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From: throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: costs of extinction
Message-ID: <685@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Nov-86 19:11:19 EST
Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.685
Posted: Sat Nov  8 19:11:19 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Nov-86 05:12:21 EST
References: <121200006@inmet> <1222@cybvax0.UUCP>
Lines: 54
Summary: The analogy of books to some natural resources is an apt one

> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
>> janw@inmet.UUCP (Jan Wasilewsky)

>> That's the point: there are too many to study any time soon.

> If a library has too many books for you to read in your lifetime, does
> that justify burning a percentage of them?

The more I think about it, the more I think that the analogy of books
here is a good one.  (I think Jan first brought it up, saying that the
Library of Congress catalogs and retains rare and common books alike.)

Consider the analogy in some detail.  Some illiterate savages are let
loose in a library.  It is cold.  So some of them start to burn the
books for warmth.  Eventually, some of the savages learn to read, and
try to convince the others to not burn so much, so that more of the
books may be preserved.  The others jeer, saying that "we'll eventually
learn to write, and print new books so it won't matter if we burn
*THESE* books... we'll just create others.  And anyhow, you've already
read some of these books, so they are preserved in your memory.  Surely
you can't object to burning *THOSE*?" (I know someone who pulls that
last one on me with my magazines... :-)

Now, are the book-readers justified in coercing the book-burners to let
the temperature in the library stay at a lower level, to preserve more
of the books?  Are they justified in unilaterally preventing the
book-burners from using books as heating fuel?  What about if the
burners claimed some of the books as "property" because when they first
occupied the library, they took to sleeping in the stacks where these
books were stored?  What should readers who sleep in other stacks do?

The mapping to the genetic diversity debate is clear, and can be taken
to a quite detailed level.  Folks who want to legislate a limit to
population expansion to preserve species are analogous to the readers
who want to limit the temperature of the library.  Folks who want to set
aside preserves are analogous to those who want to burn only tables and
chairs (and perhaps material brought in from outside), and not books.
The savages can't produce books *NOW*, but the burners say they
eventually will... perhaps even before the entire library is bookless,
analogous to the current state of the art in genetic engineering.  Their
current methods of book "preservation" are also quite analogous to the
imperfect preservation techniques we now have for genetic material.
There are even many more subtle analogies to be drawn.  Natural
extinction rates analogous to the eventual crumbling of even archival
quality paper, for example.

Cast in terms of book-readers and book-burners, who is justified?

--
The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland";
but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
                                                --- Alan J. Perlis
-- 
Wayne Throop      !mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw