The Invisible Hand

Something that keeps coming up with colleagues is a conversation about motivations.  At my school, there is a general movement away from the contrived motivations of grading scales, toward an emphasis on the process of learning and the intrinsic human tendency to explore and investigate.  We are learning machines, and so it is argued that we should be set loose to learn, not constrained to do so for some manufactured or abstracted reason(s).  "Unbridle the learner within," seems to be a sort of mantra among us.

Diligent skeptics in the field argue that there are necessarily structures that keep focus, maintain order, and teach discipline (none of which occurs naturally to most young students).  This is true, of course, but I argue that the ultimate rationale for those structures should be to better permit effective and natural learning to take place, rather than structure and discipline for its own sake.

Generating enthusiasm, building motivation, and then channeling that motivation toward the less exciting, but necessary, aspects of exploration--the aspects of science that separates it from relatively chaotic and inefficient "stabs in the dark" that constituted the proto-scientific curiosity of past millennia--can be as effective as fear- or penalty-based schemes.

What I'm talking about is tapping into motivations that are intrinsic, rather than creating new and "artificial" ones. We are driven to discover, to master, and to be a part of something greater than ourselves. We are driven to be both individuals and part of a collective. Our species has this duality to thank for much of our success.  We have transcended biological evolution by employing a diversity of continually evolving ideas and a need to exchange those ideas.

So in continually discussing all of this with colleagues and researchers, I can't help but see that there is a contradiction between what we are trying to do in the classroom--what the research tells us works best--and what we see in our larger society. If successful, we are creating collaborative, exploratory, inventive, enthusiastic citizens who are adept at tapping into their own passions, and applying intense effort for the collective good of their community. These concerned and connected citizens then step out into a world where competition abounds and decisions are routinely made which lead to excesses for some and deprivation, even death, for others.

We, the "givers-back" who have dedicated ourselves to the future of our society by choosing this field are modeling those same empathetic, connection-based motivations for our students. And, when successful, we see the best of humanity come out of them. But the world we live in does not necessarily reflect this value system.

I was asked in grad school whether schools should be charged with creating a new social order; whether it is our place as teachers to envision and move toward what might be the next best steps in our cultural evolution, or if such a charge revealed a touch of arrogance and self-importance.  I feel that our job description includes an element of vision, but that even though we are the adults in our environment(s), among "mere" children, our students are as much a part of the vision as we are. We are increasingly teaching a "student-centered" paradigm, and as such, our classroom values reflect, more and more, much of what is in their nature, in our nature.

And research shows this to be true. Clearly, we are hard/soft-wired for empathy and collaboration, for creativity and exploration.

Much of the dysfunction in our world seems rooted in values that don't appear to be intrinsic in our nature; values that are taught and scared into us. To me, the solution seems to necessitate some sort of revolution in social consciousness, and we, with our exponentially increasing ability to share and create ideas, are poised to launch such a revolution.  It has already started.

I imagine a future where the invisible hand of the market has little or no connection to material wealth, but is all about the things that motivate us intrinsically: mastery, creativity, participation, and purpose. The sense of being "really useful" is powerful and important, and can replace the sense of being materially powerful (wealthy) as the prime motivator. I get excited thinking about the sort of competitions that would emerge from this connective and collective will.

And, I believe, the only thing holding us back from this shift is a concerted effort by a majority. Many are in a struggle for survival, and making choices that simply allow the next day to come, but this doesn't have to be. We are thousands of times more productive than our isolated ancestors, with 10,000 years of technology behind us. If we were to band together, focus our attention on meeting the basic needs of everyone, we could end that sense of struggle. We could free humanity to do what we do best. We could set the stage for the new motivational schemes that I'm describing.

Skeptics tell me that without a struggle for survival, "human laziness" will turn our society into an "idiocracy."  "How else do you explain multigenerational welfare families?" they ask. But I have seen that this is not the case. Just look at the children. Children are transparent, less complicated examples of our human nature.  And I have seen them respond when given the opportunity to be a part of something, instead of the mandate to do so. When people see a group of others celebrating a collaborative effort, we can't help but long to join in.  Freed from the self-centered and individualistic biases trained into us, I am confident we would be continually participating in this sort of collective enterprise.

the emotional experience

Someone told me once that we tend to be repulsed by those traits in others that we loathe in ourselves. I've heard that several times in my life, now that I think of it. I suppose the implication in that philosophy is that everything that we experience outwardly is somehow really an internal experience; perhaps our outward reality is filtered through our selves. I don't know if it'd ever be possible to conclude that this or another metaphysical psychology is entirely accurate, but my subjective experience sure seems to support it. Let me share my most recent episode.

When I was a little guy, you'd be hard pressed to keep me away from any available body of water. If I disappeared for some length of time, you could almost certainly find me hovering near or over the closest pond or creek, holding some version (home made or otherwise) of fish-catching apparatus. I was close to obsessed with fishing, and with fish in general.

As soon as I was deemed old enough, my father bought me an aquarium, to show his support (and also to reward a good report card). And from there the household population of tanks grew steadily through high school. There was even an outdoor version, a huge hole dug into the back end of our property filled with water from the hose, into which an unfortunate bass was placed and fed a not-so-steady diet of nightcrawlers (whose harvest was dependent on the rains), for a length of time that I can't recall.

When I went to college, this passion only grew; I majored in fisheries resources, took a job at an Alaskan fishing lodge, and learned to fly fish the trout streams of Idaho. I told fish stories around campfires, daydreamed about fishing, often reminiscing silently about this or that high mountain lake I'd sought out for its particularly colorful cutthroat trout.

But something happened along the way. Somewhere the experience started to change. My highlight reel had less and less to do with the fish, and more to do with my company. I started reveling in others' successes nearly as much as my own, and cherishing the bond that fishing (and later, hunting) created between me and my buddies. With hunting, this camaraderie was amplified as it extended to anyone participating in the celebratory feast(s).

So, this tale brings me to Alaska, once again. Here, I've had the opportunity to catch countless fish, successfully landed the final of the 5 species of pacific salmon (king), and even experienced a new type of fishing: the bottom-fish (halibut) skate [which, awesomely, was likened to unwrapping a christmas present... you're pulling up this rope, hand over hand, waiting to see what's producing all the weight from the many circle hooks, "wondering if it'll be the ipod (halibut) or the mismatched socks (some unsavory species)."

Over this summer, I managed to conjure up some of those old feelings from my elementary school days, losing myself in the act of fishing alone. But far more powerful now is the relationships I develop with those who share in the experience somehow, whether actually fishing with me or just enjoying a delicious dinner after the fact.

And this isn't a loss in any way. To me, it's a deeper experience. Sure, there's still the direct, sensory input, with all its stimulation and beauty. But the connections between previously discrete things, in this case, between me and others, and with the surroundings, greater than the bits and pieces I'm directly interacting with, feeds some part of me in a much more enduring and subtle way.

And now I come to the point. With age, I find that there are so many things that are long gone from my life experience; things that were once fundamentally important, and that can trick me into feeling a loss. But with that loss, there is new space in my soul for things that seem broader, usually less intense and immediate, but at the same time more powerful and permanent.

With what seems to be some growth in perspective, now the same world, the same once-beloved experiences, are filtered in a different light. And that filter tells me something about who I am.

Hope you enjoyed my personal, self-indulgent journal...

Sitka, AK

Change of pace with these blog posts here. Just because I recently re-discovered a tool that I was introduced to a couple years ago by one of its designers, at microsoft.

So I find myself in Sitka, AK, for the summer while my wife interns at the local radio station, reporting the news. Sitka, in case you're unaware, is an amazing place, particularly if you're like me and your "church" is anywhere that reeks of untamed wildness. In the past, I've tried to capture my "religious" experiences with unsatisfying results; whether in writing or through photos. I finally have a tool that does a respectable job. Here's the first attempt. More to come...

enjoyment

I've been considering joy. For some reason in my categorical mind, the idea of sorting joy came to the surface. So, obsessively, I've been thinking about what sorts of joy one could experience. Of course, new thoughts have emerged in this process. This is what I came up with:

1. Indulgence. Starting with the obvious. A person can certainly indulge in something that brings pleasure, enjoyment; or someone can indulge us. Enjoy chocolate. Enjoy a movie. Enjoy a tickle. Enjoy a rest.

Indulgence is often associated with evil, sin, or even hedonism, but it is certainly a part of the standard human experience. Avoiding indulgence would be difficult, if at all possible, and thus, I must conclude that it is appropriate, in moderation. Excess indulgence is either addiction or gluttony, both of which are chief among the list of things that can destroy a person. But mutual indulgence can also bring connection, and indulgence can be earned.

