Comment on Not a good sign
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 9 hours agoI would imagine a system you’re suggesting would first have to eliminate scarcity of resources. We certainly have the ability to do that with our technology today but choose not to do so. Wouldn’t it require a turn to benevolence by all involved in the society to achieve that? If so, that doesn’t sound like a likely outcome. What, in your opinion, would it take to escape the Tragedy of Commons that is likely to actually occur?
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 9 hours ago
Provide evidence for this claim.
I understand this has been established as our cultural intuition but it is a near axiomatic assumption that upon examination has very little evidence to support it, whether we look to the natural world or to human societies.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I can provide zero evidence. I’m trying to imagine a world where your proposal works. Scarcity elimination the best possible way I could come up with.
If your proposal doesn’t need to eliminate scarcity, I’m even more interested in how it is done. Whats the secret sauce society-at-large has been missing?
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 7 hours ago
Every single human society in history where a commons was maintained via a system other than centralized authoritarian violence?
In other words, every society that isn’t ruled by an oppressive, authoritarian regime and that has some shared wealth whether it be in public spaces, public knowledge, public utilities, public education or other forms of public shared resource.
In the natural world it is very difficult to find ecosystems that function purely on a scarcity mechanism. If one considers the function of a predator in an ecosystem, it is precisely to stabilize the ecosystem so it can absorb large inputs of excess resources without the system collapsing. If one considers the basic function of herbivores in ecosystems it is the same, to stabilize the growth of plants so that abrupt periods of resource abundance and opportunity don’t destabilize the forest.
The only system that functions under the axiom that you suggest, which is that scarcity is a necessary obstacle to tackle before systems can stabilize, are ecosystems dominated by invasive species. This is in fact why invasive species collapse ecosystems.
Which is all to say, there are systems that cannot handle abundance as a temporary state and not a final destination never to be reached, but they are systems of cancer. All the dynamically stable systems we can point to whether they in the natural world or in human societies all feature some degree of scarcity, some degree of abundance and yet still manage to develop a shared commons of wealth.
For example, if you watch how Grizzly Bears eat Salmon, they do a shit job of it. They often become distracted in the process of eating a Salmon and just drop it leaving an only half eaten Salmon carcass on the ground wherever they happened to be. The way you understand how scarcity MUST impact systems cannot explain this blatant inefficiency in a natural ecosystem, individuals in nature are supposed to use EVERYTHING they can right? Evolution selects for efficiency right?.. Except it didn’t because it turns out the Grizzly Bears discarding the Salmon ends up transferring a massive amount of nutrients from the Ocean to the Forest.
You cannot understand the essential aspects of the above example of Grizzly Bears, Salmon and Forests under the mindset that you are approaching this problem from.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Well, that sounds like an accurate description humanity in the last 1000 years at least.
I think that statement is more supports my current position. You’re pointing out a temporary state, not an enduring condition. I could probably argue that even many of those temporary states of a successful shared commons were potentially built on the exploitation of others outside of those benefiting from the commons, but lets ignore that for now. None of those endured. Every single one has ended, or in some possible isolated cases that may exist today, have not shown they could endure with changing social or geopolitical conditions. These examples don’t live in a vacuum either. Unless the whole of humanity is onboard, a segment could pillage the shared commons of another society if they did not have adequate defense as has been shown in humanities history an uncounted amount of times. So what, in your approach, would change one of these temporary states to a permanent one that humanity would actually implement?
Not right. There is no scarcity of resources for the bears because here bears use a form of violent authoritarianism to ensure resource (salmon in your example) availability for themselves. A dominate bear will kill weaker bears to ensure food, mates, and territory are established. In that sense, it mirrors the human reaction. Again, that points away from a non-violent benevolent society of a workable shared commons.
The only way I can see your example apply to humanity is if you’re suggesting humanity should enforce a class hierarchy where apex predators (small segment of high class humans) get first dibs of the prime resources, and lesser creatures (the middle class) and plants (those in poverty) benefit by what the bears leave behind. Isn’t this the premise of Regan’s much hated “trickle down economics”? I don’t believe you’re suggesting that, but I’m not seeing an alternate interpretation. I’m open to hearing your alternate explanation.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
NO! You must prove the world in your mind to my satisfaction! Everything is an argument!
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