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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable

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
Resources
Freedom
Individual
Action
World
Intolerable
Competitive
Limited
Total

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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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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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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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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 see only what we have names for.
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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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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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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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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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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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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 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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Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
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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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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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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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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.
Garrett Hardin