Dancing in Cooperation – and the Wisdom of the Owl

Once upon a time, there lived Rabbit and Fox. They saw themselves in an eternal battle for survival. Rabbit would try and escape from Fox by active (run) or passive (hide) means. And Fox recognized that her chances of survival were highly dependent on catching then eating Rabbit.

At the level of the individuals Rabbit and Fox, it seems clear that they were in a game of survival of the fittest. A game of competition for scarce resources where the main resource of concern was Rabbit’s life.

They both attended the Annual Policy Convention for Animal Welfare, where Owl was the keynote speaker. Owl had a way of seeing the seeable when others don’t typically even look. He had been selected because Rabbits, being numerically dominant, were expected to vote Foxes off the island. That, thought Rabbits, would eliminate the competition, and they would finally live ‘happily ever after.’

Owl had studied the principle that there is always competition even though we are frequently, or sometimes even willfully, blind to it. And that blindness increased our susceptibility to attack. But there was so much to talk about – and today, Owl wanted to talk about how Rabbits and Foxes were in fact cooperating to do what all animals most want to do – or at least what their genes most want to do, which is to survive and have their babies survive.

For us humans watching this convention, our babies are whatever it is that we are working to create - perhaps our business, perhaps a ‘real’ baby.

Owl asked the assembled, what would happen if the Rabbits exercised their tyranny and kicked the Foxes off the island?

He outlined how Rabbits, without competition, got much more ‘fat and lazy’ (animals don’t need to be politically correct) and started developing pandemics of non-communicable diseases like weak bones (weak structure), Diabetes (weak function of the body, weak metabolism), and mental decay (weak function of the mind).

He also pointed out that pandemics of communicable diseases (infections) were more likely to spread in these genetically homogenous large Rabbit colonies. These communicable diseases might be from some physical agent like a virus, or they might even be viruses of thought like unmitigated wokeness or political correctness where opposing views are ‘bad’ simply because the majority does not agree or are too scared to admit that they agree with an opposing view.

Whether communicable or not, these diseases, these illnesses that arise as a result of lack of competition, have the potential to decrease survivability.

Baby Rabbits were no longer taught survival skills that would be mandatory when there were inevitable droughts or floods. Owl showed data that when there was so much inbreeding due to Rabbits no longer needing to ‘spread out geographically’ and thereby spread out the diversity of their genes, they would be more susceptible to disease.

Owl focused mostly on Rabbits and the consequences of their vote to the Rabbits themselves rather than on the consequences for Foxes. Because, in life, while you may always have a vote, your vote may not always matter. And it is incumbent on the minority to know how to cooperate with the majority in the animal world of our daily lives and daily businesses. How can the majority see that they benefit from having the minority around? Have you ever wondered why the wealthy few make frequent and very public displays of their philanthropic activities? They are doing their part to keep the masses cooperating with them.

As Owl spoke, the old Rabbits, who had survived challenging weather patterns before and even survived the last volcano on the island, started nodding, as they had seen parallels whenever in the past a Rabbit family had found an enclave where they stayed hidden from predators over generations.

Slowly, the assembled Rabbits started to see how they needed the competition of the Foxes.

In a strange way, the apparently competing Foxes were COOPERATING with the Rabbits to do what the Rabbits most wanted to do – ensure their babies, or at least their genes, survived. Yes, predators and prey are locked in a battle of competition. AND they are simultaneously involved in the dance of cooperation.

For us humans still watching this convention, what does Owl’s message have to do with us?

1. That competition is required for our survival (see 2023 March article Peacocks, Babies, and other Weapons of Competition – And why we need them.)

2. Even our competitors are cooperating with us once we choose to look – to see the seeable.

So, as these lines get progressively more blurred, let us examine what cooperation even means. The word is derived from “Co-“ meaning “together” and “operari-“ meaning “work.” That is to work together.

Rabbits and Foxes work together to increase the survivability of the species. And we humans work together with other humans and multiple other parties to increase the survivability of our species. Of our genes. Of what we are “most compelled” to pass on. Of that thing we call a calling. Of that legacy that is ours to leave.

Our argument today is that EVERY situation in which we find ourselves is an instance of cooperation. And like Owl, we will work here to help you see how pervasive cooperation is even when you are, or might want to be, blind to its existence. We will argue that it is worth being “conscious” of how cooperation is occurring vs being “unconscious” of it. Being conscious affords you more choices as you get to pick how that cooperation impacts you. You get to choose your perceptions, decisions, and actions. You get to take back control.

It is easy to recognize cooperation when we see more than one organism working together for some common, mutual, or underlying perceived benefit. Two parents cooperate to nourish or nurture their baby, or two hunters cooperate to make a kill. Orca whales form a ‘ring’ around fish and then slap them with their tails so that the pod may all eat. Trees in a forest grow rapidly to similar heights and then seem to have ‘coordinated growth rates’ that they may each get sunlight. Yes, even the male praying mantis that gets eaten by the female after intercourse is part of a cooperative dance to increase the survival of the species.

Cooperation is yet easy to spot at macro scales – of countries sharing resources or perhaps sharing markets so that their economies both survive. Some say that ‘rich’ countries are too greedy and want too much, yet that ‘want’ is what creates the market for the products of more ‘poor’ countries. They may both eat – though differently. At every scale, from holding our earth together, to our solar system, to the spiral arms of the Milky Way, to the Local Group, to the Virgo Supercluster, to the Laniakea supercluster, and beyond, the fingerprint of magnetism is evident. Yes, at every infinitely more macro level, magnetism, a cooperative force, is critical in ‘holding’ the cosmos together.

