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Suffering exists only because it was good for our genes. Conditionally-activated negative emotions were fitness-enhancing in the ancestral environment. In the current era, apologists for mental pain are serving as the innocent mouthpieces of the nasty bits of code which spawned them.

— David Pearce

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More quotes by David Pearce

Depressed or nominally euthymic people are easier for the authorities to control than exuberant life-lovers.

When one is gripped by excruciating physical pain, one is always shocked at just how frightful it can be.

An adequate theory of value should be as true in the gas chambers of Auschwitz as in the philosopher’s study.

Unless the vertebrate central nervous system is genetically recoded, there will be traumas and malaise in utopia - any utopia - too.

Confusion of sapience with sentience can be ethically catastrophic.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: David Pearce (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.