The Elegant Solution, Page 2

SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

  There are several options depending upon the preferred/required outcome.

  After abandoning "Option Zero" (The intervention by an alien creature/race/god) we are left with a handful or possible scenarios.

  Option One. We Do Nothing – “The Soylent Green Solution”

  In the movie "Soylent Green" (apologies for any spoilers in this part of my explanation) things are left roughly the way they are and taken to a logical conclusion.

  The greenhouse effect is allowed to run wild and life on our world has become almost unbearable.

  There is not enough food to feed the massive population and the authorities eventually resort to the feeding of the population using the last remaining source of protein in the world.

  People.

  Yes, the body horror aspect of this story is an important hurdle to overcome but the problem with this whole cause of action lies in it is in the sheer logistics. The solution has logistical problems which make it an entirely unworkable solution.

  It is implied that the population will one day become nothing more than cattle... Except that in this case the 'cattle' will also need to eat.

  As we have seen in the twilight zone episode - To Serve Man. One requirement of serving up humans as a food source is that the humans need to be fattened up, which would not be happening in the above scenario.

  Using humans as fertiliser for plants may be a more reasonable/workable response but in a world of violent climate change even this may not be an option.

  The political/social aspects of the above also mean that the population may (eventually) notice that their society is getting smaller and that people are vanishing.

  Sadly however, history has show us that this is not always the case.

  On the bright side however, the planet would survive and rebuild itself after the extinction of the human race.

  All culture and possible outward expansion would be lost.

  Eventually, The moon will leave Earths orbit and thus end all life on the planet. In the (considerably) longer term, The Sun will expand and all trace of humanity will be lost.

  Thus rendering this solution as nul and void.

 

  Option Two - The 'Dalek' solution

  Yes, the extermination of large amounts of the Worlds people would - on first glance - appear to solve many of the above issues.

  Simple problem - Too many people.

  Simple Answer - Less people.

  The quickest route to this solution is to kill lots of people. But... again, we have a lot of practical hurdles to jump before we can even consider this as a possible course of action as it stands.

  To be frank, this is an overly simplistic approach to the problem.

  When this solution has been tried in the past in a real world setting it has been for political/religious/totally insane reasons.

  These attempts are often based upon the - outsider - principle.

  The "We" and The "Not We.".

  People trapped in their own world view trying to remove a certain strata from within their own society. People or groups that were seen by a controlling minority, as responsible for the current socio-political landscape.

  Other motivations have included the popular "The control of learning/thinking" or the mundane "gain their assets".

  These historical attempts have always taken on the form of a “targeted genocide”. This is too blinkered to work and has lent to a lot of resentment on all sides by those involved.

  The "practical" solutions invented by the Nazis were monstrous and had more to do with the economics of war than any worthwhile endgame.

  Historically, the use of gas as a method of mass extermination was only instigated due to the cost and demand for ammunition elsewhere, it is also important to note that the Nazis only managed to carry out their atrocities because there was a war on at the time.

  Yes, there were political enemies and people who were perceived as sexual deviants (for more on sexual deviation see a The Torchwood Solution) but it was specific racial groups that suffered the most.

  This is a hugely blinkered view of "supremacy" is at the core of the "Dalek" solution.

  The most obvious (real world) examples are the Nazi Parties policy of extermination camps used during the Second World War but they were not the first or the last to try and destroy large groups of people.

  As said earlier, the majority of genocide attempts have been instigated upon racial lines and would obviously result in reduced gene pool.

  From a purely rational stand point, this view this makes even less sense than the extermination.

  The human race has developed as species from a single common ancestor and as such we are all mutated offspring. Race cannot be a dividing factor.

  Yes, there may be some physical differences caused by the ape we are adapting to our environment over millions of years and we may also carry around some Neanderthal DNA but belonging to a genetically diverse group is the best place to be when it comes to long term survival.

  A Master Race is simply a flawed idea, it can be illustrated in understandable terms by simply looking at statement "Look what happens when cousins marry."

  Indeed, the idea of “less people” may be a common goal, but it cannot be achieved this way. (See also the Kingsman Solution)

  Option Three - The "Moon Raker" solution

  The "Moon Raker" solution had a lot in common with the “Dalek Solution.” In that it is based upon a flawed genetic superiority concept.

