Tim May wrote:
>
> At 12:42 PM -0400 4/26/00, Jim Burnes wrote:
> >
> >Starvation and privation in most of Africa is almost a stereotype.
> >
> >Stick with a minimal government and something approaching english common
> >law and we have goods and happiness aplenty.
>
> There are some interesting issues normally neglected in the
> traditional libertarian analysis. For example, the "ecotone." This is
> a region of 50/50 survival, roughly speaking. A tideline is often an
> ecotone.
>
> The fact is, in alluvial flood plains like Bangla Desh (formerly East
> Pakistan), people move out onto the flood plains, where land is
> cheaper than elsewhere, and breed as rapidly as they possibly can
> (for various reasons). Every ten or twenty years, a cyclone (=
> hurricane) arrives and half a million die quickly and another few
> million suffer diseases and mold and all the stuff that too much
> water brings. And the capital, Dacca, sinks deeper into poverty.
>
> Sub-saharan Africa is much the same.
>
> Capitalism vs. Marxism has little to do with things. The issue is
> that these are regions of extremely high death rates (and hence high
> birth rates, via the generation-recombination equation) and nearly
> permanently "poor" living conditions.
In interesting concept. While I haven't read any material on ecotones
I'm familiar with the rough concept. In my mind there appears to be
an intuitive correlation between the 50/50 ecotone and the boundry
between chaos and order in the Mandelbrot set. It also makes
sense within the certain predator/prey theories that I'm aware
of.
An interesting analysis would be whether or not Weberian societies
chose the temperate zones or the temperate zones made them possible.
You may not be able to determine that.
More interesting points....
(1) Hong Kong isn't a swamp, but it is very hot and humid and has
no natural resources. It may still have the most productive economy
on the planet.
(2) Las Vegas has a burgeoning economy yet it lives right smack
in the middle of a very forbidding environment. Certainly way
over on the die-off side of the ecotone for humans.
Maybe the ecotone is modified by economic/energy input/output
conditions. That surviability is heavily modified by economic
feedback loops would seem to be apparent and thus the expansion
of the ecotone.
Too hot/humid -- ship in air conditioners
Too cold -- ship in heaters
Too many bugs -- bring in the pestisides
Too much sewage -- create sewer systems
Too little water -- bring it in from somewhere else
Too little money -- create economic conditions of "least friction" for
it to expand in (vegas and offshore banking zones would typify this)
Too little energy -- bring in nuclear generating stations
Too little atmosphere -- salt the ice caps with non-reflecting material
Maybe all it takes is changing thermodynamic boudries (in a wide
definition of thermodynamic).
> Those who live in dankness, in frozen wastelands, in fetid swamps, in
> the shadow of sand dunes, in clouds of tsetse flies and
> mosquitos...well, they fertilize the soil.
Thanks, Tim. Very informative.
Jim Burnes
(living in the dankness of St. Louis currently)
