Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008
Told you so, this is the next war zone ...
Times Online: We must defend our high seas from more than just pirates
"Every year $50 billion goes up in smoke because of the world's inability to control the sea. According to a recent World Bank report condemning the staggering inefficiency of heavily subsidised fishing fleets, the money is squandered as fishermen vie with each other to chase the ever-diminishing stocks of fish, building bigger and bigger boats in the process.
If world fish stocks were rebuilt, today's catch could be achieved with about half the current global fishing effort. But a measured approach is impossible when no one owns the sea. It is a classic tragedy of the commons: if one country leaves the fish alone, another will reap the benefits. The result is a rush that will only stop when the fish have disappeared."
Posted by fahrenheit451 @ 09:59 AM (588 views) Add Comment
14 Comments
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1. Fahrenheit451 said...
Told you so;
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/newsblog/2008/11/blog-brown-makes-an-ass-of-himself-abroad-19390.php
2. fahrenheit451 said...
Told you so:
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/newsblog/2008/11/blog-brown-makes-an-ass-of-himself-abroad-19390.php
3. paul said...
This is an age-old economic phenomenon called "The Tragedy of the Commons".
It's only news to Times economics editors because they've don't know the basics.
4. p. doff said...
''if one country leaves the fish alone, another will reap the benefits. The result is a rush that will only stop when the fish have disappeared."
Substitute 'Worlds resources' for the word 'fish' and you start to appreciate how human nature ensures ever increasing conflict, and possibly our own demise, ultimately.
Feeling really peed-off and depressed today.
5. stillthinking said...
So, if the fish stocks were rebuilt, 50% of fishermen would be unemployed. If they are to rebuilt, worse.
I don't see anything happening on this.
6. shipbuilder said...
2. paul said...
"This is an age-old economic phenomenon called "The Tragedy of the Commons".
It's only news to Times economics editors because they've don't know the basics."
Look up "The myth of the tragedy of the commons". It is not proven - the logic is based on the assumption that humans are self-interested beings with no interest on their impact on society, like most right-wing economic theory. Unfortunately this assumption is wrong.
7. d'oh said...
shipbuilder - in general, rubbish. Certainly in small communities you are correct, but in these communities there is effective policing of decisions to keep resources at a decent level, so it isn't really a tragedy of the commons scenario.
In larger communities where people are invisible or not policeable, the tragedy of the commons always occurs. Always. It is human nature. In fact it is just plain nature. The only groups where you see restraint by individuals are those in which the alternative of being ejected from the group are unacceptable - e.g. meercats, some social mongooses, wolves etc.
One thing we could so easily do in this country is to set aside 50% of inshore waters as no take zones. In a couple of years we would be brimming with lobsters and scallops and the overflow would migrate into the take zones. You only have to dive inshore wrecks pre and post the first trawler of the season to see what a difference this would make.
8. fahrenheit451 said...
Sorry, please do not get hung up on the "fishing" literally. This is metaphorical.
Think USA, Barak Obama speech ref: "not get involved in Africa", International (esp. Indian vs. Pakistani {Obama Bin Laden}) group of gunboats gathering on Somalia Coastline, interest rates, sharks vs. fish, money flow (river, water), etc.
Sorry that's all.
9. doom&gloom said...
As fish become rarer there value will increase, thus ensuring they are hunted to near extinction. At that point the average person will have to susist on a diet of land-based produce such as meat and veg.
Another example of game theory at play, like 'Tragedy of the Commons'. Fortunately game theory offers solutions, so hopefully we can still have pollock with our chips and peas.
10. shipbuilder said...
D'oh - let me clarify -
Citing “The tragedy of the commons” is a problem in this argument because while the assumption of the original theory is wrong (i.e. that humans are essentially self-interested), in this case it is right - the protagonists in this situation are commercial entities and therefore they ARE self-interested. This crucial difference means that the same conclusion cannot be reached as the original theory.
In the original theory, human’s self-interest cannot be changed and therefore it cannot be the root cause of the problem, it must be catered for by providing the ‘solution’ of ownership. However, in this case, the root cause is the programmed-in self-interest of modern commercial entities. It should not be catered for, but addressed directly – then the problem goes away.
The key, though, is that this idea of man having a ‘built in’ self-interest underpins much of our economic theory and society now, and it’s wrong. Exclusively self-interested behaviour is psychopathic behaviour. The documentary series ‘The Trap’ explains this well.
To me, the reason why we have imbalance in our economic systems is because they work on the assumption of self-interest, they only work for those that the assumption is true – the self-interested 10% at the top of the tree. I don’t see it as coincidence that it is roughly the same % of the population that exhibit psychopathic behaviours as own all the wealth in our society.
11. shipbuilder said...
d'oh - in other words, in reference to your point - in groups the tragedy of the commons always occurs when the small self-interested % gain control. It then looks like this becomes the nature of the whole group. The mistake is not differentiating between normal, human, social behaviour and the sociopathic behaviour of the few.
The catch 22 is that the sociopathic behaviour uniquely enables them to gain power more effectively and therefor influence the behaviour of others.
12. matt_the_hat said...
Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb
13. d'oh said...
shipbuilder - Okay...I do agree with your clarification more or less. The problem is that sociopathic behaviour is normal behaviour for a minority of individuals. In a world were everyone is cooperative, there is room for decency and trust to be abused, and this is why I believe that we will never be rid of sociopaths. Humans probably evolved in small cooperative groups, so some of our psychology is cooperative, but there is always room for trying to gain individual advantage at the expense of our neighbours even at the same time as we cooperate with them. For chrissake, even babies try to drag more resources out of mum than mother would wish to give them (see Davig Haigh's work on maternal-foetal conflict.) The other work that shows the tension nicely is George Price's equation which illustrates the levels of selection/cooperation problem quite nicely.
Interestingly, after WWII the US army investigated how effective infantry were during the war, and discovered that only 10% of infantry fired at the enemy willingly. Only 2% were effective killers. Of these 2% roughly half were sociopaths, the other half were at the other end of the internal moral spectrum - individuals who felt a strong sense of duty towards their comrades. The sick thing about this is that the army then came up with various training and desensitization regimes to make solders more willing to kill...now apparently they have a 90% success rate.
14. shipbuilder said...
13. d'oh said...
"Interestingly, after WWII the US army investigated how effective infantry were during the war, and discovered that only 10% of infantry fired at the enemy willingly. Only 2% were effective killers. Of these 2% roughly half were sociopaths, the other half were at the other end of the internal moral spectrum - individuals who felt a strong sense of duty towards their comrades. The sick thing about this is that the army then came up with various training and desensitization regimes to make solders more willing to kill...now apparently they have a 90% success rate."
I'd heard that as well - that even further back, most musket-type rifles were found with 3 or 4 rounds stuffed in them and had never been fired.
One of the other effects of sociopaths rising to power is that sociopathic behaviour is then hailed as 'successful' behaviour to be emulated. I've noticed in a number of self-help books that traits such as 'focus on a goal to the exclusion of everything else' and 'only have people around you that will help you achieve your goals' and the like are more or less describing sociopathic behaviour.