janw@inmet.UUCP (08/29/86)
[Discussion, with R. Carnes, of Paul Ehrlich's "Nazi-like" statements] The following is from *The Population Bomb* by Paul Ehrlich, Ballantine Books, 1968, pp.165, 166: >...the United States could take effective unilateral action in many >cases. A good example of how we might have acted can be built >around the Chandrasekhar incident I mentioned earlier. >When he suggested sterilizing all Indian males with three or more >children, we should have applied pressure on the Indian govern- >ment to go ahead with the plan. ... >We should have volunteered logistic support in the form of hel- >icopters, vehicles and surgical instruments. We should have sent >doctors to aid in the plan ... >Coercion? Perhaps, but coercion in a good cause. He does not say if we were to send handcuffs for the victims, or how best to pressure the Indian government to become totalitarian. After comparing population growth to cancer growth, he goes on: >We must shift our efforts from treatment of the symptoms to the >cutting out of cancer. The operation will require many apparently >brutal and heartless decisions. >The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that >only with radical surgery [etc.] This is the "final solution" language. The victims-to-be are first dehumanized, described as cancerous cells, a pestilential scourge; then the "apparently" brutal and heartless solutions are introduced with a perfunctory regret; but in reality we are invited to admire ourselves for being above ordinary considera- tions of decency and humanity. We are the surgeons, others just cells. Jan Wasilewsky
janw@inmet.UUCP (09/04/86)
[carnes@gargoyle.UUCP ] >>(1) People who predict depletion of soil, oil etc., predicted >>these before, and were incorrect. >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. No. It would be a scientific question if a science, or a group of sciences, were capable of making accurate predictions here. Will it rain the next 4th of July? This is not a scientific question since meteorology is incapable (now) of answering it accurately. The way to estimate a predictor - be it a person, a method, a scientific school or a science - is by track record, which is therefore relevant and all-important. As for my not quoting particular predictions - I could quote real howlers; but individual examples wouldn't prove it, would they? The burden of proof is on those who claim their methods do predict things accurately. It is doubly on them if they recommend changing people's lives on the basis of their predictions. If they call for awful repressive measures - punishing women for having babies - the burden becomes crushing. Proving it beyond reasonable doubt is the minimum they ought to do. >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). Meanwhile, food production grows, and faster than the world population. Obviously some other factors offset the one you name. A prediction would have to take both trends into account: one of them must eventually stop or reverse itself. You - and Ehrlich whom you quote - assume it will be the growth trend. --Why? >To evaluate any current predictions (without waiting for the >events to occur), we need to know what are the correct and in- >correct ways of generating a prediction. Until the opposite is proved to me, I assume they are *all* incorrect. >The most important arguments for slowing population growth, how- >ever, 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. "Show" is a good word. Let's use it in the Missouri sense. Show me! Someone *saying* it is not enough, even if he writes the whole alphabet after his name. >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. I doubt that - not the "only" but the "can". I think the ecosystem is far too complex for any existing methods to predict. Especially as future human activities are a major part of it - so you run into Goedel-type problems. No: first you answer the *easy* 4th of July question. Species extinction does occur, that's true. In future, we will be able to store their genetic material and reproduce them at will artificially - as well as create new ones... Then, environment will be immmensely enriched, not impoverished. Humanity is al- ready a major creator of its own environment. We must learn to do it better. Domestic animals, cultivated plants - these are just the humble beginning. We are already a noticeable source of new varieties. If humanity lives, *we* will be the major genera- tor of species and genera as well. Some of them descended from homo sapiens, no doubt. Preserving natural environment? You ain't seen nothin' yet! >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 re- >quest). So such crashes may not be unprecedented in the human po- >pulation. "May" is another good word; and "there is evidence". The Mayas are pretty mysterious; causes of their rise and fall are still quite unclear. Why use such esoteric stuff: the fact that some areas become overpopulated - *for a given way of life* - is indubitable. It is also true that later the same areas can accomodate much denser populations.The question is whether a particular civilization (ours) will keep changing itself fast enough to prevent overpopulation. The answer is: I don't know. Another question then could be: why not control population, just in case? The answer is: because putting your civilization into a regulatory straitjacket is the way to ensure that the answer to the first question is *no*. BTW, whatever else the Maya society was, it was clearly well-regulated. >>(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? We do not know the opposite: that is quite enough. However, the track record of human technology is *quite* good in this respect. >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 fas- >ter 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. Why *negative*? Unless you are a misanthrope or see all change as evil... Humans have a way of making environment habitable for other humans, even without trying. >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?" I don't. But if you suggested that, in the expectation of the sun going supernova, we sacrifice all blonde babies to the Sun God, I would ask you the same two questions. Same with other forms of population control. >>(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. And how do you know government intervention won't make it grow faster? You are making children a forbidden fruit... But my "could" above is in the sense of "might". Since we don't know it won't be attainable, draconian measures lack justification. And why ZPG? Zero is *clearly* too little, under almost any assumptions. >Indeed, the fact that the human population is expected to in- >crease to at least 10 billion, even *with* some governmental po- >pulation control measures, is a strong argument that government >intervention is now necessary. (a) *Expected* is another good word. Given the track record of demographic predictions, better expect the unexpected... (b) 10 ? Let's grow to 50 billion, then talk again. >>(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*. Sakharov is the only one of these acquainted with modern totali- tarianism. If he is ever let out from isolation, the question, in context, can be put to him. It has been his constantly reiterated theme that freedom and peace and prosperity are in- separable. That's my position, too. You can't trade freedom for peace or prosperity: you'll lose both. If you sell yourself into slavery, how do you collect? Epictetus (apparently invoked by you because he was a slave for a long time) taught - and proved - that even in slavery some people can preserve internal freedom. This is very comforting, though it still takes luck as well as pluck. (He was not, for example, castrated or lobotomized, or even tortured). But it does not really help your argument. Someone with so much internal freedom does not trade his external freedom for some pottage. We are not speaking of mere *political* freedom. Political freedoms are at the outer layer of human freedom. Many regimes deny free elections and free public speech while not interfering with private speech, travel, worship etc. Others (totalitarian) regulate all that but still leave family intact and - of course - one's body. State interference into one's physiologi- cal functions would seem to show we've reached the *ultima Thule*, the *nec plus ultra* (to match your Latin) of oppression. Well, almost... brain surgery could go further. I called this losing everything for the following practical and commonsense reason: if the state is *that* powerful, you can't prevent all the *rest* of what it will do to you. E.g., if limit- ing population is your thing: what if it changes its mind and de- cides to breed more soldiers? Whatever else it does, it will al- most certainly ruin the economy, so that reducing population won't help. All these other things: famine, war and pestilence - if you prefer tyranny to them, you will get them, too, on top of it. At least that is what the track record of tyrannical governments suggests; the track record of freedom is *much* better. So, I would rather trust my future to the interplay of nature and tech- nology - and have it admittedly uncertain - than trust it to an absolute state and be certain of a bad outcome. >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. No, and nothing in my argument suggests that. I think it would be insane to ever use massive retaliation (the problem is that if this position is taken and known in advance, an attack becomes imminent. This is the paradox of MAD. But it is another topic.) But it is the tyrannies we have that make a total war possible. Democratic countries don't make war on each other. As for malthusian wars - *if* they ever happened - they would likely be civil wars. But we'll have plenty of warning if popula- tion *really* starts outstripping production. As long as it is the other way, we are *gaining* time, whatever the growth rate. More babies, if you please, and more immigrants - there's room for all, we are underpopulated! >I don't understand your objection to the term "allowed". By >"allowed" I intended "not prohibited", perhaps its most common >meaning. Yes, that's how I understood it. It made clear that in your scheme, state does not merely *influence* reproductive decisions but allows or prohibits them. Now, if a woman has to ask some official for a permission to conceive, this is not what I would call a "good life". Yet it was in the name of "good life" for generations to come that the whole idea was introduced. Contradiction. Jan Wasilewsky
janw@inmet.UUCP (09/04/86)
>>[smdev@csustan.UUCP ] >>In article <555@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >>>[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. >>>[ my answer was: of course not] >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 What has that to do with anything? >would rather live under (and fight) a Soviet tyranny than be a cloud of vapor >or some other sort of wartime casualty. You cannot mean it. If you would not fight - with far greater odds - *before* you come under the Soviet tyranny, you will cer- tainly not fight *after*. In the first situation, becoming a casualty is a risk, and willingness to take that risk makes it small (by deterring the enemy); in the second, becomimg a casual- ty is a certainty, while your will to fight has been sapped by all kinds of brainwashing, conditioning, and gradual accomoda- tion. In any case, this has nothing to do with the issue. My point was that by accepting tyranny of an absolute state you forfeit your ability to reject *other* evils it inflicts on you - including famine, war and pestilence - so that the choice is spurious: you get what you bargained for plus what you tried to avoid. If you sell yourself into slavery, who'll collect? >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 pre- >cious 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. Who offered to destroy your home? Who the hell are you raving against? I saw attacks against strawmen on the net, but seldom so excited attacks against such fuzzy strawmen. I cannot even dis- cern through your fumes the position of your imaginary op- ponent... Jan Wasilewsky
smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) (09/08/86)
[I'm in brackets, Jan Wasilewsky is at the margin, with no >'s] >[smdev@csustan.UUCP ] >In article <> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >>[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. >>[ janw: my answer was: of course not] >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 What has that to do with anything? [The relevance is that you originally stated that "losing freedom is losing everything." Life under any tyranny is by definition without freedom.] >would rather live under (and fight) a Soviet tyranny than be a cloud of vapor >or some other sort of wartime casualty. You cannot mean it. If you would not fight - with far greater odds - *before* you come under the Soviet tyranny, you will cer- tainly not fight *after*. In the first situation, becoming a casualty is a risk, and willingness to take that risk makes it small (by deterring the enemy); in the second, becomimg a casual- ty is a certainty, while your will to fight has been sapped by all kinds of brainwashing, conditioning, and gradual accomoda- tion. [Agreed. MAD makes it impossible for me to agree to fight _now_.] In any case, this has nothing to do with the issue. My point was that by accepting tyranny of an absolute state you forfeit your ability to reject *other* evils it inflicts on you - including famine, war and pestilence - so that the choice is spurious: you get what you bargained for plus what you tried to avoid. If you sell yourself into slavery, who'll collect? >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 pre- >cious 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. Who offered to destroy your home? Who the hell are you raving against? I saw attacks against strawmen on the net, but seldom so excited attacks against such fuzzy strawmen. I cannot even dis- cern through your fumes the position of your imaginary op- ponent... [Apparently you lost track of the original point of this discussion. Sorry. When I came in, we were discussing whether it was "right" (I don't like that word) to allow the/a government to use force to impose limitations on population growth. From the data that I have seen, I can draw no conclusion but that the earth ("my home") is in danger of being stifled in humanity. The resource base that is currently available (yes, it may grow; I certainly hope that it does, but the track record to date (since 20 July 1969) is that it has not) to the human race is limited. The human population is the denominator of an equation whose numerator is fixed; the resulting ratio, the resource quota per person, can only get smaller. I'm selfish; I don't want to share...however, I suppose the position that I'm more comfortable taking is the cautionary one: if we don't expand our resource base, we'll have to stabilize our population.] Unindented: Jan Wasilewsky [\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...>