Robert Wright: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict

[2eelShmeal]

Not a fan of Robert's

[TripuraiHrim]

2 decades ago, the same idea was conveyed by UG

" The cooperation there springs from the total selfishness of mutual survival. It's like the cell in your body which also can survive only when it cooperates with the cell next to it. Otherwise it has no chance of survival. That's the only way we can live together. But that has to percolate to the level of, if you want to use that word, your `consciousness'. Only then you will live in this world peacefully"

[crudhousefull]

When you commit any action you have to know how it affects all other humans and other beings in the world before committing it. The western world is so complicated they have no idea how any of their actions are affecting anyone else. The ego moves them to further complicate their lives since they don't acknowledge that they have already surpassed the brain's capacity to understand any phenomenon holistically any more

[crudhousefull]

Talk about moral evolution in the west. The east was far more morally evolved. Actually, the west is only now starting to wake up morally and they are still very short-sighted in their actions. Meditate more, at least now you're on the right track

[blackmaxpayne]

its why relationships fail today at damn near a geometric rate. no cooperation in relationships. damn girl, cooperate with me... bend over. its that simple!

[CharlesvanderHaegen]

Humorous and wise:

Reasons to be cheerful:

• Growing lethality of Hatred

• Death spiral of negativity

Major round of moral progress is absolutely key....business class morality

• He is after the root causes of their hatred of Americans : understanding them will force us to a higher moral basis

• All the salvation the world needs is the intelligent pursuit of self-interest in a disciplined and careful way

From zero sum to the win-win meme

[mutbutyt]

@earthfell

In your first line u comment "evolutionist" argument - immediately we can see that any further comments u make will be hopelessly biased and prejudiced

[BMacW650]

Everybody go read books from Ron Paul and Richard Dawkins. World peace coming soon

[earthfell]

God what a terrible evolutionist argument. This is just a rehash of Herbert Spencer with an emphasis on this thing called "morals." His take on issues of race are hilariously ignorant of what actually happens in the real world today. Universalizing arguments have never worked and have always toppled in the face of endless streams of contradictory evidence, and this argument will be no different.

[ManyInfiniteComments]

Didnt Richard Dawkins make a video 30 years ago about this very same topic through the prisoner's dilemma?

[BackwardsBound]

This man is telling us how to see the road to life. Very few see this road. Why? Think about this - here in the USA we are the MOST heavily ADVERTISED people on our planet. I'm pretty sure we have more TV's per capita than any other country. Advertising is a science today. We don't realize how much we are influenced. In truth, we are influenced by the wrong ways to live on Earth stronger than we are the natural old ways. We've been poisoned.

Robert Wright sees thru. I will listen to him.

[ParallaxFilm]

Interesting.

[blaziermissy]

Finally, a rational mind willing to look at the outcome if we don't change.

Venusproject (dot) com for the world we ALL deserve.

[2bsirius]

Interesting ideas.

[kinomyway]

I like the way he talks. and I like his idea.

[VariedInterest]

He should take more business class flights (and offset his carbon of course). He could use them to go to any country that the business class exploits, supporting and perpetuating their authoritarian regimes in order to maintain that exploitative relationship. What great progress and growing racial equality he accounts for in this globalized capitalism, too bad those things are made worse by it, clearly and demonstrably. Some sound ideas, but wasted on lazy economic/political misinformation.

[jfc22009]

@VariedInterest You regurgitate bad information... Has globalized capitalism created no good? Maybe you need to look into it or read peer reviewed studies, become more knowledgeable about what you think. It's sad ghost stories scare you into conforming into ideals... Good luck!

[DK0526]

@VariedInterest did you make you computer out of sticks and leaves while in your commune? Is it powered by a home made solar cell on your grass hut? If not you need to get rid of your capitalist petrochemical based tool of evil and get some drums or smoke singals to convey your ancient message that capitalism is bad. Try that and see how it works? LOL BTW you should also strip naked and use fig leaves to cloth yourself...to do otherwise makes you clearly and demonstably a hippocrite!

[platermanone]

I have difficulty digesting his 'ok's' and i think he's still eating lunch.

[S2Cents]

His grayish brown, black attire is fitting. Or maybe he should have worn a Hawaiian shirt.

[griskrossaren]

okay!

[nastassja08]

kurtlane: "Robert, if you really want to understand why they hate you, imagine you're a little Jewish guy and they're after your blood because they claim you drink blood of their babies...."

and because you're jewish, the US gives you the most advanced weapons and you have the best espionage agency in the world and all they can do is just "claim you drink blood of their babies..." whatever.

so robert is still (w)right.

