Specifically, I’m talking about sites like this.

I mean- come on. Just what in the fuck is that? “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement”? From the site’s basic 1996-era HTML page:

Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.

Now I have some problems with this; first off, it seems to be one of the many perspectives that regard Humans as somehow different from the rest of the planet. I mean, we are- in that we are now the dominant species on the planet; however, it’s important to note that we are also the only species that, and if I may put this bluntly, gives a flying fuck. if a Baleen whale is about to eat the last of some rare endangered species of krill, it doesn’t give a fuck. Why should it? It’s not it’s fault that that particular species of krill happens to be coloured a extremely bright red (or whatever colour) that they can identify and find easily. Only humans feel bad about doing what is necessary to survive. We (as humans) kill and eat livestock; in the grand scheme this is an advantage for the animals; they no longer have to hunt for their food or scavenge it, they can just laze and run about in a pen, or in the case of cows graze in the pasture to their hearts content; We (well, the farmers) try to protect them from their predators, and basically the entire process of that species survival is set in stone; it’s a form of inter-species mutualism, the fact that one of those species is us doesn’t change that into some sort of slavery. Hell, just by domestication we’ve created thousands of new species or at least breeds of species- if we are supposed to feel bad about species going extinct, should we feel bad about creating new ones?

The thing is, we as humans evolved and basically took over the planet; now it seems that our innate sense of outward altruism has extended to all other species and even the earth itself. This is preposterous. Other species should evolve around us- in fact, many already have- we shouldn’t just drop out of the race for no reason. I mean, holy shit, how much of an over-inflated sense of altruism would somebody need to think “golly, we are killing all these other species, it can’t possibly be their fault for being stupider, slower, and all around less intelligent then us, no, we must be evil”. No other animal feels remorse. Consider that for a moment. you think if there were 6 billion tigers on the planet they would decide to kill themselves for the good of the planet? Hell no. They eat gazelle and don’t give a fuck. the gazelle eat grass, you think they have nightmares where the grass screams in terror as it’s cells are ripped apart and those cells are masticated into a fine paste by their mouths? No. In fact, we don’t to co-exist and live with the animals, we could kill all of them for no reason, but that is the thing, there is [i]no reason[/i] to do so. Let’s consider a made-up animal, let’s call it the superpig (because I lack imagination, obviously). The superpig is an animal discovered deep in some unnamed jungle. Let’s say somebody, lost in the jungle, traps and eats one of these animals for food, and discovers that it is the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted, even though it was covered with bits of charcoal and didn’t have any seasoning at all. Needless to say he spreads the information and more and more people go deep in the jungle and hunt the superpig until it goes extinct. Some people like to qq at such a scenario. “oh poor piggies, OMG why do we think we can just trample everywhere”. But seriously, think about it. The reason the pig went extinct wasn’t because we are malicious and selfish assholes, but rather because the pig <i>tasted good</i>. There are plenty of insects that either taste bad to their predators, smell bad, or are otherwise unappealing as a meal; in the case of this supposed “superpig” none of this happened; only evolutionary traits that help the species become dominant. It’s fully possible that the superpig hunts a rare supergold truffle and it evolved a sense of smell able to hunt out these rare golden truffles, but the side effect being that it also makes them taste delicious to humans. Naturally, this isn’t a problem when they first develop the trait, because there are no humans around. But then the explorer encountered them and basically their ecosystem changed. They got a new predator. We like to think of ourselves as somehow above the whole predator/prey distinction, but we aren’t. Typically we are of course more predator them prey; I don’t think that we are a predator in the sense of domesticated animals for the reasons of mutualism I noted earlier, though.

The evolutionary line of all the animals that exist today has plenty of unrealized lineages; the trilobite went extinct long before mankind, as did millions, if not billions of other types of plants and animals. In many ways we protect species because we will take steps to prevent them from going extinct- why? Nobody knows. most of the animals that have gone extinct had serious shortcomings anyway. Dodo birds couldn’t fly, for example, and basically evolved to take advantage of a predator-free ecosystem; otherwise, over time, they would have either been made extinct by such predators or developed ways to survive. That is how shit works. Either kill or beat the shit out of what is trying to kill you. Or fly away, I guess. I just like the idea of a Dodo bird that evolved to fight kangaroos and could perform flying kicks. That said, there are plenty of similar birds, like the penguin, that cannot fly, but manage to survive simply because it developed a powerful swimming ability as opposed to flying. This makes perfect sense, because in their ecosystem there simply isn’t a whole lot for them to do in the air but fly around randomly; Seagulls need to take to the sky to seek out food, and owls use it to spot prey that they hunt on land, and so forth, but with penguins there isn’t anything in the air. So they developed powerful swimming ability via natural selection; if somehow another animal entered the ecosystem that was either a much better swimmer or was able to pick them off from the air or something, then the penguin would either need to develop instinctual tactics or tics that manage to help it elude that enemy, develop more powerful swimming ability, or some sort of defensive addon. (the last of which is highly unlikely). The only problem when that animal is man is simply that there is never enough time for any sort of adaptation on the part of the animal, simply because we don’t hunt like other predators would, which is, only for food, but oftentimes the leading factor is simply profit, and the method by which the animals are exterminated are very systematic and often occur over a short period.

In any case, the idea of purposefully making our species extinct is just ludicrous; “so the biosphere returns to normal”? And just what the fuck IS normal? I mean, the very reason that mammals and ourselves ever became a dominant species was because the dinosaurs were killed by something, and the mammals at the time happened to be equipped with the tools to deal with the aftermath and survive. The fact is, we don’t change the ecosystem or make it worse, we are a part of it. We are a part of the food chain, and if we were to voluntarily remove ourselves from this planet something else would eventually become sentient and start feeling self-important, or maybe they would see what was left of our society and learn that we killed ourselves on purpose and laugh in our face for being so <i>fucking stupid</i>. Also I like to imagine that they would be dolphins or dogs, because it’s funny thinking of them wearing a suit, even though the realism of such a scenario is pretty low.

To the website itself, I totally support their cause. I move that they stage a protest where they sit outside the government buildings of their choosing and take the first step by killing themselves. After all, voluntary extinction starts with YOU!

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