Sedna, space probes?, colonies? what's next?

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 04:01:33 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?

Probably, but again, they're theoretical, not of relevance to a
discussion about whether we're currently "overpopulated," or even
close to it.

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.

Not being now, or ever, a conservative, I wouldn't know.

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?

No, multiple degrees in engineering and engineering management (one of
which was engineering science, something that environmentalists seem
to take no interest in).

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.

By warning of things that were coming that never came.

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.

Nor would wolfpacks. What's your point?

Turn off the Sun and everybody dies in a remarkably short time.

Yes. So?