[Kurtlane]

Liberal claptrap.

There was a lot of such claptrap in Europe just before Hitler moved his troops into Poland.

Or in America right before Pearl Harbor attack.

At least after Pearl Harbor, people learned something. Now it's 8 years after 9/1, and everythign about it is completely forgotten.

[Kurtlane]

Whatever it's grounded in, this view is insanely naive.

The details about "overreacting" and "morally redeaming" "trying to understand why they hate you" and "root causes" "appreciate their humanity" and the rest are just as naive.

Robert, if you really want to understand why they hate you, immagine you're a little Jewish guy and they're ufter your blood because they claim you brink blood of their babies. Or for no reason at all, as in "hep hep" riots.

[stratvic]

Playing tennis is a zero sum game. Even if you lose the game you win (through cooperation) the opportunity to play tennis. 

...It is difficult to play tennis by yourself.

[thomasw78]

I think you mean playing tennis is a NON zero-sum game? The reason Wright says it was zero-sum is because he's talking about the outcome of the game.

But if you don't care about the outcome and just enjoy playing tennis regardless who wins then in that case playing tennis is a NON zero-sum game.

[stratvic]

Correct...Thanks!

[jfc22009]

@thomasw78 This is wrong within the context of why he brought it up.

Playing for fun with no score does not mean a nonzerosumgame.

?

[DK0526]

@thomasw78 most people even if playing for fun keep score.

[Farweasel]

ThinkFirst08 I reckon there's maybe an error in your reasoning as follows:

You (apparently) think trade which is unequal is wrong because one party benefits more then the other.

But which is the least desirable:

A trade where one side does gain, but not as much as the other. Or no trade so the outcome for the side which would have gained only a modest amount now gains nothing at all?

I'd rather eat steak than rice,

but I'd rather eat rice than starve.

[iAmEhead]

@Farweasel

I think the issue involved is disparities in power and knowledge. Also, disparities in hopelessness, despair, comfort, etc...

When you have a poor, hungry, sick, and desperate person entering into a contract with a happy, fat, well-rested, complacent person, the later is almost certainly going to have more bargaining power and is going to end up with a better deal. They will use their position to do so.

Some people find this situation distasteful, or even immoral.

[eoinycroiny]

its not the american ppl its their goverment and the fact that your all so stupid that you's fail to see how retarted it is to make a multi billion dollar texas man who owens an oil company and a hugh share in the weapons industry your presidant. duhhh was obvious their would be a war from day one. how on earth can you not understand why we all hate you's retards for this. i just hope you's dont make this mistake again cause the whole world will sufers if you do. were afraid, and i hate too hate

[swindle1989]

I'm inclined to agree with you

[eoinycroiny]

alot of ppl say they hate America but really i think their just afraid of a country with an un-stopable army and a civilian population with more guns then most army's and too top it all off America was first to make the nuke and so used that to threaten others into doing what they wanted and then sold this technology to countrys and a few years later turned on them and said your not alowed have these weapons of mass destruction. fucking american goverment dickheads thats why we all hate america.

[ThinkFirst08]

ok, but what happens when people playing non zero sum games think they are playing a zero sum game? in the cases of geopolitics or economics. or worse yet, those playing zero sum games, as in war, are actually in a non zero sum game.

[Lihinel]

negative outcome for both participating partys.

[ThinkFirst08]

exactly. there can be no "intelligent pursuit of self-interest" if people dont understand what kind of game they're involved in. i think his idea of equallity through economics is a bit naive. trade is rarely, if ever, equally beneficial. one side stands to gain more than the other. we're taking advantage of them, or at least think we are. how does exploiting people to make money make the world a better place?

[ThinkFirst08]

so basically all we need is a higher, shared set of morals world wide to make the world a better place for one and all. oh is that all?!?! yeah, i suppose if every one AGREED on what was RIGHT that would make things a lot easier and there would be less CONFLICT. this guy is a genius...

[somor98]

Geez, this guy is not a very good game theorist.

[krustyflakes]

i am looking for the videos transcript, help highly appreciated

Thanks in advance

[popitypop]

however, the question comes in, which is how exactly should a system be built to encompass the needs in complete balanced, so that all are to benefit in ways that they desire, should they contribute substantially not comparatively, but based on their own abilities (stregnths and weaknesses). next is the question of mindset,which as suggested is evolving, but untill all the weakest links have been eliminated,or improved, the chain will not hold, and to achieve that is near impossible,wif morality

[popitypop]

indeed there will be power conflicts, as people by nature do have different strengths, but what is neglected is as do they have weaknesses. one is not able to accomplish everything that it requires for overall or for that matter personal interests completely, since the needs and wants of a person will in the first place never cease to increase. therefore, there is indefinitely a need for others to provide aid both qualitatively and quatitatively for mutual benefit, and grow together as a group.

