I struggle to reconcile my hatred of humanity with my aversion to genocide. Damn, I love that opening line. Anyway, after spending some time Googling this, shall we say, problem, I came across an organization whose solution is so ingenious that I’m a little annoyed I didn’t think of it first. The organization is The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (“VHEMT”)
The drastic measure VHEMT proposes is the following directive: stop having kids. Just stop. No more babies. No mas bebés. 没有孩子了! कोई और बच्चे नहीं!! 素晴らしい. այլեւս երեխաներ չկան!! !!!! لا مزيد من الأطفال
Voluntary extinction will be far more pleasant than the involuntary alternative. Their website, vhemt.org, is straight out of 1993, but their FAQ section is a delight. It politely responds to your pointed objections. I encourage you to read it.
I myself, am less able to be polite on this matter, and I would love to go on a biting rant about how immoral it is to bear children. But I would lose my child-being and child-having audience, so I will refrain from insulting your mother.
Anyway, again, stop having kids. If you must raise a kid, get one at the human shelter whose entire family died in a house fire or some shit like that.
Okay, okay! I won’t refrain! I will oblige! The people have spoken. Here’s the anti-child rant you ordered.
Humans are objectively evil and unsustainably numerous, so to create more of them is to commit a crime against humanity and its fellow species. We should shame people who do have kids. We should judge childbirth far more harshly than we treat getting a dog from a pet store. Really, dawg, you got your kid from a baby mill, a.k.a. your or your co-parent’s womb? Don’t you know there are rescue babies available by the millions from Syria and China, not to mention America and every other corner of the world? Just like getting a dog from a pet store instead of the SPCA effectively gives the death sentence to a dog at the pound, so too does having a baby effectively kill a baby, or at least condemns them to misery. It’s like the Toms model got drunk: for every baby you have, we’ll let one perish! But it’s actually much worse. Given that humans are also carbon-producing factories in regards to their unyielding consumption of carbon&methane-producing goods and services, each kid is probably also sealing the fate of dozens of future kids’ premature death due to the contribution they’ll make to global warming. According to VHEMT, each child avoided is 37 times better for the planet than going vegan. It is by a very, very wide margin, the best personal change you can make to fight climate change. If you do nothing personally for environmental reasons and you blame climate change on governments and corporations, then, actually, good for you! You’re logically consistent; please enjoy your guilt-free parenthood—they’re so adorable! How old is she? Sixteen months? Awww, so cute! But if you do anything personally for the planet—say, recycle, fly less, eat less meat, bring reusable bags to the grocery store, turn off the goddamn lights—and you still choose to have children, why call yourself an environmentalist at all? Your selfishness is noted and you admit your activism is purely performative, not at all focused on results.
If you must have a kid, at least be destitute.
