Sentientism Jamie Woodhouse

Jimmy Videle is a farmer, naturalist & researcher. He is author of The Veganic Grower’s Handbook and co-founder of NAVCS-Certified Veganic. His writing has appeared in many publications including CounterPunch, Countercurrents & LA Progressive.

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!
01:01 Welcome
03:08 Jimmy's Intro
- 20 years in farming
- A naturalist... observes and scientifically tries to understand nature "my passion". Over 10,000 hours of field research "a lot of time outside"
- Author of The Veganic Grower's Handbook "how to grow... without the products of animals or having any animals on the farm"
04:50 What's Real?
- German Roman Catholic mother, Italian Catholic father
- Church every Sunday, communion at 5-6 yrs old
- 12 yrs old heading toward confirmation
- Only child, parents divorcing, a tough patch at high school "It's probably a little easier if you have siblings... I went into my own little bubble... I always felt very comfortable alone"
- Attending weekly catechism, dad asks if Jimmy still wants to go... "Dad... I really wanna just play baseball... this was our religion!"
- "When you're really worried about what people are thinking about you you spend less time delving into the bigger questions... at that time it was the purpose of... 'I want people to like me'"
- Music scholarship to college in California... meeting lifelong friends... hippy influence... "this idea that love could rule all... the biggest moment - flash of my life... wow love"
- "The idea of god... I was never totally comfortable"
- Having to confess sins "I didn't have any... I'd have to make something up..."
- "I always believed that there was god... but I always had a tough time with this god... always judging us... always making us feel bad... like victims... and we're only going to be saved when we die... when we have a chance... to go to heaven"
- In my 19-20''s "I realised that wasn't going to be my path"
- The #iching & "Animal Spirit Guides" by Steven Farmer "Maybe nature is also telling me something... nature has a message and all I have to do is listen and learn"
- "I have my hands actually in the earth... I'm feeling something that most people don't"
- Living on top of some of the earth's oldest rocks "I also want to believe that that rock has knowledge from 4 billion years ago"
- "For me... a bacterium is as sentient as I am"
- "Maybe it is all natural... maybe there's nothing mystical about it at all... start thinking about what it is to be a wolf or a deer or a hemlock tree... how can we see the world then?"
- "To even believe that we are the only sentient being on the planet... it's as arrogant as we can get"
- "What I believe now... #animism... the original religion... maybe it's the way nature looks at the world... every living being has a breath or a soul... anima..."

32:03 What and Who Matters?
01:09:03 A Better World?
01:41:32 Follow Jimmy
- Facebook
- The Veganic Growers Handbook
- observatory.wiki/Jimmy_Videle
- humaneherald.org/publications/
- Certified Veganic
- Boileau Biodiversity Crowdfunder


...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our

Troy Vettese is an environmental historian who specializes in environmental economics, animal studies, and energy history. In 2019 he completed his doctorate in history at New York University. From 2019 to 2021, he worked at Harvard University as a William Lyon Mackenzie King postdoctoral research fellow. He has collaborated with Drew Pendergrass, an environmental engineer, on numerous projects including their book Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics .

Troy is currently revising his dissertation on neoliberal environmental thought into a book, tentatively titled 'Beyond Externality'. In addition to his academic work, Vettese writes on a wide array of environmental topics for a popular audience, and has had essays published in the Guardian, the New Statesman, Jacobin, N+1, Book Forum, and Boston Review.

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!

01:04 Welcome

02:58 Troy's Intro

- Half-Earth Socialism "what does it look like to have
an ecologically stable society... a good relationship with other beings on this planet and also to ensure a good life for everyone"

- The Half-Earth Socialism computer game & maybe a
future board-game

05:44 What's Real?

- #Ecosocialism and #neoliberalism in conversation with each other

- Growing up in a fairly conservative but non-religious household

- Being a Young Tory, reading Milton Friedman

- In early 20's "a crisis of faith in terms of this conservative worldview" due to the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis

- Reading Marx and New Left Review

- Exploring the environmental crisis

- A sensitive child, then a toxic masculinity phase as a
teenager (callous, eating meat, machismo), then, alongside the crisis of faith in conservatism, a wish to return to childhood passion for nature

- Gravitating towards ecosocialism

- Didn't "grow up with red diapers" (being brought
up in a left wing family) so feeling inoculated as knows the political right very well as "I came from the right to the left"

- #greenwashing measures "I wanted to understand where these ideas had come from... no one had done an intellectual history of these things"

- Challenging the common leftist view that the right &
neoliberalism doesn't have any real intellectual depth "I took it more seriously than most socialists"

- "I thought the left should have more concrete ideas
of their own... match the rigour of these conservative ones"

- "'We'll figure it out after the revolution'... that's not enough"

- Mother who ran for the Green party in elections

- Not religious now

- "Sceptical of thinking that there's one true path...
one true way of relating to each other or to animals"... relativism, Kuhnian (paradigms)?

