Thursday, October 17, 2013

snugpak sleeper

http://www.outdoorgb.com/p/snugpak_sleeper_lite_sleepingbag/?utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=directory&utm_content=USA&currency=USD&country=USA&SelectedBundle=109947&gclid=COXqt-jMnroCFQdU4god7QEAFA

Snugpak Sleeper Lite Sleeping Bag

Snugpak Sleeper Lite Sleeping Bag

The Snugpak Sleeper Lite Sleeping Bag combines good value with high quality to give a very attractive entry level sleeping bag.
With the same Insufil siliconised hollowfibre filling that Snugpak uses in some of its high end sleeping bags, the Sleeper Lite gives better performance than traditional hollowfil fibres. However, what Insufil gives you in warmth does not detract from comfort, and when unrolled, theSleeper Lite springs back to give maximum re-loft.
The ripstop nylon outer fabric has been chosen to give it durability in the toughest of environments and the roughest of use, and comfort temperature rating of 0°C makes this the ideal sleeping bag for late spring/summer expeditions to take advantage of that fair weather.

Specification

  • Colours: Red/Silver, Olive
  • Weight: 1,600 g
  • Length: 220 cm
  • Chest: 150 cm
  • Zip: Left- and right-handed versions
  • Fill: Insufil
  • Materials: Supersoft Ripstop Nylon
  • Pack size: 23 x 23 cm
  • Temperature: Comfort 0°C; Low -7°C

Zips

A left-handed sleeping bag has the zip on the left when the user is in the bag and lying on their back. Most right-handed people therefore find a left-handed bag easier to unzip when inside the bag.

$40.54

20 Things I've Learned as a Startup CEO

Why Give a Damn:

In 2011, Unreasonable Institute Founder Daniel Epstein asked me to step up as CEO of Unreasonable Institute. I assumed it would be easy. I was wrong. This post outlines 20 things I’ve learned in the two years I’ve been CEO.

