Presumably because everyone assumes the tragedy of the commons will happen as it always does. And, little red hen, there’s a sense that if one person does the work, they are owed the fruits of their labor
Plus having rotting fruit laying around will encourage pests. Maybe put these into specific areas rather than just scattering them around.
Yeah, my city has street sweepers and gardeners, so I wouldn’t imagine this would be a huge problem.
They could even put out compost bins like public trashcans. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up a couple of fruits here and there as I walk by.
If it’s in a public place in front of businesses and such, then the business has an incentive to keep things tidy. So all in all, I think it’s a fairly easy problem to solve.
I’m thinking about fruit trees and bushes specifically. If you’ve ever gone apple picking you see how many apples are on the ground. Domesticated fruit trees are bred and grafted to be highly prolific, and you’ll have a lot more fruit dropped than you’d think.
Plus you’ll have animals going into the trees to eat the fruit. Commercial berry farmers have to cover their bushes and trees with nets to prevent birds from picking them clean. (And then producing very colorful art on outdoor surfaces.)
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but I don’t think people have entirely thought it through.
Some apple trees can produce hundreds of fruit a day. No you wouldn’t. That’s someone else’s problem. It takes massive organization and as you can see no one really cares enough.
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/cities-are-planting-trees-why-not-make-them-fruit-trees
A small example of the work needed. You’re not going to get this everywhere or forever and what happens when people stop. The trees don’t stop.
how do you explain this just… not being a problem that anyone talks about in areas where fruit trees are already plentiful in cities? I feel like people use the word “pests” the same way conservatives use the word “immigrants”, it’s just an abstract scapegoat to throw out whenever you want to argue against something…
I had a long list of animals that I was going to use but omitted it for brevity. Rats, mice, cockroaches, pigeons, raccoons, possums, deer and, apparently, moose would be a few of them.
But in cities they’re already pretty prevalent so I guess adding another food source wouldn’t encourage them
I mean, yeah…one of them is an attempt at a solution for the tragedy. It’s a logical step to protect things from others ruining it by saying it’s yours.
What’s cool is we don’t even have to wait for the collapse, we can start working towards the greater good today!
Talking about tragedy of the commons on the internet, in a decentralized network, is an extremely funny bit.
Do I need to mention that the guy who came up with it was a racist who wanted to justify displacing the “unproductives”?
But a fruit tree in a public space is like an open field or playground equipment in a public space. They are there for everyone, and people who complain that the ‘wrong people’ are using those public rrsources for personal use are selfish idiots.
Like if a company came in and took all the fruit, sure, that would be wrong. But someone taking apples to make a pie? That’s what it is there for.
What if I hire a dozen people to randomly, individually go and pick all the fruit and bring it to me, and then I make a profit reselling what they collect?
this is literally a legitimate business in the nordic forests thanks to the right to roam, people will hire (generally thai people) to go out into the forests and harvest berries and mushrooms on an industrial scale (by hand though) and then sell it to grocery stores or directly to people on the street…
and surprise surprise, i have never seen anyone complain about this. Rather people gladly pay their pretty cheap prices rather than going out and picking it themselves, and there’s more than enough available out in the forest that everyone can find some for theirselves if they want.
hell the law specifically gives you a tax break for selling fruits and berries you’ve personally picked, you can earn something like 25’000 SEK per year that way without needing to pay any tax on it.
This isn’t a fucking problem.
What if one person comes in and takes it all? Don’t even need companies, just individuals.
That’s the tragedy of the commons.
What if the tree only produces 3 fruit, is it wrong for three siblings to pick and eat them?
You just know some asshole would pick all the trees clean and go sell the fruit
In the US, probably.
Here in Sweden, there are public fruit trees and bushes, herbs etc. all over the place, and very very rarely does that happen. I live a 15-minute tram ride from the centre of the second-largest city and have within a 10-minute walking distance of my apartment several kinds of plums, cherries, currants, apples, pears, other berries and most common herbs, edible flowers and so on, all in random public places. We also have several “fruit groves” around the city, larger green areas specifically for publicly available fruits and more.
