Poirot
There’s no point discussing it if you can’t understand that logical fallacies invalidate your argument. And that’s all you’ve got, for example, assuming it’s true in the first place. What you’re saying would only make sense if there was no such thing as truth, which is essentially what you’re arguing.

Ludwig
“Surely if you feel that someone should do something then you feel that they are inherently capable of it.”

If you *feel* someone should do something, yes, you *feel* they can do it. But that doesn’t mean they can do it, does it? And it doesn’t mean it’s logical to proceed from the feeling that they should, to the factual conclusion that they can. You’re confusing feelings with reality.It’s your lapse in logic, not mine.

You’ve also got the onus of proof back-the-front. You’re the author of the OP. You’re the one saying there’s something wrong with government policy on population, and that it should be sustainable.

But when I ask you to define sustainability, you refer me off to an article whose only definition is it means “the capacity to endure”, and then explains how there’s no accepted definition.

And then you ask me to prove how government can’t do it, before you’ve defined it or explained how government can do it!

You’re both using the same methodology:
1. Assume it’s true in the first place
2. Ignore or disregard any disproofs, and
3. When stumped, repeat the procedure.

You’d never use that methodology in ecology, and if you did, you’d be laughed out of town by your colleagues.

Try turning it around. Try
1. Starting with a falsifiable proposition (yours isn’t, because when challenged you just say “surely” it must be true)
2. Seeking to disprove it.

You’ll then find a theory with a lot more explaining power!

Okay, the basic idea of sustainability is that we are currently using too much resources, and leaving not enough for future generations and other species. Fair enough?

If so
1. How do you distinguish between human needs and wants?
2. How do you know how much of a depletable resource should be consumed now, versus conserved for the future?
3. How do you know what the distribution and abundance of species should be?

1. wants and needs
For example, if human needs were to be identified with market demand, then there’d be nothing for policy to do. Sustainability policy pre-supposes that some human wants, and some market demands, are to be provided for, because they are important enough to use depletable resources to satisfy now; and some aren’t, because they unfairly sacrifice the interests of future generations.

How are you going to distinguish them?

For example, is your internet usage a mere want, or a need? Obviously people have lived for thousands of years without it, so it can’t be called a need. So that means you, and everyone who agrees with you, has to stop using the internet now, doesn’t it? Which means you won’t be able to participate in this discussion?

But if your internet usage is a need, then obviously there can be no policy which would compromise the use by people even poorer than you, of resources to satisfy their human wants which are more important or urgent than your internet usage. If policy restricts the use of, say, Australian agriculture or forests or mining, how do you know the end result will not be to deprive some other poorer person of resources for their well-being which they are entitled to, according to whatever-definition-of-sustainability-you-use?

2. balancing present versus future consumption
The basic idea of sustainability, correct me if I’m wrong, is that current consumption is too great; there is a need to balance present versus future consumption. Okay say you are the owner of a mine, and you want to comply with Ludwig’s definition of sustainability, which Ludwig hasn’t stated yet. How do you know whether to mine now to satisfy present interests in consumption; or to leave it in the ground to provide for possible future consumption or for preservation?

Nearly there, Ludwig. On this one sub-topic, at least.

>>When big businesses stop giving big donations to political parties... then I will be able to agree with you Pericles; that businesses do indeed plan properly for a healthy future!<<

Don't forget, what I said was that the companies plan properly (i.e. sustainably) for their *own* healthy future. In other words, if they rely upon supply [actually, I may have said this once or twice before] of a particular resource in order to stay in business, then they will ensure the sustainability of that supply.

The mini-diversion started, when I pointed out that:

>>The market forces that you allude to must, by definition, require that water supplies are efficiently and effectively managed. If they are allowed to deplete, those very businesses that are dependent upon them will die.<<

So it now looks suspiciously like you have finally come around to accept this.

Which is rather nice, I think.

JKJ,

"Poirot
There's no point in discussing it if you can't understand that logical fallacies invalidate your argument. and that's all you've got, for example, assuming it's true in the first place. What you're saying would only make sense if there was no such thing as truth, which is essentially what you're arguing."

What?

I wasn't arguing anything.

I was merely urging you to flow forth and copiously with your argument that government can't achieve sustainability.

So I don't quite know what you're getting at with your latest spiel to me....kind of like you just put yourself into automatic JKJ spiel and let fly.

It is nice that you perceive a closing of the gap between us, Pericles. But alas, it appears to be false perception.

<< Don't forget, what I said was that the companies plan properly (i.e. sustainably) for their *own* healthy future. In other words, if they rely upon supply… of a particular resource in order to stay in business, then they will ensure the sustainability of that supply. >>

Doesn’t add up. Water is the prime example. The business community in general pushes for rapid population growth, as a fundamental driver of economic growth and increasing markets/demand. But this very directly means more people living in cities that already have seriously stressed water supplies. This does not auger well for the long-term security (sustainability) of that all-important resource.

It seems that many companies plan for the medium-term future, and don’t take into account the longer term future at all. The essential difference here is that growth in population and demand is good for the medium term for many businesses, but it could be very bad in the longer term.

you can show that government can't achieve sustainability, why don't you just write it down and let us judge for ourselves.”

The “sustainability” question with any use of resources is whether the current use is justified. Government can’t achieve sustainability because they have no rational means to decide how to balance present as against future use. If they permit use now, how do they know they aren’t unfairly robbing future generations? And if they restrict use now, how do they know they aren’t unfairly depriving the present?

The market handles this problem by evaluating both the present and the future value of the resource in units of a lowest common denominator. Profit shows the value of present use. Capital, or asset, value shows the value of use for the future. These prices arise, and are knowable, from the values of all the billions of people on the planet who buy or abstain from buying the resource in question, thus *demonstrating their preferences* both as to present and future use. The market process is therefore far more representative of the people’s real and demonstrated preferences than anything Ludwig has to offer in theory, let alone in practice. And it would be much moreso, but for socialized resources.

It’s true that the market process is imperfect but all the same imperfections inhere in the government’s dispensation too. For example, the judgment call is made by the present generation, but that also applies when government decides.

For another example, evaluation in money terms is imperfect because money does not and cannot take account of anything that is not exchanged against money. But exactly the same problem, of how to calculate the value of things not exchanged against money, applies to government too.

Government labours under all the same disabilities as the market; and its actions, via the tragedy of the commons, spread evaluational chaos throughout the subject area.

In sum, one has no way of knowing whether any given governmental action is furthering, or retarding, sustainability in Ludwig’s own terms.

Furthermore, it requires an open-ended power for government to control anything and everything.