2. Pride. This is the most complicated category. First, let's address the fundamental: is it fair to include this under 'enjoyment?' We've often heard the phrase "pride and joy," but are the two interchangeable? I say yes, based on how I conceive of enjoyment. When we experience pride, we can certainly sit back in our chairs and "feel good," right? Connect to indulgence this way: we 'deserve' a break after completing a hard job. We tell ourselves that we deserve to indulge in a break, at which point we lean back, survey our accomplishment, take pride in our work, and indulge in some 'non-productive' time.

We can have pride in our selves; which is to say: our identity includes traits that we expect others to admire. It might be equivalent to say that we can admire our egos, using social norms to justify this (typically). This extends to all sorts of things - pride in our abilities (whatever the sort), pride in our perseverance, pride in our generosity (even).

We can also have pride in our associations. That is, we can be proud of things outside of us that we have incorporated into ourselves. I might be proud of the Seahawks, though in part I'm proud of myself for sticking with the seahawks all of these years only to see them through the tough times to their eventual victory (as if). But even a fair weather fan is proud of them (let's switch to the Giants to make this more believable) as they represent me. I, in this case, am also my 'town' or my 'region' or whatever. Pride is essentially like collecting trinkets; we place various attributes and people and nations (things) in a mental display case, and polish it from time to time, showing it off to ourselves.

I might be proud of America, as I consider my self (my ego) to be a member of a nation worthy of merit. Or, conversely, I might be proud of myself for denying America, for embodying something higher than the flawed nation I inhabit. In which case, I'd be applying a value system that represents a certain demographic, with which I would like to associate myself.

The only thing separating pride from embarrassment is a reference frame.

I think it's fair to place pride and joy under an umbrella together. Often in my own past, apropos of nothing, I've suddenly been hit with a wave of joy accompanying some thought of some associations or identifications (connections to friends, jobs completed, hardships endured, etc.).

Pride is the joy most often connected with conflict. Pride in victory, or pride in associations leads to divisions between individuals or groups of individuals.

3. Transcendence. Ok, this is a particular label I've put on something, but what I was thinking was what it feels like to appreciate a work of art (a song, a painting, etc.) or a connection to nature. This also applies to a spiritual experience. We transcend our selves (our egos) through a connection to something greater, a vision of what lies beyond the self.

For me, this is most easily attained in nature, though nearly as often I feel it with loved ones. Real, powerful connections with the natural world, between people, or with art (which reminds us of our common humanity - another form of connection to others) hint at the greater that lies beyond our individual selves.

Transcendence is the joy of peace; the basis for all legitimate religions.

Am I missing anything?

21st Century Revolution

The recent events in the middle east, as I see them, signify the power of grass-roots organization over top-down oppression. In the information age, we, the people, have unprecedented access to one another, and to each other's ideas. This is terrible news to those who control access to information for personal (or at least selective) gain.

Cultural evolution is based on ideas and information - where the social consciousness changes over time: accruing new, beneficial notions and beliefs, while shrugging off tired, crippling misconceptions and antiquities. Of course, this process is sloppy, and there are many errors committed by the social "mind." But in the end, we always find our way.

These days, we have the wonderful advantage (over times past) of this new access to one another's social innovations. And this is not the first time we've seen such a dramatic shift. Each major leap in communication has ushered in a rapid proliferation of cultural ideas (relative to the preceding age), and ultimately advanced those groups of people who embraced the wisdom and judgment of their collective consciousness.

But those groups, gaining in power and organization, eventually advance slivers of the population into leadership/organizational roles. And as we know all too well: power currupts. So, those at the top, in a strangely self-destructive act of selfishness, begin to oppress ideas in fear of being removed from power by the up-and-coming. And eventually, in nearly every case, they end up knocking the knees off of the giant (of which they are the head), and the once-great topples.

And here we are. The great America, tiring and swaying from the underhanded blows delivered from on high, but still seething with resilience, optimism, and a brilliant amalgam of cultures and ideas from within. It is time to restore power to that which creates power - the people, the body of the beast. And we can take it!

We have been trained to "buy in" to a system. Our mythologies all point toward compliance and security. But all of the great things that we've created have immerged from the nooks and crannies of our population. All the noteworthy events involved personal risk in service of passion - not undaunted composure in the face of a scripted personal drama. We are not so small as to require anyone to show us the path. Innovation is in our blood, and the pioneering spirit that gave birth to America (and continues to feed it) can once again drive us forward into a new era.

