The Hedonistic Imperative - David Pearce
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- Filmed at the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne Australia
hedweb.com - The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life.
The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture - a motivational system based on heritable gradients of bliss. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event.
Two hundred years ago, powerful synthetic pain-killers and surgical anesthetics were unknown. The notion that physical pain could be banished from most people's lives would have seemed absurd. Today most of us in the technically advanced nations take its routine absence for granted. The prospect that what we describe as psychological pain, too, could ever be banished is equally counter-intuitive. The feasibility of its abolition turns its deliberate retention into an issue of social policy and ethical choice.
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I remember the first time I read the Hedonistic Imperative 8 years ago. It had such a profound and inspirational effect on me. It encouraged me to pursue a degree in biomedical engineering. Listening to David Pearce reiterate the ideas of the Hedonistic Imperative here, I am reminded of the moral imperative humanity faces in regards to lessening the suffering of all sentient life.
Glad to hear +David Pearce's words had impact on your life ! How did the degree in Biomedical Engineering go? Have you finished it yet?
Your comment is motivating. We can abolish suffering by tackling age-related decline and diseases, there are realistic prospects for rejuvenation biotechnology to develop treatments that would save 100,000 people per day. It's our responsibility to make this happen within our lifetime, and for future generations. I urge you to join the Healthspan advocacy live chat (discord.gg/ftSbffu), it hosts scientists and enthusiasts who want to make a difference in the world.
But why doesn't it work?
@@ES-hq5ez this is just what i was looking for!
An absolutely fascinating approach to a universal ethics for conscious beings. Thank you for sharing this!
I completely agree with the philosophy of the Hedonistic Imperative. I'd like to point out that eliminating human psychological suffering should be our greatest priority, even greater than ending aging and death. Dead don't feel, but there are so many people out there, probably millions, undergoing the most horrible, extreme forms of agonizing suffering, far outside the range of normal human experience. An invisible monster is taking everything away from people - everything that makes life worth living - eventually their lives too. An illness so unbearable, that death becomes the lesser of two evils. Very few care, understand and are willing to do something about it, while delusions and lies about this condition are widespread. Big Pharma only profits on the despair of millions of people, spurning out new patentable versions of the same, useless chemicals. Pharmacology is pretty much a dead end - there is not much future in drugs. Cure for human suffering will eventually come from high tech neuroengineering. Theoretically, it is feasible even with today's technology, and could be perfected soon given enough money and resources (including the number of scientists working on it). Probably, we will have to wait too long for this indifferent world to come up with a solution. How many people are going to die without ever seeing the light? Obviously words are not enough.
There's no need to settle for neither the unstable genetic engineering nor the atrocities of big pharma. Utopian laser neurosurgery and intellectually designed mood and cognition enhancers are already here. The hedonistic imperitive is only one option in the multitudes of options collectively called abolitionology(the abolition of suffering). The infinity dragon is a far superior option and it's feasible in a much sooner period of time. NSI-189, 9-Me-BC, memantine, lion's mane mushrooms, flodafinil, phenylpiracetam, methiopropamine and memantine stack, bromantane, selank, 5-apb, and eventually future designed analogues of mood and cognitive enhancers will be designed with a far greater range of benefits and little to no side effects. Sonic hedgehog upregulation and pde4b gene modification are far more stable and sustainable than the deadly comt manipulation. nootropicsandglitches.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/the-infinity-dragon-superhappiness/ www.wired.com/2015/06/laser-psychosurgery/ th-cam.com/video/bpmxLzmMEeU/w-d-xo.html www.futuretimeline.net/blog/2015/08/17-2.htm#.VxU-FnqvhBV
Basically your argument is to genocide humanity and replace them with zombies that have no thought, no feelings nor emotions.
Basically robots, they just do things to live, there no emotion behind it.
You can enjoy that life yourself, the rest of us 7 billion are gonna have to stick to natural scientific improvements to life by just improving the living conditions.
What a load of BS. Life is about struggle and accomplishment not rewriting everything to be a utopia. It will not happen and trying to change genomes of countless organisms will lead to destruction.
I love how David Pearce wants to get rid of all suffering by re-engineering all beings! ❤️ In addition to making predators and prey live in harmony, he should also re-engineer nonhuman animal societies so that they are democratically run rather than based on hierarchies!
