[PLUG-TALK] Irony repeats
Rich Shepard
rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Sat May 18 18:00:00 UTC 2024
On Sat, 18 May 2024, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Tragedy of the commons is a mostly bankrupt idea. Mostly "tragedy of the
> commons" is a phrase used today by people attempting to ignore the
> problems of overpopulation or discredit it.
Ted,
If you think so. Over population was a hot issue back then and continues to
be the case. I don't remember when Walt Kelly's 'Pogo' cartoon stated that,
"We have met the enemy and he is us" but that was on my lab door at the
university.
> The criticism of it is even in that link you sent, namely:
>
> "Some scholars have argued that over-exploitation of the common resource is
> by no means inevitable, since the individuals concerned may be able to
> achieve mutual restraint by consensus."
"... may ...", but not likely (possible but not probable) in my opinion.
Regarding natural resoures and ecosystems there are those who believe that
all natural ecosystems have intrinsic values that must be preserved while
others believe that the only values of natural ecosystems is that which has
been extracted from them. To some extent, this explains the urban/rural
dissentions that still exist.
Rich
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