The author of this post, Teju Ravilochan, is co-founder and CEO of the Unreasonable Institute.
In the fall of 2011, I assumed the coveted title of CEO. “Oh boy!” I thought. “What a remarkable chance to shape the direction of something that I believe in so much!” And it has been that. It has also been the most humbling, overwhelming, and remarkable challenge I have ever taken on. The post below, addressed mostly to myself as a reminder, is a summary of some of the lessons I’ve taken to heart in my brief experience as CEO.
  1. This is really hard. When you read stories of great startup founders, you think it looks easy. That’s because you don’t know the whole story. This isn’t easy. This is damn hard.
  2. Your job is do three things, and three things only, really well. Unreasonable Fellow Daniel Rosen told me that these are the three core responsibilities of a startup CEO. 1) You’ve got to lay out the vision, 2) build a team more capable than you of getting you there, and 3) wrap as many people and resources as you can around that team to support them (e.g. salaries, healthcare, coaching, emotional support, etc.)
  3. “There are no maps.” Fellow Unreasonable.is Scribe and Unreasonable Mentor Pascal Finette told us this very clearly. Being a CEO is like anything else (being a parent, chef, artist, writer…). Other people can tell you what’s worked for them and it’s okay for you to listen. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to figure out your own style. You’re not Steve Jobs. That doesn’t mean you’re not as capable as him. It just means that he was a different human being. He had to be the kind of leader that he had to be. You’ve got to be the kind of leader that you’ve got to be.
  4. It’s okay to have doubts. The story you hear is that you’ve got to be the number one believer in your venture and in yourself. I think that’s true. But that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have doubts about both. Martin Luther King, Jr. was full of self-doubts and fears that the movement he was spearheading wouldn’t succeed. . Unreasonable Mentor and .is Scribe Chris Yeh writes that everyone feels like an impostor. Only one kind of person has zero doubts: people who are lying, most likely to themselves.
  5. “Strive not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” –Albert Einstein. Unreasonable Mentor Rafe Furst, a World Series of Poker Champion, once taught us his principles to playing Texas Hold ‘Em. One of the things he told us is, “A lot of people think that poker is a game of luck. They’re right. You can’t control the cards you’re dealt or the cards anyone else gets. But the best players win 80% of the time. Why? Because they make the right decision for the right reasons. They know when to fold, when to call, when to raise.” I’ve taken this lesson to heart. We can’t control whether or not the world changes because of us, but we can work, day in and day out, to live our values. We can know when a situation demands honesty, when it demands forgiveness, when it demands loyalty. And the pursuit of living values in those small moments, in my opinion, is what culminates more consistently in success.
  6. Forgive yourself for failing to live your values. . It’s easier said than done to live my values. And I’ve failed to live them many times. I’ve hurt my teammates. I’ve had people leave this team because I didn’t live our first value of “treating them like the Messiah.” I may not have forgiven myself for some of these mistakes. But my teammate Banks Benitez reminded me that, “Values are about posture, not position.” You fail to live them sometimes. But the real test is what happens when you realize that you’ve failed at them.
  7. If you achieve anything, it will be because you have a great team. Stories glorify the lone entrepreneur, out there defying failure, confident in spite of skepticism, relying on their will and wits alone to get past impossible odds. But in reality, no great human achievement has come to be without teams. The most important, and hardest, role of a CEO is to build a phenomenal team, keep that team, and recognize they are the reason you achieve any progress..
  8. Expect pushback, especially if you build a culture where others have voice. You want people on your team to have a voice? You want to have transparent conversations? Then expect a lot of pushback. Your teammates have their own opinions and they certainly don’t line up with yours a lot of the time.
  9. Assume positive intent. Know that when your teammates do push back, they are coming from a place of wanting to make the organization better. Assume that. Try to understand why they think this is the best way to make the organization better.
  10. It’s okay to say that you don’t know. I don’t know the answer to most of the questions that my teammates ask me. Or to the questions that we need to have answers to to move forward as an organization. It’s a startup. No one knows. No one has ever done exactly what you’re doing before. That’s why you’ve got to rely on an ability to self-correct if you’re wrong, get input from experts, and experiment.
  11. It’s okay to say you’re afraid. “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important.” –Ambrose Redmoon.
  12. Your job is to have hard conversations. “I want you on my team.” “You’re exactly the kind of person we want on board as an investor.” “What would it take to convince you to join us?” “This isn’t working out.” “We’re not going to hit our milestones this quarter.” “We can’t give you a raise.” “We have 3 months of cash in the bank.” “I was wrong.” Your job is to define reality and deal with it. You don’t deal with it by painting an overly rosy picture of what’s going on. You call it what it is. And then you tell people how you feel about it. And you build a plan. And you do it. And you mess up. And you keep pressing on. But it all starts with having those hard conversations.
  13. Your job is to take responsibility. When things go wrong, you’re held accountable. You can make excuses, or you can take responsibility. I sometimes fail at this, but I so admire the leaders who take responsibility, like Groupon Founder and former CEO Andrew Mason. When he was fired, he showed the kind of person he was by taking responsibility in this public letter to his entire company.
  14. Admit that you need help. One person can’t shoulder all the challenges of being a leader. I’ve found that I need a lot of help. I try to meet with our Mentors, Board Members, and my leadership coach as often as I can. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to navigate the complexity and challenges of this work. As hotelier and legendary CEO Chip Conley once said, “Being a CEO is not about being superhuman. It’s about being super human.” That means being vulnerable enough to ask for help.
  15. Tell the truth. Especially to yourself. If you bullshit yourself, over time, over time you lose yourself. To your team, explain why you make decisions the way that you do. You can get away without explaining your decisions, but over time, you’ll lose people. It’s a hard thing to tell the truth. But people will respect you for it. They’ll trust you for it.
  16. Take care of yourself. Get enough sleep. Exercise. Spend time with loved ones. Read. This is one of the biggest mistakes I made early on. I felt like I had to work 14 hours a day to stay on top of everything. But I was doing my team a disservice. Sleep-deprived, I became impatient with their questions and irritated by their requests for help. So much of my job is about being available to support my team. And when I wasn’t taking care of myself, I couldn’t be there for them.
  17. Communicate with your teammates. One-on-one. Often. One of the best things I’ve learned is to create a space to do one-on-ones with each of my teammates. It’s a chance for them to bring up concerns, offer suggestions, ask questions, discuss how they’d like to grow,and voice whatever else is on their mind. Without this space, and without it regularly, even if you’ve got an “open door” teammates won’t often come to share these things with you. VC Ben Horowitz talks about how important one-on-ones are and how to have effective one-on-ones in this post.
  18. Acknowledge your limitations. Your team will respect you for letting them know your limits. I’ve learned, from Daniel Rosen, that I can’t really manage and deeply care for more than 5 people. It’s too hard otherwise. I tried to manage a team of 11 during the 2011 Summer Institute and I failed miserably. So this year, my teammates Verity Noble and Banks Benitez, stepped up to lead new summer staff, while I focused on core staff. And our summer staff had a much better experience this year than last year.
  19. Your Title Doesn’t Earn You Respect, Your Actions Do. Everyday, I feel so lucky to be able to support my team and build toward our vision. I feel privileged that I have a voice that others are willing to listen to. I am grateful that people take me seriously. But at the end of the day, I’ve learned, that the “CEO” title only buys me that respect for a little while. It’s how I live my values, how I care for others, and how I serve our company that really earns that respect.
  20. You have a boss. Just because you can call the shots doesn’t mean you reign supreme. You are accountable to your customers and to your team most of all. If you let them down, you won’t have your job (or perhaps your company) much longer.

Call to Action:

These are learnings from my journey, but I would love to hear and learn from what others have discovered about being a leader in the comments section. Please do share!  

5 Quick Ways to Recharge in a Hurry

Why Give a Damn:

When you run a company, invest in startups, advise other startups and push your entrepreneur-ing to the limits you are eventually going to burnout. Here are 5 ways to recharge quickly.

The author of this post, Chris Yeh, has been building internet businesses since 1995 and currently serves as the VP of Marketing for PBworks, as well as a General Partner at Wasabi Ventures.
I’m known as a busy guy.  That’s what happens when you help run a company, invest in startups, advise other startups, and write 500 blog posts and articles per year.  That doesn’t even take into account being a husband and father, participating in the school and community, and reading 50 blog posts and articles per day.
While I’m very busy, I’m also very careful to avoid burnout.
 
Yet while I’m very busy, I’m also very careful to avoid burnout.  I’m no stranger to burnout–when I was in college, I exploited an error in Stanford’s original online class registration system to take double the normal course load, while also writing for the paper, directing an improv comedy troupe, tutoring freshmen on writing, teaching public speaking and counseling, and manning a suicide hotline.  Now that was a bit much…my roommate woke up in the middle of the night because I had a nightmare and was shouting “I resign! I resign!” in my sleep.
 
