More not-a-joke-for-very-long from The Onion:
“I’m just going to level with you—the earth’s carrying capacity will no longer be able to keep up with population growth, and civilization will end unless large swaths of human beings are killed, so the question is: How do we want to do this?” Cambridge University ecologist Dr. Edwin Peters said. “Do we want to give everyone a number and implement a death lottery system? Incinerate the nation’s children? Kill off an entire race of people? Give everyone a shotgun and let them sort it out themselves?”
Advertisement
Wasn’t it Brave New World in which they lured intellectuals into art museums and set off the anthrax bombs? Or am I mixing up my distopias again?
Comment by Gabriel — January 28, 2012 @ 11:49 am
I’m not sure that giving the ax to the top decile would do it. And it’s the bottom two deciles that do all the breeding, if panicked nineteenth century Progressives are to be believed.
Comment by Neko_Bijin — January 28, 2012 @ 1:49 pm
Why the fear in certain countries about immigration? In Germany the descendants of Turkish immigrant workers – not accepted as Germans, despite one or two generations born there – are outbreeding the locals. The Japanese limit immigration, especially from Korea, due to similar concerns, and are planning to use robotics to care for their increasingly aged population.
While the “Marching Morons” scenario seems unlikely to play out – the immigrants, and children of immigrants, usually being more motivated to be productive & successful – it might be worth revisiting, using economic levels instead of IQ …
Comment by Anonymous — January 30, 2012 @ 9:02 pm
Have the Federal governments of the industrial First World subsidize condoms for Africa, South America and the bottom half of Asia. That should put the whole business off.
Comment by buttery.wholesomeness — January 29, 2012 @ 1:47 am