Скачать или смотреть "You CAN change other people!" - Howie Jacobson of Plant Yourself - Sentientism EP:87

Howie (  / askhowie   & https://plantyourself.com/ & https://www.askhowie.com/) is a coach & author. His coaching work with people & organisations focuses on leadership, values, productivity & health.

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:
00:00 Welcome

02:01 Howie's Intro
Coaching & writing
"Not a big fan of capitalism"
Effective altruism through organisations
"Helping people respond to reality"
Not knowing "what's real?" or "what matters?" but let's try to work it out

04:54 What's Real?
Growing up in a conservative Jewish household in New Jersey
Culturally Jewish but "kind of atheist"
Mother's history of the holocaust & kindertransport
Father's "Jewish identity & socialism." Needling the Rabbi: "We have to rest on the Sabbath so now I have to walk up 30 flights of stairs?!"
Being given "The Truth About the Bible" book. Bible inconsistencies & immorality
"The Jews have learned to argue & doubt & question"
"The Jewish people must survive" as a core commitment
Einstein, Marx, Freud
A militant zionist phase
"It was safe." There was no danger to the ritual vs. sweatlodges
A "safe, conventional, suburban religion"
Attending an Ivy League college
"There are smart people who believe in ghosts"
Exploring parapsychology
"There were serious academics questioning my worldview which was completely materialistic"
Rejecting the exclusive tribalism & the simplistic narratives of religion but "There is a big effing mystery out there"
Shamanic practices "oh honey, it's all bullshit"
Being sceptical of our own perceptions & reasoning. Be open
Predictive dreams
Contextualism... "How is this working for me?"
"Look for & assume positive intent... then act like it's true"
Talking to trees, brambles as defences, mycorrhizal fungi as comms networks
Narratives of dominion vs. "consciousness in everything"
Arbitrary vs. narratives grounded in reality
"Supposedly using evidence & reason we've destroyed the planet"
Checks: 1) consistency with the natural world & 2) compassion

32:50 What Matters?
Be nice to people
Mother's experience of Nazi occupation of Austria. "The teachers & her so called friends were wearing Nazi armbands" & "Punch a Nazi"
Father's labour organising. "Fighting for the little guy" as the central moral theme
A story of a police horse being stabbed: "I thought 'what a great story' until I started considering the sentience of the horse"
Us vs. them ethos. I'm lucky to be on the "right side". Realising "everyone thinks they're on the right side!"
Mitchell & Webb's Nazi sketch "are we the baddies?"
"I'm still a humanist in my heart... I'm a sentientist in my mind"
Being vegan but not suffering emotionally when thinking about animal suffering. "What's important to me is how I act"
Our emotions are easily manipulated (music, contact, stories)
Vegan for health & env. reasons. John Robbins "Diet for a New America" (1987). Then part of the vegan community
Dangers of imprinting on "wise elders"
Gregory Bateson's "Schismogenesis"
"I'm vegan now, the world hates me for it... I'm going to buy the whole thing"
Teaching as a rebel
"I''m an instrumental vegan"
Indigenous hunting culture. Honouring animals. "I would eat animals under some circumstances... I don't see anything in the world that is anywhere close to that standard."
Even good justifications don't erase the harm done to victims
Species/biodiversity vs. individuals
Romance vs. reality of hunting
Biocentrism
Intrinsic/instrumental moral consideration
Ecocentrism: "The risk that individual sentient beings can be chewed up for the sake of the system"

55:43 A Better Future
It's a problem if we have to deny our self-interest in order to be good
"Sand Talk - How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World"... "Western Civilisation is a self-terminating algorithm"
"It's how the game is set up"
"We don't have the models we need yet"
Experimentation. It's OK to make mistakes
Supporting vs. shaming each other (even re: Ivermectin)
Being OK with ourselves. Safety vs. fight/flight. Stephen Porges' "Polyvagal Theory"
Narcissism
If I had all the power I'd change things... but I don't... I have persuasion
Shame & remorse & denial
Critic to ally. Shared positive intent
Stories that make me feel good w/out dominating
We can't stop w/systems that make "good people treating each other well" a privileged position
Tipping points

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

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g:   / sentientism  .