Dumb people sent to populate new earth, smart people die from starvation/disease

[jmeecha]

I read this one in the 1990's. Basically, it starts out that the smart people of earth decide to get rid of the dumb people by tricking them into believing they are repopulating a new planet. The smart people revel in their evilness. However, soon they die out from starvation and disease because there is no one left on earth who can cook or clean for them. The dumb people are what remains of the human race to start a new planet. Would love to share with my kids. Thanks!

 

[otistdog]

It sounds a little bit like "The Marching Morons" by C. M. Kornbluth, but that story does not continue past the point where the last shipment of "dumb people" is sent off.

It also sounds a little bit like the Golgafrinchan subplot of Douglas Adams' "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe," only in that story, to humorous effect, those left behind all die of a virulent disease that propagates via telephone mouthpieces.

Any other details, even small ones?

 

[rwrogers24]

I read this one in the 1990's. Basically, it starts out that the smart people of earth decide to get rid of the dumb people by tricking them into believing they are repopulating a new planet. The smart people revel in their evilness. However, soon they die out from starvation and disease because there is no one left on earth who can cook or clean for them. The dumb people are what remains of the human race to start a new planet. Would love to share with my kids. Thanks!

Was it Exiled From Earth by Ben Bova?

 

[Metryq]

Sounds like a Steve Martin standup routine: "C'mon, you people don't remember when the Earth blew up? It was totally destroyed...? And we all escaped to this planet on the Giant Space Ark™, but the government decided not to tell the stupider people because they thought it might... Ohhh!" (Suddenly realizing.)

 

[far-trader]

It sounds to me like part of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. In that, at one point, Earth decides to get rid of all the useless people... hairdressers, etc. etc. and telephone sanitizers. Under the ruse of imminent destruction of Earth they are all selected for salvation on the first colony ship to a new world. They are sent off into the void and the best of humanity is left on Earth and the new utopia... until the Vorgons come along right about then and destroy Earth to make way for a new hyperspace highway or some such. Or was it that they died from diseases from filthy telephones? Or maybe I'm conflating a couple stories

It's just one small part of the whole series. Might have been an episode of the radio plays the BBC ran that you caught.

 

[Anne Lyle]

You're confusing two plotlines, far-trader - otistdog got it right

There was a book of the radio series, which would have come out in the early eighties, I think, though it's probably been in print for many years.