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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.

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
Harm
Using
Behavior
Cesspool
General
Metropolis
Conditions
Commons
Public
Frontier
Doe
Frontiers
Unbearable

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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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The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
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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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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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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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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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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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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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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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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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