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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.

Garrett Hardin

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Garrett Hardin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1915
Born: April 21
Died: 2003
Died: September 14
Biologist
Demographer
Ecologist
Statistician
University Teacher
Dallas
Texas
Garrett James Hardin
Garrett J. Hardin
Means
Must
Capita
Mean
Steadily
World
Decrease
Finite
Goods
Environmental
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Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.
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Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?
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However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious.
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The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
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Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.
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A finite world can support only a finite population therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
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But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.
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To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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Religious reasons, which is no reason. I notice Skeptic had a review of Dennett's book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Religious reasons amount to what Dennett terms skyhooks. Do you believe in skyhooks? I don't.
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Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.
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