The (Continuing) Tragedy of the Commons

So you would read an environmental article on Rush Limbaugh's website? Or Exxon's? That's interesting. You're one of very few people who doesn't want to put information in its context. It's certainly refreshing, since you read every article out there and take them all on their merits without any bias. Not many people do that.

You seem to be in the business of attacking anyone who is skeptical about something you want to believe. That's okay, of course - I attack anyone who manipulates science toward their politics so there are a few sites ( Seed Media is one ) that are about as valid to me as Rush Limbaugh or Exxon is to you. Either way, you have expressed a preference not to be read further in your latest frustrated barb so I will honor it.

First, Mr. Limbaugh is an authority on nothing and has no formal training of any kind to my knowledge. He is simply a on-air entertainer who performs for right-wing interests. I generally do dismiss anything of his out of hand as he, to my knowledge, does not do any research or journalism per se, but rather opinion and commentary. Exxon is a business that while they certainly do R&D, I am not aware of any environmental publications which they produce. However, they are not just one person and they do, I'm sure, hire experts in a variety of fields who are qualified to write on such topics.

That is awesome.

Sorry to sidetrack the point of the article. I read the whole thing, but was too distracted by this sentence,

Warm tree leaves release water, the water evaporates, and the atmosphere cools.

to actually give the rest of the article its due merit. I understand this article is taken from an economist's point of view, but it re-enforces the point that one should stick to the topic their writing about, instead of first trying to prove why your article is important.

Now for the article, I think that Hardin's basic premise is correct using game theory. Although they are trying to say that the commons are a finite resource. I think the problem with Game theory seems to be that its not completely based in the real world, there are all sorts of intangibles that can't be taken into account, as wall as the fact that its hard to establish how much one thing might help a company. While I admit that my study of Game theory was limited to the basics in Economics classes I've taken, from what I've seen its a very nice principle, but seems to be easily contradicted with real world events.

In the basic case, if there are 2 competing grocery stores, if one starts to advertise it increases the number of people through the store by x% and revenue goes up, but if both start to advertise there is no change, and revenue actually goes down because of the spending on advertising. This doesn't take into account that one companies advertising may be better than anothers? or serve to highlight how much better one company does business than another. Also there is the prospect that the advertising from both companies might foster a desire among people who don't normally shop there for those types of products(consumerism, buying products you don't need because you feel you need them).

The article points to flaws in the way things are being managed now, so there are probably better ways to go about protecting the commons, what they are though I do not know.

p.s. Jason, do you have any links to the findings about game theory being flawed?