#110 - The Philosopher Who Wants to Make Life Permanently Blissful - David Pearce

David Pearce is a British transhumanist philosopher and co-founder of Humanity+, best known for The Hedonistic Imperative; his 1995 manifesto calling for the use of genetic engineering to eliminate suffering from all sentient life.

In this episode, I sit down with David for one of the most thought-provoking conversations this podcast has had. We cover whether suffering is a design flaw we could actually fix; the ethics of editing your children's genetic predisposition toward depression; the difference between genome reform and eugenics; why MDMA gave David his clearest glimpse of what mental health could genuinely feel like; and what three decades of banging this drum has taught him.

Key topics:

- Natural selection as an engine of suffering and how CRISPR could change that

- Hedonic set points; what they are, why they matter, and how to raise them

- The eugenics problem; why the word is probably "damned forever" even with good intentions

- MDMA, psychedelics, and the blind rationalists parable

- David's own hedonic set point; a surprisingly honest personal answer

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Chapters

00:00 David's journey and the hedonistic imperative

01:37 Why suffering has loomed large in his own life

03:01 30 years of progress; CRISPR, AI and what surprised him

10:27 What he'd tell world leaders; end factory farming first

13:55 What is a hedonic set point and why does it matter?

20:04 Would you want your children engineered to be happier?

28:27 SSRIs, antidepressants and the case for genetic alternatives

31:53 What is stopping us; the eugenics problem explained

35:57 Does suffering produce great art? AI says otherwise

43:09 MDMA as a window into what mental health could be

45:26 Psychedelics, consciousness and the blind rationalists parable

54:43 Atheism, physicalism and the hard problem of consciousness

58:57 David's own hedonic set point; a personal confession

1:03:12 Defining hedonic zero; apathy, numbness and mixed states

1:05:43 Bliss vs motivation; can you have both?

***LINKS***

Websitehedweb.com

The Hedonistic Imperative (manifesto)hedweb.com/hedab.htm

Facebook Group - The Hedonistic Imperativefacebook.com/groups/hedonistic.imperative

X / Twittertwitter.com/webmasterdave

Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pearce_(philosopher)

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