In 1968, the term "commons" was adapted and popularized by Ecologist Garret Hardin in his work, "Tragedy of the Commons". Hardin emphasized the concept that individual commons wealth attained through unregulated resource allocation and consumption is detrimental to the whole. This in turn would lead to instability for the individual as well.
Hardin has some interesting ideas and rationalization in his essay. It is important to note that this was written over 45 years ago. Hardin at times is very direct in his explanations and justification for certain perspectives, especially when it comes to reproduction and what measures must be taken with those that do not fall in line.
Please read "The Tragedy of the Commons" and answer the questions at the bottom of this post. Make sure that you support your reasoning. We will also use your responses as a platform for class discussion next week.
You will need to comment your response no later than Thursday 11:59 p.m.
Questions
1) Hardin argues that an unenforced appeal to conscience is an unworkable solution to the population problem. What do you think of this argument? Does this argument rule out the general effectiveness of shifts in attitude or ideology?
2) Hardin writes that “natural selection favors the psychological forces of denial”. What does this mean? Do you agree with Hardin?
3) What do you think of Hardin's argument that the freedom to breed is intolerable?
1) Hardin argues that an unenforced appeal to conscience is an unworkable solution to the population problem. What do you think of this argument? Does this argument rule out the general effectiveness of shifts in attitude or ideology?
2) Hardin writes that “natural selection favors the psychological forces of denial”. What does this mean? Do you agree with Hardin?
3) What do you think of Hardin's argument that the freedom to breed is intolerable?
1) I believe that Hardin underestimates the progress that can occur through changes in the opinions and ideals of the masses in exactly these sorts of situations. While it may be true that such positive changes would work slowly without SOME coercive help (in the manner which he describes in his article), it might be possible for the population problem to at least slow down through education, psychological pushes, and overall pressure from society.
ReplyDeleteHowever, he is right in that total eradication or reversal of a problem as large and complex as this one will certainly require help from more direct sources than someone simply giving a reprimand to their friend for their irresponsible procreation. Looking at the decreases in smoking and tobacco use overtime, we have a lovely example of how pressure from both society (ad campaigns, peer discouragement, education) and government policies (no-smoking zones, age restrictions, mandatory health warnings) worked together over time to continue to lower the percentage of Americans who smoke. A similar blend of action could spur notable change over time, without directly forcing anyone to bend unhappily to strict regulations.
2) This is essentially saying that the selfish person who pursues their own interests feels no repercussions for their actions on an individual level - and therefore will usually not care so much about the actual damage they’re doing to the environment or society they’re in as a whole, including themselves in the long run. The way that Hardin explained this in his article (using the example of a farmer who allows one extra cow into a public pasture) makes sense, and seems to echo what appears to be happening with continued exploitation of the world’s resources.
Hardin also mentions that we are perfectly aware of what the tragedy of the commons is, and how it is affecting us negatively. However, given the fact that we have yet to propose any real solutions to the issue (going back to his conversation about “technical solutions” at the beginning), we tend to ignore it or make smaller-than-necessary efforts to try and create progress wherever we can. Although these efforts to persuade the public to think about their actions, once again, can be ignored by the individual without any real visible punishment to them.
3) “Intolerable” is a strong word.
I think that total freedom to breed without limits of any kind is absurd and self-destructive - as Hardin stated, natural selection worked against families of animals which had too many children to care for. However as humans, who have evolved to combat most types of resistance such as that, we need other ways to slow down and stabilize our rate of reproduction. But I don’t think that total control over human breeding in some of the ways that Hardin mentions is necessarily the right answer. For instance, he mentions the strict policy of allowing only the genetically fit to inherit wealth and be allowed to breed (I’m not sure if that one was a joke or not), and abandoning any idea of letting people choose a responsible choice for themselves based on their conscience (which I talk about in the first question).
Given no other choice, and if gentle coercion and persuasion weren’t enough, then I can see that turning to total control over to policies and regulations might be our best option - but I think at least attempting to put a bit of trust in our society is a better way for everyone to agree to try and work together to solve overpopulation.
And if that doesn't work, THEN we go with the all-out "alright we tried doing this the easy way" approach.
1) Hardin’s argument has truth to it. Simply relying on people to just “do the right thing” may have some impact but ultimately won’t effectively get us anywhere. For example, a ‘green’ lifestyle is promoted and advertised everywhere. Yes, there are a great number of people in the world that reduce, reuse, and recycle religiously, but you’re only as strong as your weakest link.
ReplyDeleteCountries like China and India, with unbelievable pollution and even more staggering populations almost completely eradicate the good that's being done. Now if there were viable repercussions for not living ‘green’ in place maybe everyone would be more conscious, but that all becomes very political. Morals and authority comes into play. The same idea applies to population control. Only being warned to be mindful, a considerable amount of people will just go about their business.
However, that’s not to say that over time educating the societies and creating an entirely new culture about what it means to have children can’t happen. I do stress the “over time” part. A transition, as such, would most definitely take a generation or two.
2) This means that those who ignore the problem at hand and go on with their typicality of life are usually taken care of (as in suffer or die out) by nature’s natural selection. That all comes back to Hardin’s theme of how doing nothing about overpopulation is the worst thing we can do.
3) As of right now, Hardin is blatantly correct… to some degree. If we were talking about thousands of years of ago, that would be very different. But we’re not. The truth is we’re on a slippery of an ever-increasing-exponential population growth. I believe my generation will experience the full blow side effects; more waste, more pollution, rationing food, rationing water (both usage and for drinking), close quarter living, and a loss of biodiversity. Until are population can peak and steadily decline this situation is in dire need of a solution.
That being said, intolerable has a strong connotation. I’m not sure I fundamentally agree with stripping away our right to procreate. Do I believe there should be some kind of baseline check? Sure. Maybe a tax of some sort? Why not. But completely restricting a our rights to choose is far reaching.
1)
ReplyDeleteI believe that Hardin has a valid point. On a global scale, it would definitely take a “push” of some sort to provoke a shift on a grand enough scale to make a difference. Relying on everyone to just do the “right thing” is going to keep us on track for eliminating all of Earth's resources and I think that some sort of movement would have to be implemented. Overpopulation is a long term thing which is a very unique kind of issue that relatively recently has sprung up as the root of most of our environmental issues. I think some real steps would have to be made, mostly as far as education worldwide about sex, to tackle this issue. Having a worldwide standard on sex ed, and offering it to as many people as can be reached would have a tremendous positive response towards getting this planet back on track.
I don't think his argument rules out major shifts in attitudes or ideology in general, I just think that this particular issue is much more difficult to manage. I think it is much easier to call someone out on throwing paper in the trash can rather than the recycle bin than on their four children scurrying around.
2)
Hardin is essentially saying “ignorance is bliss”, but in this case the ignorance is self fueled. It's easy to pretend that problems aren’t real and thus living your life as if there are no grand issues happening because it eliminates all sense of responsibility for your actions. It is much easier to screw over your fellow human beings when you pretend like you aren’t doing any wrongs. It also kind of blends in the idea of just doing a little bit of damage isn't TOO bad, when in reality everyone doing that little bit of damage adds up when there are 7 billion people doing it.
