Lead by example good sir.
16
The Day The Earth Stood Still. What else can I say?
6
The sooner humans are gone, the better. Even for humans.
43
Exactly. We, the humanity, we are committing a hubris against our fellow creatures, against the environment, against nature. And yes we do occupy a special place in the order of things. But that does not justify our hubris. It doesn't give us the right to do what we do. Yet we persist in doing it. That makes us tragic. Our tragedy, however, may be pigs and cows liberation. Our special place is to be able to recognize that and stop doing it before it is too late for us. If we don't use our extraordinary gifts to save ourselves from our own tragedy, then we are not only tragic, we are also stupid. Those gifts were wasted on us. Maybe pigs will do a better job. Orwell certainly thought very highly of their smarts. And they are indeed smart as dogs. And we treat them like things to be cut up and broiled.
28
This reminds me of a great science fiction novel written by a Chinese engineer named Liu Cixin called "The Three Body Problem". In it, the most twisted and self-absorbed intellectual and plutocratic types worked for the destruction of all of Mankind, while all thinking, unacknowledged, that their reward for working to this end would be that they would be personally spared.
This is how nerds project their anti-social personality disorders without putting themselves at too much personal risk. Convincing others that they are a cancer and to work towards the destruction of humanity, while conveniently walling themselves off from the consequences of such propaganda with their own wealth and power.
There is a seed of terrorism in this disgusting headline.
13
I think Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg’s words apply here. “I believe good people tend to do good things, and bad people tend to do bad things. But for good people to do bad things, that takes religion.”
56
A tragedy only in the minds of humans.
Wait, they won't be around...
17
Animals live horrible lives with or without humans causing their problems. A deer can get hit by a car, killed or injured by a human hunter, killed or injured by a predators. Fatally injured in a mating ritual. Domesticated cats alone kill over a billion birds a year. All species young rarely make if to adulthood and some species eat their young. There's disease, heat, cold, drought, flood and fires constantly butchering wildlife. Nature is carnage practiced on every living thing including humanity.
How self absorbed the secular humanist nihlist has become. How can they equate human life to animals. The Russians spread these cancerous beliefs in Germany. It created Nazism.
12
"Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?"
For human beings -- that's us, you know --- yes.
12
Would human extinction be a tragedy? Now that's a great question to ask God if you're a believer. And if you're not a believer, ask your cat or dog. He or she should have an intelligent answer.
12
And you wonder why our college students are so warped.
14
“Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
3
Anyone who believes that the world would be better off without humans is free set the example and remove themselves.
13
VHEMT is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Take it to heart.
5
To pick extinction over changing would make us the dumbest, "rational" animal on the planet. We can do this. We just have to do it now. That's what makes it so hard. No technologies that are unsustainable. Get rid of the monopoly on energy. End organized religion's tax breaks. Get dark money out of politics. Put limits on meat consumption and most importantly, human reproduction. Stop making throw away plastics. Create local recycling centers. End the fractional reserve system. Technologies that override Nature's telling us we can't have a baby are unsustainable technologies. All food must be grown locally. Stop shipping food all over the world. Eat what you have where you are. Grow something yourself. Reconnect to Earth by being an Earthling rather than a selfish, self-centered humanoid who threatens to commit suicide if it can't have its way.
27
Methinks the author wishes 12 Monkeys was real!
Is this how people without children, without a stake in this world actually think? How very, very sad for them .
9
If aliens observed planets like we watch TV programs, our Earth would be their Jerry Springer Show.
13
Meh, the Wachowski brothers nailed this in their movie from almost twenty years ago.
"
I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure."
- Agent Smith
16
after 50 years of reading the NY Times,
from high school until the present, I
can finally say ",Eureka, I have found it!"
this is the most idiotic, inane article I've
ever read in this paper. he sets up so many
false premises:why would first responders
have to choose between saving artworks
in the Louvre and human beings? they
are well trained enough to do both.why
would anyone ever have to choose
between the works of Shakespeare and
humanity? I love poetry and good fiction,
but I have always mistrusted philosophy,
precisely for setting up these false choices.
humanity will survive, period. all you real
and self styled philosophers need to get over
it. otherwise please talk among yourselves.
19
All the commentators who favor the extinction of humans should act on their beliefs - that’s leave us only us productive optimists - what a gift to the gene pool.
Of course, they’re just demonstrating liberal hypocrisy.
4
Trust me, no animal would bring flowers to tbe funeral. This is narcissistic navel gazing.
5
If I was a philosophy professor, I’d give this a B. It just didn’t seem all that sophisticated or insightful.
8
Far from it. It would be the greatest blessing for the Planet !!!
To start with, lets extinct all Americans, 'cause they gobble t more CO2 per person than any country in the West save Canadians (yes, NYT readers, they are even worse). So lets extinct the Canadians next
Only if you think that humans are more important than the planet will you find above atrocious.
But this will NOT be the end of mankind. After 100 000 years, humans will reappear, again, from ape like ancestors.
Happened before.
http://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution
Will happen again.
6
Only to humans.
4
Well, yes.
2
I am sick of all of these anti-humanist arguments. Stop hating life. If you want to die, you are welcome to it, but do not take others with you.
For the record we could have solved climate change decades ago, but you anti-humanists stop us. Anti-humanists(like you) argued that clean, reliable, safe and cheap energy(aka nuclear energy) would destroy the world. Paul Ehrlich argued clean energy “would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun."
They were wrong then, you are wrong now.
10
Human extinction seems rather unlikely unless the earth faces an event that can threaten the whole biosphere such as a huge asteroid collision or an atomic war.
What is at stake though is rather human civilization that depends paradoxically on what it destroys: nature.
Homo sapiens might be the most adaptable large mammalian species, and paradoxically again, our brain that gave us civilization will also serve us well once we will have destroyed our most amazing creation.
1
As part of a series of interviews with great men an adoring European male intellectual interviewer gushingly asked scientist Stephen Jay Gould, "Why is it that intelligence has so rarely evolved in nature?" Gould answered, "Obviously, intelligence isn't a survival trail."
6
As a staunch antinatalist, not only do I agree that we ought to phase ourselves out to end the suffering we cause to animals, but we also ought to phase ourselves out to end the suffering we cause to our offspring, who do not (cannot) consent to the 100-year-long meaningless, risky experiment we thrust on them and call a "gift." Bravo, NYTimes, for giving space to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, a movement, like antinatalism, that is ultimately about compassion - for all sentient creatures, humans included.
7
The entire planet...flora, fauna, bird, fish, and insect world (what’s left of them, anyway) would absolutely rejoice to see our overpopulated, menacing species gone.
No, my reverberating friend, ‘we’ are not the beginning and the end....(with a nod to Lerner and Loewe).
12
The tragedy of human destruction of the natural world is beautifully explored by George Saunders in his short modern fable "Fox8". Anyone interested in this subject would find it worthwhile.
1
For religious humans, they believe in life after extinction. Really! Go figure! Irony is that as humans go extinct, so do all deities.
Perhaps there will be a cramped overcrowded heaven reserved only for those of our species that believed in a particular deity. If so, they don't care about life on Earth given to them to exploit as they please by their deity. Indeed, look at how cruelly humans treat humans in the holy land - one side has the audacity to claim that a specific area of Earth was ordained to them and only them by their deity - I'm sure animals will obey too.
Extinction as a pathway to heaven - not a bad deal I suppose for those who believe - the sooner the better.
They can count me out as we all essentially go extinct one by one when we die, just like our extinct ancestors and forebearers. for now, I'll treasure the life and the lives that exist right now as best as I can.
7
Crows would miss us. Not many other creatures, though.
10
The other, actually more salient, point about Greek Tragedy is that the Hero recognizes his flaw and as a result grows into wisdom. This “Wisdom” defined by the Greeks is to “Know Thyself”. They didn’t mean introspection. They referred to pride, To know oneself is to know one’s place in the universe, particularly, below the gods and above the animals. To forget one’s place in The Great Chain of Being is tragic. To some this may sound too religious an argument. But there is a difference between the death of a tragic hero and the death of a drunk who passed out and aspirated his own vomit - an more accurate image of post-industrial humanity.
8
Typical of the self-hating elites. A wealthy tenured professor musing on how much better off the world would be without people. Speak for yourself, professor, or go find a Chekhov play to be a character in. Most people want to live, and it will take people to solve the problems of the world. If the world becomes uninhabitable for humans, the other species won't survive, either.
5
The central question raised by the author is: "Would human extinction be a tragedy?"
The question itself reveals the futility of philosophy. Human beings--including philosophers-- are simply incapable of thinking about the grand cosmos without humans at the center of it. A "tragedy?" Would a spec of sand think it is a tragedy if we were gone? A horse? A weeping willow tree? A bumble bee? Or anything else that survives us?
Unless someone can prove to me that these living entities have consciousness and can experience the emotion of tragedy, the answer is a simple No. It would not be a tragedy. We won't be missed. But Mother Nature thinks the question is adorable.
10
Would the loss of humans be a tragedy? Only for what or whom can feel tragedy. We have come and we will go. The fungi are counting on it.
13
Most of the damage that humans have done to the life supporting systems of the Earth have been done in the last couple of generations. The problem with exponential growth is that if there is a parameter that will set a limit on that growth, you usually only become aware of it when you hit it. We didn't do this because we are evil - we really didn't see it coming. We now have a serious problem of how minimize damage both to humans and the world. Let's see what kind of solutions we reach - we are in a very tight spot, and the paths we take will reveal a lot about human morality.
7
I am very glad that someone is writing about these issues. But to be honest, I feel like articles like this due more harm to the environmental movement than good. I don't see how such arguments are going to solve anything (unless we are actually willing to try to destroy the human species, which I don't think many (moral) people are). Instead, it will just turn off more non-environmental activists to environmentalism because they will see it as a bunch of crazy radicals arguing that we should destroy humanity. This reaction may not be fair or right, but nevertheless, it exists. We need to convince a solid majority of people to care about the earth and animals, otherwise, the atrocities you write about will continue to happen. If environmental activists truly want to help animals and the environment, they should focus their efforts on accomplishing concrete goals (or writing articles about concrete goals) instead of giving environmentalists a bad name.
4
Reminds me of why I hated philosophy in university, and got only by the entry-level course.
7
It's time to revisit George Carlin: "The planet will be here, and we’ll be gone. Another failed mutation, another closed-end biological mistake."
9
“Failed” seems rather the wrong adjective. I prefer the more scientific term of maladapted. Species indeed come and go. They thrive when their generic adaptations give them an advantage and disappear when they reach a point of maladaptation. However, as far as we know the human maladaptation stands out for actually changing the whole biosphere to a point where we as a species can’t make a living anymore.
3
The chaos, the violence that created the universe is beyond comprehension. Our planet was created in unbelievable violence and when life began animals were wrapped in the same blanket. Eat or be eaten. Yet, some how, and in the great scheme of things, there is a gentleness, a kindness, a need for beauty, majesty, and peace began to emerge. Now i sit as if by magic,in a heated home, and in a few minutes i will turn on my music system and listen to Bach.
We are slowly evolving toward what i have no idea, but when our species walks on other planets, we are going some where. I have hope. Maybe the music of Bach will some day be heard on other planets, maybe that's what the universe is all about or maybe it's about nothing. Who really knows. Still, I believe in the first.
5
It is a valid question when viewed in the context of all species. However, we have evolved to be the species with, at present, the greatest potential to advance the concepts associated with the meaning of life, including intelligence; scientific inquiry and achievements; compassion, empathy, and love; empathy; artistic expression; and spirituality in the deepest sense.
When I consider the universe and and try to make sense of it and the intelligent inhabitants therein, the above concepts are what come to mine that give any sort of meaning to this physical expanse that we call the universe. It is meaning that all of us wonder about. Many seek it, and many don't, but everyone considers it when thinking about why we are here, what humans should do with all the gifts we have been given, and how we can make the future better for others.
So, yes, of course from our viewpoint, it would be a tragedy for humans to become extinct. But self-serving viewpoints aside, there is the larger groups of concepts mentioned above that still exist for any sentient being that considers anything beyond day to day existence. Humans are curious and seek knowledge and advancements in things that make life better.
Some do, anyway. The best of us do. And losing them would be a tragedy for not just us, but for all species here and among the stars.
1
When May says that human extinction might be a good thing, this puts me in mind of what Hume says about the skeptic: "And though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings; the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him the same" as everybody else. Usually when we think that something is a good thing we approve of it. Despite his arguments, I don't believe that May looks with favor, in any way at all, on human extinction.
1
It’s shockingly painful, and tragic indeed, for those of us who can see what’s happening to watch us on a collision course with disaster. But it seems it is too late. Even if we turned everything around tomorrow, stopped using cars and emitting fossil fuels and every woman on earth had only one child, it would not and could not repair the damage that is done. It is tragic, and angering, to live in this reality. I grew up one of three, my parents had one child when they by surprise conceived twins. Now I ask myself not how many children will I have but can I ever rightfully have any? And I am an educated, smart, thoughtful and kind person who would love to be a parent. Unfortunately it isn’t people like me who think these things over, or even on a bigger scale get to choose. We’re all in this together.
4
The author exactly reflected my own thoughts after I watched the documentaries about animal agriculture cruelty, specifically Earthling and Dominion both of which are available on youtube.
I do not think the earth will lose much if humanity goes extinct, especially due to climate change, although there is a chance that we may end up like Venus, in which case all life will seize to exist.
If not, nature and evolution will take care of the rest and life on this planet will flourish again without an intelligent species at least several hundreds of years.
Do I wish so? I do not know. But recently I started to like Trump on his path to destroy humanity by promoting fossil fuels.
By the way, I do not have any kids and do not intend to, because I do not want to bring them into this world to suffer.
2
I enjoyed reading this essay about this topic but found the writer caught in a humanist trap. While I believe we should tackle climate change and try to alter our behaviors, I also think that humans are just another species on this planet. No more important than the rest. Like Dodo birds, our flaws are built into our makeup. The longterm value and agency of human beings will be measured out by the planet not some library kept from destruction in the distant future.
What is certain is that we will go extinct in time (as have more than 99 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth). The answer is a matter of sooner or later.
Tragedy? Eh. It depends if you think the constant evolution of our planet is a tragedy. There's something brilliant about a planet that changes to cope with the stresses it endures. And that reassures me as we enter the dark days that lie ahead.
5
Frankly, non-human life is important only to the extent that it is important to human beings. If there were no human beings, Earth would have no importance. A corollary of this is that the extinction of the human species would mark the end of tragedy, since tragedy is created and exists only in the human mind.
6
This from ancient wisdom....If we believe in karma, whether knowingly or unknowingly..for the harm that we do to other living organisms, we will go through many lifecycles...as humans, birds, fish, insects, to finish this cycle of life. So, whether we are a nuisance to this planet or not, our checks and balances of life will settle it. So, even while it will be tragedy to loose ourselves as a species, we will have to keep thriving to be humane.
"the tragic character is often someone who commits a wrong, usually a significant one"
First of all - that is not even close to what tragedy is - I suggest this author start with a course of Nietzsche or maybe some Aeschylus.
A tragedy is being forced to choose between two paths both of which are disastrous.
Secondly - there is nothing tragic about the naturalistic approach to philosophy - things become extinct and things flourish - not because of some vague normative mumbo-jumbo but because of basic causal processes described by Darwin and many since him.
1
99.99% of all species that ever existed have already gone extinct long before humans arrived on the scene.
So what makes the .01% that currently coexist with humans so special?
Humans now have or are very close to having the technology to prevent asteroid strike ELE's. Won't THIS be good for all those so special .01% of current coexisting species? If you think a little global warming is bad - try experiencing a large asteroid strike burning then decades or centuries long "nuclear winter."
4
You seem to forget that if humans went extinct in most ways, we would take most animals with us.
Why not change humans instead, by embracing vegetarianism and other humane and climate saving practices?
Ultimately, climate change and nuclear war are up to each of us--our individual habits and votes.
6
Finally, someone who is talking about the 800 lb gorilla in the room. We keep producing more children than we can continue to support until we will remove most living things on the planet. Nature will survive, but it will take it awhile to recover from the devastation we have wrought upon it. I'm old now and glad that I won't have to see a planet that has no forests or free birds or the last and final zoo. Even still I will probably live long enough to see the last of the big cats live in the wild and the extinction of more species than I can even imagine. Heck, I can't even get my HOA landscapers to stop spraying heavy duty pesticides around me, my dog and my house.
16
As Walt Kelly’s Pogo famously declared years ago: “We have met the enemy, and he is us”. He still is, only “he” seems worse and exponentially much more dangerous and destructive. This will not end well unless and until some radical changes occur. If not, the only question that remains is, will it all end in “fire or ice”.
5
I've read the article and some of these comments, and none has mentioned the real problem. It's an issue that lies at the root of nearly all our problems, and yet it is rarely mentioned. It's not humans per se that are ruining the world. It's the NUMBER of humans. I'm sure the world would be fine with just a few hundred thousand of us. If there were, this article wouldn't have been written, and we wouldn't be contemplating life on earth without humans.
15
Life on earth matters, especially when put into the framework of the otherwise lifeless universe that presents itself (to our current knowledge, of course).
And the ability to mourn the loss of all life forms is a human--- and only human--- mental ability that shows the distance between us and all other life upon this fragile planet.
Without recourse to any formal religious concept, I believe we are the pinnacle of nature, the highest form of life--- though I sicken at the thought our species could cause the mass-extinctions of many, or all, others.
We are unique and wonderful creatures, a product of nature itself, and we are quite alone in contemplating our existence.
3
What reason do we have to NOT believe there is a profound moral gap between humans and other animals, or things for that matter since you bring up Shakespeare’s rests and The Louvre? If human life itself is not sacred, or at least recognized as “set apart for a particular purpose, the concept of morality makes no sense. Without morality, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for humans to even care about the suffering of animals.
4
for what it's worth, I would save the priceless art representing thousands of years of Earth's creative history in the Louvre over a few human visitors.
7
@Southern Hope
Does it matter who the "few human vistors" are: a child, your child, yourself, or Shakespeare
1
Its undeniable that we are causing a mass extinction event. Its also true that we have harvested nature to support our ever increasing populations. In a cruel joke on nature, each increase of efficiency or medical break through or scientific advancement reduces mortalities, improves birth rates and extends life spans improving our quality of life while proportionally increasing the pressure we put on our natural environments to yield for our continued existence. The way we have enslaved nature is unnatural and cruel and yet to do nothing to improve our lives is also immoral. The two realities are on a collision course. By increasing world populations as we have we fulfill the mandate of one moral imperative at the expense of the other until we reach the point of total ecological collapse.
While its true that humans have always put undue stress on their environments nothing we have done in the previous 2.5 million years compares to what we are causing now.
However past performance is not an indicator of future performance as the saying goes. There are very real signs of reform taking hold and a new ecological consciousness forming. Have we reached a tipping point yet? No. Will we before it is too late? Probably not. I do believe that we can turn the ship before the iceberg sinks us, to barrow imagery from the titanic, but there will be a cruel and unmitigating reckoning and much of the natural world will bare the price of our innaction.
8
We're pretty much a weed species. (not bad at dispersal, and capable of adapting to many different environments)
Seems unlikely we will go entirely extinct. But millions of human lives lost could well be called a tragedy.
6
To think of other species as having no cultures of their own, or a non-survival related interdependence with us, seems poignantly short-sighted. Even that it is accepted that there are not individuals within other species who have distinctive inclinations, or personalities, subcultures, rebellions, much like ours, seems to preserve the hierarchical narrative and belief system that allows us, as a species, to be both as destructive as we are, and as hopeless as we are in the face of our destructiveness. More nuanced and attentive readings of what surrounds us, and the humility and patience that requires, is as vital as swift and large-scale changes in behavior based on science. Equilibrium may be born of greater equanimity.
3
The extinction of a species that has the remarkable ability to consider whether its own extinction would be a tragedy or not would most certainly be a tragedy.
5
The issue of whether the human species deserves to survive misses an essential point. Without human intelligence the cosmos would not even know it exists. No other animal wonders at the heavens, explores the fundamental laws and character of nature and is capable of thinking beyond its direct experience. This is the major task of the human species,serving as the self awareness of the cosmos. The image of stars, planets and space whirling and whirring without self awareness is too depressing to contemplate. Yes, we are deeply flawed but we bring an awareness to the theatre like nothing else.
5
Why is awareness necessary?
2
Prove to me that no other animal can witness the sun setting over a northern lake or behind a range of mountains and be deeply moved by the sight. Only then would I grant that the absence of humans from this world would be anything to lament.
5
@Richard
This isn't falsifiable. You can't prove it one way or the other.
3
What great importance so many put on human beings! Rather than working in harmony with each other, with other species, or with nature, we more often than not assume we know better than nature. We impose our gaze and values onto other species, on to nature, and beyond. We are one of the few, if not the only, species to be unable to sustain a generally harmonious presence on this planet.
It's neither pessimistic nor optimistic to consider the impact on other species and the planet that our presumed importance imposes. Would human extinction be a tragedy? To humans, perhaps. To other species? Except for those species we've domesticated to the point that they could no longer live in the wild, what other species or elements in nature would be worse off without us (not including those we've damaged and have a responsibility to restore and repair).
Further, to call human extinction a tragedy immediately excludes other species and nature for whom the emotional consideration of human extinction is not a consideration. Human extinction would be a tragedy solely for humans. But would it be a tragedy for anything or anyone else? Doubtful.
7
Before modern day homo sapiens existed, this world has been populated for millennia by a multitude of species. Global warming may eventually lead to the end of the world as we know it and ultimately the demise of the human race, however, life on earth will continue and eventually flourish, just not in a way that would be familiar to us.
9
@Cinyc The world is still populated by a multitude of species.
1
@Cinyc It’s highly doubtful that global warming will cause human extinction.
1
All empires throughout history have collapsed.
Why is it so far fetched to believe that ours will not?
I’m a liberal and I’m not a pessimist but you simply cannot try to save every life so that the average age at death is 80 without a concomitant decrease in birth rates. One goes hand in hand with the other.
It’s called realism!
3
I would like to propose a different question: "Would the extinction of tenured, presumably well-paid, professors of philosophy at major universities, who choose to propose preposterous questions, be a tragedy"? You make the call, OK?
13
NO, not at all. I believe it's time.
3
The comments, many of them very thoughtful and worth considering, remind me of the saying that history is written by the winners. We can write, so we write that the earth was created for humankind. It was created so Jesus/another messiah/God in some form will come back or show up to cleanse us and/or make us all peaceable. Blah, blah, blah. This is what your religion teaches you, O wondrous conservatives, the planet was made for you, so you can exterminate deer and other animals to build a bigger and better golf course community? Or you like to shoot guns, it gives you a thrill to blow apart some animal that's minding its own business? Or that it's somehow right to tear young children from their parents because you don't want them crossing an invisible line defining a "country?" Or to elect a president who prefers to keep arming a country like Saudi Arabia so it can terrorize its weaker neighbors so we can pay a few bucks less when we refuel our gas guzzlers?
