From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Population (was Re: Greens vs. Property Rights)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.93Jan4212425@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1993Jan5.065509.16679@netcom.com>
Date: 4 Jan 93 23:47:17

In article <1993Jan5.065509.16679@netcom.com> ladasky@netcom.com (John J. Ladasky II) writes:

   In article <JMC.93Jan4212425@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
   >Why does Mr. Ausman thinks the world could not sustain 6 billion
   >people at the U.S. standard?  This is merely a fashionable idea
   >of the literary culture.  There is no resource limitation that
   >prevents even 30 billion from living at the U.S. standard.  Beyond
   >that, it might be hard.
   >--
   >John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
   >*
   >He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
   >

	   John, please substantiate your claim that "there is no resource
   limitation that prevents even 30 billion from living at the U.S. standard."
   This sounds like straight Heritage Foundation talk to me without any 
   further support.  I need look no further than the roughly two billion
   malnourished people in the world to realize that the world is well beyond
   its sustainable carrying capacity.  And, lest you think that the high-tech,
   near-zero-population-growth countries, like the U.S., are immune to food
   crises, are you aware that the Midwestern water table is dropping an average
   of twenty feet per year?  We'll exhaust it eventually.

	   Now for another question: given that the Earth could support 
   30 billion people "at the U.S. standard," would it be desirable to do so?
   We're having trouble finding work for the people we have now.

   -- 
   == John J. Ladasky II

1. If the Heritage Foundation said so, maybe they substantiated it.
They do respectable studies.

2. The 30 billion is based on a National Academy of Sciences study
of some years ago about food.  As for everything else, name what you
suppose to be a limiting resource.  Name two, and I'll discuss them.

3. I think that the water table that is declining is over the dry
parts of the Middle West.  When it becomes necessary, water can
be transported from the Mississippi and Missouri.  It will be
expensive, but it will be done.

4. The two billion malnourished people are less malnourished than
before the Green Revolution, and there is a lot more where that
came from.

5. If two billion malnourished people proves that more people
can't be sustained, what about ancient famines, when the world
population was much smaller.  There was an 18th century famine
in Bengal that killed 10 million people according to the Britannica.
It was the largest famine in history until the Chinese Great Leap
Forward.

6. I have no argument that there ought to be 30 billion people.

7. Finally, it is unrealistic to regard population as a global
problem.  The U.S. has no present population problem, and it
is silly to suppose that the U.S. will undertake unnecessary
population control measures to serve as an example or that
anyone else would pay attention if we did.  China considers
itself to have a population problem and is doing something
about it.  We could contribute technology, but various forms
of stupidity on the left and the right prevent it.  The right
doesn't like anything that looks even remotely like abortion.
The left, through its anti drug company hysteria promoted
safety standards that prevent new contraceptives from being
tested in the U.S.

To recapitulate, name two resources that you think prevent
sustaining a population of 6 billion at U.S. standards.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

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