Environment: when private interest sinks the shared boat

Source: The parable of the driller: when a personal act becomes a collective disaster

"A parable of people who were sitting in a boat. One of them took a drill and began drilling beneath himself. His companions said to him: What are you doing? He said to them: What do you care? Am I not drilling beneath myself? They said to him: Because the water will rise and flood the boat upon us."

(Midrash Leviticus Rabbah 4:6)

Explanation: Externalizing costs: the hidden price of private interest

The Jewish sages are describing here the economic concept of "externalizing costs." A cigarette company calculates the cost of manufacturing and selling cigarettes in order to turn a profit, but the state does not impose upon it the cigarette's collateral costs—in the form of illness, hospital stays, death, air pollution, secondhand smoke, and so on—within a shared ecosystem of common destiny. The logical fallacy lies in the illusion of separation; out at sea, just as in the atmosphere, there are no real borders. Water—like air pollution—does not distinguish between "yours" and "ours": pollute in Chile, and Alaska will sink.

Perspective: From Easter Island to Jonah: a history of drillers

We cling to the illusion of our own "four cubits" (arba amot, personal space), but inside a collapsing closed system, the right to privacy falls away. History is full of "drillers": the inhabitants of Easter Island felled entire forests to transport monumental statues, and when not a single tree was left for a raft, they were trapped and starved to death. The prophet Jonah sought isolation down in the hold, and nearly sank the entire ship. The private, baseless hatred of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza burned down the communal granaries of Jerusalem. In the military, they say that "if we don't depend on one another, we'll hang side by side." Anyone drilling into their private cabin is striking a fatal blow against us all.

Going Deeper: The prisoner's dilemma: when personal rationality becomes collective suicide

Game theory explains this through the "prisoner's dilemma." Rationally, it pays for each player to pollute (the profit is immediate and private), while the damage is divided among everyone. But when everyone acts on this "logic," the outcome is collective ruin. Without regulation that constrains narrow self-interest, personal "rationality" turns into mass suicide.

Culture: Prophetic dystopias: when the crowd cheers for destruction

Throughout the ages, prophets, poets, philosophers, and politicians have depicted all kinds of dystopias. The Hebrew Bible repeatedly warns of dystopia, the New Testament echoes the same threat, as does the Quran. We know Dante and The Divine Comedy from the Middle Ages, and in modern times these threats have only multiplied following the Industrial Revolution (Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, Planet of the Apes, The Matrix, The Hunger Games, and many others). In every case, a handful of people drill holes in the boat, while the rest crowd around the widening holes, hoping to grab a share of the spoils too, until the boat sinks. The voice of the few asking "What are you doing?" goes unheard—not because of the sound of drilling, but because of the roar of the crowds cheering it on.