Except that life is not a game or a swim meet. It's more than possible to have all sorts of win/win scenarios in life and refusing to acknowledge that humans are a deeply social species that made it out of the Stone Age because we cooperated better than all other hominin species (who all died out) is misguided and frankly, toxic. When people look at absolutely everything as an either I win and you lose or you win and I lose scenario, it goes against the most fundamental aspects of human nature. It’s fine to have healthy competition, but it doesn’t have to apply to everything and it doesn’t have to be so nasty in every scenario.

Darwin was constantly impressed with the kindness and cooperation he observed in nature, and he wrote that “those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best and rear the greatest number of offspring.” He and many of the biologists who followed him have documented that the ideal way to win at the evolutionary game is to maximize friendliness so that cooperation flourishes.

— Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity by Brian Hare, Vanessa Woods. https://a.co/0ZaHBIB