I agree with Hardin, and that's because I see it all around me, myself included. Just the other day I remember picking up my friends garbage he threw on the ground, it was only a small wrapper, but if everyone in the world did that things would get very awful very fast.
3)
I wouldn’t say intolerable is the best word for it, I think detrimental is a bit better. People procreating and having children is part of life, and I don’t think you can take that from them. I totally agree from where Hardin is coming from though, it would make great progress towards stopping earth's population from continuously expanding if we were to limit the amount of children born, but ethically I don’t think that can be done in a forceful manner. If there were to be a method to sway potential parents, I think it should be (as I said earlier) education. Making people aware of what having a child means both financially and environmentally would really slow people down.
Okay, I have to post this in two parts, because apparently it is too long, so... here is part one (questions one and two.)
ReplyDelete1) I also agree that Hardin is underestimating the change/progress that can take place just through communication. Though it may take a lot of talking, huge sharing of information, and a little push from the “powers that be,” many people's opinions of situations happening in the world can be changed just by what someone tells them, and what is talked about. We have talked about this, and how if women in third world countries were educated that there are other ways of being seen as higher class other than having so many children, and educating them about what they can be doing to help promote their lives, so much would change. If we applied that concept here, and told people what is happening in the world, then many things could change in the next one hundred years.
I don’t think this statement is ruling out the changes in attitude or ideology. True, a lot of information can spread through conversation, but it can only go so far before the spread begins to slow down. For some information to spread to more people than it does through conversation, people in higher places would also have to talk about. It is like the spread of information these days, some people would learn the information directly, and talk about it to their friends, but in the end, a lot of it is spread through secondary sources like the internet, or others who help make the laws, run the country, or who are public figures.
2) Hardin is saying that the people who take, take, take, and don’t look back at what kind of ruin they are leaving behind will not get “bitten in the butt.” They can just take everything that they “need” and nothing will happen to them in their lifetime. They do this without thinking of what repercussions their actions will have on other people. It is like chip bowl at a potluck, some people will come along and only take as many chips as they need, making sure to leave enough for everyone else, and everything would be good if this is how it goes. However, there is always that one person/few people who come along and take as much as they want, without thinking of everyone else in line for the snack table after them. Of course, his example with the one extra cow is also a good way to put it (I just thought a chip bowl would be more fun.)
I mostly agree. I do think that in a lot of situations, people can get away with taking without thinking of everyone else around them, and not get in trouble for it. Though, if some people do this, they may get a good talking at about it to make sure they stop doing it and screwing everyone else over. The reason I say maybe is because at one point, when the population of the earth was a great deal smaller, people may have been about to just take, and it would not affect them in the slightest. But, since the population of the earth is so much larger now, people may still just take, but this time it won’t effect the next farmer, or whoever comes along, it will affect their children, and make life horrible for them. We have hit that point that so many people are taking too much, that there really is no gap between the person who is taking and the person who is getting affected.
Here is part two (question three.)
ReplyDelete3) I think to a certain degree Hardin is correct. Intolerable is a little bit of a radical word to use, but he really is not that wrong. I think if we continue on this path of growing the population at such an enormous rate, one day, the “freedom to breed” will be intolerable. At this very moment, it is not intolerable, but I do think that there should be some... “boundaries” put in place. Obviously, we shouldn’t just start controlling everyone’s lives, and telling them what they can and cannot do. I think informing people of what is happening to the world because of the size of the population, and also providing them with other options of having children. Such as, adopting, would, at the moment, be the best option. If we were to create a law right now that said “you cannot have more than x amount of children,” there would be fighting back. I hate to say it this way, but it looks like one of the approaches we are coming to would be a method used with children. Presenting the situation, and giving a couple options for what can be done, and if one of those options is not taken, then the right to decide could be taken away. Now, like I said before, I don’t think that this would be the best approach. But, looking at what is happening to the world, I don’t think it is out of the question anymore, and that is a really scary thing. But of course, dying from lack of resources doesn’t really sound like the most fun thing either, does it?
1. I think Hardin has a valid point. By just stating an idea to the general public doesn’t really get people to understand the real concept behind the point. This is because people need to be held personally accountable and be able to see how their combined actions affect the population issues. For example a popular bumper sticker says “Think Globally Act Locally” this is a perfect example because it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around the concept helping globally but what the bumper sticker is saying is that you don’t need to try and globally help if you locally get the people around you to change then you are making a small contribution to the bigger act.
ReplyDelete2. What this means is even though when know that it is better to share our common resources we act and think self-centered because of natural selection. For example in the reading (pg. 29) the sheep herders all fed their sheep in the same common. Butt each one wanted one more sheep so that he could be the best, so all the other herders got more sheep to but, all of them never stopped to think about how the common could not sustain all the sheep.
3. I agree and disagree with Hardin’s argument. I disagree with him saying that the freedom to breed is intolerable because people should have the freedom to breed because most people want to have a family and that’s ok. I do agree somewhat with the freedom to breed. I feel like some people/countries have abused their rights to freely breed, For example a couple years ago China has set in place a law that says that people living there can only have on kid
1. I think Hardin is correct in his belief that appealing to the conscience of people will not solve environmental problems, specifically overpopulation, entirely. There are many people who are stubborn and will not change their mind no matter how many scientific experts come out saying that something needs to be changed (for example, people who are anti-vaccinations and climate change deniers). These people are plentiful across the world and will need a lot more than scientific proof to convince them. Instead, in my opinion, we need to create a culture that values education and will help change the way people think and possibly make them more open to new ideas.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it may be hard to change people's’ minds on a global scale, it does not make it pointless to try. To make it possible, however, we need an effort from not just the government, not just the people, but everyone. With regulations made by legislators and higher standards of education around the globe, people will start to talk about the issues and hopefully the answers will come shortly thereafter.
2. What Hardin means by this is that people who do live in denial, in this case of overpopulation and climate change, tend to live more successfully. This is because they simply pretend these looming catastrophic problems do not exist. They do not feel they should have to put effort into halting or reversing these problems and Hardin claims that eventually they will eventually face the consequences of their actions due to natural selection.
I think it would be nice if these people had to face the consequences at some point in their lives but they will most likely be able to live unaffected. Once this natural selection catches up with them, it will most likely have caught up with us all and will endanger all of society, not just those who disregard their actions and willingly harm the Earth, and effectively the entire human race.
3. I agree with Hardin that freedom to breed is intolerable. Maybe not literally, because we can tolerate it for a while, but it is definitely a destructive thing in the long run. Running population simulations, like the ones we did in class with the rabbits and wolves, shows the problem perfectly. Uncontrolled growth will almost always lead to extinction of a species. However, humans have the advantage over rabbits and wolves, because we are intelligent and can predict these patterns. Even though this is the case, we still refuse to do anything about it, because as is stated above and in the article, people choose to live in denial, because it is easier.
It is unfathomable, to me at least, to imagine the President of the United States writing a bill that would set limits on the number of children Americans could have, but we have to look at the evidence and see that maybe wanting to have more children is not strong enough reason to bring them into a world where there are already too many. I am not advocating banning children from the world, (although that would solve most of these problems) but we, as the human race need to start a global conversation, and I think the first step to that is a higher standard of education worldwide.
