Updated 29 May 2009
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Overpopulation.
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Voluntary Human Extinction Movement |
www.VHEMT.org |
Text from Wikipedia |
As summarized in Disinfo in 2001, the basic concept behind VHEMT is
the belief that the Earth would be better off without humans, and as
such, humans should refuse to breed. Or, as the movement puts it:
"The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous
exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth's ecology.
The hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species
of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species:
Homo sapiens... us. When every human chooses to stop breeding,
Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory,
the day there are no human beings on the planet."
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Les U. Knight, who is credited with giving the name
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement to the philosophy,
is the owner of VHEMT.org, and is cited as the founder,
de facto leader or "prime avatar" in different publications.
However, Mark Darcy believes that this name clearly represents
an ideal rather than an actual person, as Les U. Knight is a
pseudonym, representing "Let's Unite".
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VHEMT recognizes two levels of support:
- "Volunteers" are people who believe in the VHEMT goal of
eventual human extinction, and have decided to have no children
(or no more, if they already have children).
- "Supporters" are people who believe that
"intentional creation of one more of us by any of us is unjustifiable
at this time, but extinction of our species goes too far".
VHEMT requests participants to declare which type of member
they are, and the movement also requires the choice to be implicitly made.
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4.
Interviews and media coverage |
There has been some media coverage of the ideas of Knight and of VHEMT:
in 2001, Knight appeared on Hannity & Colmes to present VHEMT's ideology.
On the program, he stated that "as long as there's one breeding pair of
Homo sapiens, there's too great a threat to the biosphere".
He also expressed no hope for voluntary human extinction, but stated that
"it is the right thing to do".
Knight was also interviewed by MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, during which
he debated with the host on the merits of the movement. Knight stressed
the movement's peaceful, non-violent goals and reiterated that
the movement's motivation is environmental protection.
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VHEMT spreads its message through the Internet, thus reaching mainly
wealthier nations. A few of these countries already have fertility
rates below the replacement rate and are thus already trending towards
"human extinction", or at least a reduced population.
However, according to VHEMT, wealthier nations have the largest impact
on world resources.
Transhumanists and other critics reject the VHEMT assumption that
humans have ceased to be a part of nature. Instead they argue that
nature has, through humanity, become conscious and self-reflective
for the first time, and that it is inconsistent for those who claim
to value the biosphere to seek to extinguish one of its creations.
Furthermore, as transhumanist Nick Bostrom has argued, only humanity
is in a position to avert existential risks to the biosphere, such
as asteroid impact. Mark Darcy Believes that the Vehement doesn't
care just for the earth, but for the whole Universe. It means, we
represent a larger risk to the universe than an asteroid to Earth.
After all, it's just one planet.
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Compiled, hand coded and copyright
© 2009, John Palmer,
All Rights Reserved.
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