Suchergebnisse

There is a growing tension between two apparently irreconcilable trends: (1) demographic projections that world population size will reach 10 to 11 billion by the middle of the next century; and (2) scientific estimates that the Earth's long-term sustainable carrying capacity (at an "adequate to comfortable" standard of living) may not be much greater than 2 to 3 billion. It is past time to develop internationally coordinated sociopolitical initiatives that go beyond slowing the growth or stabilizing global human numbers. After "inescapable realities" that humans must soon confront, and notwithstanding the considerable difficulties involved in establishing "global population optimums," I conclude with several suggestions how best to bring about a very significant reduction in global population over the next two to three centuries. These proposals are cautiously optimistic.

In contrast to recent political, scholarly, and public misuse of the term, this essay articulates a more accurate definition of the hostage concept. This definition is not only consistent with a broad range of etymological sources, but is also in agreement with numerous examples from the historical and anthropological record. A possible application of the hostage idea to mid/late-twentieth-century superpower relationships, involving a distinctively different approach to nuclear deterrence, is also described. Attention is further called to the fact that the giving of hostages as confidence-building "emissaries of trust" incorporates several attributes that might be of interest to contemporary evolutionary theorists. A closer examination of the biological and behavioral underpinnings, the historical and anthropological precedents, and the political and psychological efficacy of this ancient idea might therefore prove to be a fruitful area for future empirical and theoretical research.