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Jill has been a leading voice in digital media for more than a decade. She’s been published in outlets including MTV, The Huffington Post, and the Village Voice. She served as Head of Content for a popular vegan media platform from 2017-2020, with a reach of more than 50 million per month. She has worked with a number of impact media platforms to help build their traffic and positioning, as well as with leading brands and celebrities working to make the world a more sustainable and ethical space. Jill is the co-founder, CEO and Head of Content for Ethos.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the three most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and “how can we make a better future?”

Sentientism is “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” The audio is also on our Podcast here on Apple & here everywhere else.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:42 Jill’s Intro

• Immersed in digital content
• Co-founding https://the-ethos.co/
• Vegan media & natural foods industries
• The #Conspirituality podcast & #DavidWolfe

03:42 What’s Real?

• “The religion that governed my house was #bobdylan “
• Parents raised #Jewish, father became atheist, “7/11 jewish” mother
• Kicked out of hebrew school “one of my father’s more proud moments”
• Living with dad after parents split
• Child of the 80’s “you’re on your own journey”
• Constantine Sandis
• Becoming a mum
• Animals’ different realities
• “We’re the chosen people… an egregious statement… how can one group matter more?.. after so much suffering”
• #Israel & #palestine
• Fond memories of Jewish culture but “as a rule to live by… not at all”
• “this omnipresent god… directing every moment of my life… I wanted the autonomy”
• #Agnostic. Open to the idea of “some sort of god”
• #dogma
• The risks of the #wellness / #spirituality worlds. #antivaxx, #Qanon, #alternativemedicine
• Open-mindedness, evidence & gut-feel
• #DavidWolfe shows a #moonlanding #conspiracy video
• Distrust of authority
• Scepticism about vaccines didn’t seem too serious “to each their own”. Then #covid19 hits
• “I very much prefer to have science in my corner… but sometimes you can just tell”
• A denial, scepticism, gullibility spectrum?
• David Wolfe “leveraging science when it supported his narrative but slamming it when it didn’t”
• Gossip as “a way to keep the tribal community safe”
• “Conspiracy theories… we use them unconsciously to defend ourselves”

32:10 What & Who Matters?

• “I don’t think you need religion to know good from bad”
• @Sam Harris
• Raising a #vegan child “she asked what it was and I said that used to be a pig’s stomach or back…”
• “She seems very much to understand that basic level of compassion”
• “The food is so delicious and so abundant… she’s never felt left out”
• “Don’t you find it hard to be vegan?” “She was just confused by the question”
• “I was always vegan but didn’t have a word for it.” Being disgusted by animal-based foods as a child but loving fruit & veg
• Discovering Turkish food “really changed me”
• 7th grade trying to go veggie w/a friend
• “By my late teens I’d heard the word ‘vegan’… Oh, I’m vegan!… I never looked back.”
• The Smiths “#Meat is Murder”
• #Wildanimals suffering “who doesn’t feel sympathy…?”
• “It’s shocking that you can get sympathy to that [wild animal suffering] while they’ve got a burger in their hand”
• “Our choices matter”
• Human & non-human caused harms
• #Biocentrism, #Ecocentrism & links to spiritual worldviews?
• #psychedelics & #ayahuasca “everything was completely connected… there was no separation… it all serves its purpose… except for mosquitoes” 🙂
• The ethics of cutting a blade of grass vs. cutting a pig
• Species/populations vs. individual sentients
• Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma”. Factory farming, non-factory farming, hunting
• Hunting communities: “Do they have a communication with that animal that gives permission on some deep level”? (no)
  “We will evolve to eat far fewer animals… for the planet… & a moral obligation”
• “We’re in free-fall” Covid, env., wars. Finding priority space for non-human animals is tough

01:01:55 A Better Future?

• #genz & #genalpha give us hope
• Ethos: “Telling these stories in the gentlest way… giving people choices.”
• @Stella McCartney ‘s #sustainablefashion
• #Cultivatedmeat approaching price parity
• Compassion w/out sacrifice “We’re really just at the beginning”
• JW “One day we won’t need the word #vegan”
• “Institutional changes come about because of individual changes”
• Ethical #capitalism / #consumerism ?
• #justtransition
• “I could never have dreamed…” #burgerking switching to vegan default

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

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Thanks to Graham for the post-production and to Denise for funding this episode via our Sentientism Patreon.