[extropy-chat] A Proposed End-Goal: Justice Maximism

Edward Smith weg9mq at centralmail.zzn.com
Thu Dec 30 19:35:45 UTC 2004


Generally, the primary purpose of transhumanism is to increase
the efficiency of human functioning by modifying the human
genome of zygotes, which I assume means eliminating the
countless rare, common, and omnipresent genetic flaws, not
excluding age-induced degeneration, and to increase human
desirability, ability, versatility, and resilience. Other technologies
that serve a similar purpose are also considered.

An additional goal of some transhumanists is hedonism, that is,
the elimination of strong and/or non-functional suffering and the
increasing of the capacity to feel pleasure. I assume that that is
intended to be done by greatly decreasing the expression of the
receptors of neurokinin and possibly other, less significant
receptors of suffering as well, increasing the expression of the
pleasure receptors of endorphin and dopamine, altering the
expression of enzymes of neurotransmitter synthesis and
degradation (especially to decrease MAO-B) so as to alter the
levels of said neurotransmitters, and to eliminate the regulatory
mechanisms that mediate tolerance, dependence, and
addiction. Modifying the brain so as to prevent it from
becoming addicted to very powerful pleasure would in fact
require modifications that are complex, advanced, and drastic.

David Pearce, the largest proponent of hedonism, has also
advocated the goal of hedonism of the specific pleasure of love,
or at least what he calls love, and the pleasure of MDMA,
which he states is related to both love and empathy. True love
is mediated by a combination of the firing of the oxytocin
receptor, the prolactin receptor, and the different pleasure
receptors (of endorphin and dopamine). MDMA, in contrast,
activates 5-HT receptors, and particularly 5-HT2 receptors,
some of the latter of which cause a crude, blind, love-like
sensation which is not true love, much less empathy, which is
not even related to love in the first place. True love, unlike
empathy or the MDMA sensation, is ethicly neutral, being
neither empathic nor anti-empathic. Supposedly, other people
have advocated the specific hedonism of egotism, which is
equally as anti-empathic as the blind love-like hedonism.

In order to understand justice maximism, it is necessary to
understand the nature of goodwill, malice, empathy, and justice.

True empathy is caused by goodwill. Goodwill is the desire to
perceive and act rightly, whereas malice, which suppresses
empathy, is the desire to perceive and act wrongly. 'Rightness',
or accuracy, which is fine and clear, consists of 2 multiplicative
components, which are subtlety and definition, which are the
respective opposites of the 2 multiplicative factors of crude
blind wrongness, which are forcefulness and sloppiness. To
demonstrate the 2 multiplicative factors of fineness: In pixelized
pictures, subtlety corresponds to the quantity of varieties of
shades and colors, whereas definition corresponds to the
quantity of pixels per area, and in sounds, subtlety corresponds
to the quietness of notes, whereas definition corresponds to the
brevity of notes. The fundamental abstract manners of
perception have relatively little effect on the preferences for
such superficial things though, but rather they primarily effect
fundamental conceptions of reality, such as the worthiness of
specific conscious beings.

Beings that are weak or otherwise unlucky are characterized
by the abstract trait of subtlety, such that people that perceive
subtlety can perceive any goodwill, lack of malice, or ability
thereof, and thus empathize with them and desire that they be
saved from suffering to a degree that is equal to or greater than
their degree of goodwill or lack of malice. All beings other than
ones self that suffer are conceived of as being unlucky to some
extent. Said unlucky beings, by the way, do not exclude the
conscious non-human species (all vertebrates and cephalopods,
which are characterized by 'slow-wave' activity in the brain,
indicative of the utilization of a conscious force rather than a
non-conscious digital switching system, which is characterized
by rapid digital pulsed waves). Victims are abstractly
characterized by being defined from their victimizers, such that
people that perceive definition can perceive the malice,
destructivity, and/or burden of victimizers, and thus empathize
with the victims and desire that the victimizers suffer equal to or
greater than their degree of malice. Victimizers can also be
conceived of as unlucky for getting in the way, and thus be
regarded worse than is deserved by the forcefully blind. Subtle
empathy and defined empathy thus combine to judge conscious
beings with precise justice. Justice is the state in which a
conscious being's degree of pleasurable satisfaction versus
painful frustration of their desires is equal to their degree of
goodwilled focus versus malicious focus, respectively, at a given
moment. Malicious people are easy to spot on the internet, as
they are the ones that use the truth-obscuring communicative
tactics, which are listed at:
http://www.cotse.net/users/t3nj/ttcs.html

Also, deep, abstract concepts are characterized by the abstract
trait of subtlety, and definitive laws of reality are characterized
by the abstract trait of definition, such that the forcefully blind
and the sloppily blind are intentionally blind to said respective
concepts.

