Althouse: The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

September 12, 2010

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

Whew! Nina Paley is really freaky!

62 comments:

mesquito said...: I hereby volunteer not to have sex with Nina Paley.; 9/12/10, 6:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Like Freaky Fromme!

Would have made a great member of the Manson Family.; 9/12/10, 6:39 AM
KCFleming said...: I second her choice not to reproduce.

All in favor...?; 9/12/10, 7:04 AM
Bob_R said...: Isn't this the opposite of Mike Judd's premise for "Idiocracy."; 9/12/10, 7:20 AM
MnMark said...: That woman represents the general mentality I've observed among the so-called "intelligentsia", the "smart" people with all those degrees who feel they know so much better than the rest of us how things should be done. She's so locked up in her head with intellectual abstractions that she can't see the actual horror of what she supports. Reminds me of Nazis with their eugenics, which all seems very reasonable in theory and which is coldly horrible in reality.

She looked nervous to me, like some part of her knew how ridiculous and wrong what she was saying was. "I'm not trying to convince anybody to do anything", she says, while presuming to speak for an organization that wants people to be extinct. So she's a coward in addition to being reptilian in her coldness towards humanity.; 9/12/10, 7:33 AM
KCFleming said...: It's quite possible that she and her organization's members were never in danger of reproducing, so hit on this idea as a way to (1) explain it away, and (2) feel superior in their nulliparity.; 9/12/10, 7:40 AM
tjl said...: Paley is clearly ripe for extinction.
Darwin would be pleased to see natural selection so perfectly demonstrated.; 9/12/10, 7:53 AM
mesquito said...: "Overpopulation: Too many of you, just the right amount of me."

P.J. O'Rourke; 9/12/10, 8:00 AM
traditionalguy said...: She may be highly educated, but she also is what most people would call Demon Possessed. A rational reaction to her and her movement would be to burn her as a witch because neither her nor her friends could argue against eliminating her evil existence.; 9/12/10, 8:02 AM
TosaGuy said...: mesquite nailed it.

If this twit truly embraced what she thought, then needs to give up anything that will be provided to her by those younger than her...such as a social security check or, when she is old, a home health care worker to change her Depends. If she wants humans extinct then she needs to return to the days of when life was nasty, brutish and short.

I wonder what type of "studies" her degrees are in.; 9/12/10, 8:04 AM
Anthony said...: I have a vague recollection of a science fiction short story from when I was a kid. It was in an anthology called something like "The Last Man on Earth" about "last man on earth" stories.

One of the stories posited a semi-totalitarian society in which it was decided to voluntarily go extinct by the oldest in the society killing the person next younger and so forth, until only two remained, at which point they would kill each other. So the two youngest (a male and a female about 16) decide not to kill each other and repopulate the planet.; 9/12/10, 8:13 AM
jr565 said...: The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement should merge with The Hemlock Society or Dr. Kervorkian. They could then match rhetoric with action.
But, I would strongly reccomend they get started soon, as I'm starting to feel a bit crowded in the overpopulated city I live in.

Can we at least set up some ground rules for people like her? We should have The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement operate under Logan's Runs rules. At a certain age if they haven't offed themselves voluntarily, we can off them for the greater good. Forty to Fifty years sounds about right.; 9/12/10, 9:02 AM
PoNyman said...: Movie idea:
Through argument, wars, government action and genocide humans become extinct. The next day, an asteroid hits the planet and all life ends.
The end.; 9/12/10, 9:53 AM
Anonymous said...: I'd bet that not in a million years could Squeaky give anything resembling a coherent defense of "biodiversity" as an end in itself, or why human beings had any obligation to husband the earth's resources for any purposes but our own. Or really why some speck of a planet and anything on it mattered in the slightest.

"I've lost my train of thought." You mislaid that a long time ago, hon.; 9/12/10, 9:59 AM
TWM said...: To paraphrase Barney Fife . . . "She's a nut."; 9/12/10, 10:08 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: So...Idiocracy was actually a documentary.

Twits like this convince the educated and able to not have children and the rest of the population continues to ignore her advice.; 9/12/10, 10:28 AM
chickelit said...: I'm glad Paley is no longer a proselytute

wv "foryn" That would be tweebonics for "foreign"; 9/12/10, 10:41 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: The Shakers were unavailable for comment.; 9/12/10, 10:46 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Full Disclosure:

I did not actually attempt to contact any Shakers for a comment.

According to Wikipedia there is still a Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. As of April, it had 3 remaining members.; 9/12/10, 10:53 AM
Robert Cook said...: "I wonder what type of "studies" her degrees are in."

She's a cartoonist and animator.; 9/12/10, 11:39 AM
madAsHell said...: She can't get laid.

