90: "We're simply asking for what we want - to criminalise abuse & killing" - David Michelson of YesOnIP13 - Sentientist Conversation

David is an activist & chief petitioner of the Yes On IP13 campaign (www.yesonip13.org & @yesonip13) which aims to outlaw the harming & killing of sentient animals in the US state of Oregon. That's without exceptions for animal agriculture, hunting, research or other forms of exploitation. Originally with a background in psychology & public health, David’s switch to activism began after bearing witness to pigs being killed in gas chambers.

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 video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:29 David's Intro

- Being new to activism

- IP13: Criminalising killing & breeding animals in the state of Oregon

- "We're asking for what we want"

- Linking the academic & the real world

04:03 What's Real?

- Culturally Jewish/Christian family branches

- Religion was just a label

- Having a Bar Mitzvah to "side with my mother... it made religion seem arbitrary to me"

- "They taught me how to read Hebrew but never taught me what I was saying"

- "It wasn't a worldview... it wasn't used to make sense of the world"

- "Sitcoms were more of a determinant of what's real"

- Meeting people who had done atheist & animal outreach

- "Free yourself from those harmful social norms!"

- UFOs, conspiracy theories & religion

- There's enough awesomeness in reality

- "I was angry when I learned that Santa wasn't real"

- Investigating Santa as a child w/a hidden camera

- Why do we lie to children about so many things?

- Homeopathy, "stop the steal", astrology, tea leaves...

- "Psychedelics made me more naturalistic & gave me the final push to go vegan as well"... connectedness

- Buddhism & Plum Village monks

- Talking to a flat earther

- The challenge of having enough, but not too much scepticism

- Epistemological & methodological naturalism

- "Pretend naturalism" (only considering evidence supporting what you already want to believe)

- What evidence would change your mind?

24:55 What (& Who) Matters?

- Intuitive ethics

- Vegetarian at 14 "I didn't want to eat animals"

- "'I'm not very much of an animal lover"

- "I thought that cows had to be milked" & eggs were "picked up like an easter egg hunt"

- Going vegan, then learning about dairy/eggs

- Watching Dominion then getting involved in activism

- "A baseline of avoiding violence"

- Compassion for victims vs. judging human actions...

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

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!

Thanks Graham.