Alien experiment - eliminate half the population

[Golgatha]

I went with poorest because that will probably include a good portion of the least intelligent and healthy at the same time. You killd three birds with one stone.

Unfortunately the 50% poorest would be almost no US citizens. I voted for 50% least intelligent, which would get rid of the largest number of idiots in this country and also most of my least favorite family members.

 

[WelshBloke]

Unfortunately the 50% poorest would be almost no US citizens. I voted for 50% least intelligent, which would get rid of the largest number of idiots in this country and also most of my least favorite family members.

:biggrin: You win. No one can argue with that logic.

 

[corwin]

Unfortunately the 50% poorest would be almost no US citizens. I voted for 50% least intelligent, which would get rid of the largest number of idiots in this country and also most of my least favorite family members

Highly unlikely but very funny That would still just largely wipe out Africa, the Middle East, and Asian countries

 

[amish]

so i was the first person to pick old, not that there are many of us that did. so my reasoning was that old people have lived a long and hopefully fruitfull life. they would be culled since they already had a chance to make a difference in society and their family.

i also remembered what my grandfather said to me as he lay in a hospital dying, "don't get old." so i would guess that some would welcome death.

the median age thing has me thinking too. so if everyone 40 and up would die, but this was a one time event, there would eventually be old people again. the healthcare system would certainly lose money for a while though.

 

[Pheran]

Highly unlikely but very funny That would still just largely wipe out Africa, the Middle East, and Asian countries

Intelligence and education are not the same thing.

 

[corwin]

Intelligence and education are not the same thing.

Nope, but no matter how you slice it those regions are by far less intelligent than even our "idiots", a ton of them don't have much of a clue about the world past their village...of the few options available the only ones that wouldn't overwhelmingly affect those regions the most would be age, attractiveness, and arguably health

 

[DominionSeraph]

I like how a few people from P&N have posted in this thread, and the results just reinforce stereotypes; the loony left wants to kill stupid people and the rightwing nutjobs want to kill the poor. See kids, stereotyping works.

Except conservatards incorrectly stereotype the poor and assign a slew of attributes to them simply because it's a part of the simpleminded conservatard meme, while "stupid" really does mean, "stupid."

Conservatards think the poor are lazy and just looking for a handout, but the world's poor could not live on the aid that is given out. Not even close. Importing all housing and food from the First World would be ridiculously expensive. Do you see any US construction workers unemployed by the current economic climate going to Africa to get a piece of the government handouts? No, because there isn't enough there in total for them to be able to afford us.


Actually, I wonder who really is the world's poorest. The First World has the easiest access to credit, putting a heck of a lot of it in debt. Someone in Bangladesh who owns a single chicken and has no debt might be richer than a good chunk of the First World.
In the US, the per capita share of the national debt is $48,848, while the median net worth is down to under $100k. And I bet that is heavily skewed towards the baby boomers. So if you kill off the world's poorest you'd probably end up killing off every American with student loans and 99% of the children. (Going by US census data, the median net worth for 35 and under is $11.8k. So half of 35 and under is $35k in debt counting their share of the national debt.)
(hmmm... I forgot that about half of the debt is held internally which skews the average debt load down, and I have no idea where I'd find data on the distribution of T-bills/securities by age and net worth in order to come up with any sort of calculation as to how that affects things at the median. But if the top 50% own something crazy like 99.9% of the internally held T-bills, the bottom 50% get no relief from that $48k debt load)

 

[corwin]

*SNIP*

Libtard gibberish? Take it back to P&N

 

[JTsyo]

There are plenty of people that are not bright but are still hardworking decent people. I think the internet has skewed our view on the population.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Libtard gibberish? Take it back to P&N

Bottom 50% intelligence? Take it up with the disintegration ray. (~yay~)

 

[torpid]

I had this debate with someone recently about hard working vs lazy. It's my contention that "hard work" is over-valued in many fields and is carted around as the ideal American trait way too often. In IT, for example, there are plenty of people who work really, really hard but they suck so much at their job that even the laziest coworker would out-produce them. It really depends on the field in question. Rewarding "hard work" only makes sense if you compare two people of equal skill levels.

So, what about an "unskilled" option?

 

[amdhunter]

nm.

 

[sandorski]

I'd be all like, "Those alien bastards stole my ride" and "It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of gum".

Who cares what the Aliens want, it's our damn planet.

 

[disappoint]

You're missing one option. The one I'd pick. The fattest.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

How do you define these things? Health? Intelligence? Attractiveness? And what is the goal of the experiment? Is it to see how well the human population correlates as a whole to the Lord of the Flies? Or is it to determine the best way in which to advance the human race?

Nope, but no matter how you slice it those regions are by far less intelligent than even our "idiots", a ton of them don't have much of a clue about the world past their village...of the few options available the only ones that wouldn't overwhelmingly affect those regions the most would be age, attractiveness, and arguably health

Not necessarily. Education, especially of critical thinking skills, is a big contributor to 'intelligence', and depriving someone of this education, as well as proper nutrition during development, makes a meaningful comparison impossible.

Personally I would choose least healthy. This would get rid of at a stroke almost all necessity for short-term medical expenditure. It would remove the necessity of pushing spending into pensions and benefits, because the most common chronic illnesses in our society (and these chronic illnesses are the ones that take up the most health spending) are age-dependent - cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, rheumatological diseases, etc, and the people that remain would not utilize such funds to nearly the same degree anyway. It would also get rid of the small minority with genetic illnesses like cystic fibrosis, and it would almost completely eliminate serious autosomal dominant genetic conditions such as Huntington's, HNPCC, and Marfan's. This would free up previously used healthcare and aged care spending into more useful areas like infrastructure, scientific and technological development, etc, at least for 20-30 years (going by a median age of 28).

It was really a tossup between health and intelligence for me, because each has their own merits, depending on how they are defined. On the one hand, intelligence isn't really so important as what you are taught; on the other hand, there are a lot of highly educated idiots out there...

 

[GrumpyMan]

I would have to start with, anyone who ever cut me off on I-10, should immediately be eliminated (you forgot this one). Please Mr. Alien they are really bad, please hurry.

 

[torpid]

Personally I would choose least healthy. This would get rid of at a stroke almost all necessity for short-term medical expenditure. It would remove the necessity of pushing spending into pensions and benefits, because the most common chronic illnesses in our society (and these chronic illnesses are the ones that take up the most health spending) are age-dependent - cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, rheumatological diseases, etc, and the people that remain would not utilize such funds to nearly the same degree anyway.

So in your interpretation of "healthy" it would also include people who are incredibly healthy but whose lifestyle is extremely dangerous? For example, many professional athletes, Alaskan crab fisherman, etc. Correct?

 

[corwin]

Damn, it seems that each and every option pretty much depends on how much you want to over think and analyze it...at this point I'd just ask them to wipe us all out...it's the only way to be sure:\

 

[pontifex]

I do wonder if choosing this would eliminate so much of the world's farming base that mass starvation ensues, but I have not spent any effort trying to figure this out.

not to mention no one doing other labor intensive or low paying but important jobs.

This would happen with poorest least intelligent.

A lot of smart people are poor too, like educators and scientists who work for colleges and such don't make a whole lot of money.

also, just because you remove all 1 of those groups now, what stops people from other groups from becoming old, poor, or unhealthy? or having children that become are stupid or unhealthy?

 

[DominionSeraph]

I would have to start with, anyone who ever cut me off on I-10, should immediately be eliminated (you forgot this one). Please Mr. Alien they are really bad, please hurry.

Ooooh, that's a good one: "Worst drivers." That would be very effective at brightening up day-to-day life. But that's probably biased heavily towards stupid women and so would really up the average cost of pussy.

 

[pontifex]

You're missing one option. The one I'd pick. The fattest.

when i first saw this thread, i thought it was a new way to bash fat people.

atoter's and their unhealthy obsession with fat people...

 

[torpid]

when i first saw this thread, i thought it was a new way to bash fat people.

atoter's and their unhealthy obsession with fat people...

Where's the poll where you choose either cops or scammers? I feel it would be a tight poll in that case, based on ATOT.

 

[RPD]

Just because someone does work you might deem "remedial" doesn't make them stupid.

Killing the oldest 50% of the population by oldest is stupid as well. Lets get rid of all the knowledge we have while we are at it too.

Least intelligent is the lesser of all the evils, followed by least healthy (assuming genetic defects).

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

So in your interpretation of "healthy" it would also include people who are incredibly healthy but whose lifestyle is extremely dangerous? For example, many professional athletes, Alaskan crab fisherman, etc. Correct?

Not necessarily, I just meant that because age is a major factor, it would get rid of old unhealthy people.

But I'm not really all that partial to many professional athletes or Alaskan crab fishermen. If you want me to get rid of them, sure.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

If your from India then it would be a hard choice. Half the population is half the world