1) Personally I believe that in most cases, people can not make their own decisions. Mostly because we have a hard time looking at the big picture. So I say that Hardin has a good point. People are all different, and because of that we all think differently. And to be honest people most likely will not understand what the problem is when we tell them that they have a limit to reproduce. People only act when the problem starts to take huge effect. Because if we don't have to act we won't. And in the article there is a great example of “if we don't see it happening with our own eyes, then why do we have to believe it”. So we need to find a way to show everybody that it is a problem and we need to show it in a way that won't make people hate the government.
ReplyDeleteHow ever, this argument would affect people in many ways. People might get offended by the government not allowing people to make their own decisions. Because you're messing with people’s conscience. That by definition is: An inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior. In other words that's people's guts basically and when you restrict people from using their instincts, it strikes huge havoc.
2) From what I understand, it means that people who are selfish and think more of themselves are more likely to survive or thrive in the world. And to a certain point I do believe that people who care more about themselves are more likely to survive. Take this for example: Let's say that you get stranded on a mountain and there is no one around. People start to panic and let's say that one person runs a little short on food or supplies. And the people who barely have enough food start to give the other food, now both of the people are running on fumes. Which makes it harder to think of a way out. Now the person who has not shared food has a better mind and he is able to think or find a way to contact safety. To me, If people don't think selfishly then people wont get things done. Sometimes selfishness is a good thing.
3) I think that his argument has a lot of truth to it, but in today's world i don't think people are willing to allow someone to tell them how many kids they can have. And don't get me wrong, I do believe in the overpopulation problem. But to me controlling birth might touch too many personal sides of people. I personally wouldn't mind controllable birth, because if it meant that we could save, or at least fix a lot of problems that the world has in global warming or the extinction of animals. Then by all means let's do it. But that's my opinion, and like I said in the first question, many people think in many different ways. My final words on this are, I think that the freedom to breed is a good thing. But we need to regulate it or do something about it. Because by populating we are killing our earth slowly. And people aren't willing to do anything about it right now because we haven't seen it with our own eyes.
1. ) I also agree that Hardin is overlooking the impact that just communication alone can have on people. Although it may be helpful to have some sort of “push”/coercive help, I think that we should at least start tackling the situation by educating people and trying to psychologically push them into doing the right thing. I think that people are a lot easier to manipulate than we’d like to believe, and I that manipulating people psychologically would probably make for a better long term result. If you were to monitor population growth by coercive help for 5 years and then randomly stop, the population would probably go right back up (kind of like how after the whole alcohol prohibition was over in the US, people just returned to drinking an unhealthy amount of alcohol) , whereas if you psychologically manipulated people or educated people on the population issues and then just randomly stopped, I would think that the population would AT LEAST be a little lower than it would be if we had only relied on coercive help and then stopped. To me, coercive help should only be used as a last resort.
ReplyDelete2.) I think he’s saying that there’s no way we can really advance as a species if we continue to ignore the huge problems that are right in front of our faces, leaving them for future generations to solve. If we aren’t actively looking for solutions to problems like climate change and overpopulation, then there’s no way we’ll ever be able to solve them. By believing that “ignorance is bliss”, we’re basically handing off a ticking time bomb (full of problems that could potentially wipe out the human race) down to the next generation.
I agree with Hardin’s statement. I think that by ignoring large-scale problems and not actively trying to find a way to end them, we are only making matters worse and worse for generations down the road.
3.) I think the word “intolerable” is a bit too strong of a word to use in this situation. I think that it may be a good idea to put some regulations on procreating, but overall I think that our best option would be psychologically pressuring people or just educating people so they know how dangerous overpopulation can be for the human race.
The fact of the matter is that people will always make there own choices. whether or not the common good is involved in their cognitive ability to make choices, well that's up to them. It's in this regard I think Hardin dose have a valid point. If people don't consider the growing population as a problem, that's also up to them. Chances are they didn't even take that into account when they decided to have children. The fact that your a "adult" dosent mean you can think your way out of a paper bag and certainly doesn't mean that the responsibility of inhabiting a world with finite resources dosent aply to you. From that mindset I think he has a point. If people aren't educated about the state of the world (most people aren't) then you can't rely on their consciences to make decisions that effect the rest of the world as a whole. The growing population isn't a solvable problem, at least, not that way.
ReplyDelete2. This means that people who ignore the problems facing the world and go on with "business as usual" will be killed off by natural selection. It's exactly like the fable of the ant and the grasshopper! His point is doing nothing now will only hurt us later.
3. I think freedom do breed is intolerable. I agree. I must say I don't mean this in a negative way at all. Truth is people haven't had to face the facts of our real problems in the world. We are for the most part, sheltered from the bigger problems and bigger questions that are being asked. I think breeding should be regulated. Simply because it's our moral responsibility to take care of the earth for our own generations to come. And at the moment we aren't exactly helping with that. My final thoughts are we should educate people, we should help others to understand the ramifications of their actions, whether it's breeding, overpopulation, pollution, water use ect. We have to start taking care of our planet. No mater the cost.
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ReplyDelete1. Hardin makes it very clear that in his eyes, people simply can not be trusted in being able to control themselves when it comes to repopulation. This I see as 100% true for so many reasons and factors that revolve around the fact that it’s what we’ve done in the past/ it’s our norm.
ReplyDeleteMy first reason that I believe this, is what was mentioned in the “freedom to breed is intolerable” section of the reading. In a world like today, it is extremely easy to get resources. No longer do we as tribes have to be hunter-gatherers, living a lifestyle that entirely revolves around survival. That’s what supermarkets and suburbs are for! We don’t have to labor anywhere near as much as our ancestors did in collecting food and surviving, making it easier to provide for a larger population in a tribe or family. In the old days of the dinosaurs, there were direct and plain to see consequences when there was another mouth to feed. In modern times though, it has become easy to forget about this aspect of sustaining your family, making it naturally easier especially when financially stable to have a larger family.
My next example is sex. Reproduction is the only reason that life has been able to continue since organisms evolved from being asexual. The only reasons why species exist in an ecosystem are to take something, give something, and reproduce so that this process continues. That’s why evolution has made sex pleasurable, so that we won’t forget to reproduce and keep our niche in the ecosystem active. Back to when you’re hunting and gathering, there are no regulations on the commons at this time, so anyone can go around and collect what they want. But if this area is your turf, then you want to keep it that way. An effective way to do this is to make your tribe bigger so that you can scare away other tribes from your land, or even take their commons and make it yours. The problem that comes, is when this lifestyle is now drastically different, and there no longer is a need to fight your direct neighbor for food (again, yay for supermarkets!). It’s no longer as necessary as it was for your tribe’s survival to reproduce, but sex is still great. Our natural human instinct hasn’t changed enough yet to dull this, and since it is an activity of pleasure, that means that naturally people will continue to want to have sex at the same rate, just with more people. This along with the previous paragraph’s example of ease of living, creates population growth that is unnecessary and surpasses our earth’s natural capacity to feed top predators.
