Submission + - Should we have the right to breed? 11
An anonymous reader writes: I just finished reading Garret Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons and I'm having a little trouble coming to grips with it. In the essay Hardin argues that in a world with finite resources we must stabilize the population at less than the carrying capacity in order to maintain quality of life. However, "Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The differences will be accentuated, generation by generation." Hardin therefore suggests that we must legally restrict freedom to breed.
However such restrictions would require a invasion of our privacy to a degree that strikes me as simply intolerable. But I'm curious, what do slashdot readers think? Is Hardin's logic sound? If it is, is controlling the population important enough that we should give up what we have long accepted as some of our most basic rights in order to achieve it?
However such restrictions would require a invasion of our privacy to a degree that strikes me as simply intolerable. But I'm curious, what do slashdot readers think? Is Hardin's logic sound? If it is, is controlling the population important enough that we should give up what we have long accepted as some of our most basic rights in order to achieve it?
