Poll: Voluntary Human Extinction

[SenseOfTumour]

I saw a similar if not so radical suggestion on a psychology forum, a fairly mature and intellectual place you'd think. The guy in question suggested a voluntary 'no more childbirth' for 5 years worldwide, in a bid to get some control over the population.

Looking at the comments section you'd have thought he'd demanded a cull of all children (which I probably still would have gone along with, heh).

Honestly, I'm happy I'm here, looking at the state of their comment section.

As for me, yeah, I did the decent thing and put on so much weight that I'm not getting any, therefore won't be adding to the population.

It's just a shame we can't get some education out to some of the third world countries and let them know they don't need to have more than a couple of kids any more.

I know children still die, but not to the extent of a few hundred years ago.

I don't think we need to be wiped out, but a pause on the growth might not hurt.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I don't think we need to be wiped out, but a pause on the growth might not hurt.

The biggest downside of a pause is that, after say a decade without reproduction, there will be a 10 year gap between this and the next generation. Worst will be the thing that generation has to deal with: people will start to drop like flies, with only a small club to clean up the mess (literally and figulary speaking). The world would collapse.

Anyway, yes we have to curb our population growth, or else humanity will buckle under itself. It's not the earth we have to worry about, that existed long before us and will exist long after us. Whatever we will do, the planet will recover, the question is: will we? With the current state of affairs, we're slowly destroying ourselfs.

 

[starrman]

I'm gonna go with stfu hippy. Why do we keep calling everything we do un-natural when we are a part of nature?

There's no reason you should do, as long as you're happy to concede that your natural approach will mean eventual destruction of the earth and each other.

 

[Prometherion]

Population growth can only be sustained by food production and resource surplus. One day our food supply will not be able to support so many people and a large chunk of the population will starve or kill each other over the available resources. Its called the Malthusian trap.

 

[bad rider]

I'm gonna go with stfu hippy. Why do we keep calling everything we do un-natural when we are a part of nature?

There's no reason you should do, as long as you're happy to concede that your natural approach will mean eventual destruction of the earth and each other.

Time for the pessimist arguement. Prove it.

 

[orifice]

Not such a bad idea really. Death to humans!

 

[starrman]

I'm gonna go with stfu hippy. Why do we keep calling everything we do un-natural when we are a part of nature?

There's no reason you should do, as long as you're happy to concede that your natural approach will mean eventual destruction of the earth and each other.

Time for the pessimist arguement. Prove it.

It's not pessimism, I'd have thought it was fairly obvious that increasing population causes decreasing resources and that that gradient is exponential. If we agree on that, is it too far a jump to say that this breeds increased competition for those resources? Lack of resources also leads to poor health, poverty, fighting, lawlessnes, corruption etc. This all seems common sense to me.

EDIT: I should just add that I'm not advocating voluntary euthanasia or sterilisation. I'd support a slowing of the birth rate through education and access to help. Unchecked the worlds headed for disaster but I've not gone wacko over it yet.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Those advocating the voluntary extinction of humanity are welcome to lead by example.

The rest of us will reap the benefits of a slowing birth rate that comes with the benefits of a higher standard of living. Western countries right now have birth rates well under replacement rates, and are growing only through immigration already. Access to modern economies (and birth control) mean that the benefit of having large families dwindles while the cost increases.

You don't need "one child" policies such as the one China imposed, or even movements like VHEMT. You just need to let women have access to contraceptives and everyone have access to clean water and fair markets. Population will return to a more reasonable figure soon thereafter.

-- Steve

 

[Veylon]

Those advocating the voluntary extinction of humanity are welcome to lead by example

This is my first thought on this idea as well. You lead by leading, not by saying, "You all, go do this."

 

[Hawgh]

pssh, they're welcome to abandon ship whenever they wish to. Bloody quitters.

 

[uncle-ellis]

Alien 1: Wow I wonder who lived here?
Alien 2: I dunno but they must have been stupid.
Alien 1: Yea I mean who fucks-up there planet then buggers of leaving nuclear waste and pollution behind for all the polar bears to enjoy.
Alien 2: I know, anyway lets go get wasted.

3 hours later

Alien 1: OMIGOD! BOB WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY WIFE!

 

[GazJD]

Oh ok.

Let's let thousands of years of history, crucial advances in social and scientific evolution, and the only known intelligent species in the universe become erased from existence, so that a bunch of animals can live in "nature's splendor."

