"Animal farming will end by the end of this century" - Jacy Reese Anthis - Sentientism Ep:62

Описание: Jacy (  / jacyanthis   & https://jacyanthis.com/) is a social scientist & co-founder of the Sentience Institute (https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/). His acclaimed book, The End of Animal Farming (https://jacyanthis.com/book), analyzes the development & popularisation of food technologies such as plant-based & cultivated meat.

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 audio is on our Podcast: https://apple.co/391khQO​​​​ & https://pod.link/1540408008​​​​​​.

We discuss:
0:00 Welcome

1:26 Jacy's Intro
Utilitarianism, Effective Altruism, Buddhism, neuroscience, community building, Animal Charity Evaluators, Sentience Institute, The End of Animal Farming, Sociology PhD & moral expansion.

3:22 What's Real?
Growing up around Baptist & Catholic churches near Houston but in an agnostic family
Attending church "lockins"
"I wasn't even told Santa was real growing up"
Interested in Buddhist views of suffering, but not the supernatural aspects
Naturalism has a connotation that there is nothing supernatural. "That's an empirical claim about which I remain uncertain"
Would multiverses, our universe being a simulation or pre-Big Bang history be seen as "supernatural"?
The varieties of religious identity: metaphysics, ethics, community

9:20 What Matters?
Moral heuristics & their conflicts
Adopting utilitarianism at 12 yrs old & looking for a "proof"
From moral realism to anti-realism (per Brian Tomasik)
It's up to us to decide which mental phenomenon to put in the "sentience" and "consciousness" categories
Objectivity, relativism, nihilism & arbitrariness
Even most religious people would act morally if there was no god
Rejecting "mind-independent" truth as the next step up from rejecting supernatural truths
Non-objective morality can still be compelling
Grounding morality in a concern for the experiences of others
The priority balance between reducing suffering vs. enhancing flourishing

18:20 Moral Scope & Expansion
Utilitarianism led to vegetarianism then veganism
Focusing initially on human issues, working at GiveWell
Cause prioritisation led back to non-human issues
Persuading sentiocentrists to be more effective & effective altruists to be sentiocentric
The bias against helping other species
Non-human animal causes can seem sentimental until you engage w/the arguments
Far future/long-termism
Effective Altruists have the highest veg*n % of almost any human group
Ancient roots of sentiocentrism/veganism & naturalism
"Everything has been said before"
Philosophical pluralism in Sentientism
Eze Paez & Jacy's Futures paper re: moral circle expansion (attitudinal & behavioural)
Moderate & radical flanks of social movements. Shifting the overton window. Corey Lee Wrenn

30:11 Sentientism, Sentiocentrism & Sentience
Is Sentientism the only moral discrimination?
Why is naturalism important? Abraham & Isaac
Sentientism as the naturalistic version of sentiocentrism?
Valuable intersections with other movements, including religions
Sentience: goal orientation, mood-like states, complexity, integration?
Biocentrism, ecocentrism
Trade-offs & synergies between different perspectives. Working with others without having to agree on everything!
"Moral circles are not circles"
Wild animals, invertebrate sentients, artificial sentients
Defining sentience using examples. Valence, arousal?
Panpsychism, substance dualism or sentience as a class of info processing?
Is panpsychism the new "elan vital"?
"There's nothing magical about our conscious experience but that's a really cool thing!"

48:17 The Future
Locking in the valuing of sentience?
Singleton AI or governance
Could we programme a super-intelligent AI to be sentientist?
Hedonium, the most efficient use of space/energy/matter for pleasure. Dog park simulations?
David Pearce's gradients of hedonic bliss
"I'm not going to pick & choose too much once we've eliminated extreme suffering"
"Most people aren't very morally driven" but "I've become more optimistic about technology" & legislation/institutional change
Cautionary lessons from GMOs & nuclear
"We need anger & outrage" as impetus
Code switching for effective messaging "we can lead this important change!"

"Animal farming will end globally by the end of this century"

... And much more - see Sentientism.info for full show notes.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/​​​​​​​​​​​​​. Join Jacy on our "I'm a Sentientist" wall https://sentientism.info/wall/ here: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentien....

​Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. Main one:   / sentientism​  .

Thanks Graham for the post-prod   / cgbessellieu  .