So.....she creates a society where nobody can get laid.....and then says it is for the good of the earth...you know, Gaia.

Dollars to doughnuts says she is wearing Birkenstocks with heavy dark socks, and there is a Subaru in the drive-way with a fading Obama/Biden sticker on the bumper.

Oh, wait....I'm describing my moron cousin.; 9/12/10, 11:41 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Is being weird a requirement for a regular [aka irregular in the real world] on Blogginheads?; 9/12/10, 11:43 AM
Anonymous said...: "I wonder what type of "studies" her degrees are in."

She's a cartoonist and animator.

She's a very bad cartoonist and animator who hasn't figured out the most basic skill in Flash animation... tweening. Note in her animations how the movement just skips from one pose to the next.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1484635787266506285#

Flash will automatically fill in the "tweens" with smooth movement.

The dumb kid doesn't even know how to do this.

Can you imagine the Stalinist Cookie and this idiot Manson Family hopeful having sex?; 9/12/10, 11:49 AM
TosaGuy said...: I wonder how many of her ilk today would take this gal or her ideas seriously if they knew she was on Jerry Springer.

http://www.ninapaley.com/images/NinaPaleyShowNY.jpg

wv: carecide; 9/12/10, 12:03 PM
Robert Cook said...: Ms. Paley makes the mistake of assuming there is extrinsic value to the existence of any particular earthly species and thus she sees the "value" of all other species of life on earth, weighted against just humans, as "greater." She sees immorality in the devastation our presence has wreaked on the environment and on the creatures who are suffering and dying or are going extinct as a result.

But this is an abstract human conception. The universe is indifferent to us, and to all the other life forms that have existed or will exist here, and in earth's history there have been several mass extinctions and many lesser ones; new life forms have emerged over the long slog of time, and new cycles of certain life forms becoming dominant as other life forms die away begin again and again.

In short, there's no need to worry about ZPG except as it affects us. If we want to prolong an environment that will adequately support us, there are things we can and should do. If we don't, our environment will become harsher for us, and if we die out as a result...c'est la vie, as the French say, or "So it goes," as Vonnegut said.

Earth will abide, whether we are here or not, whether any currently extant life forms are here or not, whether new species of life arise or not, which they inevitably will, as long as earth's environment remains capable of spawing new life. Eventually, the sun will grow old and expand in size such that it will encompass Earth's orbit, and our planet will be burnt away.

Before that happens, humankind will be long gone, and many other species of life will have arisen and died away to be superseded by newer life forms, all varying according to the changing geography and climate of earth over the eons.; 9/12/10, 12:08 PM
Anonymous said...: I wonder how many of her ilk today would take this gal or her ideas seriously if they knew she was on Jerry Springer.

This explains the weird attempts to be pleasing and to ingratiate with a smile.

Paley is just another idiot smitten with the desire to be famous. And, she doesn't particularly care what she's famous for.

Good thing our western women aren't wasting their time playing the breeding sow, right? They have such important things to do.; 9/12/10, 12:33 PM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."
-- Robert Frost

She's extending her self-hating anti-american and anti-western philosophy to the ultimate: anti-human.

When Thomas Frank wonders "What's the Matter With Kansas?" the answer is that normal people are leery of siding with the side which is home (overwhelmingly) to this kind of idiot.; 9/12/10, 1:51 PM
Joe said...: She's a liar and has no integrity else she would kill herself. If it's immoral to add one more person to an "overpopulated" world, her very existence is immoral.

Of course, that's not what she's really saying--her problem is all those people who make her life inconvenient.

To put it another way, if she happened to get pregnant and went to term, would she kill her baby after it was born. The answer is no.; 9/12/10, 2:20 PM
Bender said...: Reminds me of Nazis with their eugenics

The National Socialists didn't make up eugenics on their own. They simply adopted the ideas advocated by the elite intelligentsia of the United States and Britain (including guys like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes).; 9/12/10, 2:26 PM
kentuckyliz said...: It is irrational that she should give up proselytizing for her cause.

A lot of procreation is primitive, irrational, and drunk.

99% of voluntary sterilization is rational, sober, and reasoned.

She should try to appeal to people's rational side to overcome their irrationality.

I wonder if she's married; has children; or put her uterus where her brain is and got sterilized.

Leave the continuance of the human race to the people with hope and faith--rabid Catholics and rabid Muslims. They're outprocreating everybody, especially the Muslims. Not many rabid Catholics around breeding for world domination like the Muslims are.

