I have always formulated this for myself as follows: Any sufficiently strategic self-interest is indistinguishable from altruism. Empathy is just evolution's way of encoding millions of years of this observation into our emotional response system.
This "sufficiently strategic self-interest" is the same kind of non-existing unicorn as the "sufficiently smart compiler".
>Empathy is just evolution's way of encoding millions of years of this observation into our emotional response system.
Evolution (if we abstract it as a thing with intentions) is satisfied with the survival of the species. If the individual perishes, it's fine as long as they either protected their offspring or helped the others in their species survive, there will be more of them (because this actions help the species survive more and make more copies of itself, so species with members who will sacrifices themselves for the species get an advantage). Individual ants and bees for example will sacrifice themselves for the collective.
So, empathy that drives altruistic acts is not the same as "strategic self-interest". If we are to see it in a reductionary way, let's do it properly: usually it's the interest of the species (or the offspring) driving it.
I'm sorry for that bug in the system, sir; we were short of time while designing this whole shebang. The happiness of the individual and a bunch of other things were not really a goal but, as you have cleverly noted, a biochemical feedback to get them to play. But now you have outgrown natural evolution--our sloppy design strategy--and you can fix this bug on your own. Off the top of my head, you could add a magic mushroom that makes people immortal and infertile. But surely you can come up with something better. Now back to enjoying my retirement. God.
But "bad people" or aholes also have usefulness. You sometimes need people to challenge things that only an unreasonable person would challenge. And you need the occasional Steve Jobs too.
But unlike altruistic people, we generally don't give the aholes as much credit. So, ironically, perhaps altruism is the better self serving strategy.
Some degree of assholes and psychopaths make for robust systems that protect against abuse, intentional or accidental.
And the failure modes and pathologies you describe are external: an exploiter is by definition not part of the group of altruists and that makes them a perfect example of how few assholes it takes to ruin things.
The fact that the problems I pointed out are external is because those were just the most obvious failure modes, do not take it as an exhaustive list.
You mean like back when it was kind people and not warlords, and rich scum, and Genghis Khan being the winers?
Meaning "this is the case only on recent history? What about those examples from thousands of years ago".
(I think it's notable Steve Jobs's largest business successes happened after he got married.)