Last update: 2024-05-01

Sections:

• Ronald Anderson
• Brian Tomasik
• Bruno Contestabile
• Andres Gomez Emilsson
• Luke Scott Turner
• Matthew Collins

Ronald Anderson

Preparatory notes:

Ronald Anderson: https://thesocietypages.org/worldsuffering/, https://www.compassionatesocieties.org/, https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1426877.

Brian Tomasik

Brian Tomasik‘s website, Essays on Reducing Suffering, is widely cited by various authors, especially in relation to the Effective Altruism Movement. Brian wrote a lot about wild-animal suffering, insect sentience, suffering-focused ethics, and the concept of s-risks. He is an advisor to the Center on Long-Term Risk and the Center for Reducing Suffering. As to our global management, it is not clear yet what we can use from his writings, but they surely constitute a contribution to the Discipline Specialized in the Study of Suffering.

In The Horror of Suffering Brian explains how the awfulness of suffering is often forgotten, so that action upon it remains insufficient. For instance:

From my perspective it seems obvious that reducing suffering is the highest priority. I think many people agree that this goal is really important, especially in the abstract, even if they don’t have the physical or emotional resources directly to invest in it much themselves. I also think that people in comfortable conditions who do have the resources to work toward reducing suffering can become caught up in entertaining distractions, and because they don’t feel the extent of suffering in the world on a daily basis, they assume it has lower priority than they would if they had more direct access to it.

That is why we think our global management must be implemented by ourselves, as a technical management task, through day-to-day direct practice, without depending on support from a large number of people.

Bruno Contestabile

Preparatory notes:

Socrethics

Andres Gomez Emilsson

Preparatory notes:

Andres Gomez Emilsson (see https://qri.org/blog/review-of-log-scales and https://qri.org/blog/log-scales and https://qualiacomputing.com/tag/suffering/). From https://qri.org/blog/state-of-the-qualia-fall-2020: “One day you decide to destroy hell. What happens next? First you figure out what hell is. Making war on the correct thing is important. For QRI that thing is suffering. Second you assemble people who believe what you’re doing is possible and noble. Third you build technical capabilities for detecting suffering, with the expectation that what you can measure you can manage. Fourth you identify an intervention that can actually help people. Ideally it’s non-invasive, inexpensive, and fun, something people would actually use. Fifth you network — building alliances and marshalling resources for scaling research and interventions. Preparing the actual assault. This is where we are now- not the end of the journey but not the start, either. Maybe 70% into the second chapter (there are a lot of chapters!).”

Luke Scott Turner

Preparatory notes:

https://sufferingthinkers.blogspot.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGE_IfzkIRjKkBPZjhfM8Tg

Matthew Collins

Preparatory notes:

https://ecstatic-compassion.org/, an illustration for our book cover?