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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.

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
May
Defined
Ideas
Requires
Demanding
Little
Solutions
Techniques
Human
Morality
Humans
Values
Sciences
Nothing
Natural
Technical
Way
Change
Solution
Littles
Technique

More quotes by Garrett Hardin

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The population problem has no technical solution it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
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The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
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But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.
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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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The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
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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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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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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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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
Garrett Hardin
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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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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.
Garrett Hardin
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin