Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Brydon. The tragedy of the commons is a subset of externality, so I don't think there's any substantive disagreement between us.
Categorization decisions, like all decisions, are about utility. The tragedy of the commons occurs when people have trouble excluding others from using some resource. This could be due to a lack of legal rights to exclude (e.g., no one owns the commons) or due to a technological inability to exclude (e.g., your fence isn't tall enough to keep people out). But externality in a broader sense is simply about the lack of connections between people. Based on my limited understanding of the tissue organization field theory, cancer seems to be due to a lack of connections between cells rather than the inability to exclude. Undoubtedly you could try to frame it both ways, so at that point it's a question of which framing works better in practice for generating interesting and useful ideas.
Totally! I might add more context in/reframe the post a little.
And absolutely agree that it's worth trying to see the problem from different angles/frames. Here, I've tried to be specific, rather than general. By adopting this strategy, I might 'eat dirt' (be wrong), but then hopefully I'll learn more (tighter feedback). Here, for example, if cancer isn't an issue of excludability as you are suggesting, then TotC is less apt. And then, on we go!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Brydon. The tragedy of the commons is a subset of externality, so I don't think there's any substantive disagreement between us.
Categorization decisions, like all decisions, are about utility. The tragedy of the commons occurs when people have trouble excluding others from using some resource. This could be due to a lack of legal rights to exclude (e.g., no one owns the commons) or due to a technological inability to exclude (e.g., your fence isn't tall enough to keep people out). But externality in a broader sense is simply about the lack of connections between people. Based on my limited understanding of the tissue organization field theory, cancer seems to be due to a lack of connections between cells rather than the inability to exclude. Undoubtedly you could try to frame it both ways, so at that point it's a question of which framing works better in practice for generating interesting and useful ideas.
Totally! I might add more context in/reframe the post a little.
And absolutely agree that it's worth trying to see the problem from different angles/frames. Here, I've tried to be specific, rather than general. By adopting this strategy, I might 'eat dirt' (be wrong), but then hopefully I'll learn more (tighter feedback). Here, for example, if cancer isn't an issue of excludability as you are suggesting, then TotC is less apt. And then, on we go!
Cheers mate, and keep up the good work!