Drug training for parents...at the time of the prom?. Ummm, perhaps that horse has been out of the barn since...I dunno, age 13?
Forget that shit...here's a simple (note: simple may not be easy) way to get this species back on track.
Let's stop wasting time coming up with better condoms or pre/during/post pills. Let's come up with a birth control method where a human's reproductive system can be switched on or off. Give the hormonal key to the person when he/she reaches the age of majority and can prove that they can function at some minimal level upon reaching that age.
This functionality could be based on several factors...
-Drug/alcohol use - legalize EVERYTHING...you just don't get your reproductive key until you can demonstrate soberiety for x-years running. Party your brains out...just don't think you'll be able to spawn if you do though.
-Desire to have a child based on reason rather than, "I want someone to love me".
-Ability to understand and process information effectively. Hell, you don't even need to be able to read...watch t.v. until your eyes bleed. Just be able to discuss societal issues from several sides.
-Ability to nurture and support a child. There are all kinds of metrics we could use. Can the person cook at least on a basic level? Shop effectively? Postpone gratification? Make a reasoned choice between an ego gratifying career or providing a stable home for your progeny? Better a happy healthy child in a mobile home than a Dylan Klebold in a McMansion.
-Ability to maintain x-level mental and physical health.
I'm sure there are many more...mix and match to your own delight.
Of course, none of this will ever happen because breeding is a "right".
Ok...I don't know if I believe all that. Some it probably leans towards fascism. I just think that this whole "drug training" thing just before the prom is a stupid idea. Lock.Horse.Barn.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
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Re: Want a better world?
Mon May 07, 2007 at 10:03:01 AM EST
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It's fascinating that the first comment on this story leaps into science fictional utopianism right away. I'm fond of utopian solutions myself, but of course, at the present time we don't actually have a way to be able to switch the human reproductive system on and off in the way that you suggest (although there are ways to disable it permanently, and ways to suppress it by ongoing hormone treatments, etc.). Any solutions that we develop based on non-existent technology do not have any immediate usefulness. It's still interesting to think about it. Who knows, someday that technology may be developed. One can only hope.
I like all the criteria that you propose, for allowing people to switch their reproductive systems back on, and I would add one more very important criterion. The world as a whole has too many people living in it, which is a fundamental cause of the growing environmental problems that we face, and which is almost certainly going to become a much worse problem in coming decades, as the environmental problems get worse and the population continues to increase. What we really need, to make the world as a whole into a functional system, would be reproductive quotas, so that only an appropriate number of children are born in a given year, worldwide. It would then be a matter of assessing each applicant much in the same manner that college applications or job applications are assessed, to choose who is most qualified to reproduce, and to then issue a license for one child only, to the qualified applicant. After that one licensed child is born, the mother's reproductive system is again turned off, to prevent unlicensed pregnancies. There would, of course, be the risk of corruption in the licensing process, but we can only do our best. Even a corrupt system would probably be better than the reproductive anarchy that we now face, as we breed ourselves into oblivion.
In this manner, we can attain planetary population targets. Combined with other necessary radical solutions (such as banning the internal combustion engine) we could actually get a grip on what is happening to our world, and avoid environmental collapse (with economic and poilitcal collapse to rapidly follow). Of course, we need an effective world government first, to make this happen. Only global regulation would work, there is no point in trying to do this only in selected countries which are generous enough to sign the population treaty. And once all this is in place, we won't have to worry about our children when they go to the prom.
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does it show?
Mon May 07, 2007 at 02:17:52 PM EST
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It's fascinating that the first comment on this story leaps into science fictional utopianism right away.
Oh yeah...I read a LOT of NIven. Don't get me started about organ banks...or mother hunts.
But like I said in the post...I don't necessarily support all of those things. In most of it, I think the cure would be worse than the disease, if just from the social upheaval alone*. Getting back to the prom program, you have to admit that the idea is pretty stupid. If parents or their kids don't know their drug stuff by then, it's probably too late.
*What might be a better, and more fair (if draconian) solution is for someone to come up with a human race killing virus. We could leave behind a detailed history for the monkeys or dolphins so they can learn exactly where we fucked up (as if they didn't already know) so they don't make the same mistakes we did. Just sayin'.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
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Re: does it show?
Mon May 07, 2007 at 03:32:37 PM EST
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Oh yes, I agree that if parents don't already know about the dangers of drug abuse and sexual promiscuity, it's already too late by prom time. And I also am somewhat inclined to think that the human race is beyond salvaging, and that the best solution would be, as you say, some kind of virus that would just kill everybody. A more humane version would be a virus that causes permanent and irreversible infertility in everybody, so nobody is actually killed but there just won't be a next generation. The extinction of the species is the only certain way to bring an end to the many horrible injustices to which our species is prone.
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
My folks let me host a big-ass prom party the year I graduated from high school. I was allowed forty or so invitees, ended up with closer to one hundred, and except for the hanging basket that was swiped from the front of the house (I know it was you, Kathy R.) there was nary a problem. (Well, except for the dog getting loose, and all of us revelers wandering about the golf course that was the back yard shouting, "Benji, here Benji," and then the automatic sprinklers came on; and a couple of tools thought it would be hilarious to bring some flag sticks back to the party; Shirley M. puked on the ping-pong table; Steve S., in a piece of peyote-inspired wisdom, threw the cue ball through the paneling; Gilly Mc bent the tone arm of my turntable; my then-girlfriend finally agreed to fellatio - with another guy; someone ripped off my stash; and then I spent two whole entire days cleaning the beer and butts and battered dreams ground into the carpet.)
My prom advice: go to parties, don't host them, unless you enjoy the pungent taste of bitter memories.
Talk about degenerates, in my senior class more people went to the horse track than our prom that night.
make it rain you nappy headed ho's
