Ow ullow to Persy. Thought he’d dropped off the perch. O well… just wishful thinking

Now, who was it who LIED unequivocably to the readers of OLO just recently? (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4163#34847) and in doing so (along with frequent deliberately false statements concerning other OLO respondents) showed himself to be willing to stoop to the lowest levels in order to knock those with whom he disagrees? (not just me by any means).

For months he has refused to answer questions that I have put to him in the interests of sensible debate and has concentrated on being as rude as he possibly can, within the confines of his very narrow brain.

I’m not even going to try and entertain debate with him here. It is pointless.

As is evident from the tone of his post, he is not mentally well.

(but at least he is entertaining)

The main purpose of the article was to illustrate ways of including objectives other than economic objectives into economic systems. In the article it was the non economic objective of sustainability of water supply.

Ludwig has hit upon the idea that we need to reduce population for sustainability.

The proven way to reduce population is to make it economically unattractive to have children. The economic rewards for having children are declining. Previously in many societies children were a long term economic asset. With increasing prosperity children are not an economic asset to the parents and the number of children will continue to decline with increased prosperity.

Hence the best way to reduce population is to make society more prosperous and to do that we need to make more economically efficient use of limited resources including water.

(Using the ideas in the article one way to accelerate population reduction would be to pay young women a bonus for each year they remain childless and get the money for the bonus by charging women who produce children a reverse baby bonus:)

The trick in applying the ideas is to have some goal - other than economic - on which most of us agree then finding ways of manipulating the economic system to achieve that goal. I think sustainability is one idea whose time has come and we can adjust our economic system by building mechanisms, as illustrated into the pricing of recycled water, to achieve this non economic goal.

I'd like to warmly endorse what fickle pickle has to say.

Being concerned about population size is fine, but to see every issue through the lens of direct measures for stopping population growth is not very subtle, nor effective. I doubt whether well ever make the idea of having children basically unpopular with most of us, as its such a basic biological drive.

We can however remove some of the incentives for having many children and we have a good hope for having a sustainable society if it is economically productive and educationally rich. Its the poor regions of the world that are driving overall population growth today, not Australia.Lets help them make a demographic transition every way we can.

Almost all of the resources to manage society sustainably come from wealth. Efficient use of resource is one outcome of innovation - carrots are OK, and this article introduces new angles to that concept.

By the way, early (first) comment poster, markets are not just markets - they also offer individual freedom of choice, and economic liberty is a basic right worth defending.

Goodonya Dr Cox.

"markets are not just markets' you say, d.
Indeed not! Any reasonable and progressive society would regard them as useful and essential tools rather than gods; as they would competition policy.
Economic liberty would be more widesread than at present were markets and competition policy viewed from some other position than from a prayer mat facing the psycedelic idol born of their economic hallucinations.
But economic freedom as it exists for most members of society under present implementation is evaporating and wafting away to benefit offshore locations even more quickly than does "green water" from inland Australia on a hot summer's day.
As for population - for how long can efficiencies continue to be made on each and every social need - of which water is just one. Supremely important though it is.
What a hide, those of breed-and-bust mentality have, in attempting to take the high ground on social choice!
Australian women have chosen a fertility rate of slightly less than 1.8, and good luck to them. Yet, they are being pressured by zealots to have more. And what choice do voters have in regard to numbers-boosting via immigration? Both the conservatives in Government, and those who control the opposition benches, dictate that (between 110 and 140 thousand)affluent and/or skilled, not the needy, migrants are brought in from overseas to ensure Australia's total increase in numbers is a million in four years.
Anyone advocating a continuation, as an ever-present necessity, of numbers and associated consumption needs is either mathematically challenged, or/and lives in the fog of creation rather than science. Just what do they mean by their mutterings of "a sustainable society"?

Fickle Pickle and d, you are missing a couple of important points:

Firstly, Australia does have a high quality of life, with lots of alternatives for women other than being fulltime mums and home-keepers. It IS economically unattractive to have children. This is why our birth rate has dropped enormously in recent decades.

Secondly, given our very moderate birth rate, the issue of population growth is by and large one of immigration, which neither of you mentioned.

“Ludwig has hit upon the idea that we need to reduce population for sustainability.”

Fickle, it is not about reducing population, but it sure as heck is about stabilising population size.

“Being concerned about population size is fine, but to see every issue through the lens of direct measures for stopping population growth is not very subtle, nor effective.”

d, Kevin Cox is writing about water recycling with direct reference to sustainability… and it is simply impossible to achieve sustainability in Australia with our rapid population growth, or anything like it. EVERY subject that is related to sustainability has the same issue – continuously increasing population, which means continuously increasing demand for all manner or resources, which means a dilution, a cancelling out or a complete overwhelming of good initiatives, such as water recycling.

It is not a matter of seeing everything through the lens of population growth, it is a matter of, as I said in response to Kevin, so many people having the most amazing blind spot with this critical issue of sustainability. This is why I feel the need to keep on introducing it in many threads on OLO.

Ludwig, you did say, "how people can put their life’s work into more efficient and higher productivity while never putting the slightest bit of effort towards stopping the demand from continuously increasing", and, "I maintain that it would be an enormously better idea for us to put most of our efforts into stabilising the demand on our resource base rather forever trying to increase the supply rate".

And while you may be capable of classifying my reference to this as a "lie", few but your gonzo mates would do the same. But this sort of defamatory ranting is standard operating procedure, as you have consistently demonstrated.

You take every opportunity to turn any sort of constructive discussion on just about every resource issue into a population rant. And the behaviour of yourself and your little rent-a-crowd makes it clear to most readers that you would actually stiffle innovation to heighten interest in your ideology.

A man on the spot in West Bengal once told me that "if you really want to reduce population growth then all you need to do is put a TV in every hut". But good governance with respect for the rights and liberties of individuals (including procreation) also works a treat.

But tell me, Ludwig, do you have a water tank? My guess is that you probably don't own a house and don't have any kids. And as the old joke went, "if you no playa da game, you no makea da rules".