Panic buying fuel? Toilet paper? Why?
Why do people do it?
We know why. It is obvious why. I’m surprised it is surprising.
It is in their self-interest to do so. It is — by any reasonable definition — the rational thing to do.
This is known in philosophy circles as the Fisherman’s Dilemma. You are working a lake to fund and feed your family. Others are working the same lake. Your options are to increase your yield, maintain it, or reduce it.
What is the rational thing to do?
The only rational response in terms of self-interest — regardless of what others choose — is to increase your yield. Even if, in fact especially if, doing so would ultimately deplete the lake entirely.
The Problem: the same dilemma applies to every other fisherman. Their individual rational choice is identical to yours. The result? Accelerated depletion, and everyone out of business. The rational choice for you, turns out to be self-defeating.
To fish with restraint, each fisherman must genuinely believe that enough others are also showing restraint — and be willing to act against their own short-term self-interest.
When we operate from self-interest alone, the rational “right” answer makes life worse for everyone.
Scale it up and the logic is identical.
Drag-lining the ocean floor. Extracting coal, gas, oil, minerals. Harvesting consumer data to maximise sales. Selling single-use products nobody needs.
All rational. All no different from the fisherman — or the bloke filling up his Dodge RAM and three extra barrels.
Here’s the darkly elegant part: if coal is facing regulatory headwinds and finite demand, the rational move for a coal company is to increase output now. Grab as much of what remains as possible before the window closes. If they don’t — admirable, perhaps — but they slow themselves down without preventing the end anyway. The real world outcome of which is that industry ends up in a perverse race toward its own extinction, with every player accelerating it.
The logic is not broken. The frame is.
Self-interest is incomplete. The fisherman’s dilemma doesn’t resolve through better logic. It resolves when people adopt a different lens — shared stakes, social connectedness, moral reasoning that reaches beyond the immediate return for the individual.
Connection and cooperation are what makes humans successful. Cooperation achieves a better outcome for more people, including myself.
That’s the whole game — in leadership, in organisations, and on fishing boats.