So, who wants to read my essay I wrote the other day?

[JMV]

Please note that I wrote this around 2AM and only had time for one draft.  ;)

Garret Hardin's essay "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor" attempts to convince the reader that his view against helping the less fortunate in the world is the view that will allow the human race to survive. On many occasions Hardin tries to throw around his flawed, and obviously biased, logic.  Throughout the entire essay he only makes one reasonable point, and even that isn't a heavy-hitting point.
   Hardin's only reasonable point in the entire essay is his mention of overloading the environment.  He points out that helping people in already crowded nations such as India, will only hasten the destruction of the area's natural ecosystem by not giving it a break from the heavy load of the human race (page 136/137).  However, Hardin fails to realize that there is an abundance of ways to conserve the environment and keep the human population alive.  It is not so much the population of the human race in the crowded nation as it is the destructive nature that modern society brings to the environment.   More ecologically friendly energy and food producing techniques throughout the whole world will not only negate the effects of such increases in population, but may improve existing conditions, even with the increased population.  In short, Hardin attempts to blame human population for the destruction of the environment instead of human society.
   Unfortunately for Hardin, his points get weaker throughout his entire essay. Other than misconstruing quotes to fit into his argument, (He mentioned the Marxist "ideal" of "to each according his needs"(Page 131), yet he oddly seems to leave out the first half of the quote, "From each according his ability", which would render his comparison useless as it has no relation to what he was trying to convey) Hardin attempts to  prove another point using flawed capitalistic logic.  He brings up the fact that poorer nations are growing at a substantially faster rate than the richer nations, which is true, but he also leaves the reader with the assumption that these nations have nothing while the richer nations only have enough for themselves, plus a small safety factor. This is completely false considering the fact that 50% of the world's wealth is concentrated into 2% of the population.  One would assume that these nations would have something to spare. Hardin's over the years as the population of the poor nations grew at a much faster rate than the wealthier nations which would result in the ratio of sharing of resources going from 1:1 to 8:1, is also a bit flawed.  This is, once again, based on the assumption that the richer nations would be the only ones offering something to the other nations, when in reality each person would be contributing equally, so while one American would be supporting 8 Ecuadorians the 8 Ecuadorians would be outputting 8 times the labor as the Americans, which, in all rights, is fair.
    "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor" fails  to make a lasting point. Hardin's attempt at shocking the reader into following his one sided, and severely flawed, argument is laughable. There are many other weak points throughout the essay based on false assumptions, such as section about the world food bank (page 133) which assumes that very few nations are supplying food to these nations and every impoverished nation is drawing from the bank as their only food source. One could go through the essay and pick apart each of Hardin's foolish claims, but that would only be humoring him. "Lifeboat Ethics" is a step back in social equality for all human beings.

Yes, I know the citations aren't in MLA format, but the teacher told us to do it like that for that specific essay.

[phatyo]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

[JMV]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

Heh.  It came out to be a few lines short of 3 pages.  ;)  Pretty short compared to other stuff I've written.

[phatyo]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

Heh.  It came out to be a few lines short of 3 pages.  ;)  Pretty short compared to other stuff I've written.

Woow i coudent write that much even if you gave me 2 weeks about 1 book

[TheKoopaBros.]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

Heh.  It came out to be a few lines short of 3 pages.  ;)  Pretty short compared to other stuff I've written.

Woow i coudent write that much even if you gave me 2 weeks about 1 book

What do they teach you in English then (unless you're pretty young).

I can personally write a lot given the right topic. For example at work my supervisor wanted me to give them some suggestions; I wrote out a few paragraphs, it came to half a page or so and took me less than 10 minutes.

Stuff like that just comes naturally to me, though. :P

[Commander Awesome]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

This is child's play compared to what I write in my English class. :P

[phatyo]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

This is child's play compared to what I write in my English class. :P

im in the 8th grade and hate English class >:I

[Commander Awesome]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

This is child's play compared to what I write in my English class. :P

im in the 8th grade and hate English class >:I

Well, I'm a Senior. :P

[JMV]

--Lol, don't quote the book.

You call that a essay i call that a book ?_?

This is child's play compared to what I write in my English class. :P

im in the 8th grade and hate English class >:I

I hated English until my Freshman year on high school.  I would suck at it and couldn't get anything above a C.   My teacher was the man though and I ended up getting a B in his class and I then realized that I could do better in English.   I did a lot better after that, although I still dislike writing.

[AhAhA]

Who's Garret Hardin?

Are you Garret Hardin?

[JMV]

Who's Garrett Hardin?

Are you Garrett Hardin?

No, he's the author of an essay title "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor".