What if we could single out the unproductive?

What if we could use DNA for that purpose?

These were questions I pondered, not for myself in person but for my candidate villain. I was searching for a theme for my book, the one I had decided to write, using NaNoWrimo as a base for creating the first draft.

Thinking about it a little bit more, I came to the conclusion that both questions – the selection of people as well as the DNA method for doing it – rewarded the book a classification as science-fiction.

But as I found out, this was not completely true! After having done some research, I had to change the book category to the single word fiction.

This was in 2011, in the pre-november time frame. I was not yet a fully evolved Kindle addict, so I used also other e-book readers on my phone. I started with the Aldiko reader, which I found interesting since it was easy to download free books.

Among the free books one could download, most were old classics like Robinson Crusoe and Moby Dick. For some reason – I do not remember exactly how – I had come to know the term Eugenics. I downloaded a book with that name, by a man called Gilbert Keith Chesterton. I found it a bit interesting, but mostly rather dry and a bit old-style (it was written in 1922).

But there were some interesting passages. Like the claim that the Eugenic moral basis is that “the baby for whom we are primarily and directly responsible is the baby unborn”. As I understood it, this was not a statement relating to abortion but rather a statement on the possibility to prevent a child from even being conceived, by controlling which couples were allowed to be formed, between man and woman. In this way, one could indirectly control the types of children being born.

Thinking about it, we still have that control, at least here in Sweden. If you want to get married, you have to ask the state for permission, and then the state will check if there are any impediments to the marriage. Currently, it is used for checking that you do not marry more than one person, and that you do not marry a close relative, but of course, in the wrong hands, such a law can be used for advanced population planning (assuming for the moment that children are conceived only by married couples).

Another way to control the population would be to go directly to the men and women, selecting those who had the least suitable traits for a productive society, and simply ask them to not have any children.

This was actually done, in many countries, including Sweden, and in many cases the asking was not done at all, at least not in a way that gave the victim a choice to opt out of the whole procedure.

So state-controlled programs for sterilization, as a way to prevent less suitable genes from propagating through to new generations, were indeed carried out, and thinking about if this could be an interesting angle for a book, I had the idea to create an organization that would revive these ideas, now, in the modern world, where much more advanced DNA technology is available.

The next question then becomes: can we use DNA technology for the selection part? If I put on my most scientific manner I can say that I doubt it, but you never know! For example, here is an article where researchers claim that they can filter out people using intelligence as a criterion.

This made me decide on the overall plot structure. Yes there would be an organization revisiting the Eugenics ideas, and yes there would be some good guys – perhaps an absent-minded professor-type with at least some resemblance to the aspiring author – and there would be an interesting way of thinking, done by the bad guys, to actually decide whom to single out as victims.

And of course they need a method for effectuating their plans. They need some channel of distribution and some network of operators that can do the actual work.

And their goals will be noble (from their point of view), I mean after all they are doing a good thing for society, by making it more efficient and productive.

And most of all, their main plan will eliminate many unwanted persons. And this will be done without casualties. In fact, not a single person will be physically harmed!

This also led to the title being decided.

The book will thus be called Prevention, and it will be ready soon …