Post AQ2aPXQgOybUEWIqpc by dredmorbius@toot.cat
(DIR) More posts by dredmorbius@toot.cat
(DIR) Post #APvSRmS5MMj9fFnWpU by adamgreenfield@social.coop
2022-11-24T10:04:28Z
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Beloved, I have a request for you: can you at the very least think twice before using the expression “tragedy of the commons”? Garrett Hardin was a vile racist who never bothered to study any actually-existing #commons or to understand any of the ways in which communities have equably managed common-pool resources for hundreds of years. His framing reproduces a stark ideological bias that simply doesn’t reflect the way people actually come to terms with resource stewardship. See #Ostrom instead!
(DIR) Post #APvSRnpWEj49wDlkzg by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-24T10:22:31Z
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@adamgreenfield I'm getting deja vu. Have you posted this in the 'verse before? Because I'm sure I've seen and responded to a post like this already.
(DIR) Post #APvyX5CgGa5lnoAGmm by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-24T16:22:02Z
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@mike_hales Do you remember a conversation here about this? Possibly involving that person who sometimes sends long strings of really long posts?@adamgreenfield
(DIR) Post #APx6Rqay962Rq5V2gq by LearningAnd_@mstdn.party
2022-11-24T13:15:01Z
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@adamgreenfield I am so grateful to see this here; Hardin was the required foil when I was in sociology (many years ago) and we were slowly amassing disconfirming case studies. But it was one by one until (shout out) #Ostrom. I left academia but the framing seemed to follow - the expression is a recurring trope in the Economist and among intellectuals at cocktail parties when the conversation isn't in their own domain. Evil canard that it is!
(DIR) Post #APx6Rr906ZGDXdQDjc by adamgreenfield@social.coop
2022-11-24T13:20:26Z
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@LearningAnd_ Yeah, my least favorite thing about it is that well-meaning folks – people who would, rightly, be horrified by Hardin’s beliefs and commitments if they had an accurate picture of them – keep propagating his framing, generally in ignorance of how profoundly unempirical his argument was. It’s a nasty bit of language that continues to do nasty work in the world.
(DIR) Post #APx6RrWkgGG8jIXBku by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-25T05:25:26Z
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@adamgreenfield The use of the phrase "tragedy of the commons" by apologists for neoliberalism is very similar to the use of the phrase "survival of the fittest" by apologists for social darwinism (basically the same people). In both cases, it's used by people who never read the source material, or failed to understand it. I'll admit I know very little about Hardin's larger oeuvre, but the actual TotC essay doesn't say what the people who use that phrase think it does.@LearningAnd_
(DIR) Post #APz41cuga6FSHf0kkq by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2022-11-26T04:07:41Z
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@strypey There's a few toots that turn up under the hashtag #GarrettHardin, including from both you and myself:https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/106293891056621566https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/107131731807214504(Note that hashtag search results will vary by instance.)@mike_hales @adamgreenfield
(DIR) Post #APzUFUZUzRH1H6NCpk by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-26T09:01:35Z
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Thanks @dredmorbius . There you go @adamgreenfield , some thoughts on Hardin that dissent somewhat from the thoughts in your OP. Glad to know my memory wasn't playing tricks on me. Would be interested in your thoughts/ corrections on anything in those threads.
(DIR) Post #AQ234dJk1BkfvTTpbs by adamgreenfield@social.coop
2022-11-26T10:16:59Z
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@dredmorbius @strypey @mike_hales I profoundly disagree, and don’t see that there is any way anyone could have read “Lifeboat Ethics” and not recoiled at its forthright #whitesupremacy & cavalierness regarding the dispensability of the nonwhite Other. #Hardin was abundantly clear about which lives do and do not deserve to exist – outside the minutes of the Wannsee Conference, the logic behind the engineering of deathworlds has rarely been made so shamelessly explicit.
(DIR) Post #AQ234dkgP1IpH25LbU by adamgreenfield@social.coop
2022-11-26T10:26:03Z
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@dredmorbius @strypey @mike_hales I am not interested in “debating” this. The evidence of his #whitesupremacy, in Hardin’s own freely-chosen words, is abundant, and has been sitting there in the public record since September 1974 at the latest. His political commitments speak for themselves. Any attempt to “debate” #Hardin is either active defense of his #racism or a combination of #privilege & intellectual laziness so profound that it amounts to the same thing.
