Comment by fatjonny | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fatjonny | Hacker News Reader

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I recently started thinking about this after reading Garrett Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons essay from 1968 about the "population problem". After reading the essay I started on his 1993 book Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos. I just passed the halfway mark in it, but I highly recommend it if you like his essay and the way he presents ideas. The book really does a good job of covering the evolution of the ideas of population control from Malthus onwards.

The essay Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor from 1974 is probably the essay available online that is more applicable to the current discussion.

I do not yet have a well-formed opinion on this one way or the other, I simply find Garrett Hardin's arguments to be thought-provoking. Saving millions of lives will mean that those millions of lives need to be sustained in some way. The resources to do this have to come from somewhere. By saving those millions of lives is that going to lower the quality of life of millions of others? It is a tough problem with, as Hardin mentions, "no technical solution".

Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_et...

Tragedy of the Commons essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...

It's not a tough problem. Think about it this way. Imagine you and your mom, your wife , your siblings are born and lived in a poor country. And they get sick. Will you want to save them because they deserve to be alive? Or will you want to let them die just because they could be a burden to the already poor society. Just let all loved one dies? How difficult it is to answer this question? Oh, that's because it's somebody else's moms so just let them die so that the society has enough resources for the rest?

The problem I am referring to in my post is the overall population problem of the world. There are a finite number of resources to sustain the population on this planet and we currently have a very high population growth rate in the world. At some point, the resources we have won't be enough. That is the overall problem.

I am fully aware that if someone close to me was sick that I would do what I could to help them. It doesn't change the problem. I was replying to a question about unintended consequences. One of the potentially unintentional consequences of this is that it might make a lot more people suffer in the future overall.

It is a tough problem.

> Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_et....

I can't believe I never read that before - thanks for link. Disagree with a good bit (I'm very pro-immigration/open borders to anyone who can support themselves) but the discussion on how programs like Food For Peace are lobbied hard and silently for by businesses who stand to profit was crazy. Wow, what an interesting summary. Can't believe I haven't seen that one before.

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