Virtude de prisioneiros

...So why do we destroy the environment ? The answer is familiar. Environmental damage is caused by a form of the prisioner´s dilemma, except that it is played by many players, not two. The problem in the prisioner´s dilemma is to get two egoists to cooperate for the greater good, and to eschew to the temptation to profit at the other´s expense. Environmentalism is the same issue - how to prevent egoists producing pollution, waste and exhausted resources at the expense of more considerate citizens. For every time somebody exerts restraint, he only plays into the hands of a less considerate fellow human being. My forbearance is your opportunity, exactly as it was in the prisioner´s dilemma, only this time the game is even harder to play because there are many players, not two....

in The Origins of Virtue, Matt Ridley