[ExI] David Pearce: AMA
Eugen Leitl
eugen at leitl.org
Thu Mar 22 11:58:51 UTC 2012
http://www.reddit.com/r/Transhuman/comments/r7dui/david_pearce_ama/
David Pearce: AMA (self.Transhuman)
submitted 14 hours ago by davidcpearce
(I have been assured this cryptic tag means more to Reddit regulars than it does to me! )
109 comments
share
save
hide
report
all 109 comments
sorted by:
best
formatting help
[–]Anal_Justice_League 9 points 13 hours ago
How do you feel about the work of Aubrey de Grey?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 17 points 13 hours ago
Deep admiration. I started "Ending Aging" with a host of reservations http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation-Breakthroughs-Lifetime/dp/0312367066 Aubrey demolished them one after the other. I still fear he is optimistic on timescales. But then I'm temperamentally a pessimist about most things.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]keegs440 4 points 11 hours ago
Do you think your pessimistic temperament influences your motivation to act at all? I ask because in my own cryonics/life extension/transhumanism advocacy, I have been (gently) accused of over-optimism, and the truest reply I can give is that I think if I were a pessimist about these things, it would demotivate me incredibly. That's not to say I opt to believe in the shortest timeline for the outcomes I'd like to see - more that I like to believe that my own personal involvement can hasten those outcomes, particularly if I persuade others to also become personally involved.
But I suppose we don't necessarily get a say in our temperaments, though I've found meditation pushes me further towards optimism, and there are likely chemical means as well.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]conscioncience 2 points 6 hours ago
What does your advocacy consist of?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Anal_Justice_League 2 points 12 hours ago
Yes - I have that book. I must say, I too was quite skeptical of his claims before I read it, and the works of others like him. Even some former skeptics of his seem to be coming around to his ideas and methodologies.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 15 points 13 hours ago
I am just as "aggressively" opposed to racism. In practice, I wouldn't say boo to a goose. But the worst source of severe and avoidable source of suffering in the world today is factory farming. Would it be preferable to express mild disapproval instead?
permalink
report
reply
[–]SingularityUtopia 6 points 13 hours ago
I would say human suffering is far worse because our heightened sense of awareness, our intelligence, makes us feel pain with far greater depth than lesser animals do. Human sensitivity to pain causes many people to commit suicide. Our deep emotional perception of the world entails extremely deep sensations, intensely poignant experiences, regarding pain and pleasure. I say: humans first. The suffering of humans and animals may be avoidable but I don't think it is easy to avoid it. Change is difficult.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 22 points 10 hours ago
All I'd argue is that the nonhuman animals we currently factory farm and kill should be accorded the same degree of care and respect we give human youngsters of equivalent sentience. We currently spend e.g. £100.000 looking after 23 week old micro-preemies in neonatal intensive care units - when far more sentient creatures end up on our dinner plates after being horribly abused. Such is anthropocentric bias.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]logantauranga 5 points 8 hours ago
Is there a point at which the intelligence of the species is sufficiently low that we can disregard their suffering? At a certain point, you're in a kind of Buddhist monk sort of bind where you're sweeping the path ahead of you to avoid accidentally treading on ants.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]jonahe 3 points 3 hours ago
Pain is not necessarily a very complex emotion (in my experience). If I'm stabbed in the back I feel intense pain long before I figure out what happened to me, long before I start actively worrying about my future plans, my chances of making it to a hospital etc. (That is: long before any "higher" function process is needed.)
Pain and fear are primitive emotions that we have strong reasons to believe have a high survival value for any animal smart enough to remember its experience.
Scientists are debating whether lobsters and crabs may not feel pain (they might just be having a reflex-like behaviour, we basically know how to separate what's what), but I would say no one really doubt that both birds and mammals can suffer.
What I think matters is if the animal have the necessary "equipment" to experience pain, and if intelligence plays a part in this I imagine it's a pretty small part.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]exist 2 points 1 hour ago
...you're in a kind of Buddhist monk sort of bind where you're sweeping the path ahead of you to avoid accidentally treading on ants.
