291–300 of 423 posts
In Belgium there is a huge issue with pfas caused by 3M [1], having contaminated things like drinking water etc, so it's not even safe to eat vegetables from your garden or eggs from your chickens. It's a massacre TBH, mostly exposing the head-in-the-sand, umbrella using fingerpointing mentality of Belgian politics. I can imagine 3M has sites like these all over the world, so I would assume this only scratches the su…
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I always thought that if our universe is actually a simulation, it's one of countless simulations trying to determine a solution to the Tragedy of the Commons. I suspect it's one of the hardest problems to solve in any universe.
The idea of the "tragedy of the commons" is an ahistorical myth, promulgated quite recently by a racist, eugenicist, nationalist fearmonger: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tragedy-of-t... History offers many examples of human communities successfully managing their common resources, over generations.
Still, I'm grateful for your linking to this excellent critique of the source article which, among other things, provides a handy label for an ethically and morally dubious extrapolation the critique labels "lifeboat ethics" which I often seen deployed by the wealthy against the impoverished.
> an idea [Hardin] called “lifeboat ethics” [0]: since global resources are finite, Hardin believed the rich should throw poor people overboard to keep their boat above water. [1]
[0] https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil1100/Hardin.pdf (link in OP)
[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tragedy-of-t... (OP)
3M has been facing a raft of litigation that has prompted the move Generally speaking, toxic substances are only "cheap" due to externalizing many of the costs involved, like increased healthcare costs and lost productivity. If you do a thorough analysis of the costs of using such chemicals, they aren't cheap at all. Maybe someday humans will get that.
I always thought that if our universe is actually a simulation, it's one of countless simulations trying to determine a solution to the Tragedy of the Commons. I suspect it's one of the hardest problems to solve in any universe.
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(Controversial comment warning) one way to save more than your lifetime’s worth of CO2 is to not have children. By not having children, you’re not just saving the CO2 output of the child itself, but the entire lineage that could have resulted from that single child. Obviously this advice is not good advice for anyone who wants to have children :)
yes, take away the single greatest potential joy people can have in their lives. Great plan for humanity, chief.
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I live in Britain where the original commons were located and have yet to see a tragic one. The idea may apply to things like overfishing.
Do you think the overfishing situation will get better/worse/same after Brexit?
If post-brexit overfishing numbers increase, what evidence is there that the increase is due to individual greed and not a government policy?
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Is it really that hard though? On the top of my mind I can come up with several success stories of solving tragedy of the commons type of problems. For example: Global regulation around CFCs made the ozone hole shrink The don't mess with texas anti littering campaign and similar outreach programs worldwide reduced littering In general taxing negative externalities seems to have an effect
The solution isn't difficult. It is getting everyone to agree on that solution that is difficult.
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I try really hard not to use single use plastic. Especially plastic bags, plastic bottles, etc. This frequently means I’ll be extremely thirst throughout some days but will wait till I get home or to work to drink filtered water out of the tap. I went to Las Vegas about a year ago on a work trip and realized that the hotel I stayed at uses more plastic bottles in an hour than I would use in my lifetime with no though…
You need to stop thinking about bringing your own footprint ever closer to zero, you must also stop thinking that doing so is a powerful revolutionary act, and join or create organized groups vowing to bring about social change. Be it in your family, your neighbourhood or your municipality. Forget shorter showers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2TbrtCGbhQ
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That's in the range of 10x the CO2 an average human will produce in their lifetime. If you could find a way to get 20 people to cut their emissions in half, or 200 people to reduce it by 5%, or 1000 people by 1%, you could balance out your CO2 ledger :) Or, if you still work in the industry and can find a way to make the shipping routes more efficient, or prevent future mistakes like that, you could make it into the…
(Controversial comment warning) one way to save more than your lifetime’s worth of CO2 is to not have children. By not having children, you’re not just saving the CO2 output of the child itself, but the entire lineage that could have resulted from that single child. Obviously this advice is not good advice for anyone who wants to have children :)