Common Denominator

"Common Denominator" by John D. (John Dann) MacDonald is a science fiction story that looks at what happens when humans meet the Argonauts, an alien race far more advanced than our own. The story explores big ideas of social growth, and if humans are mature enough as a species, along with what happens when humans don't control dangerous urges. Lambert, who leads the Bureau of Racial Maturity, gets very interested in the Argonauts after they have a successful cultural exchange. He finds out that the Argonauts used to have problems like humans, but they found a shocking way to fix violence: when they feel a personal urge to self-harm, that triggers euthanasia. This let their society grow by removing anyone who might cause trouble, but it also made their civilization peaceful, but also unchanging. At the end, Lambert thinks about what this means and wonders if humans could ever do something like that to survive their own bad behavior; quitting his job shows he's thinking deeply about right and wrong and what might happen to humans later.