you make a valid point. but i'd just like to point out that what you're referring to is not Buddhism, rather Jainism. i apologize for being pedantic.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]mythicmessenger 4 points 9 hours ago
One thing that always makes me think is if I don't respect less intelligent species now and just willy nilly kill me, what's going to stop me from doing the same if I become an intelligence enhanced posthuman? I don't want to be in the habit of thinking it's okay to kill something only because it's less intelligent then me.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]TheDeanMan 2 points 7 hours ago
This is the issue I've hit when I argue with myself over late term abortion. At what point is the baby sentient enough to call it "wrong" to abort? And if you say that that small bit of brain function is enough to say it is wrong to kill, then it should be wrong to kill all of these animals we kill. But if you say no, that it is ok, they don't "understand" yet, then that opens up with it being ok to kill extremely mentally handicapped people, and babies who have yet to reach that sentience level that makes it "wrong". It's hard for me to find a non-hypocritical stance.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]pawnzz 1 point 1 hour ago
Not sure how accurate this source is, but I remember hearing about bears trying to commit suicide due to inhumane treatment. I think people really need to rethink their definition of sentience. Just because we're unable to understand how deeply another animal feels, I don't think that means we should just assume that they are "lesser" beings or incapable of feeling things as deeply as we are.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]olboyfloats 7 points 13 hours ago
I've read some of your work about the abolition of suffering and am a huge supporter. I also have interest in ending suffering of any kind. My question for you is, since you first wrote the Hedonist Imperative, how much further along are you towards that goal? Also, have you received much support in the scientific community at large? If you were to predict a date when technology like you suggest would be wide used, how close are we?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 12 points 12 hours ago
I wrote HI in 1995. Since then we've discovered how to abolish, reduce (and amplify) the capacity to experience pain (different alleles of the SCN9A gene). In vitro meat has passed from being mere sci-fi to a scientifically credible option that may be commercialized within a decade. And even the "wildest" aspect of the abolitionist project, namely the proposal to phase out carnivorous predation, was championed in print for the first time last year by Jeff Mcmahan the New York Times.
But I need scarcely tell you the obstacles are still daunting. And most of the scientific community still regard phasing out the biology of suffering as far-fetched, to say the least.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]olboyfloats 4 points 12 hours ago
Well, it's good to hear not only are you making progress, but you are optimistic!
As a side question, HI is the main work of yours that I have read, and was wondering if there is anything more recent you have written that I should be looking out for?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 4 points 12 hours ago
http://www.abolitionist.com (1997) is an overview, together with http://www.abolitionist.com/reprogramming/index.html http://www.superhappiness.com Perhaps see too http://www.reproductive-revolution.com The most recent is http://www.biointelligence-explosion.com
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]spaceman_groovesTheSingularityIsNear 2 points 9 hours ago
i hadnt read this, and its quite good! exactly the sort of stuff ive been thinking about recently.
on a somewhat related note, I really do recommend that you take up piracetam, if you havent yet
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]conscioncience 1 point 6 hours ago
it's a lot less offensive to human dignity than having sex
Did you personally write this?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Warlaw 6 points 10 hours ago
The future of the world can be pretty bleak at times. Do you have any methods to keep yourself upbeat?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 12 points 9 hours ago
Daily aerobic exercise, good diet, sleep discipline...and drugs. (amineptine plus selegiline)
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]aaOzymandias 3 points 3 hours ago
Could you elaborate on sleep discipline? It is something I am not too good at, and do you basically mean just fixed hours of sleep etc? Or something more exotic?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]andrewtheart 2 points 8 hours ago
Daily aerobic exercise
lies ;)
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 2 points 3 hours ago
well, it's easier to do on Peruvian marching powder than my own austere regimen.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]pawnzz 1 point 1 hour ago
You been hanging out with G.W. lately?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]apolloreddit 1 point 8 hours ago
biopsychiatry.com
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]TheMoniker 5 points 8 hours ago
First, thank you so much for doing an AMA!
Now, on with the questions!
(I'm sure that you field first question a lot, but it's probably worthwhile to have a short answer in this thread.) When one speaks of global veganism, even to committed ethical vegans and animal rights activists, a common response is complete disagreement (perhaps accompanied by disgust). What do you think is the most persuasive argument for a vegan to support global veganism?
One argument against global veganism is that it's arrogant (perhaps even paralleling a colonial mindset) to assume that we know what's best for and are justified in meddling with other species. What do you believe is the strongest rebuttal to this criticism?
