No Impact
The latest fad in ecologically conscious circles is the No Impact philosophy, the belief that people should lead a lifestyle that has No Impact on the environment. New York's famed No Impact Man and his family have given up many trappings of modern life including toilet paper, automobiles, the subway and Chinese takeout.
The No Impact Man, is harmless to everyone except himself and his family, but the No Impact philosophy could be very dangerous if taken to its logical conclusion. The person who makes the least impact on the environment is a dead person.
It isn't hard to imagine ecological fanatics killing innocent people in order to help them achieve "No Impact." After all No Impact is a good and healthy state to achieve so the ecoterrorist would be helping a person achieve No Impact by killing them. The Ecoterrorist wouldn't be committing murder he'd be saving the world from a wasteful predatory human being.
On a sicker note the logical target of the No Impact terrorist would be children, after all they have a life time of impact ahead of them. They won't grow up to become adults or have children of their own.
So will we see No Impact fanatics murdering innocent children, pregnant women and others in order to save the environment? Hopefully not, but other fanaticisms have led to slaughter in the past.
In the 1890s, you would have been met with disbelief if you had told someone that less than thirty years in the future Marxist fanatics would be murdering innocent people because they were rich or members of the nobility. Or in the 1920s if you had told a German that less than twenty years in the future Anti Semites and racists would be murdering people they considered not of pure German blood.
The No Impact people are zealots who believe they are acting in a righteous cause just like the Nazis, Communists and other fanatics of the past. Like the Nazis and Communists they vilify whole classes of people as predatory animals, the Nazis likened Jews to rats, the Communists compared capitalists to wolves. Both groups ended up killing the classes of people they dehumanized as if they were vermin.
The No Impact crowd thinks the entire human race is a horde of vermin that is destroying the planet. Many of them write fantasies about how wonderful the world would be with no people.
The logical conclusion of this thinking is to kill as many people as people as possible, in particular those who are environmentally destructive.
I don't think we should ban or suppress the No Impact thinkers but they and their philosophy certainly bear watching. Their ideology is one of sacrifice in a noble cause just like Nazism, Communism, Islamic Extremism and extreme nationalism all of which led to war and slaughter in the past. It isn't hard imagining an eco fanatic killing those he sees as destroying the environment. We already had the unambomber sending out his bombs to kill those who he saw as killing the environment.
Hopefully No Impact will just stay a crack pot belief among a small cadre of intellectuals but then Marxism and Nazism had similar origins.
The No Impact Man, is harmless to everyone except himself and his family, but the No Impact philosophy could be very dangerous if taken to its logical conclusion. The person who makes the least impact on the environment is a dead person.
It isn't hard to imagine ecological fanatics killing innocent people in order to help them achieve "No Impact." After all No Impact is a good and healthy state to achieve so the ecoterrorist would be helping a person achieve No Impact by killing them. The Ecoterrorist wouldn't be committing murder he'd be saving the world from a wasteful predatory human being.
On a sicker note the logical target of the No Impact terrorist would be children, after all they have a life time of impact ahead of them. They won't grow up to become adults or have children of their own.
So will we see No Impact fanatics murdering innocent children, pregnant women and others in order to save the environment? Hopefully not, but other fanaticisms have led to slaughter in the past.
In the 1890s, you would have been met with disbelief if you had told someone that less than thirty years in the future Marxist fanatics would be murdering innocent people because they were rich or members of the nobility. Or in the 1920s if you had told a German that less than twenty years in the future Anti Semites and racists would be murdering people they considered not of pure German blood.
The No Impact people are zealots who believe they are acting in a righteous cause just like the Nazis, Communists and other fanatics of the past. Like the Nazis and Communists they vilify whole classes of people as predatory animals, the Nazis likened Jews to rats, the Communists compared capitalists to wolves. Both groups ended up killing the classes of people they dehumanized as if they were vermin.
The No Impact crowd thinks the entire human race is a horde of vermin that is destroying the planet. Many of them write fantasies about how wonderful the world would be with no people.
The logical conclusion of this thinking is to kill as many people as people as possible, in particular those who are environmentally destructive.
I don't think we should ban or suppress the No Impact thinkers but they and their philosophy certainly bear watching. Their ideology is one of sacrifice in a noble cause just like Nazism, Communism, Islamic Extremism and extreme nationalism all of which led to war and slaughter in the past. It isn't hard imagining an eco fanatic killing those he sees as destroying the environment. We already had the unambomber sending out his bombs to kill those who he saw as killing the environment.
Hopefully No Impact will just stay a crack pot belief among a small cadre of intellectuals but then Marxism and Nazism had similar origins.
posted by great one at 6:01 PM
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