But more than that, even, we are lovers of the group - our adventures are by caravan more than outlaw wandering. More than ever, we have the capacity to organize.

I encourage everyone (especially young people, with your energy) to shrug off the shackles of dogmatic repetition, embrace passion (whether it's your ideas or those of others), and start DOING. Let's proliferate our myriad unique contributions, feed one another's social mind, and move America, and the world, into a new kind of genuine freedom.

How to re-create the American dream: A vision of an intellectual renaissance through public education reform - draft 2?

America’s role in the coming age: Our place in the world economy, in the emerging global community, is no longer “the industrial giant.” That much is certain. The days of blue collar middle class America are over (for the most part). While there will always be exceptions, there are now cheaper and better means of creating stuff in the world.

America has a cultural identity which emphasizes individualism, creativity, and innovation. As a nation of immigrants, we are all descended from people who did not settle for “business as usual,” and who took serious risks in order to re-create, and re-invent themselves in the “land of opportunity.” We are the land of opportunity because we have a culture that celebrates trail-blazing.

We are also blessed with an incredible diversity of perspectives. Few places in the world boast such an amalgam of cultures, such a lack of a dominant social reference frame. Ironically, our unity can be derived from our respect for this diversity.

While we are also endowed with wondrous natural resources, these 2 characteristics of our population (fearless trailblazing and cultural diversity) are our greatest assets. They must be the focus of the new America: a nation of innovation, a solution-generating engine, and a global leader of creative enterprise.

While production will always be instrumental (though it will change), ideas are the greatest economic product in the coming age, and if we are to capitalize on our social and cultural resources, we must do all we can to encourage the free exchange and exploration of all that could be. We must focus our attention on producing an environment with the fewest possible restrictions on the exchange of ideas. That means that we must, wherever possible:

1. support collaboration
The problems of the coming age are far too complex for individuals to solve. Indeed, the problems of the past have proven too complex as well, as indicated by the unexpected consequences of most “solutions” from the past hundred years (and more). Many of our past errors could have been avoided through greater interdisciplinary collaboration. We can only find solutions to modern challenges through collaborative efforts across and between disciplines

2. engage in transparent enterprise
To facilitate collaboration

3. reduce the presence of counter-information - false claims meant to favor specific ideas at the expense of truth
To eliminate the unnecessary burden of re-proving what is already known

4. model open-mindedness at all levels
To encourage inclusion and consideration of ideas based on their merit and not the personal traits of their originators. Values ‘trickle across,’ but especially ‘down’ since prominent figures are seen and heard most

5. model intellectual risk-taking at all levels (honesty and vulnerability)
All innovation requires some amount of personal risk; at the very least, there is a risk of rejection. Learning, similarly, requires risk-taking

6. model inclusion at all levels
To get the most from our phenomenal diversity, but also to counter the perception of others as “others.” This has dramatic positive national security implications as well as educational ones

7. remove policies which favor specific demographics
de-emphasize individual accomplishment in favor of collaborative achievement to reinforce the value of joint enterprise and thus, finding worth in all

8. minimize the stress of finding and maintaining access to basic necessities for survival
to liberate the minds of citizens for the more important work of problem solving and innovation
-security
-personal
-public
-health
>nutrition
>care

What part does education play? Public education, perhaps America’s greatest institution (as it is intended), is more important than ever in the coming age. Learning, as a value, is the cornerstone of the new America. This is not a stretch for us. As mentioned above, we are a nation of trail-blazers, and that sort of pioneering risk, combined with an appropriate amount of discipline, is exactly what is necessary for good learning. We need to put learning at the front of every aspect of society.

With education happening everywhere, our public schools will increasingly serve as moderators and facilitators, as well as the purveyors of those abstracted ideas not so directly accessible through practical application (but which are essential to much of the ‘cutting edge’ of development).

This will be our mantra: The quest for understanding is riddled with treasure, and there are infinite paths to travel.

How can schools best support this mantra? Learning must not be about absorbing what is known. While existing knowledge is a valuable scaffold on which to stand, what’s much more important is the ability to address challenges not yet encountered. Further, history shows that much of our most valuable insights occurred when people challenged the very foundations of our understanding, pointing out structural weaknesses in that scaffold. For that reason, learning should be a personal journey of inquiry, where meaning and purpose is drawn from within each of us, and fed by the ideas of our companions and our predecessors. Questions must lead the way, not answers. Answers are the end of the road.

