Several things strike me in this essay. The freedom to procreate; the fact that you need a license to drive, you need to be a certain age to drink and fight for this country, you need a degree for most jobs, but to have a baby, you just need natural instincts. Hardin had an interesting point when he sited, "In late 1967, some 30 nations agreed to the following (14):
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else." A family needs to pay room and board and taxes, however they can privately determine how large they can be...reminds me of certain corporations.

The tragedy of the commons can relate to politics, especially the politicians that are in power today, they care not about the whole but rather what they interpret as “common”, this can be identified with the bank robber Hardin mentions in the essay, that refers to the bank as the commons. Our politicians are referring to our tax money as the commons, but choosing to use it in ways that do not benefit the whole, but an elite few.
An image that came to mind that illustrated this was…




A bird covered with oil
The political side is that a politician deemed it necessary to drill for oil near that bird’s habitat. The tragedy of the commons as it relates to community, both human and bird, at one point were living in sync, until human chose that oil should be drilled and push bird out of habitat, what Hardin referred to as “overgrazing”. It seems that politicians cannot obey the rules of the commons, that public space cannot be shared, maintained and respected. One must capitalize on another’s innocence.

Maybe this is the tragedy of the Internet, that websites cannot live harmoniously side by side, and share content while users pay what the content’s worth, without stealing or illegally downloading. Public websites cannot be shared, maintained and respected, according to Hardin’s theory.

"The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon."
And I end with an image that I believe would have made Hardin happy...