Zero Sum

A better understanding of the complexity and multitude of roles and relationships in society:

Suppose every person is entirely self-sufficent. There would be nothing I could do to help anyone else, nor they for me. Suppose the resources available are limited. Then the only way I could get more resources is to take it away from other people. I would be in direct competition with everyone in the whole population; my gain is their loss. If the gains and losses are added up for everyone, we would have a net of zero: the situation is called zero-sum.

Now instead, suppose the population is divided into five roles: A, B, C, D, E. Each group works on a separate task, using up different resources, and receives reward from the other four groups. Now I, as part of group A, would no longer be in competition with anyone from groups B, C, D, or E. I can work harder for them, and they would pay me more. The relationship is no longer zero-sum: both sides benefit from the trade. I would only have to worry about competition from within group A.

What's more interesting is that if I could find a way to create a new group, A1, with a distinct role, then I would have no competition at all. If I could establish mutually beneficial relationships with the rest of the population as A1, then I would be in a brand new niche, and I'd have plenty of room for growth. This is the mechanism by which the society we live in become more specialized and more complex.

The same reasoning can be applied to biological evolution. Animals and plants create and fill new niches to avoid competition, and at the same time establish intricate interspecies relationships. The push toward greater complexity in an ecosystem, as in human society, is a result of non-zero sum interactions.