The Happiness Equation

Chapters 1 to 4 - The Impassioned Speech

"This equation, I tell you, can do this for human society. No more stop and start; no more insatiable demand. No more overly stressed production. No more unnecessary competition for status and resources. Happiness and harmony will prevail in human society and the current world crisis will soon evaporate. With ourselves, the people of this fine country, as the ambassadors, the pioneers!"

The crowd rose up, cheering and applauding. Jim stepped down from the podium, a smile and look of determination on his face; he shook a few colleagues hands then took his seat in the front row to listen to the next speaker.

One keen observer in the audience had her suspicions about this alleged happiness equation of Jim Mercier. She had read up on the concept in his published article on the subject two months previously. She intended to get a hold of him after the conference to voice her concerns. Surely the great scientist, Jim Mercier, would be able to understand and appreciate what she had to tell him, if he was genuine in the convictions he displayed during his speech, even if he may not like what he hears.

2

Samantha watched on as the conference continued. She wanted to believe his proposals. She hoped that this happiness equation could be applied but she had her doubts and concerns. Samantha Swanson worked as a reporter for the Daily Toll, a new television channel and newspaper combination, set up to report on the developing world crisis.

The horrific things she had witnessed, mainly in the aftermath: Babies in hospitals left to die because they were rejected as not 'genetically viable' or worse, effectively grown purely for the harvesting of their organs. These infamous hospitals were popping up all over the place. They claimed to represent the changing times and were set on continuing their practice even if illegally, until the law be changed to suit them, such was the power of their movement.

These geneticists were a sign of a developing moral crisis in a society that had seemed to be on the road to stability. The crisis began when the world population reached its maximum and so, instead of increasing, started to decrease. No longer in this world could the myth of economic progress be maintained. There was nowhere left to hide the 'surplus' population, and so that surplus population had started to become irritatingly more present. Their power had grown and they had began to fight back against the world which had used them as a stepping stone to claim success for themselves.

This was just the beginning, much wider problems also began to spread. An ideology took hold for some that new born children were the problem, as each new one left less space for the current adult population. The geneticist group rose up to address their concern, suggesting only an elite selection of genetically viable children be allowed to live, who will be beneficial to us all in the troubling times. This assuaged the desires of the extremists and so the geneticist political movement started to gain momentum.

The British Government were desperate for an alternative, they could not support such a movement. It was bound to be a short-term panic reaction that would leave an indelible mark, tainting those who were part of the movement in the long-term, leaving them in a political cul-de-sac. The Government needed a more humane alternative, and so they had arranged this emergency conference to attract the countries best scientific minds.

Jim Mercier was charismatic, his ideas made a lot of sense, and in his happiness equation the numbers added up. But still Samantha had her concerns to voice to Jim. In her mind, from the terrible things she had seen, the surplus population were hell bent on destruction and revenge. The government had become out of touch, as had their trusted scientists, who rarely gave much time to maintain a relationship with the media these days.

They called the media scare-mongerers. Needlessly exposing people to horrific and appalling images from around the world of the developing world crisis. Rather than wasting their time shocking people like this they should be helping to solve the problem at hand. The problem was plain to see, no more images were needed to bring that home, it was time for action to address it.