“Every time technology tries to stand in for ethics, we do ourselves a disservice… we deny ourselves the opportunity for growth.”

Dr. Matthew Cole said that to me in late 2020. At the time, we were talking about vegan meat. Read it again with AI in mind.

Matthew is a criminologist at The Open University and the only #vegan sociologist I know. He studies how we raise children to love animals and eat them at the same time, and how that contradiction gets quietly filed under “normal.”

Over two hours, we went from thrash metal guitar to Doctor Who, breaching experiments, David Pearce’s Hedonistic Imperative, and the human exceptionalism hiding inside a lot of #transhumanism. He also changed how I think about the small daily inconveniences of my own choices.

If you’re certain you’re a predator, and nothing could change your mind, skip this one. Everyone else, a question worth sitting with: which of your ethical decisions are you hoping #technology will make for you?

The full 2-hour conversation with Dr. Matthew Cole, video and audio: [ https://snglrty.co/3ZN6fgl](https://snglrty.co/3ZN6fgl)

Matthew Cole is a vegan sociologist. His work has deep implications on our perceptions of ethics, transhumanism. technology and who we are.