Victoria (https://www.victoria-hogan.com/ & https://twitter.com/incertaspecie) is an actress, film producer, writer, voiceover artist and animal activist. She has appeared in Netflix’s “Haunted”, the Comedy Central show “Nathan for You”, in various theatre productions & in the video game “Kingdom Come: Delieverance”. Victoria is an animal rights activist. She co-founded the production company Quantum Kitten. Look out for Victoria’s new Cosmic Creature app (https://www.victoria-hogan.com/cosmic…
In these 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 also on our Podcast – subscribe here: https://apple.co/391khQO & all the other platforms https://pod.link/1540408008.
We discuss:
- Victoria’s life in the performing arts & animal activism
- Holding the concept of reality lightly
- Our own experience as central to our reality
- We’re not fully conscious of much that we do
- Growing up Christian. Believing in god, praying
- Ditching religion at 10-11 yrs
- Being an angry, anti-Christian atheist in early teens
- Rejecting the homophobia & freedom restrictions of Christianity
- Exploring spirituality, Wicca, Buddhism, Hinduism and holding them all as loosely true or real
- Re-visiting some Christian concepts and finding it less troubling, while still rejecting where it conflicts with equality
- The risks of solipsism. Giving up on knowing
- Being sceptical even of our own perceptions and rationality
- Can people have separate personal “truths” and still understand each other and collaborate?
- The path from formal religion to “angry atheism” to a broader spirituality or a more humble naturalism
- Is there “A divine source we are working our way towards”?
- Does a broader spirituality warp compassionate ethics less than the idea of god as a being?
- The role of intuition
- “Most people I encounter are kind”
- The bizarre admission of: “Without religion – what’s stopping us from looting and murdering?”
- “Is religion really all that keeps you from murdering?”
- How much wrong comes from ignorance rather than intention (e.g. animal farming)
- Most religious people are more compassionate than their gods or religious books. Which is why most don’t follow the books
- Maybe religion doesn’t influence ethics that much for good or ill
- Grounding morality in the experiences of others (or something else)?
- Having a very intense, ineffable psychedelic experience using DMT: The universe is relatively indifferent. Nature is sometimes cruel and sometimes kind. The universe values creation (e.g. having a child). The universe wants to exist. Suffering leads to destruction. Nurturing leads to life, flourishing and new creation
- Is death intrinsically bad? Except as a cessation of life
- Eating turkey at 12-13 yrs old. Having a sudden realisation that it was a turkey. Immediately stopping eating meat. Watching slaughterhouse videos and documentaries. Organising animal advocacy protests
- The benefits of anthropomorphising animals
- Clean-meat and plant-based alternatives. Fast, cheap, easy, available
- The indoctrination re: animal farming and fishing
- Veganism and “purity”
- Sometimes the vegan community doesn’t feel like a welcoming group people want to join (even for other vegans)
- Some people have medical needs that present more challenges
- Engaging with compassion is more ethical and maybe more effective
- Humans are sentient beings too
- Being told by a Buddhist monk “Your protest isn’t going to work… You need to connect with compassion and help people elevate their compassion. Help them become better.”
- The Cosmic Creature app concept. Gamifying ethical behaviours
- If two choices are equal people will choose the more ethical one
- Making it fun and easy to reduce animal product consumption. Reaching people who mainstream vegan campaigns might not get to
- Maybe it’s easier to change behaviours than ethics. Then ethics will follow. But the behaviour and the outcomes are what matter. “First and foremost – do the behaviour.” “There is suffering – end it!”
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our “wall” https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.
Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our biggest is on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Thanks, Graham for the post-production: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.