4 ms·

This is one of those examples where the cake is shrinking so everybody will get a smaller piece. Now if all participants would cooperate the cake could be made

by rv-de 6y ago

This is one of those examples where the cake is shrinking so everybody will get a smaller piece. Now if all participants would cooperate the cake could be made to grow. But this will afford people to not take as big of a piece as possible for a while. And because nobody trusts each other, every participant instead focuses instead on keeping the future pieces at least as large as they used to be which means taking relatively speaking an increasingly large chunk. And that's not sustainable so everything breaks down at some point and wars start over getting something from the cake. Same shit with carbon emissions, now fishing and soon water.

blauditore 6y ago
This is called the tragedy of the commons.
- sharker8 6y ago
  Economists have many choices when their models break: they can go poetic "tragedy of the commons", technical "externalities", John Nash "prisoner's dilemma", or even sort of nonsensical "internalizing externalities".
  - pnutjam 6y ago
    Skience is like that, we should stick with science.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  Nope. Tragedy of commons means that everybody share a legit right over resources but management fails. This is invasion, burn and plunder by a third part (one that does not necessarily has a legit right over the resource) while the commons are sleeping. Totally different situation.
  - hansvm 6y ago
    I've never heard that definition of "tragedy of the commons." Rather, I've always seen it used to describe a situation where everyone would benefit if everyone took one action, but individually the incentive structure is to do the opposite -- effectively you're able to get the things you want for minimal personal cost and with large external costs. It very explicitly applies to shared resources like fisheries, and it crops up in much more mundane scenarios too. E.g., when water costs are split between multiple apartments you can pay peanuts for nearly unrestricted personal water use by offloading most of the costs to everyone else.
    - pvaldes 6y ago
      > I've never heard that definition of "tragedy of the commons." Is a simplification, but the idea that I wanted to stress is that everybody in a "tragedy of the commons" case has some kind of legal rights to exploit the shared resource. Pirate fishing doesn't has rights over the resource. Is an illegal activity, parallel to the legal quotes, that boycotts any measures taken for a sustainable management.
      - hansvm 6y ago
        I definitely misread your comment as saying that it's only tragedy of the commons if piracy and whatnot are involved; sorry about that.
ainiriand 6y ago
Absolutely. This could be fixed with the teachings from the 'Prisoners dilemma'. I am starting to think that there are big decisions, that have a worldwide impact, that cannot be left just to the local government of turn. Take for example Bolsonaro's approach to the Amazon. Those are decisions that impact the whole world, possibly for generations to come. We cannot allow a local government to do what they want just because they happen to have this piece of land in their own country. We need a global system to enforce measures to protect the planet.
- dfxm12 6y ago
  Is this the role of the UN, EU, etc.? In Brazil's specific case, concerted sanctions were proposed to convince Brazil to behave a certain way [0]. If this doesn't work, maybe the carrot is better than the stick. I know this case is a little unique because the Brazillian government appears to be acting against the will of its people with regards to conserving the rainforest. 0 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/as-eu-threatens-trade-retaliation-brazil-sends-army-to-fight-amazon-fires-idUSKCN1VD19T https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/as-eu-thr...
stretchwithme 6y ago
Property rights are the answer. And not property rights the way water rights sometimes works, where a group of people all have the right to take all they can. If the same people owned an aquifer but all had to pay for what they used, the water would be more properly priced. With water, as with fish, people often pay the cost of taking the resource and not a price that reflects the value of the resource. The value is actually more like the future cost of replacing the resource. Once your aquifer is empty, you must ship water in. Or desalinate. That's more like the real cost. With a species of fish, the replacement is incalculable. But one thing is clear. The price should increase rapidly as it becomes scarcer, preserving the incentive to keep the population viable. That can't happen if people just pay the cost of going out there and getting the fish. The price has to reflect the value of the fish too. If the right too harvest a population were a piece of property that could be bought and sold, the incentive to preserve the population would be stronger. You might even see technologies that avoid taken pregnant females and that count how many males there are so you have enough of those too.
- pydry 6y ago
  This is almost word for word the economic advice given by Larry Summers to Russia when Yeltsin (an American puppet) was figuring out what to do with Russian industries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He told them to put it in private hands. He told them it didn't really matter whose hands it ended up in. He told them that provided it was in private hands with property rights well respected then the economy would thrive throughout the 90s. It ultimately ended up mostly in the hands of the oligarchs or abandoned while the rest of Russia starved. A lot of it got clawed back in the early 2000s and has been better managed since.
  - stretchwithme 6y ago
    What article or speech or book are you referring to? I'd love to see how closely I channeled it, especially given my low opinion of that guy. I would add that property rights don't work as well when rule of law is weak. That doesn't mean they're a bad thing.
- rufusroflpunch 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AshWolfy 6y ago
I remember being told socialism doesnt work because of tragedy of the commons
Gravityloss 6y ago
There's a story. An isolated native from a South American jungle met a researcher and was taken to the city for the first time. He saw a traffic policeman on the street and asked who is that, why is he dressed like that, why are people following his direction etc. When explained, he thought immediately the idea sounded great. In their tribe, they got locked into spirals of revenge. He said he wished they could have police in the jungle as well. Many societies have decided to respect some common rules. Sometimes it means that someone as a person can't quite do what they would like to do. That is the price. The societies not being able to organize well were overrun by others, more organized ones. Sometimes the rules were changed.

by rv-de 6y ago

blauditore 6y ago

This is called the tragedy of the commons.

sharker8 6y ago
Economists have many choices when their models break: they can go poetic "tragedy of the commons", technical "externalities", John Nash "prisoner's dilemma", or even sort of nonsensical "internalizing externalities".
- pnutjam 6y ago
  Skience is like that, we should stick with science.
pvaldes 6y ago
Nope. Tragedy of commons means that everybody share a legit right over resources but management fails. This is invasion, burn and plunder by a third part (one that does not necessarily has a legit right over the resource) while the commons are sleeping. Totally different situation.
- hansvm 6y ago
  I've never heard that definition of "tragedy of the commons." Rather, I've always seen it used to describe a situation where everyone would benefit if everyone took one action, but individually the incentive structure is to do the opposite -- effectively you're able to get the things you want for minimal personal cost and with large external costs. It very explicitly applies to shared resources like fisheries, and it crops up in much more mundane scenarios too. E.g., when water costs are split between multiple apartments you can pay peanuts for nearly unrestricted personal water use by offloading most of the costs to everyone else.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    > I've never heard that definition of "tragedy of the commons." Is a simplification, but the idea that I wanted to stress is that everybody in a "tragedy of the commons" case has some kind of legal rights to exploit the shared resource. Pirate fishing doesn't has rights over the resource. Is an illegal activity, parallel to the legal quotes, that boycotts any measures taken for a sustainable management.
    - hansvm 6y ago
      I definitely misread your comment as saying that it's only tragedy of the commons if piracy and whatnot are involved; sorry about that.

ainiriand 6y ago

Absolutely. This could be fixed with the teachings from the 'Prisoners dilemma'. I am starting to think that there are big decisions, that have a worldwide impact, that cannot be left just to the local government of turn. Take for example Bolsonaro's approach to the Amazon. Those are decisions that impact the whole world, possibly for generations to come. We cannot allow a local government to do what they want just because they happen to have this piece of land in their own country. We need a global system to enforce measures to protect the planet.

dfxm12 6y ago
Is this the role of the UN, EU, etc.? In Brazil's specific case, concerted sanctions were proposed to convince Brazil to behave a certain way [0]. If this doesn't work, maybe the carrot is better than the stick. I know this case is a little unique because the Brazillian government appears to be acting against the will of its people with regards to conserving the rainforest. 0 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/as-eu-threatens-trade-retaliation-brazil-sends-army-to-fight-amazon-fires-idUSKCN1VD19T https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/as-eu-thr...

stretchwithme 6y ago

Property rights are the answer. And not property rights the way water rights sometimes works, where a group of people all have the right to take all they can. If the same people owned an aquifer but all had to pay for what they used, the water would be more properly priced. With water, as with fish, people often pay the cost of taking the resource and not a price that reflects the value of the resource. The value is actually more like the future cost of replacing the resource. Once your aquifer is empty, you must ship water in. Or desalinate. That's more like the real cost. With a species of fish, the replacement is incalculable. But one thing is clear. The price should increase rapidly as it becomes scarcer, preserving the incentive to keep the population viable. That can't happen if people just pay the cost of going out there and getting the fish. The price has to reflect the value of the fish too. If the right too harvest a population were a piece of property that could be bought and sold, the incentive to preserve the population would be stronger. You might even see technologies that avoid taken pregnant females and that count how many males there are so you have enough of those too.

pydry 6y ago
This is almost word for word the economic advice given by Larry Summers to Russia when Yeltsin (an American puppet) was figuring out what to do with Russian industries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He told them to put it in private hands. He told them it didn't really matter whose hands it ended up in. He told them that provided it was in private hands with property rights well respected then the economy would thrive throughout the 90s. It ultimately ended up mostly in the hands of the oligarchs or abandoned while the rest of Russia starved. A lot of it got clawed back in the early 2000s and has been better managed since.
- stretchwithme 6y ago
  What article or speech or book are you referring to? I'd love to see how closely I channeled it, especially given my low opinion of that guy. I would add that property rights don't work as well when rule of law is weak. That doesn't mean they're a bad thing.
rufusroflpunch 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

AshWolfy 6y ago

I remember being told socialism doesnt work because of tragedy of the commons

Gravityloss 6y ago

There's a story. An isolated native from a South American jungle met a researcher and was taken to the city for the first time. He saw a traffic policeman on the street and asked who is that, why is he dressed like that, why are people following his direction etc. When explained, he thought immediately the idea sounded great. In their tribe, they got locked into spirals of revenge. He said he wished they could have police in the jungle as well. Many societies have decided to respect some common rules. Sometimes it means that someone as a person can't quite do what they would like to do. That is the price. The societies not being able to organize well were overrun by others, more organized ones. Sometimes the rules were changed.