My final example relates to tradition, but more specifically pride. In other cultures, a large family is a symbol of success and pride. A great example of this is in the James Bond film I watched the other day, from Russia with love. A bulk of the movie takes place in Istanbul, where James is allies with Kerim Bey, a wealthy and powerful Bulgarian who in every scene has a different son of his doing a job. There are so many sons Kerim Bey has, that to our western societal view of this, it’s comedic. For Kerim Bey on the other hand, every time a son is brought in there is plenty of pride in the fact that they work diligently, and that there is an abundance of his bloodline. If having a large family is a good thing and not bad, then why would anyone need to have a small family? It is a marker of social status, so why should it matter if the world is overpopulated? That is exactly why a form of coercion may be needed to control this social mindset. China utilized this concept and it was effective enough to be considered worth it, so why can’t all other cultures adopt it to?
2. What Hardin means by having natural selection favor denial, is that the organism that consumes more of the commons than necessary, rather than just scraping by with the bare minimum, has more of an advantage with survival compared to other organisms in the same ecosystem. I totally agree with this because with these additional commons being used to your benefit, you have a greater ability to survive and be strong, keeping you ahead of the rest of your species.
DeleteAn example that I like to think of just off the top of my head are hockey players on my team. Let’s say that player A and player B are both the same position, of equal natural skill, equal physical strength, and in the past have a reputation for being equally as good on the ice. On game day, player A had a late night so he goes about his usual pre-game routine of waking up late and doing nothing active, having a pretty not-so-healthy meal, and showing up right on time so he has just enough time to hop on the ice and go play. Player B on the other hand has a different idea for what he will do to prepare for this game rather than his usual. The night before he fills up on chicken and pasta and is lights-out early. The next morning he wakes up early to go on a run and work out to get the juices flowing, with a breakfast full of energy and straight hype following. He then gets to the rink early so he can stretch out, stay hydrated, and prep up all of his gear exactly how he likes it to get fully in the groove. During the game player b kicks butt compared to player A because he used his resources better, and is in a better overall situation for success.
By taking advantage of the commons that you have and using up a little more than the others, you gain access to a new level of ability in strength, intellect, or additional resources, depending on what it is that you are being selfish of. These short term survival advantages may initially be great purely because you are more full, or you are kept warmer at night, but in the end these little things will turn into greater success and you will stay on the selected side of natural selection.
3. I feel like intolerable is a bit too harsh of a word to be used in this case, but at the same time I understand where Hardin is coming from and see fully the point he is trying to make. If I wasn’t aware of global issues, population growth would seem absurd to me to think that it’s a legitimate issue. For people to naturally conceptualize and consider an issue, it has to be at a scale that people can see. This is an example of something too big for that. Our earth is pushing it's maximum capacity for top producers like humans, and with that comes the wake of all of our bi-products from everyday life. Pollution, over-farming, destroying ecosystems, you name it has always come from humans, but never on such a large scale. Now that the amount of people is at it's highest ever, this makes for a greater effect of all the bi-products we produce. We’re at a time where nothing like this has ever happened in the world, and no one or anything including our planet is ready for 7.5 billion humans striving for the best living conditions possible.
Delete1. While Hardin’s argument about the ineffectuality of human consciousness does have some holes, there is still quite a bit of validity to his statement. I am a firm believer in the fact that nine times out of ten, humans will not choose the socially conscious option and generally hide themselves behind a curtain of purposeful ignorance as they do not want to face the consequences of their actions. It seems hopelessly optimistic to assume that people will just decide to turn around and do the right thing. However, that is not to say it never happens, only that such instances are preciously rare and it would be unwise to place the fate of our planet to such a fleeting happenstance. Social change does happen, but never quickly, and unenforced shifts in ideology about procreation would happen eventually, but not to everyone and not in time to make a dramatic enough change. Coercion would be needed to prompt people into making socially conscious decisions, but it must be done carefully as people tend not to take kindly to strict legislation. And of course more people would need to be educated on the effects of their decisions, as it is vital to any movement for people to understand the reasoning behind such a change.
ReplyDelete2. By saying “natural selection favors the psychological forces of denial”, Hardin is conveying the idea that the people who deny the fact that their selfish decisions are harming the world as a whole tend to have genetics that survive longer due to the fact that they procreate more and take advantage of the commons. People who ignore the damage they are causing by contributing to overpopulation tend to have more children, and their ideology is passed down to their above-average number of children and then those children have an above-average number of children and so on. People who make the moral decision to have fewer children simply are not as evolutionarily advantageous and due to this they pass on fewer copies of their genes and their ideology. This process makes sense in the animal kingdom, where having a higher population contributes positively to the continuation of the species as a whole. However, the human race has reached a point where we have turned the basic principles of evolution on their heads and are actually harming our own species by increasing our population, and there are no checks or balances to keep our population from continuing to grow besides limiting the population growth ourselves.
Natural selection also favors those who are greedy and use the commons to their advantage. These people will generally have more resources than those who do not and are actively taking resources away from others who are not as ruthless. These rapacious people will not go hungry, thirsty, or become ill (and if they did they would be able to afford medical care). They have higher qualities of life, which leads to more offspring and the continuation of their genes and way of life.
3. I agree with Hardin in that if humans continue on with their propensity for over reproduction, it will be “intolerable” in that it is unlikely the human race would survive for very long and would ultimately be the bringers of their own demise. However, to use this term in an open debate with the public would be unwise as it has very strong connotations. People like their rights, and the right to do with their own bodies as they see fit is a basic one that many people would not like to see taken away. A better way to state this point would be to say that is is unsustainable, and then to educate people as to why this is.
1. I agree with almost everything that Hardin says regarding overpopulation. Inherently people are greedy with just about everything including their freedoms. If someone has a right to do something chances are they’ll do that and if you try to limit that freedom they’ll put up a fight. The difficult thing about this problem in particular is that most humans see reproduction, or having a family, as a given thing in life, which for a lot of people it is. Surely some of these people know and understand the stress we’re putting on this finite planet with very limited resources but they can’t possibly see how their children, even if they have many, could possibly affect this on a global scale. So, in agreement with Hardin, unless actual spelled out restrictions are placed on reproduction nothing will ever change.
ReplyDeleteWhere this argument differs from other ones it may be compared to (such as smoking, which was globally popular but over time has decreased with societal pressures and reprimands) is in the fact that reproduction is such a natural thing which humans are born being able to do. It’s not just a trend which was proven to be harmful or over practiced. For some people it’s even crucial to their beliefs that you must have as many children as possible, or even, in some societies still, that having children is what women are supposed to do. With such varied and passionate views on this personal matter I just cannot be optimistic enough to assume that people will be able to conceptualise and understand the consequences that come with reproducing so recklessly enough to actually make any action in the direction of being more careful.
2. What I believe Hardin means by this is that those who ignore such problems as this tend to receive more immediate and individual gratification and even success, since they are just looking out for themselves. This seems completely and sadly true to me. I think this is a very flawed aspect of people, as we have the ability to actually effect the world around us with our actions, but we still aren’t evolved enough to see past ourselves. Such behavior, inconveniently, won’t ever really be punished at the source which is why it continues to flourish. It is exceedingly easy for people to just ignore what they know they should do and be made very happy by what they do instead.
3. Freedom to breed, in my opinion, is a freedom that we have abused to the point that we no longer deserve it at this time. As I have stated I don’t think that coercion or persuasion will make any real progress in this issue, I think we should probably act quickly and rather harshly as well. Even if awareness is growing and even if birth rates begin to go down slowly there’s just not a possibility in my mind that humans will suddenly manage this responsibly on their own. People, as it is, are out of control in more ways than just incessant reproduction, but ways that are also harmful to the environment, and we have far too much potential to cause far more harm. It seems to me that placing limits on reproduction is a quick and simple, although obviously controversial, fix to many of the major problems we are facing today. It won’t solve everything, but if there aren’t many people around to screw stuff up then stuff just won’t get screwed up quite as much.
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ReplyDelete1.I think that a change in ideology and attitude could be effective in some situations. Overpopulation is a huge problem that is going to have huge consequences, not just for individuals, but for the whole world. As humans, we tend to not care too much about the bigger picture and more just about ourselves as individuals, which is why we so often ignore big environmental problems and leave them for other generations to find the solutions. This generation will start to see some of the negative repercussions that overpopulation poses, and people will start to understand how it does affect them individually. However, in order for the majority of people to change their attitudes, it has to be talked about more, and people need to be educated about the subject and the process would take a very long time to solve the problem of overpopulation, and we need a solution faster than that. A more enforced solution may be a better option, because it would take less time. Plus, people are more likely to change if there is a consequence, but people also hate being told what to do so there may be more of a backlash.
ReplyDelete2.This means that people are so worried about themselves and being better than others, that they tend to ignore that what they do affects everything around them. People put their own need first, they don’t just want to survive, they want to thrive. I do agree with Hardin and feel as though human nature does often times get in the way of progress, and ignoring the problems definitely isn’t going to fix anything.
3.I wouldn’t say that I think the freedom to breed is intolerable. Intolerable seems like a rather harsh word. The point of life is to procreate, humans are meant to want to procreate, and not giving individuals the chance to do so almost seems cruel to me. I do feel as though plenty of people are not fit to be parents, or to spread their genes, but I don’t know. I think that breeding should be seen as a privilege rather than a right, but sometimes it’s an accident, so like ehhhhhh.
Hardin believes that the unenforcement of facing the population problem is the most logical answer to our deteriorating world. I agree with him in the sense that people are not going to see the dangers of having a lot of kids because it is not directly affecting them. It is effective to the greater good, but it is hard to see this because the effect is just a small chip of it. I liked how Hardin gave the example of an independent family who has their own finite recourse. The family members would start to notice that they couldn’t overexploit it; therefore they learn from experience that less people is better. A lot of the time, humans only learn from their actions and their experiences. The idea of having a big family has also been imbedded into American’s minds. This is because our biggest purpose on Earth is to reproduce, so it would be an extreme mental shift to change our whole unconscious motives in life.
ReplyDeleteHardin means that people’s denial that all our environmental problems are not “extreme” problems can be dealt with down the line. This is a huge killer because before we know it, recourses will run out and denial will have gotten the best of mankind. And this scares the hell out of me. One thing that I would like to point out is that our government has welfare, so those who are more dependent get their needs met. Natural selection in our contemporary society is a lot subtler because we have recourses like medicine and grocery stores that help us avoid situations that natural selection may occur. With our science nowadays it is a lot harder for people to die off. People think that we have built up our society so strong with these luxuries but the fact is it is doing the exact opposite. It is possible that birds are smarter than humans because they have learned to rationalize land and avoid competition because maybe intelligence is our biggest threat to our society, although these are very large statements for a 3-week AP enviro student to say.
What this means is that the family has inalliable rights to have as many children as they would like because they get to deal with the burden of it. This is definitely a right that supports the independent person, but for the greater good, it does not. Having a larger population takes away from the already limiting recourses. Obviously this is a very touchy subject because from a personal perspective, anyone should have the right to what they choose to do with their body, but from an environmental perspective, it seems blatant that the answer to our unsustainable ways is a smaller population. The battle between personal beliefs and environmental sustainability seems to be a huge problem in sustaining our planet. Ignorantly, I hope there is some type of loophole for saving our planet because it is going to take an inordinate amount of effort to change our genetic imperative.
1)I would love to believe that people have the moral conscious to try to make progress with the environment. Sadly, we all turn numb because it is scary for us to think about so we simply turn our head. I do think if more people were informed a lot of people would make a difference because they are no longer able to turn a blind eye to a problem. I also think that a majority of people would continue to not change even if they were educated. I think if countries were educated more, population would decrease. America (being a well educated country) nly on average has 1 or 2 kids where as other part of the world that are less educated have a much larger birth rate. I think a shift in our ideas is essential to happen in order to make change, but I also think there may need to be regulations on the amount of emissions countries put out.
ReplyDelete2)I believe what harden is trying to say in this quote is that people who refuse to make a change and continue to deny that we have a global problem of overpopulation and climate change will end up paying for their ignorance. Unfortunately I don’t believe this to be true. I do not think that the people who were ignorant in the past or decided to turn their eye to the damage they were making to the environment will really get to witness what they have done to our earth. I think it is falling on our generation to pick up what generations have done to destroy the earth. Look at oil companies who are willing to destroy ecosystems and leave a huge mess, to get rich. This leaves the aftermath for the next generation to deal with.
3)I feel a little torn on this issue. I think a lot of poor families depend on their kids in order to survive. I do not think that forcing someone to be on birth control or eugenics is the answer. I think that education is the biggest key. It is important that people have a right to an education and have options to have contraceptives if they need or want them. I do think though that there are too many people on this earth, and we are continuing to grow. There is a limit to how many people our earth can handle. I understand fully where harden is coming from when he states that freedom to breed is intolerable, but I think that mostly what we need is to inform people about overpopulation and how that can affect our earth.
1) I agree with Hardin’s argument that enforcement is necessary in regards to finding a solution to the population problem. Appealing to conscience is not enough to solving this issue because human nature is to view an issue on a personal level, not on a global scale. People view issues in terms of how they are personally affected, and if it does not affect them negatively, they have no reason to change their views. Without having any kind of enforcement, people may not feel the issue of overpopulation is important enough to make any kind of change, particularly if it does not directly affect them. People think of their own immediate future rather than the long term future of the planet. Without enforcement, people will continue to have as many children as they want. It’s possible that a change in attitude could happen over time, but it may not come quickly enough.
ReplyDeleteEnforcement promotes education, which creates a shift in attitude and causes people to be more aware of issues. Before wearing a seatbelt became a law, it was not a common practice. It wasn’t until a law was created and enforced, that ideology began to change. When my parents were growing up, it was normal for people to not wear seatbelt in cars, but today, it’s second nature to put the seatbelt on. Everyone knows the slogan “Click it or ticket.” If someone gets a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, they're going to wear it in the future and their attitude changes. If people feel personally affected, they're going to change their views. Enforcement causes an issue to become personal.
2) I agree with Hardin's statement that means that when you’re in denial, you are blissfully unaware that anything bad is going to happen to you. People in denial only think of themselves and they don’t think about how their actions affect others. A person who is in denial about overpopulation, pollution or climate change doesn’t think that these issues are a problem because to him or her, they don’t exist. Take a person who decides to live off the grid on public lands or in the woods somewhere. They're living and surviving only for themselves. He cuts down a bunch of trees to build a cabin in the woods with no regard for the environment. The clear cut causes erosion, which creates a mudslide that takes out his cabin and kills him. His action causes damage to himself, and the environment. Ultimately, if you’re selfish, karma's gonna bite you in the butt.
