The  tragedy of the commons refers to the inefficient use of a shared resource when individual actors have incentives that are misaligned with the larger community. Classic examples might be a shared pastures or common waters for fishing. Dennis Meadows and John Sterman offer a computer based game that simulates this problem in a fishing setting (Fishbanks: A Renewable Resource Management Simulation). Below is a short video that describes the problem.

Contributed by Russ Coff