LET’S DIE OUT
You can beat someone up or torture an animal and walk away with probation or community service, but a woman who killed her ‘virtual’ husband could face up to five years in jail or a fine of $7,500. Yes, you read that right, she didn’t kill an actual person but a digital avatar in an online interactive game. So angry was the woman about the ‘divorce’ from ‘hubby’ that she logged on with his password (in the real world) and bumped him off (in the virtual world). Subsequently she’s been jailed on suspicion of “illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data”. If that’s not crazy enough for you, get this: Paris Hilton was honoured with a Woman of the Year Award by students at Harvard University’s Lampoon magazine.

It’s stories like this that make the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement so appealing. VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is, according to its own website (www.vhemt.org), “a  movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth [that] presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth's ecology”. That alternative is allowing humanity to die out by not bringing any more babies into the world. “Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom,” they note.

Before you think they’re a bunch of “misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans” or a suicide cult(they don’t think they could persuade enough people to top themselves to save the planet), upon perusing their comprehensive website, they come off as quite chirpy and rather smart.

With a philosophy of ‘May we live long but die out’, they’ve come up with astute and often amusing observations on why people breed and suggest some alternatives. Claiming you “need help on the farm or in the family business” as a reason to have a child is analysed as “too cheap to hire help”, with mechanisation given as an alternative; while anyone believing that “a good family is essential to career advancement and strong standing in the community” is told to “rent children from talent agency on special occasions”. If the ‘biological urge’ argument is raised, the VHEMT crew warn, “Institutions await those who can't control their biological urges.”

If you’re still not convinced, check out the movement’s top 10 reasons of why not to breed, including, “Time, energy and money saved can be used to help existing people and animals in need, or to support any other worthwhile endeavour” or my personal favourite, “We achieve the equivalent of a lifetime of 100% recycling without lifting a finger.”

And of course, no more Paris Hiltons.

Katrina Fox

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