1. Recruiting and retaining excellent educators: The tools for a productive and successful educational experience in any environment, and for any student, exist. Lack of access to those tools and/or willingness to learn to use them is usually behind any failure to produce desirable results. Such a commitment can be daunting, as it is a career commitment (at least multi-year), and thus merits appropriate incentives. While effective teaching is inherently rewarding, becoming and remaining effective is generally very difficult.

If we are to recruit, train, and continually develop the best we have to offer (teachers should be the creme of the crop), we must make teaching very desirable.

A priority, even before cosmetic features of schools and some instructional materials (within reason), should be funding faculty and administration adequately as to recruit dedicated innovators willing to do what it takes to create a successful educational environment.

Lovely facilities are wonderful, but the best educators can turn anything into a learning experience.

Further, funding must be sufficient to provide teachers with time and space to collaborate, and collectively develop as professionals.

2. Developing Exceptional Teachers: Channels of communication and cooperation within and between schools is also key to success. Schools should be research facilities - research into instructional innovation - and that research must be available to interested parties.

And pay structures should incentivize continual development (commitment, leadership, effective innovation), and hold instructors accountable for their gains not through the test scores of their students, but through vetted academic research. That is, instructors would be expected to share their experiences (through co-teaching and peer observations), produce reports outlining their instructional experiments, innovations, and gains (and failures!), direct staff training sessions when new techniques are shown to be effective, and support colleagues’ implementation of strategies that they champion.

3. Schools must be inclusive: All of the most effective schools, in any environment, pay respect to the members of the community that they serve. We should go a step further; schools should welcome all members of the community to participate in some way. This is not always easy, but if we are to model cooperative enterprise in education and society, it needs to take place at every level. And for every challenge there are at least as many benefits.

Every community has a wealth of skill and perspective. Professionals can offer valuable resources and insight not available to teachers, as well as providing context for learning experiences (demonstrating a connection between what is being studied and what exists outside the classroom). In this way, schools can cater to the specific needs of their unique communities without sacrificing rigor.

It invigorates the community for constituents to feel they have value to the coming generation. It empowers and involves parents and neighbors to feel connected to the education of the children.

4. Learning must be relevant: Why, after all, must we construct an artificial environment in which to learn, when there are countless resources that are practical, urgent, and impactful, all around us. Granted, there are a number of ideas that are fundamental to much of what is practical, but which cannot be approached without some amount of modeling and/or purely cognitive exercise, but even those skills and ideas are, indirectly, connected with something real. And why would anyone learn unless the learning is relevant?

The answer is artificial incentive structures. Up to this point, we have relied largely on artificial incentives to motivate students, whether parental pressure, grading, competitive college application, or “permanent records.” Each of these may or may not have value to certain students, and even when they do, it is by some amount of deception that they are effective. Why not allow natural inherent human incentives to guide learning? Our minds are wired to learn and, indeed, it is nearly impossible to prevent it. Our social needs are among the most powerful and urgent of any motivator, and if we are immersed in a culture which values exploration and discovery, it is only by a challenging up-river effort that we stall our own learning. This, coupled with a clear set of goals - for the school, the community, and each student - provides a focus which brings into view the purpose for most, if not all, educational experiences. And there are clear and present issues that need to be dealt with in our communities and in our society - and which can be the framework of our curricula.


Conclusion: America would benefit from a paradigm shift in the direction of collaborative idea-generation. This applies to entrepreneurship as well as production and maintenance within our communities. To do this, we need to reform our educational policy such that learning becomes a universal value. Public education, as it was originally intended, should become a community resource, but it should also become a machine for driving integration, innovation, and collaboration. Schools can be innovators in the way that we wish our citizens to be innovators, and communication between members of institutions, and between institutions, can model the sort of collaboration that will bring about real solutions to pressing social challenges. Finally, schools can once again be resources for the communities they serve, and at the same time benefit from the resources within the community. These changes will not be easy. We need to offer sufficient incentives to teachers such that the profession is as desirable as it is valuable, and make teachers accountable for their instruction in a way that not only encourages experimentation and continual, collaborative development, but models those values for students and society.

