Hey Folks!

Welcome to Applied Sentience! The idea behind our blog is this: Being a sentient being is an incredible privilege and a great responsibility, and this project is dedicated to both.

Having the capacity for thought, feeling and self-awareness means we have a cornucopia of beauty and knowledge and experience available to us, simply for being alive. And being alive in this era also means we have unprecedented access to that beauty and knowledge; anyone with a computer and an internet connection can collect a huge library, access an immense publicly available encyclopedia, read crowdsourced pop literary theory,  look at classic and contemporary art and illustration, fund their passion-projects and catch up on developments in research and the arts– all for free.

But Applied Sentience is also about being a good citizen of the universe. It’s about staying in touch with the plight of our fellow people and doing everything we can to look out for their rights and well-being because– as self-aware and moral creatures– we can.

So yeah, those are the twin goals of this blog: To indulge in the knowledge and beauty and awesome of the world while also being responsible citizens of it, and we hope you’ll join us in both. Whether you do it as readers and commenters or as contributors and staff writers, you’re welcome here.

P. S. While we have our roots in Humanism and Rutgers Humanist organizations, we’re an inclusive project and welcome all perspectives. The important thing is that you believe in the importance of examining beliefs.

P. P. S. Check out our Tumblr, our Twitter and our Facebook fan page!