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159 lines
9.0 KiB
Plaintext
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IF YOU WISH TO REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS LIST FOR ANY REASON
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just send an email to listserv@netcom.com containing only the line:
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unsubscribe snuffit-l
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DO NOT WHINE TO THE POSTMASTER. DO NOT SEND UNSUBSCRIBE MESSAGES TO:
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snuffit-l@netcom.com, listserver@netcom.com, coe@netcom.com
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We are witnessing a massive extinction of species. At least one species
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dies off every hour. In the tropical rain forest we're probably losing
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a species every fifteen minutes. I say "probably" because we're cutting
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it down much too fast for anyone to figure out how many species it
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actually contains. Rainforest species are incredibly specialized, and
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may be confined to a very small area, as little as a square kilometer.
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A single rainforest tree can contain more species than an entire boreal
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forest. The rainforests are mostly being cut down to make packaging,
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cheap furniture, and marginal farmland which quickly turns to desert.
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By comparison, the "background" or pre-human rate of extinction has been
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estimated as one species from any major group every million years.
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There have been five major extinctions in geological history, including
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one--the Permian--which wiped out 95 percent of all animal species.
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Previous extinctions were probably caused by astronomical events, such
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as a comet hitting the earth and filling the atmosphere with dust.
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Eventually the dust settled, the ice melted, and life restored itself.
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The current extinction is different: unlike a comet, the cause isn't
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going away, because the cause is us. Instead the cause is getting
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bigger, every day. The dust is not likely to settle for a very long
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time, and when it does, the earth will be a different place, because we
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are rapidly changing the chemical composition of the earth, its oceans,
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and its atmosphere.
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Humans don't yet have the power to completely destroy life on earth in
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one stroke. Even if we set off all of our nuclear weapons at once, some
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percentage of bacteria and viruses would survive. However we do have
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the power to kill the earth slowly, by reducing its biological
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diversity. Life creates diversity because diversity is an excellent
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survival strategy. A diverse system can adapt to change. Imagine a
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forest that contains ten thousand species. Now let's say the
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temperature changes by a few degrees for some reason, and half the
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species in that forest become extinct overnight. That's bad news, but
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the forest still has five thousand species. Given enough time, it will
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adapt to the new climate and eventually evolve new species to replace
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the ones that died off. Now let's cut down this hypothetical forest,
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and replace it with a single species, something useful to us, corn for
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example. Once again the temperature changes by a few degrees. What are
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the odds that our single species of genetically engineered corn will
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survive the change? Not good. The corn dies, the topsoil turns to
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dust and blows away, and what was once a forest becomes a man-made
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desert, where nothing will grow, possibly for billions of years.
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Multiply this example times every ecosystem. Are humans reducing the
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probability that life will survive on earth? Yes.
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The immediate consequence of reducing biological diversity is a "planet
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of weeds." In biological terms, a weed is a generalized species that
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can easily adapt to a wide range of circumstances. When more
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specialized species are disrupted, the weeds move in, like scar tissue.
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Scar tissue is better than nothing, but it tends to be ugly. A planet
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of weeds will be unimaginably ugly. The main survivors will be
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humans--the ultimate weeds--along with the species that are useful to
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them, such as genetically modified cows, chickens, pigs, corn, etc. The
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remaining survivors will be rats, roaches, pigeons, and other species
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capable of adapting to the increasingly hostile man-made environment.
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Wilderness, in the sense of land not used by humans, will cease to
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exist.
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It is pointless to argue that reducing biological diversity will make
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the earth an uglier place. For every person who thinks that wild nature
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is beautiful, there's another person who thinks it's boring and stupid.
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For every person who thinks modern society is hideous, there are many
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more who find it beautiful and exciting. Most people who live in "first
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world" countries enjoy driving cars, shopping, eating at restaurants,
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and dancing in discotheques. No one cares what people in poor countries
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think, so long as they don't try to stop the rich countries from doing
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whatever they want. In any case only the rich countries have the power
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to stop raping the earth, so it's Americans and Europeans and Japanese
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that have to be persuaded, not the starving masses in Africa. This
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means that the arguments against reducing biological diversity have to
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be logical, not aesthetic. Instead of arguing that destroying
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wilderness is ugly and wasteful, we have to argue that it directly
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reduces the odds that life--even human life--will survive on earth. Of
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course, most people are too self-centered to care whether humans
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survive, never mind animals and plants. Many people have been
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brainwashed by science-fiction and imagine that future generations of
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humans will turn themselves into robots, and escape into outer space.
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So there's really not much hope.
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The essential function of all modern propaganda--including newspapers,
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magazines, books, television, movies, the internet, and any other medium
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you can imagine--is to convince us, during every waking moment, that
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there is only one right way for people to live. It takes considerable
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effort to sustain this illusion, which explains why the information or
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"content-creation" industry is now the largest and most profitable
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industry in the world. Escapist dramas like "Star Trek" try to convince
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us that thousands of years into the future, people will still live
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comfortable lives, with hot showers and slaves cooking their meals for
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them. Disney spends billions of dollars making "historical" movies in
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which our ancestors wear funny clothes but act like us, and even talk
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like us. In fact, there is little chance we could understand our
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ancestors and their tribal ways, any more than they could understand us.
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The American Indian tribes were tragically unable to understand the
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European invaders, as Kurt Vonnegut describes acidly in his classic
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"Breakfast of Champions":
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"The chief weapon of the sea pirates was their capacity to astonish. No
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one could believe, until it was much too late, just how heartless and
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greedy they were."
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When asked to sell his land, the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh said,
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"Sell a country? Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea,
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as well as the earth?" How could he imagine that future generations
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would sell not only the land, the water, the air, and the
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electromagnetic spectrum, but even the genetic structure of life itself?
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The history of industrial society is the history of diversity--both
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biological and social--yielding to monoculture. The Church of
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Euthanasia is fighting for diversity, and is therefore opposing all
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forms of human growth, including economic growth, technological growth,
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and especially population growth. We want to see less people, using
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less stuff and making less garbage. The average person considers these
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goals deeply offensive and anti-social. They can't help being offended,
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because their values are steeped in humanism. Humanism is the belief
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that man is the measure of all things, and that without him the world
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would have no meaning or value. This arrogant notion leads directly to
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a hierarchical order of being, with man at the top. As God informs us
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in the book of Genesis, we're supposed to "be fruitful and become many
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and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection... every living
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creature." We've done just that, with catastrophic results. Humanism
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is the greatest heresy in the Church of Euthanasia, which may be the
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world's first anti-human religion.
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Humanism has been exported to every corner of the globe, and with it the
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mechanical world-view. Kings kept tax records, built roads, sent mail,
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established uniform codes of justice, turned forests into ships, and
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sent armies to loot and pillage distant lands. Thanks to their efforts
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we have Nike and Pizza Hut. The mechanical world-view has brought us
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objectivity, standardization, predictability, division of labor, and
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efficiency. Since there's no hope whatsoever of reversing these trends,
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the Church of Euthanasia's position is purely symbolic. We can't stop
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humans from killing the earth, but we can make them feel guilty about
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it. And we can refuse to participate, by not having children, by
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consuming as little as possible, and finally, by killing ourselves.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Rev. Chris Korda The Church of Euthanasia coe@netcom.com
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www: http://churchofeuthanasia.org
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ftp: ftp.etext.org /pub/Zines/Snuffit
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news: talk.euthanasia
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