[FRIAM] Tragedy of the Commons & Free Riders

Wed Mar 24 23:31:34 EDT 2021

Glen wroth:

. The combinatorics of trying to fix the "problem" with the public bench makes such a method infeasible.

Nick replyeth:

Not to mention inheritance and natural selection.

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 9:25 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Tragedy of the Commons & Free Riders

I think we probably pretty much agree.

"It's a convenient fiction, or perhaps an approximating simplification" --- Yes! But we need some of those, and "the individual" is one that appeals to me. 

I do see the potential contradiction you are poking at, but I'm not sure it is fatal. In the case of the "tragedy of the commons" the lack of will is on the part of the farmers who fail to avoid a self-inflicted ruin. In the case of the so-called "free rider problem", the lack of will is on the part of the person providing the free ride. 

I love your bench example. You thought there should be a bench, you wanted it to benefit people. Then, when it did benefit people, you were pleased. Even when they were a minor annoyance, you still did not resent others for using the bench without having helped pay for it. There were "free riders", but they were not "a problem". Thumbs up!

As for the commons: Let's say you are one of 4 farmers sharing a plot of land that is ideally sized to support 12 cows, and each farmer has 3 cows. If you saw one of the other farmers suddenly show up with 4 cows, very slightly reducing your yield, I'll bet you are the type of guy who would strongly consider sticking to 3 cows, and trying to convince the other farmers to do the same. Just because one of the farmers is being a bit of a jerk doesn't mean you have to destroy the commons. Probably you would even go talk to the errant farmer, to at least try to understand what's up with the fourth cow. Maybe he really needs the money for some reason, and maybe some other solution could be found. -- At any rate, just because 1 person decided to get a little more meat production really does not mean everyone else has to as well. If the others value the commons, they could simply choose not to escalate the situation, and thereby the valued-commons is preserved. 

Presumably we could arrange the world so that a larger % of adults didn't complain about having successfully helped people they intended to help, and so that a larger % of adults did not turn the commons into a tragedy. 

On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 3:12 PM uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> > wrote:

Before I make my ur-objection, I'll say:

I agree with [⛧]:
> No member of the community is a "problem", in that story, whether they contribute or not.

I disagree with [⛤]:
> the first step in trying to fix such problems is to deal with the individual decision makers.

These 2 assertions seem contradictory. Perhaps they're not and all I need do is a better job of fleshing them out. Regardless, my primary objection is:

There is no such thing as an individual. It's a convenient fiction, or perhaps an approximating simplification so we can get on with policy/philosophy/physics/whatever. If it's the latter, then my counter-assertion is that the simplification/fiction no longer works. When our pre-internet (or even pre-industrial) information landscape was mediated by public intellectuals who came to fame through intellectual work, it was reasonably effective. But now that our socio-cultural peaks and surges are transpersonal, it fails. Everywhere is Commons. There is no private property any more because there is no *privacy* any more (except in crazy edge cases who manage to go "off grid"). Our algorithms can better infer You from metadata than you can causally describe your Self.

This looks, to me, like a validation of behaviorism and a falsification of libertarianism.

[⛧] To provide anecdotal evidence that I agree -- Back in Oregon, I pushed for installing a public bench in the park behind our house. Another neighborhood development association member (who was a "leader" and had more credibility) liked the idea and helped push it through. I managed to find the powder coater, find a local manufacturer, hauled it to the parks maintenance building, etc.) During the discussion for what kind of bench, my partner wanted to install a middle arm rest so that nobody could sleep on the bench, you know, attracting homeless people. I managed to snuff that. What's wrong with sleeping on a bench in a public park? Anyway, since I pushed for the bench, in the few years we stayed thereafter, I maintained the area around the bench. I found a heroin kit, used condoms, trash of all kinds (including sharps and the ever-present dog sh¡t), etc. Often, kids would be on the bench late into the night smoking dope, rap on the boom box, and partying. In my opinion, it was a resounding success, as irritating as it might be to sit out on my patio and have to listen to rap all evening.

[⛤] And it should be obvious from the story that you cannot, will never, "fix" the free rider problem by dealing with the individual decision makers. Each heroin addict, homeless person, kid needing time away from her parents, etc. is an entire *universe* in itself. The combinatorics of trying to fix the "problem" with the public bench makes such a method infeasible.

On 3/21/21 8:02 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> New subject to avoid thread bending!
> 
> On Fri, Mar 12, 2021 at 5:05 PM uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>  <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> >> wrote:
>> 
>> Libertarians seem to think that private ownership of property facilitates good stewardship of that property. The tragedy of the commons argues that's not the case because the scope of ownership is ambiguous.
> 
> This libertarian merely asserts that The Tragedy of the Commons is a story about a lack of willpower, and that it is best addressed by trying to create people who exercise their individual will more intelligently, _not_ by creating a superordinate-will with a monopoly on socially sanctioned violence, especially a superordinate will with a zeal for arbitrary enforcement, run by bureaucratic minutiae. Even if you find that you eventually need something superordinate, surely (I assert) the first step in trying to fix such problems is to deal with the individual decision makers. The superordinate effort is for whatever problem is left after that has been work on. Reference any of John Dewey's writings about the essential place of educational efforts in a Democracy. However much attention we give the question of how to police bad citizens, we need to place at least as much attention on the question of how to develop good citizens. 
> 
> There is a similar problem with talk about The Free Rider Problem. Sometimes there /is /such a problem, but most of the time I hear people talk about, the context is simply a lack of commitment to trying to help others. "I think a public park would benefit the community, but I'm worried about free riders taking advantage of it without helping to pay for it." <-- That's just weak willed crap. If you _want_ to see the community benefit from a public park, then do what you can to benefit the community, and if you achieve your goal smile with contentment at what you have accomplished. If you can't do it alone, find others who _want_ to benefit the community in that way too. No member of the community is a "problem", in that story, whether they contribute or not. 

-- 
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> 
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20210324/c06a987e/attachment.html>