La tragedia de los comunes

Population, as MaIthus said, naturaIIy tends to grow "geometricaIIy," or, as we would now say, exponentiaIIy. In a finite world this means that the per . capita shar~ of the world's goods must"'D"'i?>~J"". ~decrease. Is ours a finite world? (v ~;!2~ A fair defense can be put forward for the view that the world is infinite; or The population problem has no technical solution; that we do not knowthat it is not. But, it requires a fundamental extension in morality. in terms of the practical problems that we must face in the next few generations with the foreseeable technology, it is clear thatwe will greatly increase human misery if we do not, during the immediate future, assume that the world available to the terrestrial human popsional judgment. ... " Whether they At the end of athoughtful article on ulation is finite. "Space" is no escape (2). were right or not is not the concern of the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York (1) concluded that: "Both sides in the present article.Rather, !he concern A finite wovid can support only a here.,b. with the important concept of a finite population; therefore, population the arms race are ... confronted by the class of human problemswhich can be dilemma of steadily increasing military growth must eventually equal zero. (The called '~o.technical solution problems." power and steadily decreasing national case of perpetual widefluctuations security. It is our considered profesandl. more !mecificallv, with the identifiabove and below zero is a trivial variant sional judgment that this dilemma has ',:ilion and discussion of oneof these. that need not be discussed.) When this , It is easy to show that the class is not 110 technical solution. If the great powcondition is met. what will be the situaers continue to look forsolutions in a nulI class. RecalI the game of ticktion of mankind? _Specifically can Bentack-toe. Consider the problem, "How the area of science and technology only. tham's goaL of '.'thejIT~at~st good...