Angela, thank you. Alas reprogramming the biosphere to eliminate suffering is easier than creating an interspecies democracy.
Could hierarchical species be re-engineered so that they treat each other as equals?
, @@angelawildman122 , well, fluoxetine can have this effect of subverting the pecking order in so-called "animal models". But pilot studies in self-contained artificial biospheres would be wise.
We also need to recognize that not all wild animals even have pecking orders. Not sure if you heard but the wolf hierarchy has been debunked.
Thank you very much David and Adam. I personally find especially interesting the part when David explains the evolutionary reasons of our “mood” (min 13:40). I think it is crucial to understand them properly before we start acting our genes in order to foresee the consequences of the changes.
Jordi Palmiola Indeed. Another clue is that non-social animals don't seem to get depressed - though of course they still suffer in other ways. Part of the problem in a sexually reproducing species like humans is that all children born today are unique genetic experiments. We can't be sure of the outcome our interventions or non-interventions. At most, prospective parents can load the genetic dice in their children's favour. Preimplantation genetic screening is a more "conservative" option than the true genetic engineering feasible later this century and beyond. But all the reproductive options are fraught with pitfalls - both ethical and technical.
Human nature must not be altered until it is completely documented. Would you add or remove parts to a machine before you understand its workings?
@@hwaite1508 We can just modify it using genes that already exist. That's probably what we'd end up doing anyway. Find happy people, copy what they have.
Can useless physical pain be banished from most people's lives?
If it can, I think we have a long way to go, but David Pearce is right about one thing: There is no physical principle in our way, just our ignorance of how our bodies and genetic codes actually work at the level of detail we would need to re-engineer them.
I try to say a bit more about getting rid of physical pain (but not nociception!) here:
io9.com/5946914/should-we-eliminate-the-human-ability-to-feel-pain
David Pearce
Just gave your interview a quick read. When you talk about developments in gene-editing technologies allowing mature humans to edit our own genetic source code and modulate our own pain thresholds, not just the pain-thresholds of our children, I was thinking you could go even farther with that by inventing "smart pain" -- pain that gives you more diagnostic information and that you can turn down or even off at will.
If we could link our pain receptors through more intelligent diagnostic hardware, a kind of A.I. doctor inside our bodies that might also link to the net for the latest diagnostic information, we wouldn't have to go to doctors as often trying to figure out what was wrong with us when we got worried about some odd pain.
What a guy. Thanks David. ❤️
(blush) Greg, I'm touched. Thank you.
My name is Juan Carlos Cruz from Dominican Republic, I've always been a fan of Hedweb since 1996, I have been a supporter and fan of the transhumanist philosophy, because I am a loyal fan of Nietzsche and his doctrine and theories of the superman, a stronger race of humans. We need a communist-transhumanist world to advance the human race to a better life, to real mental, physical and economic progress. Thanks keep up the spreading of knowledge to the masses !!
Here are David Pearce's views on Nietzsche: th-cam.com/video/zZvkzb1pBSQ/w-d-xo.html
Adam Ford Thanks a lot, I will go and take a look at it. Thanks
Take a look at The Infinity Dragon superhappiness project!
th-cam.com/video/UgHzzD5V7nE/w-d-xo.html
nootropicsandglitches.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/the-infinity-dragon-superhappiness/
I want to become vegan, but my willpower is shit. When it comes to the punch, I make the wrong choice, and then try to rationalise it.
Also, wonderful man! It might be hindsight bias, but I feel that these ideas have been itching the back of my brain for years.
***** I'm making it my New Year's resolution.
No matter if the person is a vegan, vegetarian or even carnivore I always find it so interesting that many of the comments don’t help the person feel less like crap,but, are trying to push thru whatever agenda that they want.
Hope you managed to achieve your goal in the end dude. Just coming up to my sixth veganniversary and it remains one of the best decisions I’ve ever made :)
@@stevenohenries5127 Thanks! I've now been vegan for over a year :)
Great interview David and Adam. Just on the last part: paradise engineering will make us easier to control. Not sure you address this properly; submissive/kowtowing behavior will be associated with pain so the submissive will be continually looking for ways to become dominant in order to relive their pain. If you have no pain then there will be no incentive to increase ones social status by revolution or other means such as business or education.
AFAIK all social systems, to greater or lesser degrees make it easier to control large numbers of people - even anarchists have codes they live by - social norms & rules make it easier for people cooperate.
