Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!think!nike!ll-xn!mit-amt!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.sci Subject: Re: Population control & Freedom Message-ID: <1168@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Tue, 30-Sep-86 11:58:17 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1168 Posted: Tue Sep 30 11:58:17 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 3-Oct-86 08:26:13 EDT References: <564@gargoyle.UUCP> <26500114@inmet> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 68 In article <26500114@inmet> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > First, a global totalitarian conquest is very likely to be ir- > reversible, except through total extinction of humanity, for rea- > sons I can give separately. If so, it cannot be repaired "within > a few generations". Wilson goes wrong here. Reversability is not the sole possible criterion of "worse". Still, I think it funny that here you want to predict that global totalitarianism would be effectively permanenty, and a couple of paragraphs later you write "we are not *that* predictable." Trying to have your cake and eat it too, Jan? You'll probably have a difficult time convincing us that politics would become much less evanescent under a world totalitarian state. But the fact is that loss of species diversity is NOT an evanescent problem, as the fossil record shows. It takes a LONG time to restore species diversity after a major extinction. > Secondly, this, or the other disasters he lists, would probably > disable all possibilities of preventing or alleviating the > ecological disaster. A world in a state of economic collapse or > war desolation couldn't afford conservationism. Since these prob- > lems include his one (but not the other way) - they are worse > and less reversible. Once again, Wilson is wrong. A world in a state of economic collapse war desolation couldn't afford to exploit the remote and difficult to transport resources of the tropical rain forests. It is population, wealth, demand, and technology that apply pressure on the least economic resources, such as the rain forests. These would be relieved by numerous kinds of disaster. > Thirdly, he obviously excludes future human activity from his > prognosis. Otherwise, he wouldn't speak of millions of years - we > are not *that* predictable. But this activity can create species > and varieties, as well as destroy them. New organisms are already > being produced commercially. Omitting this factor was wrong. The new varieties being produced are extremely close to the old: most changes are genetically insignificant. Producing a really different organism might prove to be extremely difficult in the long run. > When I said our activity *can* rapidly increase genetic diversi- > ty, - I was speaking of *future* technology. However, there ap- > pears to be nothing (as long as progress continues) to prevent it > happening. If you think it *cannot*, please say why. See my other two recent postings in net.sci. > You might want to check, though, if Wilson's predictions of > species depletion for the 80's are coming true. The decade is 67% > over... He said *will happen*. Did he quantify that? There is no shortage of examples of regions where rain forest deforestation has been nearly complete. Such as Haiti, Mexico, and a number of parts of Indonesia. Large scale habitat alteration beneath the force of expanding population is a historical commonplace: such as the complete eradication of the American tall and short grass prairies. There would be no significant cost to us if 10% of the prairies had been set aside as preserves. There would be no significant cost to the world at large to preserve enough rainforest to save most species from exinction. That's the most galling part of it all: the tiny cost of preserving genetic diversity in the rain forests. Compared to expenditures to prevent totalitarian conquest, energy exhaustion, etc., preservation of representative natural habitats requires only a very small opportunity cost. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh