My plan to save the human race from itself:

[somerandomuser]

Two of the greatest long-term problems facing the human race are over population and the decreasing quality of material in the gene pool. For many years I thought the sterilization of every new born to be the ideal solution. However this plan presents a few problems that should be obvious, the extinct of the human race not being among the least.

Comments

[sinisterwilliam]

seems reasonable enough.

What i've learned about genetic diversity has removed all but the inherent worry and fear about a crashed homo sapien population.
At one point in the history of the species- there were barely 10,000.
The species really only has about a 5% genetic difference overall, too. Chimps are more diverse than us.
Sure, you don't want the Royal Family- with or without Diana's genes, repopulating the planet.

But yes, a good selection process seems reasonable enough for my tastes, sterilization being a tad bit more humane- and basically getting the work back out of them for their being brought into the world. Nothing says practical like an investment paying for itself.

Over-population and the reign of idiots does bother me on pretty much a daily if not hourly basis.

[tigresslily]

So, only the intelligent, athletic, and the clean, disease-wise, are the only ones that survive? What about the creative? You like books, movies, and art, right? Don't sterilize the creative. Or would artistic talents be covered by intelligence?

[somerandomuser]

It's a little hard to measure creativity on a standardized test, but my guess would be that Beethoven, Monet, Kubrick, etc. all had IQs above 130. I wouldn’t worry about it being bread out of the human race too much. Interesting question though, the correlation between intelligence and creativity, but as creativity is a hard measure to quantify, it would be difficult to conduct a study.

[tigresslily]

It would be interesting if someone did develop a study to measure creativity. I would be very impressed if you came up with one.