I think there are valid arguments on both sides, but the idea of, look at me, I'm religious and you're a liberal just illustrates how undeserving we are to expect the planet to weep for us when we're gone. We're fallible and we act on instincts that we can't always control. At least let's stop avoiding accountability for our actions by using religious doctrines that we wrote and don't follow as a copout.
6
@Carl
There are quite a few religious folks who are liberal, it's just that the rightwing fundamentalists get all the press.
How many human lives for Shakespeare? Hmm... I grew up with shakespeare's works close to hand. I dutifully learned to recite from 'Macbeth'. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.... to the last syllable of recorded time" That would be us, the only ones on the planet making a record. So, how many? How many for the
majority of people on this planet that have never heard of Shakespeare? Todd, you seem to be answering a lot of your own questions, and even then, not clearly. "one human life would be too many". But then it's "to prevent quibbling, one innocent human life". Really? And what constitutes an innocent life in your opinion? This is exactly where the quibbling begins. And then: "Whatever the number, though, it's going to be quite low". Did you just change your number, or are you answering for everyone else? Did you account for people like me who want my Shakespeare at any cost, and, having sacrificed our whole species, would be quite happy reading "King Lear", alone, on an unspoiled island, fantasizing about Juliette?
1
"Humanity, then, is the source of devastation of the lives of conscious animals on a scale that is difficult to comprehend."
50 million abortions a year makes me think most humans dont care about humans
I've tried many times to think deeply about the long term outcome of humanity. I mean really long term, say 1 million years. It's very difficult to do with the rate of change that we see happening in the world today. In the last 25 years we've created a global mind (i.e. the internet) and we've developed tools to let us edit DNA, the building block of all life. We're also starting to develop 1/2 decent AI. These are not good or bad things that we've done, but they are extremely powerful.
I think the extinction of mankind would be a bad thing from the point of view that we can't make the world a better place if we're not here. We are just starting to understand where we actually stand in our place in the world and in the Universe. Think that only a few years ago we'd build a dam or tear down a forest thinking it was 'progress'. We know better today. I think we can evolve as a species, and make the world and the Universe a better place. But we may make it much worse first before we get there, which will be the tragedy we may all have to live through.
5
There is more going on here than meets the eye. The planet itself has gained conciesness now through us but we are very, very young and barely awake. No, we do not yet know how to take care of the home that we have awaked into. That we are pained by the suffering that we seem to cause points towards better days ahead. Something wonderful is going to happen.
1
With mixed emotions I note that in nature the only species that seems to go on and on are the primitive species like the crock roach crocodilian and shark species. Which has me thinking that Mother Nature does not really give a fig about Shakespeare or 'Tragedy' when deciding which species will survive. It seems she only cares about whether any particular species has a purpose in filling a particular niche in the natural world.
When looking at nature from Mother Nature's point of view it seems to me the primary question we as humans ought to be asking ourselves is not whether it would be a tragedy for us to go the way of the mammoth, cave bear or sabre tooth cat (of course it would be tragic for humans, but for other species, perhaps not so much), but rather the question seems to be: What is our purpose; and have we effectively demonstrated that this purpose could justify the depredations we are making on the rest of the natural world?
So, if Shakespeare needs to enter our consciousness as a species I think his question to Hamlet about covers it: "To be or not to be...to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune , or perchance to Dream".
3
I guess the best news for most around here is that when humans go extinct that will include Trump.
Ok,,happy now?
6
To answer your question: From the perspective of the rest of life on Earth, not at all!
4
“Once there was a parking lot...now it’s a peaceful oasis”
Talking Heads
2
It wouldn't be a tragedy for the earth.
4
A bit of perspective: Earth is 4.5 billion years old. The earliest finding to date of the genus Homo is 2.8 million years. Relative to 1 year this represents about 5.5 hours. Relative to an individuals lifespan of 80 years this represents about 3.4 milliseconds.
Due to plate tectonic activity, the collision of the Indian Plate with the Asian Plate 40 million years ago pushed former seafloor skyward, creating the Himalayan mountain range. As a result, you find marine fossils embedded in the rocks atop Mt. Everest.
Over the next 5 billion years the Sun will die, but models predict the Earth will burn up in about 1 billion years as the Sun expands into a red giant star.
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more." - Macbeth
6
It would be a tragedy to me Professor.
3
The concept of tragedy would not exist without humans
3
"Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?"
Only to humans.
5
Interesting how we are the only species to consider its own complete demise. Wow, that puts us on top of the intelligence heap. Well,let’s do it before there are no more elephants, whales or anything else that has a bigger brain than us. Give them a chance in the next 100 million years to develop opposing thumbs.
I'm so sick of being implicated in the crimes of straight white men. If we're going to start laying blame, Professor, put the right people in your sights.
Certainly the earth has been decimated, but women have not issued the decrees that turned millions of acres of pristine forest into sludge mills, and left nothing but a foul stink behind.
They have not pocketed the billions in profits that came from the forced extinction of countless life forms that were created through the genius of evolution over millennia.
No, it was the capitalists, the straight white men who invented a philosophy to justified their brutal privilege and their mindless greed. They are the criminals, not me. Not women, not people of color, not those who have always been kept outside the corridors of power.
Perhaps the question we should ask is not whether the planet would be better off without humans but whether the human race would be better off without its worst component: the straight white men.
2
The first 5 words under the title is false. "Our species possesses inherent value...." Really?
4
First, the entire premise of this article is a waste of digital space. Secondly, the fact that what we call a Professor of Philosophy is tragic.
Human, like countless species of mammals before us will eventually end. It is how the planet works. How the author didn't learn this in university is astonishing. To suggest humans are some uber source of the suffering of species is again laughable. Ever see a Gazelle be taken down by a cheetah? Not a pretty site and that's been going on for millions and millions of years. At least 65 million when T Rex was brutally devouring anything it could get its tiny hands on. Don't even get me started on climate change. The conceit and self importance of people (especially those in the media) thinking that we are or could effect the climate and even more conceited..to think taxes in poor in to the stone age can fix it. CO2 accounts for 1-2% of all green house games with water vapor making up the vast majority. WATER VAPOR!!!!
When the planet is done with us as it has in the past to countless forms of life, it will merely shake us off it's back and keep on spinning for another half a billion years. Then, the sun will begin to run put of full, expand and consume us.
2
I wonder how other apex species that have wrought devastation on competing species have felt. Do you think the dinosaurs or the bacteria in the oceans that gave us oxygen had their equivalent of misanthropes like the author?
1
the best example i have ever seen in a long time, how the lack of a belief in god leads to the most absolutely bizarre and moronic ideas.
yep! if there is no god, then yea, human extinction is no tragedy. there was earth before man, and there can be earth after man. so, who cares. what's the difference? where's the tragedy?
this passes for wisdom and smarts.
1
For us, cattle, pigs, chickens, rats, mice, wheat, corn, etc it will certainly be a tragedy. For everything else, not so much I think.
“Our species possesses inherent value” ----- So, what does that mean? Is there/was there ever a species on earth which did not possess “inherent value”? If not God, who gets to make that judgment call, anyway? So, here’s my shot at the question in question: the extinction of any species is a tragedy for that species. It’s certainly not a tragedy to God, who has overseen – and even precipitated – extinction on scales large & small over timelines unimaginable to the average human. And yet, for all of it, the earth is no worst for wear; it continues to exist for reasons known, unknown, or for no reason at all (albeit billions of years from now, it will cease to exist for reasons definite, regardless of how “moral” the species existent at the time). Such is the unfathomable “mind” of God. Cutting to the chase, the corollary to my shot is (net an aversion to causing willful suffering) every species possesses inherent value to itself and to others concurrently, but that’s not the be all end all: for were it not for the extinction of you know who, we wouldn’t be here (at least not in our present form). Anyone with genuine sympathy for the dinosaurs?
Know the difference between willful ignorance and just plain old ignorance? Humans and a fly attracted to a light!
1
Population is the thing.
For 2 billion people the earth works fine. It doesn’t work for 8 billion people.Less is more. More is death.
Voluntarily have 0, 1 or 2 children until we reduce the population by three quarters or the planet will simply give out or become undesirable to reside on.
5
@JAR
Scientific proof?
I have to laugh at the intense concern with the value of a single human life versus the contents of the Louvre, and of course the animals -- the innocent animals. Yet commentators seem to have no compunction about seeing off the entire human race. "We" deserve it, apparently. Speak for yourself, thank you very much.
3
Definitively it would be a tragedy for Humans
If Todd May thinks that it would not be a tragedy if it went extinct. then he should join the others like him and go extinct tomorrow.
2
The short answer: No.
1
Well, Mr. May, I suggest you go first and show the rest of us how it's done.
Prove that you have the courage of your convictions.
2
Were all of these comments written by teenagers that had just had a breakup with their girlfriend? If it's adults, it's he triumph of the Culture of Death among the ranks of those with self hatred. Stand aside.
2
I have no doubt that dogs could find another "best friend."
2
Extinction is the ultimate fate of all species.
3
"Tragedy" is a human construct. So, yes, it would be a tragedy as long as humans were still around, But, by definition, no humans would be around, so it would cease to be a tragedy as soon as all the humans were gone.
1
Mr. May's thinking smacks of being an avoidance strategy—something like "if we can analyze and understand this overwhelming thing, or reframe it in an interesting way, or talk about it indefinitely, then we won't have to actually experience our feelings about how terrifying it is." When we can't control the unfolding events, we try to control the discourse.
The deeper reality is that everyone who is paying attention is terrified and trying to cope, but increasingly we are failing, with cumulative results. The tragedy is happening right now and it's undermining our collective sanity.
4
It is absolutely fantastic that this question is getting considered in such a public forum. The reality is likely some intermediate result suggested in the author’s last sentence (“or at least something near it”). If our numbers were catastrophically reduced (I think this is likely), we would have far less adverse impact and maybe realize what it takes as a species to keep that from reoccurring. But addressing partial survival is infinitely complicated, contrary to the all or nothing possibilities addressed in the article. E.g., the effect on technology and industry of not having a huge population base to operate infrastructure and develop advances; developing an economic system not predicated on growth (yes, folks, economic growth, while it’s feeding your 401k, will be the ruin of us all — not in the least because it demands a growing population which is the engine that feeds it); religious beliefs that encourage large numbers of children; etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. One thing I am sure of, the remainder of creation would give thanks if we were gone, were they able to do so.
5
@B
Exactly how would a non-sentient cosmos be able to give thanks?
You asked, "Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?" Simply - no.
4
In Africa there was a new predator with a very large brain capable of making killing weapons out of stone, and the fate of this predator has not played out yet. Man is just another species that will go extinct like the many hundreds of thousands of other species that went before him. Perhaps a global pandemic will wipe human beings out, or a cataclysmic war with ensuing diseases. But this must occur before we destroy all the animals and the natural world. Given how many species have gone extinct it is entirely within the realm of possibility that man too will cease to exist, and the planet will heal and thrive without us. We are a self-destructive species and are really not destined to survive the catastrophe which we will create in the future.
4
All I can say is to professors, like Todd May, who express views hoping for the deaths or extinctions of mankind or human beings: You first. Worst part about it, this guy is an adviser to the NBC show "The Good Place".
3
There Will Come Soft Rains
Sara Teasdale, 1884 - 1933
(War Time)
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
14
great examination of the issue!
1
I dispair the end. I think about how wonderful it all is. But when I think about the end I think about some point in the future, and I don't care how long, when "it" (including Shakespear, please) it will all reemerge. Until then I have this K Vonnegut quote on my wall...
"When the last living thing
Has died on account of us,
How poetical it would be
If Earth could say,
In a voice floating up
Perhaps
From the floor
Of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.”
4
I'm a big fan of our Mother Earth. We passed the 'limits to growth' in terms of population growth and population numbers. What gives me hope these days is that human beings are will experience a steep decline in numbers and possible extinction. No one talks about curbing the population. Human beings are still having children and celebrating pregnancies and births with seeming disregard for the planet. We will not procreate our way out of climate change. I now believe that the sooner we become extinct or close to it, the sooner Mother Earth can begin to heal.
5
Barring some natural disaster, we humans will be responsible for our fate. I think it likely that religious fanaticism will be the ultimate enemy. The only advice I can offer, is to Get Real.
3
@JSK The ranks of highly religious people are dwindling. It is doubtful that they will cause our extinction.
Humans can say no to killing and this capacity along with science and the ability to plan for the future means that humans could eventually transcend nature. Transcendent humans -- who would be practically immortal and not slaves to economic necessity -- would look on the patterns of nature, life and their own moral values as the source of all art and creativity.
How can this state come to be? Progressive steps are needed. The human population should be no more than a few hundred million and concentrated in urban areas. Technology should be directed toward eliminating the need to work, the need to die and the need to kill or cause pain or fear. Moral values starting with the absolute superior value of nurturing love should be inculcated in all people. Women (not men who are genetically geared with competition and aggression) should be the starting model of transcendent humanity. There should be global government and no war or other aggressive acts. The welfare of the planet and the living world should be the top priority of collective human activity. Animals and humans should not be viewed instrumentally but as unique, particular beings with intrinsic value. All humans should be economically equal.
That this transcendence can be envisioned as possible and even inevitable (given science, technology and universal human moral value) means there is still hope -- despite the reactionary and cynical politics of capitalism and the ugly men who drive it.
@JSS So you do want humans to go extinct?
1
All of us who accept the incomprehensible suffering that humans are causing to animals, especially to factory farmed livestock, but continue to consume those animals are hypocrites and complicit. It would certainly not be a tragedy if our species became extinct.
5
It's this kind of fatalistic fantasy that creates movie plots, with demented murderers fully justified in the "final solution". While our leaders work hard to take their piece of the pie and visibly avoid taking any responsibility for improving our planet, the rest of us have to decide if this is what we want...a dead planet with total suffering in our future or something better. Hope we get some new thinkers in the white house. The "Idiocracy" remake we are living through has to be short term, right?
Interesting that the author teaches at Clemson, where the odds favor insects and kudzu outlasting humans.
Mother Earth has an immune system. It’s trying to get rid of us to protect Her.
8
I'm chair of my county's Democratic Party and lecture frequently on the threat posed by anthropogenic climate change. That said, articles like this keep Fox News in business. It gives them the ammunition they crave for mocking liberals. It's just silly to suggest that the deaths of every one of our progeny would not be the ultimate human tragedy.
As Gail Collins might say, get real, People!
3
People are just a brief inhaled breathe by some cosmic creature casually relieving itself by a star. We are an Ozymandias moment, and whatever comes after us on earth will shape the planet's destiny in, hopefully, better ways.
2
If we can't take care of it, we don't deserve it. The earth will live on.
5
The modern left wing in America today with respect to environmental problems and their questions such as whether the extinction of the human race would be a tragedy when we consider all the harm we have done to flora, fauna, the planet?
I have zero faith in left wing politics for solving problems with the environment, and the reason why is that constant, incredibly superficial, dulling, boring worldview derived from Karl Marx. That socialistic nonsense. It's proven itself as pernicious as religion. The modern left wing is so socialistic, so groupthink, so envious, bitter, that it says either WE ALL prosper together or WE ALL perish, as in we all, socialistically, solve environmental problems or it would be better if the entire human race goes extinct.
This is entirely absurd because anyone with courage can obviously state that we should be getting better by the day at selecting a human team from among humanity to ensure that at least some people, the best of us, can pass through whatever challenge the human races faces in the future, but no, to do that would raise a massive outcry from the left as to who exactly is represented on this team and of course we would hear never ending cries that "we all can go, or if we cannot all go we must all die together".
The left wing is truly absurd: It's ok to suggest the whole human race is worthless and that we should go extinct, but somehow offensive to suggest we select carefully from among humanity an A team to ensure our success.
2
Would human extinction be a tragedy?
No.
No it would not.
3
Seem no way to combat reliqious and political oppostion to birth control... but population numbers increasing exponentially and no new land or resources are coming into being.
2
Religion is, by definition , irrational. It beliefs are based on magical supernatural phenomena.
2
Consciousness is a closed loop. Everything we create, imagine or discover is only relevant to ourselves. The suffering and extinction we cause looks most like a deadly virus, multiplying exponentially and unchecked. Tragic is only how we see it—it’s all only natural.
1
I would save the art.
5
If Clemson loses to Notre Dame would that also be a tragedy?
1
Yeah OK, we’re terrible, destructive, selfish and cruel. Also we smell bad. But before the inevitable demise of humanity, can’t we take a moment to celebrate the animal that gave us Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, Van Gogh’s sunflowers and the pearly words of Shakespeare? And Bruce Springsteen. He’s a pretty good human too.
1
Define “tragedy” outside of sentient life.
1
I'm afraid you put too much value on the human pursuits of art and science. These allegedly advanced brains of ours haven't prevented us from destroying our own habitat, which seems to render everything else we've done near useless.
3
You are assuming that planet survival, or animal species survival, would be a “good.” But “good” is a concept created by humans. We decide what is “good” and what it means to be “better off.” Nature is morally neutral; it just does what it does.
You could argue, I guess, that if we believe that the mere survival of other animal species and the natural environment (which is changing in any event) is “good,” then we should disappear. I don’t know how you’d make that argument, however, since every species competes to survive. Why is one kind of competition (bears v coyotes, green beans v arugula) more worthwhile than others (humans v polar bears). Why is it better if they live and we die?
I think that we are fighting to preserve the earth for ourselves and our descendants and that those who reject human-created climate change as a fantasy are either stupid or suicidal. If we fail as a species, that will be because our irrational impulses — greed, obstinacy, lust for power — were not outweighed by our intelligence.
And that would be bad. For us. Not for the planet, which doesn’t care.
1
thr roaches will be here when humans are long gone and that really isn't all bad- eventually everything humans touch turns to
dust and ash--we are the most dangerous animals on this earth
1
Of course it would be a tragedy. What do I care if animals live or die, if my own children and their children don't exist? Give me a break.
1
My kindly Global Ecology professor during initial lecture informing fellow students human will someday cease existing (extinction).
1
This is what happens when we let loose bored, jaded philosophers to ruminate about science.... We need to find these guys real jobs.
2
Greed, arrogance, and ignorance is what's killing us. Try overcoming those obstacles. The trajectory for a prospering future doesn't look promising.
2
Personally what I would like to see is a near extinction event - something in which 99.9% of the human population is eliminated. Give the earth several thousand years to heal itself while it very slowly repopulates itself. . Somewhere out in the cosmos is a near extinction sized asteroid with our number on it. Maybe it will happen next year, maybe in 500 years but it will definitely happen as it already has more than once in the past. Call it God's will or just the law of averages catching up with us but you can bet the bank humankind's number is up and I say good riddance to us - we as a species deserve it.
1
This is a good discussion of a very important subject in ethics, viz. what is a just relationship between humans and nonhuman animals. Thanks to Todd May. And I am grateful for the reference to the new book by Christine Korsgaard.
Two further aspects that he may wish to consider:
1. There are animals whose lives would be impoverished and perhaps doomed if humans were to disappear. such as many domestic dogs, and those animals who thrive in the shadows of human existence but would be hardput to find suitable habitat and food supplies without us, e.g. rats and cockroaches.
2. There are theological systems, such as many of those originating in the ancient Near East, according to which humans are servants of gods, without whose service the gods would suffer some loss; or else, according to which humans are beloved creatures, whose death is displeasing. In such systems, the divine perspective on such matters usually is the only judgment that counts.
A few points.
The earth doesn't care. It's been here for four and a half billion years, in a constant process of destruction and renewal.
Animals do not care other than that they like us do not like to suffer. The loss of an ecosystem is only significant from a moral point of view to an observer who believes that the ecosystem has worth. In this loss, animals might suffer as individuals, but as a species they do not care either, for the simple fact that in an extinction (as with humans) there would be no one to notice.
If Yellowstone Park were to be wiped out, we would miss it, but that is only because we would be aware of its prior existence. Again the earth and the animals do not care.
What matters most is human and animal suffering. These are real concerns, and are appropriately considered in discussions about the environment.
Concerns about climate change are legitimate in this sense, or would be, had the whole topic not been politicized from the start, thereby taking it out of the realm of science, and into the realm of faith, money, and power.
1
The tragedy is the suffering of living humans, knowing they will likely die as the environment breaks down, and fearing the imminent suffering of their children.
Nature has always eliminated species. Often by starvation, and by stopping reproduction in difficult times.
The difference with our species is the psychological component of suffering... we know what is potentially going to happen, and are powerless to stop it.
2
Unless it happens real soon, human extinction is a matter in which my opinion is, at least somewhat, unprejudiced, since I will be lucky to live till the new year.
In my 74 years, I have learned gradually, but consistently, that the human race is not a viable one. It's of our own doing, but it is also a result of how we were made, genetically.
We are a combative and aggressive species, genetically, and we've needed it until we became so technological that we can kill one another in massive numbers. No other species kills its own members - bears and ants do, but they don't do it with hate, as we do.
We are the only species capable of hating. Religion originally tried to mellow us out, but became, instead, a tool with which to do more killing.
Nature culls species that are nonviable. I think it has had us in its crosshairs for quite some time, but we've dodged most of it with technology. Famine was attacked by developing seeds that aren't so delicate. Disease has been greatly reduced with medicine, but it's still not enough. Nature has its ways of getting done what it wants done. And Nature WILL prevail, in time.
But our own hate, aggression and the evils we embrace can do us in without any help from Nature.
We have nukes. And one day, sooner or later, they WILL be used.
As Yoda said, "we are luminous beings,"but we have consistently ignored our better traits.
I don't see how we CAN survive, even for another hundred years. Sad, yes, but reality IS. We're doing it to ourselves.
5
A failure of humankind to survive would really be a failure of our politics. Is any optimism possible, post-Trump?
1
When the universe began 13.7 billion years ago, it contained only subatomic particles and energy. From that simple beginning, stars eventually formed and then seeded space with all the elements on the periodic table. From some of that, our solar system and planet formed 4.5 billion years ago. We conscious humans eventually evolved. It is an astonishing achievement that we have traced our origins to beginning of the universe. We therefore know that we humans are an embodiment of the universe coming to an awareness and understanding of itself. In my mind, there is something deeply profound about this that I think this gets far too little philosophical consideration. If humans were to go extinct, the loss us as conscious manifestations of the universe's knowledge of itself would be tragic, especially because we are so rapidly expanding our understanding. No question, we are messing up our planet, but if we are to be saved, perhaps it will finally be because of our profound understanding of our place in the cosmos.
3
Very good, but I think our sun is about 5 billion years older than the earth, and hopefully, it will continue to aid us for another 5 billion years.
Those of us in the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement have been pondering these issues for decades, and we have come to the conclusion that it is best for humans not to reproduce at all. Our motto: Live long and die out!
5
No, it would not be a tragedy -- unless of course we did it in a manner that ensures that the Sixth Extinction is the worst one ever experienced on earth.
1
We still live in a barbaric society, there will never be peace on this planet, sadly human life has little value ,and other living things might have a chance without us.
4
Brace yourselves for a religious perspective. What the writer calls “committing a wrong” those of the Abrahamic faiths call “sin”.
