Imagine a hypothetical scenario: Every human gets completely on board with utilitarianism and we are all fully committed to increasing utility. Other than that, everything is the same. What do we do?

I think this hypothetical scenario is important because it can help us understand in which directions to go to best increase utility.

1. Eradicate all diseases.

2. Exterminate all r-selected species that are not essential for the ecosystem.

3. Devote much more time and money to researching pain in non-human animals.

4. Exterminate all carnivorous species.

5. Start breeding small mammals and fish. Whenever they begin to over-consume a habitat's resources, painlessly kill large numbers of them.

6. Genetically modify all animals to eliminate the fear of predators.

7. Greatly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.

This plan eliminates suffering from disease, predation, and should prevent most starvation. We could genetically modify animals not to feel pain, but I think this is a bad idea because pain is an important response to potentially-harmful stimuli.

Interesting discussion! Why would we breed small mammals and fish?

Interesting discussion indeed, but the thread title is misleading. I thought it was about what current utilitarians can do with what they've got, then I saw the hypothetical.

But okay, if we had a world of rational utilitarians, we could do some of the things you mention, and we probably would do many others.

1) is unrealistic because it's not within our current medical resources to eradicate all diseases (those which can be cheaply treaded or eradicated would be though).
3) is a great idea and should further include study of affective consciousness and its neurological and genetic underpinnings generally.
2), 4), 5) and 6) are hard to do right without causing at least the risk of irreparable damage to the sustainability of civilization. Since a humanity of utilitarians would probably have a far better chance of creating a hedonium shockwave, or at least the next best thing that is technologically feasible, the temporary wild animal suffering might be a price worth paying to get the science right before all our life-support systems crash under our feet. 5) seems generally unnecessary because we can always just destroy nature once we've figured out technological sustainability.
As for 7), I don't know how urgent it really is, but it might pay out to err on the safe side.

I'd add:

- quick poverty relief for everyone on the planet
- end all wars and violent conflicts
- internet for everyone asap
- careful investigation into the beginnings of hedonic and intellectual enhancement of humans
- x-risk reduction (large body impact prediction and prevention, huge redundancy of emergency bunkers for gene and meme survival in any catastrophe, nanotech risk assessment)
- have more children, educate them better and more goal-oriented, offer painless suicide methods for everyone who is permanently incapable of being productive or happy

Disassemble all the planets and build a Dyson swarm. It will take a while, but I don't think it's anything we're not technologically capable of doing. It would vastly increase the surface area for life to exist in. Also, send probes to other stars to do the same there. In case you're wondering, we do have the technology. Then again, we may be better off just optimizing this solar system until we have the technology to colonize other stars faster and cheaper.

end all wars and violent conflicts

Considering that we're assuming everyone's working together, I think that goes without saying.

I forgot (but it probably also goes without saying):
- transition to global veganism accompanied by improved animal product substitutes innovation
- research into suffering-free agriculture techniques (painless insecticides, prevention of small animals being injured etc.)

DanielLC wrote:Disassemble all the planets and build a Dyson swarm. It will take a while, but I don't think it's anything we're not technologically capable of doing. It would vastly increase the surface area for life to exist in. Also, send probes to other stars to do the same there.

I agree that once we know how to reliably create life free from suffering, or only very minor suffering compared to the pleasure, it should spread. However, this should be planned carefully. Starting a new darwinian race on an interplanetary or even interstellar level could be an astronomically huge mistake. Once you send self-replicating anything out of your sphere of influence, especially if it contains the potential to evolve, you can never take it back.

I'd also emphasize that x-risks should come first, i.e. sustainability issues have higher priority than fast pleasure increase.

However, this should be planned carefully.

We need to know this stuff before we populate our Dyson swarms, not before we build them. Once we know how to populate everything, we can do it a lot faster once we've built it.

I'd also emphasize that x-risks should come first, i.e. sustainability issues have higher priority than fast pleasure increase.

I'd emphasize that growth comes second (although there's a lot of overlap). We shouldn't worry about pleasure at all until we've pretty much populated the galaxy.

DanielLC wrote:We need to know this stuff before we populate our Dyson swarms, not before we build them. Once we know how to populate everything, we can do it a lot faster once we've built it.

I think we need to know it before we build anything large-scale. After all, the expected utility of spreading a system depends on the nature of the system. But this is nitpicking, I'm not sure we have the technology to build a Dyson swarm efficiently, so there would probably be decades of research beforehand anyway.

I'd emphasize that growth comes second (although there's a lot of overlap). We shouldn't worry about pleasure at all until we've pretty much populated the galaxy.

Yes. Otoh, once we'd start the colonization wave, optimizing for pleasure locally would follow. It's also not clear these projects would be in stark conflict, much of the research can be done in parallel and we require a lot of it simultaneously, e.g. researching the abolition of suffering, the creation of high-pleasure life, and a non-mutation colonization algorithm would be needed before we colonize. After all, filling the world with negative utility is a huge mistake. Furthermore, quoted from another thread:

I accept the Doomsday argument, and thus consider existential risk certain enough that it's not really worth trying to stop.

I haven't given much thought to this, but if it were accepted, we the logical conclusion would be to focus on a suffering-free extinction plan.

Great thread, everyone!

This is one comment with which I particularly agree:

Hedonic Treader wrote:and a non-mutation colonization algorithm would be needed before we colonize. After all, filling the world with negative utility is a huge mistake.

the creation of high-pleasure life, and a non-mutation colonization algorithm would be needed before we colonize.

We may need high intelligence for other reasons, and once we have it, each piece could figure out how to make high-pleasure life independently. It would involve reinventing the wheel billions of times, but we'll have billions more resources if we wait. That seems to work out pretty much exactly the same, so I guess you'd just work it out with spare resources whenever. You would definitely wait at least until you have a Dyson swarm, since your resources are more important when you're still building it, and there's no real cost to waiting. Also, when you have the answer, you store it. You don't actually use it until you've sent so many spores out to other galaxies that it doesn't really matter any more.

DanielLC wrote:We may need high intelligence for other reasons, and once we have it, each piece could figure out how to make high-pleasure life independently.

The non-goal-mutation algorithm sounds especially essential in that case, because intelligence is really dangerous unless you're sure its concern for preventing suffering will never be transmuted.