[FuckRequiringSignUps]

Thx for that comment. I have not thought about that yet. Will be interesting.

But that rather deals with the question how a specific social environment, as being a (semi) closed system building an internal rationality(-> Luhmann) independent from the environment (expressed in payoff-structures and action profiles), adapts to changing environmental settings which it needs to gain access to the external events. Interesting thought. But I was being more practical ...

[Darwyn43]

I get so frustrated when people say "that's so obvious" - yeah, well than why doesn't anyone seem to know it? The point of this kind of work is to make explicit, to make conscious, what we may know subconsciously to have this rule over our petty thoughts of the moment. Articulating the obvious has proven elusive for thousands of years, so contribute, don't dismiss.

[esaman]

lol I love that guy.

He didn't say anything new to me, but he made my day with the humor and the character.

[FuckRequiringSignUps]

Cooperation is yet a problem, for: once cooperation is established (very unclear on what, lets say it is) you have a group of people cooperating. now where you have a group, cooperation settles a frame in which power is exerted. You narrow the scope of violence. And yet within the cooperative structure, people and the system they form keeps evolving. and thus there will be something like a mack in the group and there is convergence. It is the same in marriage. if oyu dont harmonize...

[Darwyn43]

Two things: power is normal in natural in some respects. Dominance hierarchies are built into nature after-all, for their natural organizing and efficiency tendancies. Also, power doesn't have to be exploitive or imbalanced; arguably, his whole thesis would show that balanced power would be selected for. Secondly, new technologies make new frames possible - the answer does not lie completely with us, but with the opportunities we create with new technologies, perspectives, ideas, rules, etc.

[FuckRequiringSignUps]

I was pointing at something different. With every cooperation gained, you produce only a limited frame. Certain things are agreed upon to be no part of the game. This only gives rise to people with different abilities to build power structures. And on and on it evolves. But as we know the whole is only as stable as the external frames are secured. It is rather an emergence towards higher states, but never a higher stage is reached.

[Darwyn43]

I think I see what you are referring to. In some sense, it is the evolving relationship between the internal dynamic and the internal's balance with the external. As the internal dynamic settles, the relationship evolves and the frame is no longer good, yeah? I have a certain outlook that what we are evolving is an increasingly FLEXIBLE adaptive system. That's how eukaryotic cells emerged, their flexibility. From the society to the family, the best structure will be one where....

[Darwyn43]

...organization is accomplished, but rigidity is avoided. In that sense, as the needs of the environment dictate, communication and the variation in roles can allow the structure to switch like a matrix to the new goals of the adaptive unit. If one person's strengths are played, they lead; if a new challenge arises, an all-encompassing meaningful framework to understand nature and ourselves within it will allow each person to communicate and understand what needs to happen toward a solution.

[robotaholic]

bacteria are the greatest result of evolution and will exist eons after any other life form

[baronmorris]

depends completely on how you define "greatest" - but in some ways I quite agree. :-)

[robotaholic]

Obama is vacuous & there is the irrational hatred of Hillary & what's left?- the right wing(barely)- there are no good choices logically. Don't vote.

[baronmorris]

Wright's book - NON-ZERO is amazing.

I highly recommend it.

:-)

[Obama 08! & WE CAN'T WAIT!!]

[delsur2009]

Obama and Clinton does not cooperate each other they're in "zuma cero"

[baronmorris]

it's obvious you are oblivious, and have not read Obama's fine books. Sadly this is typical of Obama detractors.

[delsur2009]

we are talking here about theories I think your world it's more practical good for you bad for me

[baronmorris]

fair enough ;-)

[Libertyman123]

Mr. Wright At 15.07 in your lecture you ask a question. The answer is partly in Professor Kevin MacDonalds book The Culture of Critique.

There are some that benefit from conflict in many forms. So much so that their very existence as they know it depends on both internal and external strife in the countries they inhabit.

[baronmorris]

parasites must be excised.

[morningworm]

Iraq war... 130,000 reported deaths... "so called good, USA and friends"...

[aikigenius]

i think the zerosum thing is a bit limited.. win /win and lose/lose both depend necessarily on their other coordinates win/lose, lose/win..

if you lose lets say in a war or a 9/11 happens then in a win/win we need to revenge.. in a lose/win we need to win back.. in a lose/lose we both go too far to win that we both lose.. and in a win/lose we live in a radioactive computer game..

