Journal Topic #17: Tragedy of the Commons Experiment

Journal Topic #17: Tragedy of the Commons Experiment
No one took too many fish at my lake, each person took just enough for them to survive in the game, and no more. I thought it was very fair and calculated. None of us tried to take as much as possible until the last round of the experiment. We were very conservative in the beginning stages because of the set up of this experiment. Each round we would get double what we had the previous round, so by conserving the most amount of fish, we had the greatest gain for the future rounds. And in the last round, there was no more that we could possibly gain, so we took all of them. Society had almost no role in this, since we all cooperated. In game 2, we trusted one of the members (very foolishly), Brandon, and only one member would take the fish and the rest would abstain and theoretically die. This produces the maximum amount of social benefit considering that he would share it in the end (supposedly). However, he messed up and died. It makes almost no difference to know the reward, as long as the participants know that it is a good reward, and not a bad one, keeping each individual's self interest in mind. It is impossible to maximize the number of fish per person and the number remaining in the pond, because this is an inverse proportion, as more fish are distributed to the people, there are less and less in the pond. An example of this is college admissions, there are a limited amount of spots for students to enroll in the college courses. So, as more and more students want to enroll, the chance of getting in reduces, so the standards for the colleges get higher and higher. In the long run, the best thing for society, thinking in terms of the best interest of all the individuals, is to not study at all, and each person will remain at the level that they would have been if they all studied.