"And maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable..."

[narcasse]

I've been playing for an endgame of mutual assured destruction. The only problem being that it assumes that everyone else is willing to commit to a war of attrition after a certain point. It also explains why my default is to escalate into a grim trigger scenario, because I assume it's not going to get any better. Of course that sort of strategy has proven less than effective in studies because a) the other participants don't usually know it's the default scenario, b) it gives little to no benefit to the participant who enacts it and c) it a stalemate, if not self-destructive, endgame. This sort of extreme behaviour on my part also explains why my extended period of quietude, followed by affability, garnished with some distinct actions that seemingly have no benefit to me, seems to have shaken things up a bit.

I am, of course, after deliberating over the analysis, seeding possibilities, many of which may never be anything I need to make use of. This is a far more sensible route to go down, leading to a variety of options to utilise, should they ever be required, so that I don't end up in a scenario where there is only one route/participant, whose behaviours the entire framework hangs upon. It's all a matter of rational self-interest, where that actually leads me down the path of assisting others. Because self-interest, when best deployed, it never so stark as it is in films.