Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
Garrett HardinRead
A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A technical solution focuses on practical changes in science while avoiding deeper moral or ethical considerations.
Garrett Hardin's quote highlights the distinction between technical solutions to problems and the necessary changes in human values or moral perspectives. It suggests that while scientific and technological advancements can address certain issues effectively, they often do not tackle the underlying ethical dilemmas or human behaviors that contribute to those problems in the first place.
Themes
Technical SolutionScienceMoralityValuesChangeProblems
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about climate change, one might quote this to emphasize that technology alone isn't enough without changes in human behavior.
More from Garrett Hardin
All quotes →Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.
Garrett HardinRead
Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity
Garrett HardinRead
A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
Garrett HardinRead
Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.
Garrett HardinRead
Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born.
Garrett HardinRead
Similar quotes
If the Sun exploded, we wouldn't know about it for 8 minutes and 20 seconds. Light and gravity take that long to reach us. Then we would vaporize.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensiona l; _x000D_ the paper is static, flat. How are we to represent _x000D_ the rich visual world of experience and _x000D_ measurement on mere flatland?
Edward TufteRead
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.
Lord KelvinRead
Perhaps... some day the precision of the data will be brought so far that the mathematician will be able to calculate at his desk the outcome of any chemical combination, in the same way, so to speak, as he calculates the motions of celestial bodies.
Antoine LavoisierRead
I suggest that going to Mars means permanence on the planet - a mission by which we are building up a confidence level to become a two-planet species.
Buzz AldrinRead
...the proposed air force and army experiments were designed so that many animals would suffer and die without any certainty that this suffering and death would save a single human life or benefit humans in any way at all; but the same can be said of millions of their experiments performed each year in the United States alone.
Peter SingerRead