You don't need to fly planes into skyscrapers, just emigrate into other civilizations and outbreed the natives into dhimmitude.; 9/12/10, 2:46 PM
kentuckyliz said...: It's anti-natal Western feminist wimmin like that, that will probably result in the remaining Western women being forced to wear a burqa. Thanks, bitch.; 9/12/10, 2:48 PM
DaveW said...: Her schtick is dumb. But that grin she's wearing the whole time is creepy.

Around here we call people like her crazy.; 9/12/10, 3:46 PM
Deb said...: "But that grin she's wearing the whole time is creepy"

It's what I call a shit-eating grin.

She is laughably idiotic.; 9/12/10, 4:00 PM
Robert Cook said...: "She should try to appeal to people's rational side to overcome their irrationality."

She states in the video that she gave up on that when she realized decisions relating to reproduction are often irrational, so on that point you and she agree.

This Voluntary Human Extinction is misguided or naive utopianism, as are such ideas as libertarianism, anarchism, Communism, belief in an unregulated free market, etc.

Many well-meaning, idealistic and intelligent people can become puzzlingly bequiled by such notions, and, usually, manipulative power-mongers use these ideas and those who believe in them to serve their self-aggrandizing goals.; 9/12/10, 4:42 PM
Diamondhead said...: I hope she gets a wider audience. A schedule of carefully orchestrated appearances in American cities could cause a series of minor baby booms.; 9/12/10, 5:16 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: This is the inherent ideological vulnerability of the environmental movement: if the environment is good, and humans are bad, let's get rid of the humans.

The same thing happened with Marxism: if the lower classes are good, and the upper bad, then...

We're laughing at them now, but stranger ideas have gripped the intellectuals in the past, to our great cost.

I don't want to be a kulak. Let's oppose this garbage now before it gets out of hand.; 9/12/10, 5:29 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: It's what happens when people handle too many abstract ideas without a steady moral compass. You end up in some very strange places.; 9/12/10, 5:29 PM
Chuck Pelto said...: TO: Nina Paley
RE: Heh

Will you volunteer for whatever group is trying to replicate Tom Clancy's experiment in human extinction as written in Rainbow Six?

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Martyr, n., One who choses the path of least resistance to their own extermination.]; 9/12/10, 5:29 PM
Hucbald said...: A waste is a terrible thing to mind.; 9/12/10, 5:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Earth will abide, whether we are here or not, whether any currently extant life forms are here or not, whether new species of life arise or not, which they inevitably will, as long as earth's environment remains capable of spawing new life.

Well said. OK, we do want to keep an environment suitable for our own species to live in. However, the earth has been through several mass extinction events and life has always been able to recover. It takes millions of years, but if there's anything left alive it will populate and diversify and eventually develop into a complex ecosystem again. Short of a massive nuclear war, there's probably no way humanity could turn the planet into a lifeless rock. Life will adapt to us. What environmentalists are afraid of is change - especially human-driven change. But change happens all the time. Species arise and disappear. We're part of that process.; 9/12/10, 6:09 PM
Paco Wové said...: Robert Cook said...

...misguided or naive utopianism...

Mah irony meter! It done broke!!; 9/12/10, 6:10 PM
xlbrl said...: Why wait?; 9/12/10, 6:11 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: The future belongs to those who show up.; 9/12/10, 7:21 PM
Leadenheart said...: Personally, I don't get it. If you're an environmentalist, why don't you appeal to people's better natures?

It's like when your kid's room is dirty. You say, "Your room is dirty so you should go clean it so you have a nice place to live and play in." You don't say, "Your room is dirty, so you should GO F***ING KILL YOURSELF, YOU PRANCY BASTARD!"

How about this? I venture that the environment? Awesome. Humans? Also totally awesome.

Why does one have to be good and the other bad?; 9/12/10, 7:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Would to God this type would lead the for rest of us by example!; 9/12/10, 7:42 PM
Anonymous said...: There have been five mass extinction events on this plant. You would think that if you would like to preserve this particular biosphere before the next one occurs. You would bet all your cards on man to be the species preserve it. We all understand its value. We alone have been able to move into space. If we obtain the technology to travel between solar systems. We are most likely to take other species along (intentionally and unintentionally). Then next great extinction will happen with us or without us. I say let's keep the party going.; 9/12/10, 7:44 PM
Unknown said...: Please note that the founder is not Les Knight, but Les U. Knight.

"Les U Knight"

He developed this put-on, this impressively cool shtick at least a decade ago. What a spoof of the doom and gloom earth-first crowd!

I sometimes put VHEMT or vhemt.org on a form that I seem obligated to fill out, but am perturbed by having to put SOMETHING on the form. It brightens the day - maybe some joy is brought to some soul who is trapped in a cubicle.; 9/12/10, 7:50 PM
CW said...: She should voluntarily return her personal carbon to the earth as soon as possible.; 9/12/10, 8:37 PM
M. Simon said...: The decision to reproduce is irrational

Tell me about it. A voice in my head (God? Teh crazy?) told me to inseminate my mate. Stupid chick went for it.

