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james_nicoll linked to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, an organization whose platform calls for a voluntary end to all human reproduction, as the only possible means of saving the environment.

So okay, they're crackpots. Pessimistic, misanthropic, doom-relishing crackpots. There's something to shake your head at on every page. But what really got me was this little fantasy about how great it would be if the ability to reproduce suddenly vanished, worldwide:

Gradual extinction of the human race will result if zygotes of Homo sapiens never again begin cell division.

Abortion providers might be the first to notice -- happily going out of business in a few months. A worldwide panic might set in, but without reason. There would be no negative impact on the world nor on society as a whole.

Individuals' lives could change profoundly, but all for the good. Starving people would begin finding enough to eat and resources would become more plentiful. New housing would be unnecessary.

All human technology would be scaled back but could still advance. Nuclear power plants could begin to be safely decommissioned. Dams could be removed. Technology could focus on dealing with unsolved problems such as radioactive and other toxic wastes. Healing the wounds of past exploitations could become a priority, reversing the expanding deserts and shrinking forests.

Some of our influences, such as global warming, may be impossible to stop and reverse at this point, but we could ameliorate the effects somewhat.

Conditions for society would also improve as shortages are eliminated and our death rate drops to an unheard of low.

Domestic plants and animals could be phased out as farms and ranches are converted to ecosystems supporting wildlife and natural vegetation.

The last humans could enjoy their final sunsets peacefully, knowing they have returned the planet to as close to the garden of Eden as possible under the circumstances.

The last one out could turn off the lights.

The only conclusion I can come to, based on this section, is that the folks at VHEMT are a bunch of young, healthy idiots who sit at their computers all day and have never actually ventured out into society or even met another human being.

Although I suppose that there is the alternative hypothesis: that once humans stop reproducing, a race of invisible fairies will appear to provide the labor and services required to allow an aging population to "enjoy their final sunsets peacefully."

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There would be no negative impact on the world nor on society as a whole... Healing the wounds of past exploitations could become a priority

...right. Because we'd suddenly care much more about a planet we weren't living on than one we were?

have never actually ventured out into society or even met another human being.

QFT!

Because we'd suddenly care much more about a planet we weren't living on than one we were?

Right on! My soon-to-be-ex-husband used to be big into recycling and saving the environment until it finally became clear that we were not going to be able to have children. Then his attitude was "As long as it lasts until I'm gone, why should I give a shit what happens to the world then? Let it all go to ruin!"

Chuckle. Scott Adams had Dilbert and Dogbert debating this point. "We don't own the world; we borrow it from our children".

"In our case, it's even better! We don't have children! We're borrowing it from complete strangers! We can do anything we want to it."

"Someday I hope to have children."

"Let's hope they're not as selfish as you are."

There is so much that's wrong with the above that I don't know where to begin.

Oy.

Never mind the unspeakable horror of being the last one out.

I can't imagine it, but the very thought makes me want to cry.

Honestly, I think that a lower population would solve a lot of problems. However, it bugs me that that opinion is so stained by nutcases. :( I don't think it's necessary to extinguish humanity entirely to achieve a lower population, and I don't think that putting laws on how many kids people can have or forcibly sterlizing people is the answer either. Generally, I think that the best way to halt the population explosion is to teach better sex education, to make the means of safe sex available to anybody who wants them, and to generally increase the education level and standard of living of everyone.

It's certainly true that if we had, say, a billion people right now many of the environmental issues would be a lot better than they are having eight billion people, and the possibility for future sustainability would be much greater. It also really alarms me that between prehistory and 1950 we went from nobody-ish to two and a half billion people and then from 1950 to now we went from two and a half billion to seven and a half billion.

My biggest worry about it is that if we don't find *good* ways to encourage curbed population growth and/or population reduction, then circumstances, reality, human nature, pollution, availability of resources, etc., will find *bad* ways to curb us.

eight billion people

6.6 billion.

seven and a half billion.

6.6 billion.

Your estimates are getting closer, if that helps.

