The Fisherman

[Sy Borg]

It doesn't matter if connected communities cooperate for the common good if they don't develop the technology to defend their way of life. The world is littered with stories of displaced indigenous societies and the subsequent damage done to the natural environments their ancestors had lived in for millennia.

It's a tragedy for the people and the animals and plants, and valuable knowledge about how the local environment works (or worked) is lost in a carnage. Group selection is no kinder than natural selection, it seems.

My posts here were intended to have 2 outcomes. 1) to show how how this idea of the "Tragedy of the commons" has been weaponised by the real culprits in this tragedy against the very peoples they could learn from, and cooperate with, and 2) to illuminate the path to a better way, via devolved government of natural resources, and increased community level responsibility. I'm thinking about solutions to the huge problems we all face, accepting that we live in the modern world. Your responses while true seem needlessly negative. Do you have anything positive to add?

It's not negative, it's just fact. I don't want to put lipstick on a pig, so to speak.

I look at humanity's track record and its trajectory and I see no great awakening, just emerging winners and losers, where a portion of the losing side in the evolutionary race are seeking solace in spirituality and/or the promised ideal of ethical governance that will not happen any time soon.

[Tegularius]

I look at humanity's track record and its trajectory and I see no great awakening, just emerging winners and losers, where a portion of the losing side in the evolutionary race are seeking solace in spirituality and/or the promised ideal of ethical governance that will not happen any time soon.

...which was the mindset of the Middle Ages no matter how corrupt the church became. It was a time when only belief could make life bearable for most.

[Sy Borg]

I look at humanity's track record and its trajectory and I see no great awakening, just emerging winners and losers, where a portion of the losing side in the evolutionary race are seeking solace in spirituality and/or the promised ideal of ethical governance that will not happen any time soon.

...which was the mindset of the Middle Ages no matter how corrupt the church became. It was a time when only belief could make life bearable for most.

Yes, when people's physical world is trouble, and the events are too large to influence, then the tendency is to retreat into the world of ideas, which is what Qanon is about - a retreat from a complex and difficult reality into a world that is simple, with black and white "good guys" and "bad guys". This is not miles from retreating into a battle between God and Satan, and the evidence is how some politicians have been lauded as messengers of God while others are accused of drinking the blood of children in Satanic rituals.

I reckon this is heading towards people retreating into VR worlds and gaming. When the air is choked with pollution, the streets choked with cars and people, and everywhere is just asphalt, concrete, steel and glass, it will be tempting to simply retreat into an exotic mediaeval forest with dragons and wizards and the like. There are ever more virtual worlds popping up where people can go shopping, make investments and socialise. Whether these worlds become just another perilous "jungle" remains to be seen.

[Tegularius]

I reckon this is heading towards people retreating into VR worlds and gaming. When the air is choked with pollution, the streets choked with cars and people, and everywhere is just asphalt, concrete, steel and glass, it will be tempting to simply retreat into an exotic mediaeval forest with dragons and wizards and the like. There are ever more virtual worlds popping up where people can go shopping, make investments and socialise. Whether these worlds become just another perilous "jungle" remains to be seen.

Good point. The more dismal reality shows itself, the more desirable its virtual version becomes. The advanced technologies which allow these anodynes to do their magic, in effect, becomes the new god in the sense of making reality bearable. As you pointed out, the incipient signs are already there.

Who knows! In the future, a vast virtual reality network may be implemented to attack or at least neutralize to some extent the mounting negativities of the actual world. Amazon type entities may exist where one may download not kindle books but whatever fictional scenarios entice, VR algorithms directly experienced by the brain; in short, where anything described can be inflected as if it were a reality. The physics and the neuroscience is not so far off.

[Sy Borg]

I reckon this is heading towards people retreating into VR worlds and gaming. When the air is choked with pollution, the streets choked with cars and people, and everywhere is just asphalt, concrete, steel and glass, it will be tempting to simply retreat into an exotic mediaeval forest with dragons and wizards and the like. There are ever more virtual worlds popping up where people can go shopping, make investments and socialise. Whether these worlds become just another perilous "jungle" remains to be seen.

Good point. The more dismal reality shows itself, the more desirable its virtual version becomes. The advanced technologies which allow these anodynes to do their magic, in effect, becomes the new god in the sense of making reality bearable. As you pointed out, the incipient signs are already there.

Who knows! In the future, a vast virtual reality network may be implemented to attack or at least neutralize to some extent the mounting negativities of the actual world. Amazon type entities may exist where one may download not kindle books but whatever fictional scenarios entice, VR algorithms directly experienced by the brain; in short, where anything described can be inflected as if it were a reality. The physics and the neuroscience is not so far off.

It would solve a lot of problems (as long as technology was also there to healthily maintain sedentary bodies). The more that humans are safely tucked away into virtual worlds, the less they will demand of the natural environment per capita ... hopefully.

