Wow. When doing some catch up research on ‘deep economics’ I stumbled upon an idea that has yanked my attention away from the promised discussion (as so I apologies but you’ll have to wait till tomorrow for more on deep economics).
I present to you VHEMT or known to those who don’t like to refer to it in abbreviation form the ‘Voluntary Human Extinction Movement’

“As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens… us.
Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.
When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.
It’s going to take all of us going.” Found on www.vhemt.org
Wow, is all I can say…. I am blown away by this!
Don’t get me wrong its not that the overall idea’s crazy, as a matter of fact we really do need to control our population, but the fact that someone has actually suggested something as self-less as this boggles my mind.
But there is a problem, and a simple one. We are a part of nature and have rights as well. Of course I wouldn’t say that these rights override the rights of all other beings, but that these are still very important.
As so to make a quick objection to the idea; ‘Why are we not equal? Why can’t there be a balance?’ this is the fundamental problem with their view I believe.
To move on:
“However, if any of us thinks about the situation long enough, and makes the effort to work through those socially-instilled blocks to clear thinking, we will arrive at virtually the same conclusion: we should voluntarily phase ourselves out for the good of humanity and planet.” Found on www.vhemt.org.
I mean this is just a blatant contradiction. We must phase ourselves out for the good of humans, because not existing is good for us. This works on the idea that being alive causes more suffering to our own species. Ya know if we’re all buddhists this could be considered all good and dandy but we aren’t. Surely our species existing is a good thing, or at the very least not a negative thing.
One thing that I feel this idea does not make clear, is at moments it seems to say ‘You support us by not having children’ and then on the other ‘You can still support us by just thinking we need to reduce our population’. They discern what they call ‘volunteer’ (one who promises to not breed), and ’supporter’ (one who doesn’t support extinction, but who doesn’t think we should add more population to the earth).
This is problematic, because seemingly a ’supporter’ could hold a completely different view. By their classification I’m a supporter, yet I don’t believe what they’re saying, rather I believe that their approach to the issue is so far-fetched and non-sensical that we’d be just as well off not thinking about it.
I mean if I was to address these issues of environmental damage, unethical treatment of animals, and the complete borderless stomping of the human race; I’d advance a theory that would require us to lessen our footprint while living more in tune and with respect towards nature.
My objection stems from the fact that its simply unrealistic; although VHEMT does deal with this objection by saying ‘people always say stuff like that, and despite it being unlikely its our duty’. This is true, in a sense, people always say things similar to ‘you’ll never change anything’ to hold onto their base staus quo.
However I think it would be more logical to choose an approach that came easier to us, yet still would result in lasting changes. Suicide is hard to do, not breeding is in a sense going against a natural desire. As so it really seems as though their really fighting an uphill battle. I mean it would seem sooner realistic to adopt a theory that says the entire human race should vacate to Mars before self imposed extinction. In such a manner earth would be ‘happy’ again without us. But the fact that this seems more practical than their theory cannot be a good thing for VHEMT.
Of course the site acknowledge all of this. It is an uphill battle it is a struggle. But knowing this and not finding a better way, or even a better way for now just seems silly. Sometimes practicality is an important issue, and I believe VHEMT fails to acknowledge this.
?