Memes

You can see it all play out in a microcosm on reality shows like Survivor. People cooperate and compete. They cooperate TO compete. They cooperate when it benefits them the most, and betray each other when they think they’re most likely to get away with it. Some people are more trustworthy than others. Some are extremely likely to betray, but then they struggle to benefit from cooperation.

Groups of people engaged in a kind of eusocial super cooperation are very rare and tend to be fairly small. They also tend to act the most like a clique; being highly discriminatory against the outgroup.