A cleansing [rar]

[Seggybop]

Say that we acquire the ability to create a giant bomb (for lack of a better term) that has no effect on the target area except to sterilize the human population.

The government gets these bombs, and carpets them over every craphole region across the world. All the pathetic, poverty stricken lands on the Earth are targeted. Once the youngest generation at the time of the bombing is gone, these places will be emptied.

So, the question-- is this wrong?

I believe it does fall under the classification of genocide-- destroying a group by preventing reproduction counts by the definition I remember.

But is it really a bad thing? All the problems we hear about from these places... civil war, starvation, disease, etc. are all alleviated. Overpopulation issues could be averted, at least temporarily.

No one would be harmed directly. No one is being hurt or killed by this solution. The people simply cease to multiply. One could argue that all humans have an intrinsic right to reproduce, but I disagree with that, and even were it so it's overweighed by the harm done to a child forced to live in those conditions.

It still seems like there's something wrong about this plan, but for some reason I can't think of what it would be.

[Uraniun235]

As their population continues to age, there will be no young people to care for the old, and the workforce will continue to shrink. The old will be left to fend for themselves. They will begin to starve. Economies will crash. Hundreds of thousands of refugees will begin trying to migrate elsewhere to find jobs.

It would be a refugee crisis of staggering proportions. The neighboring countries and/or communities which are not bombed will themselves likely be swamped with refugees.

Faced with economic crisis, some countries may turn to war. As the bombed nations are depopulated, their neighbors may take it upon themselves to claim their lands. At some point, two nations will claim the same piece of real-estate, and there will likely be war.

Nations which have both prosperous regions and poverty-stricken regions will likely be ecomically crippled, or even destroyed. (India and China come to mind)

There are billions of people living in abject poverty. Such a plan would condemn their (currently living) young people to eventual widescale starvation, warfare, and overall disintegration of their society.

[brianeyci]

It still seems like there's something wrong about this plan, but for some reason I can't think of what it would be.

See AIDS, Africa.

In case you can't make the connection, certain countries have had their entire working class destroyed. You propose to do this, but with far more elderly.

[Seggybop]

It would be a refugee crisis of staggering proportions. The neighboring countries and/or communities which are not bombed will themselves likely be swamped with refugees.

Yes, I thought of this. But, how much worse would it be than the current situations? It might also be the final instance of such widespread chaos for a very long time.

Faced with economic crisis, some countries may turn to war. As the bombed nations are depopulated, their neighbors may take it upon themselves to claim their lands. At some point, two nations will claim the same piece of real-estate, and there will likely be war.

Would previously stable, secure countries (the kind that would be unaffected by the bombing) really go to war over that? It takes a lot to get a modern nation to commit to a real war, doesn't it? Land grabs seem obvious, though

Nations which have both prosperous regions and poverty-stricken regions will likely be ecomically crippled, or even destroyed. (India and China come to mind)

True, and the US government probably would refrain from bombing these countries anyway.

There are billions of people living in abject poverty. Such a plan would condemn their (currently living) young people to eventual widescale starvation, warfare,

Which is where they're generally heading anyway

and overall disintegration of their society.

which would be a totally intentional effect of this plan being implemented.

It would be bad, but it's already bad. Or am I totally misinterpreting the relative levels of chaos?

[Sarevok]

Just because a person lives in a poor nation does not mean they are living in such hellish conditions that death is preferable. People in so called craphole nations may be impoverished but they enjoy living as much as anyone else. They are happy with what they have. You are not saving future generations from misery being sterilizing them. Rather you are killing off any chance of these nations from becoming prosperous countries. Life may suck for dwellers of the bottom nations but they are happy with the little they have and deserve a chance to improve .

