So much of human dynamics, both individual and social, is a result of a tension between two core drives, competitiveness and cooperation. Both are innate, gained through evolution. They’re present in each of us, perhaps mixed in different fractions, nurtured differently, and both can become dominant in most of us, perhaps triggered by different circumstances. Their dynamics is collective, and the public manifestation of each pulls the public in its own direction, two competing self-reinforcing feedback cycles.