The
Sperm With the Million-Dollar Dowry by Sterling David
Kaufmann sat at his desk, feet up, looking from his corner office out
over the panorama of Palo Alto. It was May 17, 2031, three days before
his 40th birthday.
What had he accomplished in life? He'd
founded Facetwit, which had brought him fame at a tender age. He'd
steered it through the inevitable trials of the information age. It had
flourished as the giants had fallen away -- Microsoft, Google,
Facebook, Twitter, and Apple. There were earlier dominant players that
had fallen before his day, such as IBM, but those were the big five he
had slain. As he considered that from the 'What have I accomplished
with my life?' perspective, that didn't seem like anything to write on
your tombstone. But the destruction wasn't the thing, it was what he
had created at Facetwit. It met everyone's needs, and that was why it
succeeded. Or, he thought with a tremor of uneasiness, it met the needs
of the huge corporations and certain notable nations such as China.
With them on his side, Facetwit's position looked unassailable. He had
been just a kid with an idea that had blindsided Google, Facebook and
Twitter all in one fell swoop. The pundits agreed there wasn't room for
that sort of thing any more. No other kid would be coming along to
knock him off his pedestal. He had certainly made his mark in the
world. He had fame.
He also had money. $1.7 trillion net worth.
He looked at the words on the paper, and said them in his mind. $1.7
billion looked almost the same. If you flopped the 'r' upside down and
glued it to the 't', you'd get a 'b'. What about $1.7 million? Very
similar-looking. Yet of course those initial consonants made a big
difference. Inflation had remained low throughout his lifetime -- rich
people really don't like inflation. $1.7 million was still a
respectable fortune. And he had a million of them. You could take a
fair-sized city full of millionaires, and he was worth more than all of
them put together.
He had fame. He had money. What about
happiness? He had briefly played an old game called "Careers". He'd
found it in the attic, a 1950s game his parents had saved from their
youth. You started the game by creating a secret formula for success.
You chose some combination of hearts (happiness), stars (fame) and
wealth (money) that added up to 60, and if you got that combination
first, you won. He had the equivalent of, oh, 900 fame points and
1,700,000,000 money points (they had been measured in $1,000 units).
But you needed to meet all three of your goals to win -- excess in one
could not make up for deficiency in another.
What about
happiness? There had been Stephanie, of course. The thought of her
still filled him with yearning -- and rage -- 15 years after their
divorce. He'd dated other women, but there was a big problem. He'd met
Stephanie before he was famous, but no one he met since could see David
Kaufmann. They saw a mega-superstar. Women who liked his fame swarmed
about him like mosquitoes, but they didn't see him for who he was, a
guy who needed love like anyone else just for being who he was, not for
being rich and famous. The women who didn't care about his status were
harder to find -- he had to seek them out. And in getting to know them,
their perspective on a future together came up early. If one of them
married him, she would be famous too, attracting her own swarm of
mosquitoes for the rest of her life. His conclusion was that women who
didn't care about his status didn't want to deal with fame either. He
supposed in theory he could give up the company. By keeping a mere
$10,000,000 in the bank, he could live a simple life in the country --
or in any country. But if he was honest with himself, he realized that
he couldn't stand that. Having wielded power for so long, he couldn't
give it up without losing himself.
So he figured he'd be single
for the rest of his days. Masturbation under the influence of ordinary,
"wholesome" porn was about as sexually satisfying as sex had ever been
with Priscilla or anyone else.
But what else made people happy?
Religion. Forget about it -- a total nonstarter.
Philanthropy?
He'd joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and a couple others in his
pledge to give away half his money. And when he'd been worth $200
billion, that's what he'd done. Gotten rid of a full $100 billion. He
had felt amazingly virtuous, and people were so terribly grateful.
Their gratitude earned him some more fame points. But his remaining
fortune had continued to grow. How often was he supposed to get rid of
half his money? If he got rid of half of his fortune each day, then
he'd be under a dollar in something like four months.
The bigger
problem was that the world was going to hell in a handbasket. No matter
how much money you threw at problems, it seemed they got worse. The
Gates Foundation had made great strides in controlling AIDS in Africa,
which had led to even more population growth, slamming the sub-Saharan
nations harder than ever against the wall of limited resources. Some of
his money had gone to supporting the Bangladeshi refugees, driven from
their homes by rising sea levels. But they seemed to live such a
miserable existence, and even he couldn't support them forever. His
entire fortune wouldn't do that.
Here's how it worked these
days: The Third World starved. The First World's working and middle
classes got by OK, but with less each year. (The seldom-discussed
Second World had split with the fall of communism, half joining the
First and half the Third). But the rich? The rich did great. He served
the rich. He wasn't exactly proud of that, but if he didn't do it,
someone else would. He had always figured that anyone else in his shoes
at the top of Facetwit would pay even less attention to social welfare
than he did -- he had given away that $100 billion, right?
He was the wealthiest man in the world, but he was powerless to make the world better.
A
more subtle problem was that these days, "making the world better"
referred to healing it, alleviating ills, and restoring an equilibrium.
The ideal was a stable ecosystem, with everyone free from the fear of
war, famine or pestilence. But the price for everyone getting along was
a lack of shared positive goals. In the ideal world as imagined today,
there was no shared sense of what they were striving for. There wasn't
even any mass funding for space exploration, scientific discovery, or
the construction of great art. In the past, individual societies had
taken pride in subduing the wilderness, converting the world to the one
true faith, and building great works to the glory of a God they
believed in fervently. But equal opportunity for all, limiting growth
to the sustainable, and letting everybody choose their own goals just
didn't fit well with the human psyche. We had evolved to compete and
prevail.
He foresaw a collapse of society. It might be sudden,
for instance if a highly contagious microbe mutated to a lethal form.
Or it might be gradual, lasting centuries. Something new and inspiring
might arise -- it would
arise, he could feel it -- but no one could tell what it might be, and
no one could tell how to hasten its arrival or plan for it.
But
he was aware of his history. His Jewish ancestors had struggled in the
shtetls of Eastern Europe for centuries, working hard, never giving up.
Disease, famine and waves of invaders took their toll on everyone. Jews
were constantly nipped by pogroms, and then over half had been wiped
out in the Holocaust. But some had made it to America, where a great
many had been successful and helped disproportionately to their numbers
in achieving what greatness the modern world had created. His ancestors
in the shtetl could never have foreseen that -- their hopes were pinned
to the coming of the Messiah. What they had actually accomplished was
to be fruitful and multiply, and while most of their progeny had
perished, some had lived to blossom in America and Israel.
Kaufmann
knew he wouldn't be around for the next inspiring chapter of human
greatness. But his offspring could. Like his ancestors before him, he
could be fruitful and multiply, spreading his genes. And what about his
genes?
He was smart, confident, and hard-working. He had no
illusions that his hereditary endowment was the reason for his
phenomenal success -- he didn't have some special one-in-a-billion gene
combination -- but his genes were good. Whatever new chapter in
humanity awaited, it could certainly use some more Kaufmann genes. And
then there was still the Holocaust to make up for; Jews were due some
extra representation in the future gene pool.
He didn't actually
want to raise any kids. As far as he could tell the parents around him
reaped more sorrow than joy from their own children. The standard
pattern for having them involved a relationship with a woman, which he
had already decided was more problematic than it was worth. Besides, a
woman could only have a few children -- as many as a dozen would be
shocking in this day and age. Another standard pattern for the rich was
adopting kids, but that didn't fit his goals at all. They wouldn't have
his genes, and what's more would tend to have problems arising from
whatever circumstances made them candidates for adoption.
He had
already been secretly living out his emerging dream on a modest scale
for six years: he had been an anonymous sperm donor. Some women had
chosen him as the father of their children based on his anonymous
profile. He had fathered perhaps ten children already, though even he
with his great power and wealth couldn't find out for certain -- not
without twisting arms more tightly than he wanted to.
But so far he had attracted women to bear his children based on an anonymous profile. He had another possible enticement: money.
He
thought that men as a group had been blinded by their instinctual
natures to the possibilities that lay before them. Evolution predicted
that men would be motivated to father as many children as they could,
and in many respects this was borne out: they were far more eager for
casual sex than women. They sought out the one-night stands, and they
let far less deter them from sex, including attention to contraception.
Rape, especially in times of chaos such as war, was something men
engaged in all too regularly. Polygamy was very common and attractive
to many rich men as the multiple uteruses churned out babies in
parallel. The tendency in modern societies for successful men to
abandon their aging wives for younger women could be chalked up to the
same basic instinct.
But when it came to sperm donation,
suddenly everything changed. If men truly wanted to have as many
children as possible, they should be engaged in fierce fights for the
chance to donate sperm. It was a free chance to pass on genes, without
any need to limit other options! Instead, fertility clinics had to
advertise for sperm donors and sometimes offered payment. But the
reason for this state of affairs made evolutionary sense as well: in
the human environment of adaptation, it was sex with women that led to
children, not masturbation.
If a man saw beyond the inclinations
that evolution had endowed him with and took it as his conscious goal
to father as many children as possible, he should volunteer for sperm
donation. He shouldn't require anyone to pay him -- on the contrary, he
should be willing to pay!
In line with current norms, anonymous
sperm donor agreements were ironclad in releasing the donor from any
obligations of child support. Even if his children exercised the right
he had granted them of contacting him at age 18, they couldn't
successfully sue him for a dime. But avoiding child support payments
was not his goal. He could easily afford even $100,000 per year for
each of his ten kids without noticing its effect on his fortune.
So
his latest thinking was: why not set up his own sperm bank, and entice
women with not just his genetic profile, but his money? Why not offer
them a reward for bearing his children?
In times past, the
opportunities for abuse would have been rampant. Women could take some
sperm from his sperm bank, throw it away, conceive a child with a
husband or boyfriend who looked something like him -- and send him the
bill. But modern genetic testing made such a scam impossible. It was a
simple procedure to tell with 100% certainty whether a baby was his or
not.
He smiled. There could be dozens more little Kaufmanns -- maybe hundreds! He could certainly afford to support them.
It
might be something of a scandal, but what did he care? He had broken
new ground with Facetwit. Why not break new ground with a way for rich
people to spend their fortunes? Many people would be incensed. Perhaps
the majority of potential parents would never consider his offer,
perhaps an overwhelming majority. But that didn't matter. All that
mattered was finding a tiny minority, just a few hundred, who were
interested. Other people could think what they wanted. He and
consenting women had reproductive freedom and could have children
together -- it was no one else's business. He could offer the women
anonymity if they were concerned about some social stigma. No one ever
need know that the young boy or girl was a little Kaufmann. As it
turned out, his fame and success itself attracted considerable
interest. Women were more often than not proud to tell whose baby it
was.
He'd had confidential talks with some lawyers who
specialized in legal issues raised by artificial fertility techniques.
They'd found a couple ways to address concerns some women would have.
To guard against fraud or mischance on his part, they could have an
amnio done to verify the genetic match in time to allow an abortion. To
guard against unexpected encumbrances on his fortune, the support money
could be placed in an escrow account at the same time they were given
the sperm; the money would revert to Kaufmann if they didn't show up
with a baby after ten months. Protections for him included giving the
money out over time, verifying on a yearly basis that the baby or child
was alive, healthy, and being cared for reasonably well. Mothers could
give up a Kaufmann baby for adoption, and the money would go with the
baby. Existing laws prevented them from selling the baby, but if some
sort of under-the-table consideration was given, it didn't concern
David particularly. Whoever was raising the baby would have to
demonstrate its well-being to collect the ongoing payments.
