Comment on Thoughts 2/22 by Luke

To me, the whole point of seeing things as a commons is to avoid barriers like governments. If there are too many children, we have to look at all the places that countries are developing too quickly and convince many governments to do implement programs to curb their growth.

Facebook news feeds are becoming a tragedy of the commons with many people (myself included) doing far too much self-promotion and posting far too little thought-provoking content such that I am no longer interested in something that was once valuable to me and it has almost reached the level of a barren wasteland analogous to the Aral Sea (though not as important of course).

Comment on COLLO and Social Capital by admin

No I definitely wouldn’t say there’s much support from the administration here, not to mention the fact that they made getting funding like 10000% more difficult this year and slashed our budget by 2/3 this year. I totally empathize with AATP’s struggle and the struggles of dance groups to get funding and space. I know how hard that stuff is.

Thoughts 2/22

A required reading for our next class is by Garrett Hardin titled “Tragedy of the Commons.” Tragedy of the commons is a phenomenon that most of us have definitely of heard, and probably know something. This article incorporates examples in philosophy and human population to explain this phenomenon, and while I found this reading hard to read through (please feel free to tell me if I misread something!), I want to talk about two things in particular. I want to talk about possible roles of government and the phenomenon of the tragedy of the commons in fishing in detail.

Freedom was mentioned frequently in this article, but I didn’t see many references to government and I wonder if government could help alleviate tragedy of the commons. I agree that “the commons… is only justifiable under the conditions of low-population density,” and am specifically thinking of China’s One Child Policy. Under rapid population growth, China decided to introduce this policy and saw population growth die down and stay down as the country developed. Population growth was a topic for my Human Biology core, and usually the cycle of a nation starts off with rapid population growth but eventually plateaus to about replacement rate. A developing nation has the incentive to have many offspring to work in the fields (in addition to poor medical care, so not all your children would even survive in the first place), but in a developed nation there is enough education and work that parents see the importance in investing in a child, which averages to a little over 2 children per family for highly developed countries like the US. What are your thoughts about government injecting itself into something that could be as intimate as growing a family in order to better the world?

Another example of the tragedy of the commons also comes from the HumBio core, and I wanted to mention it just to provide perspective on how this exists beyond what is mentioned in the reading. Fishing is a prime example of tragedy of the commons because the ocean is a public space and it’s difficult for each fisherman to internalize the environmental effects of catching so much fish. Not only might they not know how they are specifically harming the earth, but they are also pressured from their competitors to fish more extensively. Our reading talked briefly about allocation of these spaces based on money; while I appreciate this, it’s often hard for these plans to actually work. First of all, it’s one thing to have a law that states what will happen, but another to actually have someone enforce these rules and punish those who don’t follow them. Oftentimes there isn’t enforcement on the playing field, so these laws don’t cause any significant change (keep in mind all the time and money costs that would also raise to have enforcement). Moreover, monetary rank wouldn’t help much either. If I were a poor fisherman and I ended up paying a more experienced fisherman to fish for me, that’s just a shift in the responsibility of catching fish – the quota hasn’t changed. In conclusion, fishing is just one example of a modern tragedy of the commons, and I’m sure we can find others that definitely relate to social media.

Perhaps the solution is to change our attitudes about these phenomenon. Maybe the media should tell us that fish are bad for us, or that it’s socially looked down upon to have more than 2 children. What are your thoughts?

Comment on Thoughts 2/14 by Gabriel

The education system I grew up in would probably be similar to a vertical network. Roles were concretely defined with rules and guidelines visible posted in the classrooms. The power disparity was obvious, but never questioned. Teachers were always right and students knew nothing. Much like in your experience, when I came to Stanford, a more independent style of learning was introduce much more like in horizontal networks. Having the ability to speak up for yourself was a major difference in my learning experience and ultimately, motivated me to learn certain subjects on my own.

Comment on Thoughts 2/21 by Gabriel

I have seen similar suggested rules during #blacklivesmatter protests. I did not pay them much attention, but now that you mention it, it does seem controlling to monitor poster’s content. That being said, I think some of rules such as these are put in place to control a hostile environment such as #blacklivesmatter protests. I think in some instances, it was to help protect the image of the protest as a whole. Much of what people see and hear about protests such as these comes from whatever the media chooses to post. So I think some of these rules are implemented to protect and clarify the overall message.

Comment on COLLO and Social Capital by Gabriel

Wow. COLLO represents a great cause and need in the Stanford community. A few of my friends were artist and I remember them having the hardest time to book on-campus events. Its nice to see a student run organization who is looking to bring attention to Stanford’s great artists.

Comment on COLLO and Social Capital by Gabriel

Wow. COLLO represents a great cause and need in the Stanford community. A few of my friends were artist and I remember them having the hardest time to book on-campus events. Its nice to see a student run organization who is looking to bring attention to Stanford’s great artists.

Comment on challenging axelrod and the three conditions by Gabriel

That’s an interesting perspective that is hard to argue with. It seems as if we are challenging each of these three tenants in our everyday online activity. We are becoming more and more trustworthy of online interactions. This is due to the fact that every industry is transitioning to be more technologically savvy and dependent and we as consumers must adapt. This places more of our experiences and interactions in the virtual world. I think these three tenants will continue to disappear as technology advances.

Comment on challenging axelrod and the three conditions by Gabriel

That’s an interesting perspective that is hard to argue with. It seems as if we are challenging each of these three tenants in our everyday online activity. We are becoming more and more trustworthy of online interactions. This is due to the fact that every industry is transitioning to be more technologically savvy and dependent and we as consumers must adapt. This places more of our experiences and interactions in the virtual world. I think these three tenants will continue to disappear as technology advances.

Balancing Online and Offline Social Capital

“Reflect on a time when you were part of an event (on the Internet) that was trying to establish social capital. Given our class discussion, how do you think that event could’ve been improved or gone better?”

Since I’ve been at Stanford, I’ve had countless friends create apps, launch startups, and attempt to publicize their kickstarter campaigns on the Internet. It seems as though everyone who catches the entreprenurial bug here uses to Internet (and Facebook events in particular) to advertise their big professional moves and try to gain support. However, I think that over time, I’ve grown more and more inattentive to these types of posts. When different friends are inviting me to like their pages for their new startup or inviting me to donate to their fundraising campaigns, it’s hard for me to get fired up about any single invitation. Because it’s so easy to create community online, there’s a danger in overusing the Internet to foster community, and this overuse dilutes the Internet’s effectiveness.

The Internet lacks a personal touch that I find highly compelling for interpersonal communication, especially when trying to gather support or share a passion with a friend. I’ve ignored most of the start-up-y plugs that most of my “friends” post of Facebook, but when a friend of a friend recently sent me a personalized, handwritten invitation to the launch party for his new app and included branded merchandise for the app, I felt much more compelled to attend the event and care about his new venture. I think that personalization and old fashioned communication and community formation will never go out of style, and in this day and age, taking the time to promote something or create a community offline goes a long long way.

I don’t mean to bash on using the Internet as a community builder or promotional tool. It’s obviously too easy and powerful a tool to ignore. But I think there is something to be said for balancing offline and online community and using Facebook and old fashioned communication to get the job done.