Imagine you have the opportunity to live on an island with nice sandy beaches, perfect weather, and gentle waves to lull you to sleep underneath the stars. Doesn't sound so bad, right? Also, the island is self-sufficient and has a small yet vibrant community.
Doesn't sound so bad, right?
You get to the island and it is an amazing experience. You meet a lot of cool people and are exposed to a lot of new ideas. The people who founded the island are glad that you are enjoying yourself and want to share this experience with as many people as possible.
Sharing doesn't sound that bad, but as winter approaches, island living becomes really popular and the resources become really tight for a little bit. The island gets a little touristy and begins loses some of its charm. There is a lot of focus on trying to grow the local economy rather the resources which at times can be rather scarce, especially to the newer users that haven't accrued a lot of land on the island.
The island slowly bleeds permanent residents as time goes on. Partially because many feel like they aren't getting enough respect and attention from the more established members on the island who are living more comfortably and don't have to worry as much about resources.
The founders then propose introducing a dock that will allow more tourists to visit the island and bring necessary resources along with them. However, this dock would take up a large portion of the island that is not really used, but had been considered for making the island more sustainable.
Also there is nothing really wrong with the current dock other than the fact that it is kind of small and narrow making it impossible for large ships to dock there. So, the community noticing the activity is dying out on the island eagerly agree to this proposal. A few residents who have a more purist view of the island disagree but go along with the proposal.
The dock is built and ready to receive new visitors and supplies from the mainland in greater quantities. However, when the first ship arrives, a major design flaw is discovered making the dock unstable and essentially useless. The ship can't drop off supplies and people and the scarcity of resources on the island causes the price of resources to skyrocket and the smaller users begin to starve.
The land underneath this massive dock could have been used for farmland, but now it's being used for nothing until the dock is fixed. Everybody suffers, but some of the established users try to take a more positive view of the situation. The land that they all own is now even more valuable than even before.
Now that there is less land for new residents, the land that they each own is now more valuable than ever before. This scarcity is good for their bottom line and they should be able to sell parts of their land to the gluttony of new residents during the next big upswing of "island fever".
However, you might have a different opinion. With a little critical thought you wonder why people would come to this island given its current issues with getting more supplies and people in general and wonder why would anyone come to the island given the current lack of resources.
Sure things should improve with fixes to the dock, but maybe people are thinking about this problem the wrong way. Maybe it is simply not worth it living on the island.
The parable needs at least one bit of extension:
It costs the inhabitants nothing to move to another island, especially in light of the fact that resources for everyone have essentially dropped off the map. They might not get the same kind of resources, but they'd have access to more neighbors who might appreciate their lawn or the way they paint their house.
After all, they can no longer make a living on the island they were previously enjoying so they might as well not make a living in a pleasant community.
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