Kill the Economy

[GliderGuider]

18. Well, let's take micro-loans.

Micro-loans make it possible for more extremely marginal people to prosper just enough to have more children, thus worsening the human burden on regions that are already overstressed.

Or for a less controversial objection, take genetic engineering. Please. Genetic engineers are relentlessly beavering away to improve (yields? hardiness? profits?) without considering the negative downstream possibilities inherent in the escape of the genome into wild ecosystems.

Or the green revolution itself - a deliberate, active, good-faith effort to improve our lot by providing more food for people. But the consequences of population growth, water pollution, soil infertility and the inherent dependency of the food supply on a limited non-renewable resource that may damage civilization with its waste CO2 - these were never considered.

I claim that our blindness is largely towards the unintended consequences of our actions. The problem is that we always focus on the immediate, first-tier consequences. If those are deemed positive then we put little further thought into the matter. That's where the blindness comes in - even today.