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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

Birds will arrive the day before fruit is ripe, and the whole flock will strip the berries, trying each one and dropping the green ones on the ground looking for a ripe one. They can strip a tree in minutes. Why? If they waited a day, the whole flock could have ripe fruit. But its a flock, and any bird that waits just loses out to the ones that don't wait. Tragedy of the commons, played out in evolution.

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It's not really tragedy of the commons, as there's no commons in play here, just a resource that a hunter-gatherer style group stumbles upon, then utilises, then moves on. Unlike human populations that destroy shared resources fully cognisant that they're doing themselves and their society future harm, it's not clear that birds or other animals conceive of time (in the planning or scheduling sense) the same way we do.

I do a bit of 'pottering on the land', and the inability to negotiate with animals is truly frustrating, as the damage done is objectively greater than the apparent benefit obtained (as per the wasted green fruit in TFA). Killing is undesirable, deterrents are often ineffective (incomplete, degrade over time) -- I'm drawn to the conclusion growing things in large cages is the most effective and humane way, though it's also the most expensive.

But what is cognizance, really? I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the dynamic is fundamentally different between humans and birds, or even inanimate objects like genes.

Downvotes coming from people who lack cognizance. The whole fact that we suffer from tragedy of commons shows a general lack of high level cognizance in humans, no? Sure, we're a little brighter than birds, but it's all relative.

>and the inability to negotiate with animals is truly frustrating

You are saying it like there's ability to negotiate with humans!

Oh there certainly is. If there was a way to communicate with, let say wasps, I'm pretty sure that we would come to an agreement that allows me to eat breakfast in the garden without being swarmed, and grants the colony more food, less dead workers, and no fear of eradication.

Birds are territorial. Its a commons, since they essentially 'own' the tree as part of their territory.

> Its a commons, since they essentially 'own' the tree as part of their territory.

If territory is owned, by definition it isn't a commons.

There is an interesting article about Tragedy of the commons in evolutionary biology: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016953470...

There are multiple ways evolution tries to solve this, but it's hard. Insects are particularly good at it.

The article is paywalled but it's a pretty plausible result of group selection.

The self-interested birds will force out the cooperative birds at first, but they are naturally self-limiting by cutting off their own resources.

On the other hand the cooperative birds can ensure that their entire species grow quickly, eventually covering areas that selfish birds haven't reached.

In an alternate universe the cooperative birds might even evolve a "moral" behavior where they actively gang up on and punish cheaters who eat unripe fruits.

I believe because the entire 'flock' has to adopt the same cooperative behavior for it to work. Insects are more genetically uniform.

I’ve noticed a similar thing plays out in tech company offices with bananas. If you wait for a banana to actually get ripe someone else will have already eaten it.

Don't you just take the nearly ripe bananas and store them in your desk drawer?

That's what I do, at least. I guess I'm part of the problem.

Haha yeah that’s the solution - bring the banana to your desk.

This had never occurred to me as something someone might do.

I cannot do this thing, as I don't open my desk drawer very often, and a banana is exactly the sort of the sort of thing I would forget about. I'm thinking through how this would play out for me, and it's unpleasant for all involved.

"Do you want ants?! Because that's how you get ants!" — Archer

Just put it in view on your desk. There's no shame in that.

Well, ripe bananas are too sweet for some people. Bananas that are just starting to ripen are very good (especially because they taste a bit sour with a tiny bit of sugar), better than fully ripened bananas.

I agree. Ripe bananas are revolting to me for some reason. I think it's the mushy texture. I prefer when there is just a hint of green left on the banana.

I cannot upvote these comments enough. I truly dislike the taste of ripe bananas. Sweet yuck. I muchly prefer one that is a bit too green to being a bit too ripe.

Holy shit, I think we work in the same office.

My Vietnamese buddy has a taste for not quite ripe fruit. He said in the old country everyone would come steal your fruit as it ripened. He who could stomach the greenest fruit won.

A bit of high velocity rock salt is a wonderful deterrent.

I did notice that a bit in Vietnam, come to think of it. The also enjoyed eating it with salt.

It's actually quite a nice taste, salty and tart.

I've got a similar problem with chipmunks and the Marian plums I grow. The chipmunks start raiding the trees when the fruit just begins turning yellow and becoming fragrant. But all they do it take a bite and throw the still somewhat green fruit on the ground.

Get a cat/dog guard.

Cheap Chinese pellet gun is cheaper. I'm sure chipmunk will work nearly interchangeably with squirrel in most recipes and arguably would be a little less white trash.

Ha! I lived next to Vietnamese neighborhood in San Jose in the 90's. Never got to taste the fruit on my trees; gangs of kids would come along a few days before it was ripe and boost one another up and take all the almost-ripe fruit.

But, also, if they waited the farmer might take the crop. From the point of view of the bird, not-quite-ripe fruit is nearly as good, nutrition-wise. So, not really a "tragedy".

Nope. They're dropping the green fruit on the ground, and never go back to it. They're nearly destroying their own food supply, in an effort to beat the rest of the flock to that one berry that ripens early.

I'm thinking this is why we'll never find an herbivore race reaching intelligence and civilization in the galaxy. They get stuck in this anarchistic zero-cooperation state.

Didn't we hunt mammoth by driving entire herds off cliffs? (Or is that a Disney-Lemmings situation?)

Likely. We definitely did it with buffalo.

Buffalo being hunted almost to extinction wasn't a case of tragedy of the commons, it was part of a deliberate policy to drive Native Americans from the land.

'Kill Every Buffalo You Can! Every Buffalo Dead Is an Indian Gone' https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buf...

There was a larger species of buffalo that was driven to extinction long before Europeans reached the western hemisphere.

But, you're right about the smaller bison species that we are all familiar with.

About 2 thirds of large mammal species were wiped out in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand within a few millennia of humans stepping foot there.

To be fair that isn't entirely lossy either in its natural environment. "Wastage" of fruit leads to accidental plantings which leads to some more in the future. Just look at how squirrel stashes have turned into accidental tree farming as unretrieved stashes germinate.

This hardly tragedy of the commons, as in the long term game there will be more trees distributed throughout the landscape this way. By dropping some of the fruit on the ground it is dispersing the seeds.

Fruit seeds need to tavel longer distances than a shrubs roots to be useful. It’s fruit eaten at significant distance that makes fruit a useful evolutionary strategy.

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