Thread: "Progressive" Clemson prof wonders 'would human extinction be a tragedy?'

Clemson prof wonders 'would human extinction be a tragedy?'

And the answer is...yes, no, maybe, and "you're asking the wrong question!"

December 18, 2018
By Rick Moran

Clemson University philosophy professor Todd May penned an op-ed in the New York Times that posed the question, "Would Human Extinction be a Tragedy"?

"Our species possesses inherent value, but we are devastating the earth and causing unimaginable animal suffering," opines May. The same might be said for the New York Times. Does that make the case for the paper's extinction?

To get a bead on this question, let me distinguish it from a couple of other related questions. I’m not asking whether the experience of humans coming to an end would be a bad thing. (In these pages, Samuel Scheffler has given us an important reason to think that it would be.) I am also not asking whether human beings as a species deserve to die out. That is an important question, but would involve different considerations. Those questions, and others like them, need to be addressed if we are to come to a full moral assessment of the prospect of our demise. Yet what I am asking here is simply whether it would be a tragedy if the planet no longer contained human beings. And the answer I am going to give might seem puzzling at first. I want to suggest, at least tentatively, both that it would be a tragedy and that it might just be a good thing.

Spoken like a true philosophy professor. I might gently point out that, with no human beings on the planet to feel tragedy, it would be impossible for our extinction to be tragic.
But that's sophistry - something the professor specializes in.

To be sure, nature itself is hardly a Valhalla of peace and harmony. Animals kill other animals regularly, often in ways that we (although not they) would consider cruel. But there is no other creature in nature whose predatory behavior is remotely as deep or as widespread as the behavior we display toward what the philosopher Christine Korsgaard aptly calls “our fellow creatures” in a sensitive book of the same name.
If this were all to the story there would be no tragedy. The elimination of the human species would be a good thing, full stop. But there is more to the story. Human beings bring things to the planet that other animals cannot. For example, we bring an advanced level of reason that can experience wonder at the world in a way that is foreign to most if not all other animals. We create art of various kinds: literature, music and painting among them. We engage in sciences that seek to understand the universe and our place in it. Were our species to go extinct, all of that would be lost.

I don't know. Has this guy seen some of the "art" that he thinks is of value? Perhaps we should just let a bunch of these "artists" go extinct. Leave the rest of us in peace.
May tries to address my point above about no one being around to feel the tragedy, and abolishes reason and logic in the process.

One could press the objection here by saying that it would only be a loss from a human viewpoint, and that that viewpoint would no longer exist if we went extinct. This is true. But this entire set of reflections is taking place from a human viewpoint. We cannot ask the questions we are asking here without situating them within the human practice of philosophy. Even to ask the question of whether it would be a tragedy if humans were to disappear from the face of the planet requires a normative framework that is restricted to human beings.

Even animals with cognitive abilities like chimps, whales, and dophins can't contemplate whether humans disappearing would be a good thing, so the question of whether it would be a tragedy can only be restricted to humans - despite the fact that there still wouldn't be anyone around who cares (especially about philosophy).
In the end - to no one's surprise - the good professor gives humanity a big thumbs down.

So, then, how much suffering and death of nonhuman life would we be willing to countenance to save Shakespeare, our sciences and so forth? Unless we believe there is such a profound moral gap between the status of human and nonhuman animals, whatever reasonable answer we come up with will be well surpassed by the harm and suffering we inflict upon animals. There is just too much torment wreaked upon too many animals and too certain a prospect that this is going to continue and probably increase; it would overwhelm anything we might place on the other side of the ledger. Moreover, those among us who believe that there is such a gap should perhaps become more familiar with the richness of lives of many of our conscious fellow creatures. Our own science is revealing that richness to us, ironically giving us a reason to eliminate it along with our own continued existence.

"Richness of lives" of our fellow creatures? When I slap a mosquito that's attacking me, I just don't think about the bug's kids, grandkids, and wife. I know that makes me a heartless monster, and the fact that I support zapping these bugs with DDT probably places me beyond the pale.
Not once in these 1500 sophomoric words did Professor May mention the one thing above all others that sets humans apart from all other creatures on this earth.
Love. That we can feel love, that love animates our actions, that it plays such an enormous role in our species - that it makes life itself worth living. I don't know if animals have "souls" - immortal or not. But I know that even our companion animals don't feel "love" the same way that humans do.

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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...a_tragedy.html

I want to know how this SIMPLETON made it past the third grade and recess

NYTimes Suggests Human Extinction Not A Bad Thing As Climate Change Is Destroying The Planet



Would our planet be better off if humanity ceased to exist?

Tue, 12/18/2018 - 21:05
103 SHARES
Authored by Jeffrey Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Would our planet be better off if humanity ceased to exist?
That is quite a morbid question, but today an increasing number of intellectuals are bringing it up, because they are convinced that we are the source of everything that is wrong with our world.



According to these zealots, humans are the primary source of climate change and if we do not alter our course the planet will be destroyed. But since humanity apparently lacks the will to end the behaviors which are destroying the planet, many of them also believe that it would be a good thing if we were to be completely wiped out somehow. Most normal people would never think this way, but these are the sorts of discussions that intellectuals and elitists are now having all the time, and sometimes this bleeds over into the mainstream media.

For example, the New York Times just published a very long article by Clemson University professor of philosophy Todd May entitled “Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?” The following is a brief excerpt from that article...

To make that case, let me start with a claim that I think will be at once depressing and, upon reflection, uncontroversial. Human beings are destroying large parts of the inhabitable earth and causing unimaginable suffering to many of the animals that inhabit it. This is happening through at least three means. First, human contribution to climate change is devastating ecosystems, as the recent article on Yellowstone Park in The Times exemplifies. Second, increasing human population is encroaching on ecosystems that would otherwise be intact. Third, factory farming fosters the creation of millions upon millions of animals for whom it offers nothing but suffering and misery before slaughtering them in often barbaric ways. There is no reason to think that those practices are going to diminish any time soon. Quite the opposite.
Humanity, then, is the source of devastation of the lives of conscious animals on a scale that is difficult to comprehend.

The New York Times did not have to publish Professor May’s article, but they did.
So they must believe that this is a reasonable opinion.
Later in that same article, May suggests that “the elimination of the human species would be a good thing” if it wasn’t for humanity’s wonderful creative endeavors…

If this were all to the story there would be no tragedy. The elimination of the human species would be a good thing, full stop. But there is more to the story. Human beings bring things to the planet that other animals cannot. For example, we bring an advanced level of reason that can experience wonder at the world in a way that is foreign to most if not all other animals. We create art of various kinds: literature, music and painting among them. We engage in sciences that seek to understand the universe and our place in it. Were our species to go extinct, all of that would be lost.

But what about those cultures that are not engaged in such pursuits?
Should those that are not adding something of “value” to our world simply be eliminated?
That would seem to be the logical conclusion of such thinking.
There are many intellectuals today that are very much into promoting population control or population reduction, but Professor May doesn’t really see the need to take such measures. At this end of his article, he suggests that there is a very strong possibility that we are going to be the ultimate cause of “our own tragic end”…

It may also turn out that it is through our own actions that we human beings bring about our extinction, or at least something near it, contributing through our practices to our own tragic end.

Another elitist that is seemingly obsessed with climate change and population issues is Bill Gates.
Just recently, Gates publicly stated that he believes that millions of people in poor countries will die by the end of this century as a result of climate change…

On the issue of climate change, Gates predicted that for countries like Africa — which are “completely dependent on the rain coming” — climate change presents a “threat to … survival.”
He also predicted “millions of deaths because of climate change between now and the end of the century.” He said a significant portion of that count will be in “very, very poor countries, because of the subsistence farming.”

So what must be done?

Well, since humans are the primary cause of climate change, reducing the human population is essentially equivalent to “saving the planet” according to their twisted way of thinking.
And perhaps that may explain why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been pouring such vast amounts of money into the development of a male contraceptive pill.
Most of us never think much about population issues, but for elitists such as Gates it can become something of an obsession. They truly believe that the human population is a ticking time bomb that will explode in the not too distant future.
But the truth is that our planet could easily support a human population that was twice as large if our resources were managed properly and new technologies which already exist were allowed to flourish.
Sadly, those things are not happening, and instead humanity is being herded into incredibly overcrowded cities. And such overcrowding can have very negative consequences as a scientific study involving mice once demonstrated…

Scientist John B. Calhoun created mouse utopias in which the rodents had all the food, water and bedding they required.
But after several generations, the booming population descended into chaos with male mice becoming savagely violent and females failing to nurture their young.
The subsequent generation became known as the “beautiful ones” – non-violent but interested in little else other than grooming themselves.

Could it be possible that our own version of the “beautiful ones” is starting to emerge?
Today, we have millions of self-obsessed young adults that are continuously staying indoors, isolating themselves and spending endless hours on the Internet.
In Japan, they actually have a term for this, and it is recognized as a national crisis…

And in densely-populated Japan, a disturbing trend dubbed “hikikomori” has gripped the younger generation, with an estimated half a million Japanese youth living as social recluses.
The Japanese government defines hikikomori as people who haven’t left their homes or interacted with others for six months or more.

Our world is changing, and not for the better.
Those that are suggesting human extinction as the answer are totally on the wrong track. Instead of giving up on life, we need to rediscover what makes life worth living in the first place.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...troying-planet

Youtube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvfwDTZVcSc

Help the Earth: Extinct Yourself

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Bill Whittle
Published on Dec 21, 2018

In a New York Times column, Clemson philosophy professor Todd May asks readers to consider if the world would be a better place without you. He can’t find a clear answer on the question, "Would Human Extinction be a Tragedy?" Bill Whittle Now offers a little help.