X-Message-Number: 5483
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 15:15:23 -0600
From:  (Rodney Perkins)
Subject: A very happy new year

The doom and gloom scenarios presented in the "Happy New Year?" message
have been percolating for the past 30 years. In the end, these scenarios
have been (so far) proven wrong; Famine 1996, anyone? I suggest reading
"The Ultimate Resource" by Julian Simon for good counter arguments. While
the book was published in 1980, its basic premises still are valid;
doomsayers have proven themselves to be consistently wrong and tend to
disregard facts that don't jibe with their misanthropic world view. One
thing that is disturbing is that despite the inaccuracy of many of these
"prophet's" predictions, they are still taken seriously.

One of the chapters in  "Engines of Creation" by K. Eric Drexler also
presents some very good criticisms of these types of ideas. I think its
entitled "Limits to Growth". Yet another resource is John McCarthy's WWW
page called "Sustainability of Human Progress" at
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/




Rodney Perkins ()
Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TCSUH)
Office of Public Affairs
PGP mail is preferred. For my public key, send message to
 with "get " as subject.


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5483