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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
Problem
Technical
Solution
Fundamental
Fundamentals
Requires
Solutions
Population
Extension
Morality
Extensions

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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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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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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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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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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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The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
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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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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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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
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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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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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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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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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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
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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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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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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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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