  However, it does have some more workable concepts in its actual mechanics.

  In the film of the same name there is megalomaniac with desires to wipe out the whole human race then repopulate with genetically perfect people.

  Obviously the definition of "genetically perfect is a late Nineteen seventies version of hetro-normative model, but the point remains.

  A nerve toxin with a limited lifespan would be introduced to the planet Earths atmosphere and would wipe out all those pesky people.

  There are many issues with this method. If we ignore the mass murder aspect for a moment, we can see that there would, again, be logistical issues. These issues largely revolve around the disposal of the dead, finding a workforce and loss of cultures.

  It basically comes down to two basic issues – Who will clean up? And Who will do the work?

  In a post “Moonraker” world. Who would do the actual cleaning. If everyone is a member of the "Master Race" then by default – NO ONE is a member of the Master Race (See the pixar movie “The Incredibles” for more information on this.)

  With the entire population of the Earth being taken out in one quick move there would be a lot of work needed to rebuild any sort of society. Yes, the planet would rebuild itself quickly but it would – eventually be in the same position in a matter of a few thousand years.

  Scientific development would halt as the need for survival would be paramount and as with the extinction model mentioned in the Soylent Green Solution, we would eventually face extinction of life on earth by natural causes.

  Option Four – “The Twelve Monkeys/Survivors” Solution

  Similar to the “Moonraker solution”, in the Terry Nation Television series "Survivors", there is an outbreak of a disease that wipes out 99.999% of the Worlds population.

  So, with such a drastically reduced population we are again presented with massive cleanup job and a quest for survival. This would help the planet but not allow the human race to leave the earth and spread out across the universe.

  If you remove the time travel aspect from the film “Twelve Monkeys” you have exactly the same set up.

  Option Five “The Children of Men” – Solution

  This may seem like an extension of the “Survivors solution.” In the book and film of the same name we are presented with a dystopian future where there are no children being born. With an absence of a following generation so
ciety is falling and suicide has been made socially acceptable.

  At the end of the film there is a pregnant woman who holds a possible future for the human race. The reason for the events are not examined and only the social repercussions are looked at in any real way.

  Option Six. Singularity - The Matrix Solution

  A very popular idea in Science Fiction has been one dealing with a concept called “Singularity” – Here singularity is not referring to the centre/event horizon of a Black Hole but the moment when the human consciousness combines with machine consciousness to become one. This would be a time when we can upload ourselves into a virtual landscape and thus gain immortality and live happily ever after.

  Once we are all made of electrons and have removed all that messy need for flesh, food and our continued existence in an overly polluted world we will have found our own little bit of heaven.

  Problem solved?

  Maybe not.

  Yes, there are some truly exiting narratives set in virtual worlds and if we factor in some sort of "holo-deck" technology we could well be on our way to a workable solution.

  However, the standard human being is an organic creature and has quite a complex operating system. They are difficult to repair and they are prone to erratic behaviour.

  There is also an evolutionary argument for the existence of electronic life. I have included it as part of the same potential solution as it has many of the same pitfalls as “Singularity”.

  Electronic/artificial life forms have been part of Science Fiction for many centuries from the Prague Golum stories (which gave rise to the “Frankenstein” concepts) Through to Chappie and a host of others. We now find ourselves in a world where there are very clever machines and it should not be too long before the first of these machines can think for themselves.

  Obviously fiction and drama thrive upon conflict, so most fictional accounts of our electric children are terrifying in many ways, simply because this makes better drama.

  Stories such as Chappie or AI all tell of the consequence of giving AI to a machine.

  So, we must ask ourselves a simple question. “Can we ever see machines as our rightful inheritors?” they could exist without prejudice or greed or love or any of the emotions that we think make us what we are.

  If we can accept that, then the next step in evolution will be machine or cyber based.

  Once we have accepted this, then this becomes a workable solution. There could be a future where we could upload ourselves into machines and even swap bodies only to be stored away.

  All of this would have a terrible effect upon the planet but we could go into space and find new homes amongst the stars. Our descendants may be made of metal but they would remember us and part of us would go on.

  If, however, you see a machine as nothing more than a tool to meet your needs then this will be an issue.

