Find our Sentientist Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here or on the Sentientism podcast here.

Cameron (cameron@animaladvocacyafrica.org) is the Operations Lead for Animal Advocacy Africa (& @Animal_Africa). Cameron ran his own eCommerce business for several years before pivoting to charity entrepreneurship to have a more extensive & substantial positive impact on the world. Cameron has been involved in the Effective Altruism community for over ten years & went through Charity Entrepreneurship’s 2020 incubation program.

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.” In addition to the video above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple and here elsewhere.

We discuss:
00:00 Welcome

01:15 Cameron’s Intro

• Studying, business, Effective Altruism, earning to give, charity entrepreneurship, starting AAA

03:01 What’s Real?

• Growing up with a logical/reasoned/scientific mindset
• Attending church & religious school
• Being drawn to scepticism, rationalism, atheism, Effective Altruism
• Softening to consider Buddhism/spiritualist elements
• Meditation “It felt like there’s something more going on here”. Interconnectedness, a peace with determinism (no free will)
• There are some moral truths in religious thinking. Religion as metaphor
• Open mindedness & humility

15:30 What (& Who) Matters?

• An early sense of justice “I couldn’t sit back & do nothing”
• Suffering/contentment as a core moral axiom
• The asymmetry betwee suffering & flourishing
• We can learn & grow & become happier from suffering
• Over-simplifying suffering/flourishing
• “Notes From the Underground” by Dostoevsky & Alan Watts
• Understanding/truth/knowledge as a meta-goal for humanity?
• “You can kind of fit everything in” to sentience
• Considering moral scope as a teenager. Other humans. Other sentients. Veganism.
• Watching challenging YouTube ethical debate videos (Joey Carbstrong)… “I can’t answer this… It shook me.”
• A “who can be vegetarian for the longest” bet with a friend. Going vegan 4 weeks later
• The social/family aspect was the most difficult partly because “It challenges other people’s beliefs”
• “I’ve now channelled my vegan angst into this charity”
• “Changing your mind is possible.”
• Bio/ecocentrism?
• Digital sentience?
• Animal farming as an obvious, tractable, human wrong
• Wild animal suffering vs. an idealistic reverence for “nature”
• Links between naturalistic epistemology & ethics

38:08 How Can we Make a Better World?

• Effective Altruism: “Doing the most good you can in an evidence based & effective way”
• EA should be a mass movement. Less insular
• Everyone should at least consider the effectiveness of charitable donations (as people invest for the best return)
• Different people can make very different contributions. It’s not “one size fits all”
• “I don’t see the world as a zero-sum game”
• Systemic/institutional change, policy as well as individual consumer/donation impact
• Animal Advocacy Africa: Solving an alignment problem. Matching willing funders with advocacy organisations & helping them capacity build
• Pilot programme completing now (mentors, funders, volunteers)
• AAA Analysis & reports on the state of animal advocacy in Africa, focusing on animal agriculture
• Factory farms are already appearing
• Avoiding the default of African countries following the path of industrial animal agriculture
• Cultural, governance, NGO immaturity challenges
• Very different theories of change are required across the continent: Resisting de-sensitisation, awareness of animal sentience…
• The massive potential for the advocacy movement across Africa
• JustTransition challenges re: traditional & local animal agriculture
• Aligning ethics, health & environmental drivers for win-win-win situations
• Volunteering, donation, job, networking opportunities with AAA & their local partner organisations

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

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Thanks Graham for the post-production.