Kaufmann
performed his sperm donations in the usual manner. But at that moment
of ecstasy on this September afternoon, he felt an extra little thrill
knowing that by this one act he would be creating several more
offspring. Suffused with a happy glow, he screwed the top on the little
plastic cup, put it in a capsule, stuck it in the pneumatic tube and
pushed a switch. He could hear faintly the whoosh of the fans creating
the air pressure that propelled the capsule on its way.
Patricia
sat chatting with two other technicians in the lab room at the far end
of David's mansion. They knew David's production would be arriving
shortly. When they heard the motors start up, they prepared for action.
Twenty women awaited insemination. There was rarely enough semen for
all of them, but it was worth their while to come in just in case he
produced an especially large ejaculation.
The other technicians
watched as Patricia opened the lid of the small container. She guessed
there would be enough there for about a dozen doses -- they actually
ended up with a half dose left over for a thirteenth woman. Patricia
drew each tiny dose -- about the size of a lentil -- into the end of a
sort of syringe. It was actually a flexible tube about nine inches
long, but the semen stayed at the very tip, visible through clear
plastic. As soon as a first syringe was loaded, the technician June
took it to the alcove where Emily waited in the standard position for
an internal exam, legs raised with feet in stirrups. She showed the
young woman the end of the syringe with its tiny bit of milky fluid,
then positioned herself between her legs. With a warmed speculum she
opened her vagina, inserted the tube and guided its end to the center
of the woman's cervix. She asked Emily if she was ready, the young
woman gave a bashful smile, and June pushed the plunger. The tiny drop
of milky fluid covered her cervix. Withdrawing syringe and speculum,
June congratulated Emily and left her. There was no evidence that
staying on her back for a while would improve Emily's chances of
conceiving, but like many young women she did anyway. It had a
psychological effect, perhaps a vestige of the typical female desire to
cuddle after sex.
June returned for another syringe of semen and
went into the next cubicle to deliver it. Each of the technicians
inseminated four women, and the final half dose was June's to deliver.
The entire process had taken fifteen minutes.
David's
plan had met with the expected opposition, but there had been no
serious repercussions. The applications flooded in, and David found he
could be very picky.
First, he screened for peak fertility. For
the most part he chose women between the ages of 20 and 29 who had
already easily conceived one previous child. These women had
demonstrated fertility and been comfortable enough with motherhood that
they were willing to consider a second child. Lesbian couples were a
good choice, and for the rest he took a mix. A heterosexual couple had
the advantage of two parents, but the disadvantage that the man knew he
was not the child's father and might feel some inadequacy. The payment
David offered for using his sperm was usually a major factor, and at
some primal level the man felt he didn't earn enough money. Divorced
mothers applied in large numbers; they had a chance for another child
and enough money to live comfortably and afford childcare.
He
required some evidence of solvency -- he didn't want people raising his
babies who were financially desperate. The money was sure to be a draw,
but he didn't want it to be the difference between a comfortable life
and imminent homelessness. He also required a $1,000 fee. The purpose
was not to generate income, of course, but to indicate a woman's
confidence in her own fertility and her willingness to carry the baby
to term. The fee had started at $100, but he had raised it as demand
increased and early results showed that he was producing good-quality
sperm.
He had started with Americans, but soon branched out. Who
knew what portions of humanity would survive a future holocaust? Best
not to put all one's sperm in one basket. He had also heard of hybrid
vigor, meaning that children he conceived with women of notably
different genetic stock were likely to be especially healthy.
He
chose women who were themselves from large families, preferably with
siblings who also had all married and had children of their own. He
wanted children born into a tradition that encouraged them to have many
children themselves. His aides were surprised that he freely chose
women from fundamentalist religious traditions, given his views on the
subject. In David's view, he was in it for the long term. He might have
found Orthodox Judaism, Mormonism, or Islam to be repellent, but who
knew what the future held, many generations hence? Their ideologies
might seem misguided now, but perhaps they held the seeds of humanity's
future flowering. Naturally, women from those traditions tended to keep
secret their participation in his program.
Women submitted
personal resumes. He chose those who gave evidence of intelligence
success in themselves and their families. He also used videos to select
women who were personable and attractive.