(DIR) Post #AQ234eJmIXNL1sVNJ2 by mike_hales@social.coop
2022-11-26T10:58:21Z
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@adamgreenfield @dredmorbius @strypey The grip that Hardin's pathetic, malicious and utterly predictable misrepresentation of the commons has, on 'popular imagination', serves as a marker and a 'hurry up and get real' call, for those of us who believe that only a radical life and politics of commoning is worth pursuing. We *really* have our work cut out. It's getting late. Hardin-ism has way too many subscribers.
(DIR) Post #AQ234f5HRvNBPCjJLc by mike_hales@social.coop
2022-11-26T11:00:17Z
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@adamgreenfield @dredmorbius @strypey 'Debating' Hardin is, I agree, and waste of time, and only contributes to further publicity for commitments that are both deeply dangerous and utterly empty-headed - an element of the Right-wing politics of 'let's see how dumb we can get about things' that has established an unprecedently dominant position for itself, this past two or three decades.
(DIR) Post #AQ234fejK7jHB9JcbQ by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-27T14:41:08Z
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@mike_hales > 'Debating' Hardin is, I agree, and waste of timeMy point - lost in all the wailing and gnashing of teeth - is that the Tragedy of the Commons essay doesn't even say what people who parrot its title think it does. So the simplest way to disarm this discursive weapon against commoning, is to point out that Hardin was saying essentially the same things as Ostrom; commons require governance.(1/2)@dredmorbius (untagged adamgreenfield@social.coop as requested)
(DIR) Post #AQ23Xjoyuqe8UlyFlI by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-27T14:46:27Z
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Tell them to read the essay if they're going to reference it! Going into a frenzy about what a terrible racist Hardin was, as Adam did, is counterproductive. It may well be true, but going into it gives the impression that the anti-commons argument people are ascribing to Hardin's essay - erroneously - must hold water. Because why else would people respond with character assassination instead of counter-argument?(2/2) @mike_hales @dredmorbius
(DIR) Post #AQ25leHeV7qBHd8sUK by mike_hales@social.coop
2022-11-27T15:11:20Z
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@strypey @dredmorbius Stepping out of this thread too now, please.Busy elsewhere.
(DIR) Post #AQ2BQEJITSJ6N756lU by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2022-11-27T07:15:16Z
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@mike_hales Whilst I do take the allegations against Hardin seriously, and have looked at them in depth, they ... ring off-note to me..I won't debate --- I've already made most of the arguments that come to mind already in the toot linked earlier. If you've read that, you'll have seen my principle points.That said: I'd be interested in where your thoughts lie regarding the sustainability of present human existence on Earth, and what if any role population plays in that.I'm asking, again, not to argue but to understand. Say your piece if you wish, or not. Either way, no foul and no further comment unless you ask.@adamgreenfield @strypey
(DIR) Post #AQ2BQEuWF456EYUpma by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-27T16:14:44Z
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I think the concern troll who asked to be untagged subposted about us. I feel special! But maybe it wasn't us? I'm a white guy but not an engineer. Are you a white guy and/or a engineer @dredmorbius? I thought you were a Bond villian's cat who'd escaped and become a renegade scholar...
(DIR) Post #AQ2D18A6OcTlyJwLlg by mike_hales@social.coop
2022-11-27T10:20:49Z
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@dredmorbius Population and sustainability of human life on earth feel way beyond me as issues to personally hold 'a position' on. Pessimistic on both.For me, what matters is establishing commoning as a a culture and a commitment that can give us forms of social and economic organisation that might even be capable of engaging such issues, and acting wisely.So my only concern with Hardin is undoing the serious harm he's done to 'the commons' @adamgreenfield @strypey
(DIR) Post #AQ2D18fIWdQtX4XGOO by adamgreenfield@social.coop
2022-11-27T10:23:00Z
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@mike_hales @dredmorbius @strypey Can you remove me from this conversation going forward? Thanks.
(DIR) Post #AQ2D196wrpYCupTLUW by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-27T16:32:34Z
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@adamgreenfield > Can you remove me from this conversation going forward?Done.BTW If you're using Mastodon, there's a mute conversation button that will do that for you. Really handy if conversations drift away from what you're interested in, or end up with so many branching threads they're more overwhelming than useful.
