NEW YORK - EXTINCTION IS THE KEY TO SURVIVAL

Have you been reading all these stories from our Universal Sadness issue? Shit's bleak. All over. Good thing genius Les Knight has single-handedly discovered a solution to humans turning the earth into a giant floating, dried-up booger. And it’s a very easy solution, so easy and simple it’s surprising no one had thought of it before. He started the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT), an organization whose primary tenet is to not have any offspring. That’s it. That’s the key to our planet’s survival. Because having babies is basically the same thing as pumping an oil well directly into the Pacific. Sure babies can be cute and funny and rewarding sometimes, but have you ever tried putting one of these fuckers to bed or making them shut up in public when they don’t want to? Kids can kind of suck. Anyways, we got Les to give some specifics on why nobody should be conceiving another human ever again.

Vice: You claim the idea of voluntary extinction has been around for hundreds of years. How did you funnel it into VHEMT?
Les Knight:I formulated my key set of beliefs around the late 80s. I had just moved to Portland and had been thinking about it for a long time. In the early 90s I put out a zine called These Exit Times. Only three issues were printed before I decided to move the operation over to the web. My entire mailing list for the print version was smaller than one day’s visitors to the site. I realized that a lot of people out there have come up with the same ideas independently and they started to use my site as a forum.

What do you do for a living?
I’m a substitute teacher for a public high school. I have the summers off, which gives me time to focus on VHEMT.

How do you feel about kids?
A lot of times kids are more interesting than adults, especially after they start speaking. I can’t really relate to “goo-goo-ga-ga” baby talk. I like kids a lot, and that is one of the reasons I think we shouldn’t make more of them. So many go uncared for. A lot of people in the movement had kids before they realized that continuing to do so was not a good idea. That’s perfectly acceptable. They can influence their children by discouraging them from having grandkids.

Do you ever sit around with other VHEMT members and make fun of “breeders” like a bunch of bitter homos?
In discussion among any in-group you’re going to hear things that aren’t as polite as what people might say in public. Even though some people do use the term “breeders” it’s selective. There are people who seem to want the term applied to them.

Like who?
The Duggars in Arkansas. They just gave birth to their 18th. If the term breeder applies to anybody it’s them. They may even embrace it. We are brainwashed and indoctrinated from a very early age that we all should have children. We are told that it’s how all societies operate. I don’t believe in that.

If a bill was proposed to allow the hunting of humans in overpopulated areas, would you support it?
No, I think reintroducing our natural predators would be a better move, such as the grizzly bear. The only place it still exists in California is on their flag. We’ve killed all the predators. There are still some things like mountain lions and we’ve got quite a few black bears. They will definitely eat a human, or at least kill one.

The whole point of your movement is that you believe other species should reclaim the earth. I assume you’re a vegetarian. When was the last time you ate meat?
Yes I am, but there are some meat-eaters in the movement. Yesterday I accidentally ate meat for the first time in years because they mixed up my order. I got my “veggie” burrito home and it tasted weird. Turns out there was a piece of chicken in there. I didn’t finish it.

Is recreational sex OK in the movement’s eyes?
Oh yeah. Isn’t that why we all do it? Procreation is one of the rarest reasons people have sex anymore. When you consider how many times people have sex around the world on a daily basis, trying to create a baby is not the primary goal. I think it’s a great idea and if more people had recreational sex our attitudes about each other might improve. I wonder if things would be better in this world if our leaders were having more. If Bush and Cheney had more sex they might not be so mean.

How about the gays? No chance of having a baby there. Do you view them as sexually evolved?
I think it is a wonderful thing. It has to be consciously considered. Gay men aren’t going to procreate, but there is something of a baby boom going on with lesbian couples, in regards to artificial insemination. In Oregon there are no restrictions on adoption by gays and lesbians. So they could go that route. There may be some obstacles there, but of course there are obstacles and risks in breeding your own from scratch too.

