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I've been told that it's a bad taste

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to start a TED talk
by introducing oneself,

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and yet, my name is Sandris Ādminis
and there is something weird about it.

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Firstly, Google doesn't let me
register an account with such a name.

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I've tried several times,
and they just would not allow it.

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And I guess the reason

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is that part of my last name
consists of the English word "admin,"

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so probably, it's just for safety,
so that I don't start scamming people

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as if I was one of
the administrators of Google.

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But there is something else.

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"Ādminis" is a Latvian word
meaning "tanner,"

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and tanner is a person
that works with animal skins.

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So probably,

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one of my great-great-great-great
grandfathers was a tanner

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and that's how I got this surname.

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A while ago, I found
a book about forgotten crafts,

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and there was a chapter about tanners,
so, of course, I was intrigued to read it.

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And what struck me there was a tip
from a professional tanner

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who said that if you want to make
a high-quality leather bag,

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you should buy skins
from meat cows, from beef cows,

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and you should never buy skins
from milk cows, from dairy cows

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because they have been
pregnant several times,

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their skin is stretched,
not as flexible anymore,

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so it's not a good quality.

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That's quite a practical tip, right?

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But for me, it was rather awkward.

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And why so?

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Because you are not very likely to find me

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buying somebody's skin
or taking somebody's skin.

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You are much more likely to see me
advocating against killing animals.

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Here I am in a silent protest
against fur farming;

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interviewing people at a circus protest
against exploiting animals in circus.

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I'm also doing a radio show

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about animal rights and veganism,
and science discoveries.

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And I enjoy doing school talks for kids.

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And here are some Latvian activists

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bringing the petition
to ban fur farming to the Parliament.

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Coming back to my last name, "tanner,"

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I guess if there was such a thing
as an intergenerational karma,

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I might be the living proof of it.

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Yeah, in those years,
basically for 10 years,

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I've been involved in animal advocacy

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and working with people
who know a lot about animals,

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and in this time,
one of the main things I've noticed

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is that our understanding about them
is incomplete and superficial, even wrong.

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And even in cases when
we consider them, the animals,

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the focus tends to be
on the benefit for humans, right,

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because humans are the most
significant entities in the universe.

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Everything is regarded in terms
of human values and human experiences.

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But is such an exclusively
human-centered perspective justified?

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Did you know that sheep
can remember many faces?

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Or that apes can remember hundreds
of hand signs and communicate with them?

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Or, did you know
that pigs are so similar to us

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that their internal organs
could be used, like, for donation,

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for transplants?

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Speaking of pigs, all pigs are equal,
but some pigs are much more equal.

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And what I mean by that
is that depending on the context,

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they are treated
very differently by humans.

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Have you heard about Esther,
the Wonder Pig?

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Because you should,

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she's the most famous pig
in the world at the moment.

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She even has her own [TEDx] talk.

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She was adopted as a mini-pig,

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so the family took her in thinking
that she will grow to the size of a cat.

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But they were wrong.

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(Laughter)

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Now she's huge and she weighs more
than the rest of her family together.

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And what would you do

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with a family member
that keeps on growing?

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I hope it's not selling them.

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Yeah, you make more space for it.

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(Laughter)

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Or, should I say, for her.

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She is a part of that family,
just like that cat and that dog is.

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They eat together,
play together, sleep together,

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they have distinct personalities.

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And is there a morally relevant difference

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between a cat and a pig,
or a dog and a pig?

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If not, why should pigs
be treated worse than they?

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Isn't it a form of racism,
I mean, speciesism?

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But unfortunately, this is not
a typical life story of a pig.

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This is a typical modern farm

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where typical pigs
spend their typical lives

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without enjoying sunshine
or grass under their feet,

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never digging for tasty roots
or never rolling in the mud.

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And to me, the mind-itching question is:

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why?

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Why do we treat some animals
as individuals and even as our friends

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while at the same time, we treat others
as replaceable units, and even things?

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What do you see in this picture?

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It's lots of pigs, right?
It's a successful business.