Primitivists put forward the argument that the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence and later industrialisation have lead to social stratification, coercion, oppression and widespread environmental degradation. (And many more environmentalists would sympathize to a large degree with this critique, if only so far as noting that industrial civilization is the problem.) Moreover, a primitivist would state that the only real solution to this is deindustrialization (at the very least least, IIRC, Zerzan sees language itself as a problem), or, in more straightforward terms. What would you say, if anything, to persuade a primitivist to your philosophy?
permalink
report
reply
[–]threetoast 5 points 13 hours ago
Do you think that it's more likely that a more aggressive (Matrioshka brains; hypercapitalism; grey goo; Charles Stross' Accelerando) or a less aggressive (minimal impact; long timescale; Greg Egan's Diaspora) post-human society will develop? Why?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 6 points 12 hours ago
I anticipate superintelligence will be hyper-social - perhaps a cognitive extension of the hyperempathising condition of mirror touch synaesthesia: http://www.livescience.com/1628-study-people-literally-feel-pain.htm After all, it was our superior "mind-reading" skills that helped make humans the cognitively dominant species on the planet. We just need to enrich and de-bias our perspective-taking capacities. IMO aggression is likely to pass into history together with archaic primate minds. But heaven knows how much death and suffering will occur this century. I won't attempt an essay on futurology here, or even a comparative review of Stross vs Egan. But the most recent substantive piece I've written is http://biointelligence-explosion.com/ A tidied up version will be appearing in the forthcoming Springer volume later this year. http://singularityhypothesis.blogspot.com/
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]sleepeejack 2 points 12 hours ago
What would you say to people who see this coming hyper-sociality as a loss of personal independence and privacy? How can we be sure that there isn't something to the old paradigm we'd be losing by hooking up to the global brain?
The Google glasses people say we can expect people wearing them to behave erratically, because although they're sort of in the same environment as us, they'll be reacting to different stimuli. Now imagine millions of people wearing the glasses and crowd-sourcing new digital overlays and pseudo-digital cultures onto the physical environment. The potential for drastic changes in behavior compared to the nondigital population is enormous. The early adopters for some of these technologies may have inexplicable and even frightening capabilities, goals, and actions. So I guess my question is, how can we be sure that hypersocial superintelligence isn't a recipe for zombie apocalypse?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]keegs440 3 points 12 hours ago
Which are the zombies of that scenario? Seems like a matter of perspective, to me ;)
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]sleepeejack 2 points 12 hours ago
Haha, totally agree. But I guess a more "primitive" society may look at us with our cancer, diabetes, and general civilizational anomie and similarly wonder which society took the "right" path.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Canadian_Infidel 0 points 10 hours ago
Sounds like a great way to start WWIII. Eliminating one race so another you prefer can take over might not go over so well.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]keegs440 3 points 9 hours ago
That's not at all what I meant - sorry if it sounded that way. In all seriousness, my hope/expectation is that "posthumanity" would hold higher regard for other beings than humanity presently does...
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]rams77 4 points 11 hours ago
How do you stay motivated?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 7 points 11 hours ago
2 x 5mg selegiline, c. 250mg amineptine daily.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]spaceman_groovesTheSingularityIsNear 5 points 9 hours ago
could you describe the effects of this regimen?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Ezekiel2500 4 points 9 hours ago
Does it bother you that your use of those drugs (and many other supplements probably) would exclude you from participation in the JDTic trial if declared? Do you worry about the withdrawals you'll get if your amineptine or selegiline supply gets cut off for whatever reason? Do you worry about the withdrawals you'll get when the JDTic trial ends, or do they let you carry on taking it? Presumably it causes kappa opioid upregulation over time, and the withdrawals would be similar to the feeling of taking a kappa agonist. I've smoked salvia, and it was nothing short of awful every time.
Have you ever tried ethylphenidate? It's a cheap, widely available and legal (for now) "research chemical" with very selective DAT inhibitory action. Cleanest stimulant I've ever tried - it'd be extremely useful for anxious-apathetic type mood disorders, unlike typical stimulants which alleviate anhedonia, avolition, poor attention, and such, but usually worsen anxiety for those with an anxious, overstimulated and agitated temperament in addition to a hedonic deficit. The current treatment options in that area are shit, probably because the drugs that work like that (e.g. ethylphenidate) tend to be extremely addictive. You have to force yourself to endure the crashes in the weeks it takes to stabilise without dose-escalating to chase the mood lift. But ethylphenidate will be banned eventually as a drug of abuse, which sucks because I refuse to self-medicate anything other than minimally psychoactive legal supplements now, and have to rely on prescribed meds.
I'm taking Concerta XL 27mg in addition to other meds for my anxiety and anhedonia, but ethylphenidate was a lot more effective than it. Much less agitation.
It's weird how different the effects can be of drugs that boost the same neurotransmitter. I've tried selegiline and rasagiline, and though the latter was better, neither helped my anhedonia that much. They just made me feel edgy more than motivated, and very anxious. Very different to a daily regimen of long-acting stimulant, even methylphenidate, which you'd think to be more noradrenergic and anxiogenic than a MAOB inhibitor.
