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Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

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
Ruins
Toward
Interest
Commons
Society
Pursuing
Freedom
Ruin
Best
Rush
Believe
Destination
Men
Believes

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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.
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Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.
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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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You can never do merely one thing. The law applies to any action that changes something in a complex system. The point is that an action taken to alleviate a problem will trigger several effects, some of which may offset or even negate the one intended.
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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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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Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.
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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
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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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Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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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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The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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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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