We are, indeed, a fallen people. We are masters of destruction; we joyfully celebrate violence in popular culture. We are tribal by nature, and we glory in the downfall of our foes. If only – we tell ourselves – those people (Republicans, Democrats, white, black, brown, liberal, conservative …) were defeated or silenced somehow, we could all march together into a glorious future and defeat the twin enemies of civilization: poverty and ignorance.
It seems to occur to no one of a secular bent that maybe, just maybe, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was right when he said: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
So for Christians, we acknowledge sin, but we also believe in a Redeemer, One who can right all wrongs and restore us, save us. Alas, this requires humbly bending our knee to the Creator, and admitting the rot within us all. Sadly, that is a bridge too far for many.
3
@mbhowe1
I don’t know that I agree with this but I find it troubling and moving.
2
Morality is not dependent on religion, thank god. Proof? Religious wars.
2
If human extinction is a tragedy but there's nobody around to witness it, is it a tragedy?
3
Is it Yuval Harari who promises extinction as as natural occurrence and founds his claim on a long cycle of extinctions? Supposing we will be here forever to make up and muck up the place is the height of hubris. To hope we will leave the place in any sort of order is even higher. But then, when the Gods held sway over it, reportedly the place was not exactly "broom clean." Anyway, could we at least wipe our feet when we enter and maybe eliminate plastic from our bivouac?
This is in the misanthropic spirit of sci-fi movies where humans are bad and robots are good, or humans are bad but zombies are good. Many minorities, women, and gays go through a period of self-hatred in adolescence and get past it as adults. As a species, we could forgive our personal global footprints and focus on corporations and politicians who put quarterly profits above the survival of civilization.
2
Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy? 'Tragedy' is a self referential value judgement we alone determine. Of course our extinction would be a tragedy as far as the operating majority of humans are concerned. And no other species has a say. But it's likely only our pets, certain pests, and popular varieties of domesticated plants would stand to lose if we vanished. They've done well, but the rest of the natural world has taken it in the shorts.
To say we serve a good beyond ourselves is highly tenuous. Our art and culture seem pretty meaningless to our dog. Her needs are simple. An alien species might understand our scientific and technological achievements. Maybe they'd appreciate aspects of our buildings or industry. But would they keep us around, maybe as pets, or simply steal our stuff? I'm pretty sure I know what human history says we'd end up doing if positions were reversed.
The real test of 'tragedy' should be its applicability by a disinterested third party. Since there are none that we know, we're left with our own hubris and fido's rousing support. Cockroaches could care less since they'll easily outlast us.
1
I often debated in my head the same question. The mere posing of this question is a symptom of our incredible cosmic arrogance. The fact of the matter is that our tenure on this planet will be nothing but a tiny blip, a micro interference in the overall lifespan of this planet. We are the tiny flea who only gets to live a day on the back of a pachyderm that gets to live a thousand years and asks itself what impact will it have on its host. As a member of this unfortunate species, I do clearly want us to self-preserve (isn't that nature?) and look at catastrophes such as climate change as something that needs to be desperately reversed, for OUR sake. From the point of view of the planet, however, we are - together with our actions, quite irrelevant. We will likely disappear leaving our garbage behind and mother Earth will slowly regenerate itself, finally rid of a cancerous growth.
2
We didn't get the message, "All these lands are yours, save Madagascar and other similar pockets of primates." Hidden enough from the damage done and the damage to come. They await our demise to radiate again into the niches we leave behind.
The lemurs gather to say farewell to the lemures, "That didn't work out so well. Do over." Another cycle begins without us.
1
The unnecessary suffering we have caused, and continue to cause every day, to billions of sentient beings is reason enough in my view to celebrate our demise (if nature could celebrate). On the other hand, as Hamlet would say, "What a piece of work is man." Yes, OK, it'd be a tragedy to pack our bags and go. But the author of the article also raises an issue about population control which he doesn't pursue to its logical end. I think we should ask the very serious question: should we introduce laws that limit the procreation of human beings? We tend to balk at the idea of sterilization because it has such loaded racial history, but, if we can introduce some less invasive way of long-term birth control (and not just condoms and the pill; IUDs maybe?), which applies to everyone regardless of race, sex, or ethnicity, it might be the only viable option to ensure the future survival of the planet -- and our species. We constantly talk about limiting consumption, but this, to my mind, is an impossible solution to implement on a large enough scale because it implies either some semi-mystical mass transformation of ethical values, or the dismantling of the entire global economic apparatus, the capitalist networks of supply and demand, etc, which nothing short of global (nuclear) war could achieve. At the same time, I'm perfectly aware that most countries don't have the will and political clout to implement even the Chinese one-child policy. In short, we are doomed.
3
Thank you for writing this piece. I know I am going to have a blast reading the comments here!
2
If humans went extinct, it would be very bad for French Bulldogs, because they can't open doors by themselves. I don't think French Bulldogs would last, as a breed.
4
Spending much time thinking about this - which I have done - is leading nowhere and is also very presumptuous. In so doing, we dare to think that we could have the power to eliminate suffering if only we wanted.
We do not have this power and we will never have it, not even by making ourselves go extinct. Life on Earth is firmly built on endless, eternal and constant suffering and death. Every single organism on this planet is in a competition for resources and either killing and eating other living animals directly, or indirectly - by being more successful in acquiring resources - causing other species to suffer and starve to death or be weakened and then eaten by a predator.
What we do to animals we breed as food is often cruel, but even those millions of suffering individuals are only a tiny fraction of all the violent dying and suffering of animals that is naturally happening on Earth every second.
This is horrible, but it is fact. And by the way, someone being vegan changes absolutely nothing about it - in fact I consider veganism deeply amoral because vegans presume that they have meaningful impact on the amount of animal suffering that is going on. They do not have that power, nor the moral authority. Because killing is naturally built into every animal alive on this planet and it will be this way as long as there is life on Earth.
1
Who'd think animals-given self-awareness to be master over this planet--would squander this opportunity and priviledge. Obsessed with avoiding Paradise at all costs to make sure life is just monitored comfort from car to work to home -has in effect destroyed Paradise
Our species, sad to say, contributes nothing positive to the wellbeing of the earth and our fellow creatures and their habitats. Not only do we contribute nothing positive to the life and environment of this planet; we bring misery so massive and continuous that it cannot be calculated. Realizing what countless animals are experiencing every second of every day because of us, realizing that we are destroying entire rainforests and their residents for cattle grazing and soybeans to feed tortured chickens and other animals in their filthy factory farms so humans can eat garbage and develop dietary Type 2 Diabetes, for example: the whole situation is unspeakable. We are not good citizens of the earth. We despise our animal kin. We are full of hubris and self-idolatry. I dream, hopefully, of our demise.
10
It is tempting of course to see humans as the destructive, polluting menace of the planet, and then say the planet wouldn't miss us, that we are a minuscule part in time and space.
I would offer a different perspective. Humans are just another species on the planet the way Earth is just another planet in the solar system. There is something unique going on here. We humans have become a global species. A global species is one that can produce a global crisis.
In Earth's long history, she has produced just one other global species: bacteria. That species, after tapping into a rich vein of energy (the sun via photosynthesis), began the most lethal pollution the planet has ever seen: oxygen. Oxygen is a toxic and corrosive gas, that stressed all single-celled life on the planet, and altered Earth ocean environment and atmosphere.
Bacteria are promiscuous with genes; they learned to adapt, survive and thrive, eventually bringing forth multicellular creatures.
We are creating a planetary predicament with our unfettered use of energy, and we are destroying and stressing many life forms. We are also Earth's second global species, whose gift is imagination, a promiscuity with memes.
We have not yet found our way to a partnership with Living Earth that is mutually enhancing. As with the first planetary species, we may see this as a rite of passage, an initiation. We are challenged with our empathy and understanding to adapt, respond, and flower a new Earth.
1
Human extinction is the best remedy for the environment. Sadly, we're taking many other species with us.
3
Would human extinction be a tragedy?
Let's split the difference and call it a tragic necessity.
2
Todd May's extinction would certainly not be a tragedy.
1
I had thought the writer would address the concept of a 'humane' way to make mankind extinct. It's easy, the Shaker's showed the way (with the pleasant prospect of returning to our natural spiritual selves, one with God). Just stop procreating. Like the Shaker's, within 50 years mankind would begin to cease to exist with no way back. And within 120 years we would be gone. Interesting idea, eh.
3
@Jimmy
Yes, if you left out [G]od.
1
"Would human extinction be a tragedy?"
Only for humans.
What life remained would rejoice.
3
If humans do get extinct and a fish, cockroach or rat survives, it will prove that we humans were never the fittest intelligence to survive as we like to think of ourselves. If we are, as a species, of the highest rank, then we will adapt to the mess we created ourselves.
1
I find it grotesque to read that the survival of some species other than humans is more important than the the survival of our species. Sort of like a mass suicide wish.
Yes we can do awful terrible things, like so many other species that have ever existed on this planet, but we also, as a species, have done more good than any other species yet to exist on earth. If you must insist in your own death wish, please leave me out of it.
2
This is about as silly as it gets. But let's all wear a hair shirt, set our hair on fire then hold our breath until we turn blue. WAAAHHHH We're such an evil species.
Oh,please. Will all those who believe that the earth would be better off without us, please go buy a gun and use it immediately. Save mother earth. Come on. Don't wait. Do it today.
For those of you who are sane -- congratulations. Yes, yes. We can do a much better job when it comes to the environment. So please dispose of your plastics in particular in a proper way. The plastic in the oceans and waterways and on the beaches is a disgrace. But climate change? Science for that is very weak. And here's an interesting article from the WSJ on that very subject.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-yellow-jackets-are-right-about-green-policies-11544991717
Naughty naughty on Al and Bill if true.
And no the science isn't settled --- the so called climate scientists are basing all their papers and projections on future warming etc. on the fact that we've undergone abnormal warming since 1880. But the data that "fact" is based on are a joke and no reputable scientist would use that data set for anything except to amuse themselves about how bad science can be.
Treat animals better. I'm all for that. But it's not as if animals and insects and birds don't do some pretty terrible things to each other.
Ralphie, glaciers and polar bears and polar ice caps know more about global warming than you do. The WSJ is not a scientific journal. In the main, the earth is getting warmer and it is due to human activity. That is settled science to the vast majority of the earth’s scientists, as is Darwin’s evolution.
2
Just like we don't miss the dinosaurs.
The next species won't miss us.
1
Nope. Only to Amazon; but not THE Amazon.
1
It would absolutely not be a tragedy.
If only this animal was eliminated from the planet..would there not be cleaner water, cleaner air, more animals, etc. It would really be paradise. Can mankind change his ways? I think only when catastrophe looms on the horizon.
Many who are reading this now will never have to change there ways....That is the Tragedy!!
1
The concepts of 'good' and 'bad' are irrelevant on the cosmological scale.
Ah, the amoral essence of being...
Are humans essentially amoral since they cause so much harm to the rest of the planet such that the only moral argument is the extinction of man. Of course, the counter argument is that morals do not exist without man since the behavior of no other species is even close to being morality-driven. Since, without man morality would not exist, how can man be amoral.
Hmmm. Yet another philosophic conundrum...
Wouldn’t a better question be to ask if it’s moral to keep breeding - knowing what we do about climate change and the environment? I can’t think of a more selfish act these days, yet asking this is laughable by most.
7
It is worth considering that if humans were to suddenly disappear what would happen to all their pets? Would the world be overrun by swarms of feral dogs and cats who would quickly wipe out all other forms of life? That is something to consider. And of course what about all those domestic animals: chickens, cows, pigs, etc, who would suddenly have to fend for themselves. The world would be a crazy place.
1
Wow. Finally something that makes me feel better about all of this devastation we're causing...just turn the problem on its head. Maybe it will all be alright in the end...
1
There is this song I stumbled across on the Internet, by somebody called « C M A », and the song is called « Open Your Eyes », and among the few words at the start, they say:
« What you are basically,
Deep deep down far far within,
Is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself… »
What we as humans, more so than other animals on our planet Earth, can do a tiny bit... is see « the big picture ».
Einstein figuring out that there is some strange relationship between time and space. Or Van Gogh creating paintings. Or the Beatles making songs. Or Laurel and Hardy making people laugh.
No doubt we have done much damage. But seriously... « Open Your Eyes »... if humanity went away, it would be a super tremendous loss for « the fabric and structure of existence itself ».
1
20 years ago in Chernobyl we see huge proliferation of wild animals and vegetation.
I think that lost of human lives on our planet is going to be only positive event. We are talking about this subject because it is very scary to think that we are not going to exist anymore.
We are not humans anymore, we are miserable things who brought wars, humiliation, hunger, greed and cruelty. Our planet was raped humans beings.
1
"If all the insects were to disappear from the Earth, within fifty years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth, within fifty years all forms of life would flourish."
2
Destruction of the environment does not cause “unimaginable suffering” to animals. Instead, their ranges are decreased and they become extinct. Then, you are left with the dumb argument that factory farming means that it might not be a tragedy if humans became extinct. That is not an idea worth considering.
couldn't we just imagine the end of capitalist agriculture, (combined with universal veganism), and save the humans and the animals?
1
The planet will be fine, but we are doomed.
2
I'm not going to be on this earth much longer but I do have grandchildren that I sure hope can survive especially because of the idiocy that is currently making policy concerning climate change. I just hope that we can vote in an administration that is more aware of what is going on outside of NYC and Mar a Lago isolation. I doubt seriously that our current "president" has ever camped or even visited a National Park outside of DC if even that. This administration has made things worse than I could imagine and I just don't understand why in the world that folks would support this. Please folks, visit and see the treasures we all have and vote against any policy that exploits them for money and greed.
First, the foundational cause of all our environmental problems of which global warming is one symptom is the now unsustainable too high human population! By definition we would not have a GW problem if only half as many CO2 emitters were on earth. And, the foundational reason we are justifiably agonizing about the real extinction of the human as well as most other species is that our global 1% of political and government leaders plan and rig our societies to keep human populations growing simply so they can have higher more "bodies" GDP's that they can take a greater total profit margin off the top of. Their 'grow or die' mantra (when most natural systems and populations have successfully existed in steady states for millions of years) is the big lie that is killing the earth! Therefore, the most interesting question of moral philosophy for philosophers should be why are those like Todd May (who can actually get published to a large public audience) are too cowardly to state the truth that the steadily rising human populations, not its collateral damages like global warming, is the reason why mass extinctions are highly probable. And that subsequently discussions about who and what is most valuable are none sensical and unnecessary. All humanity needs to do is to start stabilizing human populations at sustainable levels in all the individual nation states around the world, not making this a "global" and so no solution problem that people can cheat by mass migrating out of.
1
To all those saying no one would miss the human race, I ask "what about the pigeons and the rats?"
In all seriousness and without any further sarcasm, the author answers his own question by admitting (to his credit) that the inherent "value" of humanity is pretty much only from a human perspective. Aside from some specific bonds people may form with individual lifeforms (pets and such), the question posed just doesn't strike me as meaningful.
Many people, myself included, tend to see life as worth saving for it's own sake, but that's a function of human concepts too. I'd rather not wipe out a species. There are all sorts of ecological reasons, but at the end of the day, I don't need much excuse beyond thinking that it's a stupid, juvenile thing to do.
In that same sense, I don't know what inherent "worth" humanity has to the world, the solar system, galaxy or universe. It's sufficient to say that I and many others wish to live and to see others live. Again, I could cite human concepts like creativity, morality, etc., but why bother? If humanity were coming to an end right this moment, I would regret it. Me. A lot of people would probably feel the same. That should be reason enough to stop hastening our own destruction.
94
Man's ascent to the station of peak predator has been the result of and continues to be a comedy...of errors. Man's extinction would be a welcome curtain to the end of this overlong production. His continuing role is the real tragedy.
2
The root cause for the destruction of rhe earth is overpopulation. There are simply too many of us. We are polluting the earth in every way possible.
It occurs at a rate and scale once thought impossible. Amazingly, there have been calls for increased birth rates. The basis is Ponzi scheme, where more young are needed to take care of our agimg population.
Organized religions are opposed to population control, i.e. “God will provide”. Meanwhile mankind's stewardship of the earth is failing.
4
Dogs would not be able to survive without their human caregivers, so I hope humans do not go extinct.
2
Would Extinction of Meteor Strikes Be a Tragedy?
Really, when it comes to habitat destruction and suffering of animals nothing beats a nasty Meteor strike. They should be banned from the cosmos!
2
Remind me not to send my kids to Clemson.
6
Dumb questions, especially those that pose a logical horns of dilemma choice such as mankind OR the earth bore me and make we wonder why we pay philosophy professors to ask them. It jogs us, yes. But it's dumbing down us, too. After all, if human deaths mean nothing, why punish murderers and genocidal politicians? Human Life is the ONLY currently known source of change, of new hope. Millions have died for little, but the lives that survive often bring hope for tomorrow. Yes, many animals and fish and grains seem lost, but husbandry, including safekeeping techniques, can feed us well and efficiently. Progressive economies and political institutions can conserve for the future. Science, maligned by the rightists, has eliminated age-old epidemics and broken the atom. Now we need to make science responsible for tomorrow, not today's parties. Contraception did not destroy civilization, nor has abortion. We can limit population. We can make tomorrow better. Why try? Because, as the Jewish aphorism says, he who saves a single life, it is as though he saved a universe. We can't place that hope and value on a cockroach or paramecium, an alien, a robot, a p.c., or a lump of earth. Human extinction? The ultimate tragedy, the surrender of hope. We nay be dumb, we may even pose terrible choices. But we always have been, yet we endure, as Faulkner said. Not as angels or fossils. As humans, the only hope we or out automata know.
2
What a silly contrivance this line of thought is. Nature isn’t a benevolent kingdom in which we outsiders have corrupted the natural order. That is a book of genesis derived fairytale. We are not outsiders, we are nature. We are advanced monkeys and we fight for our territory among the other species and we fight to reproduce. There is no moral measurement of our success or failure, anymore than we can say wolves are good or wolves are bad, mice are good or mice are bad, germs are good or bad. They are all just life forms and we can only say they are good or bad in relation to our domaine and our dominion. The dieing out of humans would would be neither good nor bad. The projecting of a Judeo Christian moral paradigm onto nature is not just sentimental but delusional. Nature is energy beyond anything comprehensible to us. Forming and reforming into waves and pulses across infinity.
The relevant question is: do we WANT to live? Do we desire to go on? If we do, we will have to utilize the water, the oxygen and the minerals of the earth quite differently. We will have to exist in a state of equilibrium with each other and with the environment,- or drown in the toxicity of our conflicts.
6
More misanthropic drivel from those who hold to failed worldview that can't adequately explain why things are the way they are. Apart from a biblical worldview none of what goes on makes sense. Unlike the legions of misanthropes who denigrate human life, human life is the pinnacle of God's creation. The problem is we are all fallen and depraved and express it in very destructive ways. That we haven't managed what God has entrusted to us that well, is further testimony to our depravity. And all the philosophizing in the world won't change that fact.
1
When you are visiting your Super this week, please have a look at all the frozen, tasteless turkeys. A very good look. Then ask yourself if we deserve extinction or should we just go on.
2
Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on an advanced degree in philosophy, and the result is this toothless drivel. That's the real tragedy.
7
In a word: no.
For many years I have been of the opinion that all of humanity should ultimately go to the North 40 and take a TNT suppository.
But just imagine how nice a world without religion will be.
2
I believe that humans are the worst species ever to evolve. We have devastated the Earth and now must suffer along with it. If God exists he is not happy with us. If we do not undo the damage we have done, the day of judgment will come one way or another.
1
All I needed to do was read the headline of this article.
No. We are a scourge on this planet. It would thrive much better without us.
He found a rock and used it to kill his own.
Knife
Spear
Sword
Gun
Tank
Plane
Look what we have now. The demise of all species is not a question of who but when.
@newwaveman
Oh, I am tired of reading bad news, I mistook plane for piano.
No is the answer to the title's question.
1
Isn't it strange that the NYT comment section so full of pessimists? I thought us liberals were supossed to be the optimists in the world. Its especially sad to see such confused and simplistic philosophical arguments declare the meaninglessness of human existence and focus exclusively on the harm that humanity has caused (harm being the standards we created by the way). Well, I disagree. Humanity going extinct would be an incredably tradegy and, if the natural development of conscious life is a once-a-universe phenomenon, it would be the greatest tradegy is cosmic history.
To follow the ideas in the two books The Beginning of infinity and Enlightenment Now, humans have the unique ability to improve the world and own the unique accomplishement of having done so already. Our accomplishements since the Enlightenment and especially since WW2 are staggering in almost every meaningful area. More importantly, if any species can make the universe full of consciousness and remove suffering it will have to be humans. We are the only beings capable of consistently creating knowledge and improving the universe with it
Have we always improved the world? No of course not. But the universe without us would be a dull place with a few semi-conscious creatures who suffer just long enough to procreate. Even if you are the most pessimistic of thinkers you still have to consider human life a tradegy becase its the only chance the universe has at improving.
60
Edit: Even if you are the most pessimistic of thinkers you still have to consider the extinction of human life to be a tragedy becase its the only chance the universe has at improving.
3
@Aidan Mackenzie We're not pessimists; we're realists. I, for one, am echoing the scientists I've heard state unequivocally that our days are limited: New Zealander Guy MacPherson—a PhD, by the way—said a few years ago that humans had less than ten years. He is still saying that "we are dead men walking." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIcq48o7mcY
Nothing I'm saying is original, of course; I'm just agreeing with those who came before me. Stephen Hawking also said before his death that we had to colonize another planet if we're to survive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJ3TJysB0g
My take on this has nothing to do with optimism or pessimism, per se.
22
@Aidan Mackenzie
Seriously? Humans are the only chance the ENTIRE universe has? Ever? The entire universe is in deep trouble if that's the case.
The semi-conscious whales, dolphins, wolves, bonobos,
many bird species will never get the chance to evolve, thanks to our species.
28
I have so many reactions to this article and the comments. One, where can we as a society go when we don't see ourselves as fundamentally different than animals, and not only in degrees?
Second, how does he know what the consciousness of animals is? Also, it seems like a lot of people here hate being humans, and would be ready to end their existence soon.
And then last but not least- if this is the wisdom my kid is going to learn in philosophy class in college, I'd say skip the whole thing. This such sophistry it boggles the mind. It's also completely irrelevant on so many levels; does the author think that a large part of humanity will vote themselves out of existence to save some animals?
1
Based upon the course we have chosen, at some point the end results. That is the reality. The planet will become too hot to sustain human life. The only question is whether there will be an adaptation that we cannot presently conceive.
1
We coexisted quite well with nature for many thousands of years. What's changed? In the last 200 years our scientific and technological prowess exponentiated. It's resulted in these "progressions" - 1) the mass harnessing of energy resources from fossil fuels 2) the doubling of the average human lifespan and 3) greatly enhanced abilities to extricate and communicate useful information.
It has resulted in a standard of living enjoyed by the masses that would shame kings of long ago. It's just become too much of a good thing - the pollutants (greenhouse emissions, persistent toxins, fertilizers, etc.) are killing the planet as we know it. Long life spans have resulted in exponential population growth. Ceteris paribus, we would expect a linear increase in pollutants with population, but additional land and sea resources used to support the population further decrease the planet's ability to mitigate pollutants. The net result is an exponential growth in pollutants. The last item, an information and communication explosion - is a death trap. The modern world's ever accelerating pace has reached a critical limit. It has pushed beyond the average human's capacity to allow proper deliberation on important socio-technological issues. We live in constant anxiety - too concerned with the need for ever-faster products than whether their manufacture environmentally rapes the planet. (And if you think decision-making times are short now, wait until AI fully kicks in.)
1
At first, define ‘tragedy’? If you refer to the human emotion, the answer is no because with extinction there are no longer human emotions. When you refer to it as a genre where you meant that it is tragedic that the human kind could not save its elves do it humanity is killed with his own need for constant progress, then the answer is yes.
On the other end, isn’t death of extinction a natural part of life or creation. Every newborn that comes to this world will die so why not kill it after it comes out of the womb? The reason that we don’t is because we hope that in his or her lifetime it will do more good then harm. For humankind a a species, we could seriously think we did more harm then good to the planet and our fellow life forms. Despite our so-called superior minds, we failed to do so and in a play or movie, that would be called a tragedy.
Every other species works and changes to survive. Not humans- we work to not survive (global warming). Constantly working against our own self interests.
At the terrible expense to all of the animals on this earth. We should be their wards and stewards, not their consumers.
Hint though. Don't try to predict animals sense of reasons or feelings or sentience. Surely that is man's hubris.
Man will not survive, and should not survive given the harm we are doing to this planet and its animals.
2
"Since-he-is-of-no-use-anymore-there-is-no-gain-if-he-lives-and-no-loss-if-he-die." (Pol Pot)
It is not that large a leap to move from arguing that the world is better off without human beings to arguing that people in general, or that some people in particular should be eliminated for some uncertain "greater good."
Writing after the Second World War, the Polish poet Tadeusz Rozewicz wrote:
That old woman who
leads a goat on a string
is needed more
is worth more
than the seven wonders of the world
anyone who thinks or feels
she is not needed
is a mass murderer
We would do well to contemplate how Rozewicz could make such an assertion. We would do even better if we also contemplated the diabolic hubris inherent in arguing that the world is better without humans.
And just to show how easy the leap is from suggesting that that the world is better when it is human "rein", to contemplating causing human suffering, I quote from Professor May:
To demand of currently existing humans that they should
end their lives would introduce significant suffering...
In contrast, preventing future humans from existing does
not introduce such suffering....
Without violence and suffering how is the edict that humans cannot have children going to be enforced? And what pseudo scientist could construct a scale of comparative suffering in which the totally of human suffering is proven to be less than the suffering of all other earthly existence?
2
Thanks for this article; it makes me glad I subscribed to the New York Times. Thoughtfulness is a good thing.
2
we are not indespensable; some of us pass away every day. considering we are not as a whole practical, responsible, rational or caring beyond our own boundaries, why go on? if there were a swift, merciful end we surely deserve it.
Humans experience life in three dimensions . In bosonic string theory, spacetime has 26.
When I posed the question, of our deity existing in one of those dimensions to a buddy, he said, "Right now, in one of those dimensions, there is a pack of aliens sitting around, laughing at us!"
Who knows? But we can make life on Earth better, for all of us.
3
Ladies and gentlemen, here we have a classic example of how an academic thought process blocks simple thinking. Speaking strictly for myself, I don't need to cite Samuel Sheffler, or whoever it was, to give me important reasons to think human extinction would be a bad thing. I just need to hug my kids. And lets drag in Sophocles to strictly define "tragedy" to the point of meaninglessness. Did it occur to this writer that his definition excludes the victims of the Syrian civil war, form example? He must have a pretty darned over-gazed naval to have missed that point.
Anyways, let's save everyone some time, and answer the question "Would human extinction be a tragedy?" Um, yes.
Would human extinction be a tragedy?
NO.
I say this all the time and people look at me like, well, like human beings are *the* center of gravity in the universe. This, of course, makes my case for me.
I see all these comments about all the glorious achievements of the human race but, get real, all these achievements benefit no one and nothing but the human race. And at the expense of every single thing on the planet.
2
The question suggests an overestimation of place. Tragedy relative to what?
The extinction of humanity? From a global perspective, a tragedy perhaps; but from a galactic perspective, fascinating.
@Charles Burnham, Ph.D.
Whatever turns you on. Doctor!
2
Though I know that vast majority of my fellow humans would consider my opinion as deplorable as it unnatural, I think that it would be for the best if humans went extinct, or at least if our numbers were reduced to no more than 20 million, and those 20 million confined to a few ares of the currently "inhabited" globe. It isn't that I don't love many other human beings on a personal basis, but we're destroying the entire planet, including, inevitably, causing a prolonged and incredibly horrendous death of our own species as things are proceeding anyway, and no, we aren't going to learn anything from the disasters occurring in our midst. We are a uniquely intelligent, creative subgroup of primates, but the idea that our species is more worthy of survival than tigers and river porpoises and Javan rhinos, coral reefs and the millions of species of insects, birds, amphibians and so on that we are wiping out, is nonsense. There is no moral rationale for our surviving them. The assertions that we are more worthy than they are are founded in chauvinism, overly-developed self-regard, and a sentimental stupidity that, if observed in other creatures, we would regard as signs of their inferiority. We're going down anyway, might as well do it with self-awareness.
2
The number of human lives worth ending in order to save the works of Shakespere from erasure is large. A war to preserve timeless cultural contributions would be worth fighting.
1
The likelihood of us going extinct is really pretty slim. First, there are over 7 billion of us. Next, we're highly adaptable, living basically everywhere that has dry land, from plains to mountains to deserts to frozen tundra. Not to say that we won't do things that might cause massive population losses, but extinction? Seems unlikely.
I see more evidence of morality in the comments to this editorial than I could find in all the evangelical churches and legislative bodies in the country.
Egregiously bizarre piece - but also very thought-provoking. Callous as I appreciate it sounds, I'd probably be more heartbroken by the loss of the contents of the Louvre (or Smithsonian, British Museum, etc), than the loss of 'several people' (yes there's the question of when the number of lives lost outweighs the inherent value of the cultural objects saved; I wouldn't put it just at 'several' though). By which I mean - any individual death or deaths is/are heartbreaking but consigning swathes of cultural achievements to the flames to save them is at least is reprehensible as the extinction of any number of animal species through human apathy greed or sheer perverted indulgence.
Losing Shakespeare (to use the author's example) is exactly equivalent to losing a much valued species, or family of life. I think it's morally dubious to start putting homo sapiens on an infinitely higher plain than any other species, but that we are the only species - anywhere in the universe, as far as we (so far) know - capable of entertaining the premise of the article is so inherently valuable and important and wonderful that it would be an unspeakable and unmitigable tragedy (if there were anyone left to speak or mitigate it) we the species to die out.
Or to put it another way: if even all species of elephant became extinct, we would mourn it immensely. If we do, they won't.
Of course eventually humans will go extinct. Other species of humanoids (Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, etc) have all disappeared. This is a normal part of the history of life on Earth. How soon humanity goes extinct may be influenced by our actions but even if we reform ourselves morally and do everything to protect the world we have now, it will not last. We'll be gone long long before the sun goes cold. And we may well be succeeded by life that is far wiser, intelligent and productive than we are. By the time those space probes we send out with a record of our time on earth reach some alien civilizations it will be a record of our history not an account of what exists at that time.
1
Although we human beings can experience joy, happiness and a sense self-worth throughout our lives, I would suggest that we humans also overestimate our happiness, and choose to ignore our ongoing suffering. In the larger cosmic sense, our species go unnoticed; the universe is not a moral entity. Our uniqueness, e.g. self-awareness, will likely be our downfall, as we've consciously engaged in disastrous behavior, willfully determined to destroy our planet. As said by the noted philosopher, David Benatar, it may be that it is "better never to have been", than to continue our coming into existence.
1
The idea of tragedy is a human construction, so if we disappeared there would be no tragedy. Life would still move on, or not, on this planet, determined by forces we have spent our entire existence trying to ignore or erase.
9
I take exception to Mr. May's statement that none of our animals would miss us. Dogs would be very sad, assuming of course that they did not follow us into the void. Cats on the other hand would almost certainly survive, and would view our departure with indifference.
3
Cats would react differently than dogs but the cats I have know would sense a difference and live forward with the change. That would not be indifference.
"Yet what I am asking here is simply whether it would be a tragedy if the planet no longer contained human beings."
It strikes me that you are asking a meaningless question. Unless you can demonstrate otherwise, tragedy is a human idea. It's an idea that only has meaning to us.
In my many years of observing nature I've never seen a "tragic" chickadee or red squirrel or brown rat. What would such creatures look like?
These critters are aware of my human presence on this cold, snowy December day because they eat the food I put out. Would they, as individuals, survive without that food? Perhaps not but their species would.
Birds have been on this planet in one form or another for at least 150 million years with no help from homo sapiens.
You suggest that our species "possesses inherent value". To the birds? To the rats? Rats first appears about 54 million years ago (long before humans) and have been doing just fine without any human help.
Finally, I disagree -- we can and should ask questions without "situating them within the human practice of philosophy". We can ask these questions as they relate to the consequences of human actions. Granted praxis can not be separated completely from theoria but the chickadees would be better off if I don't cut down all the trees regardless of what I think about trees.
(For whatever it's worth, my undergraduate degree is in philosophy.)
2
Extinction? Sounds like a good idea based on this article.
You first.
2
The extinction of the human race and the loss of all its magnificent achievements in art, architecture, literature and science would be a tragedy on a cosmic scale. The extinction of the New York Times and its misanthropic pundits who would sacrifice all humanity just to win a political argument, not so much.
2
@Rob
I don’t believe you understand the argument.
We just don’t matter to the universe except for the tiniest subset over the space-time continuum.
Everything we have come out with, art, science, mathematics, torture, concentration camps, efficient gassing techniques using zyklon B, killing fields, history, literature only matter to us humans. The rest of the universe just exist for as long as they do. They exist for the moment.
3
H Sapiens should lose their lease on this planet! The planet and all its other inhabitants would breathe a huge sigh of relief. No other species benefits from human presence, with the possible exception of C Familiaris, who would go feral or perish within weeks. Only two "creatures" would necessarily go extinct along with humans: their eyelash lice and their gods!
Why is everyone down on humans? These comments are all so hopeless and cynical. I believe in us.
2
All one needs to do is look at how the indigenous peoples lived here in North America, then what happened after Europeans came. The former existed for thousands of years based on a culture and religion that revolved on living in harmony with nature, as one species among many and whose unique gifts obligated them to care for and respect all other life on the planet for future generations in perpetuity.
Europeans came with their "white man's disease," where men never saw anything they liked that did not have to own, so they took and took and took, and when there was no more to take, they took from each other; and where manifest destiny was merely an excuse for taking land away from the people who were here before us by any means possible, including genocide, extermination, slaughter and the intentional spread of disease, then put the moral stamp of Christianity on the wholesale destruction of a people as justification.
We had a window during which we could have learned to live in the best of both worlds. But, that was neither good enough nor strong enough to stand up to our cultural greed, religious arrogance, and racial superiority, which continue today unabated.
And we called them the savages.
@RMS Indigenous populations hunted basis using a tactic call box burning. That was to set fire on all sides of a herd to make them easier to kill. They also engaged in large scale burning to clear forests. I hardly believe they were in innocent harmony with nature.
Someone here needs to read the Book of Job.... There's some perspective for you.
If the world's "leaders" were intelligent, responsible humans a form of liquid birth control would be quietly released into our water supply.
3
Only the rational, thinking part of it. The republican part? Nah!
Not at all a tragedy. Be doing the planet a favor.
Seriously? It is completely ridiculous to argue that human extinction is of value. Who can take this seriously.
2
Its going to happen.
1
You are finally asking this question???
Four words. Nuclear power plant waste.
1
The voracious, insatiable greed of a few will kill all of us in the end. Thanks greed heads. Hope you're happy with all of your greediness.
1
I've never seen so many nihilistic misanthropes comment in one place. If humans become extinct, then who cares what happens to the earth. Would anyone seriously give up their life to save a bear or whale or you name it? Hoping man dies off in order to "save the earth" is the height of a warped sense of self-loathing.
5
No, it wouldn't!
There is a basic logic problem with the premise. Tragedy.
It would be a tragedy unless it is immediate and we can't see it coming.
All human suffering is tragic, believe it or not, knowing you yourself are going to die, why and when, is a tragedy.
This is an idiotic article. We are the only species for which tragedy exists. To state it's better with us not here is to marginalize human suffering and joy.
Without our creations we could even FEEL the feelings we have today, because those feelings are enabled by intellect.
Done.
1
Todd May: you first, dude!
Have to ask...
why do so many of you hate yourselves? Or do you just hate other humans?
And why do so many of you believe (fervently) in climate change? Are you scientists? Have you analyzed the data? Or do you just believe it because it fits your politics so well. I mean -- if the earth was cooling, and we were headed toward an ice age (brrrrrr, give me an icy hurricane and a frozen tornado) and the only thing that could possibly save us was to burn more fossil fuels as fast as we could and cut down as many trees -- would you buy into the science? Would you call for all the greedy old white males to make more money selling fossil fuels? Would you beg for pipe lines?
We have turned Heaven into Hell for all species. We are a selfish, vain, and shallow species and the Planet would be better without us.
What a dumb headline. Asking if it would be tragic if humans become extinct is like asking if it would be tragic if everyone in your family died in a few years. Of course it would.
2
The question dictates the answer from this professor of poststructural anarchism. This is an academic whackjob with a casually reasoned, nonsensical and anti-human proposition which the NYT has chosen to grace their editorial page with. Big cosmic talk from someone who almost certainly will be wetting his pants at the apocalypse.
2
I was just in a middle of reading the devastating New Yorker piece...how extreme weather shrinking our planet and the humanity will be faced with no escape scenario, we have no way out, our grandkids and their kids might not survive this upcoming inferno hell.
Maybe humans should stop procrastinating, since we're destroying our one and only natural habitat.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/how-extreme-weather-is-shrinking-the-planet
1
The planet will become either Mars or Venus, regardless of what we do. And in several billion years our sun will explode, engulving our little rock a paper-thin 93 million miles away. And then the sun will burn out, and our galaxy will burn out, and all will be dark. And our little crust of a rock will travel on into the abyss of time and space, for eternity. And all our art, and love, and wars, and beauty, and ugliness, and books, and film, and opera, and country music, and iPhones, and feast, and famine, and philosophy will be gone, for all eternity, into the darkness... as though we never existed.
1
The fundamental rule of evolutionary biology that all species go extinct. Our extinction is not in doubt. It is not a matter of whether it will happen it is a matter of when it will happen.
1
Omitted from May's piece -- and, apparently, from the responses, though I have not read all 1200 of them -- is the dependence of much classic tragedy on the "tragic flaw", the trait that, in hindsight, makes it clear that the protagonist will come to grief.
I would like to read discussion of humanity's tragic flaw. Is it a susceptibility to greed? Our technology? The simple propensity to procreate that we share with other creatures, coupled with our ability to forestall immediate disaster, paving the way for a larger eventual comeuppance?
If we are predisposed to a tragic fate, but can discern it in advance, can we evade it? I think this is a question amateur philosophers and professionals alike ought to ruminate on. In a hurry.
1
The universe is vast enough that other intelligent species must exist. I’m sure they all face the same problems. Fortunately, communication between them is impossible because of the distances involved. (For us, travel to the nearest star would take ten thousand yrs.). We would only destroy one another. The Old One will not permit that.
Climate change is certainly going to cause extinction - but not for humans. I haven't seen any models that would lead to human extinction. Human's currently have the ability to do things such as travel great distances over a short period of time and have mastered technologies such as clothing.
So climate change will certainly cause mass animal extinctions and human suffering but when we figure out a way to wipe out our species - it's not going to be from climate change.
If those of us here, now, are the ones answering this question, we are, presumably, for the generations of humans who will be suffering our gradual decline to extinction. That could not be fun, each generation suffering exponentially more than the one before it. So while we are considering the animals and plants that are diminishing, and suffering in the process, maybe we might ask if those last generations of humans are worth sacrificing.
Here is my very short take on this question: Humans and dogs have lived in a symbiotic relationship for tens of thousands of years. At the very least, the extinction of humans would jeopardize another species in its entirety. That alone seems rather cruel, at the very least.
But lest anyone think I am being flippant, or that dogs can live fine without humans, consider this: Humans live symbiotically with a host of other creatures that live inside the human gut. The New York Times has even published articles about that recently.
Prof. May's essay makes it seem as if humans live completely independently from any other form of life and that they can be thought of in some ways as aliens on the planet who inhabit some singular biosphere completely apart from "nature."
Do humans cause "damage" to their surroundings? It depends on what one means by damage. Other species have an incredible influence on their environment. Insects can take down an entire forest, and not necessarily because humans introduced "invasive" species. Nature is full of invaders. Humans are just one group of such invaders.
1
Cynic that I am, my thoughts after reading this are: Wouldn't it be simpler for each of us to just nail one of our shoes to the floor? Then we could just run around in circles.
What Professor May seems to overlook is that in the Hobbesian war of all against all that would precede extinction, inequality would increase at an unimaginable pace. Having the means to protect themselves on the encroaching disaster, the rich and powerful would find means of protecting themselves until collapse is inevitable.
1
The irony here is that humans may be the first species on this planet to be able to foresee and forestall an extinction event, yet apparently we will choose to do nothing meaningful to stop it. No other species can tackle climate change but too many of us are too willing to ignore (or deny) the problem. I feel like Earth needed a better species than us to be its steward, but ran out of time for such a species to develop. We've failed our poor planet and her wondrous creatures. We should erect a monument to let the next advanced creatures that might arise know what we did, so they can do better than we did.
10
Extinction would solve the intractable problem of human suffering, but what might happen after humanities demise? It's likely that evolution would continue, and it is not out of the question that another intelligent, self-aware species capable of abstract thought would arise, and face many of the same problems we do. So wouldn't it be "better" to biologically sterilize the whole planet? Finally, a tragedy is the product of some moral belief system, and if the cosmos is amoral, moral belief systems are just figments of our imaginations. We're moving away from tragedy into the realm of farce.
OK, a very thoughtful article with questions worth pondering, however:
To assert that extinction of the human species, particularly by its own hand, would be a tragedy would be the ultimate expression of arrogance and self-importance. Of course it wouldn't be a tragedy. We aren't adding value to the rest of the planet, quite the contrary. We are only in it - "the things we bring to the planet" - for ourselves. We don't make forests better than if left to grow unhindered. We aren't making sharks better citizens of the ocean. We aren't making sand dunes dunier. To suggest any degree of selflessness is, again, extremely arrogant and obtuse. We are not better than nature, as the author suggests, because nature is "no Valhalla" (a human concept). A really weird false equivalence.
If there are none of us left, then we are neither helping nor harming any human. There is no need to make more domestic animals, to do research on genetically modified artichokes, to drive cars, to appreciate poetry, to work at *anything*. If humans go extinct, it just is. But if we want to go extinct, we surely will - and it will pass unnoticed.
Let me ask different questions: What is a species' role on its host planet? Must a planet have sentient creatures that can dominate it? If a planet has no such organism, is it somehow not a proper planet? Does god or whomever owe it to a planet to provide it with humans?
Fact is, here we are, and we should make the best of it. Are we?
1
Not all humans view the world with the same normative framework. A person who believes in a human soul endowed by an omnipotent creator will not sacrifice a human life in the defense of art or science. However, that same person could condemn the entirety of the nonhuman animal kingdom as soulless. Just to make the contradiction more confusing, the same person may again condemn 50,000 US citizens in the defense of an political justification called war. The personal responsibility for these deaths will always fall elsewhere though.
A large portion of the human population don't think of themselves as personally responsible for death by climate change, human or otherwise. That's a hard logic to rationalize. Immoral but uniquely illogical too.
1
The prospect for human extinction originated with the development of a "scientific" world view. It started with Copernicus, developed with Galileo and Newton, accelerated in the 19th century and has come in full efflorescence in the 20th century. Even the greatest contagion, the black death that killed 75 to 200 million, did not put a stop to the inexorable increase in the human population. If the worlds population is periodically culled by some means to about half or less than half of what it currently is, we might stand a chance at long term survival. You can immortalize a culture of E. coli or a mammalian cell by simply taking samples of the growing culture and adding it to fresh media. But if the media is not replenished the culture will become extinct. Simply put, we are running out of fresh media and, barring revolutionary changes in human behavior or extraterrestrial colonization, we will likely run out of time. The tragedy is the unwillingness to consider many possible draconian measures to insure survival. I don't think faith hope and charity will be enough.
1
Too bad we can't direct the question in the lede to even one of the countless other species we're responsible for exterminating. Of course, even if one of them could provide an answer, how would we understand it?
One could also ask if the advent of the first "human" was a tragedy, a cause for celebration, or neither. (All good things to ponder while we enjoy the holidays and observe, with bated breath, how "great" America is once again becoming.)
1
On consideration, if humanity manages to survive its current foolishness, and at present this is very doubtful, it is a novel transitional species unique to the fundamental dynamics of life. Life is a special natural phenomenon which has the intent to sustain and proliferate which utilizes random variations on its successful organic anatomy to combat the massive assaults on its existence out of surrounding ecological processes. Currently it is on the verge of understanding and manipulating its own construction to make intentional modifications to adapt itself to the vagaries of nature out of its understandings. No other species has ever even approached this dynamic and what it might accomplish is a radical change in the nature of life itself through willful generation of radically new life forms adapted to the various areas of the universe with totally different ecologies. Humankind as it exists today will be a minor member of this living explosion if it continues to exist, but it is the gateway to a new dimension of the life force.
Extinction means all human life would cease to exist, it doesn't seem very likely to happen with the environment issues of so much concern, a huge kill off wold be more likely, but it would only take a few survivors to keep the species going. Extinction of humans might occur from some mutated virus, volcanic eruptions turning the earth into a place humans and most mammals couldn't live, an asteroid strike etc.
Is the world a better place because the trilobites went extinct 250 million years ago...it doesn't matter, things happen.
I pray for our extinction daily.
We're already on track -- and with any luck it'll be sooner rather than later.
This was such a beautiful place until humankind destroyed it.
2
Its worth considering, given our growing relative lack of connectedness to others and to animals and plants.
Rampant, runaway capitalism is making most humans drift toward a possible renewed serfdom.
Selfishness is high; cooperation is low.
Not enough budging yet to stave off climate destruction.
2
This is the second Times editorial in recent years, by my count, on this absurd topic. "Bad" is a human value. There is nothing "bad," in the absence of humans to judge it, about the sun going supernova and extinguishing all life or about the earth being struck from beyond and splitting into little bits. At least one mystery is solved: I had always wondered why Clemson is better known for football than philosophy.
