The danger of genius

In Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card comes up with an interesting hypothesis - as a species, mankind ensures its survival by producing geniuses every once in a while. That's the gift of evolution to us. We keep straining ourselves till we produce a genius, who invents the wheel, sets up an empire.

I quite agree with him, as our superiority can only be partially be explained our spectacular thumb, or our high levels of 'intelligence'. We would have survived, I am sure of that, but wouldn't have touched a population of 6.76 billion. Either we would have been wiped out by diseases, or could not have inhabited regions with extreme climates. Or simply, there wouldn't have been adequate food. The world would have been a different place had it not been for the likes of Edward Jenner (smallpox vaccination), Louis Pasteur (germ theory), Tesla (developments in electricity), or of course, Einstein. Forget about television or radio waves, I am sure that more than 95% of us cannot manufacture iron, or glass, without guidance even if these products are an elementary part of our lives.

But I wonder if this theory works in the reverse as well. That is, mankind also produces evil geniuses once in a while to control our population. Like Hitler (70 million killed in WW II, about 12 million through 'ethnic cleansing'), Genghis Khan, Timur the Lame (100,000 on a single day) or Napoleon (killed about 550,000 through the Russian invasion). In fact, world population has increased by about 5.1 billion from 1900-2008, a period of just over a hundred years. Compare that to the growth from 50o BC to 1900 AD - an increase of 1.6 billion over more than 2000 years. The scary deduction thus is that when the next evil genius comes, the casualties are going to be much greater. Unless I am being a Malthusian soothsayer.

We could have very well annihilated ourselves during the Cold War, but thankfully, better sense prevailed. What could be the next "Moment of Apocalypse"? It could be climatic disasters, but then the culprit would be the collective genius of mankind, for not controlling global warming or the destruction of the ozone layer. Any contagious disease could be disastrous too, considering that the world is now such a small place. But I would place my bet on wars - that's how we have worked traditionally. The motivation this time, however, would not be gold or oil or religious relic. It would be food.