Scientific Definition
Coordinated action that produces outcomes unavailable to individual actors.
Plain-English Definition
Coordinated action that produces outcomes unavailable to individual actors.
Feynman Explanation
Cooperation is the cheat code that solves prisoner's dilemmas.
Core Principle
Coordinated action that produces outcomes unavailable to individual actors.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Coordinated action that produces outcomes unavailable to individual actors.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
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Many competitive strategies are actually cooperation strategies.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Cooperation is the cheat code that solves prisoner's dilemmas.
Examples
- Industry standards bodies, open-source ecosystems, alliances.
- Many competitive strategies are actually cooperation strategies.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Identify where structured cooperation beats pure competition.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
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Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Identify where structured cooperation beats pure competition.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Combine extreme safety with extreme risk; avoid the middle.
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
Allocating finite resources across many fronts when the opponent does the same — no dominant strategy exists.
Designing organizations to ride doubling curves — AI, data, compute, biotech — rather than linear improvement.
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
Individual rationality produces collective irrationality.
Causal chain from inputs to outputs to outcomes to impact.
Start cooperative; copy your counterpart's last move thereafter.
Where, how, what — in that order.
One party's gain is exactly another party's loss.
Reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result.
Unconscious psychological strategies that protect self-image.