2
Having just re-read the tragedy inflicted on the Navajo at Bosque Redondo, I hereby resurrect the old art idea from the 1960's that the white man is from another planet and just doesn't belong here.
My father, a playful man who enjoyed baiting people into argument, wondered once at dinner how the Navajo or the American Indian could be considered a civilization since they had produced no great works of art, no mindstirring novels, no atomic bomb, had not gone to the moon or even seemed to care about going.
Maybe we should consider the columnist's argument from the point of view of the Navajo, who loved the world, and who believe we walk in a shadow land next to a much larger reality.
Maybe, they have something to tell us.
Maybe we should just stop and listen.
2
Actually, a very serious argument. I know that ultimately the earth will survive even if not in a pristine state. And we all die anyway. But if notions of creativity and evolution die, as well, what will it mean for us as a species? That all we will have is a need to survive as so many of our popular dystopian movies tell us to our collective pleasure? This argument seriously depresses me. As do so many of the responses.
In the big scheme, human extinction would be unnoticed. All things in the universe are temporary.
It is inevitable that humans will become extinct because of the evolution of a more successful species derived from us or from another species; or because of some cosmic event (e.g. an asteroid collision); or through the natural progression of the Earth's journey towards the center of the sun; or as fusion continues the sun will encompass Earth; or because the universe itself is collapsing; etc.
The existence of human beings as with all living things has always hung by a thread. Humans may be extraordinarily reckless by pulling on this thread and maybe even breaking it, but in the big picture, it really does not matter. The Earth will do just fine with or without humans. It did so for 4.5 billions before us; it will do so for 4.5 billion years after us. Yes we've caused unimaginable suffering to animals, plants, seas, mountains and, not least, ourselves. Yet, one day, we're due to same treatment by another species or by the natural processes of the cosmos. That is as it must be.
2
99.9% of all species that have ever lived on Earth have gone extinct, and there is no reason to believe humans have any better odds. Due to our unique ability for mass murder, the better bet is likely for a shorter than average period of species existence. But I'm still rooting for homo sapiens to improve its cooperation and survive a while longer. If we shuffle off this mortal coil one and all, we can fairly safely assume there are plenty of other intelligent organisms elsewhere in the universe. Maybe they're nicer.
3
We exhibit a lot of intelligence within our species, but we live increasingly in a world where people who scorn intellect and thrive off the worst instincts are more and more in charge. If nothing changes, especially at this vital point, we may be surprised to find that no God or gods can save us from ourselves.
1
I find this to be comically bad philosophical speculation, a kind of sophomoric nihilism that we used to discuss as 18-year old college students (suitably stoned under the tie-die rugs on the ceiling) but hardly worthy of serious academic discussion by alleged professors of philosophy. And we wonder by philosophy enrollments have plummeted in the last 15 years.
1
Standing in line at a Starbucks on a major University of California campus few hours ago, I overheard a liberal professor whom I know remark [scoff] to an academic colleague that this piece contained a "casual contempt for common people that echoes why Trump won in 2016." I concur. This entire opinion is yet another example of silly, pseudo-intellectual reasoning emanating from the academy. In today's society where mass shootings are commonplace, my first reaction upon reading it was that seems to trivialize death in a similar manner to online, first-persons shooter games. The casual, almost calmly disturbing fascination with mass extinction seems divorced from any empirical understanding of the scale of human suffering that would be required to achieve the end he impliedly seems to desire, even advocate for, under the guise of disinterested philosophical questions. Even more bizarrely, the constant references to the theater and generalized notions plucked from classical works like "tragic realization" and "demise" serve to minimize the numbing concept of 7 billion persons dying. Without an explanation longer than a sentence or two that might better convey his meaning, the author includes lofty references to literature or performing arts and quickly carries on, perhaps assuming that this readership also subsists in a world of academic aloofness.
Perhaps the philosophers could address more pressing matters in life rather than the infinitesimal possibilities discussed herein.
5
Why all the philosophy? Want to change the planet for the better, and stop the pain and suffering of billions of sentient beings? Stop eating meat. It's really that simple.
2
Except it is not ALL human beings who are destroying the planet. It is mostly West Europeans and Americans, with the exception of such groups as the Native Americans or Amish for example.
It is more likely the poor and vulnerable will die, while the rich, the ones responsible for the mess, manage to keep on living, so much for morality.
Then again, I saw a mosquito in Michigan in December, mosquitoes and diseases may well be great equalizers.
@Marie Google "Amish stream runoff"
Maybe for us humans.
For all else -- climate, plant life, endangered species, etc.?
Not so much.
It happens every so often, the extinctions and die-offs. Could be coming our way. So it goes.
1
No, it wouldn't be either a good or a bad thing. It would just be what happened.
6
Only humans would debate the justification for their own existence! In ten thousand generations of any other species, there would be no such discussion . . . or music, art, architecture, medicine, athletics, written or spoken language, education, or war.
Our self-awareness and ability to communicate differentiate us completely from any other species, and offer the promise of improving quality of life for future generations. We ain't perfect, but we alone have the tools to seek perfection for all of our species.
4
So here is my takeaway on the author's thesis. The "tragedy" is that future humans would not be around to enjoy the inherently "good" pursuits of past humans or participate in such pursuits in their present. OK, but the anthropomorphic framing of the question implies that the human creature is "inherently" worthy of being missed by an indifferent, amoral universe. "Good" like "tragedy" are purely human constructs, and as such, cease to hold meaning in the absence of humans. I anticipate that the extinction of humanity will have the same overall effect on the existence of earth as that of the brontosaurus and the passenger pigeon. We will have been, and then, cease to be. The earth and its remaining inhabitants, or uninhabited, will continue to spin. Until the earth too ceases to exist (and it will). Thus, the end of humanity is not tragedy, or good, or bad. It is beyond moral judgment. It merely is.
3
Reading all these comments and this article, I can say that only our species would so gleefully celebrate our own extinction for the betterment of the world. That would be a sad thing to leave the world; to me, it demonstrates why we should survive.
2
"Unless we believe there is such a profound moral gap between the status of human and nonhuman animals...." Putting aside possible borderline cases of human-like animals, we do believe this. Nowhere is the moral gap wider than when it comes to morality itself. We have it; they don't. The end of humanity would spell not only the end of logic, reason, art, and science in the known universe, but the end of complex emotion, memory, beauty, ethics, and meaning. Moral status is a human invention. Organic life, a sunset, a mountain range, pretty birds, whatever -- none of these non-human things have aesthetic or moral worth without humans to confer them. The writer asks, how many lives would you sacrifice to save this-or-that work of great art? He thinks the answer is obviously none. I think it's a harder question than that. But he frames it wrong in any case. How many lives would you sacrifice to save art, period? What about reason? What about morality? What about meaning in the universe?
1
I am thrilled by the depth and seriousness of the responses to Professor May's reflections. I hope it is read and commented upon around the world, as I would love to read what people steeped in non-western myth and religion have to say.
For me, a product of the "Judeo-Christian" tradition, it's all about "original sin:" Adam and Eve existing in a beautiful world which they ruined by eating of the tree of knowledge. The author of the Hebrew Bible knew some 3000 or more ago what Professor May is saying here...we humans somehow became too smart, too inquisitive, too big for our britches, and sent our species down the wrong path on a journey that will not end well.
2
Since even the Catholic Church treats the Garden of Eden as an allegory, there was no original sin.
1
In classical Jewish thinking, this particular world will last a mere 6,000 years. And we do believe that many worlds existed prior to ours, though why/what purpose we are not told. And there are leftovers, so to speak, from prior worlds. Do we really understand this? For that matter, to believe this world is allegedly billions of years old, but is infinite, defies understanding. If it had a beginning, it will have an end. Can the sun last forever?
I find this piece hilarious, as it reminds me of some silly stuff I heard in philosophy classes I took back in the early 70s, as it was my minor. To question the existence of humans is to invite the opposite question. What purpose does nature, with its animals, vegetation, and limited resources serve, if not for us? Who decides the rules to protect the ecosystems? What if one country, or group, consistently manage better than others? Are we then culpable of immoral behavior, for not imposing suffering on ourselves in order to better their lives?
I actually think it will be smart computerized robots that will decide to dispense with humanity. And the atheistic philosophers who don't ask the right questions.
@Rosalie Lieberman
"What purpose does nature, with its animals, vegetation, and limited resources serve, if not for us)
Herein lies the problem.
1
The problem of us humans is that we have evolved so fast and efficiently that we no longer occupy any sort of ecological niche. We serve no purpose, naturally speaking. Quite the opposite: we enforce our being on nearly every other living thing, either directly or indirectly. And this - we - have put ourselves apart from, and have no place in, the natural world.
My only hope is that the path of destruction we leave in our wake ends when we do. Sadly, plastic, toxins, will live long beyond us, and continue to wreak havoc on this unique and beautiful planet of not ours, but theirs.
11
It really doesn't matter if it's a tragedy. It will happen and I suspect it will accelerate with astonishing speed as systems fail. The very young now among us, the toddlers, may not yet be old before human existence, by our present measure, is a terrible
ordeal. It's not all that great right now! This planet has been as forgiving as one could ever hope for,...but we have exhausted that forgiveness, abused the gift, and still, we have not learned.
So, fine! As far as I am concerned, our gift in return is our extinction, and the planet and the creatures remaining on it, will go on quite content, without us.
Humans are wonderful...except when they are not and when they are not, is most of the time. And that is why it will end.
7
Love the headline. I guess it depends on who you ask.
1
Lots of psychobabble? Are we the ultimate intelligence in the Universe? I hope not, but who knows. Species come and species go. Bye.
1
We are a disease on this planet. Our effect my be as much as Chicxulub - but it would be hard for us to kill all life on the planet unless we really really tried. It will come back after we are gone - so cheer up!
1
A tragedy for us? Yes. For the planet? No. Heck, it would probably throw a party.
13
I have to ask ... Where is God on this prospect of the extinction of his creation? Is this the second biblical flood?
2
God? Whose god? What god?
1
God exists only in human imagination. Reading the Bible makes me grateful that such an Old Testament genocidal psychopath Is pure fiction. However, Jesus was a wonderful philosopher and teacher. The world would be far better if we really accepted his teaching.
1
@Denise J, Dr. Stephen Hawking, “No God.” I’m with him.
If this is a piece of satire (a la Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal") bravo! If it is serious, get some help.
6
If Earth were to be obliterated by some cosmic menace, would Mars or Venus, Jupiter or Saturn care? We are an insignificant spec in the universe. The only specie affected by our demise would be your dog. Then again, Fido will just adapt and move on.
3
Back in the 1970's, I watched an access road to a golf course be abandoned by man and reclaimed by nature. The asphalt cracked, vegetation took hold, freeze-thaw did its damage, and voila! Was was more amazing than the process was the speed of the roads demise. Yes, we'll leave a footprint, but only for a while..........
8
Human extinction is not only possible but it is a sure thing, as least as we know humans today. The Bible is quite clear that upon the return of Jesus Christ to this earth, humans existing at that time will be changed into new creatures who will live eternally. As far as other animals are concerned they will also be changed into peaceful beings and the lion will lie down with the lamb.
Nonsense.
1
President Thomas Jefferson thought the Book of Revelations was written by a maniac.
1
Oh yeah, life goes on after the thrill of living is gone. -John Cougar Mellencamp
Whether cockroach or whatever after our demise... the meek shall inherit the Earth.
There is only one logical, sane answer as to whether human extinction would be a tragedy. The answer is no, it would only be good for this planet. We are no more than big, mean, selfish locust, and to boot, stupid enough to cause our own extinction.
When we are gone, and I suspect it won’t be longer than a century or so away, the planet will eventually recover and go on. If we somehow persist, all is lost for this little blue world. We will most surely destroy it all.
7
“I tossed my empty out the window and popped the top from another can of Schlitz. Littering the public highway? Of course I litter the public highway. Every chance I get. After all, it’s not the beer cans that are ugly; it’s the highway that is ugly.” – Edward Abbey
I'm totally down with the idea of human extinction. We are the equivalent of a herpes virus, capable of killing if a systemic infection occurs, and a "herd infection" that lies everywhere and destroys whenever it shows up. We really need to go. And we are working very hard at making this come true. Onward through the fog!
3
It does, me at least, immense good to see an article such as this published by a news organization such as this. Consider leaving it on the front page permanently.
6
The first 5 words in the article could be open to debate.
Homo Sapiens will not be the first sentient hominid species to go extinct.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/opinion/neanderthals-are-people-too.html
Does anybody see the extinction of Neanderthals as a tragedy?
Every species will go extinct one way or another eventually.
It is not the if and when that is the tragedy, it is whether the end was accelerated by self-immolation, or we had an extended duration that ended by some other 'natural' cause. But then it is like the sound of a tree falling in a distant forest, there will be no one around to experience it.
3
Bye the way , as per Hinduisms texts, the current period ( Kali Yuga ) of 428,000 years , will end in extinction. This period started on
According to the Surya Siddhanta, Kali Yuga began at midnight (00:00) on 18 February 3102 BCE.
So we have about 422,880 years to go, before it all ends. No life will re-start again after extinction and the cycle shall continue.
No. It would be the best thing for the earth for humans to disappear. Sooner the better.
1
The answer is no. Any creature that takes sixteen paragraphs to say that is clearly proof.
1
Libs!!!! HUMANS are animals, and part of the tree of life, without US what is the point of earth! and if evolution or Creationism are true, and I think there is room for both THEORIES(both unproven), then humans would reappear unless the earth environment are significantly altered and I do not see that happening, history has shown that asteroids have no fatal impact.
2
There is not enough space/characters that the NYT allows to vent my feelings on what a disgusting species we are. A woman sentenced this week for letting her kids perish in car because she left them in there for the night in Texas. A police officer mistreats his retired police dog and the dog ends up in a shelter and a guy in Montana sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for killing two people, dismembering them and then tried to dissolve them in acid. That’s just three stories I read in the last 48 hours.
2
Are we not just one rung better than the planet of the apes?
If apes roamed the world would they have invented the combustion engine and the gas chambers of Dachau?
Do Mozart or Utamaro make up for our faults?
Perhaps, we should begin sending time capsules into outer space to warn the universe and leave a lasting memory of our very short experience as humans on this planet.
4
Who cares, no one will be around to notice.
2
Not a single NY Times Pick below refutes the thesis, which is plainly arguable. The nihilist echo chamber in the Times comments section/editorial decisions continues unabated. And that’s why (along with other editorial snafus) I’ve canceled my subscription.
2
Based on all the comments here, you could define humans as the only self-hating animal! (Or at least those humans who read the New York Times.)
5
We should choose two humans, one male and the other female - or perhaps I should say one female and the other male - and kill off the rest of us. It would take awhile for the new population to reach our current level of overpopulation and perhaps the planet could recover for awhile. Of course we would leave the two chosen ones with CRISPR so they could modify the genes of babies in order to avoid inbreeding and perhaps instill an inherent sense of balance with the rest of the future world.
Just one thought: THE EARTH WAS CREATED FOR MANKIND
Your assertion has no supporting evidence. There is no Mother Goose. There is a Mother Nature, but she is angry over how we treated her gift to us. Seriously, there are rules for physical phenomena, Such as the speed of light. But they didn’t come about as a favor to us. Humanity is a product of evolution, and evolution does es not have an end product in mid.
@Sally
If that’s true it sure took us a long time to get here. It was just hanging around for four and a bit billion years waiting for us to show up?
Ok..so why were the other planets created?
We humans are such a poorly behaved species that the planet would be much better off without us!
1
In the long run ,we will all die and won't care. Your actions and thoughts are of no consequence after you are dead.
1
Todd May, you first.
2
Nature, us included, are all physical as well as spiritual creations. Which will last longer the physical or the spiritual?
1
Spiritual is imaginary, so who knows?
It is not true to say that humans do not help other species. There are many species and habitats which have increased biodiversity from human intervention, such as traditional agricultural practices which can promote richer flora. Species which deliver benefits to humans - ecosystem services - are favoured, but we are still learning so much about our wildlife and what it has to offer. This can motivate us to change our behaviour - we have a conscious mind which can save us. Humans can evolve without going extinct as well, we developed through the inter-breeding of different species and we may also see mass migrations due to changing climate - this has happened before.
To say we inherited a paradise isn't a scientific statement. We have emerged in a planet that existed before we did, and life forms evolved and continue to evolve. When on that continuum of millions of years did 'paradise' exist exactly?
The 'tragedy' is to not know our own history - we forget things very quickly - and to not plan for our future - we think too short-term. If we could evolve our 'human nature' to overcome this, we could stop viewing 'mother nature' as some abstract thing outside of us.
Art is an expression of humanity. The issue with Shakespeare is that we can preserve oral histories and have done this through time. However, there are many real works of art and sacred monuments being lost forever through landscape change due to environmental degradation.
4
What nonsense. Yes let’s ignore all the achievements of humans in the last 1000 years... art, science, technology, music, philosophy, literature, architecture and convince ourselves that we are worthless creatures that have no value in the broad scheme of things. Better off to have a planet full of animals. Let’s imagine the wonderfully peaceful earth of millions of years ago where toxic volcano gases almost destroyed all life on the planet (as recent studies have suggested), where prior to that Dinosaurs roamed and carnivores devoured everything that moved. No suffering without humans, right?
This is the ultimate liberal fantasy belief, that humans are “bad” because they are “destroying the planet”, and we don’t deserve to survive, that we’ve ruined the beautiful peaceful earth, that the earth would be “better” without us. Such utter nonsense. We have changed the earth, mostly for the good, we are the first species to have that capability.
Humans and what we have done to the earth good and bad are part of the natural process that biological evolution has led us to. This is the course that the existence of highly intelligent beings takes the earth. We didn’t create ourselves, humans operate the way all life on earth does, we strive for survival for us and our children. Where that will lead is certainly an open question, but there is little doubt that if life continues on earth, humans will continue to exist, have meaningful lives, and create beautiful things.
87
Where on earth (pun !) have we changed the earth for good? Talk about a fantasy.
41
@Rob "This is the ultimate liberal fantasy belief" ...
What has this to do with liberalism? I'm about as liberal as they get, and I believe humans are neither good nor bad - we come into the world as part of the world, not apart from it. We have some say over what environment we choose to live in - and that will have an impact on the long-term survival of the species.
No - nihilism is not "liberal". If anything, in fact, I've met many more right-wingers with nihilistic views than the other. ...But that's a different discussion.
41
@Rob conservative mind is always opposed to conservation. Your absolute insane comments upon nature (based upon a surfeit of Jurassic Park movies is hilarious if not inane.
20
To be fair it’s not the entire species that’s destructive, or most destructive. It’s a group of the species that resides in some parts of the world, the west and wealthier parts of the world, in particular. So, it’s somewhat unfair to also blame the poorer parts of the world that for the most part consume and pollute far less, one would think.
1
We must always remain good stewards of what we're given, but as a admitted anthropocentrist, I just simply don't believe there is anything to the world without humans in it. For me, preservation of the environment and all the great flora and fauna has a palpable urgency, but only when I think of my children and the next generation of humans. In my view, all the beautiful and wondrous things of the word disappear the moment the last human eye closes for the last time. Humans are not just unique among species, but are the unique species. And as for suffering, I don't know that animals conceive of it the same way humans do. I just don't know.
3
@John Gregory
Just like the ostrich burying its head in the sand. The world disappears. Up until the age of about eight months human babies also believe that if they can’t see something it doesn’t exist.
Or are you saying something cannot exist if it has never been observed by a human?
I'm an old person and have no descendants. For me question is moot.
We never know what the future holds. There’s always the worldwide unexpected epidemic, not that I’m wishing that on anyone (including me). Besides global warming there are always ice ages.
We have nations with weapons of mass destruction, and there are always the few survivors.
Some form of humanity will most likely make it through any eventuality.
Right now we have to make it through the current administration. That may be a struggle in itself.
So to the basic computing choice: if-then/else!
3
"Factory farming" is a misused term that refers to widely varying conditions. Yes, most chickens and turkeys in the US are crowded into broiler houses and never see the light of day. Hogs have similar lives, including sows confined to gestation crates where their movement is severely restricted so they can't crush their litter of pigs.
Beef cattle, on the other hand, spend most of their lives on pasture, grazing in peace. Some cattle spend the last third
(approximate) of their lives in a feedlot where they have less room to roam but are not crowded and where they eat mostly grain which, however debatable its environmental impact, is a preferred food--in fact, leave the gate open and the cattle will likely stay in the pen. Yes, they will ultimately be slaughtered and that is absolutely cruel (though thanks to pioneers like Temple Grandin, their end is now less cruel than it used to be).
But consider the two alternatives: a pastoral, stress free life with an early death, vs not existing--no life at all (pastures are not zoos and cattle in significant numbers would not exist if they didn't provide meat); for the cattle is the short life not far preferable? (Many of them--the cows--have long lives on pasture, bearing a calf each year to nurse by her side.)
The environmental problems, too, are more complicated than often described, but that is for another letter.
2
@Mike Goldwasser
If I somehow had a choice in existing or not existing, and that decision included me knowing before I would be slaughtered and eaten ( or thrown away as waste) early in life by an unappreciative creature. No, I'd choose not to exist. Silly question.
2
A valid point for you, but cattle do not have that knowledge.
To champion the extinction of the human race, on account of its mistreatment of animals and nature, epitomizes the self-hating moral thinking that Nietzsche calls "slave morality." What he meant by the term involved the nihilism of denying everything in our existence that involves power over others, predation, survival, but everything in existence requires power. Hence, it would seek to annul existence as such. The Jainist belief in the inherent sanctity of all life cannot be lived because existence entails harm to others. It is one thing to support a range of measures to seriously mitigate climate change, sprawl, pollution, and factory farming, measures wholly within our grasp, given the political will to do so, and quite another to argue that we cannot choose our own existence as a species over that of others. Do we not presuppose our own existence as valid and as an adequate measure of value, as a condition of the possibility of any choice whatsoever?
5
If we are to keep this from being more than a philosophical question, we must change our ways NOW!
1
The biggest loss, if humans become extinct in the near future, is the loss of information about the Universe. The picture we have in our heads of cell biology, of quantum chaos, of the billions and billions of stars and planets and dark matter of the cosmos, of the gravitational lensing. A part of the universe will lose some of that "information" about itself. But, it probably still is not a tragedy. It's probably a good price to pay, from the other, non human creatures' point of view.
2
@Krishna Why is this knowledge important to a species, if they can't care enough to save itself from its own demise?
Consciousness is the fundamental requirement for life VS the physical presence of our avatars or anything conscious including plants and other animals. We live in a time of science that understands and explains the universe in terms of mater and the physical. Our current data set of humanity is not the only way consciousness can be explored. So to answer your question more directly "no" I don't think it really maters if this "we" survives. We will manifest elsewhere to learn the hard lessons we are trying to learn now.
All that esoteric stated I kind of want humanity to continue but not if that means we have leaders like tRump. He is one of our biggest lessons to learn and it feels like there are enough of us to reject his bad intent. I don't want to admit that ~1/3 of US citizens are morons that would vote him in again. We need to learn some lessons here folks to stick around as a species. But in the end we will even if not in this manifestation.