[GE Morton]

Assuming that communities, particularly first nations peoples existing within shared territories, relying on common resources, are incapable of managing those resources (hence the popular idea of "Tragedy of the commons") is in fact white mansplaining writ large. Elinor Ostrom challenged this assumption. She found that communities sharing common pool resources did manage them effectively.

Hardin's essay did not deny that small, cohesive communities could manage commons, when the only demands upon that commons were from members of that community. Nor do we need to visit indigenous communities in third-world countries to see effective management of commons. The members of a golf club effectively manage their golf course; the residents of a gated community effectively manage their common parks; the members of the YMCA effectively manage their gyms and swimming pools. There are many examples of effective governance of commons, historically and presently. The "Tragedy of the Commons" occurs where there is no effective governance, which occurs when the demand for the resource extends beyond the immediate community or where the immediate community is not cohesive.

Think about some of these resources - the softwood forests of North America, the fisheries of South America. Think about their condition pre- and post-European settlement, before and after the rise of the nation state, and centralised government. Yes I expect some blustery blowback: "You are talking about a lost world, of small populations and vast resources") But I urge you to think further. Who would you trust to better manage a forest or fishery, even in these times of huge human populations: a national government issuing decrees from the Capital, or the people who have lived in and around that forest for millenia, and who have handed on from generation to generation the biodiversity which is currently being squandered by dog eat dog capitalism operating through willing nation states?

I would expect those people who lived in and around the forest to manage it in their own interests, IF they constituted a cohesive community, and to disregard, or even resist, any demand for that resource originating outside that community.

And, of course, as the "blowback" you mention suggests, if the supply of a resource and natural rate of replenishment is greater than the demand and its growth rate, as it was for pre-colonial forests and fisheries in the Americas, no management is necessary at all.

[Robert66]

Assuming that communities, particularly first nations peoples existing within shared territories, relying on common resources, are incapable of managing those resources (hence the popular idea of "Tragedy of the commons") is in fact white mansplaining writ large. Elinor Ostrom challenged this assumption. She found that communities sharing common pool resources did manage them effectively.

Hardin's essay did not deny that small, cohesive communities could manage commons, when the only demands upon that commons were from members of that community. Nor do we need to visit indigenous communities in third-world countries to see effective management of commons. The members of a golf club effectively manage their golf course; the residents of a gated community effectively manage their common parks; the members of the YMCA effectively manage their gyms and swimming pools. There are many examples of effective governance of commons, historically and presently. The "Tragedy of the Commons" occurs where there is no effective governance, which occurs when the demand for the resource extends beyond the immediate community or where the immediate community is not cohesive.

Think about some of these resources - the softwood forests of North America, the fisheries of South America. Think about their condition pre- and post-European settlement, before and after the rise of the nation state, and centralised government. Yes I expect some blustery blowback: "You are talking about a lost world, of small populations and vast resources") But I urge you to think further. Who would you trust to better manage a forest or fishery, even in these times of huge human populations: a national government issuing decrees from the Capital, or the people who have lived in and around that forest for millenia, and who have handed on from generation to generation the biodiversity which is currently being squandered by dog eat dog capitalism operating through willing nation states?

I would expect those people who lived in and around the forest to manage it in their own interests, IF they constituted a cohesive community, and to disregard, or even resist, any demand for that resource originating outside that community.

And, of course, as the "blowback" you mention suggests, if the supply of a resource and natural rate of replenishment is greater than the demand and its growth rate, as it was for pre-colonial forests and fisheries in the Americas, no management is necessary at all.

To which I reply that national government, and international governance, could and should be responsible for ensuring sufficient cohesion among communities relying upon common resources. These levels of government would try to enable sustainable management of resources, recognising local, intrinsic rights along with external demands.

This notion - 'if the supply of a resource and natural rate of replenishment is greater than the demand and its growth rate, as it was for pre-colonial forests and fisheries in the Americas, no management is necessary at all' - is indicative of the outdated thinking which has plagued modern man's relationship with nature. Pre-colonial environments were managed. They were managed according to the correct assumptions that:) -man is part of nature, and that - all species require consideration. Good management, not merely abundance, ensured the biodiversity squandered since colonial times. And the devastating impact of relatively small populations of European settlers, in Australia and the Americas, shows how quickly natural abundance and diversity can be destroyed.

I recommend James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998) for an understanding of how badly wrong natural resource management can go, when the two assumption I just mentioned are ignored.

https://libcom.org/files/Seeing%20Like% ... 0Scott.pdf

[GE Morton]

To which I reply that national government, and international governance, could and should be responsible for ensuring sufficient cohesion among communities relying upon common resources. These levels of government would try to enable sustainable management of resources, recognising local, intrinsic rights along with external demands.

That's all very well, except that achieving that degree of consensus among disjoint communities is all but impossible.

This notion - 'if the supply of a resource and natural rate of replenishment is greater than the demand and its growth rate, as it was for pre-colonial forests and fisheries in the Americas, no management is necessary at all' - is indicative of the outdated thinking which has plagued modern man's relationship with nature. Pre-colonial environments were managed. They were managed according to the correct assumptions that:) -man is part of nature, and that - all species require consideration.

