While I agree that telescopic empathy is often more self-serving and less helpful than it appears, I would make the same claim of calls to "step out of the game

While I agree that telescopic empathy is often more self-serving and less helpful than it appears, I would make the same claim of calls to "step out of the game," finite or no. There are rewards to being first. On some axes, it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. Further, in some cases humans actively create finite games for others to play. You used to be able to hunt buffalo and live off the land. Not anymore. I'll make some not-so-brave statements, and then I'll make some brave (and, in my opinion, useful) ones. Not so brave: 1. Life is a finite game. Over the long term, and on varying resources, Malthus was right. 2. We've gotten a lot of great stuff from having humans play finite games. This "market" one is pretty neat. Idealists imagined the rectangle I'm using to type this, but pragmstists financed its development. 3. Finite games can do horrible damage to people, causing them to starve, isolate themselves, and harm others. That's the short list. 4. "People" should "find" a "balance" that's "right for them." Brave(r): 1. A finite game can sometimes be transformed to an infinite game by projecting it over time. Startups perform this alchemy all the time by considering lifetime customer value rather than just initial revenue. Horatio Alger, as long as he spends less than he makes, is a source of infinite money. 2. In a unpredictable and uncaring universe, one should carefully guard one's main source of sustenance---even if that's a finite game, save value, and then make small risky forays into more desireable territory. This is the operating principle of the financial world. 3. Sometimes big investments are necessary (so, maybe not so brave).