There's No Energy Shortage - Your Masters Have Decided There's A Human Longage...,

Isaac Asimov was in no way a sophisticated stylist, but he was an intelligent man and wrote a short story, ‘The Winnowing,’ that captures exactly the logic that would be wheeled into play —

…”Do you fail to see that the Earth is a lifeboat? If the food store is divided equally among all, then all will die. If some are cast out of the lifeboat, the remainder will survive. The question is not whether some will die, for some must die; the question is whether some will live.”

“Are you advocating triage-the sacrifice of some for the rest-officially?”

“We can’t. The people in the lifeboat are armed. Several regions threaten openly to use nuclear weapons if more food is not forthcoming.”

Rodman said sardonically, “You mean the answer to ‘you die that I may live’ is ‘If I die, you die.’…An impasse.”

“Not quite,” said Affare. “There are places on Earth where the people cannot be saved. They have overweighted their land hopelessly with hordes of starving humanity. Suppose they are sent food, and suppose the food kills them so that the land requires no further shipments.”

Rodman felt the first twinge of realization. “Kills them how?” he asked.

“The average structural properties of the cellular membranes of a particular population can be worked out. An LP, particularly designed to take advantage of those properties, could be incorporated into the food supply, which would then be fatal,” said Affare.

“Unthinkable,” said Rodman, astounded.

“Think again. There would be no pain. The membranes would slowly close off and the affected person would fall asleep and not wake up-an infinitely better death than that of starvation which is otherwise inevitable-or nuclear annihilation. Nor would it be for everyone, for any population varies in its membranal properties. At worst, seventy per cent will die. The winnowing out will be done precisely where overpopulation and hopelessness are worst and enough will be left to preserve each nation, each ethnic group, each culture.”

“To deliberately kill billions-”

“We would not be killing. We would merely supply the opportunity for people to die. Which particular individuals would die would depend on the particular biochemistry of those individuals. It would be the finger of God.”

“And when the world discovers what has been done?”

“That will be after our time,” said Affare, “and by then, a flourishing world with limited population will thank us for our heroic action in choosing the death of some to avoid the death of all.”

And so on ….