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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: A Modest Proposal
Message-ID: <26500079@inmet>
Date: Sun, 7-Sep-86 20:36:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.26500079
Posted: Sun Sep  7 20:36:00 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Sep-86 02:01:36 EDT
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Nf-ID: #N:inmet:26500079:000:1993
Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw    Sep  7 20:36:00 1986


[Oded Feingold: oaf@mit-vax.UUCP]
>With the human population burgeoning beyond all reasonable bounds, and
>pushing the rest of  creation into  extinction,  maybe what  we really
>need is freely available euthanasia, which people can and will (enthu-
>siastically)  self-administer.  

The premise is wrong: human population does not loom as large
vis-a-vis the rest of creation as some of its members believe. If
all the 5 billion of us were drowned in the Great Lakes, how much
would the water level rise? A fraction of an inch.

However, given the premise - and many people accept it -
the conclusion is by far the best that can be made.

Some people are so scared of babies they propose coercive
population control - a conception police.

Oded's proposal is non-coercive.
But it is morally preferable even compared to encouraging  volun-
tary population control. What are the malthusians afraid of? That
people may be brought into the world whose life will be not worth
living? Well, let *them* be the judges of that.

If it's not worth it, they can quit. If they are never
born, they get no chance and no choice.

The oaf plan makes the population problem  completely  self-regu-
lating.  Once  it  is implemented - cyanide over the counter or a
suicide booth at the corner, and once the customs adapt to accept
it - the world is guaranteed a population the *worst-off* part of
which thinks life worth living.

But these would be at the  tail  of  the  happiness  distribution
curve - which means, in any reasonable distribution, that the ma-
jority would be well above that level. So let us adopt the plan.

At any rate all population control advocates should  embrace  it,
*unless*  what  really  interests them is not overpopulation, but
control for control's sake. If they won't let people be born *or*
die  without permission, then they simply want total control over
you - or, in equivalent words - they want to *own* you.

		Jan Wasilewsky
/* End of text from inmet:net.politics */