Sodom and Gamorra We are witnessing a remarkable experiment. Can family-based value systems be replaced by technology? In Biblical times, that was out of the question. But, now?

We the Creators. We are already predicting, determining the time, method even the result of birth. Gene manipulation, precise selection of sperm and ova. Once, Victor Frankenstein was a character loathed and feared. Now that his dream is near fufillment, he frightens no one. Hitler was dispised for his attempt to breed a new Aryan elite. His memory fast fades into a murky past. What primitive naifs our forefathers must have been to storm that castle, torch in hand...to shed their blood on a faraway beach--just to defend some supersticious notion of divine perogative. Frankenstein and Hitler were guilty only of being ahead of their time. Technology had not caught up to their grand vision. Thus, they were called madmen, as geniuses often are.

Death. There have always been strong leaders who felt the most efficient means of governing was to systematically remove the non-conformist with a single blow or bullet to the back of the head. There have always been men of vision-- Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot-- who sought to build their Utopia by the simple expedient of eliminating all that was not part of it. But, why was Ivan, czar of Russia, called "the Terrible"? Obviously, it was the primitive state of technology of the time that gave him a bad name. The slaughter of adults was a messy and difficult affair. And the population was profoundly supersticious and backward. In their ignorance, they called him "the Terrible". The name stuck.

Now, we are well beyond that. Our technology and education has reached a level where human life can be disposed of with little fuss and bother. It can even be done as a routine matter of personal convenience. One can enter a quiet, comfortable, sterile room and leave a short time later without having caused the slightest disturbance. And, yet a human life has been erased. The Romantics would tell us that all lives are connected. But, was a sound heard outside that room? Was there even a ripple in our little universe? You be the judge.

Yes, there are still some throw-backs who insist that life, itself, is sacred (note the primitive terminology). There is a ways to go before all society has caught up to the advance of technology. But, strides are being made daily. Already, the notion is gaining wide exceptance that the termination of life is unacceptible only when it is overtly brutal and violent. Now that education is under the control of technology, there will be no turning back.