3) Hardin’s argument does make sense to some degree, but I feel that the word intolerable is too strong a word. With the world’s population growing exponentially, there does need to be more education on how this affects the planet. Although, I agree that the world's growing population is a problem, I also believe that everyone has a right to make choices on whether they want to have kids. Taking away personal freedoms is not a solution. China had a set rule that each family can have no more than one child, which seemed like a good idea to slow the population growth, but the law created unintended problems, like abortion of baby girls and an uneven ratio of males to females. What I think is intolerable is taking away the personal freedom to make choices regarding having children.
ReplyDelete1) I both agree and disagree with Hardin’s argument. In theory, any good person would listen to a point made toward the integrity of their conscience and not offend again. But as we all know, especially in the modern day, more and more people are acting on their own free will (and disregarding more decisions pertaining to their conscience). Thus, if left unenforced, some people would absolutely desist from exploiting the commons, while a growing number of people would continue exploiting the commons. Furthermore, as Hardin mentions, some people may assume that a request that has to do with one’s conscience means they’re being exploited for being “weak” and will go to even greater lengths to purposefully exploit the commons. With all of this taken into account, both the issue of a number of people just not listening to hits on the conscience and the issue of other people picking up “unintended communication,” an unenforced appeal to conscience is most likely in fact an unworkable real world solution (though in a perfect world, with everyone functioning as upstanding citizens, it would likely work, hence my partial agreement).
2) “Natural selection favors the psychological forces of denial” means that the people that are most likely to survive are also the people in denial of the needs of society and acting in their own best interest. If someone is going to act in their own best interest, they will act in a way that only needs to benefit themselves, which will mean exploiting the commons and taking more than their share. I agree with Hardin, but the statement is not a positive thing. The people that are denying the issue of the commons are the most likely to survive, which will lead to their reproduction, which will only continue the cycle on a larger scale each generation. If the cycle continues, with natural selection favoring those in denial, the world will only consist of people living to exploit the commons, which will run us all into the ground.
3) While “intolerable” is super harsh, I think the use of harshness is necessary for getting the point across. With complete freedom to breed, people will keep cranking out kids until we have too many people for the amount of resources available to any given community, and that’s something that could really sneak up on us. In some societies, more kids is equal to higher status, and that is something that needs to change real quick. Of course, many of the cultures where kids=status don’t even know the reality of the overpopulation happening in their own countries, let alone throughout the world. Another problem with the “freedom to breed” is that, in some cases, people just aren’t prepared to have kids. If you’re gonna have a kid you have to be ready to deal with a kid, and many people aren’t.
In short, I agree with his argument (for the most part, maybe presented in a slightly kinder manner) and people need to be educated on the population problem. People across the world also need to make sure they’re ready to have kids i.e. have the resources, funds, and space, as well as not have a big herd of them. Isn’t it enough to just have a kid or two and call it good?
ReplyDelete1) I do not think Hardin is giving humans enough credit when he states that the only solution to our population problem would be to legally enforce a lower reproduction rate. He says that as people, an appeal to conscious is not enough to convince us to solve our population problems; I’ve got a split opinion on this matter. On one hand I can recognize that people do not like to be told what to do, and most ordinary people will go the route of least resistance and take the easy way out, in life. It is true that by trying to appeal to our collective conscience, Hardin would probably miss the mark. But this is because globally, we share such different opinions and values, that sometimes the ‘consciencious’ choice can be different for each person. That is why our approach must be different, and an app real can be made to the sensibilities and intelligence of the world, using math, data, and personal anecdotes to allow them to educate themselves on the dangers of overpopulation. When faced with unbiased, new data, we can still be apprehensive, but allowing people to read material for themselves and chose to lower our reproductive rates on their own is much more empowering to our species. We've seen this many times over in different cultures, such as after the reforms of the civil rights era, and our modern change towards more earth-friendly energy. Change is hard, but it is nonetheless a constant process necessary for survival.
2) This statement of his, I don’t quite agree with; in itself natural selection solely favors those who are better suited to it’s environment. While it is true that those of us who try and change the status quo often encounter obstacles, I do not think that act of denial itself can be seen as more than trivial in a specie's survival. While it might seem that those who remain unaware of issues like overpopulation are the ones who carry on, they are still shouldering the burden our overpolation has become, and they will continue to until we can quell our numbers.
3) Reproductive freedoms are a right that we should never bar to humanity-as is the right to decide when not to reproduce. For this reason, we need to focus on improving conditions for women in developing nations (and even here in the states. I’m looking at you, Texas and Ohio) and allowing them to take charge of their lives, their future, and by consequence, their reproductive choices. Less 'freedom to breed' and more, going freedom and rights to those who do the actual growing of those being born. How to we control the population? By educating and liberating women around the world, and giving them access to birth control if they so choose it, and destigmatizing options for abortions. The criminal system being implemented in some South American countries to lock up women with 'suspicious' miscarriages is unacceptable.
What is really intolerable, I believe, is that it in 2016 we still have to argue for these rights.
(1) I agree with Hardin's argument...mostly. I believe that humans tend to be very selfish and greedy and that simply appealing to conscience is not the best way of solving the population problem. I also do believe that it is surprising how much can get done when people are selfless and are willing to give things up in order to solve a problem. Most people live in their own little bubble. When they make the decision to have five children, they are not thinking of the overpopulation the world is facing, but are thinking of the adorable babies they will get to hold. If people were more informed on how their decisions to have more than a couple children affected their environment, I believe, or at least hope, that being educated would change their mind. It is important for families to think long term. If it became common practice to not just think how your decisions affects just you, but generations to come attitudes and ideologies can shift. The process may take a long time, and is not a easy fix, but it can be done.
ReplyDelete(2) When Hardin writes “natural selection favors the psychological forces of denial” he is saying that those who are selfish and do not think how their actions will affect the world are generally the people who have the most children. They procreate not thinking about the stress it will put on their surrounding environment, but only look how it will help them (happiness, wealth….) Those who do think about the world around will have less children who have similar ideology as their parents. I would have to agree with this idea. Basically, this mean that there are more ignorant people who are living in denial and fewer people who are not.
(3) I believe that intolerable is a poor way to describe one's freedom to procreate. I do believe that the world is in a severe overpopulation crisis. Our current population growth continues to increase, which is extremely unsustainable. One cannot say that the reason for a consistently high birth rate is simply caused by the freedom to have as many children as one pleases. The issue is the lack of education of sex, birth control, etc. We are at the point where we can try and lower the population, but we must start now. For certain countries like China and India with some of the largest populations on the planet, it may be necessary to implement rules on the number of children a household can have. But, for the time being, increasing the amount of education on basic health, environmental, and economical benefits of having fewer children is vital in other countries as well as our own.
