Speaking of the end of the world, I wonder how many Corner readers are

familiar with the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Their aim is to persuade the rest of us to let the human race die out, on the grounds that the world would be better off without us. That is very likely true; but the question that lingers is: Would we be better off

without us? In spite of the breezy tone and apparent reasonableness of the

VHEMT people, I find them deeply sinister. Cue Dr. Igor Shafarevich, writing in the darkness

of Brezhnev’s USSR: “The death of mankind is not only a conceivable result

of the triumph of socialism — it constitutes the goal of socialism.”