Logical Conclusions: Rooting For Human Extinction
Dean
We've all heard the "environmental litany." We're running out of natural resources. The air and water are getting dirtier. People are getting sicker and starving at greater and greater rates because there isn't enough food to go around except for the wealthy fat countries. The forests are disappearing. The human population is exploding out of control and destroying the planet.
All of that is verifiably false. But people not only don't want to believe you when you tell them that, they actually tend to get angry when you try. Or to assume that you're nuts.
But it's all quite true.
The sad part is the natural outgrowth of the "doom & gloom litany" thinking is these people: the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.
The sad part is, while they are happy to use humor, they are actually quite serious: they believe the world would be a better place if the human race simply died out.
I'd call that the ultimate in self-hatred, wouldn't you? So sad, because it's so unnecessary.
The world would be a much better place if more people would have children. In free countries, more people are assets, not liabilities. And no, that's not an ideological statement, not a "feel good" statement. It's just the truth.
Curiously, the person who exposed me to them had already had children and did not regret having them.
The populations of underdeveloped countries is exploding. India's population is rapdily growing as well without immigration.
The real problems are that many experts, not enviro wackos believe that oil prices will only be increasing and the times of $1+ gas in the future will look like a history lesson.
India's and China's oil needs are on an exponential curve upwards and most oil experts believe that we are at our peak of oil discovery/production right now.
He replied that the whale would win. Let the humans die; the environment is more important.
He was deadly serious.
BK
"You first--we'll follow you in a while. Honest."
However, it is certainly true that the more developed a country gets, the lower its birth rate tends to be. Since very nation with democracy, rule of law, and a basically free market becomes steadily more developed (not to mention more environmentally healthy once they pass a certain basic threshhold in per capita income), if we want a better ecosystem we should be pushing for the spread of democracy and free markets.
As for oil prices: gosh, I haven't seen $1 gas in two decades at least. At the moment, gas prices, if adjusted for inflation, are not even close to record highs. Still, as worldwide demand for oil goes up, the price of oil will slowly go up too... which will simply create economic pressures for greater fuel efficiency and for alternative energy sources. So what's the big deal? (The question is rhetorical: there is no big deal.)
Ah, well. In a free society, what you see, all too frequently, is what you get.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Malthusians have generally been wrong, although as Jared Diamond points out, the Easter Island population did eventually kill itself off.
The point is to use "the liberal tradition" to look at it with some degree of nuance.
I last saw $1 gas two, maybe three years ago.
Jerry: Really? Wow. Where?
Hopefully, however, their unique brand of self-hatred won't take hold with enough people to make them all that influential.
You could get $1 gas in Austin, Texas upto about 3 years ago (last time I was through there). There was one over in SA by Brooks AFB too...Jesse James I think was the name of it...Right across the street from the State Mental School/Hospital.
I have never understood the anti-breeding folks. There is no way they're going to convince enough people NOT to have sex (and children) to ever really make an impact. Much as I respect the Quakers, they're philosophy is self defeating in that aspect, just as the 'extinction to humans' train of thought is. If humans are nothing more, we are Great Survival Mechanisms. The best way to survive is to reproduce...
When I lived outside of Atlanta a few years ago, you could easily find gas below $1. Lowest I ever saw was $0.79. This was probably 1998 or so.