Are you really serious?
We’re really vehement.
Many see humor in The Movement and think we can’t be serious about voluntary human extinction, but in spite of the seriousness of both situation and movement, there’s room for humor. In fact, without humor, Earth’s condition gets unbearably depressing—a little levity eases the gravity.
True, wildlife rapidly going extinct and tens of thousands of children dying each day are not laughing matters, but neither laughing nor bemoaning will change what’s happening. We may as well have some fun as we work and play toward a better world.
Besides, returning Earth to its natural splendor and ending needless suffering of humanity are happy thoughts—no sense moping around in gloom and doom.
Do volunteers expect to be successful?
VHEMT volunteers are realistic. We know we’ll never see the day there are no human beings on the planet. Ours is a long-range goal.
It has been suggested that there are only two chances of everyone volunteering to stop breeding: slim and none. The odds may be against preserving life on Earth, but the decision to stop reproducing is still the morally correct one. Indeed, the likelihood of our failure to avoid the massive die off which humanity is engineering is a very good reason to not sentence another of us to life. The future isn’t what it used to be.
Even if our chances of succeeding were only one in a hundred, we would have to try. Giving up and allowing humanity to take its course is unconscionable. There is far too much at stake.
The Movement may be considered a success each time one more of us volunteers to breed no more. We are being the change we want to see in the world.
Does VHEMT have any enemies?
After we’ve seen a few hundred TV dramas where the good guy kicks the bad guy’s butt, it’s tempting to look at the real world with this same knee jerk, zero-sum mentality. We might look for an enemy to attack when championing our righteous cause, but in reality our enemy doesn’t have a butt to kick.
In the end, the real “enemies” are human greed, ignorance, and oppression. We can achieve more by promoting generosity, awareness, and freedom than we can by vainly kicking at a buttless foe.
Great progress will be made toward improving the quality of life on Earth by countering greed with responsibility, ignorance with education, and oppression with freedom.
Instead of meeting the bad guys in the street at high noon and shooting it out, why not invite them into the saloon to work things out?
What is the official position of VHEMT?
Since the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement isn’t alive with a brain or a mouth, it can’t take positions or have opinions. It can’t get into arguments, tell people what to do and think, nor get punched for doing so.
Voluntary human extinction is simply a concept to be added to existing belief systems, not a complex code of behavior to live by. No committee of Movement shakers decides what position everyone else should take.
Most Volunteers subscribe to the philosophy embodied in the motto “May we live long and die out”, but if someone doesn’t want to live long that’s their business. Really, the only action required for becoming a VHEMT Volunteer or Supporter is not adding another human being to the population. A couple could conceivably be expecting and decide to become VHEMT. That new human would be the last one they produced. VHEMT Supporters are not necessarily in favor of human extinction, but agree that no more of us should be created at this time.
Volunteers are so diverse in religious, political, and philosophical views that it would be divisive to begin formulating official Movement positions. Beware of dogmas. We speak with our own voices.
We have children. Can we still join?
Today’s children are tomorrow’s destiny. Our children have the potential for achieving the awareness needed to reverse civilization’s direction and begin restoring Earth’s biosphere. Most could use our help in realizing their full potentials.
Naturally you’re welcome to join, and you won’t be alone. When people gain the VHEMT perspective, they decide to add no more to the existing human family. They don’t pressure their children to give them grandchildren and might encourage them to make a responsible choice with their fertility.
There is no reason to feel guilty about the past. Guilt doesn’t lead to positive solutions. Being VHEMT has little to do with the past. It’s the future of life on Earth that Volunteers want to preserve.