Little Green Men (and Women)

I have been thinking about genetic engineering. A lot of those engineers just work on one problem—All our foods are weeds. At least to their weed-killer sprays. So the engineers are taking the weediness out of our beans and corn and other veggies. That sounds like a good idea. Don’t kill our food along with the dandylions and crabgrass.

Some people call these engineered plants-- Frank’n beans. Named after an early scientist who also rearranged parts of one species. We should remember that this guy Frankenstein was a big success in his science; he just failed in human resource management. He hired poor help. It was the help who stuffed in the bad parts (stolen from the criminally insane).

I hear the engineers today are pretty successful with their weed work. But I have news for them. They are working on the wrong side of the problem: working on supply and we need to work on demand. You can only grow so much and then that’s it. But you can always shrink demand. That’s a green solution.

Some people tell me that there are too many people and we need to cut some out. But that leads to the “who gets to stay” question and then wars and concentration camps and other bad things. So forget the whole idea of cutting out anyone! Everyone gets to stay and make all the babies they want.

The solution to really shrink demand is to let the engineers make people smaller.

What is with bigness anyway? I bumped my head again this morning; I don’t fit in airplanes; and I have to shop in expensive big and tall stores (I am both). Bigger is not better. Remember that.

I have watched my wife many years now. She is only 10 percent shorter. But she eats about half of what I do. If we made everybody ten percent shorter every generation, then we halve the demand every 30 years. Voilà.

There are other good side effects. Like taking up less space. Every car is a limo. Every airplane seat is first-class. Every Macdonald burger really is a meal. And your little house is really your castle, or maybe, with a few modifications, an apartment block.

And you are always bigger than your kids. Every parent knows that this is a good idea. They get bigger than you when they are teenagers and this leads to all kinds of problems. Enough said there.

There are some things to work out. Like pets. We could just only have Chihuahuas, but they are nasty, little creatures. We need a new, foot-long dog, maybe an irish setter or a golden retriever. And those genetic engineers could make them vegetarians while they are at it.

The only question is: how small can you make people until they start getting stupid? We know that amoebas are dumb, but little cats are pretty smart. And I know lots of really smart short people so I am not worried for four or five generations.

The big problem is PR. We need to change the image of the small. The new message is: they are cuddly, they don’t cost much, and they are really green.