Just recently, I finished reading Dan Brown’s latest Novel Inferno, and as usual was not disappointed by Browns use of art history being incorporated into a controversial story line.In Inferno, Brown uses the epic poem by Dante Alighieri as the backdrop for the villain’s obsessions and motivations. As is standard in Dan Brown Novels, the reader is taken on a tour of some of the most beautiful and historic cities around the world, while describing in perfect detail some of the most beautiful pieces of art the world has ever known. Another standard feature in Dan Brown novels is a controversial topic that is incorporated into the story line. From religion, to secret societies to most recently; transhumanism and eugenics.

Admittedly, this is the first I had heard about transhumanism. Eugenics is no new concept. While the word eugenics itself might seem foreign to some, the concept itself is not. Think back to WWII and the holocaust when the Nazi’s cold bloodedly killed those they thought where of an inferior race or genetic make-up… killing off people to make the perfect Aryan race. The story line behind inferno is a little different…and while I wanted to argue with the villains view… I also had to agree with him to a certain extent. Succinctly put the villain comes in the form of Swiss Billionaire/genius Bertrand Zobrist who, Following the Malthusian equation believes that within one-hundred years, humanity will be so over populated that we will run out of resources necessary for our survival, thus causing our own extinction. He is also a transhumanist who believe that through genetic altering we can become better versions of ourselves-literally transcending humanity. However, Zobrist has not yet mastered the genetic rewiring that will fast forward evolution, placing the rate of evolution in our own hands, and believes it won’t be mastered in time for humanity to save itself… as we will cause our own extinction before success can be found. Zobrist is also a bit of a Dante Alighieri fanatic, his particular obsession centered on The Divine Comedy, specifically Inferno. Dante lived in Florence in the time preceding the renaissance. Zobrist believed that the renaissance would not have happened had it not been for the plague which killed of a huge portion of the population. The renaissance was of course a time of great economic and societal which led the fictional Zobrist to believe that we could have the same time of great economic health following another ‘mass culling’ of humanity… after all, if the human race was downgraded from approximately 9 billion to approximately 4 billion- we as a species would once again thrive. There would be an abundance of resources, jobs, less poverty etc. The difference between Zobrist and the Nazi eugenics movement was that there would be no superior race. This plague would not target certain races or ethnicities… anyone and everyone would be vulnerable and susceptible.

I won’t go any further and reveal the ending for those who have yet to read the book, but this fictitious story line got me to thinking…this is not far from reality at all, in fact it’s scarily close.

In discussing this with friends, I asked them the very same question that was asked in the book: if you were forced to make the decision: Flip a switch and half the world’s population will die…but you will save the human species from extinction…would you do it? So I started thinking… “Would I flip the switch”? Knowing that it could be anyone who could die…not only criminals, not only terrorists, nor those abusing health and welfare systems- but also priests, doctors, lawyers, students and children.

If I was letting emotion rule my decision… my heart would scream NO! I would think that the mere thought is preposterous. Billions of innocent lives would be lost. Could you imagine the devastation that would bring. Also, what if any member of my family, or myself were included in the 4 billion that would die. That’s why I’m saying no, for selfish reasons. Although I know that death is an inevitability that no one can escape…like everyone else, I envisions dying peacefully in my old age. I could think… “Screw it-I’ll be long dead by the time humanity reaches its breaking point”, but that doesn’t bode very well for the generations I would be leaving to this fate .

If I were running on pure logic with zero emotion…I imagine I would flip the switch knowing full well that it could spell death for me. The world is disturbingly over populated. There are more mouths to feed than there is food to feed us. There are more people who need jobs than there are jobs to give. Modern medicine is allowing us to live longer, cure the previously incurable. Nature keeps sending viruses; we keep finding ways to cure them. More children are being born than there are people dying to balance the scales. The human condition tells us to save our own, to fix people, to make them live longer, even if it is by means that are not natural… we are simply unable to let go of those we care about, at a detriment to ourselves. Already there are not enough jobs, resulting in some people resorting to crime to make money. There is already not enough food. There is already a shortage of water in several parts of the world. There is by large, too many people living on earth, and the earth may be reaching its limit for what it can provide us before we bleed it dry. It is a moral dilemma, to flip the switch or not to. But at the rate we are going, we won’t need a plague to eliminate our species…we will take care of that ourselves.

I, in no way follow the transhumanist movement, I believe we should evolve naturally as nature always intended. I am also not in support of the eugenicists, or creating a superior race. I am however in favor of humanity living for many more centuries, and at the rate we are going…that is looking more and more unlikely every day.