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

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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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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
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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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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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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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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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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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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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Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
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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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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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