- The neoliberal view of the market as the optimal information processor

- Being rational but also appreciating the
spiritual/subliminal/subjective? "that's why I'm a big bird watcher"

- The "spark bird" that gets you into #birdwatching

- #deleuze "Becoming animal" vs. #Haraway's notion
of "becoming with"

17:50 What Matters?

27:33 Who Matters?

54:15 A Better World?

01:29:55 Follow Troy
...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Tom is an internationally acclaimed artist, published author, and social justice activist. He is an expert and consultant on animal liberation history and strategy, and the global animal rights movement. His first book, Your Neighbour Kills Puppies was released in March 2024. The book is the previously untold story of one of the world’s most powerful social justice campaigns, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Tom became involved in the animal liberation movement at the age of fifteen when he attended his first hunt sab. Over the years that followed he devoted his life to helping animals and co-founded one of the UK`s most successful regional animal rights organizations, SARC (The Southern Animal Rights Coalition). Tom is a regular contributor to Forca Vegan magazine, and other periodicals. Under the professional name ‘Tattoo Tom‘, Tom has also achieved a highly successful and acclaimed career as an artist.

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!

00:49 Welcome

- Nicola Harris and Anita Krajnc episode  @PlantBasedTreaty

03:18 Tom's Intro

- 20 years in the #animalliberation movement

- Founding the Southern Animal Rights Coalition

- Closing a military research facility, a puppy farm, several chicken units

- Getting fur and foie gras out of shops

- #SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) co-ordinators
"the largest and most dynamic grass-roots animal liberation campaign"

- "The model we came up with was so effective... that
the American and British governments were both really terrified... while I don't think any of us necessarily set out to create a blueprint that could end capitalism... I think we probably came dangerously close"

- "The government in the UK essentially framed us and
set us up on bogus blackmail charges... I received a 5 year prison sentence for... a lawful campaign... I served 2 years."

- 3 years on bail before-hand and 2.5 years on license
afterwards with a tag "which was probably the toughest bit... I wasn't allowed to talk to my brother... a constant threat that they were going to send me back to prison."

- Since release, finding a very different animal liberation
world

- Lord Sainsbury's intention "to eliminate the
anti-vivisection movement... he succeeded for a good decade"

- "The movement I knew didn't exist... new groups like
the Save Movement, Animal Rebellion, DxE... started forming"

- Taking up tattoo artistry because "I was essentially
banned from talking to any other activist... any other vegan... all of my friends I wasn't allowed to talk to them"

- "Stabbing people for money" :)

10:10 What's Real?

- "I actually dropped out of a philosophy degree to do
more animal rights activism"

- Growing up in a non-religious family, probably atheists

- Christian grandparents "it was good for them... I saw
the positives"

- Cartographer dad, psychologist mum, quite analytical /
logical focus

- "I didn't learn when to stop following that logical path"

- "I was raised to be kind to animals and respect nature... to value life"

26:13 What and Who Matters?

01:04:53 A Better Future?

01:45:00 Follow Tom

TomHarris.meShacjustice.com@Tattoo_tom

...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Dr Sabine Brels is a lawyer dedicated to advancing animal protection law worldwide. She teaches international and comparative animal law and published books on animal related-issues in French and English. In the last 15 years, she directed Global Animal Law (GAL) project and worked as legal advisor for the World Federation for Animals, the Eurogroup for Animals, and Compassion in World Farming. Besides her consulting work, she is currently leading the World Animal Justice NGO that she founded in 2023.

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!

01:09 Welcome

-  Sabine's previous appearance on episode 66

02:15 Sabine's Intro

- #internationallaw , #animallaw and #animalrights

03:17 International vs. national law

- #icc #icj #unitednations

- Laws of genocide, humanitarianism, crimes against humanity...

- Policy, law, regulation, enforcement

- Regional law e.g. EU, Asia

07:34 World Animal Justice

- Bringing non-human animals into international law

- "An animal law revolution"

- #CrimesAgainstAnimality or #sentientity ?