No offense to you personally, but I hate this kind of premature defeatism. Like… yeah, some people are jerks and try to take advantage of things. Put rules in place and enforce them as much as the people in charge care to.
I know it’s strawmanning to bring this up, but people use the same argument to say "We shouldn’t have food stamps for hungry kids or welfare for needy families or subsidized housing for people without homes because people will abuse it. Yeah. Some people will, and others will suffer because of their greed. But so many more people will continue to suffer if we don’t even try because we are too scared of The Undeserving boogeyman. Not every tree will be taken advantage of, and as the sense of outreach and community grows, abuse of it will fall and it will be worth it. I guarantee it…
Honestly it’s really telling on them.
Like you can’t do nice things because X. So they don’t do it.
That too. “I’m a fiscally conservative Republican who doesn’t believe in handouts.” Oh? How convenient that you can selfishly hoard all your money for yourself by hiding behind principle…
I hate this kind of premature defeatism
This is what “the tragedy of the commons” was all about in pre-Victorian England. Rich people decried the existence of land held and used by all the people of a community, claiming that it couldn’t work in practice because eventually some asshole would always take it all for themselves. Turns out they were the some asshole, seizing all the commons for themselves as private property (a process known as “enclosure”), ending many centuries of actually successful common usage of land.
Visit Portland. Lots of neighborhoods grow fruit trees.
And the fruit falls to the ground.
Nobody is going around selling them.
How acceptable is it, if you can reach a plant / tree from the sidewalk, to pick someone else’s fruit? Would that be considered weird, or totally acceptable behavior?
In Hawaii it’s quite funny to see, because it if can be reached, it can be taken. So there are these hilarious fellas who have these baskets on long poles, and at the end of it there’s this little hand/grabber thing. They reach out as far as they can over the fence, press the button at the bottom, and fwoomp! There goes the fruit from the tree into the basket. I remember my cousin staking out avocados waiting for them to get ripe.
If it’s overhanging public property it’s fair game. The owner has plenty of fruit on their side too I’ll bet. If they take issue with it they can guide their plant so it’s confined to their property. That being said I wouldn’t be reaching over the fence to yank a cucumber or apple.
There will be atleast 1 asshole trying to take all the aplles fer themselves. I guarantee it
And if you actually read the Wikipedia article you linked:
The work of Elinor Ostrom, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics is seen by some economists as having refuted Hardin’s claims.[1] Hardin’s views on over-population have been criticised as simplistic[2] and racist. [3]
…
Hardin’s work is criticised as historically inaccurate in failing to account for the demographic transition,[191] and for failing to distinguish between common property and open access resources.[192][193] Environmentalist Derrick Jensen claims the tragedy of the commons is used as propaganda for private ownership.[194][195] He says it has been used by the political right wing to hasten the final enclosure of the “common resources” of third world and indigenous people worldwide, as a part of the Washington Consensus.[196]
…
Other criticisms have focused on Hardin’s racist and eugenicist views, claiming that his arguments are directed towards forcible population control, particularly for people of color.[210][211]
The “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things that’s very Intuitive, but doesn’t actually hold up to much scrutiny.
So the BLM lied about the (Cliven and sons) Bundy cattle degrading US property? No, I don’t sympathize with them, just saying the answer may be somewhere between each extreme. Key word: “may,” because I’m not a conservation scientist and people are people.
Guess we can’t have anything nice as long as one person might be selfish.
I didn’t say we shouldn’t do it. I just wanted to point out that sadly one jerk will probably try and ruin it for everyone
Meh, that’s why you plant an abundance. No value if you can’t steal at least most and probably be able to travel.
I grew up in a town with plenty of fruit naturally growing (blackberries especially, which grow like weeds) and having an abundance absolutely meant that no one tried to horde it all. You could pick 10 pounds of blackberries and barely make a dent in the amount in any given neighborhood.
And then you have old ladies come by to take all the fruit for themselves saying “It’s public property bitch!!”
From a city planner view point this would never fly because it was attract insects to public spaces.
In my city, city planners decided to bring trees that aren’t native to our country (sycamore trees), and now we have an invasion of these bugs that bite and stink bugs.
But at least we don’t have, god forbid, bees.
