Rand Simberg wrote:

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 03:19:46 GMT, in a place far, far away, Dick
Morris made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Endless population growth does not work on a finite planet.

I've never proposed endless population growth.

You've never admitted to any particular physical limits that I've seen
either.

It seemed beside the point, since we're so far from them it's not
worth discussing. Obviously if we were to somehow get to the point at
which the entire mass of the planet were converted to writhing blob of
humanity, that would be overdoing it.

Is that your limit? Don't see any limits short of turning the Earth
into a writhing blob of humanity?


I recommend a book called "Overshoot..." by
Catton, which may clear up some things.

I doubt it.

Of course you do: It's not "politically correct".

Au contraire, it's probably the ultimate in political correctness.
It's people like Julian Simon and Bjorn Lomborg who aren't politically
correct.

Do you mean to tell me that you cannot see the rampant political
correctness on the anti-environmental right?

You obviously have no idea what political correctness means.

I saw enough of it on the radical left to know it when I saw it on the
radical right. I was a conservative for 40 years, so I had a belly full
of it by the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the right adopted the
environmental movement as it's new bogeyman. I know political
correctness whenever I see someone refuse to answer a question and back
up their opinion with facts.

Ehrlich? You're joking, right?

If you think it's all a joke, then you're the one who is not to be taken
seriously.

Sadly, it's not a joke, because people like Ehrlich have caused
needless suffering and misguided millions through his fundamental
ignorance of ecology, technology and economics.

Were you, by any chance, a business major?

Apparently you failed to notice that your hero, Julian Simon, was
utterly clueless about ecology and technology, and managed to delude
himself into thinking that the issue was strictly about economics.
Remember how we were going to make copper from other metals? Ehrlich is
a biologist who has forgotten more about ecology than all the right-wing
anti-environmentalists put together will ever know. You might explain
how Ehrlich caused suffering by warning people of what was coming.

Poverty is largely caused by misgovernment, not by overpopulation per
se, even at our current technology level.

I see you didn't have a response to this.

I've gotten the impression that you think ALL government is
"misgovernment", so I wasn't sure if there was any point in arguing.

No, not all government, but most governments in Africa and Latin
America are misgovernments. As is Europe to a lesser degree.

Bad government policies are one way to impoverish people, but not the
only way. Without access to sufficient resources, prosperity is
impossible, regardless of government policies.

You continue to not realize that people themselves are the ultimate
resource.

Try "energy". Remove the entire civilized world and the tribal peoples
in the Amazon, etc. would never notice. Turn off the Sun and everybody
dies in a remarkably short time.

Even if we could magically institute good government all over the world
tomorrow, the improvement in sustainability would only buy us some
time. Population growth would eventually outstrip the increase in
agricultural production.

Eventually being the operative word. It's not a worry for you, or
your children, or your grandchildren.

You keep saying things like that, and keep failing to back them up with
any substantive reasons, other than vague assurances that the free
market, or something, will provide.

Nothing vague about it at all. It always has, and there's no reason
to think that it won't continue to.

Nothing vague about that answer! I give you reasons and you ignore
them, except to delete them from your replies.