Population control
Richard Carnes
>(1) People who predict depletion of soil, oil etc., predicted
>these before, and were incorrect. So often before, and so incorrect,
>that they need not be taken seriously. The moment when we are
>expected to run out of a given resource is usually a decade or two
>ahead. It was there many decades ago, and still is. Right now I am
>using their own method - extrapolation, only I am using it on their
>own predictions. It predicts that a century from now, gloom and
>doom will still be just around the corner.
Jan does not cite any specific erroneous predictions, and I don't
know which predictions he is referring to. In any case the track
record of previous predictions is irrelevant. The question of
resource depletion is a SCIENTIFIC question; it should be
investigated and answered by the accepted methods of scientific
inquiry in such fields as geology, soil science, biology, and
economics. There seems to be solid scientific evidence, for example,
that topsoils around the world are being eroded at an alarming rate.
In the US, water erosion alone is depleting topsoil twice as fast as
it can be renewed (references available on request).
If Jan wants to argue that we need not worry about resource
depletion, he should cite some published scientific work that we can
read, or present such arguments on the net. To evaluate any current
predictions (without waiting for the events to occur), we need to
know what are the correct and incorrect ways of generating a
prediction.
The most important arguments for slowing population growth, however,
are ECOLOGICAL arguments, rather than claims that we are running out
of this or that. The ecologist's concept of *carrying capacity* can
be invoked to show that the human population is exceeding the earth's
long-term carrying capacity for our species. Human activities are
causing the extinction of huge numbers of species, and the process is
accelerated by population increase. For numerous reasons, these
extinctions will have a severe impact on the quality of human lives.
Again, these issues can only be settled by scientific investigation
and debate.
There is evidence that the population of the Mayan civilization in
the Guatemalan lowlands crashed within a short period around 900 A.D.
to one tenth of its previous size, and that this was directly related
to overpopulation (reference available on request). So such crashes
may not be unprecedented in the human population.
>(2) Even if (1) were wrong, resources that do get depleted can be
>replaced through human ingenuity. Human brains are the universal
>resource; the more of them, the better. If our ancestors had re-
>duced their population by Watt, Tesla, Burbank, and a few others,
>there would be less, not more, goodies per capita today.
No doubt some resources can be replaced. How do we know they can all
be replaced? At what cost? Also, as I mentioned above, resource
depletion is only a part of the problem. A strong case can be made
that the negative impact of population growth on the environment
increases at a much faster rate than the rate of population growth.
That is, adding 10 people to a population will generally have more
than twice the negative environmental impact that adding 5 people
will have, at least at current or higher population levels.
Accordingly the problems may well increase faster than the human
ability to deal with them. This is also a scientific question that
can only be answered by ecological studies, not by Jan's handwaving
assurance that human ingenuity will be able to solve the problems. I
would ask Jan the same questions I would ask of someone who asserted
that human brainpower would be able to solve the survival problems
that would face us if an asteroid crashed into the earth or the sun
became a supernova: "On what basis do you make this assertion? How
do you know?"
A good brief introduction to these ecological issues is P.R. Ehrlich
and J.P. Holdren, "Impact of population growth", *Science* 171:
1212-17 (1971). A good lengthy introduction is *Ecoscience* by the
same coauthors.
>(3) If (1) and (2) were wrong, population could be effectively
>controlled without government intervention.
How do you know? The fact that ZPG has been attained at times in the
past without government intervention does not prove that it will be
attainable without government intervention whenever we need it.
Indeed, the fact that the human population is expected to increase to
at least 10 billion, even *with* some governmental population control
measures, is a strong argument that government intervention is now
necessary.
>(4) If (1), (2) and (3) were wrong, it would be better to have
>famine, disease and war reduce population, than to submit to
>government tyranny. Losing freedom is losing everything, and a
>government that does not stop at one's skin, will stop nowhere.
I doubt that Sakharov, Jefferson, Spinoza, Epictetus, or Socrates
would agree that losing political freedom is losing everything, the
*summum malum*. Nor do I think that most people living today in
countries you consider unfree would agree. Would you assert that a
nuclear war that wiped out the human race is preferable to tyranny?
In my opinion that would be a monstrous assertion.
But in any case I do not advocate any tyrannical measures by
government, with regard to population control or anything else. I
advocate only measures that will protect people's rights, and I think
that Jan would agree that measures that protect natural rights cannot
be tyrannical. I will save the discussion of rights for a later
article.
>>But the view that everyone should be allowed to have as many
> ^^^^^^^
>>children as they want, with no attempt to use government to in-
>
>Allowed ! You've come a long way, baby.
I don't understand your objection to the term "allowed". By
"allowed" I intended "not prohibited", perhaps its most common
meaning.
Richard Carnes
Scott Hazen Mueller
>[Jan Wasilewsky]
>>(4) If (1), (2) and (3) were wrong, it would be better to have
>>famine, disease and war reduce population, than to submit to
>>government tyranny. Losing freedom is losing everything, and a
>>government that does not stop at one's skin, will stop nowhere.
>
>I doubt that Sakharov, Jefferson, Spinoza, Epictetus, or Socrates
>would agree that losing political freedom is losing everything, the
>*summum malum*. Nor do I think that most people living today in
>countries you consider unfree would agree. Would you assert that a
>nuclear war that wiped out the human race is preferable to tyranny?
>In my opinion that would be a monstrous assertion.
>
I find Wasilewsky's assertion so very ridiculous that I must insert my own
two cents here. To take a case that has been debated in American politics
for the past few decades, would you rather be dead, or "Red"? For myself, I
would rather live under (and fight) a Soviet tyranny than be a cloud of vapor
or some other sort of wartime casualty. I don't like either idea, but I
would rather that we all tightened our belts, even at the cost of some civil
liberties, than that we should loose the Four Horsemen yet again. Liberty
is very important, indeed worth fighting for, but life is more precious yet.
If the human race is to survive, we must not destroy our home; if there are
people who cannot see this, we may have to use coercion. If it comes down
to my life or your liberty, and it very well may do so ... or, if it is your
life or my liberty ... it is not possible to always preserve both, and life
must come first. As long as there is life, there is always the possibility
of liberty.
>Richard Carnes
\scott
--
Scott Hazen Mueller lll-crg.arpa!csustan!smdev
City of Turlock work: (209) 668-5590 -or- 5628
901 South Walnut Avenue home: (209) 527-1203
Turlock, CA 95380 <Insert pithy saying here...>
S. Luke Jones
--Ripley, in the motion picture ALIENS.
> ...
> would you rather be dead, or "Red"? For myself, I
"Better Dead than Red" is a punched-up, succinct restatement of Patrick
Henry's famous speech ending, "Is life so sweet, or peace so dear, as to
be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty
or give me death."
Henry was NOT advocating rolling up into a ball and dying under British
oppression. He was advocating kicking their butts back to England where
they belonged, and he was dismissing the argument that some blood would
be spilled in the process. (Thomas Jefferson said the same thing when
he told us "the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time
with the blood of patriots.")
> would rather live under (and fight) a Soviet tyranny than be a cloud of vapor
> or some other sort of wartime casualty.
We can infer from the Soviet Agrarian Reform Program in Afghanistan that you
might well end up dead anyway, courtesy a Hind gunship, if you persisted in
resisting the benefits of socialism. From WWII, we can infer that if you
lived to be captured by the Russians you might be killed outright as at Katyn
Forest in Poland or marched across a field to clear it of mines. War is no
Sunday School Picnic. Casualties DO happen.
> I don't like either idea, but I
> would rather that we all tightened our belts, even at the cost of some civil
> liberties, than that we should loose the Four Horsemen yet again. Liberty
> is very important, indeed worth fighting for, but life is more precious yet.
"Some civil liberties"? Do you think the Russians are going to stop after
imposing a curfew and prohibiting free assembly? Ask someone who lived in
Berlin in May, 1945 where the Russians drew the line. For that matter, ask
a "refusenik" in Moscow today. Maybe things aren't quite as obvious today,
because they're done retail now rather than wholesale, but in a society
where you could arbitrarily be denounced for the high crime of monitoring
Helsinki Convention violations and sentenced to 10 years labor in a camp
with a mean life expectancy of six months, life without "some civil
liberties" could be quite short indeed.