Hmm. I wonder where I saw seven-and-a-half billion. I'm sure it was a number I read from some source that looked reputable to me at the time. (The "eight" was just rounding up.)

7.5 to 6.6 in this case still registers to me as 'nitpick' rather than 'refustation', though: I'm not sure that I find 6.6 billion any less alarming.

Educating and empowering women is a pretty reliable way to reduce birth rates, as far as I know.

Obviously, it doesn't *always* work...

Educating and empowering women is a pretty reliable way to reduce birth rates, as far as I know.

But it's not nearly punitive enough to really be satisfying. Nor does it feed that all-important sense of superiority to the great unwashed ignorant masses.

Oh, right. Better stick to contraceptives in the water supply then.

It only needs to bring the average down to "work".

It's the childfree movement taken to the logical extreme. I just want to know, what is their strategy for convincing all 6,613,181,920 people on the planet that it's in their best interest to not reproduce at all/further?

From what I've read of them, their "strategy" seems to consist of snidely superior masturbatory rhetoric and deeply tasteless jokes. I'd have a lot more respect for their "movement" if there was a requirement that a person be surgically sterilized before being allowed to speak on its behalf; at least then I'd believe that the members were willing to put their money (and genetic descendants) where their big big mouths are.

The childfree movement is "I don't want to have children, and that's a legitimate decision." That I don't want relatives, or strangers, to pressure me to have children doesn't mean I think other people shouldn't have them. Some of us just profoundly don't want children, and think it's too big a responsibility to put on the unwilling. Others have sound reason to think that trying to raise children would be harmful to them, the children, or both.

Alex is wonderful. My nephew is wonderful, and I'm proud of him. They're both being raised by parents who want to be parents.

I can do without the idiots who hate being around children and conveniently forget that they're ex-children themselves.

Sorry, I mean nothing against people who have decided not to have children - that's a valid stance and I support it 100%. (Especially since having a child myself - parenting is *not* a job for someone who doesn't want it!) In my experience, many people who use the term "childfree" can be pretty disrespectful - downright rude - in the way they refer to parents or children, or even other people's decision-making processes. No offense meant to people who are willing to live and let live (i.e. "I don't want kids, but you can have them").

Having experienced pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood, I am more convinced than ever that no one should do it unless they really, really want to. I applaud people who realize that they don't want to or shouldn't parent, and then don't.

Unfortunately, the reasonable element of the childfree movement tends to be drowned out by the other element.

If you do a google search on "childfree movement," the majority of hits that come up are not written by childfree people (cf this blog post (http://imnotkidding.wordpress.com/2007/06/08/the-childfree-movement/)). This is not a way that childfree people tend to see themselves.

'Childfree' is not a "movement," it's a descriptive term for an individual choice. Some of the individuals who make that choice are crazy. Most are not. Of course you're only going to see the crazy people if you look at the people who see such a personal, individual choice as a "movement." How else could it be?

-J

They must imagine that the animals would be so happy about our self-extinction that they'd tend to the elderly, turn themselves into food, etc. Sort of like Cinderella, with the birds. Right?

Hee! That must be it. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, because we watch Disney Sing-Along videos all the time.

a race of invisible fairies will appear

Sure! It could happen.

Those who most oppose humans reproducing are almost always in professions and lifestyles that rely pretty much on high population for their existence. When they quit their jobs in cities, large shops, centres of learning, factories, computer based inductries etc etc and hie to the farmlands to take up organic subsitence farming and weaving of baskets for a living, to live in little timber slab huts devoid of materials and objects constructed in factories, then I'll start taking their nonsense seriously.

Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense. (from their website).

I am sure crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as the members of VHEMT become less dense, though I am surprised at their honest critique of their own philosophy.

LOL

*snicker*

:Shrug: Self-correcting problem.

a race of invisible fairies will appear to provide the labor and services required to allow an aging population to "enjoy their final sunsets peacefully."

I like your way of putting it better than mine, but I've made the same basic point to a few people who supported voluntary human extinction, and I have yet to receive an answer.

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