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THENATIONALGAZETTE April 26, 2011

Defusing the population bomb


By Lawrence Wu

Bring up the subject of population control and youll likely be met with unfavorable opinions relating to eugenics, genetic engineering, or Nazi Germany. So its probably best not to bring it up. But if you do, you have two options: convince your peers that population control isnt necessarily evil, or start avoiding them because you are worried they think you are a psychopath. In any case, its always safe to know why population control can actually be good for society. The rate of population increase absolutely needs to go down. Were at around 6.9 billion people and we might hit 10 billion in only 30 years. There is no possible way that Earth can sustain that many people without major repercussions. Fresh water is running out even now, with only 0.6% of all the total water in the world being actually drinkable. The pollution situation is even worse, as science has shown that pollution and global warming are gravely aggravated by population growth. So what should we do? Well, China has that one-child policy. Although it does help solve overpopulation, it has its own problems. In the end, there will turn out to be at least twice as many old people as young, unbalancing the workforce. There will also be the challenges that come with single children: spoiling, undivided attention, and antisocial behavior. But times 330 million. This is all, of course, assuming that humans will always be conned to earth. Some people argue that it will be possible to inhabit another planet such as
Fertility Rate A map showing the average number of children that would be born in a womans lifetime. Note that places with lower gross income tend to have more children. Im looking at you, Africa.

There are too many human beings on the planet, and Im trying to rectify this any way I can. SARS didnt work, but trust me, Im cooking up something better. In the interim, please kill lots of yourselves.
Nature (Douglas Coupland) from JPod

Mars. Lets not forget it cost 1.7 billion dollars for the Apollo 11 mission that only got to the moon. And if you still believe it can be done, enjoy your lack of oxygen, freezing temperatures (or extremely high temperatures, depending on whether youre facing the sun) ebullism (boiling blood), hypoxia, cosmic rays, and lack of pressure (so your lungs will rupture). All in all, space travel, en masse, is nowhere close to cheap, safe, or possible. The solution? Voluntary eugenics. Incentivize abortions to low-income couples. Offer them money, new park benches, whatever. Just get them to stop making babies. Its pretty well documented that lowincome families tend to have more children, and when they cant support them, they rely on the government for welfare and other programs. We should also give away free condoms and sterilizations and make them accessible. Non-coercion all the way. This will solve overpopulation, without the problems that other solutions would have. It would also increase the quality our gene pool signicantly.

THENATIONALGAZETTE April 26, 2011

Of course, there will always be concerns about abortions and eugenics in general. Many of the moral concerns are brought forth due to religion. However, religion is known to have interfered with scientic advancements in the past, but has later come to accept them as a normal part of life, such as cars and most other technologies. Eugenics will have to take the same route. In conclusion, cut your penis off and kill babies. Just kidding. But seriously, there will always be solutions to overpopulation, but in my opinion, incentivized, completely voluntary eugenics is the least radical, least problematic one of them all.

Charles Darwin Because voluntary eugenics is, essentially, just speeding up natural selection.

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