Cooperation occurs at even molecular levels that themselves are key to sustaining life. An acid is only an acid and can only donate a proton if there is a base to accept it. To form any molecular bond, an electron is only given up or shared if there is a place for it to be released to or shared within the chemistry that keeps us alive. Electrons and protons, particles and antiparticles are entangled in their own cooperative dance at every infinitely more micro level.

So, just as competition is universal, cooperation is universal too. And following Maupertuis’s principle, cooperation would only exist if it served a purpose. And a purpose that is unique to it. In other words, nothing else, no other force or activity in the Universe accomplishes the exact same thing as does cooperation – otherwise, it would not exist. And cooperation DOES exist at every level of existence and organization.

If we examined every area of life, we will now demonstrate how cooperation exists even when competition seems like the paramount priority:

Mental:

An academic researcher publishes an article that shows off her expertise, wins her awards and accolades, gets her tenure over others in her department – a competitive activity. Without meaning to, the publication provides key insights that allow someone in the industry to change one of their manufacturing processes that then allows them to increase production between two of their vertically integrated divisions. Cooperation non-intentionally between researcher and industry and intentionally between the corporate divisions occurred.

Vocational:

You work hard to persuade a prospect to choose your product over that of a competitor. An intrinsically and intensely competitive process of selling. That exact same selling process is an intimate dance of cooperation between seller and buyer. Each party determines that in some way, this cooperative transaction will further their individual purposes.

In our Member Only Content, we will explore the role that cooperation plays in the vendor-purchaser dynamic at a local transactional level and also at a global level in terms of issues such as the supply chain.

Financial:

The very foundation of money as an intermediary currency to transfer value from one party to another was a cooperative endeavor to have a system that was more efficient than barter. Yet, the trading of resources in any marketplace, given that there is always a relative lack of resources, is a competitive activity.

Familial:

We have discussed previously that to have prioritized the relationship with one individual means discounting the relationship with many. There is competition among the many to be the one. And there is competition between the preference for the one or the preference for the many. Whichever it is that you choose will involve cooperation with one or cooperation with many to have a family by whatever definition you choose for that.

Social:

Each of us is directly or indirectly trying to win votes. We convert these votes into the currency of social network and influence. We then use that currency to further our purpose. Winning the votes is a competitive process as you are getting that vote over your competitor. Yet, the process of winning a vote is directly akin to that of a seller and buyer. The buyer holds the money or the vote. We only win that voter if we show them that in terms of what they count, what matters to them, that they will get more of what they want by cooperating (working together) with us vs not cooperating with us. We are even cooperating, by working together with some set of rules of engagement, with our competition and competing as we cooperate.

Physical:

In medicine, we are becoming increasingly aware that we compete with and cooperate with our microbiome at multiple levels. This game isn’t only complicated (many moving parts – the individual on one hand and the various bugs and populations of bugs on the other); but also complex (any of the moving parts may change their behavior at any time). And that is between whatever we call us (internal) and our microbiome (external). We recognize that there is debate about this, and some insist that the microbiome is part of who we are.

At yet another level, our internal individual cells and internal organs compete among themselves for nourishment and survival yet cooperate to keep us surviving as human animals.

Spiritual:

Various organized religions compete for our attention or dollars while at the same time trying to organize susceptible humans into groups that cooperate and work together with some common belief or for some cause.

So why, you might ask, are we working so hard to have you be consciously aware of the universality of cooperation?

The short answer lies in our underlying philosophy that everything has a purpose. Everything is on the way – not in the way. This Universe is working purposely and constantly to help YOU fulfill your mission. We wonder how empowering or not that choice of perceptions is in your life.

You of course have a choice. You don’t have to look at it that way. You may choose to see this Universe as working purposely and constantly to hinder you from fulfilling your mission. Yet, we wonder how empowering or not that choice of perceptions is in your life.

There is even another choice. That is that the Universe is pointless, purposeless – an entropic blob destined to end in heat death, and it doesn’t matter what we or anyone or anything else does. Again, we would wonder how empowering or not that choice of perceptions is in your life.

All three sets of perceptions are options available to you.

And, which of those three you pick has an enormous impact on the kinds of choices you will make in your life or your business.

As we stated, our underlying bias is that this Universe is purposed. And that it, too, has a telos, an end in mind. And that it is doing everything in its power to help us learn and grow and to know the love that it has for us.

As we write, it is interesting that that sounds so much like what a parent would say about their interaction with their baby child. What a founder would say about their interaction with their baby business. What the Rabbit would say about its interaction with its baby too. A cooperative dance they all are.

So, yes, we are biased that this Universe is working cooperatively with us to help us increase the learning, growth, and survival of whatever our literal or figurative babies are. Hermes Trismegistus wrote ‘As above, so below; As below, so above.” This cooperation is present at every scale of existence.

In our extended April 2023 Member Only Content, we will explore further the considerations for cooperation and competition in the Vendor – Purchaser interaction and demonstrate how this is relevant to ALL of us. Join us in our Member Only Live session on April 25, 2023 from 5:00 - 6:30 PM MT / 7:00 - 8:30 PM ET, where we will help you solve your problems and, if you let us, help you see some drawbacks of cooperation.

Until the next perfect time,

Kumar and Amit Ramlall

PS…When you join us, you will get the Member Only Content, where you will see us take a deep dive into the Vendor – Purchaser dynamic. We will address how this relates to micro issues, such as the price you pay for food at the grocery store or gas at the pump, and macro issues, such as how the supply chain and its evolution through COVID and the war in Ukraine are all part of a cooperative dance. Come grow your thinking so that you grow your impact and results. Come join us here.