Despite his own mental illness, Nikola Tesla advocated eugenics for the year 2100

Nikola Tesla is often cited as geekdom ’s favored inventor — advocate of alternating current , chaser of wireless electricity and the end light beam — but some of his feeling about the future of science and acculturation would n’t be quite so popular today . In plus to his predictions about labor - saving robots and his claim that his death ray would put an final stage to state of war , Tesla augur that eugenics programs would better the human race of the 21st century .

Matt Novak of Paleofuturepoints us to an clause in the February 9 , 1935 return of Liberty Magazine , titled“A car To End War . ”In it , Tesla play fantast , offering his predictions on company and technology for the century forwards . Some fans of Tesla might be surprised to check of his unquestioning notion in the virtues of sterilisation and strategic human mating :

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established . In past years , the constabulary governing the survival of the fittest of the fit rough weeded out the less suitable strains . Then man ’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature . As a resultant role , we keep to keep animated and to breed the unfit . The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to forbid the procreation of the unfit by sterilization and the calculated guidance of the pairing instinct . Several European countries and a phone number of states of the American Union sterilize the felon and the insane . This is not sufficient . The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make married couple more hard . Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permit to acquire progeny . A century from now it will no more pass to a normal mortal to mate with a mortal eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal .

Hostinger Coupon Code 15% Off

While Tesla for certain was n’t alone in his eugenics protagonism , Novak notes that his assertion here is a bit ironic given that Tesla ’s own mental illness might have brand him as “ undesirable ” for producing progeny . But it follow with Tesla ’s other prevision for succeeding physical fitness . He predict that a Secretary of Hygiene and Physical Culture would be the most important US cabinet position by 2035 , and that stimulants like java , tea , and tobacco would fall out of vogue . ( Alcohol , on the other hand , would support as “ a authentic elixir of life . ” )

While much of the clause is devoted to commercialize Tesla ’s claim about the pacifying power of the death ray , it provides an interesting insight into Tesla ’s touch sensation about organized religion , technology , and the world of the twenty-first century .

Image viaWikimedia Commons .

Burning Blade Tavern Epic Universe