"and theres so many people that if you fuck someone over they'll never see you again."
This is a very important part of cooperation theory. If the chances of repeat interactions in iterated prisoner's dilemma scenarios is low enough, then it's difficult for cooperation to take hold and the most stable strategy can be defection, or in this case, "FUCK YOU BITCH IMMA TAKE AS MUCH SHRIMP AS I CAN EVEN IF I'LL NEVER USE IT ALL".
It's all here, if you want to go down the rabbit hole.
Here's a whole book about this kind of stuff. I wouldn't say it's more evolved, it's just a strategy that can emerge in populations, and it's a strategy less likely to prove successful and stable over time, so while it can be a great strategy for a run of short terms gains, if broadly adopted, the strategy destroys the environment from which agents who would employ it can extract gains for themselves at all.
You hit on something really important. Axelrod demonstrates that part of what sustains cooperation is repeat interactions in populations. When there's a low enough chance of repeat interaction, then a "cheating" behavior can seem rational. It's rational in a narrow sense (if all you want are short terms gains), but it's less rational in another sense -- that if enough people do it then the collective adoption of that behavior destroys the very environment from which cheaters extract gains. In other words, by behaving in that way, over time, you won't be able to behave that way anymore AND the environment you'll find yourself in will be less stable and predictable (two things you need if you want any hope for making plans for the future).
The cool news is that once cooperation takes hold and some threshold proportion of the population it has "a ratchet", as Axelrod puts it. Cooperation is robust once it gets going. Nevertheless, groups of agents (a society) can develop conditions under which the robustness of cooperation can be challenged (too many people cheating, low repeat encounters, too many people fear for the end of the world) such that it can fail.
So only just now become aware of the game you speak of, but it looks like its a game inspired by the book the Evolution of Cooperation by Axelrod. Its a great book. Someone who does "tit for tat" which sounds like the copycat strategy will score slightly worse than someone who always cheats, but will score well when paired with someone who cooperated or a fellow copycat. So the copycat strategy is more effective in the long term
I can't recommend Axelrod's "The Evolution of Cooperation" enough. Hopefully it's close to what you're looking for. It touches on the biological, but much of the book builds on simulations of abstract games.
There's a really great online demo by Nicky Case about this exact strategy: https://ncase.me/trust/
It's known as 'Tit for Tat' in game theory, and it was the most successful strategy in an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma competition, twice. The book based on this study was by Robert Axelrod: The Evolution of Cooperation.
Basically, be nice at first, and don't be the first to be mean. It gives them a chance to play nice too.
Ok, if you're trying to write a dissertation/thesis in EP, then I'll grant that you will need to dive deeper into game theory. My impression (given where this thread is being posted) is that the OP just wants some further expansion on - and some justification for the belief in - some of the concepts from EP. Given that, why would he need a much more significant background in Game Theory?
I should expand on what I said above in one regard though... Tit for Tat is simply one of the most basic models of an evolutionarily stable strategy (in a certain context). So what I really meant to say is that if you can understand what a ESS is, and why it matters, you know enough to do what I presume the OP is trying to do.
If my understanding of what the OP wants out of this is off, then all of this may be moot. Or if you see some reason why one needs a much deeper level of knowledge of all of this, simply to apply it to seduction techniques, I'd love to see you expound on that. (that's not a sarcastic comment, btw, I really would like to hear more vis-a-vis application, if you have some insights I've missed up until now).
Edit: this whole discussion has reminded me that I meant to buy and read the Robert Axelrod book but haven't gotten to it yet. Note to self: do that.
> Such power could be used against the interests of the system just as well
That's why I wrote that I believe that miners will choose mutual cooperation (and collectively punishing defectors) with only a 75 % probability. I'm not 100 % certain. I as a test subject am not a researcher. All I did was to share my anecdotal observations from memory. Someone who has studied game theory for many years should spend some time analyzing the miners' game and share their conclusions and opinions about probable current and future miner behavior regarding 0-conf tx's.
With that said, I'm not appealing to authority either. Nobel prize winning people (in economics[1]) such as Paul Krugman for example are fully capable to misunderstand how Bitcoin works. But a person who is not a Nobel prize winner (like I assume all of us Bitcoin enthusiasts) is also capable of misunderstanding how Bitcoin works. And as a very skilled programmer, so are you.
That's why universities spend a lot of time, money and effort funding such experiments even today. It's difficult to predict human behavior from theory alone.
My point was that many games tend to evolve a cooperative behavior where defectors are punished. And I think that Bitcoin mining is one such game and my guess is that I'm 75 % likely to be right about that. But again, I'm self-taught and by no means any kind of expert of game theory.[2] But neither are people who work on the Bitcoin Core project (such as yourself), and certainly not Peter Todd.
[1]:
Yes, I know that there is no actual Nobel prize of Economics, but you know what I mean.
[2]:
I've watched that Russel Crowe movie, read two books and participated as a test subject for 5 hours in total. And that's about it. Total amount of time spent and experience, probably just one month.
But enough to see when people who are claiming absolute "facts" are likely out of their element and probably wrong.