Nonzero summary

Just as organisms have grown increasingly complex, human societies also have ventured along the same path. And it seems that the path of civilization is a one way street, always pointing towards more sophisticated levels of organization.

Across the world, from China to the New World, humankind independently evolved in the same way. We started with savagery, where we lived in small hunter-gatherer-tribes in which almost everyone was related. Then, we moved to barbarism, in which chiefdoms and ancient city-states formed the beginnings of political leadership. Finally, we arrived at civilization, with its empires and nation-states and complicated political and economic structures.

When you come home with your bags of groceries, do you share some with your neighbors? Families of the African tribe !Kung San do. When they hunt down a giraffe, they share the meat with a neighboring family, knowing that one day they might have to depend on the meat hunted by other families if they ever fall on hard times.

In fact, they, and humans generally, act in this way because cooperation is hard-wired into our brains; we have evolved to understand that we need to work together in order to survive on this planet.

Let’s consider a very straightforward non-zero-sum interaction: imagine you’re an American shoe manufacturer and you want to expand your reach by selling your shoes in a Chinese supermarket. Both of you benefit from this situation: you sell more shoes and they acquire more customers.

However, although the benefits are clear, there are still two obstacles you must overcome before you can seal the deal:

Have you ever put everything you had into a competition, hoping to come out on top? This competitive drive is totally natural. In fact, archeologists have found evidence for competition – collectively through war or individually through a struggle for status – in every primitive tribe and ancient society.

This competition is the direct result of the natural human tendency to strive to put ourselves in the most advantageous position possible. Although such conflict is usually zero-sum – i.e., one party wins and the others lose – in the long run, it actually promotes teamwork.

Human history has seen some crazy times – the Age of Barbarism, the Dark Ages, two World Wars, to name just a few. These dark times can make us question our very nature, leading some to believe that human progress has waxed and waned over time.

Contrary to this belief, however, humanity didn’t go “backwards” during these dark periods. In fact, our cultural evolution continued onward.

Among today’s nations, you’ll find that those who are the most liberal and open-minded tend to be the most prosperous.

Why is this?

Globalization has brought us many benefits. The computer or mobile phone that you are reading this on, for example, is likely the result of the cooperation of many different national and international players.

But globalization can also breed anger and, possibly, deadly resistance.

Why are we here? Why did we develop the way that we did, and not some other way? Was it all random, or are we the products of some sort of “design?”

Nature’s persistence towards complexity does, in fact, suggest an underlying purpose to our existence. We can see this in the apparent teleological nature of biological and cultural evolution: no matter how radically interrupted, life eventually snaps back to pursuing increasing complexity, flexibility and intelligence.