4 ms·

What do you mean? Why?

sacheendra 8y ago
The parent might be refering to the overfishing that happens in many parts of the world. That leads to destruction of the local ecosystem, and also the future livelihoods of the fishermen themselves. The US government already does something similar for corn. Farmers are paid to not plant it to control market price.
- baddox 8y ago
  Okay, it makes sense to say we should prevent overfishing. That doesn’t mean it makes any sense to pay fishermen for the fish they don’t catch. That’s a gibberish sentence. Why should a professional fisherman get paid for the fish he doesn’t catch? Shouldn’t I also get paid for all the fish I don’t catch (which is every fish that has ever existed)? And who is doing the paying?
thaumasiotes 8y ago
Ocean fish are a well-known example of the tragedy of the commons, where too many independent fishermen will wipe out the local fish population, leading to less fish for everybody. This is traditionally dealt with by (1) Informal norms among the fishermen as to how much fishing you should do. This system is not resilient to immigrants, who don't know the local norms (and may, not unreasonably, feel that the local norms already allot all of the fish to established fishermen), so fishing communities are often fiercely resistant to newcomers. (2) Legal limits on how much fish you can catch. The idea is that an authority will determine the total quantity of fish to be harvested, and then allot rights to harvest smaller quantities than that piecemeal. Under this system, taking fish without an appropriate license is a crime. You could move to a system more like our agricultural subsidies (paying people for the pigs they didn't raise), by giving money to anyone who owns a fishing trawler but didn't bring in any fish. But that seems obviously insane compared to the permitting system.
- arduanika 8y ago
  Interesting, but this whole digression is patently off-topic.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  (1) Informal norms among the fishermen as to how much fishing you should do. This system is not resilient to immigrants, who don't know the local norms (and may, not unreasonably, feel that the local norms already allot all of the fish to established fishermen), so fishing communities are often fiercely resistant to newcomers. "Informal" cultural norms operate as laws on a small scale, maybe a pre-industrial community and a lake (or grazing commons, like various feudal Europe examples). Any scale that implies depleting oceanic fish is a way to big for this. I would be surprised if any modern era conventions applied to ocean fishing for migrants to have any influence at all.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    The ocean is all connected, but fish don't magically equalize their distribution by the law of fish gravity. If you double the number of ocean fishermen working out of Galveston, the supply of fish near Galveston will suffer. Cultural norms generally operate on a small group of people. In the modern day, it doesn't take very many people to catch a ridiculous number of fish. So depleting ocean fish is better handled by cultural norms now than it was 500 years ago, when catching a lot of fish meant fielding a lot of boats.
    - shkkmo 8y ago
      > If you double the number of ocean fishermen working out of Galveston, the supply of fish near Galveston will suffer. That greatly depends on the type of fish and is not generally true. Many species of fish spend different parts of their lives at different locations. Tuna, salmon and many other pelagic fish travel pretty big distances.

The parent might be refering to the overfishing that happens in many parts of the world. That leads to destruction of the local ecosystem, and also the future livelihoods of the fishermen themselves. The US government already does something similar for corn. Farmers are paid to not plant it to control market price.

baddox 8y ago
Okay, it makes sense to say we should prevent overfishing. That doesn’t mean it makes any sense to pay fishermen for the fish they don’t catch. That’s a gibberish sentence. Why should a professional fisherman get paid for the fish he doesn’t catch? Shouldn’t I also get paid for all the fish I don’t catch (which is every fish that has ever existed)? And who is doing the paying?

thaumasiotes 8y ago

Ocean fish are a well-known example of the tragedy of the commons, where too many independent fishermen will wipe out the local fish population, leading to less fish for everybody. This is traditionally dealt with by (1) Informal norms among the fishermen as to how much fishing you should do. This system is not resilient to immigrants, who don't know the local norms (and may, not unreasonably, feel that the local norms already allot all of the fish to established fishermen), so fishing communities are often fiercely resistant to newcomers. (2) Legal limits on how much fish you can catch. The idea is that an authority will determine the total quantity of fish to be harvested, and then allot rights to harvest smaller quantities than that piecemeal. Under this system, taking fish without an appropriate license is a crime. You could move to a system more like our agricultural subsidies (paying people for the pigs they didn't raise), by giving money to anyone who owns a fishing trawler but didn't bring in any fish. But that seems obviously insane compared to the permitting system.

arduanika 8y ago
Interesting, but this whole digression is patently off-topic.
dalbasal 8y ago
(1) Informal norms among the fishermen as to how much fishing you should do. This system is not resilient to immigrants, who don't know the local norms (and may, not unreasonably, feel that the local norms already allot all of the fish to established fishermen), so fishing communities are often fiercely resistant to newcomers. "Informal" cultural norms operate as laws on a small scale, maybe a pre-industrial community and a lake (or grazing commons, like various feudal Europe examples). Any scale that implies depleting oceanic fish is a way to big for this. I would be surprised if any modern era conventions applied to ocean fishing for migrants to have any influence at all.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  The ocean is all connected, but fish don't magically equalize their distribution by the law of fish gravity. If you double the number of ocean fishermen working out of Galveston, the supply of fish near Galveston will suffer. Cultural norms generally operate on a small group of people. In the modern day, it doesn't take very many people to catch a ridiculous number of fish. So depleting ocean fish is better handled by cultural norms now than it was 500 years ago, when catching a lot of fish meant fielding a lot of boats.
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    > If you double the number of ocean fishermen working out of Galveston, the supply of fish near Galveston will suffer. That greatly depends on the type of fish and is not generally true. Many species of fish spend different parts of their lives at different locations. Tuna, salmon and many other pelagic fish travel pretty big distances.