[bsmonkies]

You missed his point. His point is that we are all on the same team as humans. There is no us vs them, there is just us. With something like 9/11 or a war we all lose. It doesnt matter if you won or lost the war. Or if you did 9/11 or had it happen to you. We as humans all lose.

[ClanRooster]

In 500 years or so they will probably be calling the post WW2 epoch something like 'Pax Americana' but right here - right now it feels like nothing of the kind.

War has conditioned mankind to hate. Only peace and time can reverse this mindset.

[agar06]

If history/morality is moving in a progressive direction, how do you explain the fact that last century saw the most genocide in history? We may be integrated, becoming more complex, but hasnt this just enabled killers to be more efficient, among other things?

By creating more complexity(global governance) it seems one of the side effects would to be expand this efficiency.

Nice fella it seems- totally off on his ideas. A shame some gents seem so smart and then get off on misguided ideas.

[ClanRooster]

Mankind's ability to commit the atrocity of genocide goes hand in hand with it's improvement in weaponry. If you build a better weapon someone will want to try it out.

The world has more than enough weapons to achieve self-annihilation - the antithesis of a non-zero sum.

We need to start turning swords into plowshares.

[FromBoomTown]

That is the problem with the wisemen earlier last century when they decided on power politics and arms races. But now in an integrated world, war is less likely to occur and most nations favor disarmament and non-proliferation, a.k.a., the non-proliferation treaty. Are we to understand that we should stop this trend, because it endangers us? I just cannot comprehend how it would; if anything, not doing so would be by far more dangerous.

[FromBoomTown]

The number of wars is decreasing. The soviet union collapsed; the UN was created. How many rogue, terrorist states are there now? Very few. Sure there will be detractors, and these detractors can be heavily punished with economic sanctions. Nowadays, most nations in the world favor liberal trading to mutually benefit in the long term rather than short term military power projection. Overall, the cooperative potential in the world is far more improved.

[FromBoomTown]

Last century saw WWII because of the treaty of versailles, punishes Germany for the entire WWI, and the horrible depression that occured there. It is precisely because the winners were not practical that horrible things happened; they should've listened. It just goes to show you that there is always a way for angry people to kill and destroy if they're not listened to. Just like Al Queda, which is a creation from Afghanistan. But with extremists, it's also in mutual interest to destroy them.

[bsmonkies]

I dissagree with you.  There might still be atrocities going on in the world. But if you had up the sum of the good and the sum of the evil. Good is winning out. Also if you look at the morality of the socalled good, USA and friends. And compare it to the socalled good 1500 years ago, the romans, we have come along way.

[aikigenius]

yes youre absolutely right, we no longer feed the christians to the lions, we feed the lions to the christians.. the romans were pretty bad.. but the US foreign and domestic policies re: the recent war and occupation of iraq makes the romans seem tame by comparison.. 'Ve have vays' must be an american expression by now.

[aikigenius]

yes youre absolutely right, we no longer feed the christians to the lions, we feed the lions to the christians.. the romans were pretty bad.. but the US foreign and domestic policies re: the recent war and occupation of iraq makes the romans seem tame by comparison.. 'Ve have vays' must be an american expression by now.

[aikigenius]

yes youre absolutely right, we no longer feed the christians to the lions, we feed the lions to the christians.. the romans were pretty bad.. but the US foreign and domestic policies re: the recent war and occupation of iraq makes the romans seem tame by comparison.. 'Ve have vays' must be an american expression by now.

[bsmonkies]

The US foreign policy is very tame compared to what was exceptable back then. And as some one who as been to Iraq and am on my way back to Iraq I can tell you first hand, that what we are doing is for the benifit of the Iraqi people. And does not even resemble anything that would have been done even a headread years ago.

[aikigenius]

800,000 iraqis dead and counting.. that's since 2003.. 2.5 million had died before that between 1991 and 2003.. helped by UN sanctions

and the depleted uranium fallout will kill another million or more in the years to come after the US withdrawal..

depleted uranium is the invisible killer.. a beautiful weapon of mass destruction.. and US sales to the middle east are going up..

its bonanza time.. and more fish to shoot in the barrel.. the US is using Australia now for DU deployment training

[bsmonkies]

There are diffrent figures for how many Iraqis have died sinse 2003. None of them seperate how many have died from direct US actions and how many have died from death squads.  the 2.5 mill that died sinse 91 to 03 were mostly helped my Sadam and his death squads I would not blame those on UN sancitions. And Im not sure what your talking about with DU as we dont use DU right now. Im not a bush fan or suporter and there have been many mistakes in Iraq but going to Iraq isnt one of them.

