One thing I've realized personally about why good works: when you are evil, you can only fool those people who are less intelligent than you. You can bully only

One thing I've realized personally about why good works: when you are evil, you can only fool those people who are less intelligent than you. You can bully only those people who are weaker than you. If you are very smart or very strong, that could be a lot of people, and you can benefit a lot, and you are necessarily setting a hard limit on the number of people who are willing to help you. When you are good, when you give more than you receive, the opposite is true. You gain the aid of those who are smarter and stronger than you, others who "get it" and who have chosen to commit to the "cooperate" branch of the Prisoner's Dilemma.