• vga@sopuli.xyz
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    4 days ago

    Is tragedy of the commons a solved problem? Genuinely wondering, because it seems to be the most obvious reason why free public transit shouldn’t be done.

    • alteredEnvoy@sopuli.xyz
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      4 days ago

      The maximum amount of resources (public transport) one can take is limited. Not everyone wants to take the resource. It is possible to provide more than sufficient resources for everyone.

      I don’t think this is a tragedy of the common problem

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Tragedy of the Commons is why the roads keep overfilling with commuter cars carrying one person at a time. Public busses and trains would be a more efficient use of funds then building even more roads on the limited ground.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      I know you thought you sounded really smart when you wrote this, but it’s just completely nonsensical to normal people.

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      If free public transit means people use it, that’s a good thing.

      I think it extremely unlikely people will abuse it to the point of ruining the service.

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        4 days ago

        It was coined by an ecologist (Garrett Hardin), and (answering myself here after finding out) famously rebutted by the economist Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize for her work. So tragedy of the commons, while a real phenomenon and can happen, is not inevitable by current understanding.

        Like in a lot of things, the devil is in the details.

      • Sternout@feddit.org
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        4 days ago

        Did they really? I thought one solution to the tragedy of the commons is regulation from above. E.g. limits on resource use. How would privatization help here?