In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Kurt Vonnegut's 1968 short story "Welcome to the Monkey House" depicts a dystopian future in which the world government runs ethical suicide parlors to control overpopulation. The idea of mass euthanasia as social policy began around the turn of the 20th century in the eugenics movement. It had a thorough beta test under the German National Socialist regime, with results many felt were a failure, but it has never quite fully disappeared from the overall conversation. Nor have neo-Nazi wackos been its chief proponents. The idea of population reduction -- and we're talking reduction, not just stabilization -- has been present in the environmental movement from the start. The problem is that when environmentalists start seriously projecting what's needed to achieve things like carbon goals, they begin to realize that electric cars and synthetic beef just aren't going to be enough to do the necessary job. Even if you get rid of all the cars and all the farting c...