Chaitanya is Assistant Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in the Centre for Regulatory Policy and Governance. He has a PhD in Economics. Chaitanya’s research interests include economic development strategies in the global south, structural change, economic development and regulatory policy, urban economics, and non-anthropocentric strategies/alternatives to anthropocentric value systems in progress and conservation including food systems research (and maybe Sentientist Economics?)
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
01:42 Chaitanya's Intro
- Economics as a way to improve the world
03:45 What's Real?
- Growing up in a #sindhi family in India
- #pakistan , #india & partition
- Having a #hindu temple at home
- An #atheist  father "he didn't believe in all those things" who turned to religion after a difficult time
- "I don't believe in god"
- "Religion has always been a tool to marginalise different sections of the society"
- Rejecting faith
- Degree, masters, PhD... "questioning things... critical thinking"
- Before then, unthinkingly accepting what had been told
- "The way you think has real impact on society"
- "There are several ways of living life and one has agency"
- Evidence & reason, ethical & systemic critiques of religion
- "It's a very hard task to grasp reality"
- "I would rather... analyse things around me as they are"
- #pluralism m
- Naturalistic views of relatedness & interconnectedness
- Finding a balance between defeatist humility & arrogant hubris
22:54 What Matters?
- Being sensitive, as a child, to humans & non-humans
- Growing up in a patriarchal society
- "Not cheating, working hard... stopping at red lights"
26:49 Who Matters?
- Sindhis typically eat meat, but father said "I always felt it was not the right thing to do"
- Buying meat from a public slaughterhouse "I did not feel comfortable but I used to love it [eating meat]"
- Family gatherings centred around #meat  "everyone around me was relishing... & my father was telling me this is not the right thing to do"
- Fighting about eating meat at 4-5 years old
- Visiting the #slaughterhouse "this is where it comes from"
- #sentience & the dangers of human-defined moral scope...

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
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Thanks Graham.