Malthusian Catastrophes and Tragedy of the commons is used to justify leftist actions, despite always being wrong. | We often get dire warnings about Malthusian Catastrophes, Ehrlich's population bombs and how individuals can't be trusted to manage shared interests. We need government to protect us from ourselves. History shows the opposite: individuals form small governments for common interests better than big governments, unless big government stops them. |
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2017-04-16
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It seems we always get these dire warnings, about how we need government to protect us, and one of the many fallacies is used to justify it. Here’s a little history of those fallacies.
In 1833 William Forster Lloyd (economist) regurgitated Malthus's idea in an essay called "the tragedy of the commons” (TOC), writing on the effects of unregulated grazing on common land in England (4). Only it wasn’t taken seriously at the time, because this hadn’t ever been a problem for 700 years. He was ignored, and society continued to evolve and get better.
In 1950 Flood and Dresher borrowed the idea of "failure to cooperate” and created something for Game Theory called the Prisoners Dilemma (5). It was the cop interrogation technique where the guy that talks first gets a reduced sentence (but if they both talk, neither gets the deal). If they both shut-up, they win, but since they don’t know what the other guy will do, they often talk first (to save themselves).
But that’s the key to why tragedy of the commons never happens in the real world. If they can communicate, they can make a deal in their mutual interest. But if they’re isolated, they can not, and will do the wrong thing. Which is why England (and most places) never had problems with “commons”. In fact, quite the opposite. They managed those commons better than Government (and in many more ways): they just negotiate/share and things usually worked out for the best. The times that you get TOC problems is when government steps in, and gets between the parties (often using anti-Collusion or Anti-Trust laws to prevent cooperation and communication), then things went to shit.
This irony is important. It means that the collectivists that use the TOC (or any variants), don’t realize that it’s not only false, but that it’s some of the greatest evidence against their very ideals. Luckily for them, most of their followers aren’t fully aware of the history and facts, so the argument works in spite of all the evidence against it.
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| Failed ideas should die out when they’re disproven. But old collectivists don’t learn, and new ones are created in Universities/factories at an alarming rate. They just keep spoon-feeding slightly tweaked variants of the same bullshit, and the gullible gobble it down, “Sure, all the other variants have failed before, but this time it’s different...”. |
Malthusian Catastrophes and Tragedy of the commons (the idea that people can't cooperate for mutual interest), is defied by every cross industry standard, Open Source software, and everything ever released to public domain. Yet the idea that we need government to protect us from ourselves, is still used to justify Marxism, despite it being fundamentally wrong.
If you want to see whether government can protect us from tragedy of the commons, just look to countries that had the strongest authoritarian governments like USSR, Eastern Europe, North Korea, Cambodia, Venezuela, Cuba, and tell us how well they’ve managed their resources compared to countries like ours? We created most of the innovations we consider “greener” and better for the environment, most coming not from Government but our private sectors, and Government jumping on board later. While they had Goverment policies to prevent the people from doing "bad things", that the government made exceptions for themselves, and the people mostly ignored.
Those of us who have some idea of history, science, sociology, human nature, realize that individuals can cooperate for mutual interest just fine, and it’s been government interfering with those natural processes that has created far more problems than it has ever helped.
Peak Oil Theory (or) Malthusian Catastrophe • [2 items]
| Malthusian Catastrophe
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| Robert Malthus basically wrote The Population Bomb in 1798. He did what many chicken little's do: (a) if population keeps growing (b) and our capacity to produce food doesn't then (c) we all starve. Reality is that (b) our capacity to produce food will outgrow population, then (c) our quality of lives will get better.
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| Peak Oil Theory
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| In the mid 50’s M King Hubbert plotted out oil production and said we would peak in the U.S. between 1965-1970, and in the world by 1986, so we needed to give government control to save us. Advances in discovery have resulted in at least 2050 until we expect to supply peak -- assuming no further advancements. Demand peak may already be on the decline, well before we ever consumed all the supply.
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👁️ See also
Tragedy of the commons -
Malthusian Catastrophes and Tragedy of the commons is used to justify leftist actions, despite always being wrong. The Population Bomb -
Marxist-sponsored hippie environmentalists re-invented the Malthusian catastrophe, and the only solution was Marxism. Peak Oil Theory -
M King Hubbert predicted oil production to peak globally around 1986, it's now expected after 2050. Be skeptical of Chicken Little. Earth Day -
Earth Day was a fake Holiday invented to support the far left, Marxist, anti-Humanity (Population Bomb Phobia) movement. Quotes/Climate -
Contradictions, failed prediction, obfuscation, the pseudo-science that is used to control the gullible.
🔗 More
Government
This is looking at Government from an American, Libertarian, and idealistic PoV, that many foreigners will not understand.
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Environment
I'm pro-environment myself, just anti-environmental-scarism.
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TBD
List all the articles that have work to be done on them.
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Keynes
A microeconomist that got a few things right in the little picture, but got virtually everything wrong in the big picture.
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Oppression
Government stifling or suffocating liberty and opportunity.
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Bad Predictions
Progressives want change, so they need to exaggerate the bad if you don't do what they want, or the good if you do.
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Paul R. Ehrlich
Winner of many accolades for being wrong, authoring the discredited Population Bomb, popularizing the Global Cooling scare.
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Cuba
Cuba was a once beautiful and developing country, until they were taken over by Marxist.
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🔗 Links
Tags: Government Environment TBD Lies Keynes Oppression Bad Predictions Paul R. Ehrlich Cuba