[Chiaroscuro]

How would one choose which countries should be sterilized, and which shouldn't? That's one question I have.
The problem is, with abjectly poor people, sometimes the only joy they have--their only sense of life fulfillment--is having children. While it's impossible to know for certain, I think the people of such a nation would become deeply depressed, alienated, and eventually suicidal; the single greatest human fear is death, and that fear is only alleviated (partially) by knowing that your knowledge, or your genes, are left behind. The people of the nation, particularly when they passed middle age, would not be able to cope with the knowledge of the death of their entire culture.
Plus, the rest of us would lose all their traditions and history--and we'd probably have a harder time getting resources from those countries.

[Frank Hipper]

How would one choose which countries should be sterilized, and which shouldn't?

Why, that's simple in the extreme!

Those nations whose people lack 24 inch rims for their Cadillac Escalades shall be denied reproductive rights forever with cleansing bomb goodness.


This ranks as one the most reprehensible ideas I've ever heard of...killing off entire nations through sterilisation because they do not meet your arbitrary standards happiness? You lose, Seggybop.

[Molyneux]

Say that we acquire the ability to create a giant bomb (for lack of a better term) that has no effect on the target area except to sterilize the human population.

The government gets these bombs, and carpets them over every craphole region across the world. All the pathetic, poverty stricken lands on the Earth are targeted. Once the youngest generation at the time of the bombing is gone, these places will be emptied.

So, the question-- is this wrong?

I believe it does fall under the classification of genocide-- destroying a group by preventing reproduction counts by the definition I remember.

But is it really a bad thing? All the problems we hear about from these places... civil war, starvation, disease, etc. are all alleviated. Overpopulation issues could be averted, at least temporarily.

No one would be harmed directly. No one is being hurt or killed by this solution. The people simply cease to multiply. One could argue that all humans have an intrinsic right to reproduce, but I disagree with that, and even were it so it's overweighed by the harm done to a child forced to live in those conditions.

It still seems like there's something wrong about this plan, but for some reason I can't think of what it would be.

Every human being has an inalienable right to control over and ownership of their own body. Without that right, all other rights are meaningless.

By sterilising billions of people without their consent, you are doing irreparable harm to their bodies and thus violating the single most basic human right conceivable.

[Seggybop]

This ranks as one the most reprehensible ideas I've ever heard of...killing off entire nations through sterilisation because they do not meet your arbitrary standards happiness? You lose, Seggybop.

Well, it wasn't my idea. I don't think it's "one of the most reprehensible ideas" ever, but I was only advocating it for the sake of the hypothetical scenario. I don't think it's a good idea myself because I'd rather everyone have a chance to deal with their problems rather than removing their ability to choose. On the other hand, I'm still not sure if after all is done with the general state of the world wouldn't be significantly better. Which was what I was really wondering about in posting the thread.

[Ender]

This ranks as one the most reprehensible ideas I've ever heard of...killing off entire nations through sterilisation because they do not meet your arbitrary standards happiness? You lose, Seggybop.

Well, it wasn't my idea. I don't think it's "one of the most reprehensible ideas" ever,

You know, I'm not really sure I want to know what you can possibly think of that would be worse then this.

[Seggybop]

I guess your head is rather empty then. Killing the people outright would be an obvious one, among countless others. It's pretty easy to think of worse things to do to people than render them infertile.

[CarsonPalmer]

I think killing them outright would be more merciful, rather than leaving them to a fate with no hope. They are all sterilized, and everything they know will slowly die. That's torture.

[Ghost Rider]

This ranks as one the most reprehensible ideas I've ever heard of...killing off entire nations through sterilisation because they do not meet your arbitrary standards happiness? You lose, Seggybop.

Well, it wasn't my idea. I don't think it's "one of the most reprehensible ideas" ever, but I was only advocating it for the sake of the hypothetical scenario. I don't think it's a good idea myself because I'd rather everyone have a chance to deal with their problems rather than removing their ability to choose. On the other hand, I'm still not sure if after all is done with the general state of the world wouldn't be significantly better. Which was what I was really wondering about in posting the thread.

You do understand the sheer idiocy of claiming "poor" as a quantative thought?