- "Massive crimes against animals happen every day, everywhere worldwide... it's our collective responsibility"

- "Every day the entire European Union population is killed... that's a reality for animals... 450 million of animals are killed per day... this is only for food... every second it's 5000 animals killed"

- "It's not acceptable when we know that we can do otherwise... that this is avoidable"

- Companion, stray, laboratory, sport, working, wild animals "they are all victims of crimes against animality"

- Crimes against humanity: massive murders, sequestrations, enslavement, deportations, torture, violence including sexual violence "this is what is actually happening against animals every day... and it can still be legal in some places"

- Anti-cruelty and pro-welfare laws: "usually to reduce the suffering of these exploited animals or to condemn some acts of cruelty... against companion animals"

- "1/3 of countries today still have nothing to protect animals - not even the basic anti-cruelty laws"

- "Some of the most cruel practices are still legal in some countries..." force-feeding for #foiegras and #bullfighting in France are "a kind of torture for animals"

- The potential for a global consensus at least against some of those most egregious practices "That's wrong for animals but also for our human dignity"

- India and some South American countries: have granted some rights to great apes or large mammals based on poor treatment in zoos

- WAJ: "Go faster and higher... criminality against animals is huge"

- Welfare / anti-cruelty approaches "we are not taking this concern for the gravity it is"

- "If we were doing the same to humans... it would seem unbelievable that it would be still legal... we would cry about genocides and crimes against humanity"

- WAJ's network of experts and NGOs spanning 5 continents

28:22 WAJ Expert Network and Strategy37:00 Impacts on Animal AgricultureFollow Sabine and  @WorldAnimalJustice  :

- WAJ contact: contact@worldanimaljustice.org

- WAJ Website

- WAJ introductory Video

- WAJ Linkedin

...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

This episode is a bonus cross-post of my discussion with Leslie Rosenblood, host of Podcast For Inquiry. Podcast For Inquiry is produced by the Center For Inquiry Canada. Leslie describes it as a podcast for scientific, skeptical, secular, rational and humanistic (and maybe now sentientst) inquiry. Make sure you go and subscribe there too.

I also wanted to extend a warm welcome to everyone who has recently joined one of our online Sentientism communities. More people join us there every day - whether they think of themselves as Sentientists or not. The groups are open to everyone.
Just search for the word "Sentientism" on your favourite platforms (FaceBook is our biggest group) and you'll find us there.

 Also check out the new "In action" section of Sentientism.info. We're building pages there about Sentientist Education, Politics, Rights, Economics, Justice, Agriculture, Environmentalism and more - come and help us work out what a more Sentientist world might look like. 

A final thank you to Denise and Tarabella who found our Sentientism Patreon and are kindly contributing to our production costs - helping us steadily nudge the world towards "evidence, reason and compassion".

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠ via ⁠⁠⁠this simple form⁠⁠⁠.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is ⁠⁠⁠here on FaceBook⁠⁠⁠. Come join us there!


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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sentientism/message

David specializes in European philosophy, the history and philosophy of science and the philosophy of animal minds. He is interested in the problem of consciousness, the study of lived experience and the value of the humanities. David lives in San Francisco, California. He is Associate Professor of Humanities at San Francisco State University. He has previously worked at Johns Hopkins University, Laurentian University, Dillard University, and Emory University (where he received his Ph.D. in 2015). He is the author of "When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness" and co-host, with Ellie Anderson, of the Overthink Podcast. His work has been covered by The New York Times, CNN, ABC, The Atlantic, Le Parisian, El País, and Forbes, among others.

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!
01:14 Welcome
- Our two way para-social relationships
- Sharing #naturalistic thinking & an interest in expanding our #moralcircle based on #sentience
04:48 David's Intro
- Continental philosophy, teaching humanities, animal minds/ethics/politics, the science of consciousness & co-hosting  @OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy 
- "There's something equally mysterious & fascinating & alluring... about the minds of other creatures."
- Links between animal academia & animal movements (rights, welfare...) "Most of it is happening beyond the ivory tower of higher education... it's happening on the ground with people who are committed to the goal of #animalliberation"
08:10 What's Real?
- "It's hard to know how much weight to give to those early experiences..."
- Raised #catholic
- A small town in Mexico where "Catholicism was the economic driving force of town life... 5-10 thousand people that would be overrun by a million religious pilgrims 5 times a year"
- Manifestation of the virgin Mary with indigenous roots with a reputed power to do health miracles
- Disenchantment "I really saw the church & faith largely as a story that we the locals told in order to bring in tourists... As a child I never really understood that we were really meant to believe the content of the stories"
- A "great 11 year old awakening" and a "show-down with my mother... I don't want to go to church... I don't actually believe any of this... my mother had no problem with that which further just confirmed my suspicion that a lot of this was just surface"
- "Catholics... we tend to be very bad at reading the bible - we usually just get our lessons from the priest... for me it seemed like smoke & mirrors"
- "From my early teen years I leaned towards a naturalistic outlook of the world and the cosmos... I do think the world is composed of matter, of motion, of the fundamental forces of physics..."
- "That does not necessarily mean that I am a #rationalist ... I don't think that our human cognitive architecture is necessarily so imperious and mighty that it is poised to uncrack all the mysteries of nature..."
34:59 What Matters?
57:05 Who Matters?
01:14:15 How To Make A Better World?
01:22:42 Follow David
- David at SFSU

- Overthink

- When Animals Dream

- @DrPenaGuzman1

...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