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Re: The Limits To Growth



In article <3288d4b4.6423368@nntp.ix.netcom.com> masonc@ix.netcom.com (Mason A. Clark) writes:
 > 
 > On 12 Nov 1996 20:37:15 GMT, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
 > 
 > > masonc@ix.netcom.com (Mason A. Clark) wrote:
 > > 
 > > >4.  The acidity of the "no limits" posters is not buffered by 
 > > >     the fact that the worriers may have some points and may, by 
 > > >     their anti-Pollyanna program be a major factor in postponing
 > > >     the time of reckoning.
 > >  
 > > Mason,
 > >  
 > > This is perfectly plausible, but is not in fact true.  Us acid tongued
 > > ones are the people who are in fact creating useful and usable
 > > mechanisms or reckoning -- cost benefit analysis, international
 > > treaties, arrests on the high seas, etc. etc.  There is of course more
 > > to be done, and we're doing it.
 > >  
 > > The people you quite conservatively call Pollyannas are doing nothing
 > > useful; if anything they harm the cause they claim to support,
 > > bringing legislation, regulation, and negotiation into disrepute by
 > > demanding laws and rules which are harmful and impotent.  The
 > > Environmental Protection Agency in its first flush of ukases is an
 > > example of such laws and rules, and it is only now, 20 years later,
 > > that the agency is becoming practical enough to do more good than
 > > harm.
 > >  
 > >                                 -dlj.
 > 
 > It appears that I mislead David and perhaps everyone with a kind of 
 > negative-positive: "anti-Pollyanna".
 > 
 > The Pollyannas are the ones believing all is well, nothing can go wrong,
 > unlimited growth is possible at least for the farthest forseeable future.
 > By this definition, McCarthy would qualify (and that is NOT an insult).
 > The anti-pollyannas to which I referred are the Jay Hansons and Ehrlichs 
 > who fear something will go wrong, in fact are terrified.
 > 
 > With that understood, I repeat my plea for buffering of the acid:
 > 
 > > >4.  The acidity of the "no limits" posters is not buffered by 
 > > >     the fact that the worriers may have some points and may, by 
 > > >     their anti-Pollyanna program be a major factor in postponing
 > > >     the time of reckoning.
 > 
 > May I add, I would be terrified by a world of Pollyannas.  But please 
 > don't tell my Quimby - New Thought friends.

It is not my position that "unlimited growth is possible at least for
the farthest forseeable future."  I argue in my Web site

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/

that 15 billion can be supported at the U.S. level of material
consumption.

I also do not claim that "nothing can go wrong".  My ideas of what the
dangers are differs considerably from that of the political environmentalists.
However, I have discussed the *possibility* that global warming will
occur *and* turn out to be harmful and have discussed ways of mitigating
the danger - again not the same ways as those advocated by the
ideological environmentalists.  A position that it is appropriate to
wait is not a position that nothing can go wrong.

(I do not regard Mason Clark's misreading of my position as an insult).
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.



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