RE: Can You Live Forever? Esquire article

Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Wed, 12 May 1999 14:22:40 -0500

J. R. Molloy wrote:
> Don't forget that most of the world seeks to rise to the level of
$10,000.00
> per capita populations. To do so, they'll have to deplete five times more
> resources than developed nations have already done.

No problem. The myth of limited natural resources has been debunked so thoroughly on so many occasions that it is amazing anyone with any sense could still believe it. I highly recommend Julian Simon's works for a detailed look at why the meme of limited resources doesn't describe the real world.

> It doesn't make sense to kill the canary that might warn of danger in the
> mine. (The dead canary's DNA can't serve the same purpose.)

So, we must preserve everything as it is or suffer dire consequences? Someday we'll need those snail darter? You should know better than that. This whole idea was dreamed up by people who worship nature (often literally) as an excuse to justify their desire to sacrifice humanity on the alter of conservation.

There is no good reason to believe that their concerns are real. The species that we actually depend on for survival are in no danger at all. Exotic species have some limited significance as sources for new drugs, but that is rapidly diminishing as our ability to design such things improves. The only real risks I see are to the tourism industries of the third world.

There are real arguments to be made in favor of ecological preservation, but they rest purely on moral and/or esthetic grounds. From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, we can convert the entire planet into farms, ranches and shopping malls without endangering ourselves in the slightest.

> Excellent start. Now we just need to do the same for South America,
Africa,
> and Asia.

I would say that is up to the South Americans, the Africans, and the Asians. In purely practical terms, the only thing we could do about it is conquer them and force them to do things our way - something I doubt any of us would support.

You're welcome to try and persuade them to clean up their act, of course, and I wish you luck. However, you ought to recognize the fact that is where the battle is - America and Europe already believe in conservation, and we already devote more resources to such projects than can be justified on purely practical grounds.

> "racist"? What a stretch! You've gone silly on me..

I doubt it applies to you, but it does accurately describe the ideas of many influential Green thinkers. They hate humanity, and believe that animals and plants are morally superior beings. They believe that human needs must be sacrificed in a quest to preserve every ecological system on Earth in a state of eternal stasis, no matter what the cost to us may be. If that isn't racism (or, to turn around one of their favorite terms, "speciesism"), what is?

Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com