Don’t let this happen to you.
Now that I’m older and wiser, I’ve worked out a 5-step approach to recharging in a hurry:
  1. Cross-training
    Cross-training in athletics refers to switching sports, rather than burning yourself out with the same exercises and drills over and over.  As a corporate athlete, cross-training refers to regularly shifting activities.  I consciously shift from activity to activity.  First, I might work on a blog post.  Next, I might answer emails.  After that, I might read and highlight a scholarly article.  The idea is to keep changing what you’re doing so that you don’t have a chance to get bored and burn out.
  2. Interval training
    Interval training in athletics refers to alternating high-intensity exercise with conscious rest periods.  I do the same thing in my life.  I use the Pomodoro Method (20 minutes of sprinting, followed by 5 minutes of rest).  This keeps me fresh, and also gives me convenient reminders to shift activities as part of my cross-training.
  3. Regular exercise
    Everyone knows that exercise is critical for health, stamina, and happiness.  But who has time to go to the gym?  Not me!  So I bring the gym to me.  During those 5 minute “rest” periods during my day, I do quick sets of exercises.  These can be anything from situps to running in place to a complete 7-minute calisthenic workout.  If you stick to this routine, you’ll get more than your daily allowance of exercise, and break up your day.
  4. Regular meals and snacks
    Exercising willpower (“executive function”) depletes your bloodstream’s supply of glucose.  The best way to keep your energy levels up is to eat regularly.  I often cite a study on Israeli parole boards, which found that 60% of inmates received parole when they went before the board immediately after lunch, compared with 5% when they went before the board immediately before lunch.  I snack each morning at 10:30 AM, eat lunch around 12:30 PM, and have an afternoon snack around 3 or 4 PM.
  5. Sleep when you need it
    It’s hard for me to get a full 8 hours of sleep at night–I have kids who like to wake up early, and a dog who tends to wake me up in the middle of the night to play with our insomniac neighbor’s dog.  But rather than wandering around in a zombie-like state of fatigue, I simply sleep when I need it.  Whenever I’m tired, and I don’t have a pressing emergency, I simply lie down for a 10-15 minute nap.  Sometimes I’ll take two or more naps if I’m feeling run down.  It takes far less time than running to Starbucks, with far greater results.  In fact, I took a nap right before starting this post!

These recharging techniques don’t even mention ways in which you can use other people to help you recharge–things like catching up with friends, spending time with loved ones, and participating in regular social activities.  But the beauty of these five techniques is that you can apply them even if you’re a solo founder working out of your parents’ basement.  And if you follow them, you’ll be able to keep yourself running at top efficiency and productivity, even if you have a busy schedule.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Judith Butler 'Frames of War'

http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2009/02/harc-frames-of-war-the-politics-of-ungrievable-life/

Public lecture presented by the Humanities and Arts Research Centre of Royal Holloway, the School of Psychosocial Studies (Birkbeck) and the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research

Professor Judith Butler

‘Frames of War’

speaker_judithbutler1Professor Butler presents from her forthcoming book from Verso, Frames of War: The Politics of Ungrievable Life. Butler explores the way that recent US-led wars have enforced a distinction between those lives that are recognized as grievable, and those that are not. Extending the argument ofPrecarious Life (Verso, 2004), Butler argues that process of differential grieving is enacted through media forms that have become part of the very waging of war. This situation has led to the first-world destruction and abandonment of populations who do not conform to the prevailing norm of the human. Such ungrievable populations are framed as never having been “lives” at all, and so already lost from the living from the start. Cast as threats to human life as we know it, rather than as living populations, such populations become targeted for destruction in order to protect the lives of “the living”. This disparity, Butler argues, has profound implications for why and when we feel horror, outrage, guilt, loss and righteous indifference, both in the context of war and, increasingly, everyday life. In this lecture on media – in its broadest sense – and war, Butler focuses on the question: what are the conditions under which a life can be apprehended as a life, and loss openly mourned?
Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Anthony S. Karen