  The idea that our consciousness is removable is the logistical nightmare that lies at the heart of this solution. Most Sci-Fi has the human being wear some sort of lovely novelty hat in order to have the contents of their mind copied into a machine.

  Even if we assume that this copy is 100 percent accurate (and I am sure I can see the best physicists in the world squirming at the thought and muttering about quantum states and a host of uncertainty principles.) There is now a distinct problem.

  We now have two people in front of us. An original and a perfect copy. The consciousness has not been uploaded into a machine, it has been duplicated.

  Now, the polite thing for any self respecting humanbeing to do would be to kill themselves and then bequeath all of their worldly belongings to the duplicate.

  This is unlikely.

  And socially unacceptable.

  It is rare that these issues are dealt with on film but there is strong tradition in literature dealing with this sort of thing, however I have yet to find a genuinely elegant solution to this issue.

  The most likely outcome of these developments would be that an elite group of superrich would have their consciousnesses duplicated into mobile bodies - spending the rest of their existences as their own companions to their organic partners until the death of the human counterpart.

  Then spending the rest of their "Lives" as entities out of time with the same legal rights as a washing machine.

  The bodies that these "Singular People" would now possess would need electricity instead of food, cameras where they had eyes and physical experience would be very different. An adrenalin rush would need to be replaced with an algorithm and the same would be needed for things like sex.

  And then there are the arguments for and against purely artificial intelligence.

  First off, We need to deal with if such a thing is even possible. Would a thinking machine be truly intelligent? This is much easier to deal with than it may seem. As well as things like a Touring test we must deal with the logic of the situation.

  The human and other animals are basically a bunch of chemicals and biology that can solve problems and hold opinions.

  It can hold concepts and allegiances based upon experience and can try and predict outcomes.

  This can also be said for many machines. The intelligence these machines possess is different in nature and there is an absence of emotion. But, as sci-fi readers some of us believe that emotion is something that holds us back.

  If "love" and other popular emotions are a construct within the human creature then this could be duplicated.

  The future may be electronic but the chances are against it. We are a fickle creature and relish experience and contact too much for this to ever really happen on a large scale.

  Option Seven- “The Kingsman” Solution

  On first glance the "Kingsman Solution" could seem the most tempting of all the listed options.

  For those who are unaware. In the film - The Kingsmen, we are presented with a new take on the classic James Bond story with more than a nod to the British TV show "The Avengers".

  There is even a Bond style villain with a homicidal plan. It is a very good film but also has a lot to bring to our particular party.

  In the film there is a (sci-fi) method used turn the population of the world upon itself. Most of the human race would be dead in a very short time and thus the world would be saved.

  A small minority would remain to exist and use up the remaining resources.

  The flaw in this lies with the survivors. They are the super rich (and anyone without a mobile phone). Thus providing similar issues to the Moonraker solution when it comes to cleaning up the world.

  Unless the surviving super rich were to use the communities /tribes who were not affected by the signal as slaves, this would not be good.

  Option Eight - The Torchwood Solution.

  In the BBC TV Show – Torchwood we are introduced to a metro sexual future. A place where relationships are based upon personality rather a gender preference.

  There was once a time where a hetro-Normative view of the human creature was completely acceptable but time and society move on. What was once seen as sexual deviation is now hardly noted and this is a good thing.

  If a person of gender X meets another person of gender X and falls in love then they would – logically - be unlikely to reproduce.

  If this type of relationship could be made a norm and the X/Y type relationship could be made exception then there would be a considerable drop in birth rate.

  Now, this is just speculation and does not take into consideration the genetic imperatives to reproduce that lie within each human. But it could provide a factor that could help reduce the worlds population.

 

  Option Nine Black Mirror Solution

  There is an episode in the first season of the UK channel 4 Sci-Fi anthology series called Black Mirror that has a lot to offer anyone looking for a different take on our problem.

  On the face of it, the plot of the episode has nothing to do wit
h the eventual plight of the human race. It deals with the banality of existence in a future which is basically an allegory for everyday existence. The inhabitants of the future cycle to generate electricity and get credits. They are the creators of their own energy and are kept docile on a series of television shows which look a lot like the current crop of talent shows.

  There are no windows and no rebellion. You must watch television at all times and other popular concepts we have been spoon fed for decades.

