Cocaine And Cooperation

A Cocaine Kingpin

Joseph Cox | 404 Media | 23rd March 2026

Marty Tibbits made millions running call centres for small businesses. He also loved to buy and fly historical aircraft, like the DH-112 Venom, an iconic combat jet of the Cold War. One day in 2018, he crashed the Venom into a barn in Wisconsin and died. Soon after, his wife received a phone call from a man in tears, a global cocaine trafficker. Tibbits had had a secret life as an aspiring international drug lord (3,400 words)

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From Cooperation To Conflict

Lionel Page | Optimally Irrational | 19th March 2026

Tribute to Robert Trivers, “Einstein of evolutionary biology”, who proposed the idea of “reciprocal altruism” — animals thrive through cooperation of the form “I scratch your back if you scratch mine”. Hence humans feel anger towards cheaters, gratitude for altruistic acts and guilt for violating the “implicit rules of reciprocity”. By this token, the system also favours subtler forms of cheating or manipulation (3,600 words)