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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Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE). She is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement. She has authored eight books both for adults and children, including her latest, “The Solutionary Way” – available for pre-order now! Zoe writes the Becoming a Solutionary blog at Psychology today. She has made numerous TV and
radio appearances and has given six TED talks, including “Extending our Circle of Compassion.” Her first Sentientism conversation with me was back on episode 37.
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.
00:00 Clips!
01:15 Welcome
– Our first conversation: https://youtu.be/4NaSEJ4q8NQ
– Most good (MOGO), least harm
– Star Trek as a utopian inspiration
– Mr Spock and Dr Spock “both of them have had a big
influence”
03:42 Zoe Introduction
– Co-founder and President of The Institute for Humane
Education
– IHE: “Educate people to create a world where all
humans and animals and nature can thrive… huge, huge goal and vision”
– K-12 schools and graduate programmes with Antioch
University
– “It’s going to keep my busy my entire life”
04:37 The Solutionary Way
– Subtitle “Transform your life, your community and
your world for the better”
– “An antidote to polarisation… actually solving the problems that we face… in a way that is good for everyone”
– “We are not a single issue organisation… justice and compassion needs to be spread for everybody so that the world can be truly humane”
– Solutionary lens “you approach problems as solvable” instead of “us vs. them approaches”
– Critical thinking “what’s true, what’s false… lies at the foundation”
– Systems thinking “see the connections… identify causes… leverage points…”
– Strategic thinking
– Creative thinking
– Solutionary Framework: 4 phases, 12 steps
– Prioritising problems & identifying the one you want
to solve “Learn and learn then really dive deep… identify a narrow enough problem that you have the capacity to solve”
– The Solutionary Way in schools… 4th graders have big
concerns but might not be able to address them in full… so what can they “feasibly solve”?
– “We have identified a leverage point which is the
educational system through which we are working on… all problems”
– “K-12 educational system is fundamentally working at
the root cause of every other societal system”
– “What happens in our educational system prepares us
to be citizens”
– “A profoundly important core strategy… at the same
time many of the problems that we are facing are so immediate… we can’t wait”
– “Sometimes the people who care most… wind up doing
work that is counter-productive… they may burn more bridges than they build”
– Dealing with activist burnout and depression
– Polarisation and populism in modern discourse… denial of a shared reality… denial of shared values… blaming instead of solutions
17:52 A Shared Reality?
25:17 Shared Values?
57:29 Thinking About Solutions
01:05:50 Education
01:17:10 Follow Zoe and buy “The Solutionary Way”!
– June 25th book launch (pre-order now!)
– @ZoeWeil
– The Institute for Humane Education
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our ”I’m a Sentientist” wall via this simple form.
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