Outsmarting the Prisoner’s Dilemma with Punishments: Preventing the Tragedy of the Commons
https://academics.hamilton.edu/economics/cgeorges/game-theory-files/repeated.pdf https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/tragedy-of-the-commons-impact-on-sustainability-issues The Tragedy of the Commons is a term that describes the overexploitation of public resources, usually environmental resources, caused by human self-interest. For instance, a group of people who allow their animals to graze on a piece of land without investing in protective measures to maintain the health of the land […]
Is the Tragedy of the Commons Inevitable?
Eventually, many of the resources we depend on as a society will run out. The rate at which our environment is deteriorating and common awareness of the unsustainable nature of everyday practices has instilled this fear in many. When approaching how to consume shared but finite resources, individuals are faced with the option of acting […]
The Tragedy of the Commons: Can It Be Overcome?
Florian Diekert’s paper “The Tragedy of the Commons from a Game-Theoretic Perspective” begins by examining Hardin’s paper on “The Tragedy of the Commons” and the criticism that it has received over the years. Hardin claimed that freedom in a common space leads to private benefits and public burden, therefore “bring[ing] ruin to all.” However, Diekert […]
The Tragedy of the Commons: Game Theory and the Novel Coronavirus
The unprecedented nature of the global pandemic has been new and challenging. In many ways, COVID-19 has necessitated individuals to “do our part” and forgo many pleasurable past-times and activities that may propagate the spread of the virus. Practicing good social distancing, wearing masks, and washing hands are all great ways to reduce our risk […]
Averting Tragedy of The Commons
https://phys.org/news/2016-11-game-theory-tragedies-commons-averted.html The tragedy of the commons refers to the overuse of a public resource that inevitably leads to depletion. In the referenced examples, which show how each party’s attempt to maximize their utility ultimately ends in tragedy, the system is mostly simplified to a simultaneous decision that looks at a single point in time. In […]
The Tragedy of the Commons is Not a Nash Equilibrium
Hardin’s tragedy of the commons is a popular metaphor that is commonly described as a Nash equilibrium. In a public resource (such as the titular grazing commons) used by many entities (herders, for example), the resource will be depleted entirely by the self-serving entities, and while each entity is acting to maximize personal gain (at […]
Tragedy of the Commons and Sustainable Thought: A Network Perspective
Given a shared, non-renewable common access resource and a self-interested population, it is commonly found that despite everyone in the population knowing about the concept of “tragedy of the commons”, it is in everyone’s “game-theoretic” best interests to continue using from the resource to the point of depletion. Simply put, every actor views his possible […]
How Tragedy of the Commons Could Be Averted Based on Behavior
This article examines how behavior has an effect on the depletion of natural resources. When an individual overuses a common area out of self-interest instead of working collectively with the community, everyone is worse off as resources are depleted at an unsustainable rate. This is known as the “tragedy of the commons”. Tragedy of the […]
A Model of The Tragedy of the Commons
http://military-technologies.net/2016/11/29/game-theory-shows-how-tragedies-of-the-commons-might-be-averted/ How can we encourage cooperation between parties to preserve a resource? This article discusses a new model of the tragedy of the commons. For reference, the tragedy of the commons is the situation where there is some shared resource between people, i.e. the commons. The people can each use the resource to profit, but if […]
Tragedy of the Commons
The article below discusses the theory of the tragedy of the commons and how to avert this problem. In general, the tragedy of the commons theory states that for many common resources, certain individuals will try to use the resource to maximize their own benefit, but this often leads to a non-socially optimal usage of […]
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