I agree with most of that. But like.. most software is proprietary, right? Left to their own devices, Microsoft and Apple didn't decide to cooperate with the

I agree with most of that. But like.. most software is proprietary, right? Left to their own devices, Microsoft and Apple didn't decide to cooperate with the world and share software; instead they became the richest companies in the world by instituting a de facto computer tax. What you describe as "cooperation" really seems more like "people complying with rules enforced by force to the smallest extent possible", even in this software example. There are obviously some cases where humans work together really well -- times of conflict or disaster are probably a good example. But as society contains less scarcity, it seems like we move farther away from that massive cooperation, because there's no overriding need for it anymore.