[crow]

Just wondering about your opinions about these websites:

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/


http://www.childfree.net/


http://www.vhemt.org/aboutvhemt.htm
(this third link might not work for very long, I heard the website may be deleted because of content. It used to link to a group who call themselves 'VHEMNT', I'm certain several amongst you have heard of this group and their goal of human extinction).


In terms of peakoil, would you advocate such positions? These are people generally speaking who are advocating voluntary extinction. If peak oil is a problem related to overpopulation, isn't it good news that so many people are embarking on this path of self destruction?

[killJOY]

The DNA stops here.

[bobcousins]

The VEHMT site seems to have gone already! I don't remember it being very controversial last time I saw it.

I don't think this can work though, anyone who voluntarily bows out leaves more for those who wish to exploit the planet. Isn't that Jevon's paradox?

The idea may have intellectual appeal to an educated rich westerner, but how do you persuade the poor and uneducated person?

I think the best we can hope for is that population will stabilise as it has in the west, but in other areas population will be limited by sheer lack of resources. Assuming Zimbabwe stays the way it is, it will be instructive to see what happens to their population.

[MagnoliaFan]

Let nature take its course.

Many families today try to have children but can't. Sperm counts are 25% of the level that they were compared to 75 years ago. Is it pollution? Urbanization? The Earth has a way to cull it's excess population.

China imposed a one child per woman policy. What was the result? One hundred million young men who will never be able to find wives. A lot of them are in the army. I suspect that the reason for increased nationalism and aggressive foreign policy is because China is a male-dominated society (by strength of numbers).

The root causes for wars is competition for resources. I suspect that the human species has something in their DNA to go to war to kill off it's surplus male population.

If a family has prepared itself for a sustainable and self-reliant way of life for the upcoming peak oil crisis, I say, let them have as many children as they want. This is the kind of people that we want to populate the Earth after the great die-off, not the yuppie scumbag sheeples who think that the shopping mall is the be-all and end-all to their existence.

[holmes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'I') think the best we can hope for is that population will stabilise as it has in the west

[Dukat_Reloaded]

Yes we may soon be unable to breed. The way it is now, everyone who is born is encouraged to breed, regardless if they have health problems or deformities. In nature, it is constant survial of the fittest, for humans that has ceased to exist, so our DNA is constantly being degraded every generation until soon, people will be born with health defects and all will require medications from birth for them to survive. Also many men and women are artifically imprenating themselves because they can not reproduce naturally, I wonder how healthy the reproductive organs are in their children, they may grow up impotent.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'T')he VEHMT site seems to have gone already!

[Gary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dukat', ' ')Also many men and women are artifically imprenating themselves because they can not reproduce naturally,

[sameu]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', ' ')And the EU? U guys are stable? Huh? Ur not reading this site right are u?

[crow]

Voluntary extinction is akin to suicide and I have no respect for this position. If people choose to live a life whtout children, that is one thing, but to encourage everyone to stop having children for the better of the world in the goal of achieving human extinction is ludicrous and darn right stupid.

the first to have such a position was a small Christian sect in the first and second century after christ... they became extinct and good ridance.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crow', 'V')oluntary extinction is akin to suicide and I have no respect for this position. If people choose to live a life whtout children, that is one thing, but to encourage everyone to stop having children for the better of the world in the goal of achieving human extinction is ludicrous and darn right stupid.

the first to have such a position was a small Christian sect in the first and second century after christ... they became extinct and good ridance.

[DomusAlbion]

Only one thing to say about VHEMT. It has not future.

[Sencha]

I don't know how constructive this input will be, but I recently read through "The Life and Death of Planet Earth", which describes the fact that the planet is in its middle age and we've only got a few more millennia to survive on it.

If humanity is going to become inevitably extinct anyway, what does it matter if it happens now? I love the voluntary extinction idea. We'd just be speeding up the very thing that is unavoidable to begin with. We are the only race we know that experiences the level of consciousness that we do, but I think its too much for us to handle.

We shouldn't have to bare the burden of our own self awareness anymore. I never saw a frown on one of these:



I think we should aspire to be more like them and less like the disgruntled, self-destructive race that we always have been. Furthermore, the book I read goes into explaining how we came to be. Sometimes I half-joke that we're freaks of nature. But that book seems to suggest its true.

[crow]

Sencha,


In my book, giving up is for losers. The attitude of 'why try we've already lost' is one that leads to perfectly nowhere.

if that is truly your outlook on life, and the outlook of people who advocate coluntary extinction, then I say good for you all - more room for us fighters on good ol' planet earth.

[elroy]

The problem is the dumb fucks who keep breeding like rabbits, having a dozen kids, won't read a site like that and curb their reproduction, while the intelligent human beings who realize the problem should not..you know.

[SurvivalAcres]

Voluntary or involuntary extinction - what difference does it make? It's beginning to look like it's already out of our hands.

[crow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('elroy', 'T')he problem is the dumb fucks who keep breeding like rabbits, having a dozen kids, won't read a site like that and curb their reproduction, while the intelligent human beings who realize the problem should not..you know.

[Paul64]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crow', '
')
I don't see having 15 kids as the strategy of an idiot, but the strategy of someone who wants his gene pool to survive. What's wrong with that? Its the purpose of every animal on earth to continue its species through its own reproduction.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crow', '
')I don't see having 15 kids as the strategy of an idiot, but the strategy of someone who wants his gene pool to survive. What's wrong with that? Its the purpose of every animal on earth to continue its species through its own reproduction.

If shit is going to hit the fan no matter what, then I would say have as many children as you can, 10 at least, so that at least one of them will be within the 105 of humans surviving the SHTF scenarios.

[crow]

That is all circumstancial. just because someone doesn't have many children or someone has many children doesn't mean he automatically chooses the wrong strategy.

I for one would respect a family who choose to have another child rather than obtaining a boat or a motorcycle for fun. In that sense it is a matter of priority, not of a matter of bad decisions.

Same for those who choose to remain childless. A lifetime of fun, and at the end, nothing to show for it. Congrats. Maybe the world will be a better place when your genes are gone?