-
ORIGINAL: jackbauer
Overpopulation is a bad argument against perpetuation of a species. When many die, so do their weak genes. The strong survive.
I never said overpopulation was a reason to not perpetuate the species. I said overpopulation [i]can[/i] be a reason to not overpopulate the species. If you want to overpopulate the world well past its carrying capacity to improve the gene pool through random selection, I think you probably have chosen a rather inefficent method. Ethnic cleansing would probably work much better. Directly select for whatever genes you want. Don’t wait for nature to destroy the weak; that can take centuries. Kill them all right now for the public good.
In the natural world, Darwinian survival has been demonstrated. Unfortunately, in the modern world, de-evolution is a reality. I recommend the movie Idiocracy, which demonstrates the probable result of our world currently favoring reproduction of the least fit. As explained in the film, the most fit tend to be too busy with their careers to be concerned with having children. Meanwhile Cletus the slack jawed yokel and his wife Tanka-Ray don’t even know why the babies keep coming out of her belly.
As for the strong surviving, that is often not the case in the modern world. It is mostly the lucky that survive the disasters of overpopulation. Those lucky enough to not be in an area of famine or disease. Those lucky enough to not be in the blast zone of a bomb dropped due to conflict over scarce resources. In the modern world, great genes are knocked out the same way as poor genes. No matter how great your genes, you are not going to survive a ground zero blast from a surprise bombing. Now matter how good your genes, you will not survive a 100 foot tsunami caused by global warming. The process of genetic evolution is several orders of magnitude too slow to keep up with the rate of change of the modern environment.
To the extent that the strong do survive, in the modern world that does not mean that they are strong because of their genes. More likely it is due to their education or hygiene. And even if their strength is due to their genes, that does not mean that said genes are passed on to the next generation. Truly talented and gifted people, including athletes, often don’t have time to bear and raise children.
