To think the human race should respectfully die out?

[RomeoLikedCapuletGirls]

I’m not being goady as I’ve genuinely thought about this over the past few years as the following issues have come to the fore:

Climate change
Industrial meat industry
Pandemics

I’ve tried being vegan but always revert to eating meat for health. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was a much needed part of our evolution. The problem is of course the intensive whole scale nature of it, and the suffering it causes. Even the plant industry causes a lot of damage to the environment and ecosystems. The sheer numbers of humans needing feeding is the problem.

Again, with climate change. It’s a question of over-population. The more of us there are the more we deplete our earth’s resources we deplete. Limiting consumption is simply not working so we need something else.

And although we might crack Coronavirus, there’ll be another virus along soon to challenge us. And it’ll spread quickly because there are so many of us.

I’m not advocating mass suicide of course!

Just that we encourage our offspring to not have children until we have either died out or at the very least reduced our numbers to such a point that we are just one species amongst many, living on this planet and not causing the disproportionate amount of harm to the environment and other animals.

There’s nothing to argue that the human race should continue forever.

I think it’s risky to tell your children not to have them. Eg If your dd feels deep regret because she listened but time has run out it could bring deep sadness. As a parent I would not like to be responsible for that sadness.

Yeah we've had our time.

Yeah we've had our time

Bloody hell some of you lot are dramatic ! Even if you attributed ‘modern life’ as being from the industrial revolution to now we are a mere speck in the lifespan of humanity.

‘Our time’ is far from over.

SleepingStandingUp posted:

"awesome news for you, just saw the press briefing where she basically said 2nd and 3rd etc waves are gonna happen. May I suggest you arranging a street party and giving out free hugs"

Ha ha ha! That made me chuckle. Trouble is, sadly, that's the sort of behaviour we've already seen, so maybe OP will get their wish sooner rather later.

I absolutely could not agree more, OP. Humans are a disgrace.

Give women a hundred years of unfettered control and I bet we could turn it around.

Humans are a disgrace

Speak for yourself!

There have been billions of humans who do wonderful things, who love, who care, who invent, who create, who discover. What of them ?

NAHALT, eh @FreeKitties?

No. I haven't had children and in all likelihood never will, but I wouldn't dream of telling people that they shouldn't have children. I find it a ridiculous suggestion.

What I would like to see is people using birth control to avoid having more children than they can reasonably expect to feed, clothe, and care for, but someone will be along shortly to state that it's none of my business and that I should be grateful for the opportunity to subsidise all these "extra" children.

Previous posters have mentioned rising population numbers are because of better medicine and people living longer. There are however plenty of countries with a huge percentage of their population under 30.

The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas in the world has a very high birth rate and IVF is booming. Of course there are huge political and cultural issues at play there but more people can’t be making the situation there easier.

I disagree.

The earth is not sentient. We evolved and developed here alongside every other species and therefore have as much right to live and thrive here as any other species. It’s just a shame we can’t do that without damaging other species and their environments.

Earth is literally just a floating rock in the middle of a vast endless array of nothing. Might as well have intelligent life on it for all it’s worth

Just that we encourage our offspring to not have children

No
Her body, Her choice
I should get NO SAY over dd having kids or not, even simply trying to sway her mind with "helpful suggestions" i find off putting and controlling

I haven't rtft... But I'm with you op. All species are selfish and self propagate to environmental limits, the trouble with humans is we do it on such a grand scale the only ultimate outcome is the planet slowly becomes unlivable and then people suffer greatly in the battle to be in the group with shrinking resources.
I regret having children from the point of view that they will inherit all these problems and live their lives watching things deteriorate. I love my children dearly and wish their future (or their children's future - ironically but that will be their choice) was brighter.
Obviously we could find solutions if as a species we all pulled in the same direction (never going to happen) and for every success story there are lots more stories of environmental exploitation. Human dominance only has one ending and it isn't pretty. 😔

Humans aren’t a disgrace. The vast majority aren’t anyway. We didn’t ask to be born, and most of us just plod along doing the best we can. I don’t feel any guilt about our fucked up planet, because I didn’t fuck it up. I put the blame on governments and the ones who who use up resources in abundance.

Humans are awful to each other, never mind the planet. But then nature is harsh. I like paganism...i think it is the only religion that sees earth as an organism and reveres nature as a result.
The trouble with many religions is that it seeks to place humans above nature...we are not...we are part of it.

Humans probably caused this.

Warning - horrific content.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53273361

I agree with the op.

You don't need to eat meat for health reasons. That's a massive cop out. I had health issues when I ate meat and was warned against becoming vegan, but in actual fact I'm stronger, healthier with a cleaner conscience as a vegan.

A lot of the suffering in the world was created by human greed, ignorance and selfishness. We don't need to drive everywhere, we don't need such a big house, we don't need to mindlessly shop for more and more stuff. Everything we do has such a big impact on this planet. Ghandi said that the world has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. So sadly, I agree that the world would be a better place if we slowly died out :(

Here you are OP.

A round up of anti-natalists, population matters and the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT (pronounced vehement) for short.

Possibly Mumsnet isn't the place to promote these organisations but having an awareness of the need to limit family size is something we can all embrace.

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis

This type of argument strikes me as similar to that coming from those who during lockdown said that they went for a walk and were horrified at the number of people around. It's like everyone else's existence is problematic.

Anyway, OP, you first.

All species are horrible. Dolphins are violent sex predators, why do they get to stay?

There are other species out there that pillage the populations of others, anyway. In places where deer are overpopulated bird and smaller animals die out because the deer have eaten all of the places they would nest.

Shall we sterilise all the deer as well?

Humans definitely do overconsume and it’s disgraceful. But when people suggest we should all just die instead of attempting to change, my instant thought is “Well, you first then”.