Adam Ford David Pearce Stefan Molyneux
Not so Adam; voluntaryism does not make it easier to control large numbers of people at all.
Ask yourself this question:
Is it acceptable for anyone to initiate violence or aggression against you in order to coerce you into paying for a service that you may or may not want?
If you answered "no", then congratulations, you are a voluntaryist too.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism
David Zuccaro
I think the 'Free' word is loaded - I don't know of any thing that has as absolute freedom - perhaps quantum noise? even so, probably not.
Voluntaryism does seem interesting - I have not really read much about it. I'd be interested in hearing how it relates to social contract theory. Is it anything like Anachro-Capitalism?
To me it seems any social system contains rules - societal rules are there to control behaviour. The point Voluntaryism institutes any rule - it becomes a form of control.
{{Is it anything like Anachro-Capitalism?}}
yes they're related.
{{The point Voluntaryism institutes any rule - it becomes a form of control. }}
You would only need to follow rule you contractually agreed to.
5 people don't like the prospect of living in bliss.
Empirical studies are warranted. Critics might discover that lifelong bliss isn't as bad as it sounds.
I am in the low 20% but I occasionally spike up hard. Hi David, LTNS.
Hoping for us all that we can do something about this without strange unwanted side effects sometime soon.
These may be unusual goodwishes, but I hope that you feel many spikes!
Someone has the link to the study on twins?
Should we not listen to our senses? Do they not inform our decisions even today? We suffer from society being uncaring and unkind, from life being cruel and callous; in my eyes we should not remove the ability to feel suffering but alter our environment so that it satisfies our natures.
When we understand exactly who and what we are, then we can change. Until then we're just running from ourselves.
Still love the video, love the topic, interested to see how science can improve our bodies.
"in my eyes we should not remove the ability to feel suffering but alter our environment so that it satisfies our natures" I think that this raises the issue of object-subject experience. We may be inclined to believe that the state of being we experience is about what goes on around us but in simple terms it's a matter of perspective... something something Kant and transcendental idealism
"When we understand exactly who and what we are, then we can change. Until then we're just running from ourselves" Again this is a philosophically loaded concept... "exactly" is such an impossible term... "true" knowledge depending on how you define it can range from instinct all the up to something that is out of the range of imminent/studyable knowledge.
I get a degree of the general sentiments of what you are saying but you're very quickly brushing over so many assumptions and premises that a precise response becomes impossible. I'm not saying that you're exactly wrong but the topic is so deeply nuanced that speaking so abstractly on the topic is of no utility. I think that somebody like David Pearce represents a category of people beyond critical thinking. Not saying that him and his ideas are not critical thinking, but that what he is doing is premised on mountains of existing philosophy, so to refute him on such terms is not a conversation between us and Pearce but rather something more related to epistemology/metaphysics/ethics which invites Kant and Epicurus rather than Pearce.
If you have depression, any change of your environment is not going to have much of an effect on your inner word-simulation. You have no direct access to the world, you live within a word-simulation generated by your brain. Thus, the only way to improve your inner state, it to tweak it from within, changes to the environment aren't going to bring any long term improvements.
there is a myth that unhappy people are more productive, more driven towards succeeding.
but is it really just a myth?
don't unhappy people have a right to exist
must we become obsolete?
Depression is not associated with high motivation or high achievement. So that seems to be a myth.
Dave I found you here on youtube!! it must be true your findings have already blown my mind.. please respond to my email -N
Walter, could you possibly resend? I'm not entirely on top of my correspondence. Thanks!
Any one trying to sell you paradise on earth, look out.
Quite so. But one of the beauties of hedonic recalibration is that ratcheting up your hedonic set-point can both enrich your default quality of life _and_ leave your core values, relationships and preference architecture intact. Just imagine waking up tomorrow morning in an _extremely_ good mood.
Well this is just aristipus plus computers.
Or maybe Aristippus plus biotech.
Designer babies engineering would be incredibly expensive, only allowing the affluent families access to the technology, further exacerbating social inequality.
The price of any information based technology will tend to go down to near zero. Even people in Africa have smartphones nowadays.
@@serenity748 well said
The infinity dragon is way better than this so called "hedonistic imperative" crap!
David Pearce is great and all... but whats the deal with his face? Did he have a stroke or something?
He's just British.