In this week’s episode of the Modern Wisdom podcast, hosts Chris Williamson and Danny Polishchuk delved into the controversial topic of climate grief – in particular, how it can lead individuals to make drastic decisions.
The conversation revolved around a transcript where someone claimed to have opted for a vasectomy due to concerns about the environmental impact of human overpopulation.
As the hosts explored the rationale behind such a decision, they also touched upon broader issues related to climate anxiety and extreme measures some individuals take in response.
Climate Grief and Extreme Actions
The transcript begins with the speaker confessing to having undergone a vasectomy as a response to climate grief. The argument presented by this anonymous man suggests that by choosing not to have children, he is actively contributing to reducing the overall human impact on the environment.
This extreme measure stems from a deep-seated fear about the future and the man’s inherent belief in the negative consequences of overpopulation on climate change.
“For about a year and a half, I’d been offering to get a vasectomy to do more than just talk about how the world didn’t need any more humans in,” he says. The man also shared the final straw that convinced him and his partner to take the plunge, claiming: “My then partner called out from a few rows back in a crowded flight. We’d originally been seated together, but relocated so her mum could sit with her kids. When I look back over the packed seats, amidst the roar of burning engines, she smiled at me …”
Virtue Signaling and Toxic Compassion:
However, Chris and Danny Polishchuk express skepticism and concern about the mental state of individuals who take such extreme measures, saying: “this is an ultimate in virtue signaling, obviously to say like, I’m saving the planet by not reproducing. And then they insisted on including, which is unnecessary, that they were sitting separately because they had to give up their seats so a mother could sit with their child. Like, that’s like a weird thing. You’re like, okay, you didn’t have to say that other than you just have to be the best, the best human possible. And everybody else who’s reading this is just scum.”
The hosts are particularly derisive of virtue signaling, where individuals engage in actions to showcase their moral values and commitment to a cause. The decision to share personal details about sitting separately on a flight to accommodate a mother and child is seen as unnecessary virtue signaling, drawing attention to the speaker’s perceived moral superiority.
Chris and Dannt argue that this level of anxiety and fear about the future can be detrimental to one’s mental health. The pair also emphasize the resilience of humanity throughout history, highlighting the potential pitfalls of betting against the adaptive nature of civilization.
Interestingly, the hosts also introduce the idea of “toxic compassion,” explaining: “So toxic compassion is the prioritization of short-term emotional comfort over everything else, over truth, reality, actual long-term outcomes, flourishing, everything it optimizes for looking good rather than doing good. People would rather claim that body fat has no bearing on health and mortality outcomes to avoid making overweight individuals feel upset, even if this causes them to literally die sooner or have a worse quality of life. People would rather say that children growing up in single parent households suffer no worse outcomes than those from two parent homes. Even if this misleads parents, children, and teachers about why kids behave the way they do, campaigners would sooner shout, defund the police as a response to what they perceive as unfair treatment of criminals, even if this results in more crimes being committed against people from those minority backgrounds due to the abandonment of police officers from those areas.”
They argue that decisions driven by toxic compassion may lead to negative outcomes, as seen in various examples ranging from public health to parenting strategies.
This personal narrative of someone opting for a vasectomy as a way to offset their carbon footprint, choosing travel as a lifestyle that contributes to the climate crisis is obviously controversial. The hosts question the effectiveness of such decisions, exploring whether avoiding reproduction while engaging in environmentally harmful activities is a genuine solution or simply a form of self-deception.
The idea of getting a vasectomy to save the planet is met with scorn by Chris Williamson and Danny Polishchuk, and commenters alike. One writes: “Darwin Award. He’s saved the human race from his genes.” Another agrees: “Propaganda is no joke. I stopped watching television in 2009 and it took me years to get over most of the programming. I had no idea how brainwashed I was. This is merely an extreme example.”