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But what if you knew
that one of them was Esther,

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a curious being
that once lived in a family,

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was close friends with the dog Ruben
and the cat Finnegan?

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Would you perceive
this photo the same way?

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What I'm saying is that seeing
or imagining animals, or humans,

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as a part of a faceless crowd

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makes it easy to normalize all kinds
of bad things, atrocities done to them,

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things that we wouldn't accept otherwise.

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We could also eliminate all the traces

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that lead us to perceive them
as individuals:

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no face, no name, no skin,
no context at all,

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just a product with a date
of expiration and a price.

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It makes it easy, right?

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When I was in high school,
I was staying with my grandma,

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and one night, I was really hungry.

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I went to the fridge,
there was a piece of bacon,

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I cut a slice of it, enjoyed it,
wanted to have some more,

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but then I noticed
that there was a nipple on it,

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just like in this photo.

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Can you eat something that has a nipple?

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I managed to swallow
that bite that I already had,

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but that was
a life-transforming experience.

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So, the way we treat animals

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depends on how we see them
and what we know about them.

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Over time, humanity has also changed
its perception of animals.

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For example, I still can't believe

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that the superstar
of the Western philosophy,

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one of the brightest minds,
René Descartes,

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once argued that animals
are merely biological machines,

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not thinking, not being conscious,
not even feeling.

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Or Aristotle, the ancient
Greek philosopher.

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He saw nature organized
in a clear hierarchy,

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humans being the most
perfect ones on the top,

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then mammals far below,
birds, reptiles, and so on,

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and each of the levels on the lower side

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were supposedly meant
for the upper levels.

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And by the way, according to Aristotle,
he thought that also women were below men

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and at least a little higher than slaves
who were also a natural part of the world,

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at least in his times.

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The biblical view was pretty similar:

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man had God's given rights to rule
over everything else, everyone else.

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It's only since Charles Darwin
published his influential book

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"On the Origin of Species,"

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only since then,

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we are starting to accept our connection
with other beings, other species.

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So modern biology doesn't see nature
as a simple hierarchy,

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as Aristotle or the Bible did.

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To the contrary, it's rather organized

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in an incredibly complex way,
but still a unified way.

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Even illustrations like this one,
made by the Tree of Life Web Project,

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are a simplification
of the complexity of earthlings,

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the family network
of life forms on our planet.

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Almost every day, scientists
uncover new data on animals,

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and there is an awkward amount
of new knowledge.

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In the recent century alone,
we have developed so many things,

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technology that helps us
understand them better, animals,

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both for scientists and for us.

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We have been learning about life
under water, deep in the oceans.

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Millions of people recently watched

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a live-stream video
about a giraffe baby being born.

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I imagine that at least some
of you in this audience

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enjoy spying on birds
via video streams from their nests;

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these videos are very popular in Latvia.

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We have also learned
that there are many other humanoids,

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not just Homo sapiens.

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And genetics as a science
is opening our eyes

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about the relatedness
on a stunning micro level.

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So, inevitably, new data and discoveries

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are pushing us to rethink
our place in the universe

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and also our relation to other animals.

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It's a part of an already existing trend
of dethroning, of decrowning ourselves

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and getting rid of the sweet illusion
of being the center of everything.

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Major scientific breakthroughs

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again and again have pushed us
to humble self-perception.

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Like, once we believed
that we were created,

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that our planet was
the center of the universe,

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and now we know we aren't.

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We thought that at least we are
in the center of the solar system

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and everything is circling around us,

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but that's also not true.

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Also, there was no doubt that we are
fundamentally different from those beasts,

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that we are rather
godlike creatures, right?

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But now, there is more and more evidence

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that Homo sapiens, humans,
are just one of the many species,

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sharing all kinds of traits
and capabilities that we value highly

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with other animals who have those too.

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And humanity has already started
to take this message on-board.

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Animals are more and more
taking space in our imagination,

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on the political agenda;

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and environmental awareness
and animal protection standards

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are higher than ever.