1
humans destroy everything we touch.
4
Relativism gone relative to the point of madness:
Would the death of humanity be a tragedy? By that token of abysmal questioning, Auschwitz was not even an appetizer for a pleasant smoke-out. With, or without Heidegger, Nazism got many children. Or is it an infection, a pandemic?
Humanity causes suffering of conscious beings. However, the consciousness of a shrimp, or a sheep, doesn’t equate to human consciousness.
That a whale swallows millions of shrimps doesn’t make it a Hitler swallowing millions of Jews.
Even non-human predators know this, which professional philosophers deny: a wolf will kill sheep, just before he can, but will respect a human being, just because he can look at the human in the eye, and recognize intelligence and fellow high level consciousness. I have personally made that experience in the wild with both wolf and lions. There is no doubt wolves and lions hesitate before inflicting pain to a creature with superior intelligence and consciousness.
Not all creatures are fellow: superior sentient animals know this perfectly well, because it’s an imminently practical notion: their lives depend upon it. Superior animals know that injuring a highly social and competent human beings will have bad consequences.
By the same token, the environment has no consciousness, it doesn’t suffer as a sentient creature.
The Nazis went down that same exact road, passing all sorts of laws for animal welfare, to better relativize human lives, by respecting rats...
4
when dinosaurs became extinct,
due to volcanoes or climate change,
they could not help it.
we now?
could have.
and didn't.
good riddance.
1
Unimaginable animals suffering happens every day in US food processing and is beyond disgusting. The latest example:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/17/chickens-freezing-to-death-and-boiled-alive-failings-in-us-slaughterhouses-exposed
2
Is it really a “tragedy” if there are no Homo sapiens in hand to see it as such?
I know I won’t be here,
Cows, sheep and pigs may beg to differ.
3
Isn't this an optimistic lot.
Hey New York Times, can you do me a favor? Will you please email me when the ethical ramifications of global cooling, or a similar theme that's in direct contradiction to present mainstream thinking, begins being bandied in your opinion pages about 30 years from now? If I'm still alive at that time, I'll be more than happy to provide a similarly snarky response.
2
We do seem to be killing each other off with great regularity. Governments are falling more and more into the hands of oligarchs while the deplorables continue (when they have the opportunity) to vote them in. Our species does contain some remarkable people (Einstein, Rembrandt, Beethoven, Shakespeare) but also Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and their ilk. I suspect the melting of the icecaps and a new burst of volcanic activity will precipitate the wars that will leave the planet to the insects.
2
Bravo...the tragedy is not that we are sending ourselves into extinction, but that we are condemning species and healthy eco-systems to the same fate. When you or someone waxes wise and accepting about our species' fate, ask them to imagine the pain and terror of a lizard crushed beneath a developer's bull-dozer.
3
We are both gods and fools.
2
One inevitable and well-placed asteroid will render the question moot. We'll be gone--deservedly or not.
We all came from stardust. To stardust we shall return.
4
Thank you Professor for your thought provoking essay.
From an “objective” point of view humans and their welfare matter little. Recent popular books by Harari and Tegmark make that pretty clear and quiet compellingly.
But on the other hand as you point out clearly, we are the only ones who understand anything about concepts of time, cosmos, origins, infinity, morals, ethics and generally epistemology. All are human constructs as far as I can tell.
If we manage to destroy ourselves or if the laws of physics come up with some scenario that destroys the planet in which we live on, the universe will give a small shrug, if that.
So, let’s me nice to each other and live our lives the way Rawls would approve. Most likely he paraphrased Jesus’ teachings for the 20th Century and the future but I believe his principles of Justice are what will make our lives worthwhile and meaningful. For ourselves and our kind. If we do it right other species and the rest of nature will be beneficiaries, independent of whether they actually care or not.
2
If nuclear fusion is solved for as an unlimited renewable clean energy source, humanity could save the planet and accomplish some incredible things. I don’t know why a significant amount of each countries GDP isn’t spent on solving this problem before it’s too late.
2
The process of our extinction, now underway, is already having tragic consequences for life all over the planet, including for us. As a species, humans will suffer a lot as a result of bad air, bad water and bad food, and the loss of habitat due to pollution and rising sea levels. That is tragic. But once we're gone, the earth will eventually repair itself and life will flourish in new forms through the mechanism of natural selection. Hopefully next time no human beings or analogs thereof will evolve out of the refurbished primordial to miss things up again.
5
And all of these things continue, mostly because of the powerful, who do not want to give up their dangerous habits because of the bottom line. Oh but then, they'll find another planet to ruin, at the taxpayer's expense of course.
2
In my opinion it would only be a tragedy if it turns out that extinction was caused by human activity that was reversible and the masses ignored the warnings of scientists. What is already tragic is the suffering of large numbers of human beings caused by climate change and its attendant events including famine and war. This is a much more important tragedy than extinction, and thinking about whether extinction would be hypothetically tragic is a distraction from these tragic events that are already taking place.
2
'Our species possesses inherent value' brought a smile to my face. We would say that, wouldn't we...
4
Humans bring art, literature and philosophy to the planet. I have yet to meet another species that needed it. Mosquitoes bring malaria...but to benefit who?
3
@Vinson
Thanks for your anthropomorphic tunnel vision.
What benefit is the human species that kills off thousands of other species from overpopulation and overconsumption and environmental degradation ?
But I understand....humans are 'special'.
What human conceit.
5
@Socrates
Actually, humans *are* special, scientifically speaking. Unfortunately, we aren’t special enough to survive a self- add extinction event.
1
@Vinson, try reading poetry to it first next time and see if that stops it from biting you. We may underestimate their sensitivity.
Even if humans didn't exist, eventually a comet would hit the earth or a supervolcano would erupt or another ice age would set in and as far we know animals will suffer and go extinct in some/many cases.
Yes, we're irresponsible and doing a lot of damage to the earth. Damage that as a technologically advanced species may in the future be repaired in addition to perhaps mitigating the global extinctions that occur when one of many possible natural disasters occurs.
If humans disappear tomorrow, animals will still suffer and the earth will still uncaringly roll along forcing whatever life is left to adapt and it could be tens of millions of years before another technological species comes along if another one ever evolves at all.
1
“Would human extinction be a tragedy?”
To whom? If we’re gone, what we think no longer matters.
We’ve never been that good at empathizing with our earthling neighbors, only exploited them. Perhaps the helpless domesticated creatures will miss us, but not for long.
6
If we all die the concept of tragedy goes with us
17
And here we get to the crux of what this type of academic liberalism really is at its core: self hatred. The type of self hatred that causes one to hate their own gender, race, and nationality. The type of self hatred that triggers action that is against one's own self interest - and to morally preen when others decline to do the same.
No, it would not be a "good thing" if humans went extinct, even if we are damaging the planet. Humanity is a unique species to earth and perhaps the galaxy as a whole. It is special enough, and has enough potential to expand life from earth into space, that it gets a pass from these concerns. Regardless of what humans do to this planet, from plastics, pollutants, radioactive contaminants, etc., plate tectonics will churn through every trace within a few tens of millions of years - a relative speck in earth's complete history. And other life is extraordinarily resilient, having recovered time and again from natural calamities far exceeding what humans are doing.
6
End it now burn it all down.
1
Humans are the most invasive species ever to hit planet Earth. The history of humans is one of reptilian brain violent and a refusal to control massive overbreeding, at the half that is male and amped with the most dangerous substance: testosterone paired with mentally deficient overcompensation.
4
If Todd May is an advocate, as the slant of the article seems to indicate, he has my permission to go first.
7
Commentaries like this are why I love the NYT!
1
A world without literature, music (other than birdsong), art, cafés, and the Times? Blech!
I'm with Enlightenment Now!, Steven Pinker's wonderful new book - a timely assault on pessimistic drivel like this.
5
This is the absolutely most absurd article and comment section I have ever read. If the human race were to become extinct - no one would care about your holier than thou attitudes. This is the type of claptrap that arises when people give up a belief in a higher power. The only people who can think this way are people who have no reason for their own existence, who believe that our existence is mere happenstance and we are here for no reason whatsoever. I feel bad for people with nothing to live for and no reason to perpetuate our species. What a shallow and miserable life you all must lead to even consider the fact that our planet would be better off if we were extinct. For those of you who agree with this malfeasance of a philosophy, just remember that as you sow so shall you reap.
9
@SchoolTeacher
That's rich. It's the people who believe in a "higher power" who are forcing the rest of the planet to reap what they have sown. Isn't it the religious people who think we needn't intervene because some mythical force for good will save us in the end? It's the people who believe in fairy tales who are condemning us all.
This is the kind of discussion, not "claptrap," people have when they realize they're responsible for solving their own problems.
7
@SchoolTeacher: Projecting a human personality onto nature just looks silly to me. I think your job is a reason for living: passing on and possibly adding to the accumulated body of human knowledge and experience developed since the first words were spoken.
1
@SchoolTeacher
Oh dear, Teacher. My questions are:
1. Do you accept that Global Climate Change exists and when combined with continued population growth there will be, in about 50-200 years, a serious scarcity of resources and damage to the ecosystem we rely upon for food?
2. If you do not then accept the premise in item 1, this discussion ends for you. You do have hope, but you are uninformed, or are in denial. I assume that your hope takes the form of life after death in heaven. mmmmm this could be claptrap for all I know.
3. However, if you DO believe that Global Climate change exists I would like to know how your higher power (GOD) is going to help you, which is the reason you have hope.
Will your God help the entire planet and all of humankind, or only those who believe in him and therefore have hope?
My guess is no. The nonbelievers will reap what we sowed through our cynicism.
One nice thing about extinction of the human race is that your holier than thou attitude will go with it.
2
George Carlin best reply ever....
"We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. 'Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.' And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet.
I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths.. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.
You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people at Pompeii.. or those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room."
1
Humans are a cancer on this planet. Rid the organism of cancer and the planet will be fine.
4
"Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?" is not the typical NYT OpEd. My gut response, minus all the philosophical debate, would be yes.
1
This misanthropic "environmentalism" is a religion in itself.
4
Women and minorities would be particularly hurt.
This sets a new bar for liberal arrogance.
4
My father was a noted philosopher. I dabble.
But this essay made me wish for the end of humanity just so I don't ever again have to endure such circular pap again.
9
If only humanity did not relentlessly increase its population, but rather stabilize and gently decline to perhaps one quarter of the current size, so many of the problems -- as well as most of the mankind versus mankind problems -- would essentially go away.
Each person, on average, should foster no more than one child.
Over time, problem solved.
It is as simple as that.
3
This writer conflates "humanity" and a particular brand of humanity that sprouted out of the agricultural revolution. The statement that "Humanity, then, is the source of devastation of the lives of conscious animals" is archaeologically unsupported.
Archaeological evidence supports the idea that agriculture is the thing that is responsible for the ills of ever-increasing human population size, habitat loss, pollution and degradation, erosion, loss of bio-diversity and non-human extinction.
For those who would argue that human beings are "necessarily" agricultural, the archaeological record, again, allows us to falsify this claim. Agriculture requires humans in a way that humans do not require agriculture.
Hunter gatherer cultures, like the one recently discussed off of Sentinel Island, do not have problems with ballooning population sizes.
This is not new. Daniel Quinn wrote about it thoroughly in his Ishmael books. Other thinkers, notably anarchist thinkers like Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Zerzan have discussed this problem.
Those well-fed, tweedy philosophical types that the NYTimes is so fond of have dismissed these thinkers with dogmatic regularity. "We can't go back." They all seem to say.
Agriculture, particularly what Quinn called "totalitarian agriculture" is to blame.
As for going back or forward, no one can be sure. The agricultural revolution invented time. Perhaps time does not exist the way we think. Perhaps we have simply stayed put.
3
If I understand you correctly, Dr. May, you assume that human extinction cannot be prose or poetry, so must be drama. The two subgenres of drama are tragedy and comedy. Ergo, you ask whether it would really be a tragedy, or not rather a comedy?
Speaking of entertainment, Dr. May, by asking such questions, without questionmark would you be the perfect James Bond villain! In first place, the imperilment of generations to come (which would not necessarily be guilty for their suffering) would be non-fiction. Moreover, it would be a process that might comprise a great many generations, and contemporary suffering, even of innocents, could already be related to the end of the world unless mankind turns out to be immortal, which is extremely unlikely.
No, human extinction would not be a tragedy, it would be a natural and expected part of evolution. If humans believe that we are somehow the epitome of evolution and that time should stop for us, well, we have let that massive overgrown knot of neural matter in our heads get too big for our own good.
Looking at it another way, the very notion of "tragedy" is a notion that we have come up with as an artifact of our consciousness. There is no objective notion of "tragedy" in the universe and there is no objective reason why humans should preferentially exist over some subsequent hominid that evolves in our wake.
It does not bother me in the least that humans will disappear from the earth at some point. If there is one thing we have learned from looking at the cosmos and at the geological history of the earth, it is that everything changes and nothing lasts.
10
I'm glad to see the issue of survival of the planet and, indeed, nature itself being couched in terms of the relative equivalency of all livings things. Humans are nothing more or less than the top of the feeding chain, a position achieved by preying on those less capable of conscious awareness and rational exploitation, but who none the less are as entitled to their genetic imperative to survive thrive and multiply as any other.
However I think the author has minimized the problem. The depredations will in fact continue until a significant portion of all species, humans included, will no longer be able to survive, leaving the survivors to a new serfdom dictated and controlled by a new type of monarch, based on economic power and force alone, which ironically will also fall for want of a an economic demand which is the sole basis for their survival.
Better humans go and allow nature to again thrive.
2
Although nature is 'red in tooth and claw', it is a beautiful spectacle... as long as you don't look too closely, or for too long, as everything dies, and dies most often in pain. Are humans just another animal? Hardly. Dr. May ignores the obvious misery multiplier of human awareness. It is our plans and projects that increase our capacity for suffering. No finned shark is struggling to survive with the terror of knowing it won't make it to college or marry its high school sweetheart. It isn't worried about its own demise, because it doesn't project its own 'self' into the future imaginatively as we do. Studies of empathy, especially animal empathy, seem to me driven by researchers who watch too much Disney. While a tiny fraction of animals indicate complex emotions, a minuscule fraction of that fraction appear to substantially suffer. Even the most sensitive animals do not commit suicide. They do not mourn losses of 'loved ones' for extended periods. Animals have more on their minds... like their next meal, or reproduction.
Just a word about the value of life over art: there are many people who would sacrifice their own lives to preserve a piece of art. Would you pick up the bomb and run it out of the Louvre to save all its treasures? I believe I would (I've lived long enough!). Taking another's life for such preservation is another matter. It's not a convincing test of the value of art to ask if you would murder for it.
2
It would be a terrible tragedy. Life is the only force that might be able to forestall entropy, and the eventual extinction of the universe. Life has evolved to create humans, so far the most advanced users of technology. Humans are the first species with the ability to expand beyond planet earth. If humans go extinct, that ability will be lost for a long time.
1
We may not be the only sentient species in the inverse. Indeed, physicists are now considering whether there are an infinity of independent universes. The major problem with humanity is that there are too many of us living on a planet with finite resources. Soylent Green may be our future.
It seems to me that the tragedy is that human existence failed to live up to its potential for protecting the earth. Instead, humans from time immemorial devoted its energies to competing against one another, emphasizing our differences one from another, rather than protecting our common interests -- including guarding other species and the planet itself.
The tragedy is our shortsightedness and propensity for competition for finite resources rather than for cooperation when in our lifetime the fragility of this plant is so apparent. We've ingeniously created technologies that allow us to communicate in real time with those on the other side of the globe, yet we can't seem to communicate across a table or often within families.
And time is running out. Really. It's long past time to let the other species flourish.
5
Nope. Hemingway: "I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.
I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
As a scientist I hate to appeal to emotion, but Hemingway was right. Humans are special, and different, and contemplating our end for the convenience of many thoughtless species (and a small number of thoughtful ones) seems pointless. Instead, think about what the path that returns us to a healthy, sustainable relationship with the Earth seems more pratical.
@David Konerding
Isn’t that Faulkner? (His Nobel acceptance speech, I think?)
2
There is no doubt in my mind we will go extinct. In fact, since 99.9% plus of the species that have been on this planet are no longer here, (in its 4.6 billion year history), I'd say the odds are most definitely against us.
And frankly, the planet does not need US. We need IT! So I find this academic philosophic meandering to be pointless.
1
This is one of the most asinine things I have ever read. Those like the author who think that human extinction would be "a good thing" should do the rest of the world a favor: Please rid us of your existence, so that those of us who have a will to continue our species can get about the challenging work of building a future without your dead weight.
2
In the light of this argument, we ought to consider another, related proposition. Should Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao be given Sierra Club badges to decorate their tombs?
2
Would human extinction be a tragedy? no not really!!
If you believe you are created god presence , yes it is tragedy... But you know how that goes.
At the end Homo sapiens on this planet only last 300.000 years , Dinosaurs lived here 150 million years.
No such earthlings considered indispensable.
get used to.
Only the DNA molecule describes and defines life on this planet, derivative products ( proteins, prions, viruses to mammalians are secondary tertiary …)
Hilarious article of self-loathing with lots of 'like minded' comments reinforcing the low self esteem maladjustment.
Helps explain the Henny Penny climate change cult
2
@Patrick Postmodernism on display in all its glory. It is good to switch gears from one false presumption to another though. It’s good to get a break from the weak oppression of other people narrative. Instead we get to deal with the human oppression of nature narrative.
1
Humans sealed their fate with the Bible - where it is all about man. The superiority of man! Then like the US as the lone superpower! “Progress” that destroys the Earth and our own ability to adapt/survive! Weeeee!!!!! Such fun playing god!
3
@Bhj From all historical accounts, we have been on this path since well before the Bible was ever written.
Good thing some of us University Professors bring Contract & Grant $ into Universities so that we can help support Philosophy Professors who put forth drivel in an NYTimes OpEd piece.
3
No.
Got kids?
1
When I was in grad school, I often thought the Earth would be better off without us. We poison the air, water, food, etc. with chemicals that won’t break down for thousands of years with effects we cannot predict, not to mention the effects of global warming.
When we had kids, I got less depressed about our future, but I do wonder what sort of life they will have. I am working to instill a sense of value and compassion that I often find missing when talking with others.
Humans are merely stewards of this planet, but we have the ability to preserve this little speck of rock in space. I fear that we will cause our own extinction along with much of the life on this planet. Will evolution be able to produce another intelligent species before the Sun turns into a red giant? Time will tell.
2
@Phobos "Humans are merely stewards of this planet"
No, humans are not the stewards of this planet. Such an attitude is problematic and presumes human dominion over earth. But earth has no stewards.
@AR
We are the only species able to directly impact every other species, thus, we are stewards. It's up to us to make sure the planet remains habitable, as much as we can. Obviously there are things outside of our control (e.g. natural disasters, meteor strike), but we need to make sure our own environmental impacts don't kill our own home.
4
It’s a logically impossible question. Whether something is a tragedy or not requires humans, who invented this concept, to witness and make a judgment. So when humans go extinct, who is left to make that judgement? Putting that aside, if dinosaurs, who ruled 150 million years, met their end, we humans certainly will, and most likely much sooner than that.
4
The author talks of humanity as if we were one, analagous to a single tragic character. I believe this overlooks the fact that it is really a minority of powerful people who are pursuing policies that are leading us to destruction, sacrificing the poor and vulnerable as well as other animals in the process. He doesn’t seem to consider the possibility of radical social change, such as addressing factory farming by a shift to vegetarianism rather than by throwing up our hands and accepting human extinction. I believe the majority of the world’s people want to do whatever it takes to address the environmental crisis, and do not deserve to be sacrificed for the profits of the fossil fuel industry. There are movements afoot to wrest power from the ruling plutocracy. If it turns out to be too late, it will be a silver lining that this planet can indeed carry on without us, and may heave a sigh of relief. But this is the time for social action to change policy, not for resignation.
4
@Sarah The first step is to radically curb the power and influence of pro-natalist religious leaders. No more Mormon and evangelical missionaries going into the slums of Nairobi or Calcutta and urging teenage girls there to get married early and have as many children as possible.
3
Interesting question. Although we do not know, it is at least possible that humans are the only creatures that are sufficiently advanced to contemplate the universe. SETI has found nothing thus far, and Enrico Fermi famously asked (if intelligent life exists elsewhere) "where are they" - aka, the Fermi Paradox.
If humans are indeed the only means by which the universe can contemplate itself, then yes, extinction would surely be a tragedy of the greatest proportion possible - truly universal.
With that said, if we kill ourselves off the Earth will do just fine without us. However, we should plant something somewhere to warn whatever might rise to eventually replace us that the Earth is a fragile place and its inhabitants should treat it as such.
I suggest a black box with proportions 1 x 4 x 9, buried on the moon and possessing a strong magnetic field ......
3
The premise here is that climate change is irreversible --- that man has already gone too far and that human extinction is a reasonable alternative. But the fact is that we don't know what the ultimate consequences of climate change will be. Humans and other species may well survive though in smaller numbers. And ultimately this reduction in the numbers could have a positive effect. Assuming that global warming will cause mass extinction is presumptive at best. Before we sentence ourselves to death, we need to know the damage that has been and will be done. And that is beyond our present understanding.
2
When did it become an overriding transcendental goal that life on earth must preserved in some 'natural', steady state version of the current environment? Of course there are benefits to all currently existing species, including humans, from taking such a stance.
However life on earth and presumably some other planets, has had periods when nine out of ten or more species has ceased to exist. Hence there is nothing 'unnatural' about extinction. There is nothing unnatural about humans. We are a species; we affect the environment. Yes we have choices about how we do this, presumably not available to other species, at least on earth. But to posit that maintaining the status quo of some idyllic steady state or 'natural' process is not in any way different than professing belief in any religion. It is my personal opinion that today's environmental movement suffers from the illogic of those who have substituted it for religious beliefs.
3
@CBW People naively prefer to see nature as a caring and nurturing force. It’s not a realistic impression, but people generally see what they want. All living things on Earth are trying to ensure their survival. That often comes at the cost of one or other animal or plant. The Earth itself habitable but hostile. Earthquakes and volcanoes among other things can be very deadly to animals and humans. The truth is that we have created a caricature of nature that makes us feel safer and happier.
Whether or not human extinction would be a tragedy is solely a reference in the eye of a human beholder if viewed outside the context of religious belief, in my humble opinion. If there's no longer a human eye nor mind to behold our works, then the absence simply is, neither tragedy nor exaltation exists anymore for the being.
There's more then enough evidence to demonstrate that our modern society and it's population in totality is not a benefit to the physical well being of our living planet, on the contrary.
However, if God does exist and we were divinely placed here for higher purpose our extinction at our own hands would be the ultimate tragedy. If God does not exist nor afterlife, then our extinction only has meaning right up to the point that the last human dies, after the last eyes weep for us the question no longer has any meaning.
