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Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.

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
Values
Relative
Action
Compare
Concept
Determined
Actions
Concepts
Value
Possible
Comparing

More quotes by Garrett Hardin

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Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
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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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A finite world can support only a finite population therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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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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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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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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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The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
Garrett Hardin
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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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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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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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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.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
Garrett Hardin
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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.
Garrett Hardin
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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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
Garrett Hardin
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
Garrett Hardin