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Tragedy of the Commons is the libertarian "private property is essential" interpretation. It's a cynical take, assuming that human selfishness is the deepest of

Tragedy of the Commons is the libertarian "private property is essential" interpretation. It's a cynical take, assuming that human selfishness is the deepest of truths and that there is no use fighting it, that the best solution is to organize society around it. The conventional Game Theory take is that this is a prisoners dilemma, and everyone creating balloon.txt files are defecting. They are making the most rational choice under the rules of the game (no communication thus no reliable cooperation). It's no globally optimal, but it is locally for each of them. This take also suffers from the same assumption: that rationality is centered on self-interest only. If we are to evolve as a species, then we need to get beyond such limited thinking. We need to transcend our base natures. That is the whole point of culture: to transcend as a group what our genes otherwise program us as individuals to do.

c3534l 6y ago
Tragedy of the Commons effects are well-established to exist both in economics and outside it (in ecology, for instance). You seem to be attempting to shoehorn some misguided political take into the situation, even though Tragedy of the Commons is a decent characterization of this particular social pathology.
- ksm1717 6y ago
  Their point was that tragedy of the commons need not be a given anywhere we see tragedies or commons. Last paragraph is lofty but I think the whole idea is we have the cognitive ability to deliberately prove its not a natural law. Understanding sociology as ecology at human scale is core to libertarianism.
  - eevilspock 6y ago
    Yes. Thank you. Though did you mean, "Understanding sociology as Darwinian ecology at human scale is core to libertarianism."? Because the notion that ecology is characterized only by "the law of the jungle" is also strongly debated. Even "the selfish gene" is debatable simplistic reductionism. Individuals aren't the only actors; there are higher order emergent entities, e.g. species and ecosystems, that also evolve to perpetuate themselves and flourish, much like our own bodies are cooperative and interdependent systems of cells (with native and foreign DNA, the latter existing primarily in our GI tract) that originally evolved as single-celled "selfish" organisms. And as you point out, "we have the cognitive ability" that nature lacks. We can do at least as well. As to "lofty", I agree. But let's consider other things that were once considered lofty if not insanity: - in ancient Greece, that democracy should be extended beyond the aristocracy - in Medieval Europe, that democracy should exist at all, that the divine right of kings should be seen as a scam - in the 19th century United States, that democracy should include women and blacks - in the 1970's United States, that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transexuals and queers should be treated with the same dignity as straights, should be able to marry, adopt children and serve in the military. And that we stop using "he/him" by default as you just did because that is an artifact of patriarchy as well as outmoded thinking about even binary gender. - in India today, that when a woman is raped, she should be protected by law and the male rapist should be punished, not the other way around. The same proposition if proposed in America or Europe not all that long ago. - I can make a really long list but you get it :)
ric2b 6y ago
So other people acknowledge the problem, provide a solution, and your response is to say "that is selfish libertarian propaganda, the real solution is some magical evolution"?
ycombinete 6y ago
It’s not just libertarians. I’m sure that even communists accept the premise of human self interest, but instead of private property their solution is for one all powerful government to own everything
- kaba0 6y ago
  Communism (as an end-goal) requires no governments. You are thinking of socialism.
- klarstrup 6y ago
  glance over a stirner summary i beg you
  - eevilspock 6y ago
    you mean Max Stirner?
- throwinreturn 6y ago
  TIL: Kropotkin was not a communist. Nestor Makhno, Errico Malatesta, Jose Durruti? Not communists either. Who'd have thought?
nickpp 6y ago
> we need to get beyond such limited thinking. We need to transcend our base natures Refusing to accept the human nature as-is and always requiring some sort of "evolved new man" is one of the characteristics of the communist/socialist ideology. Also a handy excuse when the system inevitably fails: it wasn't the system, it was the selfish people who did not implement it correctly.
- eevilspock 6y ago
  Ahhh the old "socialism/communism inevitably fails" meme. Let's assume one could even call those failures communism/socialism.[1] How long have we experimented with and developed socialism/communism? 100 years. How long have we been trying to get democracy right? 2,500 years. With many starts, fits and failures, devolving into dictatorships many, many times. The self-proclaimed "greatest democracy in history" is guilty of genocide and slavery. Even today how much it is a democracy as opposed to an oligarchy/kleptocracy/plutocracy is questionable. How about capitalism? 500-800 years. And in that time it has exploited, enslaved and murdered people, pillaged entire nations and continents[2], raped the environment, and poisoned every culture that has adopted it with the notion that "selfishness is a virtue".[3] The only reason capitalism hasn't collapsed (yet) is because capitalists are smart enough to not do pure capitalism, knowing that it would lead quickly to revolution, and because the environment's revolt is just getting started. --- [1] “The west called [the Soviet Union] Socialism in order to defame Socialism by associating it with this miserable tyranny; the Soviet Union called it Socialism to benefit from the moral appeal that true Socialism had among large parts of the general world population.” ~ Chomsky [2] The United States: "look how many people died in the Soviet Union's industrialization program!" Socialists: "how did the United States industrialize again? The United States: "look, you need to do a BIT of genocide and slavery to kick things off…" ~ Existential Comics [3] One of the most beneficial things about immersing yourself in deep study of American history is that you get to a point where this country can no longer effectively lie to you about why it is the way it is. It disabuses you of the notion that the inequality we see is an accident. ~ Clint Smith
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    Capitalism is not exploiting anyone. Capitalism is purely about organising the economy around voluntary transactions. Exploiting, enslaving and murdering is purely what socialist countries do - and they can get away with all of this, just because they can socialise the cost of all their evil deeds and force people into paying them money. The only reason capitalism hasn't collapsed is that it's the only way to have a profitable economy. The crooks that you call government recognise that they can steal only so much from the economy before a country collapse. I'd also argue that we've experimented with elements of socialism and elements of capitalism for the entire existence of civilisation. Communism can't work unless you have either perfect individuals or a tyrannical states which force resources distribution. In the real world, you end up with socialism. Because people are not perfect, the government which will redistribute resources won't do a perfect job in the best case and will just be completely corrupted in the worst case. And still, communism was attempted. When did we ever attempt to have an entire capitalist society without a government to ruin it?
dkarras 6y ago
This is self conflicting. You take "human selfishness is the deepest of truths" as a mere assumption, then you say "we need to transcend our base natures". Human selfishness IS nature. It is not just about humans either, all evolution is guided by environment (resource availability). For anything else you need ALL people to NOT be selfish, only some being altruistic does not cut it. Your only other option is to punish selfishness, but then you will ban progress. If most people don't create the balloon.txt file, BUT, there is no punishment for creating one, then if I believe I have a good idea and that I DESERVE more resources to pursue it, I'll create a nice big balloon.txt file. Your only option is to punish me for doing so. I would not want to live in a world where people are punished for trying to gather resources to make things that most other people won't. Some people have bright ideas, and they need resources to pursue them. Most people don't have many ideas and they don't want to do anything. If you prevent the means of passionate people to gather big resources to do big things, and want to live in a zero entropy world where everything is equal (made sure through the use of force / punishment, which will eventually be corrupt, because by definition punishers can't be equals to others) and nothing moves because of it, keep dreaming. It is not even scary because that literally cannot happen.
- nybble41 6y ago
  The way to resolve this particular tragedy of the commons, like most other such cases, is to privatize the commons: make people pay for the disk space they use. If you want a nice big balloon.txt file to reserve space for the future, fine, but you're paying for the space you reserved. How you use it is up to you. In return, the administrators get both the money and incentive they need to buy more storage capacity, ensuring that running out of available space will be less of a concern.

c3534l 6y ago

Tragedy of the Commons effects are well-established to exist both in economics and outside it (in ecology, for instance). You seem to be attempting to shoehorn some misguided political take into the situation, even though Tragedy of the Commons is a decent characterization of this particular social pathology.

ksm1717 6y ago
Their point was that tragedy of the commons need not be a given anywhere we see tragedies or commons. Last paragraph is lofty but I think the whole idea is we have the cognitive ability to deliberately prove its not a natural law. Understanding sociology as ecology at human scale is core to libertarianism.
- eevilspock 6y ago
  Yes. Thank you. Though did you mean, "Understanding sociology as Darwinian ecology at human scale is core to libertarianism."? Because the notion that ecology is characterized only by "the law of the jungle" is also strongly debated. Even "the selfish gene" is debatable simplistic reductionism. Individuals aren't the only actors; there are higher order emergent entities, e.g. species and ecosystems, that also evolve to perpetuate themselves and flourish, much like our own bodies are cooperative and interdependent systems of cells (with native and foreign DNA, the latter existing primarily in our GI tract) that originally evolved as single-celled "selfish" organisms. And as you point out, "we have the cognitive ability" that nature lacks. We can do at least as well. As to "lofty", I agree. But let's consider other things that were once considered lofty if not insanity: - in ancient Greece, that democracy should be extended beyond the aristocracy - in Medieval Europe, that democracy should exist at all, that the divine right of kings should be seen as a scam - in the 19th century United States, that democracy should include women and blacks - in the 1970's United States, that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transexuals and queers should be treated with the same dignity as straights, should be able to marry, adopt children and serve in the military. And that we stop using "he/him" by default as you just did because that is an artifact of patriarchy as well as outmoded thinking about even binary gender. - in India today, that when a woman is raped, she should be protected by law and the male rapist should be punished, not the other way around. The same proposition if proposed in America or Europe not all that long ago. - I can make a really long list but you get it :)

ric2b 6y ago

So other people acknowledge the problem, provide a solution, and your response is to say "that is selfish libertarian propaganda, the real solution is some magical evolution"?

ycombinete 6y ago

It’s not just libertarians. I’m sure that even communists accept the premise of human self interest, but instead of private property their solution is for one all powerful government to own everything

kaba0 6y ago
Communism (as an end-goal) requires no governments. You are thinking of socialism.
klarstrup 6y ago
glance over a stirner summary i beg you
- eevilspock 6y ago
  you mean Max Stirner?
throwinreturn 6y ago
TIL: Kropotkin was not a communist. Nestor Makhno, Errico Malatesta, Jose Durruti? Not communists either. Who'd have thought?

nickpp 6y ago

> we need to get beyond such limited thinking. We need to transcend our base natures Refusing to accept the human nature as-is and always requiring some sort of "evolved new man" is one of the characteristics of the communist/socialist ideology. Also a handy excuse when the system inevitably fails: it wasn't the system, it was the selfish people who did not implement it correctly.

eevilspock 6y ago
Ahhh the old "socialism/communism inevitably fails" meme. Let's assume one could even call those failures communism/socialism.[1] How long have we experimented with and developed socialism/communism? 100 years. How long have we been trying to get democracy right? 2,500 years. With many starts, fits and failures, devolving into dictatorships many, many times. The self-proclaimed "greatest democracy in history" is guilty of genocide and slavery. Even today how much it is a democracy as opposed to an oligarchy/kleptocracy/plutocracy is questionable. How about capitalism? 500-800 years. And in that time it has exploited, enslaved and murdered people, pillaged entire nations and continents[2], raped the environment, and poisoned every culture that has adopted it with the notion that "selfishness is a virtue".[3] The only reason capitalism hasn't collapsed (yet) is because capitalists are smart enough to not do pure capitalism, knowing that it would lead quickly to revolution, and because the environment's revolt is just getting started. --- [1] “The west called [the Soviet Union] Socialism in order to defame Socialism by associating it with this miserable tyranny; the Soviet Union called it Socialism to benefit from the moral appeal that true Socialism had among large parts of the general world population.” ~ Chomsky [2] The United States: "look how many people died in the Soviet Union's industrialization program!" Socialists: "how did the United States industrialize again? The United States: "look, you need to do a BIT of genocide and slavery to kick things off…" ~ Existential Comics [3] One of the most beneficial things about immersing yourself in deep study of American history is that you get to a point where this country can no longer effectively lie to you about why it is the way it is. It disabuses you of the notion that the inequality we see is an accident. ~ Clint Smith
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  Capitalism is not exploiting anyone. Capitalism is purely about organising the economy around voluntary transactions. Exploiting, enslaving and murdering is purely what socialist countries do - and they can get away with all of this, just because they can socialise the cost of all their evil deeds and force people into paying them money. The only reason capitalism hasn't collapsed is that it's the only way to have a profitable economy. The crooks that you call government recognise that they can steal only so much from the economy before a country collapse. I'd also argue that we've experimented with elements of socialism and elements of capitalism for the entire existence of civilisation. Communism can't work unless you have either perfect individuals or a tyrannical states which force resources distribution. In the real world, you end up with socialism. Because people are not perfect, the government which will redistribute resources won't do a perfect job in the best case and will just be completely corrupted in the worst case. And still, communism was attempted. When did we ever attempt to have an entire capitalist society without a government to ruin it?

dkarras 6y ago

This is self conflicting. You take "human selfishness is the deepest of truths" as a mere assumption, then you say "we need to transcend our base natures". Human selfishness IS nature. It is not just about humans either, all evolution is guided by environment (resource availability). For anything else you need ALL people to NOT be selfish, only some being altruistic does not cut it. Your only other option is to punish selfishness, but then you will ban progress. If most people don't create the balloon.txt file, BUT, there is no punishment for creating one, then if I believe I have a good idea and that I DESERVE more resources to pursue it, I'll create a nice big balloon.txt file. Your only option is to punish me for doing so. I would not want to live in a world where people are punished for trying to gather resources to make things that most other people won't. Some people have bright ideas, and they need resources to pursue them. Most people don't have many ideas and they don't want to do anything. If you prevent the means of passionate people to gather big resources to do big things, and want to live in a zero entropy world where everything is equal (made sure through the use of force / punishment, which will eventually be corrupt, because by definition punishers can't be equals to others) and nothing moves because of it, keep dreaming. It is not even scary because that literally cannot happen.

nybble41 6y ago
The way to resolve this particular tragedy of the commons, like most other such cases, is to privatize the commons: make people pay for the disk space they use. If you want a nice big balloon.txt file to reserve space for the future, fine, but you're paying for the space you reserved. How you use it is up to you. In return, the administrators get both the money and incentive they need to buy more storage capacity, ensuring that running out of available space will be less of a concern.