How do you imagine the earth sans humans?
Well, it’s more about what leads up to our extinction. We are putting perpetually more stress on the web of life and pulling strands from it at the same time. Eventually we are going to reach a tipping point where the biosphere starts to collapse. There’s a book called A World Without Us that details what might happen if humans suddenly disappeared. He starts off with NYC, which is really fascinating. Within days the subways would flood and in a short time the streets would collapse and the rivers would run through them. Unseen workers constantly maintain the city. Just look at areas humans have abandoned, such as Chernobyl. Of course we have some radiation there that is causing mutations and cancers but not as much as we expected. It’s become a de facto wildlife preserve. The other place is the DMZ between North and South Korea. There are landmines there so storks have to be careful when they touch down. I think they may have even evolved to some extent in that they are able land lighter without tripping the mines.

Do you foresee some sort of massive die-off in the near future?
I think there is a very good chance. Any species that overshoots its carrying capacity is likely to suffer this fate. That is just how biology works. A collapse of civilization is not impossible and it appears we are heading in that direction. That definitely would cause widespread death. We want to avoid that. We can avoid it if we get control of our fertility and be responsible as individuals.

DARBY BUICK

Comments

[Baby Factory]

Holy vagina! Michele Duggar's birth canal is like a fucking vending machine. Jim Bob must be tearing that shit up nightly.

more scary to me than the fact that they have 18 kids is that each of them has a name that starts with j. they haven't gotten to jezebel yet though.

"I can’t really relate to “goo-goo-ga-ga” baby talk." You don't say you fucking idiot asshole.

speaking of breeders, I wonder what he thinks of this crazy lady: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/suleman-octuplets-row

If only Les Knight's parents were part of this movement we wouldn't be dealing with his stupid rants.

[Dig Duggar]

The Duggar Family photo album just made my day. They formed their own family orchestra, kind of like the Osmonds, but way gayer and a little bit more Christian. One of them plays the harp! How symbolic, right? Then I saw the fucking buffet line they have IN THEIR HOUSE. With a fucking little buffet awning with "Duggar Family" printed on it! Are you kidding me?

[anger management]

I see no evidence of Les Knight ranting, people. he seems pretty rational. calm the fuck down.

why not start the crusade with yourself, then, les? oh wait, you need to stay around to make sure the effort continues, right? got it.

He makes a lot of sense. There's not much argument you can make against the idea that the planet is going to be just fine once we're extinct. Of course, then he goes and says something stupid like:

"There are landmines there so storks have to be careful when they touch down. I think they may have even evolved to some extent in that they are able land lighter without tripping the mines."

Noticeable evolution happens within 50 years sometimes? Really?

And then you realize that his "movements" aims are totally hopeless. I do think we should offer condoms and IUDs to the whole world like they're toothpicks in diners, but good luck influencing a meaningful percentage to suppress their biological drive.

We're fucked either way, so make some cute babies yall!

[Mark Hughes]

Assbag Irony. Kill yourself, fuckface. Leave my kids out of your wish to jump into the black. I love my daughters. They are one of the few things in this life that make me happy. You don't like kids because you've never bothered to grow up. Or you just can't get enough of cock in your ass and can't even begin to understand what the point of procreation is. My advice to you, Les, is to swallow some more cum, eat as many pre-babies as you can. Tha's a good fellow. Now fuck off.

[Jason]

I personally don't have any desire at all to have kids. I fuck to cum, not to conceive. If other people want to have kids, that's fine. I could really care less. I'm not going to start a lobbyist group to try to ban people from conceiving.

This is in contrast to Christian Republicans who want to ban contraceptives, gay marriage, sex toys, pornography, sodomy and anything else that pertains to having sex exclusively for plessure.

maybe i'm just a no-good selfish prick but i don't give two shits about what happens to earth if we die out.

[Emily]

Oh my god, thank you so much for putting this up on Vice. I seriously thought I was the only one who felt that way now that Kurt Vonnegut is dead.
Mark Hughes, no one is telling you to euthanize your kids (who I'm sure you have the means to take care of). I started to feel this way after the patriarchal "quiverfull" movement began to spread in North America.
http://www.quiverfull.com/

The Duggars are part of this disgusting "breeder" movement, as are fundamentalist mormon sects like the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the one where fourteen-year-old girls are forced into plural marriages with men three times their age). Jon and Kate (Plus 8) are not.