The optimism of life

Years ago, I came across a book (I'm sorry that I don't recall the title) by a biologist who'd decided that she had found a pattern which was pervasive in biological systems. Her conjecture was that life followed a sequence of events, repeatedly, in its evolution. The stages are: 1) innovation - a new biological technology comes into existence (by chance) that is favorable for reproduction given environmental conditions. (so far, we're right with Darwin on this one). 2) gold rush - blessed with the new technology, this particular system proliferates, following an exponential pattern of expansion. 3) competition - after sufficient growth, the system, faced with the impending resource crisis, begins to self-limit. In ecology, we have something called "density dependent mortality" to describe this, though her idea applies to molecular interactions (advent of certain proteins, cell structures, etc.) equally - in other words, this applies to all biological systems, on any order of complexity. 4) cooperation - only the portions of the system which develop the capacity to maintain an equilibrium condition persist, and they do so, consistently, through a mutualistic arrangement which gives a distinct advantage to those who embrace or "discover" this strategy. The alternative(s) would result in death/extinction. Thus, she argued, arose all the complexity of the modern biosphere; tiered arrangements of cooperating systems (molecules, cells, tissues, organs, bodies, populations, ecosystems), each one dependent on the participation, and continued cooperation, of the subsystems 'beneath' it.

"Oh, but there are clearly non-cooperative arrangements extant in nature, some of which have been going on for millions of years," one might argue. For this idea (from the previous paragraph) to be acceptable, it relies on a particular interpretation for the idea of cooperation. You might think that sharks and seals are not cooperating, or, better yet, that sharks and orcas are clearly competing, but let's remove ourselves from the situation by looking at a lower tier. In your own body, similar arrangements are occurring all the time: cells are destroying one another, different systems all demand access to the same resources. Without some of the more violent dynamics within each of us, we would succumb to any number of terrifying disorders and inevitably die. In this same way, ecosystems, while apparently ruthless, can only persist with a balance between creation and destruction (a fundamental tenet in many religions). That balance is what the arrangement is all about. In more classical mutualistic situations, such as a lichen, it is precisely because no individual overexploits the arrangement that they can persist. While the mechanisms of that limitation are less violent (on a macroscopic scale), they serve the same purpose.

I like this description, as it seems to portend a more desirable future for humanity, wherein cooperative social organization would arise out of the pending resource crisis that we, with our exponentially increasing population, and increasingly competitive interactions, seem to be wrestling with.

On the recommendation of a friend, I recently read another argument that supports, or maybe expands, this idea, called "non zero, the logic of human destiny." In it, the author uses a mathematical game theory approach to analyze biological systems, and then human behavior. He contends that there are many sorts of relationships in both strata, some of which are zero-sum (one party's gain is another's loss), and some of which are non-zero-sum (both can gain, or both can lose), and that history has favored the non-zero-sum arrangements in which both parties gain. Evolution, he argues (both biological and social), involves repeated exchanges, and that over time the exchanges that result in positive-sum results are more adaptive.

There was a mathematician in the 60's who conducted a computer simulation which pitted innumerable programs against one another in non-zero-sum games. One program would encounter another and choose to be either benevolent or selfish, and depending on the choices of the two, would walk away with some amount of gain or loss. The prisoner's dilemma was the scenario: if both programs choose to be benevolent, both gain some; if one is benevolent and one is selfish, the selfish one gains a lot and the benevolent loses a lot; and if both are selfish, both lose some. Different programmers had decided what would be the most advantageous approach to such an arrangement, where they played repeatedly and at random with one another. There was a broad array of approaches, from totally vicious programs to absolutely generous ones, with some complicated in-between sorts of behavior patterns. As you can imagine, the really "kind" programs quickly lost to the really "mean" ones. But what was interesting was that the ones which persisted were the most "just." That is, they would respond to other programs according to what the other chose in the previous exchange. The really great twist was that the ones which overtook the entire game board were just, but also a little nice. That is, they occasionally tried trusting, even if they'd been wronged. As you can imagine, when these guys would encounter one another, they'd gain gain gain, as they'd be benevolent to one another. When they encountered mean programs, they'd lose some, but so would the meanies. The mean programs, however, had no chance to ever exploit a mutualistic arrangement for shared gain.This supports the idea that the desirable systems (from an evolutionary perspective) are those which have the capacity to be mutualistic (but aren't suckers), and among that group, the subset of those which have a little more likelihood of cooperating end up dominating.

Here's the bottom line: in the difficult times to come for humanity, according to the patterns of biological and social evolution, those who will persist will be those who can figure out the best way to work together with one another and with the biosphere. All others will eventually perish... perhaps.