Both bats benefit in the long run. Of course, they aren t smart enough to recognize this win-win dynamic. What s good for bats is good for humans. This could not have happened through zero-sum exchanges alone. The hallmarks of humanity language, tools, hunting, gathering, farming, writing, art, music, and all the rest including and especially the World Wide Web could not have come about through the actions of isolated zero-sum gamers.
Humans are, by nature, nonzero animals.
As grand as this sweep of history is, this isn t really Wright s big secret of life. Wright believes it is the former. By we he means an intelligent social species that carries its social organization to planetary breadth. If humans had not filled this inevitable position of global dominance, one of the other hominids the Neanderthals, for example or the great apes would have. All the way.