David Pearce

37K views · 414 reactions | Is transhumanism the key to a society free of suffering? David Pearce uses his own perspective of negative utilitarianism - the prioritisation of reducing suffering over maximising happiness - to discuss his thoughts and predictions for genome reform and other potential steps towards transhumanism in the future. Pearce is a British philosopher best known for his advocacy of the abolitionist project, the ethical vision of using advanced science and technology to eliminate suffering in all sentient life. Click here to watch his debate with Anders Sandberg and Sarah Wilson. https://iai.tv/video/the-return-of-sparta | The Institute of Art and Ideas Is transhumanism the key to a society free of suffering? David Pearce uses his own perspective of negative utilitarianism - the prioritisation of reducing suffering over maximising happiness - to...

What would Buddha do?
www.facebook.com/theinstitute...

Ants get addicted to morphine - Nature Nature - Ants get addicted to morphine

Long live happy ants! www.nature.com/articles/537...

But don’t throw ants in water.

Thanks. BlueSky users may not realize just how bad X has become. Elon has dropped the dog whistles, and now openly urges “remigration”, i.e. ethnic cleansing, in pursuit of his white supremacist agenda.

2025 RIP
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Sadly I still waste too much time on X.

Sadly I still waste too much time on X: x.com/webmasterdave

It’s impossible to overstate the horror of Darwinian life. It’s evil to the core. Natural selection is an engine of suffering. We differ in that the only way I know to end Dawinian life is genome reform executed with the consent of life lovers - pitched not as extinction, but hedonic uplift.

Does a life without suffering make sense? Richard David Precht discusses this with David Pearce Modern technologies promise us a longer life without suffering. But does a life without suffering still make sense? Richard David Precht discusses this with the British philosopher David Pearce.

and for anyone who prefers the King's English to dubbed German:
www.zdf.de/play/talk/pr...

Transhumanismus – Leben ohne Leid. Doch ergibt ein Leben ohne Leid noch Sinn? Richard David Precht diskutiert mit dem Philosophen David Pearce.

Selling genome reform to a German audience isn't easy.
www.zdf.de/video/talk/p...

And from the recent London conference: www.hedweb.com/ai-for-anima...

Thank you I'd guess at least 70%-80% of conference participants believe in digital sentience. In my talk
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I expressed scepticism. But it's vital to avoid morally catastrophic error.

What will be the date of the world's last unpleasant experience?
www.hedweb.com/hedethic/int...

Most people still view suffering as inevitable. And naively, the existence of a food chain, for example, is as inescapable as the second law of thermodynamics. But blueprints exist for a genetically reformed post-suffering biosphere. What's needed now is political genius for their implementation.

Expressing disbelief in perception is apt to make one sound a solipsist. But no...
www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.h...

YouTube video by WeaponizingPessimism The Problem of Bliss: The Hedonistic Imperative

A critique of HI from "WeaponizingPessimism":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ8x...
Maybe instead we can Weaponize Optimism with weapons of mass euphoria or a utilitronium shockwave.

YouTube video by Artificially Aware Why You Cling to Suffering When Bliss Is Possible

Let's replace the biology of suffering with a more civilized signalling system:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBva...

Thank you.
Step number one is low-tech. Outlaw slaughterhouses.

I see cats from a mouse's perspective. But this view is not widely shared among humans, so I urge herbivorizarion:
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Nociception is vital; pain is optional. There are more civilized signalling systems than the traditional pleasure-pain axis, not least a pleasure-superpleasure axis. And our intelligent machines dispense with the signalling function of valence / hedonic tone altogether.

Thanks for letting me know. Much appreciated. Fixed!
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The slides for my talk at the AI for animals conference: www.hedweb.com/ai-for-anima...
and the talk:
bltc-media.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ai-for-anima...

and AI for Animals Berkeley 2025:
bltc-media.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ai-for-anima...
www.hedweb.com/ai-for-anima...

Sure! Catnip-laced cultured meat for members of the cat family. The road to a civilized biosphere is going to be messy.
But sentient beings should harm each other. Humans now have the tools to make this happen.
But first: let's shut the death factories.

Eating the flesh of a dead cow, human or other creature that has died of natural causes isn't inherently morally objectionable. But human frailty means that establishing taboos against flesh consumption is probably wise.

Rewriting our genetic source code can replace the biology of pain & suffering with a more civilized signalling system: life based on information-sensitive gradients of well-being. Synthetic gene drives that cheat the "laws" of Mendelian inheritance can deliver hedonic uplift across the tree of life.

Our most urgent priority should be ending factory-farming and slaughterhouses.
So why have a debate about wild animal suffering now?
Well, if we _don't_ explore the issues, then animal advocates may misspend time and resources on misguided initiatives like "re-wilding".

This should take less than 60 seconds: www.hedweb.com/social-media...
If you want to dig deeper, there are hotlinks.

We are discussing the long-term future of the biosphere, not a Five Year Plan.

A democratically elected world government and/or all-female governance would dramatically reduce organized violence between coalitions of human male primates.
But this is a topic for another thread.

Hence the case for working out the technical details in exhausting and exhaustive depth. CRISPR-based synthetic gene drives, in particular, are a game-changer.
Uncomfortable?
Being disembowelled, asphyxiated or eaten alive is frightful. So is starving to death.
Life doesn't have to be this way.