding of “sheepness”
• And much more.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info. Join our “wall” using this simple form.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our biggest is here on FaceBook.

Thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-prod work on this video. Follow him at @cgbessellieu.