EA - Reminding myself just how awful pain can get (plus, an experiment on myself) by Ren Springlea

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Reminding myself just how awful pain can get (plus, an experiment on myself), published by Ren Springlea on March 15, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Content warning: This post contains references to extreme pain and self-harm, as well as passing references to suicide, needles, and specific forms of suffering (but not detailed descriptions). Please do not repeat any of the experiments I've detailed in this post. Please be kind to yourself, and remember that the best motivation is sustainable motivation.SummaryOut of curiosity, I exposed myself to safe, moderate-level pain to see how it changed my views on three particular topics. This article is mostly a self-reflection on this (non-scientific) experience.Firstly, I got a visceral, intense sense of how urgent it is to get it right when working to do the most good for others.Secondly, I gained a strong support for the position that the most morally important goal is to prevent suffering, and in particular for preventing extreme suffering.Thirdly, I updated my opinion on the trade-offs between different intensities of pain, which I give in this article as rough, numerical weightings on different categories of pain. Basically, I now place a greater urgency on preventing intense suffering than I did before.I conclude with how this newfound urgency will affect my work and my life.My three goalsI began this experiment with three main goals:To remind myself how urgent and important it is to, when working to help others as much as I can, to get it right.Some people think that preventing intense pain (rather than working towards other, non-pain-related goals) is the most important thing to do. Do I agree with this?If I experience pain at different intensities, does this change the moral weight that I place on preventing intense pain compared to modest pain (i.e. intensity-duration tradeoff)?I think it is useful to test my intellectual ideas against what it is actually like to experience pain. This is not for motivation - I already work plenty in my role in animal advocacy, and I believe that sustainable motivation is the best motivation (I talk about this more at the end).My "experiment"I subjected myself to two somewhat-safe methods of experiencing pain:Firstly, I got three tattoos on different parts of my body - my upper arm, my calf, and my inner wrist. I had six tattoos already, so I was familiar with this experience. I got these tattoos all on one day (4/2/23) and in one location (a studio in London).Secondly, I undertook the cold pressor test. This is basically holding my hand in a tub of near-freezing water. This test is commonly used in scientific research as a way to invoke pain safely. I also did this on one day (25/2/23) and in one location (my home in Australia). Please do not replicate this - the cold pressor test causes pain and can cause significant distress in some people, as well as physical reactions that can compromise your health.I wish I had a somewhat-safe way to experience pain that is more intense than these two experiences, but these are the best I could come up with for now.During both of these experiences, I recorded the pain levels. I recorded the pain in three ways:A short, written description of my thoughts and feelings.The McGill Pain Index Pain Rating Intensity (PRI) Score. This score is calculated from a questionnaire (which I accessed via a phone app) that asks you to choose words corresponding to how your pain feels. The words are then used to calculate the numeric PRI score. I chose to use this tool as there is a review paper listing the approximate PRI scores caused by different human health conditions, which lets me roughly compare my scores to different instances of human pain. This list is given below, so you can have some idea of what scores mean.The PainTrac...