limitationist

English

Etymology

From limitation +‎ -ist.

Adjective

limitationist (comparative more limitationist, superlative most limitationist)

1. Supporting or believing in a certain limitation.
   • 1974, Charles Gati, “Mr. X Reassessed: The Meaning of Containment”, in Caging the Bear: Containment and the Cold War, Indianapolis, I.N., New York, N.Y.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., →ISBN, pages 50–51:

     Thus, to a reader who was also a listener, the tone of the article could have conveyed a less encompassing, indeed limitationist, notion of containment than the text itself did.

   • 1994, Roy Howard Beck, Re-Charting America's Future, Petoskey, M.I.: The Social Contract Press, →ISBN, page 131:

     The word "nativism" first appeared in the 1830s. It described one part of the limitationist strain that ran through America for a century.

     Note: Roy Beck is an anti-immigration activist with ties to white nationalists.

   • 2010, Paul Hacker, Slovakia on the Road to Independence: An American Diplomat's Eyewitness Account, University Park, P.A.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, →ISBN, page 52:

     Then Federal Minister of Environment Antonin Vavrougek had strongly criticized the entire project while working at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague, taking a more limitationist view about the possibilities of generating electricity and a more alarmist view about the effect on drinking water supplies.

Noun

limitationist (plural limitationists)

1. Someone who supports or believes in a certain limitation.
   • 1983, Tibor R. Machan, M. Bruce Johnson, editors, Rights and Regulation: Ethical, Political, and Economic Issues, Cambridge, M.A.: Ballinger Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 124:

     Either demand, however, is unreasonable. It in effect invites the limitationists to shut up unless they exhibit detailed knowledge of government (and private) activities that they cannot realistically be expected to have.

   • 2007, Lawrence W. Serewicz, America at the Brink of Empire: Rusk, Kissinger, and the Vietnam War, Baton Rouge, M.I.: Louisiana State University Press, →ISBN, page 121:

     Whether there needs to be a complete reassessment or whether the current system could be modified to work more effectively fuels the debate between limitationists and globalist^[sic], which at heart is based upon realist premises.

   • 2009, E. Lisa F. Schipper, Ian Burton, editors, The Earthscan Reader on Adaptation to Climate Change, London, Sterling, V.A.: Earthscan, →ISBN, page 283:

     Of the 728 pages of substantive text, about two-thirds are devoted to impacts, one third to mitigation and only 32 pages to adaptation. That so little work is done on adaptation is a function of both 'limitationist' and 'adaptationist' biases. The 'limitationists' fear that such work may weaken the social will to undertake greenhouse gas reduction and thus play into the hands of those that argue that any action is premature.

   • 2023 July 13, David Brooks, “Why Douglas Hofstadter Is Changing His Mind on A.I.”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-19:

     The article made me happy because here was a scientist I greatly admire arguing for a point of view I've been coming to myself. Over the past few months, I've become an A.I. limitationist. That is, I believe that while A.I. will be an amazing tool for, say, tutoring children all around the world, or summarizing meetings, it is no match for human intelligence.

Related terms

• limitationism