It explains why the most selfish people often lack foresight and are not smart outside of a very narrow focus.

Only works when there is a genuine risk of retaliation equal or worse than the damage done, i.e.:

• There are multiple rounds or each round is done is such a way that the second person has a real choice, or in other words people can't just make a one-sided choice, cash their gains and dissapear but instead face consequences immediatelly or on subsequent rounds.
• Both sides have similar power to inflict hurt on the other side.

In fact various experiments from Behavioural Economics similar to these and done with conditions more like I describe show exactly that effect: far fewer behave nicelly and are generous and forgiving when others can't meaningfully retaliate.

It's not by chance that most situations in real life of somebody taking advantage of somebody else either involve a context where the abuser can just extract a gain and dissapear, escaping retaliation, or there is a massive power imballance so the victim can't actually retaliate in any meaningfull way (say, the "boss" vs an employee that can easilly be fired or an elected politician making choices that hurt a minority of electors).

Finally, vindication muahahaha :)

How does this explain that the world is essentially ruled by ruthless billionnaires? The strategies referenced may be vindicated, but that doesn't preclude them from being eclipsed by another, even greater strategy, that of total domination.

Or is anyone going to tell me straight-faced that all those people are great examples of our species and should be revered? None of them got where they are by playing nice.

I saw this and immediately thought about Nicky Case's game on The Evolution of Trust. I was really glad to see it was referenced in the video as the main inspiration for it!

(https://ncase.me/trust) - Link because I think everyone should try it for themselves as well.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I wonder how well and broadly these truths are applied in human politics. And what are the best strategies to moving towards more success?

Yes, and no.

First and foremost, you need no "justification" for being a decent person. And there are other reasons to be that way, as arbitrary as "I like it this way".

Game theory is strongly related to evolution. It is safe to assume that everything we can observe in nature is a successful strategy. So this confirms the statement: Cooperation is a successful strategy. But the other side of the picture also exists: Betrayal is as well.

What the excerpt omits about the Prisoner's Dilemma (not sure wether it's mentioned in the video, which I did not watch now): The Nash Equilibrium can be the overall worst outcome. What does that mean?

A Nash Equilibrium is a situation in which no player can improve their own position. It is therefore a stable state. Things will change until they have settled in a stable state. It can be shown for Prisoner's Dilemma that the Nash Equilibrium can be the worst case, where each betrays the other. Yes, they would both score better if they cooperated, but the system will still tend towards the state where both play nasty.

When multiple iterations are played, this changes a bit. It seems, if you not just meet once in a lifetime, but can remember your past, and have a common future, it makes more sense to cooperate. But there is still a place for uncooperative exploitation.

So yes, it's true what you say about "best performing strategies", but it should be noted that "evil" strategies don't go extinct either.

It should be questioned how much these theories can be applied to our lifes. I mean questioned, not implying an answer. Either way I find it interesting how behaviour which we associate with morals emerges in very simple and abstract games.