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The Population Explosion
Collection StructureFiring Line broadcast records > Episode guide > The Population Explosion
Item Title The Population Explosion
Guest Clark, Colin (1905-1989)
Guest Sweezy, Alan
Host Buckley, William F., Jr. (1925-2008)
Date CreatedJune 23, 1969
Description

As Mr. Buckley introduces his two guests, "Dr. Sweezy is quite orthodox, i.e., he thinks everything is lost, or just about lost, thanks to the population explosion. Dr. Clark is terribly unorthodox. If anything he seems to be saying we need more people." What follows is a serious, though often heated, discussion of technical and moral questions, ranging from whether we ought to spread industry more evenly around the country to whether it would be permissible to put a sterilizing agent in a city's water supply. WFB: "Let me give you a reductio ad absurdum. One way to affect the population is simply infanticide. Kill the third child or the fourth child, depending on what you economists advise us at any given moment. But we do reject this for moral reasons, do we not?" AS: "Yes." WFB: "There are no functional reasons. It's rather neat, actually, a neat way of handling the problem." AS: "Well, I don't think I'll subscribe to your use of the adjective 'neat,' but I reject it." WFB: "Okay. For moral reasons?" AS: "Yes."

Subject(s)
Language(s)
Country of Origin
Place RecordedNew York City, New York, United States
DimensionsDuration: 50 minutes
FormatText
Medium television programs
Aspect Ratio
4:3
Color
color
Soundtrack
sound
Hoover IDProgram 156
Record Number80040.156
NotesVideo available through special order.
RightsCopyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.

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