Quote from: Azlan on June 13, 2014, 08:45:29 PM

Its a classic common resource problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
"... individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource."

Historically, only 2 viable solutions exist:
1) An authority to regulate (% in this case)
2) Privatization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Modern_solutions

Pick your poison..... but be quick about it.

When I first heard about the tragedy of the commons (one of my profs was talking about) I though the idea behind it was correct. But then I read more about it by accident in another book which is more about human nature than about economy. (sex before dawn maybe - not sure)

Now I understand that these assumptions are wrong. Commons worked for several hundreds of years without any problems. Commons still exists and work fine.

The basic asumption is correct if one person in the group behaves against the intrests of the group everyone suffers. But you have to keep in mind what times you are talking about and what situations. They all knew eachother. They knew which individual of the group was the black sheep. Thus the group had social means to punish which did not require an authority figure (e.g. a lord or cestallan) or privatization (wasnt a thing in medieval times anyway).
Same today, if you know a miner or two you can talk to them about Ghash.io and that you are concerned about the hashingpower the pool assembled. If you dont know a miner you can talk about it here (or reddit or twitter or facebook or...) and raise awairness.
Humans are creatures of cooperation not of selfishness. We are social animals. We need eachother. Thats the leverage here.