The New Land Rush

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I defined the phrase twice in my post, and yet you re-defined it here... incorrectly.

The feds managed it incorrectly and yet you demand they continue to manage it.

The correct answer is to sell the land under deed restrictions to only permit certain uses by any future owner.

Garrett Hardin, a population biologist, coined the term "the tragedy of the commons" in a rather lengthy article which first appeared in Science Magazine in December, 1968. The term was then taken up by other ecologists and biologists:

The most important aspect of necessity that we must now recognize, is the necessity of abandoning the commons in breeding. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all. At the moment, to avoid hard decisions many of us are tempted to propagandize for conscience and responsible parenthood. The temptation must be resisted, because an appeal to independently acting consciences selects for the disappearance of all conscience in the long run, and an increase in anxiety in the short.

The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon. "Freedom is the recognition of necessity"--and it is the role of education to reveal to all the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.