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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.

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
Change
Merely
Alleviate
Problem
Changes
Trigger
May
Effects
Applies
Even
System
Triggers
Thing
Law
Intended
Something
Taken
Complexes
Never
Point
Several
Negate
Action
Complex
Offset

More quotes by Garrett Hardin

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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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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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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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We see only what we have names for.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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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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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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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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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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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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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
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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 essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
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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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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
Garrett Hardin
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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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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin