Humans reliably develop new exploitative techniques heedless of consequences.

Evidence

Is there a lesson in all this? Sure. Human beings, going about their business, striving relentlessly to stash away some bucks, will continuously come up with new ways to get their hands on a little bit more of this and that. Leave us to ourselves and we are ingenious, individually and collectively—clever at seizing, adroit at amassing, and relatively heedless as to the consequences. We will destroy for money—sometimes quickly and savagely, but more often slowly, subtly, surreptitiously, with a smile on our faces and a fond hope that no one will notice—until we’ve got ours. The medium-term effects of this dynamic are never pretty. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 99

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• QUESTION: Is this a genuinely universal claim about human nature, or a contingent feature of a particular economic order? The book asserts it as fixed fact.
• XREF: Echoes Ostrom’s commons work and the broader tragedy-of-the-commons literature, which the book doesn’t cite here.