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From: KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch")
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Safety
Message-ID: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].835728.860302.KFL>
Date: Sun, 2-Mar-86 14:43:55 EST
Article-I.D.: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].835728.860302.KFL>
Posted: Sun Mar  2 14:43:55 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Mar-86 01:47:29 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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    From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@su-ai.arpa>

    There is no such thing as an absolutely safe level of just about
    anything ... A more reasonable definition of safe level ... is whatever
    it takes to offset reproduction. When young people are killed off before
    they can reproduce, in such numbers that the ones that remain can't
    reproduce fast enough to make up for the ones that died, then we have a
    truly fatal dose of whatever it is. Anything less than that is just a
    painful way to slow down the population explosion. ...

  I agree that the idea that anything that can be dangerous should be
eliminated is an unreasonable position, but I think your position is
just as unreasonable in the other direction.
  By your standard, if introducing a substance into the environment
would cause 50% of the population before they reach 20 and 90% of the
population before they reach 30 to die horribly and painfully of
cancer, it should still be permissible because it would still be
possible to breed fast enough to outrace this scourge.
  By your standard, the dark ages were perfectly acceptable.  Despite
the terrible diseases and the raw sewage in the streets and the stink
and the mindless superstitions and the pitiful life expectancy and the
enormous infant mortality rate, the population did expand except
during a few particularly horrible decades in the 14th century.
  The term 'population explosion' is a pernicious term.  It makes
population sound like a bad thing.  Remember that if the pouplation
were to be less, many people alive today either would be dead or would
never would have been born.  Instead of imagining 'our little brown
brothers' or other third world peoples to be the subjects (victims) of
population reduction measures (i.e. final solution), try imagining
your parents, your wife or girlfriend, the people on the net, or
yourself, as being one of the 'reduced'.  It puts things in a whole
new light, doesn't it?
  The main point in going into space is to be able to support a much
higher population.  MUCH higher.  And every person a billionaire, by
todays standards.
  As for safety, the only rational approach is to weigh costs against
benefits.  Ideally this weighing should be done by the individual
concerned in each case.  The Challenger astronauts knew what sort of a
chance they were taking.  My attitude towards the Challenger disaster
would be very different if the astronauts were not volunteers.
  Most people seem to be willing to take considerable chances for
small gains.  Consider the number of people who still smoke, or who
drive without seatbelts.  This is an enormous risk to gain ratio.
  I consider myself a fairly cautious person.  I don't smoke, drink,
or take drugs (not even aspirin (or tylenol!)).  I don't stay around
people who are smoking, even if it means I lose my job.  I drive a car
as seldom and as slowly as possible, and always wear a seatbelt.  I
eat little meat and eggs, and no pork.  I don't have sex with
strangers.  I test the battery in my smoke detector every two weeks.
  But I do not hesitate to use a microwave oven, use small radioactive
pellets in experiments at work, spend hours every day in front of a
video terminal, or ride airplanes.
  (And it does seem to work.  I have not been sick in fifteen years,
not even a cold or flu.)
  I believe, very strongly, in both quality of life and in quantity of
life.  The more of both, the better.
								...Keith