Jul 25 2008
‘Voluntary Human Extinction Movement’
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.
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12 Responses to “‘Voluntary Human Extinction Movement’”
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Great post. Gives people something to wonder about.
It doesn’t sound selfless as much as pessimistic. By implying that earth will return to its former natural glory if humans phase themselves out doesn’t rule out the idea that we could come back in another 20 billion years and make the same mistakes all over again.
I’d like to think that the purpose of humans here is to help build a comfortable and enjoyable place for all to live. Leaning towards agnostic, but having grown up alongside a few christian friends, I believe that people, through their collective action, turn Earth into their own living Heaven or Hell.
Interesting observation.
Not having kids seems like the laziest way to go about this. Alternative fuels, recycling, and in general cutting back on production and better food management (most soy/grain goes to feed cows, when it could go to feed many many more humans - at the cost of delicious delicious meat) would help immensely. If you want people to be selfless, there are better ways than just curbing population. Besides, once human population becomes unsustainable, we’ll have a lot of people die anyway and it’ll balance out. As we are now, we’re still “in balance” with the earth - wait like 50 years and then see where we are.
I don’t understand the mindset that would make a statement, as I hear over and over, that not having children is lazy or selfish. To me, it is much more lazy or selfish to cling to the status quo and continue to add to the population of a planet that it so unbelievably burdened with humans that it is throwing every disease and catastrophe it can “come up with” to try to get rid of great numbers of us. Why does everyone think that their genes are sooo wonderful and important that they just MUST be passed on? There are plenty of adoptable children out there. If we were so “smart” we could rise above our “animal urges” and use our intelligence to realize the predicament we’re in.
Human nature. If anyone has actually studied Evolutionary Biology, Anthropolgy or any related science you might have some understanding of what has happened to us. Some scientists think we may, at some point in the past, been infected with either a virus or with some type of mutation which has sent humans into a path that is incompatible with life on Earth. The scientist Richard Leakey, along with other scientists, says we are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction on the planet which is just a natural phenomenon caused by somewhat predictable circumstances. The sun is about half-way through its
lifetime-it has about 5 to 6 billion years to go. So after our species is gone the possibility of other human-like creatures are possible, but hopefully what will evolve after most, but I hope not all, of life dies out, will fit together as a more perfect biosphere than it is now.
Something went wrong with our human nature. Something made us believe, deep down at a genetic level, that we were better than everything and we could control everything. We can’t and we don’t. Nature will let us know that. And sooner if not later, in a big way.
Vhemt knows it is never going to convince many people to stop breeding. Have you never heard of going to extremes to get someone’s attention?
By the way, I am, with tongue firmly in cheek, a volunteer.
Vee,
I don’t see why the human race needs to be wiped out in order for “nature” to persist. Humanity can exist in concert with everything else, if people’s priorities were adjusted a little. And I’m not advocating the status quo, I meant that inaction in the form of just laying down and dying as a species is lazier than actually changing the way we do things. Besides, why does “nature” take priority here? You even stated that given enough time life will rise again anyway, why do we have to hasten the next cycle? As I said in my last comment, we’re still “in balance” with the earth, since neither us nor the earth has died off yet. I think we should start expanding into the nearby space, to adjust to the growing population. People can make it work if they try, but it’s hard to change people.
And anyway, if you want to curb the population, you can always take more active measures. I suppose it’s “kinder” if everyone agrees not to procreate, but if the result is what matters, and no one is going to be around to “suffer the consequences”, what does it matter how we got there? Just kill or sterilize everyone.
If they truly are going to extremes to merely get attention, that would truly demonstrate the immaturity or their ideal and organization.
I believe its not a crazy idea in fact but in implication, it simply argues against one of our most primal human natures. A better starting point needs to be found an applied.
From the responses of Deniz and happycolour it seems you have completely missed the point I was trying to make. If you don’t have a pretty good understanding of evolutionary biology, paleontology, or related SCIENCE it is hard to see that, first, we humans are not even a blip on the evolutionary tree, second, the likelihood of us surviving a catastrophic extinction event is highly unlikely…the type of life that survives this type of event is usually microscopic and the cycle of life has to start all over again, and third, what you or I “want” to happen has absolutely nothing to do with what will happen. Even Kurtzweil’s attempts at AI and finding a way to establish life off-planet will likely not be achieved in time. Yes, I would love to see a beautiful, Utopian earth where all species could live together in symbiotic harmony, but , even though it has been proven that evolution has been speeding up of late, it would have to go into hyper-drive, I believe, to save us.
So you’re talking about a global extinction, a la an ice age or something along those lines? How does this relate to the topic? VHEMT only applies to humans dying off, not everything else, and in light of the extinction cycles of the planet it doesn’t make a difference. Really, in light of the end of the universe, it doesn’t make a difference. As I understand it, VEHMT is interested in keeping everything else alive, so that they can thrive sans humanity. I’m only saying that if humans live more efficiently and less destructively a similar goal can be reached.
To Vee Brownlee:
I apologies if you believe I have misinterpreted what you are saying, but I don’t think I have.
Note my response “I believe its not a crazy idea in fact but in implication, it simply argues against one of our most primal human natures. A better starting point needs to be found an applied.”
I don’t think its non-sensical, partly, but I do think its so impractical it could be considered so.
As well saying ” what you or I “want” to happen has absolutely nothing to do with what will happen” is very problematic for your argument. As then why should we even strive for voluntary extinction if what we want has nothing to do with what happens?
I would like to add 2 additional points.
Point 1:
I think that it is easy to see humans can do great damage via pollution, even if you don’t think global warming is happening (and I feel odds are that it is these days) there is still the toxic pollution that has been added to rivers, lakes, and some pieces of land that has a detrimental effect of plant and animal life in that area. So we do cause pollution and it does cause harm.
Does that last point mean that life/from Earth would be better without us? I argue no. Not only are we part of life on/from Earth but if we are able to limit the damage we do to various ecosystems around the world so they do not collapse then we provide means by which life on Earth will become life from Earth and those have the potential to survive past the point (in about 5 billion years from now-so keep paying your mortgage) when the sun expands and most things remaining on Earth get cooked. While humanity should learn how not to damage other forms of life on Earth and should actively work to avoid harm now, we are the only species likely to currently enable space travel and thus create the ability to evacuate the planet when such an evacuate becomes necessary to sustaining most of the life on/from Earth (not just us).
Thus calling for human extinction actually removes a potential boon to the survival of Earth’s various life-forms.
Point 2:
I would argue the harm via pollution that humans cause is mainly not do to the number of humans but to the manner we go about economic development. Global Warming is caused by greenhouse gasses. This are released by the burning of fossil fuels. If not for the latter the former would not be a problem. Also look at China, it has a great deal of problems relating to both air and water quality because of the many emissions (some of which are quite toxic) put into each. China’s emissions problem (touching on fossil fuels again) has grown worse after it started its population control program. This is because of the fact that there is no stable ratio between the amount of humans and amount of emissions, factories, cars, coal powers plants, and so on. China jumped ahead of the USA in CO2 emissions not by a population boost but through rapid and reckless economic development in which consideration of the environment was not an issue. Thus focusing on economic systems systems to be the logical way to prevent pollution and environmental damage.
Note: Population control does not involve counting and limiting the amount of emissions-only the number of humans. This is why it actually fails to serve as effective protection for the environment.