But selfishness isn't evolutionarily sustainable

I'd beg to differ. If the selfishness leads to the extinction of the unselfish opposition then it certainly is a winning strategy. Only if there is an 'unkillable' pool of unselfish individuals does the theory work. ZD may not 'work well' when all the unselfish ones have been eliminated, but evolution doesn't care about "works well". It only cares about "works best of all those currently playing the game" (e.g. that is why plants, despite billions of years of evolution, still only have 3% efficient photosynthesis)

On the whole that is the part about evolution that is (often) not represented in games theory scenarios. Evolution tends to do things like change the rules, eliminate one player (species), or move ones' own species to a different game every now and then.

(Still: game theory is very applicable. Not knocking game theory research, here)

A group of individuals that band together and cooperate is at an advantage over a group of selfish opponents.
The cooperation works as long as the unselfish individuals remain cohesive.
But if they in fight the advantage is lost.
Hmm.. any parallels to US politics come to mind.

parallels to US politics come to mind.

Depends upon what they are fighting about.
If the goal of one faction, socialists, is to dominate and coerce then those who do not want to be controlled must fight to defeat or escape from the socialists.

This is more support for tribalism.

"There can be no doubt that a tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to give aid to each other and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection" (Darwin, 1871)"

-As well as the inclusive fitness dawkins described in 'the selfish gene:

"From the gene-centred view follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly with each other. Therefore the concept is especially good at explaining many forms of altruism...An organism is expected to evolve to maximize its inclusive fitness—the number of copies of its genes passed on globally (rather than by a particular individual)."

Leading physicists last year turned game theory on its head by giving selfish players a sure bet to beat cooperative players.

Adami and Hintze had their doubts about whether following a zero determinant strategy (ZD) would essentially eliminate cooperation and create a world full of selfish beings.

Could someone please explain how these two points are at odds? The first point only states that a selfish player(SP) would beat a cooperative player(CP), however as more SP emerge the pairing probability would shift from SP-CP to SP-SP, which cannot exist. Either both of the SP-SP pairing would perish or one or both would convert to CP. A shifting ratio would form, with neither side claiming victory, which is consistent with both points quoted.

Essentially what we have here is ... a failure to communicate.

Populations have to procreate at some level, and regardless of whether or not there is pairing or divisive reproduction, the question of progeny survival arises. In larger organisms, adults have a size and experience benefit over newborns. If all are selfish, only the swiftest young survive the onslaught of adult selfishness. Then in larger organisms and in gene exchanging smaller ones there is the problem of cooperating to swap data.

If you leave out these considerations, sure you can have 100% bastards. Factor them in, and it is doubtful a totally selfish organism would survive even one generation.

Why isn't one of the effects of Dense EtheR Ptheory to stop you from posting on articles without even the loosest association with your pet meme?

You do realize it controls you now, isolating you from others by causing you to obsess, forcing you to attempt to replicate it at even the most remote opportunity?

My goodness - Dense EtheR Ptheory is actually a linguistic form of the zombie ant fungus!

"While ZD strategies offer advantages when they're used against non-ZD opponents, they don't work well against other ZD opponents."

As I remember it this was already known to happen on an individual level. A tit-for-tat with slight forgiveness strategy can beat a ZD strategy by emulating the ZD tactics.

@drhoo: In non-evolutionary situations, a mob rule can beat tit-for-tat individuals, but only slightly. In real life, we have legislation (in theory) preventing such criminal hoarding.

In evolutionary theory, the selfish gene strategist always wins. It is just that in some situations the vehicle, the population, behaves altruistically to ensure the selfish win.

@FromFriedMinds Applying this to US politics, one might say the cooperating group are those who believe in individual responsibility and freedom, vs. the "selfish and mean" group that prefer to use government force to benefit themselves at the expense of others (say by voting themselves benefits from the treasury). After all, research shows that conservatives are bigger charitable givers than liberals who believe in less freedom. Yet liberals claim conservatives are the "selfish and mean" group because they don't support forced government redistribution of wealth.

MIT Study proves Contrary To Popular Belief Conservaturds Do NOT Give More To Charity Than Liberals. But they brag much more about it

So, what's this got to do with physics?

Well, the density fluctuations of gas sorta cooperate too. When they form a larger objects, then they can indeed live longer. But such large fluctuation is evolving and moving slower accordingly. When the critical size is reached, then the speed of their evolution becomes too low with compare to these smaller, more competitive and vital fluctuations and the whole selection process repeats again. Which is why the most intelligent objects in the Universe (we?) are existing at the middle of the dimensional scale of the observable Universe - not at its very end.

Oh blarg. Really, blarg. Populations of individual animals are not density fluctuations. Unless you mean between my solid mass and air, in which case I say "fie" instead of "blarg." The use of the word "vital" really seals it.

So I say, in all, "blarg," "fie," and "garg!"

Of course it isn't - but it can be modeled so. For example the population flows from areas of higher social pressure to areas of lower social pressure like the gas. Why not to read http://physik.uni...stem.pdf first?

Except it doesn't. Society doesn't flow like a gas. Not at all. "Social pressure" is a mock term without context, misinterpreted for its re-use in this social eddies conjecture.

What part of it flows like a gas? Its entrenchment in tradition? Its mutation into laws and local punitive structures? Its hierarchical structure? Its bifurcation in some cases into have and have-nots, as in oppressive sexist or racist or classists structures? Its "expansion" into political modes?

Please, do something more than telling me to read and giving vague purposefully blurry proto-concepts based on word-play.

Oh, and "Blarg fie garg fie garg-blarg!"

There's no conflict between competition and cooperation; competition essentially is over who will be the best cooperator. Be it hiring or purchasing; once the negotiation stage is done the actual activity engaged in is cooperative in nature. Someone who can't cooperate will not be competitive, because they will have nothing to offer.