A Dystopian Geopolitical Medical Thriller
"What does it cost to stay moral in a world that requires the opposite?"
In a near-future America buckling under overpopulation, violent crime, and systemic collapse, a desperate government grants every adult a legal allotment to end one person's life—forcing a young physician to abandon his elite training and navigate the deadly divide between his moral compass and the state's demands.
Currently in progress, The Humanity Experiment is a three-part dystopian medical thriller scaling from a single hospital’s triage dilemma to the existential survival of the human race.
In the climate-ravaged, politically corrupt America of the 2050s, society is collapsing under the weight of relentless advertising, unchecked violent crime, and resource depletion. To force a return to civility, the government enacts a radical directive: every adult is granted the legal allotment of one person’s life. Framed as a necessary population culling to regain control, the policy creates a terrifying new normal of fear-based civility.
Dr. Ben Halmer, a young neurosurgeon in the flooded, lawless ruins of New Orleans, stands on the bleeding edge of this experiment. As the sanctioned culling expands into a globally mandated, AI-enforced reality, Ben is driven from the elite surgical theater into the chaotic trenches of New England emergency medicine. Spanning fifty years, Ben must navigate collapsing societies, corrupt tribunals, and his own escalating moral compromises—ultimately deciding between doing what is right and doing what the government demands.
Blending uncompromising medical authenticity with rapid pacing, the trilogy questions whether fixing human nature requires destroying our humanity altogether.
J.B. Paukner is an MD/PhD and former neurosurgery resident in New Orleans who resigned to care for a family member. His real-world clinical and lived experiences—navigating institutional dysfunction, infrastructure collapse, and extreme political corruption—serve as direct source material for the pre-dystopian world of the novel.
He is currently specializing in emergency medicine and wilderness medicine for rural, under-resourced populations. The Humanity Experiment is his debut novel.
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