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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Steven Rouk is founder of the non-profit Connect For Animals, a platform that connects people who want to end factory farming and bring about a more anti-speciesist world. He also helps high-positive-impact organisations implement technology and artificial intelligence solutions.
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
01:02 Welcome
– Will we DESTROY! each other in this conversation?
03:07 Steven’s Intro
– Math, music and writing, then data science and programming
– Philosophy and “what does it mean to lead a good life?”
– Animal ethics… footage from a farm investigation
– Dabbling in vegetarianism & veganism “caring about animals more seriously”
– “This is a huge problem… what would it look like for me to devote more of my life…”
– Full time animal advocacy… volunteering, bringing data & tech
– Working for Mercy for Animals
– Seeing people struggling to get active and “plugged in” & stay engaged
– “I don’t think we’ve been doing a very good job of capturing this people power”
– Founding Connect For Animals “Get them connected… stayconnected… get active for animals… accelerate the end of factory farming”
08:40 What’s Real?– Growing up in Georgia, USA in a religious, Christian family (half Methodist, half Baptist, several pastors)
– “It was a very large part of my life growing up… church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, summer mission trips, choir.”
– “That meaning… came from the Christian church”
– Specific beliefs, some fundamentalism, Bible literalism
– “I remember thinking that the Earth was 6000 yearsold and evolution was a hoax… carbon dating wasn’t real”
– “There was also this deep caring for others side… family… people who didn’t have what you have… sick… bad things happened to them…”
– “My mum… someone who just cares so deeply for others”
– At a science & maths focused high school “There came to be these little questions… things are not squaring up right”
– “For a while… what I’ve been taught from religion is true… I just need to work out how to make it square with these otherfacts… maybe the people who believe in evolution are completely mistaken… an anti-religious, anti-spiritual conspiracy?… scientists trying to destroy religion?”
– “Learning about the conspiracy… a mistaken or misguided or bad worldview” vs. learning the actual facts
48:59 Who Matters?
01:07:42 A Better World?
01:29:30 Follow Steven
– Connect For Animals (Create an account, sign up for the newsletter and explore!)
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.
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