90% Of You Should Die

Forrest C. Mims III has got his knickers twisted in a knot, because a University of Texas professor Eric Pianka is indulging every environmentalist's favorite fantasy: if 90% of everyone died, a lot of our environmental problems would greatly ease. Apparently this professor is being unusually vocal, and Mims is worried he might have unusual sway over impressionable young minds.

Of course, the death of 9 out of 10 people is bound to be unpopular in society, in general, so I doubt the professor will have too much of a following. That is, unless you figure on being the 1 out of 10 who don't die. Young people, in particular, have trouble absorbing the concept of not being among the 1 out of 10.

I remember one soldier's reminisces of a pep talk given by his commander while crossing the Channel for the D-Day invasion in 1944. The commander dramatically explained that most of the people in the boat would likely die soon after landing. The soldier looked around at his fellow soldiers and thought 'you poor bastards' and never, really, absorbed the idea that the commander was talking about HIM. So, who knows, maybe Mims has a point. The young, in particular, sometimes feel nearly immortal.

Mims is an unusual fellow. He's a hands-on experimental scientist and model rocket enthusiast. I used to read his Model Rocketry column as a teenager (here is Mims' account of getting the bureaucrats out of the business of regulating Model Rocketry to death). Mims was also disinvited to be Scientific American's Amateur Scientist columnist because of his Creationist beliefs: an understandable, yet unfortunate episode of the scientific thought police in action. In general, he might be described, very loosely, as Red America's most talented tinkerer, and it's always interesting to read what he thinks (he now has a Web Site).

Meanwhile, I'll miss all of you once you all go........