Treachery Of The Common

n. The fear that everyone around the world is pretty much the same--that despite our local quirks, we were all mass-produced in the same factory, built outward from the same generic homunculus, preinstalled with the same tribal compulsions and character defects-- which would leave you out of options if you ever want to reinvent yourself, or seek out a better society on the other side of the globe. A riff on the tragedy of the commons, which is a situation where individual users acting in their own self-interest end up harming the common good, usually by depletion or pollution of resources.