Front Office

Last update: 2024-11-16

Welcome to the World Center for the Control of Excessive Suffering!

Let’s be clear from the start. Our Center’s mission is to optimally minimize, on a global scale, the occurrences of consciousness that we consider too unpleasant. We think this can best be done by systematically addressing the problem of suffering from a central place, enabling the development of a new, specialized field of theoretical and practical knowledge. For us:

• “Suffering” refers to any occurrence of consciousness that is felt as unpleasant.
• “Excessive” denotes that our concern is not about all suffering but only about that which we consider too unpleasant.
• “Control” is used rather than reduction, prevention, or abolition because we seek to minimize excesses of suffering “optimally”, which might involve augmenting, allowing, or creating excessive suffering under certain circumstances.
• “Center” emphasizes that a common place of reference is required for all interested parties.
• “World” means the planet Earth and, possibly, the whole universe.

The Center, now being born under the cover of this webbook,^[1] will soon be operating in the real world, with a large number of people, lots of equipment, and billions of dollars. We are confident in this expansion because:

1. The idea of establishing a central place to systematically address the problem of suffering in the world is good enough to…
2. … bring a few dedicated persons to elaborate a first scaled-down version of the Center that is interesting enough to…
3. … attract at least one high-level manager who can present a development project convincing enough to…
4. … involve at least one high-level funder who can invest enough to…
5. … pay for the workforce, facilities, and equipment sufficient to…
6. … operate departments for research and interventions able to…
7. … realize the best possible control of excessive suffering in the world.

Question — What benefit will there be in a full-fledged World Control Center?

Answer — Sentient life on our planet will move from a historically high level of excessive suffering to an incomparably more tolerable level. We are confident in this achievement because:

1. Excessive suffering is a natural phenomenon that can probably be mastered by a game-changing professional initiative specifically dedicated to it.
2. Such an initiative can provide a powerful body of theoretical and practical knowledge about suffering, its various kinds, its numerous causes, its different degrees of prevalence or urgency, the various ways to handle it, the people and organizations concerned with these matters, etc.
3. A new discipline devoted to suffering can also provide the terminology, classification, metrology (measurement, monitoring), methodology, bibliography (documentation, information, referral), and general synthesis that are to be used in practice and that would allow people from various areas to collaborate much more efficiently for the alleviation of suffering, be it in major spheres of human activity such as healthcare, social affairs, economy, politics, religion, law, art, literature, philosophy, ethics, news media, environmental studies, education, science, history, war, crime, work, sport, interpersonal relationships, personal life, etc., or in more specialized fields such as medicine, social service, social security, insurance, economic development aid, human rights protection, animal welfare, judicial punishment, disaster relief, certain parts of the biological or psychological or social sciences, Buddhism, effective altruism, the United Nations system, etc.^[2]
4. Specific practical actions by the World Center for the Control of Excessive Suffering can only be imagined now, but they will revolutionize our relation to suffering. For example, as a result of a multi-billion dollars research program on the social, political, and cultural determinants of suffering, the Center might suggest that governmental and intergovernmental organizations adopt a law that will produce various economic, health, environmental, and peace-making benefits thanks to the implementation of a universal income that prevents millions of occurrences of excessive suffering (see a preliminary draft on this topic by the Algosphere Alliance). For another example, a research program on the psycho-neural nature of suffering and its technical control through sophisticated hi-tech tools might allow the introduction of a gene modification that would cut down billions of occurrences of excessive suffering (see on this topic the pioneering work of The Far Out Initiative).
5. Surely, much can be done to radically reduce excessive suffering if we endeavor to deal with it globally and systematically. Even more, humanity’s top priority right now, all things considered (and especially global catastrophic risks), might well be for compassionate workers from all areas to join forces and develop a common field of theories and practices aimed explicitly at controlling excessive suffering.

We may add that we are promoting this World Center because:

• We value the alleviation of suffering, scientific knowledge, and technical mastery. We believe that suffering is a natural phenomenon that can best be mastered by a discipline dedicated explicitly to its study.
• We hope that an initiative like this can constitute a game-changing advance, an important world first, a historic breakthrough.
• Our initiative is a prerequisite “to organize the alleviation of suffering, steadily and sustainably” as proposed by the Algosphere Alliance.
• A global control center can help reduce the suffering that pushes the world away from happiness, toward deterioration and even self-destruction.
• The needs associated with suffering in the world are immense. They constitute a huge economic demand that calls for the provision of many new resources, goods, and specialized services. The World Control Center has the potential to generate a new large-scale economic prosperity based on the alleviation of suffering.
• A few researchers across the world are currently working on the systematic study of suffering, but they cannot go further in their pioneering work and succeed to a sufficient extent without the help of paid workers and expensive tools that would be an integral part of a World Center.
• The systematic measurement of suffering and its mapping across time and space could serve as a compass for governance systems.
• If someone is concerned with a personal problem of suffering, for herself or others, the Center could help them through a personal reference service such as this Information and Referral Centre (which could be expanded to the whole world), and more generally through something like the project Alleviating MY Suffering, which could provide coaching or useful orientation on all aspects of personal suffering-alleviation (lifestyle, economy, relationships, health, ethics, civil life, etc.).
• If a medical or social service specialist is looking for ways to make their work more effective in terms of concrete suffering-alleviation, the comprehensive approach of the Center would allow them to get a contextual map showing theoretical and practical paths that would otherwise remain invisible.
• If a decision maker or a policy planner needs to evaluate the pros and cons of an intervention in terms of suffering-alleviation, and thus make a dramatic difference in the fate of many individuals, then what, if not the kind of disciplinary approach that is proposed here, could provide relevant analyses?
• If an investor is made to worry about the serious infliction of suffering involved in the pursuit of a profit, the Center could provide a technical assessment and propose alternative ways of doing things at an affordable cost.
• If someone has a valuable idea for eradicating a cause of suffering, the Center might welcome and assist that person by all possible means.

Help wanted:

• Everyone’s help might be precious. Do you have any questions? Can you suggest how we could improve? Do you know someone who could help us? Would you like to contribute in any way?
• We need help with current management and with future high-level management.
• We need help in writing all the chapters of this webbook.
• Other ideas for contribution:
  • Come up with a prototype interesting enough: how?
  • Adopt a terminology and a classification scheme.
  • Evaluate, summarize, synthesize, or interrelate documents and propose the best ones for further study or implementation in practice.
  • Suggest research programs. General synthesis? Measurement (see Preparatory Notes for the Measurement of Suffering)? Compilations of data by artificial intelligence? Other use of artificial intelligence (ask specialists in Effective Altruism?). See Implementing Knowledge Management.
  • Suggest practical interventions. Monitoring service? Collective letters to authorities? Referral center? Strategic cash transfer?
  • Have the support of numerous and/or influential persons and organizations (as associates or not).
  • Link up with Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, International Association for the Study of Pain, World Health Organization, Algosphere Alliance, and other organizations.
  • Find a legal status for the Center: Swiss corporation (neutrality)? Other possibilities?
• We need funds which can be roughly estimated as follows:
  • 500 thousand USD for the preliminary development phase to cover management, personnel, and equipment costs.
  • 20 million USD for the full-scale starting phase of the Center.
  • 20 billion USD to operate the Center once it is entirely up and running.

You may contact us at admin@aboutsuffering.org.

The World Center for the Control of Excessive Suffering is an enterprise developed by Associates for the Control of Excessive Suffering (A.C.E.S.). For more details, see our Administration Notebook.