h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"nobody, is allowed to have children until they prove they are capable of being fit parents."

In another thread, I advocated sterilising kids who leave school without real qualifications. Just to give Darwin & Natural Selection a helping hand. Tell them while they're on the operating table that you're implanting an MP3 player, or skin-grafting a shell-suit on- they'll fall for it !!!!

The problem with "nobody allowed to have chilren until..." is that the regulatory agencies or judges would be made up of screwed up people too. It would likely also be chock full of normal, ORDINARY people , and this would wipe out my own family for about four generations.



A few months ago there was a Unitedkingomwide debate that spilled over into H2G2 about how it was that most kids are born to people that were considered uneducated and unintelligent by the framers of the debate. But reproduction is really easily understood and isn't physically difficult. Furthermore, the 'educated and intelligent' presumably know enough real biology to know that not having at least two children, or convincing your siblings to give you 8 nieces/nephews, is pragmatically comitting genetic suicide.

So just how 'intelligent and educated' could these supposed people be? How wise could the framers of the debate be? Not very smart or wise at all to me, and it's a Good Thing in my lights that they are NOT managing to replace themselves. If they can't manage this very simple thing, what CAN they actually manage? The degree that they manage to be uppercrusty, and no matter how contemptuous they might be to the proletariat or the immigrant, doesn't make me wish to like or honor them.



So perhaps a better invention for the next 50 years is a definition of intelligence and education that is practical enough to correspond to science, and to reality. Or maybe a cultural invention that makes women actually happy about the world they live in, and their place and saftey within it, so that they continue to see the risks of reproduction acceptable/pleasant once they obtain the ability to absolutely refuse it.