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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.

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
Obligation
Deny
Sacrifice
Future
Rationalist
Make
Individualist
Coldly
Sacrifices

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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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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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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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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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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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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 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.
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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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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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The population problem has no technical solution it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
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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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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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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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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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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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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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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 greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
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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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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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