Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!think!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!rdh From: rdh@sun.UUCP Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Population control: liberty, la Message-ID: <7060@sun.uucp> Date: Tue, 9-Sep-86 05:35:53 EDT Article-I.D.: sun.7060 Posted: Tue Sep 9 05:35:53 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 10-Sep-86 05:37:08 EDT References: <6414@sun.uucp> <11700367@inmet> Reply-To: rdh@sun.UUCP (Robert Hartman) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 160 In article <11700367@inmet> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: >In any case, I've produced a counterexample (me) to your >"who wouldn't". That is important because your whole article >is about consensus. Well, I'd prefer that all children be brought up with the kind of patience, consistency, and self-worth that you must have instilled in yours for them to have any self-control at all. I believe that positive reinforcement works with consistency and attention, and I'm glad for thier sakes that you had the time and money to raise them properly. Few are as fortunate as you, or your children for that matter. I hope you realize that your circumstances, and those of your family, are very much the exception in the world. Those with less time and money can't necessarily afford to do as good a job of child-rearing. They have enough to do just trying to acquire enough food for one day, let alone teaching them anything. >I was speaking of the *consensus*. Oh, I thought you were poo-poo-ing world hunger. I don't think you can blame the population/scarcity problem in China on Mao, however. I will not say that Mao's revolution did not entail needless destruction and excess. It did. But dispair breeds irrationality, and that, I think, is my entire point about overpopulation. The Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward were both disasters. But China in the late 40's was a shambles as a result of colonialism and WW2, and I fear it would have been far worse under Chang than under Mao. Mao, I think, felt something for the people. I doubt that this was true of Chang. >A consenting or a dissenting voice? Consensus does not >imply unanimity, does it ? I guess I should formalize it to the narrow sense that *consensus* implies that negotiations continue until everyone concurs. If there is still a principled objection, negotiations still continue. It may not be practical in a *political* sense, but this is net.philosophy, and, in principle, such a decision-making crition is not logically inconsistent. For purposes of ethics, it is not inimical to social-contract theory either. >[projections] of population and of production - have proved worthless. So you claim. But multinationals use these same methods to evaluate new markets, and to base decisions on where to locate new plants to take advantage of lowest prevailing wages. Bad maybe, worthless, maybe not. Depends on whether you're trying to make money or trying to make a point. >What about reserve population? > You want 'em, you feed 'em. OK? Tell me, for what are they being held in "reserve" for? I think you just shot yourself in the foot. >>Only a fool would say "the market will take care of it" and >>blithely ignore the projections. > >Count me with the fools. Market is not infallible, but projec- >tions are garbage. Better trust a gypsy fortune teller. She may Well, I guess you have your opinion, and it disagrees with mine. But do tell me on what basis, if not the best numbers available, do you decide to buy or sell futures on commodities? (You don't? Oh I see, you probably prefer those government-secured money-market funds. ;^) >Good. But I would also insist they are allowed to take their >piece of the country with them. I agree with this. If they've accumulated wealth in a free market, and the country and they no longer have a fit, I see no problem, in principle, with them taking their wealth with them. Ferdinand Marcos, well that's a different sort of case. Wouldn't you agree? Let's see. Then there's Baby Doc, oh and what about all those DeBeers folks? -- Not to mention the millions, some say billions, embezzled by a certain ex-presidente of Mexico. I just can't seem to bring myself to agree that they should keep monies acquired in that way. I don't think you do either. >>You want 'em, YOU FEED 'EM. > >They'll likely feed me - and you. They'll have hands and brains >as well as stomachs. Provided that someone feeds and educates them for 10 to 20 years FIRST. Think of it as an investment. Be my guest. If it were up to me (thank God it isn't) I'd rather teach their parents about birth-control, systems theory, and then mechanical engineering and french-intensive horticulture for sustainable food-production. Then, I'd prefer to teach THEM about systems theory, then, communications theory, computer science, and robotics for sustainable industry. Then, I'd pefer to teach THEIR CHILDREN about cost-benefit, risk-benefit and decision analysis, economic multipliers, international business law, taxation, marketing, and finance. And then, I'd like to invest one dollar in thier country to see how fast it grows. New markets being what they are, I should retire quite comfortably. But new markets just don't happen. They have to be built. Where would Japan be now without the Marshall plan? But then, I've already been told on this net how I am a dupe of the communist conspiracy. Well, perhaps, but I sorta figure that the Soviets are now about 4 generations behind their potential because they just refuse to lighten up on this world-domination kick of theirs. Well, I'm digressing. >"If you don't want to PERSONALLY assure that you do their share of >work, then don't discourage other people who have 'em". See above about my preferred course of action. I certainly wouldn't want to do anything to dishearten anyone who is here. I certainly would like to dissuade anyone whose prospects are dismal from having children that they are in no position to support. I still find your blithe attitude that children can somehow fend for themselves, and while doing so grow up to be rational and productive, to be unrealistic at best, and rather exploitive, to say the least. But that's my opinion, and obviously different from yours. I doubt that I'll convince you, so I won't say any more about it here. >The political flaw in your view (leaving libertarian principles >aside) is this: you envisage a *consensus* in conditions of freedom. I envisage *consensus* in conditions of freedom, and I recognize the harsh realities of survival that constrain political rationality when conditions are desparate. You, however, apparently refuse to. I'd much prefer to keep populations within sustainable limits and mechanize production as much as possible to maximize economic reserves per capita, precisely to assure a high level of personal freedom-from-want and the attendant economic rationality. But before getting started, I'd much prefer to sell everyone on the merits of the plan. Of course, once everyone has agreed, I'd then want someone to have a proper measure of authority (I'm not volunteering, mind you), checked and balanced by due process of course, to carry out the plan. But more than this, I'd prefer an ethical framework within which people could, rationally and in good conscience, evaluate any such proposed plan. I find that such a framework is currently lacking. And for the record, I find the notion of the invisible hand to be woefully lacking as even a theoretical basis for ethical evaluation of indirect effects and unintended consequences. And I believe that Pareto optimality is the flimsiest excuse for redistribution (favoring the politically connected) imaginable. That is my opinion. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I'm not willing to be shouted down. To say that there is no such ethical stance possible is, perhaps your opinion. I happen to feel differently. I think it unrealistic to expect anything other than totalitiarianism to grow under mass-starvation conditions, and I think that to blithely advocate unlimited population on the one hand, and free market economics as the invisbly handy solution on the other, is to be deliberately ignorant, at best, of the fact that it takes a certain level of infrastructure, education, and economic reserves on hand to sustain a market economy. In short, I think that to advocate unrestrained population growth, as you have done, is to (perhaps unintentionally) advocate the development of conditions that can only support one form of government -- totalitarianism. That is my opinion. I hope you take a moment to think it over before reacting. If China is doing better now than it was under Mao, I strongly suspect that it is because, harsh and irrational though it was, his regime restored the infrastruture, education, and economic reserves needed to support the economic growth per capita (i.e. production increasing faster than population), happening now. I have undoubtedly misstated the libertarian position. I stand corrected on that. As for the rest of it, I think that it is all just blather on both our parts, and better suited to mail if you wish to pursue it further with me. -bob.