A Day in the Life of the Ku Klux Klan, Uncensored

Carl, an Imperial Wizard of a southern-based Ku Klux Klan realm, takes aim with a pellet gun at a large cockroach (on the piece of paper just below the clock) while his wife and goddaughter try to avoid getting struck by a possible ricochet.
Carl, an imperial wizard of a Southern-based Ku Klux Klan realm (or state-level group), takes aim with a pellet gun at a large cockroach (on the piece of paper just below the clock), while his wife and goddaughter try to avoid getting struck by a possible ricochet.
Anthony S. Karen
Photographer Anthony Karen’s use of the word sir in emails might stem from his service in the Marine Corps. It could also be indicative of his humanitarian side and his affiliations with charities including Friends in DeedSmile Train, and the Humane Society.
That simple level of politeness is also a small window into how he has been able to document as a photojournalist many of the most feared, secretive, and marginalized pockets of society around the world.
On his website, Karen writes that his passion for photography began during a trip to Haiti, where he documented Vodou rituals around the country. From there he has created series about Skinheads, the Westboro Baptist Church, and the Ku Klux Klan.
Gaining access to secretive pockets of society is based upon trust, something Karen doesn’t take lightly and that he sees as a foundation of photojournalism. “It’s a moment that’s constantly validated, the wordless acceptance into someone’s personal space with a camera,” Karen wrote via email.
Members of a Louisiana based Ku Klux Klan realm joke around at the home of one of their Imperial officers.
Members of a Louisiana-based Ku Klux Klan realm joke around at the home of one of their imperial officers.
Anthony S. Karen
“Little Charlie” of the Dixie Rangers of the Ku Klux Klan displays her custom made wedding veil, as her fiancée watches on.
“Little Charlie” of the Louisiana-based Dixie Rangers of the Ku Klux Klan displays her custom-made wedding veil as her fiancé looks on.
Anthony S. Karen
To gain access into the Klan, Karen initially reached out to members through contact information on websites via phone calls and emails. His began photographing a Klan event in 2005, and after earning the trust of the members, he was allowed to photograph without restriction.
During an interview with FotoEvidence, which published his book White Pride, Karen spoke about his level of access to one of the least-understood organizations. “I think a lot of the credibility I’ve earned also stems from my basic philosophy that you need to give some of yourself in order to receive anything back. I spend time with people, I listen to what they have to say, and I treat each person as an individual. I don’t have to believe what they believe, but whenever I’m in someone’s space, I feel I’m obliged to observe without judgment.That's not to say I wouldn't intervene if I felt a situation called for it, but I choose to observe moment to moment and simply take in what I see and experience without presumption or pretext,” he said.
He also isn’t in a rush once he begins a project and is always looking to go deeper into a story while attempting to maintain a level of neutrality. “I have a keen interest in religious ideology and marginalized subject matter. I prefer documenting long-term stories, because I feel a story can always be improved upon; there’s always some nuance that you’ll discover with subsequent trips. This methodology has proven helpful as I develop as a photojournalist,” Karen said. “The more time and experience I amass, the deeper my self-criticism has become, even in editing, but hopefully always for the better of a project. I find I challenge myself more and always strive to go even deeper.”
Canidates wishing to become initiated into the Ku Klos Knights of the Ku Klux Klan take their oaths as part of a the naturalization ritual.Naturalization is becoming a citizen of the Invisible Empire, and not unlike becoming a Naturalized citizen of the United States", according to a comment made by the late Imperial Wizard Dale Fox. “There are some parts of the ceremony that many might at first mistake for a "hazing". Proposed Klansmen are blindfolded, and then with one arm placed on the shoulder of the man before him, led through the woods at a sometimes-vigorous pace. The link is not to be broken as they are questioned and intimidated occasionally with the sound of a firearm.This "hazing" actually has symbolic purpose, and builds mutual trust, loyalty and reveals personal bravery and dedication. Candidates are brought before the Klan for acceptance into the Invisible Empire and are quizzed on their Klan craft and Klan history. They are instructed in the history of the six eras of the Klan. They participate in swearing certain oaths and at the conclusion they are "Knighted" as in the days of old, by anointing with sacred waters and a sword touch on both shoulders followed by a benediction. Finally, the new citizens of the Invisible Empire are greeted and welcomed by the officiating officers. Tennessee.
Candidates wishing to become initiated into the Ku Klos Knights of the Ku Klux Klan take their oaths as part of a naturalization ritual. Candidates are blindfolded are led through the woods at a sometimes vigorous pace. They are questioned about Klan craft and history, and they swear certain oaths. They are then "knighted" through anointing with sacred waters, a sword touch on both shoulders, and a benediction. The new members are greeted and welcomed by the officiating officers.
Anthony S. Karen
Anthony S. Karen
Klan members gather at the site of a Civil War battleground for a traditional Ku Klux Klan wedding ceremony.
Anthony S. Karen
Karen’s ability to gain access into the KKK led to a collaboration with the Discovery Channel on a documentary about the Klan titled KKK: Beneath the Hood.
“Whenever you’re granted access into a person’s intimate space, you’re establishing a relationship based on trust,” he said. “In my opinion, trust is trust. That doesn’t suggest I become complacent with my situation to the point of exploitation, nor does it mean I’m selectively disregarding certain moments to depict something that is not. I do admit I try to offer a balanced perspective as to my experiences within marginalized organizations. ... [T]o consciously distance myself will in effect (or could) create bias.”
The son of an Imperial Wizard of a North Carolina based Klan realm.
The son of an imperial wizard of a North Carolina–based Klan realm.
Anthony S. Karen
Klansman during a unity gathering on his property in Virginia.
A Klansman during a unity gathering on his property in Virginia
Anthony S. Karen
An Imperial Officer (right) from a mid-western based Ku Klux Klan realm at the home of his Imperial Wizard and wife (left), shortly before departing for a Christmas party held for members at a local church.
An imperial officer (right) from a Midwestern-based Ku Klux Klan realm at the home of his imperial wizard and wife (left), shortly before departing for a Christmas party held for members at a local church
Anthony S. Karen
The granddaughter of an Imperial Wizard of a southern-based Klan realm.
The granddaughter of an imperial wizard of a Southern-based Klan realm.
Anthony S. Karen
Members from a mid-western based Klan realm on a flyer drive.
Members from a Midwestern-based Klan realm on a flyer drive
Anthony S. Karen

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The Limits to Scarcity: Contesting the Politics of Allocation (The Earthscan Science in Society Series)

The Limits to Scarcity: Contesting the Politics of Allocation (The Earthscan Science in Society Series)


the human skull

Back Door Broadcasting

http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/

The Tragedy of the Commons Garrett Hardin

Science
Vol. 162 no. 3859 pp. 1243-1248 
DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3859.1243
  • ARTICLES