P.S. would you be willing to post or private message your full supplement and med regimen? I bet a lot of people here would be interested to know.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]apolloreddit 2 points 8 hours ago
This is the latest snapshot of his regimen that he has released: http://www.hedweb.com/diarydav/2008.html
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]threetoast 6 points 13 hours ago
Proof? A post on your twitter/FB/G+ is sufficient.
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 11 points 13 hours ago
OK, done! https://plus.google.com/u/0/?tab=wX#105903603302602842440/posts
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]olboyfloats 10 points 13 hours ago
I came here from his facebook post. I'm fairly sure that proves it's really him.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]distinctchaos 3 points 11 hours ago*
Do you think a deceleration of technological progress would be beneficial for humanity? That way there would be maybe more time to get used to new concepts, to examine risks and to take precautions.
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 6 points 10 hours ago
A recent international survey of the percentage of people describing themselves as "very happy" put Indonesia at the top followed by India, followed by Mexico. (http://www.economist.com/node/21548213 ) For the most part, "developed" Western nations scored poorly by comparison. So belief that advanced technology will shortly let us claw our way out of the Darwinian abyss requires something of an act of faith. But ultimately, only biotechnology can allow us to phase out the biology of suffering throughout the living world - and eventually abolish experience below "hedonic zero" altogether.
I think we need to accelerate progress in everything from in vitro meat to gene therapy. But unless we recalibrate the hedonic treadmill, I can't see the subjective quality of human life being significantly enhanced.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]TishTamble 1 point 3 hours ago*
But ultimately, only biotechnology can allow us to phase out the biology of suffering throughout the living world - and eventually abolish experience below "hedonic zero" altogether. I think we need to accelerate progress in everything from in vitro meat to gene therapy. But unless we recalibrate the hedonic treadmill, I can't see the subjective quality of human life being significantly enhanced.
Seems like your done for the night but on the off chance you see this I thought i'd ask you to elaborate on how this fits with your view towards animals. I see how it leads to a world without humans pillaging the earth and instead working with it. But isn't the path paved in animal testing?
edit: added full relevant quote.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 2 points 3 hours ago
I don't think scientific curiosity ethically entitles us to harm or kill another sentient being. Fortunately, many tests on human and nonhuman animals don't involve harming or killing. And of those that do, many involve organisms that don't pass the threshold of sentience. Thus we share a large number of genes with yeast. The exponential of computer power should also allow us to simulate what could once only be discovered by human and nonhuman animal testing. But yes, there are real ethical dilemmas here. And what is the threshold of sentience?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Benthamite 3 points 10 hours ago
In countless essays, posts and interviews, you've made several predictions about the long-term future of sentient life on Earth. To my knowledge, all these predictions are optimistic; what you predict is consistently what you prescribe. To give but a few examples: you predict that factory-farming will be abolished, you predict that superintelligence will be hypersocial, and ultimately you predict that suffering will be completely abolished in our Hubble volume. Lacking very strong reasons for thinking otherwise, it is very hard for me to resist the conclusion that such optimism is the result of wishful thinking: given the sheer number of dimensions in which things could go wrong, it is antecedently extremely unlikely that they will actually go well in all those dimensions. I believe your project will be much more credible if you were more careful in distinguishing prediction from prescription, and if you admitted that, in at least certain important respects, the story of Earth-originating life will probably fail to have a happy ending.
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 3 points 9 hours ago*
The possibility of systematic bias is certainly relevant. As well as the well-known cognitive biases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases there are biases reflective of temperament. Most obviously, happy people tend to make optimistic predictions, depressives pessimistic predictions. Perhaps one should should trust one's judgement more when one arrives at mood-incongruent conclusions. In that respect at least, I don't think I'm unusually at fault. Is the author of http://www.abolitionist.com/multiverse.html unusually prone to wishful thinking? Yes, for technical reasons I think we're likely to phase out the biology of suffering in "our" forward light-cone (very crudely, a combination of the pleasure principle plus biological superintelligence) But post-Everett quantum mechanics can make a mockery of human pretensions. I fear our success can only be parochial at best.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]apolloreddit 1 point 7 hours ago
"But the universal wavefunction does encode hell-worlds beyond our worst nightmares, albeit at low density."
I have a morbid fascination, what does your vision of these hell-worlds entail?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 1 point 2 hours ago
ah, I probably shouldn't have hotlinked that depressing paper; I just wanted to rebut Benthamite's charge of susceptibility to wishful thinking. The universal wave function encodes some truly ghastly stuff I'd rather not discuss here. Like the Holocaust, it's best not to spend time dwelling on unspeakable events one has no power to influence.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]nomatron 3 points 2 hours ago
Hello David. Peter here. Welcome to Reddit - glad to see you've taken the plunge.
I am not a vegan, though I accept David's reasons for the ethical imperative of being one. I merely mire myself in hypocrisy and accept that I am broad, contradictory and akratic - I seem to be unable to give up on meat.
The most troubling issue with persuading the necessity of veganism (as has been discussed by DeRaptured in the discussion below) is what to say or do if someone simply does not care about the wellbeing or suffering of animals. Of course, if someone is deaf to the suffering of humans, we call them sociopaths - a word with a sting - but we have no similar word for those who care not for non-human sentients.
The reply you have explained over many a coffee is an interesting one: That to fail to empathise rests on a failing of intellect, insofar as we lack information that would otherwise force us to act. If we really understood animal suffering (and understanding is here taken to be a good) we would be helpless but to empathise.
I wonder if you might expand on this for us?
permalink
report
reply
[–]SingularityUtopia 3 points 12 hours ago
Why do you feel drawn to defend animals? Why end animal suffering rather than other issues? What is it precisely about animals that inspires you to defend their interests? Can you tell us how you feel about animals? Do you have pets? When did you first become interested in animal rights? Was there a pivotal experience which made you want to end animal suffering. At a young age I saw a fisherman kill a dogfish and I was horrified, very upset, but it didn't make me want to excessively defend animals: I don't go out of my way to protect them. I can understand they are defenceless but human babies and children are also defenceless so why defend animals and not try to stop child cruelty?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 11 points 12 hours ago
Cruelty to members of other species is ethically no different from cruelty to members of other races. If human babies and prelingustic toddlers were being treated the way we treat pigs, you wouldn't consider the concern disproportionate. On the contrary, you'd judge the systematic killing and abuse to be the greatest crime of our age - and devote your energies to bringing the horror to an end. Of course pigs are different from human babies or toddlers. But the question to ask is whether any of the differences between them (e.g. the slightly different structure of the FOXP2 gene implicated in generative syntax) are morally relevant differences? Is there any evidence an adult pig is less sentient than a two year old toddler? Sadly none of which I'm aware.
I've never eaten meat: all four of my grandparents were vegetarian. This is an accident of birth, not a mark of virtue. But being raised on a meatless diet does remove one obvious source of self-serving bias i.e most humans like the taste of animal flesh and therefore seek to rationalise their eating habits. Heaven knows how we'll explain what we did to other sentient beings to our grandchildren ( "But I liked the taste" [?] )
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]keegs440 1 point 12 hours ago
Wow. What a happy accident to have been raised in such an environment. I wish I could have such clean hands. Do you try to find vegetable sources where the producers take effort to avoid causing animal suffering as part of their farming practices? That seems like it would be very very difficult unless one simply started growing all their own food... but by merit of that being an option, it is clearly not impossible either.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 6 points 11 hours ago
We all make compromises - and probably no one can claim to lead a truly cruelty-free lifestyle. Becoming vegan will be much easier when it becomes the social norm - or more likely, veganism & invitrotarianism. http://www.veganism.com
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]misplaced_my_pants 1 point 1 minute ago
What are you views on the consumption of animals like oysters, which are almost certainly incapable of suffering or pain?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]SingularityUtopia 1 point 10 hours ago
If pigs are of comparable intelligence to human toddlers I wonder how you view the carnivorous nature of wild boars? I doubt a human toddler would ever eat small mammals. Boar mainly forage but they do have a carnivorous streak, with the teeth the prove it, so I wonder if animals are accorded the same rights as humans, do we then prosecute animals for murder if they eat another animal? Eating weaker or less intelligent animals is a fact of nature.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]jonahe 2 points 2 hours ago
Do we prosecute toddlers if they kill someone? No. Does that mean that we think it's OK to kill someone? No.
If tornados could be charged with murder, and if that would help keeping other tornados from killing, then we'd probably want to put them in jail or execute "them" to. But that's pretty hard to do..
In the mean time, why not focus on the obvious wrongdoings that we can easily stop?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]konopotter 2 points 12 hours ago
What made you pursue philosophy in the start? And do you have any good advice to anyone studying it? (In this case me I guess..)
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 8 points 11 hours ago
I guess a depressive angst-ridden temperament first drew me to philosophy as a teenager. I know a lot of scientists as well as laymen are scornful of philosophy - perhaps understandably so. Reading academic philosophy journals often makes my heart sink too. But without exception, we all share philosophical background assumptions and presuppositions. The penalty of _not _ doing philosophy isn't to transcend it, but simply to give bad philosophical arguments a free pass.
What branch of philosophy interests you most?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]konopotter 1 point 2 hours ago
I'm still fairly new to the game, so still trying to figure that out. What really got me started was Eastern philosophy and thinkers like Krishnamurti, so until now I guess what interest me the most is conciousness and language :)
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]apolloreddit 1 point 12 hours ago
Your writings on biopsychiatry.com are very useful. Do you plan to continue maintaining such an exhaustive and detailed listing of mood-boosting drugs? Are there any drugs that are being developed that you find particularly interesting? Did you ever get your hands on JDTic?
Now that I asked you the last question, you probably know who I am. :D
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 4 points 12 hours ago
Yes. :-) I'm currently trying JDTic at 2mg daily. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/03/21/team.finds.atomic.structure.molecule.binds.opioids.brain The ongoing trial http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01431586 is testing subjects on 1mg, 3mg and 10mg JDTic daily. I shall report back.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]apolloreddit 1 point 11 hours ago
Can you discern any effects yet?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 2 points 11 hours ago
yes, subtle but pronounced. I don't feel "drugged" But we are still trying to establish the optimal dosage.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]apolloreddit 1 point 7 hours ago
I'm intrigued, subtle yet pronounced feelings of what? Happiness, relaxation, optimism?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]andrewtheart 1 point 8 hours ago
No, you're not the only one who ha been asking him about JdTic.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]apolloreddit 1 point 7 hours ago
Fair enough! I still think he knows though.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]andrewtheart 1 point 7 hours ago
maybe. i just didnt want him to think I was you ... lol
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]keegs440 2 points 12 hours ago
You have written favourably about cryonics in the past. Are you signed up?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 5 points 11 hours ago
IMO a change of the law is urgently needed to allow people to be cryonically suspended before their medically pronounced death. All too often today irretrievable (?) information loss occurs before suspension. I'm not personally signed up because I think my matter and energy could more fruitfully be configured into a blissful posthuman smart angel instead...
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]keegs440 5 points 11 hours ago
I can't help but agree with you on all counts. But I wonder if your signing up, even if you considered it a symbol of support and solidarity more than anything else, might aid those who are most likely too old today to realize a post-human, angelic transfiguration without some intervening period of cryopreservation.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 7 points 10 hours ago
hmmm, a very interesting reply. Thanks. I hadn't considered that point. Perhaps I should reconsider.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Roon 2 points 9 hours ago
I found Anders Sandberg's life extension model quite useful when I was considering signing up.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]rmeddy 1 point 8 hours ago
What do you think about Hugo De Garis?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 2 points 2 hours ago
Artificial intelligence research attracts people with high AQ's as well as high IQs (cf. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html ) So existing conceptions of "posthuman superintelligence" tend to resemble autistic spectrum disorder more than full-spectrum superintelligence. I enjoyed "The Artilect War" But IMO the prospect of inevitable "gigadeath" conflict between Cosmists and Terrans later this century is science fiction.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]jmdugan 1 point 8 hours ago
What do you feel would be the best metrics for allocating compassionate treatment?
By this I mean, once we are no longer human-centric in our thinking of smart entities, we will need to have more clearly defined expectations and norms about how we treat living things than we do today. It may even be an issue on how more competent machines treat humans.
How can we quantify which life forms gets compassion?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 2 points 1 hour ago
First, I think we need to decouple sentience from intelligence, and intelligence from moral status. Some cognitively humble creatures can be intensely sentient, whereas artificially designed nonbiological systems can behave in ways most naturally labelled as "intelligent" without being unitary subjects of experience. [Why classical digital computers were, are, and always will be zombies IMO is a deep question I won't explore here, not least because my views are quite unorthodox. For a start, I don't think digital computers can solve the binding problem - in the sense consciousness-related binding (cf. http://tracker.preterhuman.net/texts/body_and_health/Neurology/Binding.pdf ]
What about biological life? Well, unlike scarce goods and services, the substrates of pleasure don't need to be rationed. So if the political consensus existed, we could probably engineer the well-being of sentience in a century or less. In practice, I fear centuries of misery still lie ahead.
For now, I think we should focus on shutting down factory farms and extending the principles of the welfare state (but not "welfarism") to large-brained vertebrates. But in the longer run: http://www.abolitionist.com/reprogramming/index.html
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]jmdugan 1 point 8 hours ago
Sci-Fi has produced wildly different versions of post-humanist worlds from extremes like "Terminator" universe where there is outright war, the Matrix-style world where humans are subjugated, but then enormously compassionate future visions like Iain Banks Culture series.
