Word: sums
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...genes didn't think about this logic, of course. But since genes that didn't comply with it--didn't interact constructively--were dumped by natural selection, life came to be filled with teams of genes that played non-zero-sum games well. Larger and larger teams of genes played more and more elaborate games. In other words, more complex life forms evolved, notably including Homo sapiens. Basically, you are a large and well-played non-zero-sum game. Congratulations...
Some animals, besides being non-zero-sum games, are good at playing them. Vampire bats returning from a successful blood-sucking expedition share the proceeds with bat buddies that had a tougher night on the parasitism front. Since these magnanimous bats will someday be needy themselves, this reciprocal altruism is a win-win game. Natural selection favored animals good at win-win gamesmanship...
...other animal plays non-zero-sum games as tirelessly as we do. Much of your emotional life is natural selection's way of getting you to play. Gratitude for favors rendered and guilt over neglecting a friend help you start or sustain potentially win-win games...
...words on this page--indeed, words, period--are a product of non-zero-sumness. The game theorist Thomas Schelling has noted that in a purely zero-sum game there is no rational reason to communicate. If you see opposing coaches talking before a football game, they are probably talking about some realm where their interests overlap--swapping gossip, maybe, or rescheduling a game to avoid injuries in bad weather. But neither coach has cause to communicate honestly about the game...
...risk of sounding species-centric, I think words are cooler than pheromones. Words lent vital impetus to a whole new kind of evolution, a cultural evolution through which politics and religion and technology develop. Note how much of the evolving technology, in particular, is an infrastructure for non-zero-sum games--from the Silk Road, which eased mutually profitable exchange, to the Internet, which lets you play more games with more people than ever before. Meanwhile, social complexity has grown, just as organic complexity grew via biological evolution...