alt Hacker News"Tragedy of commons" is a false concept that obscures greed and selfishness and often lawlessness. Even its originator (Hardin) accepts that it does not describe actual history.
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armchairhacker • yesterday at 9:24 PM
There’s a lot of debate under your linked comment.
My understanding is that people tend to cooperate in smaller numbers or when reputation is persistent (the larger the group, the more reliable reputation has to be), otherwise the (uncommon) low-trust actors ruin everything.
Most humans are altruistic and trusting by default, but a large enough group will have a few sociopaths and misunderstood interactions; which creates distrust across the entire group, because people hate being taken advantage of.
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The use of the word Tragedy in the name I think makes it easier for people to excuse themselves when they monopolize the commons. “Oh it’s a tragedy humans are just selfish we can’t avoid it.” The tragedy is that people are comfortable excusing others selfish, greedy behavior by saying it’s innate.