alt Hacker NewsSomebody has never heard of the tragedy of the commons. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
> The tragedy of the commons is the concept that, if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether. Even if some users exercised voluntary restraint, the other users would merely replace them, the predictable result being a "tragedy" for all.
There is no right of absolute freedom, because at some point that freedom affects other people who also have rights. So we're always limited explicitly and implicitly in what we can do. Free, unfettered access just means taking something away from somebody else.
Replies
Oh, thanks for educating me! But seriously, that link on HN is a bit... you kinda expect people here to have basic education.
My comment had nothing to do with the theory of commons, only with the implementation. Yes, the better we coordonate the better the overall outcomes, but simply creating rules for the sake of creating rules will just create additional problems. You can't say "a better/new UN will fix Gaza" without understanding why the current one is failing: votes are based on population, there are very large Muslim populations, their political leaders have to play a certain tune or they'll have problems back home etc. It's all a bit more complicated than "let's all get along".
Same with space. Ok, basic rules are nice. At the very least, a norm of not having things go explody in stable orbits would definitely be welcome. Now, problem: how do you create an institution to enforce only the good rules, without scope creep and bureaucracy over 30 years?
Space is the one resource that isn't finite. And even in LEO, the amount of space is huge. It's about the same surface area of the earth, but tens of kilometers thick.
We used to have to leave a lot of space between satellites because their orbits varied unpredictably, but we've gotten better at packing them.
Someday we'll talk about the days of 5000 satellites like we talk about when computers had 4096 bytes of RAM, and it will be fine.