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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Mark Humanity is a long-time vegan activist. He currently lives on the edge of a rainforest in New Zealand and is on the Board of the Vegan Society of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Mark has been involved in animal rights since a teenager, initially in Ireland’s embryonic movement and later in the much more developed UK movement. A hunt saboteur for many years, Mark has been vegan since 1989 and got involved with the NZ Vegan Society via his vegan outreach Initiative called “Vegan Living Auckland”. He is currently helping raise two plant-based children and has a background in mental health nursing. Mark is the author of “The Humanity Trigger“.
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!
00:34 Welcome
02:13 Mark’s Intro
– Anarcho-punk and vegan activism
– Now “anarchish”
– Writing “The Humanity Trigger” about two centuries ofdirect action for animals in Ireland
– Vegan Society Aotearoa board
– 20 years as a psychiatric / learning disabilities nurse
– Now stay at home dad raising two vegan kids on the edge of a rain forest
03:28 What’s Real?
– “Things that still exist irrespective of whether people
believe in them or not – are what’s real”
– Raised in a staunchly Irish Catholic family and society
– “our sense of reality growing up was filtered through the
eyes of a deeply authoritarian… fascist-adjacent dictatorship of the Roman Catholic church”
– “The government were simply puppets at the beck and call of the church when the church chose to intervene”
– Attending church run by Redemptorist priests / monks “on the surface they preach very worthy things… giving to the poor… vows of chastity & poverty & obedience…”
– The monthly Redemptorist “Reality” magazine: “Very
medieval thinking… resurrections… ascensions to heaven… virgin births… that was all reality”
– “I tried to believe it because it was what everyone around me was saying was true.”
– “Anyone that even thought or even asked questions about it was deemed to be dangerously… on the slippery slope”
– “If you haven’t been brought up in a strictly religious
environment it’s very hard to imagine what it’s like when everyone around you believes in the devil… god… jesus… heaven and hell…”
– Transubstantiation “Jesus does come down into that bread – his body is in that bread… it is literal – it is not meant to be taken as a metaphor”
– “I tried to believe it but I couldn’t”
– Comics, 2000AD, Pat Mills, Alan Moore “I read into those scripts… Flesh… Strontium Dogs, some of Judge Dredd… non-human animals had agency… were lead actors in these scripts… were the heroes and villains”
– The influence of punk on other Sentientism guests: Delci Winders, Kristof Dhont, Nick Pendergrast, Nicola Harris, Luke McGuire, Nico Delon, Jamila Anahata, Tom Harris
19:05 What and Who Matters?
34:30 A Better World?
… and much more (full show notes at sentientism.info)
Follow Mark
– The Humanity Trigger Web Site
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