Lincoln/Coverdale

Apparently, kids are now participating in organized ultimate fighting. For reasons I cannot quite express verbally, I have a visceral repulsion to ultimate fighting and would like to see it go away. I think we can all agree that ultimate fighters probably wouldn’t be able follow an open discussion or any type of persuasion that uses non-violent means. In light of this, I propose that ultimate fighters be allowed (or, if I have my way, required) to kill each other. Here’s how it would work.

According to these estimates, about 20% of American males are between the ages of 18 and 45 which I will assume is the prime band for ultimate fighting. If the population is about 300 million and half male, that gives a pool of 60 million candidates. I’m going to be conservative and assume that 1% of these participate in ultimate fighting.

So, we have 600,000 ultimate fighters. Every match will halve the fighting pool. All we need to do is solve this equation: 2^x = 600,000. Whip out your log to get x = log(600,000)/log(2). That’s about 19. At one round per month, we could have this wrapped up by late 2009.

There is one problem with all this — in the end will be left the ultimate ultimate fighter. I believe in due process, so we can’t just kill the guy, but he must be kept from reproducing. I have a speculative solution, but no doubt someone else could do better. Society could wait until he inevitably commits a heinous violent crime leading to prison or worse. During this time of waiting, women attracted to violent assholes will be asked to take a pledge of abstinence.