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The population problem has no technical solution it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

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
Requires
Solutions
Population
Extension
Morality
Extensions
Problem
Technical
Solution
Fundamental
Fundamentals

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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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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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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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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 a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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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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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 optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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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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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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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 social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
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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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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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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
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We see only what we have names for.
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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
Garrett Hardin