Tragedy of the Commons #1: Play with the Bad Girls, Marry the Virgins? Part 1

Once upon a time there was a bachelor who liked to play. So he played and played and played, until one day it came time for him to marry. All of a sudden, the man was standing on moral high ground and demanding that his bride be pure as snow. After the wedding, he continued to play but expected his wife to be chaste and loyal.

It’s the same old, same old sexist idea, and it still exists today to one degree or another other: men who want to play with bad girls and marry virgins - or anything remotely resemble virgins these days. Interestingly, the harder a man plays, the greater his desire for purity in his partner is. Psst, here’s a secret: People who are super-paranoid about being cheated on are generally cheaters themselves.   

But wait a minute. If every guy wants to play with the bad girls and marry the virgins, where do all the good girls come from? If every guy wants to cheat and then come home to a loyal wife, who are they cheating with?

Of course, not every guy cheats. And here’s the thing: every cheating guy acts as if he’s the only one in the world who does. He’s assuming that while he’s playing with somebody else’s wife, no one would be touching his. He doesn’t believe that what goes around, comes around.

In economics, this is called the Tragedy of the Commons. It means that when a group of individuals share a common pool of resources, everyone will take the short-term gain for themselves, even if that would lead to long-term consequences that hurt everybody in the end.

For example, look at global warming (“Who cares if I’m a big polluter? The way the wind’s blowing it’s my neighbour who’s going to get it.”), or fishing (“Hey if I don’t get those salmon, someone else will!”).

Stay tuned for my next post, where I’m going to talk about how this disrupts Mr. Caveman’s perfect plan...