1)
ReplyDeleteHardin’s argument, while having very strong and rational reasoning (that I completely agree with) is far too radical to work. In the United States, our population so large with such varying values. These discrepancies in values are especially apparent now as our political system grows more and more divided. A large chunk of the The United States flails like a headless chicken at the mere thought of revoking their rights to own guns. How do you think they would react to revoking their right to reproduce? It would simply not fly. Simultaneously, a large chunk of the United States is appalled at the lengths people will go to protect guns and not protect people. In regards to monitored population control, I think an equal situation would ensue. One side would be all for it, while the other would completely detest it. We don’t have to use propaganda to appeal to the conscience of the masses. We can use education! The more people are informed of the effects of overpopulation and how to have sex safely, the more likely people will be to make responsible decisions.
2)
I interpreted this as: Denial benefits the survival of the individual, but denial destroys a population. I agree to a certain point. Short term, yes. Long term, no. Short term, denial can let a person run another, less fortunate, out of opportunities or resources. in short term, denial can let a person outlive many people. But long term, and with many people in denial opposed to just one, resources and opportunities would be snaked out from under on another in a blink. Our planet cannot restock resources at a rate fast enough to keep up with greed and denial among the masses. And I talk of greed and denial because essentially they exist alongside each other. Living in denial, refusing to see that our actions cause harm, often happens because we benefit from those harmful actions and we don’t want to give those up.
3)
I completely agree that people need to parent responsibly. In a world where the consequences of our ill-planned decision making hardly ever lead to the natural punishment of death, having children NEEDS to be a decision and people NEED to be aware of what that decision means for the planet and not just for themselves.
ReplyDelete1) I believe Hardin is correct in assuming that the mere idea of over-population will not be enough to curb the problem. Hardin quotes Darwin in the article in saying that, “It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience. “ The idea that at the root of things, humans are selfish creatures is a somewhat irrefutable fact of life. People need more than just the idea of over-population in the backs of their minds. This is not something that would really effect anyone’s decision. Just consider how many couples consider over-population while weighing the pros and cons of having a child, honestly have no idea but I’m guessing not that many. Point is, people need something concrete to hold onto rather than just an idea.
Hardin talks of humans living rationally to maximize their own gains. This mindset is completely true if you look at it logically. I’m not saying that there aren’t acceptations to the general rule; I think there are people who chose to devote their lives to making decisions based off other things than personal gain. I also think that this requires an actual conscious effort, so looking at the general population it is more realistic to assume the approach that Hardin mentions. Hardin uses the farmer and the cows to illustrate this point. He is comparing the cow to any way that humans use our natural recourses (or commons). This would include the decision to have another child or to pollute, despite long-term detrimental effects to the environment.
2) What Hardin means by this is that many humans are in denial of just how big this problem is. People are perfectly happy to ignore the issue at hand and not feel guilty to contributing to the problem. Because of the simple fact that over-partaking in the commons is something that most people do, the diffusion of responsibility takes place. The mind set of, “well everyone ELSE is doing it too” is really what Hardin is getting at.
3) I agree that if there is going to be a change, we certainly must rely on something besides just people’s will to do good. That is how it works with laws and that is how it should work with this issue as well. However, I find Hardin’s perspective on welfare a very watered-down and unrealistic version of the truth. Hardin makes the argument that our society encourages those who cannot have children to do it anyways because of the systems that our society has put in place to assist families in need. He says, “To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action.” The issue of impoverished people having children is simply not that black and white. The system of poverty and being under-educated also contribute to the problem of people having more children than they can handle. I wouldn’t say that our society “encourages” this behavior. It is just unfair to assume that people who don’t have the recourses that many people are lucky enough to have should not be assisted.
1 - I agree with Hardin'a argument. If you do not explain to the public how important their impact is on the earth individually, they will not understand you when you try to tell them the impact their children would have on the environment. Basically everyone is self centered to a point, and if topics don't affect them in some way, then they will not care. We need to explain the difference between the impacts of having recreational sex and sex for making babies. And if a person decides to have children we need to install into their brains the grave impact of what they are choosing to do. I also believe that people should have a license to have children, and a limit, because lots of people bring children into the world because they think that it's what the have to do, or they just want one as an accessory. We need to focus on the children that need our help now, before we try to bring more into the problem.
ReplyDeleteIt is proven that when you educate 3rd world countries about birth control, and protected sex, that less children were were born. Despite religion and common house hold traditions. If people listen to the information that is being given to them, and believe it, it will become affective. Most people like to think their greatest thoughts come from their self, when really it came from someone else. People believe themselves the most. So I do believe that if you educate, then progress will happen.
2- We don't think we can get prego, so we take risks. So we are more likely to take risks with someone we find attractive or smart, than not attractive and dumb. I do agree with him. I agree because of birds, and gorillas. Birds always choose the most flashy bird, because it is telling them that they have the best DNA to perpetuate the species. Which is one of their main purposes. For Gorillas, they only try to mate with the head honcho, because they know that it'll continue the species. Human have that same animal instinct to procreate to perpetuate human kind.
3- I agree with Hardin's argument. Just because you can get prego doesn't mean you'll be a good parent, or should become prego. Ex; just because you can have something doesn't mean you should have it. Meaning that having it may benefit you for a little while, doesn't mean it won't harm things around you in the long term.
1) There is great truth in what Hardin says about population. There are also powerful contradictions to his point as well. There is a great dilemma here. For we have seen that over time appealing to the conscience of people can have impressive effects. Over time. Similar to what Hardin says on pg. 32 “It may well be that it would take hundreds of generations for the progenitive instinct to develop in this way;...". In the time it would have to take us for appealing to conscience to be relatively effective, I believe in that time it may be too late. By that time I believe overpopulation will be an even greater threat to the good of humanity and this earth because the more time it take to appeal to conscience, the population is growing exponentially until it plateaus but by that time Environmental resistance takes its effect. I find it important that leadership and government take action to regulate and maintain guidelines on breeding. Wherever there's a rule however, there's a rule breaker. Wherever there's smoke, there's fire water. So in my opinion a mix of appealing to conscience and implementing jurisdiction. Appeal to the conscience of humankind to prod his/her interest and knowledge of the matter through education, such as AP Environment classes, Health classes, as well as through common life, ad campaigns, non-profit campaigns, etc. Then once the appeal to conscience has made ground somewhere, laws can be more effective when rooted into a cared about issue. I do believe that Hardin's argument underestimates a lot of the power of shift in ideology. Appealing to conscience can sometimes have great effects on popular ideology. A sudden or gradual but quick shift can have a great impact. We have seen it a lot recently. These days we have much much different ideology amongst the up and coming generations than the generations from not just 40 years ago. Our very accepting views towards secual identity and preference. Things like this among our culture now have just recently become a large part of our ideology. Shifts can have great effects. You just need to find the path to allow for a shift. There are also issues that have not seen a powerful enough shift and need more concrete action, like our war on drugs, and racism. I do believe Hardin excludes shift in ideology from his argument, but perhaps because at his time he couldn't the effects such shifts could had. Or he recognized some things cannot change very easily due to ideological changes.
ReplyDelete2) This has a very important meaning. What it is really saying is that the power of denial within humans will lead to our eventual demise. To delve a little deeper it is saying, when we make most decisions we are knowingly or unknowingly in absolute denial; we believe that our actions have nothing but a positive effect on us, and no effects whatsoever on the rest of our community or world. Our denial leads to mistaken actions that natural selection with easily take care of. Nature has selected those whose denial blinds them and destroys them. Hardin makes a strong argument and I would have to agree with him. Our denial will be our demise. Our ignorance towards specifically environmental issues is so obviously our doom. The more and more we deny facts the worse it gets. The more we deny the effects of greenhouse gasses, global warming, and the occurrence of general climate changes, the more we are setting ourselves up for our end. So I do agree.