Most of these future visions seem to miss the middle state that I expect will be far more interesting, which is human-machine hybrid mental models, capacity expansion, and capacity overlaps. By this I mean we'll see initially super capable people because of their use of technology directly interfacing with them. In a minor way, Internet services are already doing mental expansions with Google, Wolfram, Twitter, and forums like this one - enabling super capacity we didn't have 30 years ago. I expect this will dramatically accelerate and increase.
How do you see the future playing out as humans develop super-capable machines, or machine-human hybrids? (I recognize this is a huge question, so pointers to papers or writings on your thoughts would be fine, and greatly appreciated).
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 2 points 1 hour ago
Cybernetically-enhanced biological minds have a long future ahead IMO http://www.biointelligence-explosion.com/ Unlike some futurists, I don't think there's going to be a "robot rebellion".
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]jmdugan 1 point 8 hours ago*
Buddhists define suffering as arising from the mismatch between expectation and reality ever changing through impermanence, and because of attachments to conditioned states.
They teach to minimize suffering my acceptance of impermanence, and by learning to let go of attachments. But within this framework, there are many who assert that the elimination of suffering is not possible, and the main goal would be best as "minimization" of suffering.
Can you relate your view on suffering, and that we will be able to completely eliminate it, to the Buddhist view that we must strive simply to minimize it? Another way to ask this is, when you talk about suffering on http://www.abolitionist.com - is the same suffering Buddhists talk about?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 1 point 13 minutes ago
Somewhat against my better judgement, I did try comparing Buddhism and (negative) utilitarianism a few years ago. http://www.bltc.com/buddhism-suffering.html The reason I hesitated is plenty of Buddhist scholars would say I haven't understood the "true" meaning of Buddhism. But I know of no technical reason why we can't abolish suffering. If we eliminate its molecular signature, experience below "hedonic zero" becomes biologically impossible.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]TupacOrBiggie 1 point 7 hours ago
Do you think it's theoretically possible to resurrect the dead? (sorry if dumb question)
permalink
report
reply
[–]SentientPrimate 1 point 6 hours ago
How are we going to live to see the singularity without animal models?
permalink
report
reply
[–]NukeU 1 point 5 hours ago
In relation to the buddhist idea of enlightenment- Do you think it could be possible that in using technology to tackle all sources of suffering in the human experience such as illness, poverty, etc. may only be attacking the symptoms of human suffering and not the source itself? From what I've seen in my life it is wisdom about oneself and how to cope with suffering that leads to happiness; not the removal of unpleasant things necessarily. Buddhists go through years of meditation and metacognative practices to eliminate suffering from within. I think having a society where we actively work to remove all unpleasant things using technology could theoretically create an extreme version of what we have seen already in the western world; people who have incredibly luxurious, safe, and comfortable lives still in great amounts of suffering after all they have already becomes a norm that is taken for granted.
I have not read your works yet, but I am greatly interested in transhumanism. I agree with most of what I've read about the philosophy, but this point always bugs me. I just came here on a whim from another post, and I don't claim to know how valid this point I am making is, but what are your opinions on this?
permalink
report
reply
[–]webster1002 1 point 5 hours ago
How do you feel about the interpretation of humanism which calls it arrogant? Rather, I refer to "The Arrogance of Humanism by David Ehrenfeld which targets the definition of humanism as "“a supreme faith in human reason – its ability to confront and solve the many problems that humans face, its ability to rearrange both the world of Nature and the affairs of men and women so that human life will prosper." Ehrenfeld calls the idea that "we can do what ever we want, and will be able to account for all of the consequences of our actions if we utilize the full potential of our reason" sort of sense" arrogant, specifically.
permalink
report
reply
[–]Copernican 2 points 5 hours ago
How is transhumanism not just a Marxist notion of using technology get beyond human necessity for subsistence?
What does transhumanism have to say about dealing with social structures?
permalink
report
reply
[–]zynthalay 1 point 5 hours ago
I've seen several things about veganism, but nobody seems to have raised the question of animalless, nervous systemless meat. Where do you stand on that as a moral perspective? Practical / likely perspective?
permalink
report
reply
[–]ieshido 1 point 54 minutes ago
He mentions invitrotarianism here.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]virnovus 1 point 5 hours ago
I used to develop virtual reality software. Now I'm a convicted felon due to some really idiotic drug laws. I can't get my brain chemistry back on track without drugs, and the fact that all my money has been poured into lawyer fees has left me broke. Should I just keep jumping through the legal hoops, or should I run away and join some clandestine transhumanist research lab?
