<story><title>The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/the-dystopian-underworld-of-south-africas-illegal-gold-mines</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>phyphy</author><text>I sometimes wonder what the future of human rights is considering a scenario from 10 generations from now.&lt;p&gt;The survived miners will probably have children. The children who are not fit (neither physically nor mentally) will die working in mines. The mentally fit children will migrate to US. The physically fit children will have more children that are physically fit. What will happen then? Why are we ignoring the future of our species and human rights on a larger scale of time?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>knodi123</author><text>What, like Morlocks and Eloi? I suppose it&amp;#x27;s an interesting idea to contemplate, but planning to avoid it is a textbook example of premature optimization.  We have a million bigger problems that could wipe us out long before that becomes a risk, even with the wild presumption that the conditions in SA stay the same for 10 generations.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Morlock&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Morlock&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/the-dystopian-underworld-of-south-africas-illegal-gold-mines</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>phyphy</author><text>I sometimes wonder what the future of human rights is considering a scenario from 10 generations from now.&lt;p&gt;The survived miners will probably have children. The children who are not fit (neither physically nor mentally) will die working in mines. The mentally fit children will migrate to US. The physically fit children will have more children that are physically fit. What will happen then? Why are we ignoring the future of our species and human rights on a larger scale of time?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>georgeglue1</author><text>Human migration (under various situations &amp;#x2F; stresses like famines) has been studied in economics, sociology, etc..&lt;p&gt;There are also studies about generational poverty, medical literature on helping people recover from traumatic conditions, etc..&lt;p&gt;Not to read any bad intent in your comment, but there also have been studies about social darwinism that have a long track record of problems. I think people do still do studies about genetic inheritance etc., but it&amp;#x27;s probably impossible to draw society-level conclusions without data.</text></comment>