Out of that we got a poet, a Fullbright scholar, an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer.

Best decision I ever made. Or best voice I ever listened to. Depending.; 9/12/10, 9:00 PM
M. Simon said...: Libertarianism stupid?

I dunno. Limited government seems like a really good idea to me. Evidently a good number of my fellow Americans agree.

See you in November.; 9/12/10, 9:07 PM
Paul said...: Why don't people like Nina get together and do a 'Heaven’s Gate' like nutjob Applewhite and his Hale-Bopp comet thing? Or a Jonestown thing.

I mean if they are willing to talk the talk, they should be willing to walk the walk.

But on a more serious side, these people are scary. It’s people like those that ran the death camps for Hitler.

Real true believers who look at other human beings as the cause of all the problems and their solution is extinction (for others of course, not themselves.); 9/12/10, 9:14 PM
Anonymous said...: I hear these people constantly saying species are going extinct every day. Some say hundreds to thousands a year.

Name 10 that died out in the LAST YEAR (2009). Show us a link listing them. If you can then maybe we have something to consider otherwise this is another wild unsupported liberal assertion. And if so, then clearly the Human Extinction Project is an evil farce.; 9/12/10, 9:23 PM
Tari said...: She makes me want to have more children. I guess that means she's good for something...

One thing I noticed that she touched on - probably not her main concern, I'm sure - but when she mentioned that the earth was over-populated she noted that there were even humans who were suffering (and not just her precious "other species"). Why don't people like her do something about THAT! Instead of spending her time as she currently does, she could do something to help those in need of food and medical care in the less salubrious parts of the world. Or does her attraction to extinction include being pleased with the thought that helpless children die every day of AIDS, starvation, war, etc? I'm much less offended by the thought that she wants ME dead than by the thought that she wants innocent children such as those to die, too.; 9/12/10, 10:19 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Everything on the planet will die. We live and die as individuals. Even if we look at species, they too will all die. Over 99% of the species that ever lived here are extinct. We will be too, someday.

There's no escape from the ultimate fate of all life, so why rush it?; 9/12/10, 10:30 PM
Unknown said...: She's not very dedicated to her cause. Now if she had left her insane comments to be posted after she blew her brains out, or drowned, or poisoned herself, then maybe a bit of grudging respect. But as it is she's just a cowardly fool.; 9/12/10, 11:16 PM
Tibor said...: Humans are a mixed bag and to speak of them collectively is useless. She is herself and example of just how varied we all are and generalizations about us is very testy. Especially about whether on the whole we are a desirable part of nature. (See my book, Putting Humans First, Why We Are Nature's Favorite [Rowman & Littlefield, 2004].); 9/13/10, 3:15 AM
Pigilito said...: We humans seem endlessly able to rationalize our situation. Given that no one wishes to mate with her, she therefore attempts to turn it into a philosophically based decision on her part to not mate.; 9/13/10, 8:19 AM
Unknown said...: actually her film "Sita Sings the Blues" is pretty good.

In it you find out she was dumped by her husband (lover?) via E-mail. He might of know something about her.; 9/13/10, 12:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Fortunately, those of us who don't believe in birth control will soon outnumber those who do.

G.K. Chesterton; 9/13/10, 4:07 PM
Anonymous said...: I love it when she says we are causing a planetary catastrophe as bad as "whatever" killed the dinosaurs. She admits we don't know. It is possible, as Gary Larson once suggested, that the dinosaurs took up cigarette smoking.

Can you get a degree and become a talking head through such a program on Netflix? She apparently has seen the best of sci-fi with Charlton Heston: "Soylant Green," "Planet of the Apes," and "The Omega Man." She hasn't read "Henny Penny."; 9/13/10, 4:19 PM
Dan Campbell said...: She probably seems more freaky than she is, because she's nervous at speaking in front of a camera. Can't fault her for that, took some guts to give it a shot.

She makes the most sense, towards the end. If we evolve into something more intelligent and rational and compassionate and responsible, then our future versions may well wonder about our value, essentially agreeing with her.

Of course, at least some of our current humans would seem to be necessary to produce these future beings - so a complete extinction would not be a good thing, at this point.; 9/15/10, 3:02 AM
Tibor said...: I submit we have evolved to be quite intelligent, compassionate, etc., but for us, unlike for others in the world, we need to choose this, it doesn't happen automatically. That is our uniqueness, living with options that make both good and bad ones possible. If "we" were to "evolve" from this, it would no longer be "us."; 9/15/10, 3:44 AM