MDMA, as well as the entheogens, create a sensation of
forceful subtlety-disrupting malice to some extent, and to a
greater extent, a sensation of sloppy definition-disrupting malice.
It is notable, by the way, that complete malice (the combination
of both factors of malice) is the malice upon which the idealism
of theocracy, fascism, illegalizing of euthanasia, and illegalizing
of abortion is based, which I doubt that many transhumanists
support. By the way, for those that do not know, the purpose
of opposing euthanasia and abortion is to cause the whole of
society to bear an inefficient burden of suffering, labor, and/or
monetary expense in the name of life, just as theocrats and
fascists desire the whole of society to bear such an inefficient
burden in the name of a nonexistent god or the state,
respectively.

The goal of pleasure is the ideal from the subjective perception
of every conscious being, regardless of it's ideals. The method
of attaining hedonism is more direct, efficient, and non-idealistic
in some individuals than in others, but all conscious beings
ultimately pursue hedonism. Even puritans are motivated by
hedonism because they seek to avoid the suffering that is
caused by shame. Likewise, I would be tormented with
idealistic shame if I did not make this post. Justice, in contrast
to the subjective ideal of hedonism, is the state of consciousness
that is objectively most-right. It is generally not as rewarding as
hedonism, but it is what is right, and thus what conscious beings
should seek to create. It is thus best to maximize both the
quantity and precision of justice. Such a state of maximized
justice, and the idealism thereof, may be called 'justice
maximism', and a person that idealizes said state may likewise
be called a 'justice maximist'. 'Maximism' means the same thing
as 'maximization' except that it is less energy-consuming and
time-consuming to say, and it ends with the suffix 'ism',
indicative of an ideal. A justice maximist society requires both
the pleasurable component and the painful component of justice,
else it is incomplete and only consists of partial justice. Being as
malicious people are blind to deep, abstract concepts and/or
definitive laws of reality, they may be blind to the comprehension
of true justice in the first place, such that they are inclined to
blindly deprecate and obscure it as a mere subjective human
concept, or else to believe in a false, doublethinking definition of
justice that in fact refers to some kind of injustice.

Transhumanist genetic modification can be used to create
humans and animals the brains of which are engineered to
create justice maximism. Such modifications may be called
'justice maximist modifications'. That can be done by associating
the activity of the receptors of goodwill with the activity of the
receptors of pleasure, and associating the activity of the
receptors of malice with the activity of the receptors of pain
(pain meaning suffering, but the word pain is used because there
is no such word as 'sufferous' or 'sufferful'). The receptors of
goodwilled rightness-seeking focus are the excitatory M
receptors and the related H1 receptor, whereas the receptors of
malicious wrongness-seeking focus are the 5-HT2 receptors.
The levels of the different neurotransmitters and receptors are
determined primarily by the genes, which means that how
goodwilled versus malicious a person is is determined primarily
by their genes. That means that we do not have the power
known as free will, and that malicious people can not be greatly
changed via long-term environmental or diplomatic methods
because there is little potential good in them.

More specificly, the justice maximist modifications are as
follows:
1. Cause the goodwill receptors and the malice receptors to
modulate the effects caused by limbic glutamate receptors
(which cause desire), such that all of the the goodwill receptors
disinhibit pleasure receptors that receive pleasure
neurotransmitters from neurons that express motivational
glutamate receptors, and all of the malice receptors disinhibit
pain receptors that receive pain neurotransmitters from neurons
that express motivational glutamate receptors.
2. Cause the goodwill receptors to disinhibit any spontaneous
or long-term activity of the pleasure receptors and to inhibit any
spontaneous or long-term activity of the pain receptors. Cause
the malice receptors to do the opposite.

The pleasurable portion of justice maximism can be achieved on
a small scale at the present time by the use of the expensive
combination of the 3 pharmaceuticals selegiline (aka deprenyl,
which selectively inhibits MAO-B and in turn increases
dopamine and endorphin), galantamine (which inhibits
acetylcholinesterase and in turn increases acetylcholine), and
piracetam (which is a relatively-selective glutamate receptor
activator), in combination with exposure to the perceptual
elements that cause pleasure that is derived from fine, clear
perception. The pharmaceuticals galantamine and piracetam are
most often marketed as 'smart-drugs', and they do in fact
increase intelligence, especially when combined. That is because
a side-effect of fine, accurate focus is increased intelligence.
Most of the specific perceptual elements that cause pleasure
that is directly derived from fine, clear perception are listed at
the following URL:
http://www.cotse.net/users/t3nj/ctlg.html

For the purpose of organizing people that understand and favor
a society of justice maximism, I have created a mailing list for
such people. The mailing list is:
JusticeMaximists at coollist.com
The mailing list does not require client-side scripts, such as
javascript, stylesheets, or flash, to use. Plain text emails are
preferred over html emails. The mailing list is currently in
moderated mode. I might not check the moderated messages
regularly, so if you send a message to the group, send a carbon
copy to me at weg9mq at centralmail.zzn.com . To join the
mailing list, go to the following URL:
http://www.coollist.com/subscribe.html

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