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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

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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
Good
Contradiction
Pull
Using
Trouble
Tongs
Fire
Chestnuts
Lying
Fundamentalists
Reason
Troubles
Real
Elsewhere

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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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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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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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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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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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Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
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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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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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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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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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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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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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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.
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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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We see only what we have names for.
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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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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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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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