Month: February 2011

I’m in a provocative mood.  Not sure why, maybe it’s the dogs. Nature is amazing.  It will be around long after we are gone. And nature will probably be the reason that we (humans) are gone, at least if we do not follow some of its rules.  But as long as humans are here on earth, there are some rules that we do not necessarily need to follow. This “human delinquency” will enrich our lives while we are here, although it may at the same time hasten our demise.  Case in point: natural selection.  Nature is pretty good at weeding out the sick and weak: it simply lets them die – often before they can contribute to the gene pool. Or often enough. We as humans are born with compassion so we take the opposite viewpoint.  We nurture the sick and needy, at least in most societies. Hence “the meek shall inherit the earth.”
So having said that, here’s a provocative what if:

What if…

…I was the ruler of a country of very able, very smart people. And I decided that I wanted to make them more able and more smart.  Create the ‘perfect race,’ as it were.  And suppose I was ruthless – or at best, objectively scientific. What would I do? I could collect all of my people and ship them off to containment facilities – let’s call them “filtering factories” – where I feed them very little, give them no heat, force them to live in close proximity so that their illnesses are all spread to each other – then force them to work until they collapse. Now, there would likely be a very high attrition rate. But wouldn’t the survivors be the perfect race? Those with the ability to ensure that our species – or at least the members of my ‘country’ – are best suited to survive?