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There are more and more alternatives
for animal products,

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and their well-being is mentioned

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even in the credits of movies
and on shampoo bottles.

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In other words, animals are entering
the human-centered world

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in unprecedented ways.

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But where do we go from here?

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Should we envision times

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when the golden rule of ethics to treat
others as you would wish to be treated

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applies not just to humans,
but also to at least some other species?

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We might even go much further,
envisioning times

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when the wolf and the lamb
would peacefully dwell together

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like in the biblical scene of paradise.

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Our imagination is boundless,
and it can bring us quite far.

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Did you know that once, at least once,
humans even tried animals in courts?

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In 1457, a pig and her piglets
were accused of a murder of a child.

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The mother pig was found guilty,
but her babies innocent.

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It really happened, a serious court case.

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Or, consider the story
sometimes told to children,

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especially when they ask
too many questions

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about our treatment of animals.

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They are told that in exchange
for food, safety and shelter,

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cows agree to give us their milk,
chickens agree to give us their eggs,

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and pigs agree to give us
their flesh and their babies, and so on.

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Even as adults,

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we keep saying sometimes that animals
are giving us all those things,

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although it's clear that we are
the ones who make those choices.

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So, surely, this story should be
in the same book of historic curiosities

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as the story about the pig in the court.

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But on the other hand, we have 
also been, historically, really successful

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at denying animal emotions
and animal sentience, mental skills,

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so we need to find a balance
between those extremes

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with the best new evidence that we have.

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Of course, there will be serious dilemmas.

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Suppose that a driverless car

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is programmed to estimate
various risks of collisions.

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It is driving, and suddenly,
a piglet is crossing the road:

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What should the car's programming
be in such a case?

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Should it try not to hit
the piglet at any cost,

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even to the humans in the car,

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or should it run over the piglet
only as a last resort to save humans?

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Or should this piglet be sacrificed
even if the car is empty

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to avoid the damage costs?

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What is the value of a pig's life?

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Actually, such decisions are made
every day already now.

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Because it's not animals who make
those choices and decisions, it's us;

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it's not them who rule the world,
we kind of do,

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and we decide which animals exist
and in what conditions.

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So I guess with such great power
also comes great responsibility.

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I believe in humanity, I believe
in humankind, in human kindness.

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I believe that we can exercise
this great power that we have

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in an intelligent and kind way.

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Otherwise, I wouldn't come
and stand up here.

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Many animal-related issues

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are already becoming
less and less controversial.

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They are based upon
the simple value of kindness,

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the simple idea
of not harming unnecessarily.

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And I see human kind already mobilizing.

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Like, we know that we will not die of cold
just because we are not wearing fur coats,

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so the fur farms are slowly closing down.

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We found ways of making safe cosmetics,

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so there is no need
to test them on animals.

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We learned that we can enjoy circus shows
without exploiting and caging animals,

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so the circus is changing
right in front of our eyes, right?

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But still, there is a huge problem,
the biggest problem,

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the elephant in the room,
or should we say, the pig in the room.

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Why are we still treating animals -
cows, pigs, chickens and so many others -

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as if they were not individuals,
but things for consumption?

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They are sentient beings who can feel joy,
feel fear, pain and many other things.

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If we know all that,

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why are we still sticking forks
in their bodies?

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Is it still a matter of survival for us
in the 21st century?

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I think there are already
ways to live well

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with nothing taken away from animals,

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and in less than a hundred years,

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eating animals might be
just as unimaginable

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as cannibalism or slavery
or witch burning is right now.

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Even today,

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I believe if humanity, each one of us,
would notice and accept

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that each animal is someone,
not something,

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we would stop making excuses.

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And knowing how kindly many of us
treat cats and dogs,

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it's obvious that we already
have it inside of us.

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So let's allow kindness,
this essence of being a human,

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to guide us,

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let's embrace it fully

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without discriminating
dogs, cats, pigs, cows.

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Kindness will lead us away

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from causing suffering
and causing pain and harm,

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and not just to humans,
but also to other animals.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)