2
From an evolutionary perspective, these thoughts taken to heart will certainly save the planet from humans. Evolution is not run on a moral or philosophic framework. Thoughts like this point to a brain that has evolved to an evolutionary dead end. As if any thinking, let alone those expressed here, has any ultimate impact on the fate of the earth. This author in particular, and all of us for that matter, have to "get over ourselves". We are pipsqueaks in the big scheme of things. The earth abides. Philosophers not so much.
3
I think it can understood to be a tragedy for ourselves AND a vast boon to our planet. It would be immeasurably sad to see all people die (our children and with them all the wonders we have brought to this world. However, our disappearance would be of the greatest benefit to almost all our fellow species, and would prevent untold suffering, both to other animals and to ourselves. How can it possibly be 'right' to continue to cause such carnage and distress in the interests of our own narrow pleasure and success? In those terms (and those are the larger, cosmic terms) the sooner we are gone, the better.
4
To answer the headline question, yes, to us, no to the rest of the planet.
"We cannot ask the questions we are asking here without situating them within the human practice of philosophy. "
Actually, I think we can, at least one of the questions, your headline question. And the answer is "no" in the non-human context.
It requires only a simple, quantifiable observation. The impact of human activity on Earth is consistently to reduce biodiversity, to reduce the shear volume of life. Compare virtually any relatively undamaged natural landscape with landscapes affected by humans, agricultural, suburban and urban. You will find vastly more opportunities for life in a myriad of forms to flourish in natural environments.
Our effect on the planet is to destroy life.
4
Nope.
1
Ask the cockroaches that survive.
3
I am an architect, and a believer in the nearing of the Singularity and most cogently defended by Ray Kurzweil. In this context, Mr. Mays article could not be more misdirected. Humans, though an often very dark force especially on other species and our environment, are also the eyes of the universe.
The eyes of "god" (and perhaps the devil!) as it were.
In actuality, we are already transforming into pure thought via our technology. Humans will, in effect, will eventually transform into machines, then into something akin to pure thought. We have always desired to live forever. This is the very essence of the definition of religion once the sweet fairy tale aspects are stripped away. Why else Heaven? Why else Hell?
We absolutely need a Green New Deal. We need real Presidents who demonstrate empathy. We should try with every fiber of our being to save this world for our children and our children's children. And then we need to understand that will evolve into something we can only dimly imagine. And I do hope that future being knows love.
Nope
1
It would appear that humanity is going to slip on a banana peel and land on its keister. We've always been good for a laugh, and it is a very redeeming quality.
1
Nature is always seeking its own balance. Nature is not responsible for taking care of us. We as a species haven’t learned those fundamental truths about human existence and therefore have now forfeited our involvement in our own future.
1
There's no need to extinguish all humans (just some) to save the planet. We could get rid of rich people for example, in a rational way.
The per capita Gross World Product is $17,300, so I suggest an income cap of $18,000. That gets rid of them nicely. Everyone would have an electronic account so wealth in excess could be instantly distributed non preferentially.
Another way to avoid the messy alternative, chaotic human extinction, is to mandate one child per couple. We'd shrink drastically within a generation, which would reverse climate change.
3
@Fourteen
How are you going to enforce your one child policy in other countries/cultures? What if they tell you to go away?
1
Against unknown and perhaps unknowable odds, our planet has spawned creatures that possess the capacity for conscious thought and reflection, able to bear witness to the wonders of creation on a cosmic scale. All available evidence indicates that, among the trillions of star systems flung across the universe, we are unique and alone. If humankind were to pass from existence, there may never again be a species, anywhere, that possesses these capabilities. This would be a tragedy of unspeakable proportions.
3
Climate change looks to have reached a tipping point and most likely there will be a Great Dying. One model climatologist are looking at is that of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Vertebrate life survived that event, and there was a sort of roll of the evolutionary dice to fill the ecological vacancies left by its mass extinctions.
I think humans are very likely to survive the coming event in some form, although not in the numbers we see today.
3
Was the Permian extinction a tragedy? Was the extinction of the dinosaurs a tragedy? The concept of “tragedy” and the moral issues explored in this column and the comments are so extremely anthropocentric as to be irrelevant except as dinner table topics. Tragedy is a human judgment of human actions and their effects on human beings. If humans are taken out of the equation by extinction, the concept of tragedy becomes meaningless.
No doubt, all of the Earth’s great die-offs caused great suffering, but that does not mean they were tragic in human terms. Quite the contrary. They paved the way for the emergence of new life forms and a rebalancing of the planet’s biota. The Permian extinction ushered in the age of reptiles. The extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous ushered in the age of mammals. Extinctions create new opportunities for the survivors. It’s nature’s way.
The age of mankind (to glorify the last couple of million years with a human-oriented name), is but a blip on the timeline of life on earth. If man were to go extinct tomorrow, along with all of our species’ creations, no one would be left to mourn the loss or quibble over whether it was a tragedy. The survivors wouldn’t even notice, but would simply carry on with the business of living. In man’s absence, that would be easier for some (e.g., polar bears and corals) and more difficult for others (e.g., domestic dog breeds that require human assistance to conceive), but life would go on.
13
I very much appreciate the excellent point that no amount of suffering can justify art, culture or anything else that humans produce. What's most troubling is that humans are the only species that can truly comprehend the suffering of others, and yet ironically we inflict more than any other species, knowing full well how awful what we're doing is. A lion has an excuse for being cruel; a human has none. We have the knowledge to be compassionate, and the power to reduce suffering in the world, yet so many choose to increase it. Most of us are a moral disgrace. If there is a God, I'm sure he gave us the incredible gift of compassion so that we could put it to work to reduce suffering of all sentient life and take care of our planet. But by mostly doing the opposite, we've shown that we don't deserve our amazing intelligence, and we don't deserve to be on this amazing planet.
5
There is a recurring theme in these comments that other animals live in harmony with nature while we do not. Or that the Earth was "pristine" before humans. Neither of those things are true. What does it even mean to say that other animals live in harmony? Other species would increase their numbers beyond the current capacity if they had the means to do so, as humans have. Why is nearly every commentor so eager to see 13.5 billion years of cosmic evolution be washed away? We are the only species that we know of that can ponder said evolution and send spacecraft to explore the Universe. Why don't you value the collective human experience? While it's true Earth is one planet of billions and we live for a short time, why doesn't the human experience mean something to you right now, during this life?
11
The human experience? You mean like nuclear weapons, biological weapons, deforestation, another world war, genocide, riots provoked by racism, atmospheric and water pollution, cruelty to animals (and other people,) &c.
@Erin Humans are acting like a virus or a cancer.
1
@Erin The great harmony of nature is indeed a naive human notion. Predators and prey exist throughout the natural order. Hierarchy also naturally exists. Even Pareto’s principle exists in nature. Humanity isn’t an abberation, it’s a reflection of nature. Nature is violent. Nature is hostile and unforgiving. If anything, humans have done as much as possible to domesticate nature or at least humanity.
I tend to side with the getting rid of humans to protect the rest of nature school, but how about this compromise...
We can roll the clock back to before 1492 when Western Civilization colonized, imperialized, enslaved and genocided the world and leave it there. Back then, human population fluctuated between 800M and 1 billion. Diseases, famine and was the check and balance that controlled population. Human culture as well as the world was much more diverse.
As much as I am a geek and like science and technology, I wouldn't miss my iPhone if I never knew such things existed and my primary concern was staying alive.
@Gr8bkset
People who say that they could live in the past without all the things they have now is funny. They will talk a good game about it but literally putting them in a cave with the clothes on their back? They wouldn't last a week.
2
@Rlocket J Squrriel
You're right, we in the West all talk about climate change and environmental destruction, but would never want to sacrifice our living standards even though we have the highest living standards in the world and are at the root of these problems.
@Gr8bkset
That's the problem. Many of the people who call for sacrifices to combat climate change are those that it won't impact much. What's giving up 1 mansion when you have 2 more? Things like that.
If there are going to be sacrifices then the rich and celebrities should have to sacrifice more. Fair is fair.
1
The whole human species isn't responsible. It seems it is the white males that have made consumerism, capitalism, domination of indigenous species, exploitation over all animals, minerals, fossil fuels the major focus of human existance, leaving behind the concept of making sure what is produced can also go back to the soil. This circular mindset has been embraced by our first nation ancestors around the world for millennia, and they would not be causing this nightmare of contamination and destruction of our one and only nest. If we don't quickly come to the conclusion that reverance and respect for this planet and each other are the only things that will slow this rapid disintegration, then human life here will come to an end sooner than any of us think.
4
@Linnaea .....and then what will happen to intersectionality?????
If humans become extinct there won't be any left to miss us. Perhaps some dependent animals at first. As for our extinction, rather than guarantee it as we seem to have done, by filling the atmosphere and oceans with CO2 and heat, and in the case of oceans- plastic trash, we could have cleaned up after ourselves. With 7.5 billion and growing on the planet, nearly all with killing refuse disposal habits, it seems we taken care of this philosophical problem already.
1
If preservation of the species is the ultimate goal of evolution, why would it lead to the human species, who is responsible for the destruction of the natural order, when it could have stopped with the primates, chimps, gorillas, etc.?
Todd May's question is meaningless because humans are part of so called "evolutionary progress"' .It is pointless to even ask the question.
The pertinent question is why humans tend to choose evil over good, knowingly. Is there an inside 'voice' that tells a person to behave properly, with consideration to all other humans and nature itself, and yet for some reason , humans CHOOSE not to act that way? God calls that SIN, Fallen-ness, but has made a provision for us, humans to turn to Him for restoration.
Merry Christmas Todd May...do YOU really want to go extinct!
1
We are doing what all species do - use our environment to help ourselves, with little or no regard for other species. Indeed, the fact that many of us care about other species would appear to make us superior in a moral sense.
All this gloom and doom strikes me as ridiculous, even neurotic. We profess to see a horrific future, but there’s no evidence that our “experts” who predict doom are any better than monkeys at a dartboard.
Things will self-correct or not, and no amount of self-absorbed moaning and doomsaying will change a thing. The world is a far better place for humanity than it was a hundred years ago by any meaningful measure. There’s no reason to be certain that the next hundred years will be any different.
4
This poor man finds himself in a philosophic bind. He values the workings of his intellect, the same intellect that considers the question of whether or not the world would be better off if humans were simply not here. He clings to the idea that the human ability to consider the question itself gives human existence some sort of value, and the removal of that ability from the world would somehow constitute a tragedy, though the world would undoubtedly be better off.
I have no need to tie myself in a similar knot. I've been considering this question for over 40 years, and while I once tried to make the case that art and inquiry somehow justified human existence, my grief, rage, and loathing when I regard the actions of my own species have intensified to the point that I'm HAPPY to contemplate the probability of human extinction.
The workings of our minds and our opposable thumbs are enjoyed only by us. The starving polar bear, and the trillions of other organisms we murder every day in our pathogenic advance towards global death really don't care about our the thoughts we have and the things we make, except insofar as they mean destruction. And ultimately, that's all they mean.
My only comfort is that I did not have children.
12
Oh, our poor children. I weep for them. It's one thing to grapple with how we fail the creatures, but I mightily fail to conceive of how we are so unwilling to save our children from misery and death.
1
@Laura Saving children from misery was the point of the industrial revolution. 95% of the world’s people lived in extreme poverty prior to that time. The infant mortality rate was much higher so women had to be pregnant more often to maintain or increase the population.
2
@John
Just being pregnant was rolling the dice for woman. How many conditions and such that can be foreseen and treated today were death sentences? Up until antibiotics came into mass use going to a hospital could be deadly as well.
1
Nature rewards fitness in every species; it is the overriding purpose of all life on Earth. That said, humans will either go extinct or evolve into new species of hominids. Or both. Nature is entirely indifferent.
3
If one were to think of the earth as a living organism (Gaia), then humans may serve in an entirely different capacity: reproduction. What better way to spread "earth DNA" (us) among the planets and even the stars than by human space exploration and colonization.
We may be "earth sperm" for Gaia. No other living entity on earth comes close. We are certainly having fits and starts on the way...
1
Among the dumbest things I've ever read. On the scale of environmental damage, nothing humans have done compares with an ice age, which obliterates all life from much of the current temperate regions. Human damage is not permanent or doomed to worsen, on the contrary nature is rebounding in Europe and North America, and whales are bouncing back after 50 years of overhunting. Factory farming has been around for 1 or 2 generations and will likely end in another 1 or 2 generations (Californians have repeatedly voted to ban various farm practices that are not ethically acceptable).
The bigger problem is that for all of humanity's downside, we offer the most important upside to life, namely survival. As far as we know, the Earth is the only home to life in universe. And this home is not permanent. Complex animals have only been around for about a half billion years, and within another half billion to a billion years the sun will grow so hot as to burn off the oceans and obliterate complex life on Earth. Only an advanced civilization can protect life for the extremely long term.
The misanthropes who suffer from extreme short term bias think the world would be better off without us. Not true, we can correct our errors and protect the wonder of Earth's biosphere in the long run. Homo Sapiens have been here for 200,000 years, and our current issues are just a blip in that long run. 100 years from now, almost every concern expressed in this article will have been resolved.
5
@nayyer ali. Please read the climate change report and the NYTimes Magazine article on the disappearance of insects in order to temper your optimism.
1
No, the earth will abide and animal and plant life overall will be better off.
1
@Mary
Better off? Life doesn't care about us, it cares about living and it will do so no matter what we do. Its vanity to think we can destroy the planet or life.
1
Animal species left to reproduce in the absence of predation will expand until the resources in their environment are exhausted. The human species has the unique ability to critically assess situations and plan strategically for how to react. Yet this attribute of critical thought was insufficient to counteract our own biologic compulsions to reproduce. The selfish gene triumphs over critical thought.
Take IVF for example. The physiochemical reaction of a body responding to stress causes many changes, one of which may be reduced fertility. What do humans do? Use IVF to generate >8 million new humans. So they can make 32M. So they can make 64M . . . "Stupid genes can't tell me what to do. I want a baby!"
In "The Population Bomb", it was hypothesized that an inability to feed the expanding population would lead to mass starvation in the 1970's and 80's. Modern agriculture and biotechnology have delayed that eventuality, but the potential energy of the situation increases with every tick upwards on the population odometer. Now instead of millions dying from starvation, billions will die from a lack of clean water, clean air, and arable land.
Your Prius does not come close to compensating for your procreation.
11
Social media, google, internet, etc. should collect all information on all individuals on earth and create a virtual reality that would continue to exist after our extinction.
Yes. Of coarse it would be a tragedy.
Humans are exceptional. We’re a million times more intelligent than our closest animal relatives. We’re close to discovering the beginning of time itself. Humans are incredible. The problem is not humans, the problem is society. You know what I’m trying to say. I have faith that eventually humans will figure out how to inhabit our planet successfully. Geeze, we’ve only just started to recognize the harm we’re inflicting on Mother Earth. Give humans a chance, don’t write us off so fast. We’ll figure it out. Maybe nature help out and will inflict a plague on us and wipe out half of humanity, as is her way, but for goodness sake don’t just throw us out so fast.
5
Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?
It's a matter of perspective.
For the planet, it would be a good thing.
1
@Blue in Green The 'planet' does not recognize either good or bad.
Actually - there will be a time when this question will be answered. Some studies, including one done by the U.N., estimate human extinction in roughly year 5000. This is when the last female - likely Chinese - will die. The last Russian female will have died off approx. 2000 years earlier with America falling somewhere in the middle of the two despite America having one of the few net-positive populations.
And year 5000 isn't as far off as it may seem - we humans possess human artifacts that are older than the 3000 years covered between now and year 5000.
1
@Wilson1ny
Isnt the year 5000 just less than 3,000 years away?
Lots of hot air and not from global warming. Earth is in no danger of being "destroyed". The planet will continue to adapt and change and it will survive. The earth was around a lot longer than us, and will be around a lot longer after we are gone (sooner or later) We on the other hand will definitely not be around as long as the earth. So this article asks a silly question about the inevitable.
2
Humans will not make it because they will further ruin the earth. The good news is new life may arise. Less self disruptive.
1
The earth will do just fine without humans - just like it did for a four or five billion years before humans arrived.
1
Voluntary Human Extinction (vhemt.org) .
philosophy question asked is mute, as we should already be celebrating our own funerals.
We "volunteers" are certain we have ALREADY put in motion all forces needed to change the biosphere enough to not allow humans to survive. we'll all be dead by 2100ad or sooner.
In 1,000,000 years, the only evidence that we and all we have created ever existed will be a black, tarry layer of plastic between layers of rock.
So, whatever.
3
Read all about it! Just pick up used, paperback copies of Isaac Asimon's Foundation and Robot novels.
The definition of "white people problems" is problems that affect privileged people, whose lives are so amazing that they make up stuff to be upset about. Is Prof May's headline question - Would Human Extinction Be A Tragedy? - a white people philosophical problem? If so, I look forward to learning about other white people philosophical problems too!
2
Yesterday I was picking up earthworms so they would not be crushed by cars on the roads, while we had torrential rains due to the warming planet. I was looking across the street to the pond along the highway where geese with their young are crushed by cars every spring. And to the new "development" down the road which took down a hundreds-years-old forest. It is very hard not to despair every day. Sometimes I just wish it were all over with, so the massive creature suffering and destruction would stop.
1
@Carrie ironically, it appears earthworms are an invasive non native species that are devastating forests habitats.
I don't share the negative outlooks. As the environmental disasters increase in severity, we will respond in kind. The Trumpian types will give way to us health earth home stewards.
Mar largo which I estimate to be approximately less than 20 feet above sea level, poised at the edge of the ocean, will certainly be swamped by a rising ocean. Golf will be replaced by treading water as our next national water sport.
Our prehistoric minds which don't take action for slowly occurring events like global warming, having been shaped to respond to exploding volcanoes, mammoth elephants over running our villages, earthquakes. Eventually, an environmental disaster with massive loss of life will act to turn enough of us against our wealthy masters , and force the end to their destructive practices.
Life is like Sisyphus, all organisms are pushing the rock up the hill to live, only to watch it fall back down. The only difference is with humanity, is that we are content with that state of being. Everything else is just talking about what color the rock is, or the shape, or what it actually means to be a mineral.
The sad part of this story is that the human race does not have to become extinct if it collectively made some major, albeit very hard, policy decisions. First is dealing with climate change, by reducing C2O emissions and transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward green energy like solar and wind etc. Secondly, we have to slow down population growth to the point of keeping the world at a steady stable and sustainable amount of people. The current world population of 7.2 billion is projected to increase by 1 billion over the next 12 years and reach 9.6 billion by 2050, this kind of trajectory is not sustainable in terms of the Earth's limited natural resources of food, clean air and clean water. Of course, the issue of population control is full of religious, political, moral and legal landmines, which is why ultimately, I think the human race as a species is doomed to become extinct.
2
The sad part of this story is that the human race does not have to become extinct if it collectively made some major, albeit very hard, policy decisions. First is dealing with climate change, by reducing C2O emissions and transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward green energy like solar and wind etc. Secondly, we have to slow down population growth to the point of keeping the world at a steady stable and sustainable amount of people. The current world population of 7.2 billion is projected to increase by 1 billion over the next 12 years and reach 9.6 billion by 2050, this kind of trajectory is not sustainable in terms of the Earth's limited natural resources of food, clean air and clean water. Of the issue course population control is full of religious, political, moral and legal landmines, which is why ultimately, I think the human race as a species is doomed to become extinct.
3
I see humans as less a failed species and more an early version - conscious beings 1.0. Our possible contribution is greater than our science or art, or even our appreciation of the wonders of our beautiful planet. We have the capacity for enlightenment -- a level of awareness that opens us to unity consciousness, an infinite substrate of love, the ineffable -- however we want to define this layer of being that words can't describe and that every great religion teaches. As far as we know, no other species has this conscious capacity.
We're a long way from actualizing this potential, but it is there. We're deeply enmeshed in the problems that come from failing to find this consciousness within ourselves. If we could find it, we might experience other living things as subjects rather than objects, treat them with greater compassion, and stop using them for unnecessary, false and fleeting consumer satisfaction. Missing the chance to have a planet full of enlightened beings would be a tragedy. Maybe we need another evolutionary round or two before we can get there. I know I'm a dreamer, but I do also know that this is possible for all of us. I hope we can get there.
4
I consider the likely future for humans on this planet not so much in terms of extinction, but rather as a rollback. As others have commented, the planet has a way of balancing itself when necessary. Human expansion has created a profound imbalance within the ecosystem and global warming or the other consequences of human abuse is simply the beginning of a shift away from human dominance. But to speculate that changes in the environment will render the human species totally extinct would belie human survival instincts and capabilities. Just like many animal species have adapted to environmental changes over eons, some representatives of the human species will remain because their intelligence and ability to reason will equip enough of them with what is required to survive. That won't be a tragedy at all because our species will have found it's rightful place even if it reduces the population to what it was ten thousand years ago.
2
I read this article early this morning and have given it some serious thought.
I think that nature is going to cut us down to size. She does that occasionally. Some humans will survive. It will be another dark age. It could be like the movie Cloud Atlas, or the Road, but it is probably just going to small percentage of people left after the weeding. I'm pretty sure humans have lived through many such setbacks. I suppose it depends on who survives.
Life is stubborn. We are arrogant. Life persists in inhospitable places. If we humans cease to exist, there will be another species to take our place. The earth is still young. I don't think she is done yet. She's recovered before and as long as there is water, she will recover again.
4
One sentence in the 4th paragraph is the most relevant;
"... increasing human population is encroaching on ecosystems that would otherwise be intact."
Which leads to the 5th paragraph;
"Humanity, then, is the source of devastation of the lives of conscious animals on a scale that is difficult to comprehend."
If we get our numbers down, way down, then maybe we can share the planet with the rest of life on a more equatable basis.
3
I'm a 'catastrophist.'
I think something, man-made or natural, will unfold that'd going to devastate our species, probably the microbes. (Hats off to H.G. Wells...)
Maybe there will likely be pockets of humanity left here and there. Who survives, where, and how, will be a crapshoot. I just hope there is some recollection of the mess we made, and that somehow there becomes encoded in the resurgent society a prohibition against doing it again.
3
Civilized man may be clever, but not wise. If you believe the Earth is a closed, self-regulating organism, then any practice essential to our survival that is not sustainable must lead instead to our extinction. I believe the concept of personal possession carries responsibility equal to the Industrial Revolution in sealing the demise of our species. Once the fences went up, all bets were off.
If the human race were to suddenly vanish, it would be a tragedy for many other species as well, at least for the short term. For example, imagine hundreds of Deepwater Horizon oil rigs failing the world over. With nobody around to plug them again, they would spew oil into the oceans until the wells run dry. What would that do to sea life, especially along the coasts?
1
@KG
It would adapt as it always has. It would kill but not everything. The oil wouldn't last too long, in the long view, because its a resource. Bacteria and microbes can eat it. With so much of it, they would flourish.
The deep volcanic vents in the ocean have conditions that exceed the worst places we have created. Temperature, pressure, chemicals but life crowds around those places because it adapts.
1
No, it would not be a tragedy. It would be a blessing for the rest of the planet which would get along better without us.
