On Mon, 24 Apr 1995, Roger Peffer wrote:

> ZPG didn't work... So now it's called NPG- Negative Population Growth.
There are advertisment in almost every issue of Natural History
Magazine. I'll play the devils advocate here... maybe we need a plague?

No, no--ZPG and NPG are separate organizations, but both very deserving
of our support. Roger wrote earlier about the idea that those who limit
their reproduction are going to be overwhelmed by the people who continue
to have many children. I think this is a general problem with the idea
of intrinsic population controls, isn't it? Suppose a population evolves
a pheromone that tends to inhibit their own reproduction, so the more
crowded the population becomes the more pheromone is produced and the
size of the population is limited. The trouble is with mutant "cheaters"
who aren't affected by the pheromone; they continue to reproduce,
their cheater genes overwhelm the other genes, and the pheromone becomes
ineffective. So in human society, to use Richard Dawkins's term, we have
"responsible memes" and "irresponsible memes," and those people carrying
the irresponsible memes might outbreed the rest of us.

But maybe when the year 2000 passes without the world coming to an end (a
lot of millenialists think none of this matters, because Judgement Day is
coming soon), and the world becomes more crowded, and people start to
feel some real population pressure . . . maybe then we can start to elect
some leaders who will develop economic policies to encourage less
breeding. How about a whopping big tax disincentive for the third kid?

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 360-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 360-866-6794