So i wanted to give my response on the notion of the “Tragedy of the Commons”. Although i do not consider myself a pessimist but in this case i believe there exists but no other option. One thing that has been absolutely engraved into my mind as a result of taking Intro to Political Science is the realist notion of the world. Everyone and everybody is inherently self interested. This tragedy will continue to prevail so long as the people of the earth act upon self interest. What self interest though? We won’t really care until it directly affects us. The world is still enjoying the availability of all resources and living in our cocoons as we tend to do, we choose to ignore the inevitability of the long term effects of the decisions that favour our short term ones.
People choose to smoke because of the short term pleasure, comfort and stress relief associated with the act and therefore discard the statistics, facts and the negative effects of the long term because as of yet they , a part of what makes up those statistics and facts. As with the tragedy of the commons, our self interested nature amplifies our delusions of the long term. As long as we live choose the short term over the long term, i believe we will always be headed down the path of the said tragedy.
2 comments:
I agree with the fact that we as individuals are not moved by a negative act until and unless we have a direct interest in it. But in some cases, even if the act is having an impact on us we choose not to take any action unless provoked to do so.
Good post and I like how you segued into the anti-smoking bit. Quite the tragedy, don't you think?
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