[p2p-research] Collapse

[Tomas Rawlings]

I am reading Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How societies choose to fail 
or survive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book)

An interesting read, which in the section on what we can do to aviod 
collapse there are some interesting points re commons and peers.  The 
points he makes are;
- If people perceived that the commons, far from being common is 
somebody else problem, then they won't act effectively.  But where 
people feel a value of the commons and know the impact, they can join an 
act more effectively.  So the climate, a commons, but people don't see 
it as such?
- Even if people know that an action (e.g. overfishing) may damage a 
commons, if the perception is that somebody else will do the damage if 
that individual does not anyway (so if fisherman A does not catch the 
fish worrying about overfishing, then fisherman B will), they there is a 
personal loss to them while there is no change in the overall health of 
the commons.  (I have seen examples of this issue being overcome, i.e. 
if a fisherman catches a pregnant lobster, it is kept alive and taken to 
a holding area to give birth then claimed by the fisherman, but the 
young are still in the commons)
- the consumption end is potentially a good force for positive action, 
but they would need to be unified to act - a point for peers perhaps?

Anyway, it is an interesting book!

-- 
Tomas

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Tomas Rawlings
Development Director, FluffyLogic Development Ltd.
web: www.fluffylogic.net
tel: 0117 9442233 
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