World Peace Is Possible - Part 9

How do we actually create a world without men?

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As you know by now, this article series argues that the long sought dream of world peace could be achieved by creating a world without men. Such a proposal naturally raises the question of how we would transform today’s society in to a world of only women. This article will attempt an exploration of that question.

I Don’t Know

The first thing that should be said here is that I don’t know how a world without men might be created. Any transformation of such enormous historic scale would require the thought and work of a great many human beings, just like putting a man on the moon, or the invention of the Internet. The fact that I don’t have all the answers is evidence only of the fact that no one person will have all the answers on a project of this scale. That said, we can still speculate together and try to help build a conversation larger than ourselves.

It’s Not Possible Today

The second thing that should be said is that a transition to a world without men is not possible in our current culture. It may however become possible in the future if real world events convince enough people that the marriage between violent men and an accelerating knowledge explosion is not sustainable. We can reflect further on such a necessary cultural shift in a coming article.

How Would We Create A World Without Men?

If we were to transition to a world without men, how would that happen? For the moment, I can imagine two scenarios, which we might label “voluntary” and “involuntary”.

A Voluntary Transition

If a critical mass of humanity were to conclude that their best hope for the future could be found in a world without men, national governments could institute carrot and stick policies to move humanity in that direction.

In this scenario, nobody would be forced to do anything, but strong incentives would be provided to encourage female children, while having male children would come at a price.

So for example, governments might provide free health care and education for life to females, but not to males. If parents wish to have a male baby they can, but they would have to pay in to the system which provides benefits to females. Over time such an incentive/disincentive system would push the population in the direction of becoming ever more female.

Obviously, such an unfair system would require a wide spread understanding that in the era of an accelerating knowledge explosion, a world with men is a path to the destruction of the modern era. No amount of abstract discourse is likely to accomplish such a wide spread understanding, but real world events might give birth to a radical reconsideration of our options as a species.

An Involuntary Transition

Some of those who see the coming danger might become impatient with the patient pace of the voluntary approach and take matters in to their own hands.

We should recall that genetic engineering is making big strides forward, and emerging methodologies like CRISPR promise to make these powers ever easier to access for ever more people. Some group of activist biologists might decide to use such tools to impose a world without men upon the rest of humanity.

To illustrate, we might imagine the creation of a hyper transmissible virus which had no effect on human beings other than to end the victim’s ability to produce male offspring.

Please be clear, I’m not a biologist. And even biologists can not confidently predict what might become possible in the future of genetic engineering. So let’s not get too hung up on this particular example, which could easily be completely wrong.

The larger point here is that at some point the pain violent men are inflicting may become truly unacceptable, and somebody may decide on their own to use future genetic engineering technology to solve the problem. Ideally, they would fix violent men. But if that’s not possible they may conclude that their only option is to remove all men.

Is This Realistic?

In today’s world, none of the above is realistic. Although violent men already inflict unspeakable horrors upon millions of innocents, we haven’t arrived at the point in history yet where we find these horrors truly unacceptable.

We SAY these horrors are unacceptable, but we don’t really mean it yet, as we are currently still unwilling to even consider any fundamental change. If nothing else, this is one thing we might learn from discussing a world without men. We want the violence we see every day in the media to end. But only if that end comes at no price to us. We’re lying to ourselves.

Is This Everything?

No, it’s not. I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the different ways we might arrive at a world without men. Who knows? Maybe a naturally occurring virus might affect men differently than it affects women?

For now it seems the why of a world without men is far more important than the how. The fact that we don’t currently know how such a transition might occur is essentially meaningless until we understand why a world without men might the best hope, or even the only hope, for humanity’s future.

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