I’m not a fan of celebrity worship, but well-known people can play an important role in normalising positive changes. They can help chip away at the mental block that so many people have because they see Sentientism and related worldviews (such as veganism, atheism and humanism) as “weird” – or worry that their friends and family will.
To that end, I’ve built a new page on sentientism.info for us to add “Suspected Sentientists”. I’ve only set up a few so far – some of the names might surprise you. The page is for people we suspect might hold a Sentientist worldview, for example because they are ethical vegans and atheist or humanist, but who haven’t (yet) said they agree with Sentientism’s simple naturalistic and sentiocentric tenets. I’ve also set up a form here that you can use to nominate people.
It’s been great to see more people helping with this normalisation by publicly proclaiming their Sentientism on our wall – 100 wonderful personal messages and pictures so far. Thank you to all of you who have already added yourselves via our “I’m a Sentientist” form – whether you consider yourself a “celebrity” or not 
.
Sentientism remains a little-known, niche worldview, but it does seem to resonate across the world with many who learn about it – even if it’s just a new word to describe the philosophy they already had. A few updates follow on our project to raise awareness of the idea and to build a community or movement of sorts around it:
- Our main online community group has broken through 1,000 members across ~85 countries. It’s a wonderful mix of academics, activists, writers, policy people and interested lay people like me. Anyone interested in sentientism, including you, are welcome to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism
- Our other groups and accounts are growing steadily, including ~1,500 followers for @Sentientism and ~430 members on our sub-reddit.
- Sentientism.info now has a FAQ, 6 podcast interviews, 2 video discussions and 5 published articles. Nearly 3,000 people have visited the site so far.
- We’re building a “How” section about what a more Sentientist world would look like and how we can work to bring it about – through a more Sentientist politics, language, rights, justice, development goals, education, agriculture and news… Feedback and ideas welcome.
If you have feedback or ideas about Sentientism I’d love to hear them. Please get in touch.
I hope you, your families and teams are all well.
Jamie.