Imagine you are visited one day by a higher power who tells you that they have been monitoring the Earth and are alarmed by the amount of suffering that exists amongst the human population. They tell you that they will return after a suitable period and that, once only, you can tell them the names of the 10 people who you think are most responsible for this suffering. They will then arrange for those people to be painlessly removed from the planet and euthanised.
Do you think the world could be made objectively better by removing these 10? If not, how many do you think it would take? 100? 1000? Who would you nominate? I suspect that the final list would be mostly unrecognisable African dictators or various anonymous business leaders rather than the Trumps and Putins. I also suspect it would take many more than 10 to move the needle.
btw, I would have absolutely no ethical or moral issue with providing the names.
Well it’s not hard to think of ten people whose removal would make the planet a better place, although I’m not so sure about the painless bit. A condign punishment fitting the crime, whatever would cause them the most mental pain, and then removal would be my choice. But like Jason’s dragon’s teeth, more complete bastards would arrive to take their place.
During the darkest days of the Thatcher years I fell to wondering how they could be punished. I came up with a large articulated truck with its trailer fitted with glass walls. Inside this would be placed all the complete bastards, completely naked. This trailer would tour the country for a year, pausing everywhere so the locals could jeer and yell and throw eggs etc. No harm would be done to them, except to their self-esteem; they would be fed and watered to a basic level, allowed out for exercise once a day. I’m not a complete monster.
Of course I had no idea that 20 years on some even bigger bastards would turn up.
You essentially invented naked Big Brother.
Except nobody gets voted out.
Why murder? Why not just fly them to Mars?
…where they would freeze and asphyxiate in seconds. I want to remove all question about manner of death etc. so just assume they disappear. My interest is more around the fewest number of people who could be removed to make the world a better place. In the 70s you had Papa Doc, Idi Amin, Pol Pot and a bunch of other god-tier villains. Who do we have now? Would removing Trump really make that much difference (as tempting as it is)? Kim Jong Un?
musk seems to think it’s ok
To be fair, the Swiss also produced Jean-Jacques Rousseau and so have a fair claim to have ushered in the Enlightenment.
But the cuckoo clock comes from Bavaria! Let’s hope the current turmoil the world is in right now might help produce some great art
Great bass player but was surely with The Stranglers rather than Renaissance
Great film. Been on that Ferris whhel though sadly not down the sewers*
* cue jokes…
Although the Ferris wheel in the film was in Shepperton Studios knocked up by a Viennese carpenter.
The things I learn watching reruns of Travel Man!
I think you mean that the Ferris wheel cabin was at Shepperton, the Riesenrad is still at the Prater.
@Jaygee I’ve been down the sewers as I’ve done the Third Man walking tour.
If we’re simply looking to make the world a better place then that’s a fairly low bar. You need a materiality threshold of some description to make it difficult.
The suspicion with the rich and powerful is that, the system being as it is, if you remove ten of them ten more will simply step up to take their place.
Power also brings with it greater risk of unintended consequences; you might choose to remove Putin, but who knows what happens next in his absence and who or what fills the vacuum. Things could just as easily get worse as better.
You also have to bear in mind that by providing a list of names, you are creating at least one more murderer on the planet; yourself. Any good achieved needs to offset that cost.
I’m inclined to say that if you were going to play ball your best bet would be to attempt to identify ten individuals wanted for their involvement in the organised abuse of children.
Leaving aside all moral issues with accepting the task (since these appear to be outside the scope of the question), I’d suggest that removing ten such individuals would almost certainly make the world, if not a better place then at least a fractionally less evil one.
Whilst there have undoubtedly been many evil people who’s removal would certainly be a good thing, I’m not so sure if would make a significant impact on reducing the suffering of most of the world.
At risk of (probably) offending some on here, the biggest impact to relieve suffering would be to remove all religious organisations – and not just the leaders, as new ones would rise up to take their place.
And yet many people call The Bible “The Greatest Story Ever Told”. That was even the title of the film version. Pah! My vote goes to Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources.
Only was of reducing the suffering of planet Earth is to remove all humans.
It’s called anti-natalism, and it has some serious philosophical adherents.
This post and most comments seems to ignore the complex and interconnected systems that underpin all of life on earth in favour of a strongman view of history. I don’t know where to start in responding to the dismal ideas of removing 10 people to save the world, (possibly with painful punishment or death), to the Welles/Whistler valuing of warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed for great art* or the removal of all religions as some form of magic panacea (not offensive, just scattershot).
However the idea of removing all humans from earth is profoundly misanthropic and ignores recent research on the keystone role of many indigenous peoples in different ecosystems over the millennia and still to this day.
Rather than thinking of 10 people who it would be good to have removed from the world, I would rather hear about 10 (or more) inspirational people whose influence and ideas can and have encourage others to find their own strengths. Maybe I should post on that.