permalink
report
reply
[–]zynthalay 1 point 5 hours ago
Wait, there are clandestine transhumanist research labs?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]virnovus 1 point 5 hours ago
If there aren't, there should be. David?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]stieruridir 1 point 3 hours ago
There are places online that work on this stuff--hplusroadmap being the big one. The stuff I know of in real life is mostly hackspaces and commercial labs.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]madcat033 1 point 4 hours ago
What is your opinion on polyamory? I find the goal of overcoming jealousy and insecurity to be remarkably similar in a post-Darwinian sense, as they are negative emotions holding us back from a state of increased love, emotional connection, and sexual endeavors, all ultimately positive things.
permalink
report
reply
[–]rogerology 1 point 3 hours ago
How do you increase your energy? Any recommendation on improving memory?
permalink
report
reply
[–]pepperhead11 1 point 56 minutes ago
Would there hypothetically be any animal equivalent to transhumanism (for beings other than humansp?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 2 points 9 minutes ago
[apologies, I am now back on duty. All questions will receive responses (many thanks), but please forgive my one-fingered typing: roll on the digital Singularity.]
permalink
report
reply
[–]c4actbe 2 points 12 hours ago
do you believe in God?
do you follow any organized religion?
are you a member of any secret society? (except BLTC)
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 13 points 11 hours ago
1) no. 2) no. 3) no. (But of course if I were, I would presumably say the same!)
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]DeRaptured 1 point 11 hours ago
I noticed you have written extensively in defense of a vegan lifestyle - for ethical reasons and not because of personal health or the environment. As a fellow philosopher, and admittedly as someone who has little empathy for non-humans, do you think you can argue that I ought to peruse a vegan diet? or do you ultimately acknowledged it's matter of personal preference?
permalink
report
reply
[–]davidcpearce[S] 7 points 11 hours ago
The transition to a cruelty-free vegan lifestyle is only one strand of the abolitionist project. But insofar as we acknowledge that it's ethically unacceptable to kill or abuse human babies and prelinguistic toddlers, then I think rational self-consistency dictates treating sentient beings of equivalent sentience with the same care and respect - regardless of race or species. For sure, only human infants and toddlers have the "potential" to become mature adult human beings. But we don't regard human toddlers with a progressive disease who will never reach their third birthday as any less worthy of care and respect than their normally developing contemporaries. We value human infants and prelinguistic toddlers for who they are, not just for what they may - or may not - become. I'd argue that we should take exactly the same approach with nonhuman animals. Or to quote Jeremy Bentham: “The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?”
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]DeRaptured 1 point 10 hours ago
You see, I have been looking for a good reason to stop eating meet for some time now, and I'm still not convinced. You seem to assume a-priori that it's ethically unacceptable to kill or abuse all sentient creatures. We can agree, as Bentham suggested, that animals can suffer, but I think there is a prior, more important, question that needs tackling first: Do I, or should I care about non-human suffering? If my response is "no, I do not care about the suffering of non-humans", then, do you have any argument to convince me that I ought to not harm non-humans?
Sorry to press you on this matter, but if there is no response to this question other than an a-priori circular statement of "well suffering is wrong and therefore we must not cause it" then I might be compelled to argue that the Abolitionist Project is built on shaky grounds.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Benthamite 4 points 10 hours ago
Why do you care about human suffering? It is probably because of how bad it feels. But non-human suffering of the same kind feels equally bad. So on pain of inconsistency you should care about non-human suffering too. And if you agree that the animals we eat can experience suffering of that kind, then you should abstain from consuming animal products, unless such consumption was necessary for you to accomplish goals for which you care even more.
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]iwillmakeyouhurt 1 point 3 hours ago
There are plenty of wonderful economic, environmental, and health reasons to reduce your meat intake (if not completely eliminate it).
It is more efficient to grow vegetables, and causes less harmful byproducts to be released into the environment (reducing human food-borne illnesses). Recent studies have shown that red meat intake directly leads to an increase in mortality rates from certain diseases. Lastly, the meat industry is notoriously dangerous and treats its workers terribly.
Even if you don't care about the suffering of non-humans, if you care about human suffering, you should probably consider vegetarianism (or at least, significantly reduce your intake -- something is better than nothing!).
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]the_onanist -3 points 8 hours ago*
Animals taste good; their suffering lends a savory taste to the flesh. How would you deal with this?
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]beyonsense 1 point 7 hours ago
sometime in the future it would be possible to be reprogrammed to have the same pleasure from eating non-meat product
permalink
parent
report
reply
[–]Pazon 1 point 2 hours ago
Since we can lab grow Spam already, I imagine we might be able to make authentic tasting fake meat first.
permalink
parent
report
reply
More information about the extropy-chat
mailing list