In his book “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations”, Clay Shirky describes the Tragedy of the Commons. He states, “this is the Tragedy of the Commons: while each person can agree that all would benefit from common restraint, the incentives of the individuals are arrayed against that outcome.” (Shirky, 52) He goes on to explain:
The standard illustration of the problem uses sheep. Imagine you are one of a group of shepherds who graze their sheep on a commonly owned pasture. It’s obviously in everyone’s interest to keep the pasture healthy, which would require each of you to take care that your sheep don’t overgraze. As long as everyone refuses to behave greedily, everyone benefits. There is just one problem with this system: ‘everyone’ doesn’t take your sheep to market. You do. Your incentive, as an individual shepherd, is to minimize the cost of raising the fattest possible sheep. Everyone benefits from you moderating your sheep’s consumption of grass, but you would benefit from free riding, which is to say letting them eat as much free grass as they possibly could. (Shirky, 51-52)

I've found a few teachers online who have designed games that model the tragedy of the commons, and I think Sim City certainly takes on a more realistic and dynamic model. I'm thinking that some sort of video game or participatory art piece could be an interesting space for reflection and thought experiments related to this topic. I guess my question is does anyone know of any good video games or digital art that speaks to these issues. Also, I wanted to just throw the concept out and maybe spark a conversation about the tragedy of the commons and art.