Prisoners dilemma means that an individual or group gains through the use of a resource while society has instead better to wait and let the resource development. It occurs as when the small fish caught from the sea, too many moose calves shot at free shooting or Mulder (Sustainable Development for Engineers, unknown date) gives the example of Easter Island may not agree, and let all the trees cut down. The phenomenon is also called the Tragedy of the commons, which formelt said to exist when the individual has early mover advantage, while society has late mover advantage (Granstrand, 2006).
To the left is a picture of the stone figures of Easter Island. Easter Island belongs to Chile and is located to the west of the country's long
Stone figures on Easter Island, Moai
a coastline. On the island lived a people who came from Polynesia, from where they migrated in 400 AD. In the 1600s the tribe was at its highest with about 7000 individuals (compare today's population of about 3500 (wikipedia)).
The tribe died out shortly after 1600. The reason for this is believed to be prisoners dilemma. The people understood the denominator does not know how their ecosystem functioning and cut down all the trees that were on the island to produce and transport the stone statues of the 14 kilometers that was required from the manufacturing site. Since there was a high dependence on trees for house and boat building fighting broke out on the island and the tribe extinct in the end himself. (Mulder, date unknown, S ustainable Development for Engineers)
I think historen is extremely fascinating if it is true. Scientists believe that this was how it happened and have evidence that the island was covered with trees a few hundred years ago (which it is not today). Could it be that we will eventually exterminate ourselves in the battle for the last resources on earth? Personally I believe that in such cases, no strong who survive. The question is whether it should go as far or whether we will succeed in transforming our way of life to something that is sustainable for the environment, economy and rättivsan (the so-called triple bottom line approach ).
Speculation claiming that the inhabitants of Easter Island actually knew about the crisis they were påväg against by chopping down the trees. The problem was that they would not or could change their way of life. To create sculptures, cutting down trees and consume a part of their identity.
The situation was not unlike today's, which Mulder also writes about. Today we have full information about the climate threat we face and live with. Ice melts, bears are drowning, starving children, the temperature rises, traffic jams, GDP increases, the cutting down of rainforests, population increases and we continue to throw food, plastics, paper and foil in the same barrel. Will we ever be able to change behavior and dematerialisation?