The Tragedy of the Commons

  1. Garrett Hardin
+Author Affiliations
  1. The author is professor of biology, University of California, Santa Barbara. This article is based on a presidential address presented before the meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Utah State University, Logan, 25 June 1968.
The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York (1) concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are ...confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation."
I would like to focus your attention not on the subject of the article (national security in a nuclear world) but on the kind of conclusion they reached, namely that there is no technical solution to the problem. An implicit and almost universal assumption of discussions published in professional and semipopular scientific journals is that the problem under discussion has a technical solution. 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.
In our day (though not in earlier times) technical solutions are always welcome. Because of previous failures in prophecy, it takes courage to assert that a desired technical solution is not possible. Wiesner and York exhibited this courage; publishing in a science journal, they insisted that the solution to the problem was not to be found in the natural sciences. They cautiously qualified their statement with the phrase, "It is our considered professional judgment... ." Whether they were right or not is not the concern of the present article. Rather, the concern here is with the important concept of a class of human problems which can be called "no technical solution problems," and, more specifically, with the identification and discussion of one of these.
It is easy to show that the class is not a null class. Recall the game of tick-tack-toe. Consider the problem, "How can I win the game of tick-tack-toe?" It is well known that I cannot, if I assume (in keeping with the conventions of game theory) that my opponent understands the game perfectly. Put another way, there is no "technical solution" to the problem. I can win only by giving a radical meaning to the word "win." I can hit my opponent over the head; or I can drug him; or I can falsify the records. Every way in which I "win" involves, in some sense, an abandonment of the game, as we intuitively understand it. (I can also, of course, openly abandon the game--refuse to play it. This is what most adults do.)
The class of "No technical solution problems" has members. My thesis is that the "population problem," as conventionally conceived, is a member of this class. How it is conventionally conceived needs some comment. It is fair to say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy. They think that farming the seas or developing new strains of wheat will solve the problem--technologically. I try to show here that the solution they seek cannot be found. The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way, any more than can the problem of winning the game of tick-tack-toe.

What Shall We Maximize?

Population, as Malthus said, naturally tends to grow "geometrically," or, as we would now say, exponentially. In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease. Is ours a finite world?
A fair defense can be put forward for the view that the world is infinite; or that we do not know that it is not. But, in terms of the practical problems that we must face in the next few generations with the foreseeable technology, it is clear that we will greatly increase human misery if we do not, during the immediate future, assume that the world available to the terrestrial human population is finite. "Space" is no escape (2).
A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero. (The case of perpetual wide fluctuations above and below zero is a trivial variant that need not be discussed.) When this condition is met, what will be the situation of mankind? Specifically, can Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" be realized?
No--for two reasons, each sufficient by itself. The first is a theoretical one. It is not mathematically possible to maximize for two (or more) variables at the same time. This was clearly stated by von Neumann and Morgenstern (3), but the principle is implicit in the theory of partial differential equations, dating back at least to D'Alembert (1717-1783).
The second reason springs directly from biological facts. To live, any organism must have a source of energy (for example, food). This energy is utilized for two purposes: mere maintenance and work. For man, maintenance of life requires about 1600 kilocalories a day ("maintenance calories"). Anything that he does over and above merely staying alive will be defined as work, and is supported by "work calories" which he takes in. Work calories are used not only for what we call work in common speech; they are also required for all forms of enjoyment, from swimming and automobile racing to playing music and writing poetry. If our goal is to maximize population it is obvious what we must do: We must make the work calories per person approach as close to zero as possible. No gourmet meals, no vacations, no sports, no music, no literature, no art. ... I think that everyone will grant, without argument or proof, that maximizing population does not maximize goods. Bentham's goal is impossible.
In reaching this conclusion I have made the usual assumption that it is the acquisition of energy that is the problem. The appearance of atomic energy has led some to question this assumption. However, given an infinite source of energy, population growth still produces an inescapable problem. The problem of the acquisition of energy is replaced by the problem of its dissipation, as J. H. Fremlin has so wittily shown (4). The arithmetic signs in the analysis are, as it were, reversed; but Bentham's goal is still unobtainable.
The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum. The difficulty of defining the optimum is enormous; so far as I know, no one has seriously tackled this problem. Reaching an acceptable and stable solution will surely require more than one generation of hard analytical work--and much persuasion.
We want the maximum good per person; but what is good? To one person it is wilderness, to another it is ski lodges for thousands. To one it is estuaries to nourish ducks for hunters to shoot; to another it is factory land. Comparing one good with another is, we usually say, impossible because goods are incommensurable. Incommensurables cannot be compared.
Theoretically this may be true; but in real life incommensurables are commensurable. Only a criterion of judgment and a system of weighting are needed. In nature the criterion is survival. Is it better for a species to be small and hideable, or large and powerful? Natural selection commensurates the incommensurables. The compromise achieved depends on a natural weighting of the values of the variables.
Man must imitate this process. There is no doubt that in fact he already does, but unconsciously. It is when the hidden decisions are made explicit that the arguments begin. The problem for the years ahead is to work out an acceptable theory of weighting. Synergistic effects, nonlinear variation, and difficulties in discounting the future make the intellectual problem difficult, but not (in principle) insoluble.
Has any cultural group solved this practical problem at the present time, even on an intuitive level? One simple fact proves that none has: there is no prosperous population in the world today that has, and has had for some time, a growth rate of zero. Any people that has intuitively identified its optimum point will soon reach it, after which its growth rate becomes and remains zero.
Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum. However, by any reasonable standards, the most rapidly growing populations on earth today are (in general) the most miserable. This association (which need not be invariable) casts doubt on the optimistic assumption that the positive growth rate of a population is evidence that it has yet to reach its optimum.
We can make little progress in working toward optimum population size until we explicitly exorcize the spirit of Adam Smith in the field of practical demography. In economic affairs, The Wealth of Nations (1776) popularized the "invisible hand," the idea that an individual who "intends only his own gain," is, as it were, "led by an invisible hand to promote . . . the public interest" (5). Adam Smith did not assert that this was invariably true, and perhaps neither did any of his followers. But he contributed to a dominant tendency of thought that has ever since interfered with positive action based on rational analysis, namely, the tendency to assume that decisions reached individually will, in fact, be the best decisions for an entire society. If this assumption is correct it justifies the continuance of our present policy of laissez-faire in reproduction. If it is correct we can assume that men will control their individual fecundity so as to produce the optimum population. If the assumption is not correct, we need to reexamine our individual freedoms to see which ones are defensible.

Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons

The rebuttal to the invisible hand in population control is to be found in a scenario first sketched in a little-known pamphlet (6) in 1833 by a mathematical amateur named William Forster Lloyd (1794-1852). We may well call it "the tragedy of the commons," using the word "tragedy" as the philosopher Whitehead used it (7): "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things." He then goes on to say, "This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama."
The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.
As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component.
1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.
2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of −1.
Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another... But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
Some would say that this is a platitude. Would that it were! In a sense, it was learned thousands of years ago, but natural selection favors the forces of psychological denial (8). The individual benefits as an individual from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers.
Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.
A simple incident that occurred a few years ago in Leominster, Massachusetts, shows how perishable the knowledge is. During the Christmas shopping season the parking meters downtown were covered with plastic bags that bore tags reading: "Do not open until after Christmas. Free parking courtesy of the mayor and city council." In other words, facing the prospect of an increased demand for already scarce space. the city fathers reinstituted the system of the commons. (Cynically, we suspect that they gained more votes than they lost by this retrogressive act.)
In an approximate way, the logic of the commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate. But it is understood mostly only in special cases which are not sufficiently generalized. Even at this late date, cattlemen leasing national land on the western ranges demonstrate no more than an ambivalent understanding, in constantly pressuring federal authorities to increase the head count to the point where overgrazing produces erosion and weed-dominance. Likewise, the oceans of the world continue to suffer from the survival of the philosophy of the commons. Maritime nations still respond automatically to the shibboleth of the "freedom of the seas." Professing to believe in the "inexhaustible resources of the oceans," they bring species after species of fish and whales closer to extinction (9).
The National Parks present another instance of the working out of the tragedy of the commons. At present, they are open to all, without limit. The parks themselves are limited in extent--there is only one Yosemite Valley--whereas population seems to grow without limit. The values that visitors seek in the parks are steadily eroded. Plainly, we must soon cease to treat the parks as commons or they will be of no value to anyone.
What shall we do? We have several options. We might sell them off as private property. We might keep them as public property, but allocate the right to enter them. The allocation might be on the basis of wealth, by the use of an auction system. It might be on the basis of merit, as defined by some agreed-upon standards. It might be by lottery. Or it might be on a first-come, first-served basis, administered to long queues. These, I think, are all the reasonable possibilities. They are all objectionable. But we must choose--or acquiesce in the destruction of the commons that we call our National Parks.

Pollution

In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of pollution. Here it is not a question of taking something out of the commons, but of putting something in--sewage, or chemical, radioactive, and heat wastes into water; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air, and distracting and unpleasant advertising signs into the line of sight. The calculations of utility are much the same as before. The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. Since this is true for everyone, we are locked into a system of "fouling our own nest," so long as we behave only as independent, rational, free-enterprisers.
The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is averted by private property, or something formally like it. But the air and waters surrounding us cannot readily be fenced, and so the tragedy of the commons as a cesspool must be prevented by different means, by coercive laws or taxing devices that make it cheaper for the polluter to treat his pollutants than to discharge them untreated. We have not progressed as far with the solution of this problem as we have with the first. Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution. The owner of a factory on the bank of a stream--whose property extends to the middle of the stream, often has difficulty seeing why it is not his natural right to muddy the waters flowing past his door. The law, always behind the times, requires elaborate stitching and fitting to adapt it to this newly perceived aspect of the commons.
The pollution problem is a consequence of population. It did not much matter how a lonely American frontiersman disposed of his waste. "Flowing water purifies itself every 10 miles," my grandfather used to say, and the myth was near enough to the truth when he was a boy, for there were not too many people. But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.

How To Legislate Temperance?

Analysis of the pollution problem as a function of population density uncovers a not generally recognized principle of morality, namely: the morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed (10). Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable. A hundred and fifty years ago a plainsman could kill an American bison, cut out only the tongue for his dinner, and discard the rest of the animal. He was not in any important sense being wasteful. Today, with only a few thousand bison left, we would be appalled at such behavior.
In passing, it is worth noting that the morality of an act cannot be determined from a photograph. One does not know whether a man killing an elephant or setting fire to the grassland is harming others until one knows the total system in which his act appears. "One picture is worth a thousand words," said an ancient Chinese; but it may take 10,000 words to validate it. It is as tempting to ecologists as it is to reformers in general to try to persuade others by way of the photographic shortcut. But the essense of an argument cannot be photographed: it must be presented rationally--in words.
That morality is system-sensitive escaped the attention of most codifiers of ethics in the past. "Thou shalt not . . ." is the form of traditional ethical directives which make no allowance for particular circumstances. The laws of our society follow the pattern of ancient ethics, and therefore are poorly suited to governing a complex, crowded, changeable world. Our epicyclic solution is to augment statutory law with administrative law. Since it is practically impossible to spell out all the conditions under which it is safe to burn trash in the back yard or to run an automobile without smog-control, by law we delegate the details to bureaus. The result is administrative law, which is rightly feared for an ancient reason--Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?--"Who shall watch the watchers themselves?" John Adams said that we must have "a government of laws and not men." Bureau administrators, trying to evaluate the morality of acts in the total system, are singularly liable to corruption, producing a government by men, not laws.
Prohibition is easy to legislate (though not necessarily to enforce); but how do we legislate temperance? Experience indicates that it can be accomplished best through the mediation of administrative law. We limit possibilities unnecessarily if we suppose that the sentiment of Quis custodiet denies us the use of administrative law. We should rather retain the phrase as a perpetual reminder of fearful dangers we cannot avoid. The great challenge facing us now is to invent the corrective feedbacks that are needed to keep custodians honest. We must find ways to legitimate the needed authority of both the custodians and the corrective feedbacks.

