No more sex...ever?

[SaintAugustine]

Here's bit I just read...taking things a bit too far...I think....

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of mankind. VHEMT supports human extinction primarily because it would prevent environmental degradation. The group states that a decrease in the human population would prevent a significant amount of man-made human suffering. The extinctions of non-human species and the scarcity of resources required by humans are frequently cited by the group as evidence of the harm caused by human overpopulation. VHEMT was founded in 1991 by Les U. Knight, an activist who became involved in the environmental movement in the 1970s and thereafter concluded that human extinction was the best solution to the problems facing the Earth's biosphere and humanity.

 

[dawny0826]

We're naturally wired to survive.

 

[SaintAugustine]

We're naturally wired to survive.

agree, agree, agree

 

[Skwim]

Just protected sex.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Sex without the risk of pregnancy? I'm game.

 

[dawny0826]

Just protected sex.

Why didn't they think of that?

 

[SaintAugustine]

Why didn't they think of that?

I wondered the same thing...my guess is their belief that protection is fallible.

 

[tumbleweed41]

So no descendents of VHEMT members?

Natural selection at work....

 

[SaintAugustine]

So no descendents of VHEMT members?

Natural selection at work....

lol...chalk another one up up to charles darwin..well said.

 

[waitasec]

Here's bit I just read...taking things a bit too far...I think....

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of mankind. VHEMT supports human extinction primarily because it would prevent environmental degradation. The group states that a decrease in the human population would prevent a significant amount of man-made human suffering. The extinctions of non-human species and the scarcity of resources required by humans are frequently cited by the group as evidence of the harm caused by human overpopulation. VHEMT was founded in 1991 by Les U. Knight, an activist who became involved in the environmental movement in the 1970s and thereafter concluded that human extinction was the best solution to the problems facing the Earth's biosphere and humanity.

how sad...
don't they know that if they just used birth control, the pill for instance, would cut down 99.9% of all pregnancies?

or maybe i'm assuming to abstain from reproduction means to abstain from sex...

 

[Penumbra]

It'll work itself out, I suppose.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I like their idea though...

 

[Quintessence]

As a supporter of VHEMT, their position is being somewhat misconstrued here. Refusing to breed =/= refusing to have sex and/or strict abstinence.

Q: Do we have to stop having sex?

Sex is the way most babies are started, but is sexual intercourse really the primary cause of human reproduction? Let’s consider the statistics:

The World Health Organization estimates that 100 million couples engage in sexual intercourse on an average day, which is only 3.3% of the world’s six billion humans. This pitifully low amount of love-making results in around 910,000 pregnancies, thanks in part to contraceptives and sterility. For a variety of reasons, 55% of these zygotes don’t make it through fetushood to live birth. According to a current U.S. Census Bureau estimate, 359,000 do make it daily.

So, less than 0.4% of each day’s heterosexual trysts result in the creation of new humans—a statistically insignificant correlation for proving causation. In fact, it rounds to zero.

Try it for yourself. Estimate how many times you’ve engaged in sexual activity in your lifetime. Now estimate how many times you were trying to make a baby. Divide the little number by the big number to give you the percent of times sex and procreation have simultaneously motivated you.

Perhaps if there were more opportunities for sexual gratification, so many people wouldn’t feel the need to fill a nagging emptiness with a needy dependent.

[Please note: the above shows how statistics may be manipulated. If we approach the equation from the other end, more than 99% of us were started by sexual intercourse.]

And to Tumbleweed's comment:

Q: Won’t VHEMT die out when all its members die off?
If an idea lacks enough merit to be passed on without being force-fed from an early age, it probably deserves to be forgotten.

Awareness isn’t passed along in our genes. Every VHEMT Volunteer or Supporter is the result of a breeding couple, and yet we have all decided to stop reproducing. Often, we arrived at this conclusion independently and without support from friends and family.

The concept of voluntary human extinction has a life of its own. It’s an idea whose time has come, though it may be a little late.

 

[SaintAugustine]

Quintessence..thanks for chiming in on this..from VHEMT point of view. To be sure we are the bane of the planet Earth's natural state, and I loved the percent breakdown, yet I just don't see us slipping away into extinction via ZPG..Zero Population Growth.

 

[Quintessence]

Quintessence..thanks for chiming in on this..from VHEMT point of view. To be sure we are the bane of the planet Earth's natural state, and I loved the percent breakdown, yet I just don't see us slipping away into extinction via ZPG..Zero Population Growth.

Oh, I don't either. This is why I support the movement's philosophy; I know it won't actually happen and I don't honestly want humans to go extinct. I do, however, really enjoy the apparently extremist opposition to what I perceive as an equally extremist demand placed on all women to bear children in their lifetime. If you're a woman my age and say "I never want to have children" most will look at you like you're a freak and there's something wrong with you. Or they're prattle on about how when you meet the right man you'll change your mind and all sorts of other assorted bull ****. That shouldn't be. I like how VHEMT turns the question around from "why wouldn't you want to have a baby?!" to "why would you want to have a baby?!" It turns social norms on their head, and to resolve human overpopulation in a humane fashion, these kinds of social norms will need to be turned on their heads. Social norms also have staying power.

 

[Revoltingest]

The Shakers tried this.
Worked pretty well.
Not too many of'm around.

 

[Sunstone]

Eliminating humans from the scene is not going to significantly reduce the cruelty of nature.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Eliminating humans from the scene is not going to significantly reduce the cruelty of nature.

But on the plus side, it will significantly reduce those who whine about the cruelty of nature.

 

[tumbleweed41]

It is as if groups like this forget that humans are a part of nature.

 

[Vinayaka]

Boss wrote for some more information ... anything to support her 'theory'