Seconded ... and indeed thirded by my future children.

The irony is that if we did end humanity there would be no one there to appreciate the change ...

 

[bad rider]

I'm gonna go with stfu hippy. Why do we keep calling everything we do un-natural when we are a part of nature?

There's no reason you should do, as long as you're happy to concede that your natural approach will mean eventual destruction of the earth and each other.

Time for the pessimist arguement. Prove it.

It's not pessimism, I'd have thought it was fairly obvious that increasing population causes decreasing resources and that that gradient is exponential. If we agree on that, is it too far a jump to say that this breeds increased competition for those resources? Lack of resources also leads to poor health, poverty, fighting, lawlessnes, corruption etc. This all seems common sense to me.

EDIT: I should just add that I'm not advocating voluntary euthanasia or sterilisation. I'd support a slowing of the birth rate through education and access to help. Unchecked the worlds headed for disaster but I've not gone wacko over it yet.

] Well my point really is prove we will doom ourselves. I take on the point that we will have less resources, but it's likely that with greaer amounts of people more technological advancements will occur and more farming will occur because until the point the sun runs out we have a very large source of energy we can utilize.

 

[starrman]

Technological advancement is dependent in part upon having the resources to devote to it, resources which as we've already noted will become in short supply. The percentage of technologically educated people within the population is more likely to fall against dwindling resources than rise. Until the technology reaches a high enough standard, solar power is just too expensive and too inefficient to replace conventional means of power and with dwindling resources is unlikely to reach that high standard.

I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow, but I think it is inevitable. Sure, we could suddenly happen upon a way of sailing off to another planet tomorrow, but it's unlikely and I'd rather not put my trust in a gamble like that when a simple approach to birth rate stability would be far easier achieved.

 

[Grand_Poohbah]

Haha just for this I'm increasing my carbon footprint tenfold.

 

[John Stalvern]

What slovenly people. They're the only ones who shouldn't reproduce.

 

[tustin2121]

Here's what I say to these human extinction and environmental wackos who think the same:
"You go first!"
"Please, set an example, and we'll follow you when our brains fall out..."

 

[tustin2121]

Sorry for the double post.

I'm gonna go with stfu hippy. Why do we keep calling everything we do un-natural when we are a part of nature?

There's no reason you should do, as long as you're happy to concede that your natural approach will mean eventual destruction of the earth and each other.

Time for the pessimist arguement. Prove it.

It's not pessimism, I'd have thought it was fairly obvious that increasing population causes decreasing resources and that that gradient is exponential. If we agree on that, is it too far a jump to say that this breeds increased competition for those resources? Lack of resources also leads to poor health, poverty, fighting, lawlessnes, corruption etc. This all seems common sense to me.

EDIT: I should just add that I'm not advocating voluntary euthanasia or sterilisation. I'd support a slowing of the birth rate through education and access to help. Unchecked the worlds headed for disaster but I've not gone wacko over it yet.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that education will not lead to a slowing birth rate if indeed it is true that education does not stop kids from having unprotected sex like we established in other thread (not that I agree with that, but I'm going to use it anyway).

Secondly, I want someone to name the resources that we could run out of in a relatively short time. Don't bother naming Coal or Oil, because we've still got large untapped deposits of both and both remake themselves over time (it was recently found that oil wells seem to be filling back in).

 

[Nomad]

As some people have pointed out before me... (like this person here)

I'm actually quite sick of people who think that just because we are on a higher level of intelligence that we should cease acting along our own natural track of behavior. Before we came along, animals ate other animals (fuck PETA), animals shit where they ate/drink (pollution), and cave men (not cromagnon (sp?)) waged small wars. .

... humans are also a part of the "natural order". We do what we do because it is our nature to do so. For us to exterminate ourselves would actually be to disrupt the natural order of things, as our emergence is a part of that natural order.

Just like I say there is no such thing as an "unnatural substance". Everything we have, from plastics to stainless steel, is made of basic elements we find in nature. If the parts we use to make them don't exist in nature, then where the hell did we get them? It's all natural, we just restructure it.

... Exceptions are the basic elements we can actually make ourselves, like roentgenium, but these are almost always useless and break after like 10 minutes due to instability anyway.

So no, there is absolutely no reason for us to go extinct, other than us being eaten by wolves, in which case it'd be the natural order of things.