I am also a misanthropist. And to clear that up, not all misanthropists hate humans and want them to suffer.
I see humanity as a mistake, a virus, a plague. And it’s also it’s own worst enemy.
Doesn’t mean I want everyone dead. I actually help people And am said to be the nicest mofo.
E.g. I spend my day working for free in a shelter for the abused. Picking up the pieces others created.
And I also spend a ton helping people up, e.g. getting a new apartment, a job, a few thousands to start anew etc.
Long story short, being misanthropist isn’t inherently an evil thing. Just a logic conclusion. If you add the usual dark tetrad of personality traits to it, then it won’t help.
You probably acknowledge that you’re using your human value system to judge the performance of humanity as a whole. We have evolved to have these concepts of good and evil because they help our tribe to grow and flourish - and you can’t deny that the human tribe has grown and flourished. So your values - including your ability for introspection and self-criticism - are a successful evolutionary adaptation which has helped your species grow and to dominate the world. So I want to thank you for being a successful organism. Well done.
You are using your human value system to declare humans unworthy. This is a human thing to do. No other creatures reflect on the impact their existence has on the environment. Viruses don’t. Crickets don’t. Not even the planet itself, nor the entire universe, cares whether humans even exist or how they carry out their lives.
It’s only humans who have evolved a brain capable of making such assessments and using that to inform their behaviour. Can we use this power to rise above the bloody law of nature? Can we create a world that is fair and just, even in an uncaring universe built on the cold unbreakable laws of physics?
Yeah sure, of course. Obviously, or else we wouldn’t be talking about that now. Or talk at all.
But that’s not a point, that’s just a description of how I was able to get to such an opinion, not why I should or shouldn’t.
Is there a point hidden or did you just want to come across super witty?
But hey, seeing how the majority of people slave away their life for their owners, like the good domesticated worker-bees they were raised to, your argument could even make sense 😁
You think your assessment that humans are a scourge on the planet is objective and clear, but you miss your own anthropocentric blindspots. Like it or not, your stance is not unique, on the contrary many humans also question the direction our species is going.
The withering criticism of human activity by yourself and the many others like you is simply evidence that humans are *not* wantonly devouring the planet with no thought for the future, unlike the cricket plagues you liken us to.
Whether that is sufficient to save our society remains to be seen of course.
You think your assessment that humans are a scourge on the planet is objective and clear
Hold on, let me ask the 30,000 entire species we directly drive to extinction each year… 🦗
Your argument is “yet you participate in society” but at an even more absurd “yet you are a human” level. Yes… they are a human. But if you look at human civilization through a POSIWID lens, it can’t be anything more than a self-destructive, mass-extinction and biosphere-collapse machine. That is, factually, 99% of the measurable impact of human existence (even if we survive forever and miraculously don’t make earth uninhabitable).
The fact that millions or even billions of people can recognize this isn’t a magical trump card; your metacognition catch-22 doesn’t refute anything about the sound reasoning of the misanthrope world view.
And for the record: I’m not a misanthrope. I more firmly believe that the existence or extinction of any species is entirely neutral. It’s not strictly rational to shed tears over the death of any individual animal or species.
But I can also recognize and embrace my irrational bias as a human. It’s normal to mourn loss, or feel disgust at animal slaughter, or have diminished emotions for people physically remote & abstracted from my daily life, or crave creature comforts, or mistrust strangers… In contrast, subscribing to an ideology like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement requires forced, rational domination of these impulses. Nobody actually wants to end human civilization in the same way that the average person doesn’t want to starve.
Optimizing for a universal and sustainable human existence isn’t about suppressing every flaw, it’s about focusing our time and energy on the most critical issues. I can still shout and scream about biosphere collapse because every extinct species has irreplaceable potential value. We obviously can’t live without pollinators, but it’s just as important that future generations will never be able to reconstruct the precise species that we evolved to cohabitate with.
Preserving beautiful and complex ecosystems is a necessity because we don’t entirely know what [in]tangible value were losing for our selfish anthropocentric existence, not because any species “deserves” to live.
I am also a misanthropist. And to clear that up, not all misanthropists hate humans and want them to suffer. I see humanity as a mistake, a virus, a plague. And it’s also it’s own worst enemy.
