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The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.

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
Agreed
Affected
Mutual
Majority
Upon
Kind
Mutually
People
Coercion
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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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A finite world can support only a finite population therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
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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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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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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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Numeracy: 1. The art of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning amounts to variables in order that practical decisions may be reach. 2. That aspect of education (beyond mere literacy) which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality.
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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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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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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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In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate.
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The population problem has no technical solution it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
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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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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
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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.
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We see only what we have names for.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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