(DIR) Post #AQ2EdmhsCTBwg3jQjg by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-27T16:50:48Z
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@mike_hales Fair enough, as I said to Adam, remember that Mute Conversation is there if you need it :)
(DIR) Post #AQ2G2wAOGVN3D7czoG by mike_hales@social.coop
2022-11-27T17:06:31Z
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@strypey :)
(DIR) Post #AQ2UkmIxgtjyj0R73Y by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2022-11-27T19:51:14Z
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@strypey I suspect you've worked out that this is effectively my own argument as well.Hardin doesn't argue against commons, and notes that there are multiple instances where they're absolutely unavoidable.He argues against unmanaged commons.Which is precisely Ostrom's argument as well.The invective is ... curious.(The other allegations are ... a separate matter. How much they can be separated from Hardin himself is ... again, not entirely clear to me I'm not outright denying those claims, I am however questioning them, as I do many. That's based on a fairly strong familiarity with Hardin, including of commentary during his lifetime.)
(DIR) Post #AQ2aPXQgOybUEWIqpc by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2022-11-27T20:54:43Z
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@strypey Subtooting: So what.What he toots or subtoots is his own prerogative.I'd asked a follow-up on a matter detached from his principle concern on a no-foul basis, and I meant it.The question of nationalism/racism is a legitimate one, though the conclusion seems questionable, as I've tried to make clear multiple times.What concerns me is that the latter claim seems often to be a mechanism for avoiding or dismissing the first: that there are biological and ecological limits.I've written A Thing on problem resolution: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarchy_of_failures_in_problem_resolution/The gist of it is that there's any number of ways to go wrong, and that there's a full success chain that needs to be followed in finding a viable solution or resolution. There are many people who are aware of problems but offer the wrong prescriptions, or misdiagnose the cause, or fail to execute and follow through.I'd prefer pulling back from going all moralistic for a moment and look at that in this context. Or as another author on the question of overshoot noted:While vilification often brings emotional gratification, it brings no solution to our common plight. Indeed, it aggravates life's difficulties. Our common plight is not really due to villains. Too few of a troubled world's proliferating antagonists have known the concepts that would enable them to see the common roots of their own and their supposed adversaries' deprivations. Under pressure, people retreat from the mutual understanding mankind has so falteringly achieved. Pressure also makes us disinclined to comprehend the human relevance of nature's impersonal mechanisms. It behooves some who have borne the pressure only marginally to discern and discuss its nature, that all may stand some chance of abstaining from the plight-worsening actions to which pressure so easily tempts us...-- William R. Catton, Jr., OvershootNote that Catton's vilification lens might be applied both to the critics of Hardin (who seem to be shooting the messenger), and Hardin himself, if the claims of racism are accurate (again: an open question).#WilliamRCatton #Overshoot
(DIR) Post #AQ2aSkHh40egyGcywq by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2022-11-27T20:55:16Z
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@strypey As for who I am: Space Alien Cat who accidentally blowed up a planet once.
(DIR) Post #AQ41zRPd8rkhuw7BqK by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-28T13:38:27Z
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@dredmorbius > There are many people who are aware of problems but offer the wrong prescriptions, or misdiagnose the cause, or fail to execute and follow through.Word. > While vilification often brings emotional gratification, it brings no solution to our common plight. Indeed.> Note that Catton's vilification lens might be applied both to the critics of Hardin (who seem to be shooting the messenger), and Hardin himselfExactly!
(DIR) Post #AQ42Az3OP9OnRJDXaS by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-11-28T13:40:33Z
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@dredmorbius But also, my bad for replying to a concern troll in the first place. The way the thread played out how have been easily seen in the nature of the OP; clearly someone drawing a line in the sand and asking whether you're on this side or the wrong side. For some reason I keep believing - against all experience - that people communicating that way are capable of nuance.
(DIR) Post #AQ5d1ekQQIVNJkilBw by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2022-11-29T08:08:08Z
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@strypey The ideal of open and wide-ranging discussion is an attractive dream. Reality typically falls short.I've noted the pattern you describe as well, and had my own sense of where things might end up going in. Much as I dislike the phrase: it is what it is.