Lateral pressure theory assumes that each statistic is an indicator of—and consequence of—a discrete decision by an individual human being governed by his or her preferences. By necessity, individuals made demands on their social and natural environments. The larger the size of the community, the greater are the demands, wants and needs. Population growth, for example, is in fact the outcome of a large number of discrete private decisions (due to volition or to coercion) over which policy makers or national governments are not likely to have direct effective control. In this connection, if there is any—determinism in this logic, it is one driven by individual decision. Indicators of technology, like those of population, are also the observed outcomes of a number of widely dispersed decisions by individual actors such as developers, inventors, scientists, investors, manufacturers, etc. The same holds for resource access and uses. By the same token, uses of resources begin with meeting individual needs and demands.