Methinks you're mistaking a romanticized "noble savage" fantasy for reality. Hunter-gatherer communities didn't manage anything; they exploited an environment until the plants and animals they preferred were exhausted, and then moved on. But their populations were small enough so that when, perhaps a generation or two later, they returned to a previously occupied valley the resources there had recovered. Within a millennium or so of the arrival of the first humans in the Americas all of the megafauna had become extinct.

Resource management only developed with the advent of permanent communities --- civilization --- whose inhabitants could not move on and which had higher rates of population growth, and thus a greater need for conservation.

Good management, not merely abundance, ensured the biodiversity squandered since colonial times. And the devastating impact of relatively small populations of European settlers, in Australia and the Americas, shows how quickly natural abundance and diversity can be destroyed.

Natural abundance has hardly been destroyed in the Americas. Forest acreage in the western US at present is only slightly less than in 1760, despite a population increase from perhaps 500,000 (natives) to 330 million today. Total forest acreage for the country (as of 2000) was about 75% of the primordial total of 1 billion acres, all of the loss occurring in the East between about 1750 and 1850. Over the last 50 years forest growth in the US has been increasing, most of it in privately-owned forests:

https://www.thoughtco.com/us-forest-fac ... nd-1343034

Civilization has done a far better job of resource conservation than pre-civilized societies.

[Robert66]

To which I reply that national government, and international governance, could and should be responsible for ensuring sufficient cohesion among communities relying upon common resources. These levels of government would try to enable sustainable management of resources, recognising local, intrinsic rights along with external demands.

That's all very well, except that achieving that degree of consensus among disjoint communities is all but impossible.

This notion - 'if the supply of a resource and natural rate of replenishment is greater than the demand and its growth rate, as it was for pre-colonial forests and fisheries in the Americas, no management is necessary at all' - is indicative of the outdated thinking which has plagued modern man's relationship with nature. Pre-colonial environments were managed. They were managed according to the correct assumptions that:) -man is part of nature, and that - all species require consideration.

Methinks you're mistaking a romanticized "noble savage" fantasy for reality. Hunter-gatherer communities didn't manage anything; they exploited an environment until the plants and animals they preferred were exhausted, and then moved on. But their populations were small enough so that when, perhaps a generation or two later, they returned to a previously occupied valley the resources there had recovered. Within a millennium or so of the arrival of the first humans in the Americas all of the megafauna had become extinct.

Resource management only developed with the advent of permanent communities --- civilization --- whose inhabitants could not move on and which had higher rates of population growth, and thus a greater need for conservation.

Good management, not merely abundance, ensured the biodiversity squandered since colonial times. And the devastating impact of relatively small populations of European settlers, in Australia and the Americas, shows how quickly natural abundance and diversity can be destroyed.

Natural abundance has hardly been destroyed in the Americas. Forest acreage in the western US at present is only slightly less than in 1760, despite a population increase from perhaps 500,000 (natives) to 330 million today. Total forest acreage for the country (as of 2000) was about 75% of the primordial total of 1 billion acres, all of the loss occurring in the East between about 1750 and 1850. Over the last 50 years forest growth in the US has been increasing, most of it in privately-owned forests:

forest2.jpg

forest1.jpg

https://www.thoughtco.com/us-forest-fac ... nd-1343034

Civilization has done a far better job of resource conservation than pre-civilized societies.

The mistake being made is equating 'forest acreage' with environmental health. Forests are but one type of environment, and a forest may be healthy or not. A healthy forest contains a diversity of tree species, and supports myriad other species. A monoculture, such as the ubiquitous Pinus radiata plantations of Australia could loosely be described as forest, but most accurately described as an environmental blight.

Your second chart indicates that more than 40% of forest in the US North and South have been destroyed in about 200 years.

And if you were to substitute prairie for forest as your "yardstick", the results would be even worse.

'Only half of the Great Plains’ original grasslands remains intact today, the report states. Between 2009 and 2015, 53 million acres were converted to cropland every year, a two percent annual rate of loss.
...despite popular belief to the contrary, grassy biomes such as grasslands and savannas harbor just as much biodiversity as rainforests — and they’re being destroyed at an even quicker pace.
This trend is especially pronounced in the Great Plains of the United States, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which found that in 2014 alone the region lost more acres of grassland than the Brazilian Amazon lost rainforest.'

https://news.mongabay.com/2016/12/grass ... ming-rate/

'Methinks you're mistaking a romanticized "noble savage" fantasy for reality. Hunter-gatherer communities didn't manage anything; they exploited an environment until the plants and animals they preferred were exhausted, and then moved on.'

That is more of the white mansplaining I have previously complained about. It certainly contradicts what I have learnt of the first nations of Australia, nations of people residing on their lands for 20,000 to 60,000 years.

[Robert66]

And have a look at this map:

https://www.aaanativearts.com/North_Ame ... ns_Map.jpg

The Choctaw people did not live in California, nor did the Apache live in New York state.