Carl Wilkinson

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Carl’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (228)

currently-reading‎ (0)

read‎ (67)

did-not-finish‎ (0)

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Carl’s Quotes

“Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.”
― Frances Wright

tags: epicureanism, epicurus, hedonism, humanism, philosophy, pleasure, virtue

11 likes

“I predict we will abolish suffering throughout the living world. Our descendants will be animated by gradients of genetically pre-programmed well-being that are orders of magnitude richer than today's peak experiences.”
― David Pearce, The Hedonistic Imperative

tags: biology, ethics, experience, genetic-engineering, hedonism, hedonistic-imperative, philosophy, science, suffering

17 likes

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

tags: words

1272 likes

“Whence shall come the new barbarians? Go through the squalid quarters of great cities, and you may see, even now, their gathering hordes! How shall learning perish? Men will cease to read, and books will kindle fires and be turned into cartridges.”
― Henry George "Progress and Poverty."

9 likes

“The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. This project is ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved only because they once served the fitness of our genes. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. The world's last aversive experience will be a precisely dateable event.”
― David Pearce