[jamesbritt]

More about Hardin's essay:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tragedy-of-t...

> The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons The man who wrote one of environmentalism’s most-cited essays was a racist, eugenicist, nativist and Islamaphobe—plus his argument was wrong

[crimsonalucard]

Hardin's thesis has nothing to do with his character. Please comment on the thesis and try to seperate facts away from the personality of the person saying it. As vile as this sounds, a person being racist does not automatically make all his observations false, it does not mean anything.

Either way, his essay is largely cited in academia from political science to anthropology. A blog post illustrating some factual anomalies (which in turn can also be debatable) does not render the heart of his essay wrong.

It's good to know the background of the author of an essay, but it is bad form and borderline propaganda to use that to discount an insightful observation about the world as we know it.

[jamesbritt]

People reference the essay, and in so doing they are referencing the whole essay, including the nasty parts.

People doing this need to be aware of that; I suspect many are not.

Being cited doesn't make anything true, so I'm not sure what that has to do with it being correct or not.

There does exist scholarly work disputing Hardin's conjecture. For example, the work of Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University.

"Ostrom received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her groundbreaking research demonstrating that ordinary people are capable of creating rules and institutions that allow for the sustainable and equitable management of shared resources. She shared the prize with Oliver Williamson, a University of California economist."

http://elinorostrom.indiana.edu/