[ehsanul]

I love this talk, I think he's right on the money.

[bbbleaver]

soooooo, if people just become better than they have ever been then all will be well. would anyone try to stop two sheep from butting heads? it's just our particular way of life, the rise of civilized folk who then conquered and destroyed all other cultures to bring us to a point where there are only civilized people who are inoculated with this mind of hate, indoctrinated into a way of life that is based on annilhilation of others if they don't except your own way! good riddance

[TheWiseCommenter]

we're not all equal. some of us are more crazy, more stubborn, more selfish, more ridiculous than others. the fanatical muslim world comes to mind. the religious right comes to mind. i'm all for talking things over, but some people are UNREASONABLE. if they treat us bad regardless of whether we support them or oppose them, then let's oppose them and get them off the planet.

[tantzer]

Some are some who are genuinely crazy, fanatical, and chauvinistic: the United States comes to mind. Look, they killed 600,000 Iraqi children through sanctions in the 1990's (according to UN figures). They invaded Panama in '98, murdering 3000 civilians. They have now obliterated Iraq. They along with Israel have turned Gaza into one big concentration camps, starving their children. The list goes on.

[Zetimenvec]

but you can't blame the people of the nation of america directly, only indirectly by saying that their ignorance to these disgusting actions of their government is an attributing causation. Too, american government and legislation makes it fairly difficult for american protests to do anything concerning global issues.

[b4skin]

The Wise Commenter has spoken his fair and balanced truths and thusly proves his wiseness!! He is not equal to the crazy,stubborn,selfish, or ridiculous among us.

Though you can't tell from the post. But alas, therin lies the equality.

[AtheistDiscGolfer]

Hmmm. The root of hate and intolerence. People not respecting eachothers imaginary friends.

[FartheadOgre]

What a worthless concept.

[baronmorris]

ZERO SUM INTRUDER ALERT!!

lol

[delsur2009]

lol lol that's all? 'zero sum' 'suma cero''zuma cero' 'zuma sero' 'O suma' what's the point pointing mistakes of someone else you feel better? ...adding confrontation it's just silly

[baronmorris]

I'd like to understand you, but it isn't happening.

[delsur2009]

yeah you have to be a little bit more open minded if you can.

[baronmorris]

it's wide open. still nothing. ;-)

peace

[delsur2009]

if still nothing: closed minded

[reivilo]

is the youtube account recycling speeches?

[Panpiper]

I believe TED is posting their entire archive. I approve.

[Panpiper]

Every single bit of progress our world has ever achieved has been the result of a non-zero sum relationship. It is cruicial that people understand that this hold true in virtually all cases, from economics to politics. The world, life, is not zero-sum.

[neotoy]

It's great, but ignores the fact that even if we are all cooperating, the environment may be destroyed as a result of our net industrialism.. then the game of survival is lost, even if we recognize the validity of non-zero-sum life.

[t0kt0k]

Wright actually brings this up in his book, Nonzero. Even if we're all in the same boat, it doesn't mean the boat won't sink.

[lordmetroid]

Evolution isn't acting towards complexity. That is mathematicly proven from the empirical data of species available, it is just that a too simple organism is incapable of metabolism. It takes a certain. So organism that would be greatly smaller and more simple than bacteria looses the elements necessary of life.

In other words; evolution hits a wall of selection against too small and simple organisms.

[t0kt0k]

Yeah, I remember Gould made this point in some of his writings. But my thinking is, if complexity is a distribution that used to go from, say, 0 to 10, and now it goes from 0 to 10000, then isn't it still fair to say that complexity has increased? Not on average, certainly, but the upper limit is much higher than it used to be.

So essentially, the "most complex organism" marker tends to get higher and higher, even if complexity doesn't increase throughout the distribution.

[lordmetroid]

The reason for why one see an increase in complexity is because the natural catastrophes that leads to mass extinctions annihilates the large organisms while bacteria just is to small to be affected. Giving an illusion that the mean complexity is being offset over time.

This is not the case. The mean complexity of the species in total stays at the same value. Only the population of organisms grows.

[t0kt0k]

And as the population grows, the range of diversity grows. Even though the mean stays the same, the outliers in both directions are further apart. Except you can't get less complex than a certain point, so it only extends in one direction: toward more complexity.

[lordmetroid]

Yes, exactly!

However the claim as I understood it in the speech that was made, was that there is selection for more complexity which is not what the proof supports.