[Mark Hughes]

This is Digger, Theater-of-the-Streets bullshit and it's tired and old. This buffoon obviously has the time and drive to do something useful with himself, so maybe he should. Or maybe he can't. People like this strike me as the type who, in ten years, will be found to be schizo and wind up in a mental hospital. I hate this fucking site. You people are rancid. It's going to be funny when America completely collapses and all of you hipster retards start crapping your shorts because you are unable to do one single thing except crack wise and spot a nice tee-shirt in a pile. Fuckers.

yo hughes, if you dislike the site so much put your head back in its ostrich hole and fuck off

this guy is cool. I really hope a disease kills us all.

[Rufus]

If I were a professional substitute teacher, I'd probably want to exterminate the human race too!

[Les U. Knight]

Mark, it's encouraging that you care enough about this subject to get emotional about it. We just have some misunderstandings to clear up and I think we'll have some middle ground. As someone pointed out, we're not suggesting that anyone kill their children. We'll be better able to take care of existing children, like yours, if we stop creating more than we're able to take care of. The collapse of America you foresee is unfortunately a possibility, and another good reason to not bring another of us to life in it. You're right that I "can't even begin to understand what the point of [human] procreation is." Can you educate me on this, please?
It's been suggested that I "start the crusade" with myself. Sorry I wasn't more clear: we're advocating an end to breeding, not suicide.
It's easy to see that producing eight mouths at once while only having two breasts to feed them with is not wise, but we are doing the same thing on a global scale. Mother Earth would be much healthier if there weren't so many of us sucking on her. We'd be better off as well.

[Rufus]

Les, it should be no surprise that you get strong negative reactions such as Mark's given that you have EXTINCTION as part of your group's title and presumably its ideal. And although you and your circle may not advocate killing, it's very, very easy to imagine some on your side doing just that. Should it become apparent that the decline is not happening fast enough, or that The Wrong Sort of People are continuing to have children, someone with the biological know-how may well decide to help things along a little more actively. Also, although you say you don't advocate suicide, it's quite likely that aggressive euthanasia of the old will be required should the demographic pyramid get ever more imbalanced -- which is an inevitable outcome of your approach.

I'm left wondering why you consider the natural world to have value -- so much that preserving it is worth obliterating civilization -- while human existence does not. Absent you and your sentimental attachment to it, the planetary ecosystem is nothing more than a collection of matter that happened to come into a certain configuration in an uncaring, oblivious, and meaningless universe. What difference does it make whether it survives or not? It has no independent value apart from what humanity extends to it.

[Marc Sawaya]

Rufus, the argument in your second paragraph can be used both for and against VHEMT. What difference does it make whether we survive or net? Are you saying that our value of the ecosystem is the only thing that's important? That without us everything is rubbish?

As far as killing, I think the vast majority of those in the movement feel the way we do because we want to see and end to the suffering, not an increase. That's why the first word is "voluntary".

[Les U. Knight]

You're right, Rufus, strong reactions to our extinction are no surprise. What's surprising to me are weak reactions to extinctions of non-human species. More are going extinct now than at any time in the past 65 million years. We are generators of the sixth massive extinction, but we don't seem to be all that concerned about it.

Breeding is such a mental blind spot that when we suggest relieving crowded conditions, most people think of increasing deaths. There would be fewer deaths, especially of children, if our birth rates were improved.

I share your concern about care for the elderly, not just because I hope to be one someday. As retirement savings are looted by financial institutions, suicides are likely to increase. It might not matter how many younger people there are to take care of the elderly if the elderly have no money to pay them. Looks like our economic pyramid scheme trumps the demographic pyramid.

Marc expressed my thoughts on your comment that Earth's biosphere has "no independent value apart from what humanity extends to it." Absent our sentimental attachment to civilization, it's "nothing more than a collection of matter that happened to come into a certain configuration in an uncaring, oblivious, and meaningless universe."

[Phil]

"Why Don't you just kill yourself"

Because suicide causes SUFFERING for the survivors - namely family and friends. VHEMT is about STOPPING suffering. Therefore, suicide stands in opposition to the organizations core values. Besides, from a strategic perspective, suicide decreases the opportunities to spread the non-procreation message.

So the optimum solution is this: Continue living for the sake of preventing anguish among family and friends, and to do your part to spread the VHEMT word - just reproduce.