70: “Social progress is ultimately inevitable” – @Soytheist Aditya Prakash – Sentientist Conversation

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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Aditya (https://www.soytheist.com/ & https://www.youtube.com/c/Soytheist) is an animal rights advocate from Assam in India. His @Soytheist YouTube channel focuses on taking a straightforward & rational approach to animal rights, identity politics & occasionally religion & atheism.

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 https://youtu.be/A1a6z-uX6no

We discuss:

0:00 Welcome

1:17 Aditya’s Intro – rational animal rights

– Having the “luxury” of being able to take a direct approach

3:10 What’s Real?

– India as a religious country

– Growing up with religious parents who didn’t push religion

– Asking deep questions as a child & being handed Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”

– Never believing in god “There is not sufficient evidence to support the claims.”

– Criticising religion requires more caution than discussing atheism

– “A straightforward reading of a lot of religious scripture leads to conclusions & worldviews that are completely at odds with what a regular person would consider to be moral”

– But “No matter what the scripture says you can bend it” so “the vast majority of religious people are perfectly moral people”

– The mental gymnastics of adapting religious ethics (e.g. rejecting homophobia)

12:00 What Matters?

– I can ground my morality as well as a Christian or a Muslim can. But not in a perfectly objective way

– Every sentient values it’s own suffering & flourishing

– If our suffering & flourishing matters, so does that of others

– Growing up in a “heavy meat-eating culture” in North-Eastern India

– In Western countries the slaughter is hidden away. That’s not the case in much of India 

– Visiting a market at age 14 to buy goat meat. Seeing the terror in a baby goat’s eyes as it was picked up & seeing another trying to hide. Thinking “that’s exactly what I would do.” “Don’t kill him.”

– Discovering animal rights philosophy online

– “This is the greatest moral emergency of our time & I have been contributing to this horrifying atrocity”

– Going vegetarian then learning about dairy & going vegan

– “What happened to you? – you’ve become like those ‘mainland’ Indians”

– “There’s a notion that veganism requires economic privilege – That’s nonsense” – “The only people claiming that are those that think a Starbucks latte is a basic need”

– The cheapest foods in the market were plant-based

– “Pure veg” & caste purity – can hinder the fight for animal rights. It’s about purity, not compassion

… and much more. Full show notes at sentientism.info and YouTube.

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Thanks Graham.