HBM150: Cold Water

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Image by Jeff Emtman

The origins of Julia Susara’s chronic fatigue are hard to pin down.  She still doesn’t know exactly how it started but suspects that a deeply broken heart had something to do with it.  

Content Note: Discussions of suicidal ideation.

Juila spent about three years going through some excruciating physical sensations: immense chills, brain fogs, pregnancy nightmares and the feeling that her blood was about to boil through her skin. 

Doctors weren’t able to figure out what was wrong, nor were the array of alternative healers she visited. Feeling that no one was able to help, she was at the edge of giving up. 

But, at her brother’s suggestion, she reluctantly visited a hypnotherapist who gave Julia instructions to swim daily in cold water.  So she started jumping in the ocean each day and felt a strange and near immediate change in her symptoms.  

If you’re feeling suicidal, here are some numbers you can call to speak with someone who will listen:

USA Suicide Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
UK Samaritans: 116 123
Canada Crisis Services: 1.833.456.4566
Japan Tell JP:  03-5774-0992
Australia Lifeline: 13 11 14
Denmark Livslinien: 70 201 201
Other countries: check the list available at suicide.org

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: Julia’s choir group and The Black Spot

This episode marks the end of Season 9.  Season 10 is coming, but the date is currently unknown.  Stay subscribed!  And keep an eye on the HBM Patreon page for an upcoming message with a season debrief and some musings about the show’s future.  That post will be public, so no need to be a member to read it.  Also, please note that due to some summer busy-ness, Jeff will not be able to run an HBM summer art exchange this year.  Thank you for all your support through Season 9.  It is such a pleasure to make this show. 

Sponsor: Animasus

Emilius Martinez is an illustrator and designer who runs Animasus.  Animasus can help you design email campaigns, websites and improve the overall branding for your business.  

Speaking of which, Emilius designed the new HBM t-shirt, which is wonderful. Thank you Animasus for sponsoring Here Be Monsters!

Look! It’s the new HBM shirt. Designed by Emilius Martinez from Animasus. Order yours today!

HBM139: Acceptable Pains

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Image by Jeff Emtman.

Hedonism seems pretty appealing right now—seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. On HBM137: Superhappiness, the hedonist philosopher, David Pearce imagined a future free of the systemic harms we currently experience: poverty, oppression, violence, and disease. 

But David thinks that even an idyllic, egalitarian society wouldn’t ensure universal happiness. He thinks that the only way to make everyone blissfully happy is to use technology and genetic engineering to make physical and emotional pain obsolete.

“I'm a mammal, just like an aardvark is, just like a possum is. And they don't get epidurals.”
— Ashlynn Owen-Kachikis

HBM producer Bethany Denton doesn’t fully agree. She thinks that heartbreak, homesickness, grief can all be good pain, pains that can make us better and kinder people in the long run.

So what should the role of pain be in society? And further, what about the pains that we opt into, the pains we volunteer for?

On this episode of Here Be Monsters, Bethany interviews people about long distance running, unmedicated childbirth, and voluntary crucifixion in the Philippines.

Will James is a reporter for KNKX Public Radio. Ashlynn Owen-Kachikis is a special education teacher. Carlo Nakar is a social worker and recurring guest on HBM.

Producer: Bethany Denton
Editor: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot, Flowers, Olecranon Rebellion

HBM137: Superhappiness

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David Pearce on a Zoom call with producer Bethany Denton. Image by Jeff Emtman.

David Pearce thinks it's possible to end suffering. He’s a philosopher* who studies “hedonic zero”, the state of being which is completely neutral--neither good nor bad. He believes that, despite our momentary joys and sadnesses, most of us have a set point we tend to return to. And that “hedonic set point” falls somewhere on the spectrum of positive to negative. 

For David, his set point is negative. He’s always been melancholic and he has depression. He remembers his interest in philosophy sparking in his teenage years, when he felt an outcast.  He’d sit in the dark, and listen to pop music and try to figure out how to end the world’s suffering. 

He bought a book that introduced him to the concept of wireheading, which is the artificial stimulation of the brain.  The wireheads could experience instant bliss with nothing more than electricity. This concept was huge for David: promise of a concrete mechanism to elevate his mood, instantly and without drugs. 

Since then David has dedicated his life to understanding hedonic set points and how to manipulate them through physical interventions (like wireheading), gene manipulation (which is arguably already being done with IVF babies), medication, and the eventual transition to post-humanity. 

In 1995 David wrote The Hedonistic Imperative. He is the co-founder of Humanity+ (formerly the World Transhumanist Association).  He currently sits on their advisory board.

Producer: Bethany Denton
Editor: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot, Circling Lights, Flower Petal Downpour

*David Pearce’s philosophy aligns him with transhumanism, negative utilitarianism and soft antinatalism.