>>13916790You were on something but you missed the important part.
The criteria for "important people" have to be chosen by the group encouraging the Near-extinction, but if they are allowed to put themselves in that category they will -by imitation- encourage the systemic creation of small group of self-defined VIP leading mankind to self-destructive tendency over belief the population need "culling again", caring less about the sapience & intelligence of the remaining civilization than keeping the population small enough to be managed and purging it again anytime it grow.
Furthermore a civilization can not thrive with a secret/despotic cabal at the top, so to encourage merit, power & intelligence must rise from the bottom and synergy between individual must be promoted even if some are less productive than other -so long as their contribution is overall positive-, eugenic & genetic being unethical and inefficient at predicting .
To avoid those problems, the group directly responsible for the extermination must be willing to sacrifice himself, posing as example of the kind of people the surviving generation must keep an eye on. Those agreeing to the plan unwilling to sacrifice themselves may have to be tricked with the belief they'll survive if sticking near the willing one who shall then take them out with themselves.
Meanwhile the people unaware of the plan but unwilling to make (less terminal) sacrifice for the well being of the civilization
As a corollary to this, I believe it may be more efficient & less risky to push 'idiots' into killing each others in a more progressive and immediate fashion than by waiting an "extinction-level" event. It should be possible by providing massively dumb people with easy way of (accidentally) killing themselves without endangering the "smart" population. We would know the plan work if more idiots die than appear.
Pic is within the margin of relevance to the topic