So where does one set the bar to make this mass judgement to condemn people who are in life that are manipulated by the sole factor of how much earnings they recieve per day.

[Seggybop]

If you want to make a quantitative statement, we could say if they wanted to target 50% of the planet's population, they could target countries starting with the lowest GDP continuing until 50% of the total world population was affected. Assuming that was the plan.

In any case though, it seems people regard the ability to reproduce a lot more highly than I thought. I probably wouldn't have learned that had I not made a thread like this. It's especially surprising to me that anyone would consider it close to as important as their own life itself, since the inability to reproduce still allows you to do anything you want with the exception of being a genetic parent.

[Ender]

I guess your head is rather empty then.

You casually speak of the benefits of genocide, and accuse me of being empty headed?

[Seggybop]

The OP is a bad plan to be sure, but seriously saying you can't think of much that's worse is either a gross exaggeration or a total lack of thought.

how about instead of sterilizing them, we
- drop smallpox bombs on them
- drop ebola bombs on them
- drop mustard gas bombs on them, every day, for a year
- pollute all their drinking water with toxins
- set off cobalt bombs at random
- use them for nuclear effects testing
- use them for full scale biological attack testing

It took about a minute and a half to think of those and it would be another couple minutes to think of as many more. If you think any of them are less horrific than the OP, I'll be pretty surprised.

[Ender]

The OP is a bad plan to be sure, but seriously saying you can't think of much that's worse is either a gross exaggeration or a total lack of thought.

Neither. See, the simple fact is that I'm not some sick and twisted fuck who revels in coming up with horrific mass genocide plans for people simply because he decides they don't have enough material things. So my mind doesn't work that way - I can't sit there and brainstorm human suffering and how best to carry it out.

Maybe the fact that my mind isn't a warped and broken thing, and thus the things the thoughts that percolate through my brain consist of math, science, girls, family, etc means I have no real thoughts to you, if we want to stoop so low as to define thoughts as "how efficiently can we execute something that would give Hitler nightmares". In which case I'll gladly take the latter attempt at an insult. Because if it is coming from someone like you, it ends up being a compliment.

[Sikon]

A civilization does not somehow become prosperous if it starts dropping in population and dying out. It is strange how many people think that problems must disappear if "overpopulation" is ended. Was there proportionally less starvation, less violence, longer life expectancy, or more prosperity back when there were a tenth as many people on earth? No. There was the exact opposite in every single regard. As another example, "overpopulated" Africa has at least two or so orders of magnitude less population density than Japan. Poverty and violence are the actual problems. All countries with starvation today would have none if they were less impoverished and stabilized by better governments.

People seek some purpose in life sooner or later. For the majority of the population in any country, their main purpose is their children. Mothers and fathers willing to even die for children is a common theme throughout human history. Without hope for the future, violence would astronomically increase. Many would figure they had little to lose if a government deployed the biological weapon described in the opening post. Hopefully enough of that government's own citizens would revolt and overthrow it during the subsequent world war.

If a government really wanted to help people, not being a regime wiping out half the world, the real solution would be different:

Set up part of a nation-state with almost unlimited immigration, then help millions of people come in per year, get absorbed into the melting pot (so to speak), and become prosperous, continuing until all people lived under law and order in relative prosperity.

People aren't suffering because there is X number in so-and-so land area. They suffer because the local government consists of militias hacking them to death, because they don't have nuclear reactors making fertilizer, or for other reasons related to violence and poverty.

[Seggybop]

The OP is a bad plan to be sure, but seriously saying you can't think of much that's worse is either a gross exaggeration or a total lack of thought.

Neither. See, the simple fact is that I'm not some sick and twisted fuck who revels in coming up with horrific mass genocide plans for people simply because he decides they don't have enough material things. So my mind doesn't work that way - I can't sit there and brainstorm human suffering and how best to carry it out.

I'm so sorry. I guess because I have a modicum of skill at brainstorming different concepts I'm a twisted psycho.

