This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Seth: I'm not sure i like all these anonymous quotes popping up. For the hundreds of quotes on any given subject why pick one that you don't know the author to or don't want to claim authorship of?
Looney Toons: Because I'm going through my personal collection of 28,000+ quotes (text file version, 3238 KB, available on request) and that one happened to be the most appropriate for the trope, and whatever source I got it from cited it as "anonymous". The only hit on Google for the quote (http://www.4degreez.com/quotes/quotes_misc.mv)
also doesn't have attribution. Hard to attribute it when I don't know who to attribute it to. And trust me, I won't label anything of my own as "anonymous", as at least one page here will demonstrate. No, I'm not going to say which one.
Kizor: Sir, I request.
Seven Seals: I will say that I personally prefer no quote at all to an anonymous quote, unless the quote itself is exceptionally well known.
Jerry Kindall: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/laws_of_nature.html says (a variation of) this quote is from the Encyclopedia Britannica (see last paragraph).
Duckluck: I'd just like to point out that this trope doesn't really describe Darwinism at all (which is touched on when it's mentioned that Darwin would disapprove). Rather, it describes so-called "Social Darwinism" which, strictly speaking, isn't Darwinism at all.
Looney Toons: Kizor, I've just noticed your request — I hope it wasn't there for too long. Email me your address at tvt dot j dot bgcloon at neverbox.com and I'll send it your way.
Mister Six: What about The Chief from the comic book Doom Patrol, who planned to use nanotechnology to raze the Earth, forcing mankind to improve itself to survive.
HeartBurn Kid: Axed this, as Klingon Promotion is a separate trope:
- The method of getting promoted, if you're a Klingon.
ccoa: removed this, since it doesn't explain how it exemplifies this trope, and I can't see it for the life of me.
- The Necromongers in the Chronicles Of Riddick have the philosophy "you keep what you kill".
Ununnilium:
- Robert A Heinlein's books tended to espouse this type of idea.
...have you actualy read them?
BritBllt: Killing this entire entry...
- In the "Dear Doctor" episode of Star Trek Enterprise, Captain Archer and Dr. Phlox decide it's worth letting an entire sapient race of billions die off because they believe it to be inferior to another race on the planet. Family-Unfriendly Aesop and failing biology grades ahoy.
- Phlox takes so much flak for that one episode that he's earned a little bit of Critical Backlash. What he was talking about is the fact that there are two sentient species on the planet, and helping cure the dominant one pretty much guarantees that the less advanced one will continue dying out. His philosophy was that, if the dominant one is naturally dying off and the more primitive species is naturally taking its place, then what right does Archer have to come along and reverse the situation? One of them would've been doomed to extinction, no matter what choice he made.
- Exactly How is one of them "Doomed"? If the other one is dying from a disease or natural causes, why not stop that problem at the same time? If it is at the hands of the dominant species, then why not make, you know, not doing it a condition of receiving the cure? Confusing Is for Ought or Cannot Not Be is the basis of Darwinism
- Phlox takes so much flak for that one episode that he's earned a little bit of Critical Backlash. What he was talking about is the fact that there are two sentient species on the planet, and helping cure the dominant one pretty much guarantees that the less advanced one will continue dying out. His philosophy was that, if the dominant one is naturally dying off and the more primitive species is naturally taking its place, then what right does Archer have to come along and reverse the situation? One of them would've been doomed to extinction, no matter what choice he made.
