Zero-sum is dead.
For most of human history, you could externalize costs. Pollute upstream and someone downstream dealt with it. Extract from one place, benefit somewhere else. Wage war over there, keep peace over here. The systems were not connected enough for the consequences to find you.
That era is ending. Not because humans became more moral. Because the systems became more connected.
Climate does not respect borders. Pandemics spread on airline routes. Financial contagion cascades in milliseconds. Information travels at the speed of light. Nuclear weapons make "winning" a war meaningless. There is no vault that holds while the world burns outside it.
The billionaire bunker does not work. You can have everything and lose everything because everything is connected to everything. Hoarding in a world where so many lack basic needs makes you less safe, less happy, more lonely, more afraid. Even winners are losing.
There is no "away" to throw things to. There is no "them" who can suffer while "we" prosper. The air. The water. The information systems. The existential risks. All shared. The only way anyone wins long-term is if everyone wins.
Morality can be debated, dismissed, or deemed naive. This is a structural argument. The architecture of reality has changed. You can still act as if you are separate. You can still optimize for individual gain at collective expense. But the feedback loops will find you. What you do to others, you do to yourself. Not karmically. Structurally. Materially. In ways that physics and biology can trace.
The game has to change. Not because we are better people than our ancestors. Because the conditions have changed. The tools are too powerful. The interconnection is undeniable.