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An alien race puts you in charge of reducing Earth’s population from seven billion down to a more sustainable one billion. You cannot refuse, because they will destroy the planet if you do not do as they ask. What would be your plan for reducing the population?

You want to see me flirt with Social Darwinism, huh? I absolutely despise the concept. So did Charles Darwin, to his credit. But it is harmless blog speculation, so let us hop to it. A flawed, sinful man making imperfect moral choices in an impossible situation. How do I get myself into these things.

I thought about what is important in such a situation. Who would be best to save? We need doctors, farmers, and engineers to keep the world running. We need teachers to prepare the rising generation. Law enforcement types. Lawyers to resolve conflicts. Probably some artistic types to make life worth living after this genocide of mine. Religious ministers, too. Even ones from religions besides Christianity to tend to what will most certainly be a distraught population. I have to decide gender and age ratio, too. One would think we need young, intelligent, and healthy people of prime breeding age, but not in such a ratio the population will boom too quickly. Something tells me that would tick the aliens off.

Rather than play with sparing the best and brightest from necessary occupation and selecting people to survive based on ideal genetic qualities, I have to leave it to chance. I am too uncomfortable with the concept of eugenics to even speculate in a silly blog post. Attempting to create a master race is an evil concept. Besides, it reminds me of the episode of Family Guy in which the Millennium Bug--remember that?--destroyed everything, so Peter Griffin rebuilt society. When a doctor showed up in town, peter would not let him continue to be a doctor, instead forcing him to be the village idiot. A donkey served as the town dentist. Let people do what their skills allow. All that boils down to me saving a general population of one billion and assuming the odds are in favor of continued survival of the human race.

I would choose the western world while allowing the third world to perish. I know that sounds callous and arguably racist, but the developing world would be a huge burden under the circumstances. The western world has the wealth, technology, and a unique genetic diversity to carry on the human race. This would be a better idea than saving a only a country like China or India, because even though they have population and infrastructure, such a genetic homogenous population would be a bad thing. Genetic diversity spreads the best genes around.

Yes, I hate this question. Eugenics, bad!