Doesn’t mean I want everyone dead. I actually help people And am said to be the nicest mofo. E.g. I spend my day working for free in a shelter for the abused. Picking up the pieces others created. And I also spend a ton helping people up, e.g. getting a new apartment, a job, a few thousands to start anew etc.
Long story short, being misanthropist isn’t inherently an evil thing. Just a logic conclusion. If you add the usual dark tetrad of personality traits to it, then it won’t help.
You probably acknowledge that you’re using your human value system to judge the performance of humanity as a whole. We have evolved to have these concepts of good and evil because they help our tribe to grow and flourish - and you can’t deny that the human tribe has grown and flourished. So your values - including your ability for introspection and self-criticism - are a successful evolutionary adaptation which has helped your species grow and to dominate the world. So I want to thank you for being a successful organism. Well done.
Of course not. Same as a virus. Or a cricket swarm devouring everything in its path.
I didn’t say we weren’t evolutionary successful. We totally were and are. I don’t see anything inherently worthy here.
What is your actual point?
You are using your human value system to declare humans unworthy. This is a human thing to do. No other creatures reflect on the impact their existence has on the environment. Viruses don’t. Crickets don’t. Not even the planet itself, nor the entire universe, cares whether humans even exist or how they carry out their lives.
It’s only humans who have evolved a brain capable of making such assessments and using that to inform their behaviour. Can we use this power to rise above the bloody law of nature? Can we create a world that is fair and just, even in an uncaring universe built on the cold unbreakable laws of physics?
Yeah sure, of course. Obviously, or else we wouldn’t be talking about that now. Or talk at all.
But that’s not a point, that’s just a description of how I was able to get to such an opinion, not why I should or shouldn’t. Is there a point hidden or did you just want to come across super witty?
But hey, seeing how the majority of people slave away their life for their owners, like the good domesticated worker-bees they were raised to, your argument could even make sense 😁
You’re currently talking out of your ass and couching all context in a strictly anthropocentric analysis.
You think your assessment that humans are a scourge on the planet is objective and clear, but you miss your own anthropocentric blindspots. Like it or not, your stance is not unique, on the contrary many humans also question the direction our species is going.
The withering criticism of human activity by yourself and the many others like you is simply evidence that humans are *not* wantonly devouring the planet with no thought for the future, unlike the cricket plagues you liken us to.
Whether that is sufficient to save our society remains to be seen of course.
Hold on, let me ask the 30,000 entire species we directly drive to extinction each year… 🦗
Your argument is “yet you participate in society” but at an even more absurd “yet you are a human” level. Yes… they are a human. But if you look at human civilization through a POSIWID lens, it can’t be anything more than a self-destructive, mass-extinction and biosphere-collapse machine. That is, factually, 99% of the measurable impact of human existence (even if we survive forever and miraculously don’t make earth uninhabitable).
The fact that millions or even billions of people can recognize this isn’t a magical trump card; your metacognition catch-22 doesn’t refute anything about the sound reasoning of the misanthrope world view.
And for the record: I’m not a misanthrope. I more firmly believe that the existence or extinction of any species is entirely neutral. It’s not strictly rational to shed tears over the death of any individual animal or species.
But I can also recognize and embrace my irrational bias as a human. It’s normal to mourn loss, or feel disgust at animal slaughter, or have diminished emotions for people physically remote & abstracted from my daily life, or crave creature comforts, or mistrust strangers… In contrast, subscribing to an ideology like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement requires forced, rational domination of these impulses. Nobody actually wants to end human civilization in the same way that the average person doesn’t want to starve.
Optimizing for a universal and sustainable human existence isn’t about suppressing every flaw, it’s about focusing our time and energy on the most critical issues. I can still shout and scream about biosphere collapse because every extinct species has irreplaceable potential value. We obviously can’t live without pollinators, but it’s just as important that future generations will never be able to reconstruct the precise species that we evolved to cohabitate with.
Preserving beautiful and complex ecosystems is a necessity because we don’t entirely know what [in]tangible value were losing for our selfish anthropocentric existence, not because any species “deserves” to live.
Sounds like someone who wrote this from a prison cell with the goal of getting parole asap.
/s
Lol. Did it work? Is I free now?