When and how did VHEMT start?
Roots of VHEMT run as deep as human history. Potential for a voluntary human extinction movement has been around for as long as humans have.
When Ice Age humans hunted animals to extinction, at least one of the sapient neanderthals among them may have reasoned beyond bewilderment. As the Fertile Crescent became a barren desert, and the Cedars of Lebanon were sacrificed for temples, someone must have thought, “this bodes ill.” When Romans fueled their empire by extracting resources from near and far, surely someone remarked, “Humanus non gratis,” or words to that effect. Someone had to get the idea that the planet would be better off without this busy horde.
Someone, that is, besides the middle-eastern god, Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah. Tradition tells how, in prehistoric times, this creator-god realized his mistake in making humans and was going to flush us from the system, but in a weak moment he spared one breeding family. Oops! (Genesis 6: 1-22).
The Story of Atrahasis, an earlier Sumerian myth recorded in Babylonian text, tells of multiple gods conspiring to rid Earth of the bothersome creatures they had molded out of clay. One sneaky god warns a human to build a boat before the flood, and the rest is our history.
We call The Movement VHEMT, but it’s undoubtedly been given other names throughout history. None have been recorded, as far as we know.
There must be millions of people around the world who are independently arriving at the same conclusion. A large portion of today’s Volunteers were vehement extinctionists before they learned of the title “VHEMT”.
The true origins of The Movement can be found in the natural abundance of love and logic within each one of us. Our in-born sense of justice guides us to make the responsible choice.
Who is the founder?
No one person is the founder of VHEMT. Les U. Knight gave the name “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” to a philosophy or worldview which has existed for as long as humans have been sapient. It’s an awareness which has been arrived at independently in many places throughout history, but had become lost amid societies’ natalism.
Like millions of other people, Les followed a simple train of logic, guided by love, and arrived at the conclusion that Gaia would be better off without humans. He could be considered the finder, having identified The Movement by giving it a name, though each of us finds the truth for ourselves.
Although Les has become known internationally as a spokesperson for The Movement, no one can speak for all VHEMT Volunteers. There is no official position on issues beyond what is implied in the name of The Movement.