> If the human race is to survive, we must not destroy our home; if there are
> people who cannot see this, we may have to use coercion. If it comes down
> to my life or your liberty, and it very well may do so ... or, if it is your
> life or my liberty ... it is not possible to always preserve both, and life
> must come first. As long as there is life, there is always the possibility
> of liberty.
You seem to be saying, "A burglar is coming over here tonight. If you
don't leave it unlocked, he may damage the door when he kicks it in."
(Or, to bring the bogeyman of N-weapons into the picture, "A stupid
burglar is coming over tonight to rob the house, but first he's going
to have it bulldozed.") If we are to be killed (or -- lucky us --
merely robbed, pistol-whipped, and threatened repeatedly with death)
and our home is to be given over to our victimizers, and if THEY make
the home uninhabitable in the process, you want me to cry tears? If
they'd stay away from my house, they wouldn't have a problem!
> Scott Hazen Mueller
Luke Jones
--
O "It'll be just like bulls-eyeing Womp Rats
O OOO O in Devil's Canyon back home in my T-16."
OO O OO
OOOO OOO OOOO S. Luke Jones
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ...ihnp4!mtung!slj
OOOOOOOOOOOOO AT&T Information Systems
OOOOOOO Middletown, NJ, U.S.A.
Scott Hazen Mueller
% <Myself>
% would rather live under (and fight) a Soviet tyranny than be a cloud of vapor
% or some other sort of wartime casualty.
>We can infer from the Soviet Agrarian Reform Program in Afghanistan that you
>might well end up dead anyway, courtesy a Hind gunship, if you persisted in
>resisting the benefits of socialism. From WWII, we can infer that if you
>lived to be captured by the Russians you might be killed outright as at Katyn
>Forest in Poland or marched across a field to clear it of mines. War is no
>Sunday School Picnic. Casualties DO happen.
There is a minor difference between Afghanistan or Poland and the U.S. In
both cases, the Soviet are/were able to direct military force from within their
own borders into an immediate neighbor. A 3000-mile supply line (Okay, 2 miles
or so to Alaska :-) and a two-front war against another superpower will mean
that the Soviets cannot simply roll over us. I'm not saying that I would
survive in this sort of fight, but I would like to at least survive long enough
_to_ fight.
% I don't like either idea, but I
% would rather that we all tightened our belts, even at the cost of some civil
% liberties, than that we should loose the Four Horsemen yet again. Liberty
% is very important, indeed worth fighting for, but life is more precious yet.
>"Some civil liberties"? Do you think the Russians are going to stop after
>imposing a curfew and prohibiting free assembly? Ask someone who lived in
>Berlin in May, 1945 where the Russians drew the line. For that matter, ask
>a "refusenik" in Moscow today. Maybe things aren't quite as obvious today,
>because they're done retail now rather than wholesale, but in a society
>where you could arbitrarily be denounced for the high crime of monitoring
>Helsinki Convention violations and sentenced to 10 years labor in a camp
>with a mean life expectancy of six months, life without "some civil
>liberties" could be quite short indeed.
Agreed. The original point that I was making regarded population control (and
social/governmental pressure) with the Soviet question as an analogy. I'm
attempting to explain a personal ethical position, and apparently not doing
too well. More comments below.
% If the human race is to survive, we must not destroy our home; if there are
% people who cannot see this, we may have to use coercion. If it comes down
% to my life or your liberty, and it very well may do so ... or, if it is your
% life or my liberty ... it is not possible to always preserve both, and life
% must come first. As long as there is life, there is always the possibility
% of liberty.
>You seem to be saying, "A burglar is coming over here tonight. If you
>don't leave it unlocked, he may damage the door when he kicks it in."
>[...] If they'd stay away from my house, they wouldn't have a problem!
% Scott Hazen Mueller
>Luke Jones
No, I'm saying that we are fouling our homeworld. If we wish to have _our_
home remain livable, we are going to have to come up with some sort of com-
promise between my desire to have a habitable world and someone else's desire
to have children without limit (see the original discussion). As far as
your burglar analogy goes, my response is "Get a gun and kill the SOB." If he
wants to have _his_ life and _his_ civil liberties, he had better not try to
infringe upon _mine_.