Social Dilemma Quotes

One man will carry two buckets of water for his own use, Two men will carry one for their joint use; Three men will carry none for anybody's use.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

We're going to show great heart. DACA is a very, very difficult subjects, one of the most difficult. You have these incredible kids in many cases, not in all cases, in some of the cases they are gang members and drug dealers, too. But you have some absolutely incredible kids, I would say mostly. They were brought here in such a way, it's a very, very tough subject.

In every generation good men have been perplexed by the paradoxical relation between moral and economic values.

People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralysing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice.

Public crowdfunding still suffers from a tragedy of the commons problem. Everyone will want the benefit of the crowdfunded efforts but is incentivized to sit on the sidelines and hope others chip in.

If you stay away from parties, you're called a snob. If you go, you're an exhibitionist. If you don't talk, you're dumb. If you do talk, you're quarrelsome. Pardon me while I change my nail polish.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon poses its own problems.

The only reason why I have allowed myself to own a slave for a moment is the insoluble problem of what to do with him when freed. The one excuse for slavery which the South can plead without fear before the Judgment bar of God is the blacker problem which their emancipation will create. We've played our parts, gentlemen, in a hopeless tragedy, pitiful, terrible.

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?

The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.

The dilemma for society is how to preserve personal and family values in a nation of diverse tastes.

If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?

I hate to spread rumours, but what else can one do with them?

The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.

It is ... difficult to induce a number of free beings to co-operate for their mutual benefit.

A retaliator behaves like a hawk when he is attacked by a hawk, and like a dove when he meets a dove. When he meets another retaliator he plays like a dove. A retaliator is a conditional strategist. His behaviour depends on the behaviour of his opponent.

When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.

We need a pharmacological intervention on anti-social behavior or we are not going to get hold of our dilemma.

If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else.

In Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world, we have 1,100 gangs and 120,000 gang members so it is a daunting, complex social dilemma.

Today we ought to be able to see first that Booker T. Washington faced a situation in which he was seeking desperately for a way out, and he could see no way out except capitulation.

That's so her. You know, torn between Big Ideas and a party. She's always been that way.

It is in many circumstances a troubling thing to belong to the advanced class of a backward nation. One surrenders coherence and begins a difficult process of choice which ends, often, in an eclectic idiosyncrasy.

I suppose if I did get into a situation with a friend where we both liked the same girl, I like to think we'd sit down maturely and decide who was going to get in there, and then the other would stand aside.