My initial post exceeded the character limit so here is my answer to question 3
ReplyDelete3) I agree with Hardin's argument that the freedom to breed and breed and breed would be, lets says, detrimental. Would I describe it has Intolerable? perhaps to some extent of the word. I prefer to say detrimental. If we continue to have or even increased absolute freedom to breed our population and world will see no greater doom. It's a direct cause of overpopulation. Overpopulation affects our available resources, our climate, our consumption of resources, etc. All producing even more effects that harm our world and ourselves. I feel very strongly about overpopulation and absolute freedom to just ooze children as Mr.E would say is a red flag.
1- For the most part I agree with his statement. It would be nice if an appeal to conscience worked but in reality it never does. He wrote this paper about 50 years ago and in that time the world population has showed no signs of slowing down and stopping. People have tried and failed with the appeal to conscience and for the population to actually slow down it seems that the only possible way for it to work is to enforce it. In general people already hold firm worldviews and a simple appeal to conscience won’t be enough to change that. I don’t think his argument ignores changes in attitude, I think he believes that drastic changes in attitude are unlikely to happen for everyone on the entire planet. Even if 80% of the population was on board with his population solution, if the other 20% are the ones who have the most children it doesn’t matter and no progress can be made without enforcing his plan and I think he believes this so he focused on a specific plan to curb the growth.
ReplyDelete2- I think what he is saying is that the people who are in denial and don’t care about these issues are the people who typically do better. Those who deny what they're doing is wrong can keep benefiting while those who are not in denial are harmed and don’t get the benefits. I absolutely agree with this assertion. For a more modern day example, the companies that pollute all the time and deny they are doing any harm keep benefiting and making a ton of money. However, for those who understand that polluting is bad, they will be conscientious which will lead to them falling behind while still getting the negative effects from those in denial.
3- I think he makes a solid point that people have too many kids but this continues the trend of telling other people what to do while not doing anything yourself. The main problem is that when we talk about the population crisis we always use the solution of just forcing people to have less children which always affects someone other then the person making the argument. For the most part the people who make this argument live a high class lifestyle that is inherently unsustainable and they always tell someone other then themselves to change. In the United States people fly all the time, drive all the time, eat way more then they need to and in general consume the resources that makes the world completely unsustainable and makes overpopulation an issue. Research has shown that if everyone lived a US lifestyle only 2 billion people would be sustainable on Earth and many people believe that that is being too generous. Even if everyone could only have 2 kids the problem still comes down to the fact that the first world lifestyle is unsustainable. The problem wouldn’t be solved if this limit was put into effect, sure it would help, but it wouldn’t solve the larger issue. For example, China has had a one child policy for years now but in that time things only got worse because the standard of living has kept rising. Even if the US and Europe followed suit and put a 1 or 2 child limit into effect the lifestyles everyone wants and expects to live would still lead to major problems. The true issue is that the only long term plan that would work would require people to either take a drastic cut in their lifestyle (which no one wants to do), keep the 3rd world from developing (which is selfish) or by cutting the population from 8 billion down to below 4 billion (which a child limit wouldn’t do). So well I agree that people should have less children, I believe it should be an informed choice, but that in reality this completely ignores the bigger issue.
1) I feel that Hardin is right to think that people will not answer the call to the population problem just by having the thought put in their mind. The main problem about overpopulation is that for many, at least in the United States, it does not have an immediate effect on them, therefore even if the idea is there, I’m afraid society is far too short sighted to do anything to address the problem. Just having the idea floating around in people’s minds is not sufficient to make people change what they want to do. We as humans are stubborn and generally are opposed to changing the way we are no matter the reason, even if said reason is the survival of our planet/species. Take global warming for example, it’s something we are all aware of, yet only a select few step up to help, Just like hardin stated about overpopulation, “ some people will undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others.” I just feel that we in normal society don’t care enough to really go out of our way to make a difference, there are outliers, but I just feel that we are not capable of making a sacrifice like this for the greater good. For some, having children is a divine duty, so I don’t think that many will want to give that up and for others what they want goes above all else, we as humans bask in a virtue of selfishness. Perhaps over time people will would start to act on this notion of overpopulation, but until it really started hurting the masses, i don't feel anyone would care enough to act.
ReplyDelete2) What Hardin is saying when he says, “natural selection favors the psychological forces of denial,” is that for most people, ignoring a problem or denying it is easier than facing it head on. That what they may be doing is not adversely affecting their immediate setting or state of being. Even though with what they are doing, there are repercussions on a grander scale, for them it is out of sight, out of mind. It's like being oblivious to the problem will make it disappear, and born from this ignorance is the notion that exacerbating the situation/problem with foolish actions will not affect it whatsoever is dense. I somewhat agree with Hardin’s statement, though I still feel that natural selection also favors the organism most suitable to their environment, survival of the fittest as it were.
3) I’m not sure how much I agree with the freedom to breed being intolerable, as in the right to breed must be taken away, but I do agree that we as a species definitely need to regulate ourselves. People want kids, many feel it is an experience of life they need, they feel encouraged by religion to do so, and they want to prolong their gene/family line. Most in society feel obligated to have children. I feel that in some cases, ridicule awaits those who don’t want children. I think that people, on a global scale, need to seriously think about the benefits of children and the cons as well. I think a great way to regulate breeding is to educate people on the issues of overpopulation and also the pros and cons of bringing children into the world. What I mean is that it is a problem of resources, like Hardin said, “ A finite world can support only a finite population,” so people need to open their eyes and realize the toll of having children has on our resources. Not to discourage people about having children, but we just need to step back and think before making a decision that has such an effect on the world.
1. I agree with the point Hardin is making. In society today, you can present someone with a decision that has an outcome that may be good for others, and one that may negatively affect others, and people won't always make the right decision. So simply stating and putting out there the fact that, yeah, us as humans are overpopulating the world. And yeah, sometime in the near future it may be affecting SOME of us, isn't enough to get those who are to self-centered to care about the damages to others, to stop there ways. If people aren't informed on how it can and WILL affect them personally, they won't be inclined to change there ways. Now educating individuals and communities can only help. Standardizing sexual education courses that are required to take, can only help us in taking steps to conquering the long term problem that we are facing.
ReplyDelete2. I believe Hardin is proposing that natural selection deals with those who deny the problems we are all facing and try to pretend they aren't happening. The selfish who only focus on themselves will be the first to be affected/suffer from the natures natural selection. I don't really agree with this though because I feel like people who are self-centered tend to not care about the problems that they're creating and may become successful because of it. This ends up damaging the people around them and in communities more than any punishment they face, for the most part.
3. I believe humans were created with the desire and want to procreate. And it's part of our culture, most people want to have a healthy family, with children, and us as people have the freedom to do so. But with the reality of the problem, Hardin would be correct to saying taking the freedom away would help make big steps towards a solution, but saying that it is intolerable isn't a ethical way of stating it. The fact is, there isn't any way to approach this that wouldn't be "stepping on anyone's toes" so to speak.