The Need for Less of Les
Portland, Oregon has had many nicknames including, City of Roses, Stumptown, Rip City, Columbus of the Pacific Northwest, City of Churches, and Little Beirut. In slogans, the city officially used the expression, “The City that Works", but the unofficial slogan is “Keep Portland Weird” – and, in many cases, it seems quite apropos.
One reason would be that it is the home of Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction. Portland is also the home of Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike in nearby Beaverton – no relation. The lesser-known Knight, Les, believes that essentially everything humans have accomplished is a cataclysmic stain on the earth.
The website for Voluntary Human Extinction says that the movement, “is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.” In other words, the death of each person, or the choice of not participating in the breeding of future humans, promotes the chances for a more viable and healthy earth.
Unlike political climate change advocates, Les Knight claims they are not Malthusians – those that continue to maintain that the earth cannot sustain the resources required for the planet's growing population. Malthusians have been saying this since the late 1700s. In any event, the end goal appears to be exactly the same. As I wrote in the article entitled, “The Inhumanity of ESG” on November 15, 2022, Al Gore at a World Economic Forum meeting said, “Africa’s projected to have more people than China or India by mid-century. And this is one of the causal factors that must be addressed.” Climate change fear-mongers are constantly scaring the public with increasing population statistics.
The one difference between the climate gangsters like Gore and the Voluntary Human Extinction organization is that the former knows either the climate crusade is a fraud, or it can be repaired, while the latter essentially says no manner of repair can be performed, “so let’s just give up and die.” The similarity both have is that they overlook human ingenuity and adaptation.
People that produce theories and hypotheses however are typically thinkers, philosophers, and intellectual sages, and they are not the producers and inventors in the realm and reality of human ingenuity and adaptation. Human ingenuity does not come from politicians, lawyers, philosophers, and financiers rather it comes from the brilliant minds of innovators, engineers, architects, designers, and builders and the millions upon millions of experienced tradespeople that can put it all together.
Most philosophical people that produce anxiety and alarm within the theory of climate change are not suited for the repair of anything - most of them couldn’t fix a sandwich.
The reason one can perceive that Les Knight does not believe in human brilliance and the ability to conform is that he says, “Earth has the moral priority, not the health and well-being of our species.” These people assume that ‘their’ earth, their “Gaia” thinks and emotes outside of nature, or as Nancy Pelosi recently said of the Inflation Reduction Act, "Mother Earth gets angry from time to time, and this legislation will help us address all of that."
I link a Hotair article on Les Knight and the Voluntary Human Extinction organization here. If he really believed in his cause, perhaps he should lead by example.