  This is shown to us as a variation on hell. However it is a perfectly acceptable form of society. There is full employment and order. There is energy that is generated and everyone has a purpose.

  Yes there is no learning or expansion but the planet itself is safe from the ravages of the human race.

  Apocalypse Solutions

  There are probably dozens of more solutions available to discuss which I have chosen to ignore. These solutions spend a huge amount of time dealing with events such as survival after an atomic war or a random zombie uprising.

  These are scenarios that are basically - game over - for the human race and are therefore not needed as part of this piece.

  Yes, an argument can be made for the discussion of survival in domes as seen in “Logans Run” etc but these are largely works of the wishful thinking on behalf of the authors.

  Before I look for a workable and elegant solution let’s have a random allegory.

  AN ALLEGORY

  There is an apocryphal story about a man who goes into a

  car showroom and asks for the least polluting vehicle the salesman can find.

  He is shown one that runs on diesel.

  A shake of the head.

  A small car that is hyper efficient.

  More head shaking.

  He is shown a hybrid vehicle.

  Again a silent shake of the head.

  A solar powered electric car.

  And the customer is still not happy.

  Not one to let a sale slip away he considers his strategy and he takes the customer outside and says. "I think I know what the problem is, the most pollution a car is ever responsible for is during its manufacture.

  It could be the most efficient model in all of creation and still have done damage while it is being made.

  In the street there was an old bicycle.

  "Here is your car."

  The customer walked upto the bicycle and shook his head once again.

  The salesman watched then said. "No, you are mistaken, the bicycle is mine. Your perfect car is parked next to it." He waved an empty hand at the empty space.

  With that the customer smiled as they both knew that the only vehicle that produced no pollution is one that never existed.

  Not the best allegory but I believe it does make a relevant point.

  CONCLUSION – The Elegant Solution.

  Even if you adopt one of the extinction based solutions you have a lot of tidying up to do and the human race will probably be doomed. You would also have to deal with market and social forces, who will be against you.

  The best method of population reduction would be to have no population in the first place. The prevention of a subsequent generation would help with most of the issues discussed here.

  However mass sterilisation would still bring certain social and economic issues with it.

  Any society will fight any change that is imposed upon it. However, societies are fluid creature. Ideas from the outside are absorbed and taken on as a new paradigm while old ideas are rejected with each generation.

  Every generation can be heard decrying the behaviour and ideals of their progeny.

  Concepts and ideas, (memes if you will), evolve and have effects in ways we can’t hope to understand and it is this evolution of ideas that can hold the implementations of our elegant solution.

  We may not be brave enough to implement out solution today but our grand children may.

  The requirement is for less people but this is NOT a request for people to kill themselves.

  Such ideas not only go against current social conditioning but it must be stressed that the emotional hole left after any suicide is a gulf that can never be ever be filed.

  Put very simply...

  The elegant solution is no not breed.

  Be the last of your line,

  Be the parent to the future, not a child.

  Now there are obviously some economic problems with this (especially in the UK).

  Imagine a relatively wealthy country but with a massively reduced birth rate. There would be economic migration from elsewhere in the world.

  For “reduced birth rate” to work as a world saving solution it would be required that it be instigated on a worldwide basis.

  This would of course be difficult to organise and could be done in one of two ways.

  Firstly through some organised agreement brought on by forward thinking world leaders and a planned system of reversible injections rolled out across the population. When a couple (or non specific family group) had passed a parenting exam it would be then entered into a lottery and allowed to try and conceive naturally. If this was a success then the next generation would be born.

  If they could not conceive naturally they would then be re injected to prevent accidental childbirth.

  Of course this is unlikely – so we would have to delve back into the realm of science fiction and use some of the above solutions as inspiration.

  Most obvious would be a reversible serialising virus that could be reversed by a benevolent power on a limited cross race and class basis.

  This would then allow a smaller generation to replace the current one and thus half then quarter the population in only two generations.

  This power could obviously be misused by governments but – as Einstein once said “If you can’t trust the governments of the world... Who can you trust?” And thus save the world.

  With a much smaller and still genetically diverse population our resources would last considerably longer and enable us (or our genetically enhanced descendants) to eventually leave the Earth and colonise the universe.

 

  Unless you have a better solution...