I have a problem even with patriotism in that it seems so exclusive, so the concept of your family vs. my family is not much to my taste either. Was it Toffler in Third Wave who predicted that one day we may live with and share jobs with other members of work-groups in economic, family-like alliances?
Evolutionary imperatives? How's this for violating evolutionary imperatives? <g>
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
First I will post an external commentary/ article about them, followed by the link to their site.
"May We Live Long and Die Out"
-- slogan of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
"It may seem ultimately self-defeating, but there are small organized clandestine cells working on the development of technologies to diminish or even eliminate the race of man from the Earth."
-- Vincent M. Cannistraro, National Strategic Information Center
The environmental movement holds a special terror for ex-CIA agent Vincent Cannistraro. He fears that within the radical fringe of the environmental movement there are a bunch of human-hating but earth-loving mad scientists, who will stop at nothing to save the planet from human damage. They would even go so far as to destroy all or most of the human race to attain that goal, and are currently working to develop a virus that would wipe out mankind, while sparing everything else.
But human extinction crusader Les U. Knight, who may well haunt Cannistraro's worst nightmares, is anything but misanthropic. He loves the earth but, despite his stance that they should be phased out, loves humans too. His "life's work" has gelled into what he calls the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT (pronounced "vehement"), a loose network of Volunteers--people who volunteer not to breed--who believe that the solution to the world problem is gradual phasing out of the human race, by voluntary means only. When asked whether VHEMT Volunteers are largely misanthropic, Knight--vehemently--answers in the negative. "Misanthropes tend to be more of the involuntary human extinctionists," he says, "and they would like to see more diseases that we can't cure. ... A third of the mortalities on the planet today are unnecessary. They were people who would not have been born if people had a choice. And they are only born to starve and die horrible deaths. ... The lower the birth rate, the higher the quality of life, for all life, especially for humans."
The quality of life will be highest of all when the human birth rate is zero. Les U. Knight goes way beyond the out-dated notion of "Zero Population Growth" to the more advanced idea of zero population. The world and its teeming life forms, presently ailing under the yoke of Homo sapiens, Knight asserts, would not miss us.
"Humans really are not in anybody's food chain," he points out. "If we disappeared, other than for the fact that all of our naughty little messes would still be around, if it weren't for that, if we could take all that with us, and our domesticated animals, we wouldn't be missed one little bit. In fact, the whole idea is that it would be a great improvement on the planet's life system. The biosphere would breathe a sigh of relief."
The biosphere might sigh with relief, but for many, the idea of human extinction, even if voluntary, is unsettling. Not so for Knight, who doesn't feel the slightest bit of nostalgia for our inevitable demise, which would, of course, mark the end of art, music, history, science, philosophy, literature and baseball, along with all the really bad stuff. "It's just sort of a sadness, the mourning of the passing of something that really had wonderful potential, but somehow went awry," to Knight. "All of the things that humans consider important are only important to humans," he says, "They really don't help out anything else."
Those who are still reluctant to phase out our species, Knight believes, are merely in a state of denial; when they finally face reality, they too will become VHEMT Volunteers.
Voluntary Human Extinction, as the Solution to the World Problem, may seem to be an extreme measure to those who have not yet gotten in touch with their inner Volunteer; to them, Les U. Knight may look like a kook. But when you think about it, he's just using good old fashioned common sense. In contrast, our practice of breeding more humans to fuel the production/consumption treadmill to reach the ideal state of a "growth economy" and "full employment" is based on massive delusion. It often seems as if people really think that their sins of consumption will be atoned by eating rainforest crunch ice cream, or by simply buying more things, as long as they're labeled "recyclable." People like to think of themselves as being environmentally aware but prefer not to face the fact that every new person is a walking, breathing, environmental disaster.
"So why don't you commit suicide?" asks the hypothetical skeptic. Les U. Knight answers, "Death comes soon enough. More good can be done by living than by dying." This is the crux of the matter for VHEMT, the idea that human extinction is good, but early death is not.The other crux of the matter is that even if human extinction is achieved via non-breeding rather than early death, it must be voluntary because, as Knight points out, involuntary human extinction is always coercive, sometimes genocidal and never equal.
But how do you convince the ever-fruitful teeming millions of breeding-maniacal potential Volunteers to come around? Well, first you encourage them to read the movement's gently persuasive newsletter These EXIT Times. The first issue, used for outreach, is an introduction to and clarification of some potential misconceptions about the movement. It explains:
These EXIT Times doesn't carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.
Rather, These EXIT Times presents The Movement's encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of the Earth's ecology.
As Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions, probably billions, of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species; Homo sapiens... us.
The editorial from Les U. Knight himself, "Les Talk," is a pro-vasectomy pep-talk to other men, imploring them to "... stop just talking about women's rights and dare to put your balls where your mouth is." He reminds them that women have "endured painful IUDs and side effects from the pill... abortions, miscarriages and, yes, even live births, " while "most of us won't even endure a layer of latex rolled over the business end of our private parts." He pleads, "Come on, men! Somebody's getting screwed here, f'cryin' out loud," concluding "as millions can testify, being sterile ends the muss and fuss of contraception for the rest of your life. ... Tie the lover's knot and you'll never have to say you're sorry. ..."
Unfortunately, there are still many untied knots out there, and many many men who do have to say they're sorry, though some don't even say that. The often unhappy result is a visit to the local abortion clinic, or, even worse, a baby. But VHEMT favors abortions "only when someone is pregnant." Knight adds, "pregnancy, of course, should be prevented whenever possible. Unwanted pregnancy is the cause of almost all abortions, and VHEMT certainly doesn't favor unwanted pregnancy. The Movement doesn't even favor wanted pregnancies. If there were no need for abortions there would be no abortions."
These EXIT Times also features fun interactive charts, sort of like an Activity Page in Highlights. The "Eco Depth Gauge," which asks the musical question, "How deep is your ecology?" describes a continuum of ecological depth, ranging from "Superficial: We should take good care of our planet, as we would any valuable tool"
to "Abysmally Deep: A quick annihilation is too good for humans. A horrible, fatal illness from outer space is only fair." Probably Vincent Cannistraro's mad environmentalists would reside in the netherworld of abysmally deep ecology, but VHEMT Volunteers would generally fall around the "Profoundly Deep" level: "Humans are too great a threat to life on Earth. The species should be phased out."
And as the potential Volunteers digs their way to profoundly deep ecology ( being careful not to dig further), they will visit the stages on the "Path of Progressive Awareness," which leads from pre-awareness through shock, denial, hopeful anger, hopeless anger, hopeless acceptance, hopeful acceptance and on to the final stage of Vehemence.
As the VHEMT reaches an ever-growing number of potential Volunteers, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement may actually be spreading--like Cannistraro's human extinction virus--at this very moment. Only this virus will not cause human pain and suffering, it will cure pain and suffering forever.
For those who have not yet caught the VHEMT virus, who are still looking for the solution to the world problem, Les U. Knight advises: "Some say, 'If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.' Actually, we're both the problem and the solution. Look around and you'll see the problem. Look within and you'll find the solution."
Article:
teleport.com
VHMNT site:
vhemt.org |
