AI: Unlocking the Post-Human – David Pearce & James Hughes
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AI: Unlocking the Post-Human – David Pearce & James Hughes

ByAdam Ford

A discussion between David Pearce and James Hughes moderated by Adam Ford exploring the ethical and philosophical landscapes of AI, human enhancement and the future of emerging technologies affording higher states of well-being. Pearce and Hughes discuss the implications of transforming human experience via leveraging biotech and cybernetics, as well as requirements for AI to…

David Pearce – Effective Altruism – Phasing Out Suffering
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David Pearce – Effective Altruism – Phasing Out Suffering

ByAdam Ford

This interview was conducted in 2012 in San Francisco. In the future may will see it is not ethically responsible to play genetic roulette and instead take the decision to have happy, healthy, pro-social offspring. 0:00 Introduction0:36 Alleviating Suffering 7:00 Justified Suffering? 13:12 Buddhism 14:42 The World Transhumanist Association 22:35 Recalibration of Society or Biology?…

The Anatomy of Happiness – David Pearce
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The Anatomy of Happiness – David Pearce

ByAdam Ford

David Pearce in interview on the The Anatomy of Happiness. While researching epilepsy, neuroscientist Itzhak Fried stumbled on a ‘mirth’ center in the brain – given this, what ought we be doing to combat extreme suffering and promote wellbeing? 0:00 Mastery of reward circuitry 0:25 Itzhak Fried’s experiments on stimulating ‘the Humor Centre’ of the…

Engineering Paradise – a panel w/ David Pearce, Mike Johnson & Andrés Gómez Emilsson
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Engineering Paradise – a panel w/ David Pearce, Mike Johnson & Andrés Gómez Emilsson

ByAdam Ford

This panel is part of the ‘Stepping Into the Future‘ conference. What is the most wonderful experience you have had in your life? Now imagine if every moment in your life could be as good as this experience, or even better. Other things being equal, wouldn’t it be nice if we had higher quality lives?…

The End of Suffering – Genome Reform and the Future of Sentience – David Pearce
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The End of Suffering – Genome Reform and the Future of Sentience – David Pearce

ByAdam Ford

A talk by David Pearce for the Stepping into the Future conference 2022. Synopsis: No sentient being in the evolutionary history of life has enjoyed good health as defined by the World Health Organization. The founding constitution of the World Health Organization commits the international community to a daringly ambitious conception of health: “a state…

Abolitionist Bioethics – David Pearce
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Abolitionist Bioethics – David Pearce

ByAdam Ford

A talk at EAGx Melbourne by David Pearce about suffering and how to get rid of it. David predicts we will abolish suffering throughout the living world. Our descendants will be animated by gradients of genetically preprogrammed well-being that are orders of magnitude richer than today’s peak experiences. David Pearce: First, I’m going to outline…

Conference: AI & Human Enhancement – Understanding the Future – Early 2020
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Conference: AI & Human Enhancement – Understanding the Future – Early 2020

ByAdam Ford

Introduction Overview The event will address a variety of topics futurology (i.e. accelerating change & long term futures, existential risk, philosophy, transhumanism & ‘the posthuman’) in general though it will have a special focus on Machine Understanding. How will we operate along side artificial agents that increasingly ‘understand’ us, and important aspects of the world…

Towards the Abolition of Suffering Through Science
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Towards the Abolition of Suffering Through Science

ByAdam Ford

An online panel focusing on reducing suffering & paradise engineering through the lens of science. Panelists: Andrés Gómez Emilsson, David Pearce, Brian Tomasik and Mike Johnson Note, consider skipping to to 10:19 to bypass some audio problems in the beginning!! Topics Andrés Gómez Emilsson: Qualia computing (how to use consciousness for information processing, and why…

The Antispeciesist Revolution – read by David Pearce
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The Antispeciesist Revolution – read by David Pearce

ByAdam Ford

The Antispeciesist Revolution [Original text found here] Speciesism. When is it ethically acceptable to harm another sentient being? On some fairly modest(1) assumptions, to harm or kill someone simply on the grounds they belong to a different gender, sexual orientation or ethnic group is unjustified. Such distinctions are real but ethically irrelevant. On the other…

A Non-trivial Pursuit of Happiness – Paradise Engineering with David Pearce :-)
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A Non-trivial Pursuit of Happiness – Paradise Engineering with David Pearce :-)

ByAdam Ford

It is non-trivial for a couple of reasons:a) the pursuit of this vision of happiness is not trivial – it is likely to be a very challenging endeavor (though totally worthy of the effort)b) the aim is to achieve non-trivial modes of happiness, kinds of information-sensitive gradients of bliss (as opposed to being stuck in…