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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal
Message-ID: <20878@styx.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Sep-86 16:05:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: styx.20878
Posted: Tue Sep 23 16:05:18 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Sep-86 22:18:55 EDT
References: <26500079@inmet> <26500099@inmet>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 28

In article <26500099@inmet> janw@inmet.UUCP writes:
> . . . 
> I like people; I welcome
> more of them around; I think they make more living space for each
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> other than they take; but I also think birth and death  ought  to
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> be  private. I am not into social tinkering of either population-
> reducing, or population-increasing kind.

I would appreciate elucidation of the above sentence; it doesn't seem
to make sense. Precisely how do people "make more living space" than
they take? Planetary resources are large but finite; they are also
(for a multitude of reasons) poorly distributed geographically. Essentially 
every time people breed faster than local/regional resources allow, it
has resulted in overcrowding, disease, and famine. Besides consumable
resources, additional people strain housing stocks, overburden means of
transportation, and screw up perfectly decent rural and natural areas.
I like people too, in small and manageable quanities.

I tend to agree that the government should stay out of social
tinkering in general; nevertheless the government may wish quite
rightfully to make laws that have an impact on the number of children
people have (e.g., calculating welfare payments) 

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb