>It assumes these Easter Island people were really dumb and irrational. No it doesn't. It assumes a tragedy of the commons. Everybody who cut down trees did so

>It assumes these Easter Island people were really dumb and irrational. No it doesn't. It assumes a tragedy of the commons. Everybody who cut down trees did so out of rational self-interest. The same kind of thing happens even in supposedly advanced civilizations, e.g. with the Atlantic cod fishery. Coordination problems are hard to solve.