My name is Michael. I'm a 19 year old college sophomore. I've known about this site for many months, and I've been reading a lot of the conversations here, but I only now made an account. I've been interested in utilitarianism and ethics in general for many years, especially ones that deal primarily with suffering and how to effectively reduce it, so this website is like a godsend to me. A whole bunch of really smart rational people talking about consequentialism/utilitarianism? Just what I wanted!

A few things about me. My ethics currently leans towards lexical negative utilitarianism, although I'm certainly open to discussion about that. I have suffered from horrible depression for most all of my teenage life, and there have been many days where I think life is so horrible that I have wished I was never born, so I tend to take suffering extremely seriously because it seems like I have a first-person perspective of it all the time. I don't think any amount of happiness anywhere can morally "outweigh" any amount of suffering, for a few reasons. Even an infinite amount of happiness cannot morally justify bringing into existence even the suffering of a pinprick. I realize this a very extreme view, even for here, but I think it's defensible. (I'm open to having my mind changed, however.) So this means I'm interested in reducing suffering as much as possible, including and especially wild animal suffering.

I'm wondering what I can do with my life to help most effectively realize that goal. I'm in college right now, but I'm failing it partly because of my depression and partly because I think it's completely pointless in helping me achieve worthwhile goals. I'm not learning anything, it's wasting my time, and it's making even me even more miserable. What I'm most interested in, more than anything else, is David Pearce's abolitionist project (something I think most people here are already familiar with), and trying to somehow help with that. In my humble opinion, my life would be best served by helping abolitionism in any way I can. Nothing else seems to be important, when compared with that. But maybe people here have other ideas about how someone in my position (college sophomore, somewhat poor, relatively intelligent, highly empathetic) could best spend his time. Because I'm pretty lost right now. Even though I'm depressive and not very active, mostly because I don't put any value in the pointless rat race of Darwinian life, I can pretty productive when I put my mind to something. And pretty much the only thing I truly care about is minimizing/eliminating suffering for all sentient life and working towards a valuable posthuman future.

Oh yeah, I'm also a transhumanist, as you might have guessed. But the only branch of transhumanism I'm truly attracted to, as opposed to merely interested in, is abolitionism. But I have no idea how to go about contributing meaningfully to that goal. I'm wondering if someone here can help me by suggesting some ideas.

Hello Michael,

Great to have you here!

I, Humphrey Schneider am a negative utilitarian too! I am a 22 year old student from Germany. I would also call myself being depressive since around one year. I also had notions about the pointlessness of life even earlier. Since four years, I believe it was better for me never to have been. Meanwhile I do not bother anymore about that because I decided to dedicate my life to the reduction of suffering. Now, I am glad to have come to existence because it is an unique chance for me to change the world for the better. Negative Utilitarians are very seldom so I existimate to be one and I am happy whenever I find some fellows.
Do you know Brian Tomasik? He has written several essays on reducing suffering. [url]utilitarian-essays.com[/url]

BTW, my views are quite similar to Brians. My focus is to avoid that humans will use technical progress to create massive amounts of suffering sentient e.g. by spreading life on other planets (link to wild animal suffering) or by creating cognitive algorythms.
Another FF member I know who is NU is extended circle.
Best Regards,

Humphrey

Hi Michael,

I've also had disabling depression impact my school marks. But I no longer believe education to be impotent. If you want to be a good NU you should want to be employable. Educated people are more employable than uneducated people, as are those with a good work ethic and a sense of importance or meaning about them. Foster the latter two in academic work and you'll find the former is more easily acquired, and, lo, that you can be an effective NU.

I share your goals but am doubtful that the pinprick argument can carry much logical weight. I think your intuitions would change if you were a little happier.

Elijah, I'm interested in your project.

Hi and welcome to Felicifia! It's awesome to have you here!

I am not a negative utilitarian, however I am a "pessimistic utilitarian", that is, I think the future will probably contain more suffering than happiness, for this reason I often share the same practical goals as NUs.

For more on dystopic futures click here.

It's fantastic that you're interested in these things! I can already think of a few exciting projects you may be interested in.

What are you studying in college? And is your university well regarded? These things may shape what is the most high-impact route for you to take.

As regards wild animal suffering, Brian Tomasik and I are currently involved in helping to set up a new charity which will be called "Animal Ethics" (AE). We will focus both on wild animals and conventional anti-speciesism. Starting in June I will be working full time for AE. If you're interested in helping out or would like more information please contact me or Brian.

If you're more interested in preventing the kind of bad futures Humphrey Schneider mentioned then please contact me on this also as some of us are interested in starting something in this area.

I wrote a blog post recently which details basically all the things I think seem like good life-routes for being high impact. However, I think the two I mentioned above are the best.

Oh btw,friend us on facebook!

Do you know Brian Tomasik? He has written several essays on reducing suffering. [url]utilitarian-essays.com[/url]

Yes, I've read all of those essays, and they were very informative. I've been concerned about wild animal suffering for almost as long as I can remember (which was one of the things that made me depressed), and as far as I knew no one else in the world thought it was much of a problem, so I was pretty glad when I stumbled upon that website and found out there were other people who shared my concerns. I have a lot of respect for Brian, even though I've never communicated with him. He's one of the few people in the world who has his priorities straight.

BTW, my views are quite similar to Brians. My focus is to avoid that humans will use technical progress to create massive amounts of suffering sentient e.g. by spreading life on other planets (link to wild animal suffering) or by creating cognitive algorythms.

I'm also concerned about potential future suffering, since the suffering induced by future technological inventions has the potential to be much more intense and than anything in the present.

Right now I'm working on a critique of the abolitionist project and why it is better to focus on the destruction of as much life as possible. This sounds like a view to which you would be sympathetic, so I'll send it to you if you'd like.

I'd very much like to see that when you're done, thanks!

I share your goals but am doubtful that the pinprick argument can carry much logical weight. I think your intuitions would change if you were a little happier.

Maybe. I should probably have distinguished between letting myself experience suffering and enforcing it on others, i.e. I would happily undergo the pain of a pinprick (or a broken leg, or waterboarding, or whatever) for a guarantee of several years of happiness, but I do not think it's ethical to enforce those pains on others in order to bring about the same amount of happiness, at least not without their explicit consent (and even then the ethics are debatable). How we treat ourselves and how we treat ourselves should have very different weights, I think. I would hope my views on this wouldn't change if I took a drug that made me happier.

It's fantastic that you're interested in these things! I can already think of a few exciting projects you may be interested in.

I'd be very interested to hear them, thanks!

What are you studying in college? And is your university well regarded? These things may shape what is the most high-impact route for you to take.

For a community college it's very well regarded, for what that's worth. I'm studying neuroscience and molecular biology, mainly for abolitionist reasons, although other futurist projects such as BMIs and WBE are also somewhat interesting. I figured if I want to help with abolitionism, I have to make an attempt to study the science. Neuroscience is also very interesting in its own right, even without all the futurist stuff, so it all kind of worked out.