Features Aug 21, 2018 at 4:00 am

Sure, the Voluntary Extinction Movement Doesn’t Want You to Have Babies—But There’s Much More to the Story

Inés Estrada

Comments

1

Any member of this organization that doesn’t immediately kill themselves is hypocritical... and laughably delusional.

2

@1: Well, no. People will die naturally. Advocating suicide is very different from advocating not reproducing.

2

With everything we know about the malignancy that is homo sapiens, it takes an enormous amount of hubris to decide to have a child.

We need to end subsidies past the first child to act as a deterrent to making more. I'm happy to pay for healthcare, education, etc for your first kid but not beyond that. I'm also happy to pay for your free birth control, sterilization and abortions.

3

“I like my life too much..."

Oh, so you like your life, but its perfectly fine to advocate that others are denied the same? There is a name for you sir: hypocrite.

5

@1 Another reasonable, sensible and humane statement bun Dr. Zaius who never seems to take his own advice.

6

It's strange, actually. I'm an antinatalist on a personal level but I'm not sure I'd advocate it as a universal solution for everyone.

7

To anyone who is not willfully, desperately deluding themselves it should be perfectly clear that there are way too many human beings on this planet. Still, saying something like "the continuation of homo sapiens really can’t be justified if you look at it from the perspective of anything but a human" kind of makes you sound a bit naive. The Anthropocene is but a micro-blip in the history of life on earth. Even if we eradicated all life down to microbes, in say 100 million years after our extinction entirely new lifeforms would cover the globe. If you care about the future of civilization advocating for reducing procreation makes a good deal of sense. If what you care about is "anything but human" then maybe you should advocate the opposite. The sooner humans bring on their own demise by breeding like flies and annihilating their habitat the sooner the world can get revert back to its 'natural' state.

8

homo sapiens will go extinct at some point, just like ever other species does. the voluntary extinction movement can try to hurry it along a bit, but the eventual outcome is not in doubt. just a question of time.

9

This is a brilliant article and as an anti-natalist I am thrilled to see it being published and perhaps making people question the morality of bringing a child into this world when the world is really not that nice of a place. In case anyone cares, most anti-natalists (including myself) actually do care about people - it's not some sad sack movement where we all talk about having a Jonestown type massacre. It is simple science that proves the Earth cannot sustain any more humans and there is simply no need to. Those that are desperate can adopt! There are plenty of children out there who would love a home. At the very least we should give incentives to those who DON'T have children rather than the opposite. I don't mean to sound smug or whatever but not having children is one of the most selfless things you can do. Peace!

10

Wow. So I really am helping out this dying planet by not having kids. Yaaay!

11

@5 that might have a bit more bite if wasn’t coming from the pile of shit guy with the suicide Avatar.

And I’m not the one gleefully recommending the extinction of my own species. Going so far as start a god damned organization. They are no different than any other apocalyptic end-times cult. And it’s only a matter of time before piles of shit like this decide they can’t wait for the end to happen “naturally.”

No. These piles of shit get to stump for some delusional nice idea of slow motion genocide of the human race but, oh my, they get to stick around and use up resources and pollute all they want.

Fuck that bullshit. Kill yourselves or work to save human civilization. We don’t need more cynical cowards wasting time and resources.

12

@5 that might have a bit more bite if wasn’t coming from the pile of shit guy with the suicide Avatar.

And I’m not the one gleefully recommending the extinction of my own species. Going so far as start a god damned organization. They are no different than any other apocalyptic end-times cult. And it’s only a matter of time before piles of shit like this decide they can’t wait for the end to happen “naturally.”

No. These piles of shit get to stump for some delusional nice idea of slow motion genocide of the human race but, oh my, they get to stick around and use up resources and pollute all they want. They get to take up the space of someone who might actually care about the species.

Nope. Fuck that bullshit. Kill yourselves or work to save human civilization. We don’t need more cynical cowards wasting time and resources.

13

Suicide avatar? Wrong, as usual. Look again.

Given that you're a cynical coward wasting time and resources, why haven't you taken the advice you're so freely dishing out?

14

Stallman is 45 and met Knight in 1991 - when she was 18? And had already been married and divorced? And had spent 'several years' with other men? Something's not ringing true and I suspect it's the journalism.

15

"And while it’s true that people are having fewer children in general—which Knight attributes to greater access to birth control—the idea of replacement-level fertility (i.e., having one or two children that “replace” the parents and their subsequent footprint) is a myth."

Completely, flatly, wrong. The reason that we are still increasing in population is that a lot of people/countries have not reached replacement-level fertility yet. Some places (i.e., Japan) are already below replacement-level. It's no accident that the places that do this are wealthy, well-educated, and largely free from religious fundamentalism. There is no reason in the world that that can't become the norm. There is also no reason that we as humans can't learn to limit out population and live with rather than on top of other species.

16

@10: And you're welcome!

17

@1 Dr. Zaius: I guess I didn't read Mamie Stevenson's article very carefully. I thought the organization was for curbing additional human populating--not necessarily for promoting suicide.
@13 TheMisanthrope: I'm veering off topic, but my guess is that your avatar image suggests that of someone playing a wind instrument---maybe a horn or a flute of some kind?


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