Something shocking happened when I posted to Facebook my essay about the necessity of organizing a societal response to the existential threats that plague us. It got lots of comments, and almost all of them were from people who are in favor of a human-less Earth. One idea that came up a couple times is that humanity is a cancer on the body of the planet, and that if we were to slide into extinction, it would be no big loss. I found that simply mind-boggling. And really I feel a little sick about it. I had no idea that this virulent strain of nihilism masquerading as "enlightened thinking" even existed, not really, even though my friend whose comment inspired the original piece told me I was going to encounter a lot of it. Boy, was she right! Anyway, here are all the comments. A lot of accusations were made that I was angry, sarcastic, unwilling to listen to other points of view. That's...pretty accurate, actually, but honestly I'm surprised I managed maintain at l
A prototype religion for the science fictional future.