Sep 06 2010
Gone Fishing
On Friday we learned about the importance of utilizing resources wisely through the Gone Fishing Simulation. During this simulation, four people sat at each table, representing a village. A plate represented the village lake, which was filled with sixteen fish per month (goldfish). In the first one minute round, each member of the village had to take at least two fish by using a straw as a suction device to capture the goldfish. If a member didn’t take two fish, his or her family died. In addition, during this round, village members could not speak to each other. After every round, the number of fish remaining in the pond was doubled, the game began again and conversation was allowed. For additional fish taken (other than the first two), the village member gained profit (a mint). Eventually we learned that for the number of the fish in the pond to be sustained, instead of running out after the second or third round, each member could only take two fish–enough to sustain his or her family. This idea was then related to The Tragedy of the Commons which is defined as, The degredation of a public resource due to self interest. This idea was originally proposed by Hardin whose essay can be read at the following link. http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html The class came up with three solutions to this problem: 1. Voluntary Cooperation 2. Government Regulation 3. Privitization. The class then decided that this problem is comparable to what will eventually happen to the senior lounge if it is not already occurring, and we decided that the two global commons are the oceans and the atmosphere.
Nice first post and summary, Priya! I think anyone who was not present will benefit. While the class did come up with a solution (or two), it was Hardin who suggested the solutions you listed.
I think communication really helped in this challenge. That way everyone could talk about who would take what and how that would help their fish to continue to survive. However, in other groups, I saw people saying they would take two but instead took more. I think this really relates with a real life situation because communication does go on in a real community, but people don’t necessarily keep to their word because often times people have the want to profit instead of just survive.
Found this nice, short post by Hardin himself explaining the Tragedy: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html