[PLUG-TALK] The Tragedy of the Commons

Keith Lofstrom keithl at keithl.com
Thu Nov 2 03:14:54 UTC 2023


On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 11:33:40AM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
> With all the natural, economic, social, and political turmoil we daily read
> in our news sources it's easy to wonder what, if anything, can be done. This
> morning I thought, again, of Garrett Hardin's 1968 article in the journal
> Science, titled "The Tragedy of the Commons." 55 years later it seems as
> relevant to current conditions as it did back then, if not more so.

Rich, thank you for the pointer to the PDF.

I read Hardin's essay half a century ago - it is still
applicable to an overly constrained "solution space",
such as small planet ... in an enormous solar system,
and a vastly larger galaxy.

-----

My lifetime mission has been to greatly expand the "solution
space" into beyond-Earth space, expanding the constraints by
more than 9 orders of magnitude, while greatly reducing the
environmental and social cost of doing so.

Constraints:  The Earth intercepts 174e15 (174 quadrillion)
watts from our Sun - a small fraction of which powers all
of terrestrial biology, and us.  Our Sun emits 380e24
(380 septillion) watts, 2 billion times as much power, 
practically all of which spews into darkness, never to 
touch matter again.  

Constraints (2):  Life operates around 300 Kelvins, hot
enough for liquid water, but also hot enough to damage
large molecules.  Most of the energy life consumes is to
repair damage, and fend off large and small predators. 
Most of the universe is 2.7 Kelvins, essentially zero 
thermal damage to molecules, predator-free.

Constraints (3):  Earth's gravity well is 60 Megajoules
per kilogram "deep".  60 Megajoules is 17 kilowatt-hours,
a few dollars worth of electricity.  Rockets are hugely
inefficient energy-wise; 99% of their energy is spewed
as pollution deposited in our fragile biosphere.  

Rockets are compact - you can fit one (with a 100 megatonne
warhead) into a hardened silo.  That is (unfortunately) how
and why rockets evolved as they did.  

-----

I ponder alternatives to all of these.  More than a century
ago, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky asked if a small planet is the
best place for an advanced civilization - his answer (and
mine) is NO.  He pondered rockets as a way to transport
civilization off the Earth, which are far too inefficient
and polluting.

When I am not spending Too Much Time configuring poorly
documented Linux systems (still better than Windoze),
I work on energy efficient and non-polluting alternatives
to rockets, see:

http://launchloop.com

(which should be https, another time-consuming Linux
configuration issue).  I've published journal papers about
that.  A minimum scale launch loop is Too Large compared
to current space launch needs, but tiny compared to all
of global transportation.

As much as I love Linux and my fellow Linux users, I would
rather be working on getting our polluting asses and 
machines off this precious jewel of a planet, and devoting
more than 1e18 watts Out There to defending the Earth from
space objects like the Chixhulub impactor, or viral plagues
that could wipe out all multicellular life.  Life (and us)
have been damned lucky so far, but past performance is no
guarantee of future success.  When 8 billion people get
crowded, they can get ( >10,000 MT ) suicidally crazy.

Meanwhile, "mind" may someday evolve to more efficient
and durable substrates.  Chemical decay rates are 
exponential with temperature; A 200 Kelvin mind can endure
megayears, and discover plenty of fascinating new ideas
and phenomena to ponder.

----

So, Hardin is correct ... for the tiny "solution space"
he could imagine.  Perhaps there is some undiscovered
constraint on the solution space, but for now that seems
to be mere timidity, conformity, and lack of imagination.

Yes, we should GREATLY limit what we do with energy and
resources on our tiny planet, and bust our asses to 
preserve all the fascinating abundance of evolved life.
But we should also think far far ahead, not just cling
desperately to what remains of what we once had. 

An entire galaxy awaits us ... hopefully a wiser version
of us.  Lets accumulate far more wisdom, and accumulate
far far more time and space and energy to do so.  Life
deserves nothing less.

Keith L.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com


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