From: "Ed Glaze III" <eglaze@vsta.com>
To: "PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK" <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: Fw: overpopulation  &  Malthus
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 12:53:32 -0600
Message-ID: <01be1580$3c3ed320$516039cc@eglaze.vsta.com>
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My statement on valuing infants based in the "context of
having to reduce population" and I also said, "Hopefully,
the world of today will realize the threat we face and we
can avoid having to make such reprehensible, but
necessary decisions."

What we, as a species, are doing is already chilling enough
without having to deal with overpopulation. I base my opinions
primarily on an environmental viewpoint, not on the man-made
systems of morals, religion, or economics which, though
important in regulating human affairs, do not supercede the
limits placed on us by nature -- which we have done our best
to bypass and ignore.
<http://208.240.253.224/page34.htm>

Humans have no problem thinning herds of game animals
or cattle when they exceed their carrying capacity. Humans
are also quick to eliminate any animal that poses a threat to
them, their property, their crops or cattle. Even a perceived
threat or a single instance is usually enough to cause a quick
retaliation often bordering on slaughter. But we refuse to
recognize that humans are just another animal and the
same rules should apply.
<http://bluegoose.arw.r9.fws.gov/NWRSFiles/WildlifeMgmt/WildlifeMgmtIndex.ht
ml>

Co-opting ecosystem resources, habitat degradation, and
species extinction are accepted by almost all humans as a
cost of progress and necessary to support ourselves. Is it
right that the biodiversity of nature sacrifice because one
specie chooses to breed uncontrollably?
<http://dieoff.org/page83.htm>

Valuing human lives is nothing new.
<http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/gec/fellsumm/broome.htm>
Humans are also quick to value most everything else around
them. We live most of our lives, measure how successful we
are, and compete with each other through economics.
For example, after an airplane crash the insurance companies
even haggle over the settlement amounts.

Applying the principle of marginal utility when we have an excess
of anything, including people, means that each additional unit of
increase has less utility (value) than the previous one.
<http://www.humboldt.edu/~ee3/econ104/topics/marginal/index.html>
If we place the breakeven point for humans at a sustainable
long-term level then most people would say we have overshot our
carrying capacity already. Therefore each additional birth is an
extra, probably unnecessary burden on the environment.
<http://iisd1.iisd.ca/ic/info/ss9506.htm>

As far as my valuation of infants the point I was making is that
if a human life is worth the least at its earliest stages -- before
society has investing in its education and support. At that point
all that exists of that life is potential which in a world increasing
by about 80 million per year in not worth much at all.

I did not intend to imply any value differences in births to different
people, births to different races, births in different countries or
whatever else. What is important is that lifetime consumption will
vary under differing circumstances and therefore it would be a
consideration in weighing the relative consumption costs of a
particular birth.

So actually, Bill Gates' kid would likely cost society more because
of its higher potential for consumption. Future wage streams and
such are economic measures which in an already unsustainable
economic system should not be environmentally relevant in the
matter of individual births.

_______   Ed Glaze


-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
To: PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>
Date: Saturday, November 14, 1998 10:50 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: overpopulation & Malthus


>Ed Glaze III wrote:
>> Below John says one such reprehensible statement is
>> "his contention that infants are of comparatively little value
>> to society (in the context of whether relief should be provided
>> to prevent them from dying of starvation)." That makes a lot
>> of sense to me because the younger a person, the less that
>> society has invested in them and the greater will be society's
>> future liability in support costs. Remember that this is in the
>> context of having to reduce population. Hopefully, the world
>> of today will realize the threat we face and we can avoid
>> having to make such reprehensible, but necessary decisions.
>
>That's one of the more chilling paragraphs I've read today, though it's
>only 10:30 in the morning. Let's value lives by how much "society" has
>invested in them! That would make Bill Gates's kid worth more than, what,
>all the infants in sub-Saharan Africa, right?
>
>A technical question - in your human valuation model, do you merely include
>the human capital "society" has invested in that person, or do you include
>a factor for the discounted value of the future wage stream? If the latter,
>what interest rate do you use?