The Movements That Hope For Humanity's Extinction

Meet The Eco-Movement That's Hoping For Humanity's Extinction

Mark Jeftovic 

Bestowing legitimacy on anti-humanism.

A recent article from The Atlantic explores (extols?) the rise of “Anthropocene anti-humanism”, a movement  “inspired by revulsion at humanity’s destruction of the natural environment”. This is a faction within the environmental movement who believes that humanity has already assured it’s own destruction, and that the world will actually be better off without peoplekind to mess up the place:

“From Silicon Valley boardrooms to rural communes to academic philosophy departments, a seemingly inconceivable idea is being seriously discussed: that the end of humanity’s reign on Earth is imminent, and that we should welcome it. The revolt against humanity is still new enough to appear outlandish, but it has already spread beyond the fringes of the intellectual world, and in the coming years and decades it has the potential to transform politics and society in profound ways.” (emphasis added).

Where previous ecological thought heavily criticized our impact on the environment, yet conceded humanity’s right to exist on this planet (gee, thanks), Anthropocene anti-humanists see us as deserving extinction:

“In the 21st century, Anthropocene anti-humanism offers a much more radical response to a much deeper ecological crisis. It says that our self-destruction is now inevitable, and that we should welcome it as a sentence we have justly passed on ourselves.”

One of the things I find interesting about it all is that I haven’t seen anybody call out The Atlantic for amplifying a literally anti-human philosophy of extermination. If some right-of-center outlet did an expose on an otherwise fringe collective arguing for the elimination of any group, it would be roundly attacked as dangerous hate speech, even if it were merely analyzing, rather than endorsing it (except for maybe, the unborn).

But The Atlantic is “The railhead of the Left’s intelligentsia” (a Steve Bannon puts it). Being written up in the Atlantic in sympathetic terms confers instant left-wing legitimacy on an idea that is literally anti-human and anti-life.

“It is a spiritual development of the first order, a new way of making sense of the nature and purpose of human existence.”, the Atlantic gushes. Likening it to Christianity or Communism as among “the most important movements in history” 

In the minds of the LessWrong crew, there’s no point in resisting it. We should just gracefully accept our own extinction (“Death With Dignity“).

tl;dr:  It’s obvious at this point that humanity isn’t going to solve the alignment problem, or even try very hard, or even go out with much of a fight.  Since survival is unattainable, we should shift the focus of our efforts to helping humanity die with with slightly more dignity.

In my earlier piece, Socialism isn’t a Failure, it’s a Fraud, I referenced the historical allegory “A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder”, written over a century ago by James De Mille. It was a fictionalized account of a lost civilization that had inverted all classical liberal values, and become a poverty worshiping, prosperity-loathing death cult.

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