Episode
The man who wants humans to go extinct | Maiden Mother Matriarch 198
- Published
- May 17, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3727
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://shows.acast.com/maiden-mother-matriarch-with-louise-perry/episodes/the-man-who-wants-humans-to-go-extinct
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/maiden-mother-matriarch-with-louise-perry-6030622/episodes/the-man-who-wants-humans-to-go-extinct-maiden-mother-matriarch-198/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/maiden-mother-matriarch-with-louise-perry-6030622/the-man-who-wants-humans-to-go-extinct-maiden-mother-matriarch-198.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Paul Ehrlich was the author of the 1968 book 'The Population Bomb' - a book that made him into a celebrity. His message was a horrifying one. “In the 1970s and 1980s” he announced in the opening lines, “hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Thankfully, that prediction was not realised. But Ehrlich's influence lives on after his death, not least in the work of my guest today. Les Knight is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT). His goal is that humans should, as the movement's motto puts it, “live long and die out.” If he got his way, all humans would vanish within a century or so. Today I ask Les to explain his worldview. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.