Once the criteria were in place, David like any good manager delegated the entire selection and scheduling procedure.
David
had started with the standard artificial insemination procedure -- an
entire ejaculation was frozen and thawed for use at a later time. But
fresh semen is more effective than previously frozen, and the demand
was such that giving each woman a full ejaculation would result in a
very long waiting list. A woman of peak fertility needs very little
high quality sperm to conceive with a high probability. A lentil's
worth was probably more than they needed, when it was carefully placed
right at the cervical entrance.
David initially made fertility
tours of the world, flying in his private jet on a secret itinerary. He
arrived incognito and arranged for the use of a vacant building
containing a medical suite. The women were required not to disclose the
location, because others arriving for the same purpose might not want
their participation known. There were hundreds of women in any location
who wanted his sperm, but only the few who were at peak fertility in
their monthly cycles were eligible. David's technicians were skilled in
fertility awareness -- detecting the properties of a vagina that showed
it was hospitable to the survival of sperm.
He found that one
ejaculation per day was about right for him. He might not ordinarily
have masturbated quite that often, but the more often he ejaculated,
the higher his total sperm production.
And what about the money?
His
initial public offering -- he smiled to think of it that way -- was for
$300,000 at the time of birth, $100,000 per year for 20 years, and
$200,000 for other contingencies including fees to cover the
verification steps. A total of $2,500,000 was placed in escrow at the
time of insemination. But as he was swamped with applications, market
forces suggested he should offer less. Now he offered $120,000 at the
time of birth, $60,000 per year for 20 years, and $80,000 for
contingencies, for a total of $1,400,000. That was for an American
baby. It made sense to offer less in poorer countries, as he didn't
want to make his child's family fabulously wealthy compared to the
neighbors. So for instance a middle-class family in India typically
received $40,000 at the time of birth and $20,000 for the 20 years. The
escrow funds were provided in a currency of the mother's choice.
At
one ejaculation per day, twelve women per ejaculation, and a 50%
success rate, he was fathering six children per day. If he worked
year-round without a day off, he would be fathering 2,190 children per
year. The bill for this came to $3 billion per year if they were all
Americans. At that rate, and assuming no growth or shrinkage in his
current net worth of $1.7 trillion, he could go on fathering children
for 567 years before he ran out of money!
David soon gave up his
worldwide spawning trips. He simply paid women from all over the world
and the U.S. to come to Palo Alto. With assistants to screen the
applications and handle all the paperwork, his role in the process
boiled down to jerking off and handing over the sperm. The ongoing
marginal time cost was five minutes per day.
There were calls to
investigate his unchecked spawning. Campaign contributions assured that
no politician was going to actually stop him, but some had to give
indignant speeches to placate their constituents. But there was little
they could do in any case. He wasn't taking anyone's money; he was
giving it away. He wasn't trying to claim any tax deductions. And the
recipients of his genetic and financial largesse were delighted with
the arrangement.
It
was May 20, 2032, his 41st birthday. Some exciting gene therapy had
been discovered to extend a person's healthy life. As he had pretty
good genes to start with and could afford the fabulously expensive
treatments, he could expect to live to 120, and until the age of 100
produce a potent ejaculation each day. He had sixty years of fathering
children ahead of him, and he should end up with about 120,000 kids. If
they found ways to divide his ejaculations into more parts and still
impregnate the women with a high probability, that figure could rise
substantially.
And the whole process would still consume a mere
one-seventh of his fortune. He wondered what else he should do with his
money. He supposed he could just split his inheritance equally among
his children in the customary manner. Even having to share with 120,000
brothers and sisters, each should receive a cool $10,000,000 or so!
I
do not know of any technological or legal obstacle to a person actually
doing this. If Mark Zuckerberg at age 27 is worth $17.5 billion and
offered $1 million to anyone who agreed to have his baby, he could
afford 17,500 children. By fathering a mere two children a day he could
reach that figure in 20 years.