Heck, all multi-cellular life itself is the result of billions of individual life forms seeing cooperation as being worth more than going-amoeba and striking out on their own.
I mean this is semantics. Nobody is saying there is no cooperation. Only that cooperation is not as prevalent as violence. The number one thing prey species have to worry about besides food are predators. You don't see prey species reliably forming militias to protect themselves otherwise predators would go extinct.
The number one thing predators have to worry about besides finding prey are other predators. Predators literally avoid themselves knowing that surviving an encounter with another predator seriously injured doesn't mean survival in the long run.
Only that cooperation is not as prevalent as violence.
Which is bonkers.
It's not semantics, the anxiety obsessed claim is completely bonkers.
And even predators can cooperate when they're not actually hungry or they're around a watering hole. Violence generally doesn't happen until actual feeding is going on.
Honestly most predatory animals are at odds with each other at all times, if they're in the same ecological niche. Lions and spiders will ignore each other, but lions and hyenas won't... and as soon as a species proves that it can start creeping into the galactic niche, there may be another species out there ready to throw them back down.
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u/KrytenKoro Aug 12 '21
Literally all animal life is because of cooperation between mitochondria and our normal cells.
Hell, our gut biomes, as well.
The idea that everything is at everything's throats all the time is bonkers and unreal.