Jonah:

Your story about the automated baby drop-off point reminded me, though

I wish it hadn’t, of one of Joseph Needham’s stories. (Needham, a

biologist who took up sinology, was the compiler of the scholarly

blockbuster Science and Civilization in China.)

Traveling in a very poor country district of China in the 1930s,

Needham noticed that on a low hillside near one of the towns was a

small stone structure of no obvious purpose. Climbing the hill to

investigate, he found that it was a simple tower a few feet high with

a hole in the side, apparently built over a deep pit. From the hole

came an appalling smell. Inquiring in the town, he was told: “That’s

for the babies.”