Pessimism is a negative mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empty or half full?"; in this situation, a pessimist is said to see the glass as half empty, while an optimist is said to see the glass as half full. Throughout history, the pessimistic disposition has had effects on all major areas of thinking.
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" after a period of apparent absence.
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of civilization (anti-civ) that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization and high technology. Anarcho-primitivists critique the origins and progress of the Industrial Revolution and industrial society. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence during the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to coercion, social alienation, and social stratification.
John Edward Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist ecophilosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought and the concept of time.
David Hillel Gelernter is an American computer scientist, artist, and writer. He is a professor of computer science at Yale University.
Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Luddites, who were active between 1811 and 1816.
Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species due to either natural causes such as population decline from sub-replacement fertility, an asteroid impact, large-scale volcanism, or to anthropogenic (human) causes.
David Richard Kaczynski is the younger brother of Ted Kaczynski, the serial bomber dubbed the "Unabomber" by the FBI before his arrest in 1996. His memoir, Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family, details his relationship with his brother and parents and the decision that David and his wife made to share their suspicion that Ted was the Unabomber with law enforcement, which led to his arrest. David's ultimate decision to implicate his brother for the bombings resulted in Ted ceasing all communication with his family, including failing to respond to all of David's attempted correspondence since imprisoned.
"Why The Future Doesn't Need Us" is an article written by Bill Joy in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine. In the article, he argues that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species." Joy warns:
The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction in order to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind. VHEMT supports human extinction primarily because, in the group's view, it would prevent environmental degradation. The group states that a decrease in the human population would prevent a significant amount of human-caused suffering. The extinctions of non-human species and the scarcity of resources caused by humans are frequently cited by the group as evidence of the harm caused by human overpopulation.
Ecofascism is a term which is used to describe individuals and groups which combines environmentalism with fascist viewpoints and tactics. Originally, the term "ecofascist" was considered an academic term for a hypothetical type of government which would militantly enforce environmental measures over the needs and freedoms of its citizens. In non-academic circles, the term "ecofascist" was originally used as a slur against the emerging environmental movement from the 1970s onwards. However, since the 2010s, a number of individuals and groups have emerged that either self-identify as "ecofascist" or have been labelled so by academic or journalistic sources. These individuals and groups synthesise radical far-right politics with environmentalism and will typically advocate that overpopulation is the primary threat to the environment and that the only solution is to completely halt immigration, or at their most extreme, actively genocide minority groups and ethnicities. As environmentalism has become more and more mainstream in recent decades, many far-right political parties have experimented with adding green politics to their platforms, while since the 2010s a number of terrorists internationally have cited ecofascism as their motive.
Peter Douglas Ward is an American paleontologist and professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Sprigg Institute of Geobiology at the University of Adelaide. He has written numerous popular science works for a general audience and is also an adviser to the Microbes Mind Forum. In 2000, along with his co-author Donald E. Brownlee, he co-originated the term Rare Earth and developed the Medea hypothesis alleging that multicellular life is ultimately self-destructive.
Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, is an American domestic terrorist and former mathematics professor. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide mail bombing campaign against people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the environment. He authored Industrial Society and Its Future, a 35,000-word manifesto and social critique opposing industrialization, rejecting leftism, and advocating for a nature-centered form of anarchism.
A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical future event that could damage human well-being and animal well being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's potential is known as an "existential risk."
Jean-Marie Apostolidès is a Greek-French novelist, essayist, playwright, theater director, and university professor. He was born in Saint-Bonnet-Tronçais, France, on 27 November 1943.
Gergana Dimitrova is Bulgarian theatre director, playwright and translator.
Industrial Society and Its Future, generally known as the Unabomber Manifesto, is a 1995 anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber". The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology, while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The 35,000-word manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society.
Extinction: The Facts is a 2020 documentary film by the natural historian David Attenborough which aired on the BBC. It depicts the continuing sixth mass extinction, caused by humans, and the consequences of biodiversity loss and climate change. It also suggests positive action which can be taken to halt or reverse these effects. With a peak viewership of roughly 4.5 million on its premiere, the programme received positive critical reception.
Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How is a 2016 non-fiction book by Ted Kaczynski.
Ted K is a 2021 American historical crime drama written, directed, produced, and edited by Tony Stone. It stars Sharlto Copley as an anti-tech radicalist Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. The film depicts the events leading to his arrest.