Maybe the fact that my mind isn't a warped and broken thing, and thus the things the thoughts that percolate through my brain consist of math, science, girls, family, etc means I have no real thoughts to you, if we want to stoop so low as to define thoughts as "how efficiently can we execute something that would give Hitler nightmares". In which case I'll gladly take the latter attempt at an insult. Because if it is coming from someone like you, it ends up being a compliment.

Thanks for the Hitler reference. Good one there.

[brianeyci]

Seggybop when you call someone who is a nuclear engineer "empty headed" of course he is going to diss you back, what did you expect.

It's ironic that you accuse people of lack of thought when I and probably all the people who read your op had half a mind to flame you in the beginning because you didn't think through your op in detail enough.

Did you read up on AIDS and how the destruction of the working class in Africa? Better yet how old are you, think of your parents. Yes, one day if your parents live long enough you will be scrubbing their backs and spoonfeeding them, if you are not a complete asshole.

[Seggybop]

Seggybop when you call someone who is a nuclear engineer "empty headed" of course he is going to diss you back, what did you expect.

It's ironic that you accuse people of lack of thought when I and probably all the people who read your op had half a mind to flame you in the beginning because you didn't think through your op in detail enough.

I don't care about being flamed at all or I wouldn't consistently make threads where that response is predictable. I learn a lot from it, so I consider it good.

But saying "this is one of the most reprehensible ideas ever" is blatantly wrong and sounds totally kneejerk.

Did you read up on AIDS and how the destruction of the working class in Africa?

I agree with everyone's response that I didn't think this through as well as I could have, and I regret that.

Better yet how old are you, think of your parents. Yes, one day if your parents live long enough you will be scrubbing their backs and spoonfeeding them, if you are not a complete asshole.

Maybe it sounds farfetched, but I basically do that already-- my father's not in that bad shape, but my mother requires a feeding tube and a ventilator, and I'm responsible for her care along with nursing staff.

[loomer]

I do like the idea of cleansing areas like parts of Africa, but not through sterilization- Well, not this kind, anyway.

Sterilize it with something that only kills humans that has magically been invented, and drop it on places where the inevitable fate of the population is extinction anyway. Like parts of Africa, where AIDS is everywhere, ethnic cleansing happens every few generations and the government is forcibly removed every few years.

Then, once the area has been sterilized, place new populations from other shitholes there, and work on the infrastructure. Radical? Yes. Insane? Yes. Better than creating a problem of enormous scale in which warfare and starvation result in slow, painful deaths for many? Yes.

[Macunaima]

If you want to make a quantitative statement, we could say if they wanted to target 50% of the planet's population, they could target countries starting with the lowest GDP continuing until 50% of the total world population was affected. Assuming that was the plan.

If the GDP alone would be the value to make the decision, it means that places like Iceland, Andorra and Luxembourg would be targeted. If the GDP per capita is used, countries with different levels of poverty would be spare or targeted? There are countries that have a low average of GDP per capita as a whole for the entire country, but with areas with high values of GDP per capita or Human Development Index. It's a bad idea by any angle.

[Seggybop]

Yes, I know that it doesn't work. When I made the OP I wasn't thinking about "how would you do this...?" I was wondering what would happen if somehow it did get done. Like any other unrealistic hypothetical scenario that gets posted. But I worded this very poorly.

[brianeyci]

Better than creating a problem of enormous scale in which warfare and starvation result in slow, painful deaths for many? Yes.

You're a moron. Did it ever occur to you that the little girl who makes pottery and sells it for a ball of rice a day wants to live just as much as everybody else. Of course not, everybody who doesn't have a first world standard of living must obviously be unhappy with their circumstances enough to agree to suicide. And if you are saying do it without their agreement, then well you are advocating murder.

But saying "this is one of the most reprehensible ideas ever" is blatantly wrong and sounds totally kneejerk.

I've only been here two years but I have never heard someone put forward genocide as a solution to poverty. If there was a kneejerk, big deal it's deserved.