Cross-posted in comments at William Briggs:

I’m going to offer you “The Tragedy of the Commons”, by Garrett Hardin.

Published in 1968, this article generated, and yet generates, extreme forms of breathing when confronted as prattle.

One of the crazy assumption posited? “(T)he important concept of a class of human problems which can be called ‘no technical solution problems,’ and, more specifically, with the identification and discussion of one of these.”

The next statement? “It is easy to show that the class in not a null class.”

Of course, more compelling, is the final paragraph of his conclusion:

“the only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon. ‘Freedom is the recongition of necessity’–and it is the role of education to reveal to all the necessityh of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.”

I’ve posted links to this tripe in this article:

http://tinyurl.com/5pcbmb

Let me know what I have won!