* Though a blog on the subject says “At the time of the Borgias, the Swiss weren’t peaceful. They were one of Europe’s most feared fighting forces. Nor did they invent the cuckoo clock, if it comes to that. Bavaria was responsible for that kitsch contraption. …Swiss cultural figures. In no particular order, the avalanche of answers included Klee, Tinguely, Walser, Cohen, Honegger, Dürrenmatt, Della Casa, Jung, Piaget, Giacometti, Federer, Rousseau, Zwingli, Kauffman, and Le Corbusier”.
The cuckoo clock blog link
I don’t hate humans but aren’t all Earth’s ills man made?
Would the planet be worse off without humans? I don’t see how.
I guess imputing feelings into a suggestion to exterminate humans is open to questioning, though it would be the most misanthropic thing to do if one did hate humanity. I was trying to suggest that the human impact on the earth hasn’t always been and in the important, biodiverse parts of our planet still isn’t malign, but rather benign – global gardeners. Listen to and focus on indigenous approaches to planetary interaction and we stand a far better, if not only, chance at bringing back sustainability and resilience to the planet’s working systems.
Would the planet be worse off without humans? Depends what you mean by the planet, I suppose. The lump of rock will still rotate around Itself and the sun, no matter what comes its way, barring a particularly hard strike from a meteor.
Whether the living systems would right themselves – I’d recommend reading Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us. All buildings and other infrastructure would collapse, native species would recolonise urban areas, and “radioactive materials, ceramics, bronze statues, and Mount Rushmore” would be the only remnants of human presence.
There was a recent article about a village in Eastern Europe, which had been completely taken over by an invasive species of ivy. There’s no guarantee that a garden of Eden would flourish without any human input.
I strongly disagree with that trope of the wise, noble indigenous people being models of sustainability. Every time humans have entered an ecosystem they have changed it beyond recognition. Fire has permanently changed the flora, and megafauna has been mostly obliterated. It is simply impossible to compare the motives and actions of very small groups of people armed with nothing more than stone and fire with today’s world and it’s challenges.
Hi Podicle. I don’t know what you base your arguments on, but I draw mine from articles like this, describing the long centuries of human interaction with the Amazonian forests developing and extending the biodiversity of the region
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/its-now-clear-that-ancient-humans-helped-enrich-the-amazon/518439/
as well as the writings and research of David Montgomery on the deleterious effects of unsustainable agriculture on top soil loss.
https://theconversation.com/healthy-soil-is-the-real-key-to-feeding-the-world-75364
I have no idea where you get the description of indigenous peoples in the last sentence, but it seems like an uninformed mischaracterisation to me. Maybe you can illuminate me.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight; from what I’ve read previously (which I suspect is less than you) I broadly agree that indigenous people historically tended to live their lives in greater harmony with their ecological surroundings than we do now.
Having said that, it’s perhaps not a massively fair comparison, since non industrialised societies with smaller populations arguably lack the same capacity to place their environment under strain.
It also strikes me as slightly magical thinking (and a little too convenient for current political mores) to entirely believe that indigenous peoples are possessed of some special magic that makes them less prone to the avarice and carelessness which so often seems to infect human beings. And I don’t believe that the absence of capitalism accounts for such high virtue, which sometimes feels like the suggestion.
There are examples of indigenous cultures contributing to or even causing their own collapse through environmental over-exploitation. The Maya and the Rapanui spring to mind – the latter arrived on Easter Island to find of an estimated 16 million trees and reduced that number to zero in fairly short order before plunging into chaos and cannibalism.
I completely agree with the general thrust of your arguments here that we shouldn’t wish for the extinction of the human race and that we can learn something from the approach of certain indigenous peoples. But equally, I wouldn’t generalise about their virtue – not that you were, really.
Thanks, Bingo, that’s a fair response and critique. As you say, nobody is perfect or unblemished, and the narrative of the unspoiled native does everyone a disservice. Even the label ‘indigenous’ is open to question – who qualifies?
The Mayan civilisation, according to David Montgomery, collapsed because they overused their topsoil – notoriously thin in tropical regions. They were an advanced sophisticated culture, but didn’t reflect the externalities, that are often dismissed by many forms of capitalism.
Capitalism, itself, is varied, and need not be regarded as a negative model for society, when targeted correctly – what are its goals? Just to make money, or to fulfil society’s needs, sustainably – so not unfettered.
The Rapa Nui, commonly cast as an example of a suicidal real life version of the Lord of The Flies, not least by Jared Diamond in Collapse, who I normally have an enormous amount of time for. But the reality may be more complicated than the popular narrative suggests.
https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-easter-island-a-sustainable-society-has-been-falsely-blamed-for-its-own-demise-85563
“we can learn something from the approach of certain indigenous peoples.”
Yes, that would be my argument – better and more pithily expressed by you.
Others, such as McDonough and Braungart have excellent ideas about the cradle to cradle circular economy, Mazzucato writes persuasive about the importance of public investment. Alongside such ‘modern’ approaches, the knowledge and approach gleaned from thousands of years of interacting with their home ecosystem should not be ignored.
I’m currently reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is a Professor of Environmental Biology and Botany, as well as an exponent of Native American knowledge and language, and also a story teller – thus able to braid/plait together science, ancestral knowledge, and narrative in a very informative and unglamorised way.
There are hard lessons to learn about how we use or abuse our life support system. It’s incumbent on us to find the right teachers, wherever they are.
Agree with all of that.
I particularly agree that the term “indigenous people” is pretty loaded, and I think it’s become far moreso in recent years.
I’m familiar with the “rats” theory in respect of Easter Island, but the “slavers” theory in the article above is new to me. I have to confess that, while no anthropologist, I’m sceptical of both; for me they have the mark of a researcher squeezing the facts to meet their contemporary prejudices. The facts remain that the arrival of the Rapanui had a profoundly negative impact on the ecosystem of Easter Island.
I think there’s an echo in all of this of Rousseau’s noble savage, an idea which is fairly deeply permeated into the bedrock of Western intellectual culture, and which has surged again in the context of a more recent tendency to pin all the world’s evils on Western imperialism. People have been careless, brutal and stupid since there have been people. They’ve also been caring, ingenious and sensitive. I think they call that the duality of man.
My own suspicion is that human beings are a pretty mixed bunch, and that their nature is largely universal, because why wouldn’t it be. We should learn from best practice where it’s available, but we shouldn’t fetishize or place on a pedestal certain peoples over others (not that you were doing so, I’m talking about the discourse more broadly).
Lengthy back and forth, largely agreeing, with you advancing the discussion each time – I like it. Just to be brief, because there is little to critique in what you write:
“We should learn from best practice where it’s available, but we shouldn’t fetishize or place on a pedestal”
Yes, we should, which was why I quoted the Circular economists, and Mazzucato. (Kate Raworth I could add to the list among others). Modern thinkers, who are exploring how to contextualize the current economic models., ideologies and industrial practices within the wider living and social systems we depend on and are abusing.
Systems thinking and long-term thinking are what is needed.
An openness to multi-disciplinary approaches and a recognition that no theory explains everything.
I was flying over northern Europe, looking at the opencast mines visible from an aircraft height in Germany and Belgium, alongside some wind turbines, then over East Anglia, coming into Stansted over acres of bare soil farmland. It’s productive – but for how long and at what cost for future generations?
Also, what conceit to think we can transform such practices when the profit is unshackled from externalities, both for producers and for the subsidized consumers?
Thanks, Sal – I’ve actually met Mariana Mazzucato a couple of times and am familiar with her stuff (some, but not all of which I agree with, quelle surprise). I will look into Raworth when I get a moment.
Enjoyed the conversation; I heartily agree that no one theory explains everything. We should keep an open mind, even (and perhaps especially) when we think we have the answers.
But, if all the humans were removed, who would walk all the dogs? A philosophical rather than flippant question, and worth fully thinking through. Have they learnt enough to take over?
Wouldn’t they just go feral and form marauding packs?
As sal says.
Dogs are a human construct but would return to form if there’s no-one to open the tins of dog food too.
Further to the excellent reasoning and considerations posted by everyone, surely another flaw in this plan is that many of the people I suspect the majority of us would like to see removed – I’m thinking noisy far-right types for example – would leave a martyr-shaped hole in their stead, which would quickly give cause for even more extreme iterations of our victims?
I strongly suspect 10 is not going to make a noticeable difference. Indeed, it may make it marginally worse (significantly worse for a small number).
This, of course, isn’t the biggest problem with the conceit. That is the fact that by killing people that I believe make the world a worse place, I will become someone worth killing for those people that disagree with my view on good and bad (and all the things in between). And a valid one at that – much as I like to think I am smart, kind and empathetic, I’m not really – it’s just a low bar most of the time that makes me look adequate.
The number is probably irrelevant becasue you will never get the the people that are left to all agree that everything is awesome. And, the more you kill, the bigger the vacuum. So it will probably be worse.
It’s possible that the removal of the 10 nastiest influential people in the world would leave scope for 10 even nastier replacements, who are currently denied the opportunity to do their stuff.
It worries me that there are still those who cannot see this.
Yep.
Just because you’ve got rid of the bastards doesn’t mean things will automatically become better.
A few less bastards sounds like a reasonable start though.
Are there? It’s been said a few times on this thread, including by me.
Having reflected on this for 24 hours I would give them a note with James Corden’s name written on it ten times.
Surely this is an opportunity to get rid of those who talk during gigs, since we are talking human suffering.
The whole of hip-hop and rap? Harsh, but I see why you might say it.