About 5 — Antinatalist Advocacy

David Pearce

Talk
Antinatalism & Selection Pressure: A Case for Genome Reform and a Biohappiness Revolution

David Pearce is a philosopher who shares a pessimistic evaluation of sentient life’s predicament with antinatalists, but advocates a different response; his response is transhumanism and David has been prolific in this area. In 1995, he wrote The Hedonistic Imperative where he lays out the case and a potential roadmap for the abolition of suffering. Since then he has given countless talks and engagements on the topic and helped establish The World Transhumanist Association, which is now known as Humanity+.

David has made the slides from his presentation available here.

Please find other links for David Pearce below:

Website

David has provided the below links for further reading on his thoughts on antinatalism:

David was also kind enough to send us his response to some additional questions we could not get to during the speaker session:

How does your strand of transhumanism address the problems of overpopulation and scarcity of resources?

The world’s human population continues to increase. But the annual growth rate has declined to below 1 percent. Demographers reckon that global population will peak at about 10.4 billion in the 1980s and stay around at that level until 2100. This figure is well within Earth's carrying capacity.

Scarcity of (some) resources will indeed still be a problem. But (1) effectively unlimited digital resources are feasible in immersive virtual reality (VR). VR is where we will presumably spend much of our lives for both work and leisure. And (2) what _won’t_ be a scarce resource are the biological substrates of pleasure. Life can potentially be animated by genetically preprogrammed gradients of superhuman bliss, turning everyone into hedonic trillionaires with no risk of hedonic depletion.

What do you think about transhumanism leading to super-rationality among (post)humans, and only then to extinction of sentient life (assuming it would be rationally optimal on pair with hedonistic paradise)? Could such a solution to the problem of suffering be less risky and more feasible than creating a paradise, conditional on aforementioned super-rationality?

Such a scenario can’t altogether be excluded. However, I consider it unlikely for several reasons. Not least, superior reasoning capacity will shortly allow humans to gain control of our own reward circuitry – and the reward circuitry of all sentience. Empirically, life based on gradients of bliss will seem self-evidently wonderful - deeply meaningful, precious and indeed sublime. If contemplated at all, antinatalist negative utilitarian button-pressers (like me) may be regarded as depressive psychotics from a bygone era.

“Reason Is and Ought Only to Be the Slave of the Passions”, said Hume. I dispute the “ought”. But Hume is factually correct – in essence at any rate.

It will always be a risk to bring children (genetically-modified or not) into the world, and it will always be a manipulation of their autonomy. How can we say that creating them would ever become ethical, no matter how happy they might be?

“Count no man happy until he be dead” said the Greeks. Ancient historian Herodotus reports the words of Solon debating happiness with Croesus. This grim observation is true to this day. But just a handful of genetic tweaks (cf. The SCN9A , FAAH and FAAH-OUT genes) promise to make experience below hedonic zero not just unlikely, but physiologically impossible. Compare how someone born with achromatopsia is physiologically incapable of experiencing phenomenal colour. The same will be true of mental and physical pain.

Your second point is distinct. There is a sense in which autonomy will always be violated by bringing another sentient beings into existence without their (impossible) prior consent. Compare too how even the happiest and best nurtured toddlers today are not autonomous beings. Caregivers sometimes override their preferences. And none of us are free in a metaphysical sense of “free”. However, let’s step back. Is autonomy inherently good, or good only insofar as its absence often involves suffering? What’s more, ratcheting up hedonic range and hedonic set-points tends to increase one's self-perceived autonomy, control and mastery over one's life. Happy folk tend to be active citizens. Depressives tend to feel crushed and subservient. This generalisation is the antithesis of a Brave New World scenario. Recall how in Huxley’s novel the lower strata are kept happy and docile by the “ideal pleasure drug” soma.

I’m sceptical even posthuman superintelligences will be fully autonomous, let alone free in some elusive metaphysical sense of “free”. But so long as there is no hedonic sub-zero experience, I’m sceptical that an absence of metaphysical freedom really matters.