David Pearce ARZone Live Guest Chat

David Pearce, this week's Live ARZone Chat Guest.

David Pearce is an abolitionist philosopher, a transhumanist and vegan advocate living in Brighton, UK. Abolitionism, as he uses the term, is a philosophy and movement dedicated to eliminating suffering for all sentient beings.

David promotes veganism as a key component of abolitionism. His main arguments include the following:

• Antispeciesism is based on the values most people already hold;

• Brain size and cognitive complexity do not equate to a greater capacity to suffer;

• Many common objections to respecting all sentient life are reflections of status quo bias and an irrational appeal to nature.

In The Hedonistic Imperative (1995), a manifesto which outlines a strategy to eradicate suffering in all sentient life, David explains his philosophy and proposes methods for abolishing suffering. He thinks the most significant improvements will require high tech solutions such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology. He would like to see humans achieve super-intelligence and super-happiness, but he believes that ending suffering is the most critical thing.

David proposes creating a welfare state for free living nonhuman animals to protect them from the ravages of disease, starvation and environmental stresses. He hopes to one day see an end to all predation as well. This will require ecosystem redesign which he believes will become technically feasible later this century. In The Hedonistic Imperative he lays out a blueprint for how it can be done, using genetic engineering and advanced nanotechnology.

In 1998, David and his colleague, Professor Nick Bostrom co-founded The World Transhumanist Organisation, which has since been renamed Humanity+. According to David this is the largest organisation with a commitment to improving the well being of all sentient life. The abolition of suffering is one of many strands of transhumanist thought.

David has recognised the power of online protests and antispeciesist advocacy since the early days of the internet. He has been threatened with lawsuits many times over his highly trafficked online activism sites. The British Field Sports Society tried to sue him for several things, including the charge of using keywords in the metatags of an anti-hunting website.

Dave looks forward to the opportunity to engage ARZone members this weekend on a range of topics.

ARZone is supportive of education, critical thinking, rational discourse, and aims to provoke intelligent dialogue about issues that most concern members of the animal advocacy movement.

ARZone does not endorse or promote the views of its guests and forum participants; ARZone does endorse and promote creative education efforts.

This is an event for which questions must be submitted to ARZone prior to Midnight GMT, Wednesday 20 April via email to Carolyn@ARZone.net.

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8:00am           Sun 24th         Australian Eastern Standard Time

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