I suspect this is a case of strong limitations in the medical establishment’s philosophy, causing legal issues and lack of motivation to research the subject seriously.
If we take this further—you’d expect more research into genetic engineering for a permanent abolishment of human suffering, since everybody wants to be happy, right? But I’m not familiar with any mainstream research on the subject.
Cool, thanks for the interesting perspective!
Thanks for the comment. I will watch that documentary. I did watch “How to Change Your Mind” though and it did seem great—may I ask why you and your friends moved on from psychedelics then, aside from the much-quoted legal/cultural issues?
I separate this from wireheading in that it does not necessarily decrease emotional variance, and in that the effect is not necessarily extreme as in a literal electrical wireheading . I’m not even sure that making the average person 20% happier would even equate them with the top 5-10% “naturally” happiest people.
However to my knowledge there still is no wireheading technology that is sustainable over time, and I am inclined to believe that it is desirable to develop one as that may open up society to more nuanced transhumanist “happiness technologies” (“paradise engineering”).
I’m not sure of anything—just haven’t found much written material on the subject, so I’m trying to understand what’s going on. I suspect that:
(1): many people do not think about this from this perspective (and those who do may not believe it philosophically—eg. most people would see Brave New World as a dystopia)
(3): those who did try it encounter significant legal/cultural issues?
And in the (probable) case you’re right on that entire logic flow I would have expected A LOT more written material on the subject. What do you think?