5
We are in an incredibly beautiful part of the country, Calfornia. I've seen the redwoods, the sequoias, the Sierras, and Death Valley. And I am sure that if you closely around you, you'll find beautiful countryside, whether it be Alabama, West Virginia, or Texas. Anywhere.
I've stood at the beautiful Riviera Country Club here in Santa Monica, CA and thought, "this is absolutely gorgeous." And I said to myself, "Can you imagine how beautiful It must have been before they put in a golf course?"
1
I understand professor May's point. If we become extinct then chickens will no longer become Kentucky Fried, cattle will no longer become Big Macs, not to mention the extinction of species due to man made climate change, while at the same time those noble characteristics that make us human will no longer exist. But let's hope those characteristics will over time make extinction just a philosophical discussion.
The tragedy is that the end of our species is very likely to end the experiment with intelligence that can create tools and extend itself - via self-evolution - to become what may be singular in the universe.
The Earth has one billion years roughly until we are at phase of solar aging where the planet is no longer hospitable to complex life. Now that may seem like a long time, but from an evolutionary perspective it is questionable that there would be sufficient time for another biological species to reach and surpass us.
This brings up another question: If we are a progenitor species for an Artificial General Intelligence that in turn creates an Artificial Super Intelligence, then perhaps we will have been the midwives to a species that is fit to extend itself throughout the galaxy, and perhaps further in many regards.
What if what me imagine and project with the label "God" is an end state built upon one successful experiment with tool-making, biological, social intelligence, and we are one of the few possible pathways to that end state?
So what needs to happen? Our species must do what Aldous Huxley called, "learning to express our irrationality in reasonable ways." We need to decrease our footprint - which means numbers, consumption, and changing social organization so that we can exist, progress, and create meaning and greater intelligence while becoming proper stewards of the planet. If we fail in this self-directed struggle, the experiment ends.
3
It might be a tragedy for us and our pets, but the rest of the world? I can’t see how.
2
For humans? Of course extinction of Homo sapiens would be a tragedy for the species. For the rest of life on the planet? Human extinction would be a boon. Since at least the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, human existence has conflicted with the existence of other life forms. Aside from a few species that benefit from us (mainly parasitic forms), human existence can bestow no intrinsic benefit for other species.
3
I t would NOT be a tragedy at all. I've said that for years.
We do more harm than good.
1
The fact that humans have achieved sentience counts for much, with it, we have created great beauty and uncovered extraordinary meaning in the natural world and life itself. However, with these gifts, we have brought ourselves and the world terrible, inexcusable destruction. In the past we mostly brought the destruction upon ourselves alone and which is, incidentally, a powerful argument itself for our deserved demise. Now, we have morphed into a destabilizing and amorphous wrecking-ball that is altering our natural world and forcing it into a re-balancing event. Just as our democracy is only as good as it's constituents, our world is only as beautiful as its inhabitants. Unless our great wisdom can win the day and sanity provokes us to act and save ourselves, I give us less than 50/50 odds of survival as a species.
3
Good news, guys. Human beings, warts and all, with all our myriad of blights and blemishes, beauty and incredible achievements, are singularly different from other animals (and vegetables). 'Different' in that we have a soul and our God-breathed, stamped with the Divine. Of course, we should love Creation and take care of it and not be jerks...but History itself ends when we do...so let's not fetishize a possible Extinction Event!
Articles like this are one of the reasons Trump won the election.
3
@Gustav56 Articles like this have been written for thousands of years, starting with the Greek philosophers. Why, particularly NOW, would a particular non-reading, non-reflective part of the population make such a public reaction to them?
1
now all I need to know is how many angels will fit on the head of a pin.
Suppose benevolent computers take over the world and become caretakers of all living creatures. In this hypothetical world, wouldn’t the caretakers limit the human population to a couple million people?
2
Sounds good to me.
Fantastic non-answer for a philosophy 101 final exam.
1
Well it would't be great for me or my decedents.
Until we reverse our descent into maximum greed we are cancelling our privilege to be here.
I believe it was Joseph Stalin who once said, "no people, no problems" His so-called solutions often amounted to forced migrations of ethnic groups to Siberia and to mass incarceration on a scale that is hard to imagine nowadays. Simplistic analysis and the resulting solutions just make things that much worse. Yes, we are responsible for the massive and ongoing destruction of biodiversity. We are victims of our own success. It does not seem likely that we will be able halt or reverse the "anthropocene mass extinction" We've reached the peak of our civilization and it's all down hill from here. Fossil fuels have allowed human population to grow well beyond the numbers that Earth can support. We are due for a nasty correction in terms of the four horseman of the apocalypse. We are facing a future of untold mass suffering. Hopefully there will be some human survivors, and hopefully they will be able to pass on what they have learned. Otherwise Shakespeare will have been proved right. It will turn out to be: "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
2
So the story goes, there once was a tiny microbe that finally became "us". This is no mistake. Dolphins are just as smart, maybe smarter. Trees have a unique level of "conscience" with their roots in the ground and a sensitivity to every change in light and weather, even electromagnetic radiation from space. So we are just another form of life, or S. Hawkings would have put it in more analytical terms. G_d, who I personally believe exists (who is formless and can only be sensed, not prayed to or described in a book of "words"), has a big "universe" to play with, plus many other things we have yet to discover, does not care what happens to the earth or pain and suffering. It is a burden we must shoulder, or shrug off- eat,drink, and be merry, and throw it all away like another piece of disposable trash. I thought the 60's were a sign of social evolution, with the "Whole Earth Catalog" and liberation movements coming of age. Was I nieve, stupid, or filled with hope that felt uplifting? I used to hold up my thumb all the time, and people would gladly give me a lift. I felt it at music concerts, or listening to lectures about Native American culture. I saw it in art museums, I saw it through a telescope, and a microscope. I saw it diving in the Florida Keys. When I visited London, I never saw a policeman or a gun or heard a siren. We can do it, but it must be done together. One thing is for sure, and that is the USA must get its act together. NOW.
So...
Other animals > Existing humans > Art > Future humans
Is this a job for Thanos?
Unfortunately, when we go, the planet will be pretty trashed.
As the Justine character said in 'Melancholia' before the Earth and humans were destroyed, "The Earth is evil. We don't need to grieve for it". This has made all of the destruction that Republicans are doing easier to accept.
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Sara Teasdale
6
Funny how for a while we all thought it was a nuclear war that would finish humans off. So it might just be a slow burn rather than a quick flash.
You definitely want to have it both ways, don't you? More simply said - human extinction would be a tragedy for humans, but not so much any other species or the earth itself. In the grand scheme of things, just another species going by. Bye!
1
The extinction of the human species certainly would be a tragedy because it is clear that we are clever enough to have done a better job of living on earth. It is true we have created some wonderful culture and ideas, but we are given to choosing an existence that is destructive to the earth.
I wonder whether we will be clever enough to deal with the catastrophes that an indifferent universe will visit upon us. Our reaction to a dangerously warming climate does not augur well.
I don't understand the problem being addressed here. Being uniquely highly self-aware, our existence is tragic to begin with. Nature is not indifferent to us but entirely lacks awareness of existence, and for most of our planet's -- and life's-- existence we have not existed!
To answer your question, no. It would be a boon to the planet in the many millennia before our sun goes nova. And to other planets where we would indulge our greed, explotation, and lack of concern for the environment in all its aspects. As someone newly religious, I have even less regard for life on this earth than I did as an atheist. We could choose to preserve what God, in my belief ststem, created. We have instead chosen, and continue to choose, to destroy it, and ourselves. For which I believe that one day we will be appropriately judged—the despoilers, the plutocrats, the other evildoers, and those who have opposed them.
I look forward to that day, whatever it’s outcome for me. Because it is the only time and circumstance where I believe we will see justice and compassion and sense. I have utterly lost all faith in our species to do the right thing. Especially where there is money to be made doing the opposite. And all the art, music, literature, science and medicine do not, cannot, will not make up for that.
2
No matter how enlightened we think we can be, it appears our extinction at our own hands has been inherent to our existence from the start. Intelligence has only led to finding ways for us to hang on to more life, longer life, more reproduction, and more living (i.e. consumption, otherwise we'd die). So it was always a matter of time until we'd overpopulate, over-live, over consume and eventually collapse. And the most profound and truthful observation in this article is that our extinction would only be a tragedy to us as a species. So, objectively, it would just happen - and the world would go on. Perhaps not well, perhaps thriving. It really doesn't matter either way. There would be no moral conclusion to be drawn because no humans would be around to draw it. We don't want to believe it - but indeed, we are extraordinary in what we have achieved in our own eyes... but fairly meaningless in the cosmology of existence. In short, we need to get over ourselves more than we realize.
5
If the human race were to become extinct either by our own hand or by some external force it would be a tragedy. Not just because we would no longer exists, but because of all the knowledge that we've accumulated over the past 12,000 years about this planet and the universe in general. It would be a shame if this knowledge would not be passed on o someone or something.
1
There is a book about this very subject called “The World Without Us.” It doesn’t make the value judgement of how or why the human species suddenly is wiped out but does explore the after effects on our planet.
One question answered is what man-made objects last for a million years. Buildings, roads and bridges dissolve in a few centuries. However, underwater tunnels like the Chunnel and Lincoln Tunnel last forever.
Professor May has a significant non sequitur in his argument.
Imagine a meteor hits Earth and humans become extinct. By definition, that would not be tragic since humans would not have brought about their own extinction. However, if humans brings about their extinction through nuclear war or climate change, those ends would be tragic because in both cases human extinction would have occurred due to human activity. Whether or not any creature left behind can comprehend what humans did to themselves or what was lost is not relevant in the determination of whether or not human extinction is tragic. Human self destruction is tragic, human destruction by accident is not tragic. Therefore, it does not follow that humanity's demise would be tragic because no creature left behind could comprehend what was lost.
To use the literary approach, if Willy Loman dies of a heart attack rather than killing himself in a car crash, his death is not a tragedy. It is an accident.
1
Excuse me for interrupting your end of the world Christmas depression.
The world is not as you perceive it by any means.
There has been more progress in all aspects of life in the last two hundred years than in the last million. Humans make mistakes and better leadership worldwide would help albeit never underestimate the American people and points of light and education worldwide.
When things get really bad, we will all witness a coming together of people in favor of life.
3
Well, according to the philosophical naturalism and materialism that dominates Western culture, we are all just meat puppets and moist robots, atoms spinning randomly in the void (see Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Dawkins, Beckett et al for details).
The concept of "tragedy", like meaning, purpose, compassion, justice etc., is simply an incoherent non sequitur.
1
It won't be a good thing. If we humans go extinct, it won't be quietly. It's not like we'll all crawl into caves and die. Dwindling resources on the planet due to climate change will lead to wars, and the likely use of nuclear weapons. We'll take many other living things with us.
3
It's about time that some laid out this case against the superiority and goodness of humans. I have always disagreed with this fallacy. Humans are very good at destruction and killing with a few dedicating their lives to creativity and good works. I have no faith in humans and the cruelty and shocking violence committed to fellow sentient creatures with whom we share this plant. That horror is beyond words. Maybe something would change if our government (and other governments) would allow others to see that horrors we perpetuate on animals we insist on eating, experimenting upon, killing for fun, or just downright cruelty we perpetuate every second of the day. I do NOT think it would be a tragedy if humans were extinct -- perhaps it will make up for the cruelty and destruction we have left in our wake.
3
Woah. Yes, it would be a tragedy. It's an avoidable outcome, and it is disheartening to see how many are so ready to write-off your own species. We are not the only species to cause large scale devastation, but we are one of the few with the potential to choose to control and end behaviors that are so destructive. Those of you so ready to see the end of humanity are free to get off ride at any point.
1
@Aaron Yes we think we can control our actions and we have advanced symbolic reasoning. That is exactly why we are culpable and other creatures are not
The tragedy is that we invented economics, the only art or science considered dismal. But economics has only been around as we recognize it since the Industrial Revolution. Before that life was a Hobbesian cacophony of all against all. At that time economics was an improvement. But we have followed economics down a rabbit hole to a place of impossible profit choices made worse by our free form procreation and population growth. We don't need to go extinct and we don't need to go back to Hobbes but we do need an economic model that accounts for what we politely call externalities or the things, like pollution, that we don't want to admit to economic consciousness because they're too hard. What a bunch of intellectual wimps we are.
2
It's called karma, the law of one's action according to Buddhism. It is not a tragedy. It's simply the truth: one is responsible for his own action. We marred our "home" planet and caused extinction of many species, that destructive deed must send us to perdition at some point.
1
First the author decries the unimaginable levels of suffering we are inflicting on our fellow creatures.
Then he claims that "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."
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?
Don't you understand that it is precisely this type of thinking and framing that is used to justify the evil we do to those animals?
3
@Servatius How can you take pride in mans symbolic reasoning power if it is used to fight for power and possession, destroy the works of nature and man, and entertain ourselves with our obsession with our own mental constructs?
@John. That wealthy 'trophy' hunters are lining up to kill the few magnificent large mammals remaining in Africa, tells me all I need to know about human depravity and horrific cruelty.
Two words: population growth. If we as a species could control our own numbers, then at least we’d have a chance at survival. But, clearly, we’ve shown that’s not possible.
In my imagination, I always thought that, rather than killing off many who are presently alive, or soon to be, why can’t we just spread out our population over some longer period of time; e.g., thousands, millions, even billions of years? I don’t think any of us wish for the misery of pollution and environmental degradation, war, famine, pestilence, or any of the many scourges we see today that are the direct result of too many people in too small a space. Why is it so hard to come to grips with that?
We are too soon old and too late wise. It’s been a good run, and I’m glad I was here during humanity’s heyday.
Eliminate all those stone age superstitious religions and we would have a chance.
Well, it would be a tragedy for humans. But for everything else on the planet, it would probably be pretty great.
5
I wish I could get back the few minutes I spent reading this ivory-tower politically-correct hand-wringing. The planet is here for humans, not beetles, to enjoy!
1
@Daisy
What? Who says so and where is your proof that the world is here for humans (alone!) to enjoy/destroy? This is why the animals, birds, reptiles, insects have been disseminated, and the earth itself is dying in front of our eyes. What a sad and arrogant statement.
2
@Daisy My dog is worth the same as any human in my estimation, and is more decent and honorable than most. If he eats other animals that would be his evolutionary legacy, and unlike me he would have no choice.
@Daisy This Bible-era thought process - that "god" made the Earth to use for man's pleasure - is a big part of the reason we are on this precipice.
We are NOT special except to ourselves. Numbers don't lie, and they are against us. 99% or more of all species to have ever existed on this planet have gone extinct.
We really need to be done with this sky-daddy stuff. It is behind most of the destruction that we have done so far, to each other and to the Earth.
It sure would be for us! I for one am in favor of my own continued existence.
1
Human extinction will not be a tragedy; the very fact that most people believe we're apex predators—we're not—shows that we're due to be replaced as the destroyer-in-chief on this planet real soon.
The best thing we can do at this point is preserve our best works in time capsules that future archaeologists might dig it up and possibly experience our world. But we're toast; we gave in to overpopulating ourselves, and that can't end well.
1
@Fallopia TubaWpuld our works have meaning and value to any other entity?
@john Weas a people would be interested to find out about other life out in the cosmos; other civilizations might be interested—or even relieved to find us gone.
An argument like this makes it possible for someone to
claim that certain "sub-groups" of humans should
be culled to extinction.
When the next great plague occurs
I am sure there will be those who say that we should
not worry about the poor who are dying in large numbers,
they are, after all, just "surplus population".
Essays like this give Philosophy a bad name.
3
@John Brown It only makes that line of reasoning possible in the minds of those already predisposed to psychopathy.
You can say the same for everything ever invented by us. For example, you might be old enough to remember that personal computer was going to be a tool that would save us time, cut our work-weeks to 20-30 hours because it would make us so much more productive. Instead it has enslaved us, commoditized and cheapened professions that once provided stable livings, and created gateways for totalitarian intrusion and theft of identity and wealth.
Surely fewer human beings would solve the problem. More wildlife, fewer humans.
5
The human species has to be one of the most violent to its own members. The leading portion of the budget of most countries is arms to kill others of the species. The species is destroying its habitat through Global Warming. The two factors would be a leading factors in self destruction.
2
God, I wish Kurt Vonnegut was still alive! I can't help but think Leon Trotsky Trout from "Galápagos" would invisibly nod in agree with this article.
3
The only species that would miss us are human infecting viruses, the bacteria that live in our guts and canis lupus familiaris (dogs). I imagine our house cats would shrug, go "meh" and find a new protector species to mooch off.
2
We need to clean up our act, because despite all of our mis-management of Earth we are the only ones who can protect it from asteroid impacts. They can cause mass extinction on a scale even larger than can global warming.
Uhhhh.... who told you we can protect from asteroid strikes ? There are some fanciful ideas floating around, but nothing really definitive.
If you ask the question "Would Human Extinction be a Tragedy?" you have to inevitably ask the far more likely question "Would the Extinction of Every Animal Not Immediately beneficial to Humanity be a Tragedy?" And then picture a world devoid of anything but humans, cows, chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, cockroaches and rats.
You are asking an unthinkable question. I get to ask one too.
THE WORLD WITHOUT US
The world
without us
will not
be the same
as the world
before us was.
The world
without us
will be such
a lighter world
than the world
before us was,
such a lighter
world
without us
in its dreams.
1
Yes, a tragedy.
Tragedy: part of physics & biology.
Biology
What's for dinner? Murdered plants & animals.
Genocide is an app—selected & invoked.
A mushroom species has spores that are lethal to ants & their colonies.
If ant sentries discover these spores on an ant entering the colony they immediately bite its head off—a selected immune response.
Here's the selected manner by which this mushroom propagates. It infects an ant causing the following behavior: the ant is compelled to crawl skyward. The ant's head explodes, dispersing the mushroom's spores.
Physics
Collapse—the large & relatively rapid restructuring of a network’s relationships—is When-Not-If Physics for continuously dynamic (non-equilibrium) systems. It's called self-organized criticality, e.g., mass extinctions; plagues; climate changes; market crashes; world wars.
Complexity
Accelerating exponentially.
Humans are coded—biologically & culturally—to process local environs / relationships with linear dynamics in a short term manner.
We’re not sufficiently coded to process the emergent environs: complex relationship information at a global scale with exponential dynamics and myriad long-term consequences.
Exhibits A & B: Sky; Ocean.
We've created environs we aren't coded for, that we don't fit.
Btw, morality is a side-taking app, ultimately subservient to this fundamental, selected relationship code:
Fitness > Truth.
Tragically, sometimes the margins of selection are tight, impersonal & brutally enforced.
3
I support opinion pieces that challenge status quo thinking and helping readers see things through an expanded paradigm.
Fatalistic and nihilistic blather, albeit articulate blather, is entirely counterproductive in addressing the issues humans and the rest of the natural world face. Hearing other humans say their species is a horrid parasite smacks of insufferable self-righteousness and a twisted superiority complex.
Every day let’s vigorously pursue changing our own behaviors and fighting for the necessary larger changes to combat crises such as climate change. I’ll let the lazy lay in their unbearable self loathing.
4
The planet was just fine without the humans. It will be even better without them.
3
Instead of human extinction, how about just moving off-planet? Let the planet go feral for several thousand years while humans live off-world such as in habitats discussed by the late physicist Gerard K. O'Neill or other bodies in the solar system or beyond.
2
If it happened all at once, to everyone, it would be as if it almost nothing happened.
As to a climate based extinction, not likely.
An asteroid, perhaps.
The question itself is a rather silly one.
1
We hominids are recent arrivals on this planet - about 6 million years ago.
Consider that plants have owned this planet for about 500 million years and insects for 400 million. They work together quite well.
Neither would miss us, so no great tragedy for them.
The "tragic" aspect is that our unique human quality of consciousness gave rise to our greatest strength, consciousness which led to he ability to adapt our environment to ourselves. This ultimately gave man the delusion that we are apart from nature and not a part of it itself. As long as we believe that we are not the air, ocean, ground, fauna, etc, we are doomed to the destruction of our true selves. Pure hubris to somehow think we are exempt from the laws that rule our natural world.
Intelligence is part of the universe itself lest we would not have arisen out of it. Our particular manifestation of that intelligence may soon meet it's demise but it will, and continue to find it's expression everywhere and in everything.
So fear not. And keep in mind that destruction and creation are one in the same, never one without the other. This idea that extinction is somehow "tragic" is a construct of the very mind that is destroying itself anyway. Nature could care less what lies we tell ourselves. Maybe through our very own destruction we will come to realize how we are truly part of something so much grander and larger than any of us could ever have ever previously comprehended. So cheer up!
@Paul Yet it was the "natural world"-- which you claim we're apart from --that gave us a cortex and brain, which gave us the employment of fire, not the avoidance of it, which gave us our protections against climate, predators, and physical weakness, all of which eventually gave us delayed gratification and Beethoven and Bach. But the cortex is part of nature. To deny this is to deny both our humanity and our nature.
"Would human extinction be a tragedy?" The question is, in itself, the very height of anthropocentric arrogance. In the eyes of the human species in the context of the human drama (in which humans are always the lead character), sure it would be a tragedy; in the eyes of many species to which human existence has brought untolled harm, not so much, In the context of organic organisms in general on the planet, whether humans survive or not is not a particularly relevant bit of information. And in the context of the universe, human surivval or extinction is an utter non-event.
1
We humans have turned this planet into a trashcan. We would not be missed by many other species, except those that have come to depend on us. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if a kinder species had been the one to evolve to advanced levels.
From a cosmological point of view, we are important because we "see" the universe. What would be the point of the universe even existing, if there wasn't any sentient species capable of appreciating its complexity and at least trying to understand it? It is a deeply disturbing philosophical question, but why does "anything" exist if there's nobody to observe it? What would be the difference between an universe that exists and another one that does not exist, if nobody can witness the one that exists?
So my answer to the question is that we are a horrible, invasive, aggressive species that wrecks its own ecosystem and we've probably exceeded our welcome on Earth by an excess of about 3-4 billion individuals. But without us, or indeed without highly evolved sentient species (of which I sincerely hope there are many others in the universe), our planet, our solar system, our universe become just pointless aggregates of local micro-systems inhabited solely by micro-species blissfully unaware of their wider surroundings. Without us, the ability to grasp the beauty and immense complexity of physics and of the universe is irreparably lost.
So yes, the loss of the human race would be a tragedy.
2
Not if your other posits about other sentient life hold true. I think we are alone.
I understand the focus of the essay is on the damage we do to the environment and the suffering we cause on the non-human animal world, but you should also include the suffering we cause (and have caused throughout history) upon our fellow humans as a strike against our claim to exceptionalism. I just visited the WWI Museum in Kansas City last week. After seeing the displays of weaponry designed to shred human flesh more efficiently and reading about the slaughters in the Western and other fronts, you do have to wonder if we deserve to be here. And that was just one war.
4
I believe that machines endowed with intelligence will be the next step of human evolution. These machines, with the human spirit encoded into their binary DNA, will then carry on the tradition of exploration and understanding in the absence of their makers.
2