Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

An analogy of the prisoner’s dilemma game is used in situations when an individual who follows its own goal against a large group of players, e.g. against a whole society. In this case, the behavior of all the participants will end up in a situation called the “Tragedy of Commons” (Hardin 1968). The course and result of this game were very graphically described using the example of the fate of English country commons, the pastures open to all. If a village’s commons were not regulated as to how intensively they could be pastured, they were completely destroyed by immoderate pasturing and the cattle of villagers, which were dependent on the commons, died of hunger. If the commons were divided among villagers, each could only have as many animals as his pasture would be able to feed. In the commons case, the most advantageous strategy for each individual was to get as many animals as possible as soon as possible; before someone else’s animals would destroy the pasture and without – moreover - losing out against other herdsman until complete devastation of the commons occurred.