Freedom To Breed Is Intolerable

The tragedy of the commons is involved in population problems in another way. In a world governed solely by the principle of "dog eat dog"--if indeed there ever was such a world--how many children a family had would not be a matter of public concern. Parents who bred too exuberantly would leave fewer descendants, not more, because they would be unable to care adequately for their children. David Lack and others have found that such a negative feedback demonstrably controls the fecundity of birds (11). But men are not birds, and have not acted like them for millenniums, at least.
If each human family were dependent only on its own resources; if the children of improvident parents starved to death; if, thus, overbreeding brought its own "punishment" to the germ line--then there would be no public interest in controlling the breeding of families. But our society is deeply committed to the welfare state (12), and hence is confronted with another aspect of the tragedy of the commons.
In a welfare state, how shall we deal with the family, the religion, the race, or the class (or indeed any distinguishable and cohesive group) that adopts overbreeding as a policy to secure its own aggrandizement (13)? To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action.
Unfortunately this is just the course of action that is being pursued by the United Nations. In late 1967, some 30 nations agreed to the following (14): The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
It is painful to have to deny categorically the validity of this right; denying it, one feels as uncomfortable as a resident of Salem, Massachusetts, who denied the reality of witches in the 17th century. At the present time, in liberal quarters, something like a taboo acts to inhibit criticism of the United Nations. There is a feeling that the United Nations is "our last and best hope," that we shouldn't find fault with it; we shouldn't play into the hands of the archconservatives. However, let us not forget what Robert Louis Stevenson said: "The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy." If we love the truth we must openly deny the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even though it is promoted by the United Nations. We should also join with Kingsley Davis (15) in attempting to get Planned Parenthood-World Population to see the error of its ways in embracing the same tragic ideal.

Conscience Is Self-Eliminating

It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience. Charles Galton Darwin made this point when he spoke on the centennial of the publication of his grandfather's great book. The argument is straightforward and Darwinian.
People vary. 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 difference will be accentuated, generation by generation.
In C. G. Darwin's words: "It may well be that it would take hundreds of generations for the progenitive instinct to develop in this way, but if it should do so, nature would have taken her revenge, and the variety Homo contracipiens would become extinct and would be replaced by the variety Homo progenitivus" (16).
The argument assumes that conscience or the desire for children (no matter which) is hereditary--but hereditary only in the most general formal sense. The result will be the same whether the attitude is transmitted through germ cells, or exosomatically, to use A. J. Lotka's term. (If one denies the latter possibility as well as the former, then what's the point of education?) The argument has here been stated in the context of the population problem, but it applies equally well to any instance in which society appeals to an individual exploiting a commons to restrain himself for the general good--by means of his conscience. To make such an appeal is to set up a selective system that works toward the elimination of conscience from the race.

Pathogenic Effects of Conscience

The long-term disadvantage of an appeal to conscience should be enough to condemn it; but has serious short-term disadvantages as well. If we ask a man who is exploiting a commons to desist "in the name of conscience," what are we saying to him? What does he hear? --not only at the moment but also in the wee small hours of the night when, half asleep, he remembers not merely the words we used but also the nonverbal communication cues we gave him unawares? Sooner or later, consciously or subconsciously, he senses that he has received two communications, and that they are contradictory: (i) (intended communication) "If you don't do as we ask, we will openly condemn you for not acting like a responsible citizen"; (ii) (the unintended communication) "If you do behave as we ask, we will secretly condemn you for a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of us exploit the commons."
Everyman then is caught in what Bateson has called a "double bind." Bateson and his co-workers have made a plausible case for viewing the double bind as an important causative factor in the genesis of schizophrenia (17). The double bind may not always be so damaging, but it always endangers the mental health of anyone to whom it is applied. "A bad conscience," said Nietzsche, "is a kind of illness."
To conjure up a conscience in others is tempting to anyone who wishes to extend his control beyond the legal limits. Leaders at the highest level succumb to this temptation. Has any President during the past generation failed to call on labor unions to moderate voluntarily their demands for higher wages, or to steel companies to honor voluntary guidelines on prices? I can recall none. The rhetoric used on such occasions is designed to produce feelings of guilt in noncooperators.
For centuries it was assumed without proof that guilt was a valuable, perhaps even an indispensable, ingredient of the civilized life. Now, in this post-Freudian world, we doubt it.
Paul Goodman speaks from the modern point of view when he says: "No good has ever come from feeling guilty, neither intelligence, policy, nor compassion. The guilty do not pay attention to the object but only to themselves, and not even to their own interests, which might make sense, but to their anxieties" (18).
One does not have to be a professional psychiatrist to see the consequences of anxiety. We in the Western world are just emerging from a dreadful two-centuries-long Dark Ages of Eros that was sustained partly by prohibition laws, but perhaps more effectively by the anxiety-generating mechanism of education. Alex Comfort has told the story well in The Anxiety Makers (19); it is not a pretty one.
Since proof is difficult, we may even concede that the results of anxiety may sometimes, from certain points of view, be desirable. The larger question we should ask is whether, as a matter of policy, we should ever encourage the use of a technique the tendency (if not the intention) of which is psychologically pathogenic. We hear much talk these days of responsible parenthood; the coupled words are incorporated into the titles of some organizations devoted to birth control. Some people have proposed massive propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility into the nation's (or the world's) breeders. But what is the meaning of the word responsibility in this context? Is it not merely a synonym for the word conscience? When we use the word responsibility in the absence of substantial sanctions are we not trying to browbeat a free man in a commons into acting against his own interest? Responsibility is a verbal counterfeit for a substantial quid pro quo. It is an attempt to get something for nothing.
If the word responsibility is to be used at all, I suggest that it be in the sense Charles Frankel uses it (20). "Responsibility," says this philosopher, "is the product of definite social arrangements." Notice that Frankel calls for social arrangements--not propaganda.

Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed upon

The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort. Consider bank-robbing. The man who takes money from a bank acts as if the bank were a commons. How do we prevent such action? Certainly not by trying to control his behavior solely by a verbal appeal to his sense of responsibility. Rather than rely on propaganda we follow Frankel's lead and insist that a bank is not a commons; we seek the definite social arrangements that will keep it from becoming a commons. That we thereby infringe on the freedom of would-be robbers we neither deny nor regret.
The morality of bank-robbing is particularly easy to understand because we accept complete prohibition of this activity. We are willing to say "Thou shalt not rob banks," without providing for exceptions. But temperance also can be created by coercion. Taxing is a good coercive device. To keep downtown shoppers temperate in their use of parking space we introduce parking meters for short periods, and traffic fines for longer ones. We need not actually forbid a citizen to park as long as he wants to; we need merely make it increasingly expensive for him to do so. Not prohibition, but carefully biased options are what we offer him. A Madison Avenue man might call this persuasion; I prefer the greater candor of the word coercion.
Coercion is a dirty word to most liberals now, but it need not forever be so. As with the four-letter words, its dirtiness can be cleansed away by exposure to the light, by saying it over and over without apology or embarrassment. To many, the word coercion implies arbitrary decisions of distant and irresponsible bureaucrats; but this is not a necessary part of its meaning. The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it. Who enjoys taxes? We all grumble about them. But we accept compulsory taxes because we recognize that voluntary taxes would favor the conscienceless. We institute and (grumblingly) support taxes and other coercive devices to escape the horror of the commons.
An alternative to the commons need not be perfectly just to be preferable. With real estate and other material goods, the alternative we have chosen is the institution of private property coupled with legal inheritance. Is this system perfectly just? As a genetically trained biologist I deny that it is. It seems to me that, if there are to be differences in individual inheritance, legal possession should be perfectly correlated with biological inheritance--that those who are biologically more fit to be the custodians of property and power should legally inherit more. But genetic recombination continually makes a mockery of the doctrine of "like father, like son" implicit in our laws of legal inheritance. An idiot can inherit millions, and a trust fund can keep his estate intact. We must admit that our legal system of private property plus inheritance is unjust--but we put up with it because we are not convinced, at the moment, that anyone has invented a better system. The alternative of the commons is too horrifying to contemplate. Injustice is preferable to total ruin.
It is one of the peculiarities of the warfare between reform and the status quo that it is thoughtlessly governed by a double standard. Whenever a reform measure is proposed it is often defeated when its opponents triumphantly discover a flaw in it. As Kingsley Davis has pointed out (21), worshippers of the status quo sometimes imply that no reform is possible without unanimous agreement, an implication contrary to historical fact. As nearly as I can make out, automatic rejection of proposed reforms is based on one of two unconscious assumptions: (i) that the status quo is perfect; or (ii) that the choice we face is between reform and no action; if the proposed reform is imperfect, we presumably should take no action at all, while we wait for a perfect proposal.
But we can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years is also action. It also produces evils. Once we are aware that the status quo is action, we can then compare its discoverable advantages and disadvantages with the predicted advantages and disadvantages of the proposed reform, discounting as best we can for our lack of experience. On the basis of such a comparison, we can make a rational decision which will not involve the unworkable assumption that only perfect systems are tolerable.

Recognition of Necessity

Perhaps the simplest summary of this analysis of man's population problems is this: the commons, if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low-population density. As the human population has increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another.
First we abandoned the commons in food gathering, enclosing farm land and restricting pastures and hunting and fishing areas. These restrictions are still not complete throughout the world.
Somewhat later we saw that the commons as a place for waste disposal would also have to be abandoned. Restrictions on the disposal of domestic sewage are widely accepted in the Western world; we are still struggling to close the commons to pollution by automobiles, factories, insecticide sprayers, fertilizing operations, and atomic energy installations.
In a still more embryonic state is our recognition of the evils of the commons in matters of pleasure. There is almost no restriction on the propagation of sound waves in the public medium. The shopping public is assaulted with mindless music, without its consent. Our government is paying out billions of dollars to create supersonic transport which will disturb 50,000 people for every one person who is whisked from coast to coast 3 hours faster. Advertisers muddy the airwaves of radio and television and pollute the view of travelers. We are a long way from outlawing the commons in matters of pleasure. Is this because our Puritan inheritance makes us view pleasure as something of a sin, and pain (that is, the pollution of advertising) as the sign of virtue?
Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody's personal liberty. Infringements made in the distant past are accepted because no contemporary complains of a loss. It is the newly proposed infringements that we vigorously oppose; cries of "rights" and "freedom" fill the air. But what does "freedom" mean? When men mutually agreed to pass laws against robbing, mankind became more free, not less so. Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on universal ruin once they see the necessity of mutual coercion, they become free to pursue other goals. I believe it was Hegel who said, "Freedom is the recognition of necessity."
The most important aspect of necessity that we must now recognize, is the necessity of abandoning the commons in breeding. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all. At the moment, to avoid hard decisions many of us are tempted to propagandize for conscience and responsible parenthood. The temptation must be resisted, because an appeal to independently acting consciences selects for the disappearance of all conscience in the long run, and an increase in anxiety in the short.
The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon. "Freedom is the recognition of necessity"--and it is the role of education to reveal to all the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.