Tesla, Eugenics And Rationalizing Dehumanization

Last Friday, the great blogger Matt Novak (who you should read often) uncovered evidence that Nikola Tesla, writing in 1935, had expressed his support for Eugenics.  Here’s what Tesla wrote in an article about his predictions for the year 2100.

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct. Several European countries and a number of states of the American Union sterilize the criminal and the insane. This is not sufficient. The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it...