[bserge]

If you do that, you have a high chance of being an idiot. You'll be the idiot who puts others first, always helps them, gets nothing in return and then gets abandoned. Hence most people are playing it safe and care about themselves first.

[Viliam1234]

You could use a "tit for tat" strategy, where you do something nice for the other person first, and later you ask them for help with something small you need. Those who don't reciprocate, they get on your blacklist and you no longer do nice things for them. With those who reciprocate, you gradually escalate.

But this requires some bookkeeping, that strategies like "always help others" and "never help others" do not.

Seems like many people start with "always help others" as a combination of idealism and... I was tempted to say laziness, but probably the idea just never occured to them. After seeing that people do not reciprocate, they burn out and switch to "never help others". Or maybe it's not even the case that most people do not reciprocate, but rather that there are a few abusers who notice the opportunity and start exploiting the naive person. (So the naive person's statistics would be like "I helped others 100 times, and was only helped 7 times myself", but they forget to notice that of those 100 times they helped someone, 90 times they helped the same person who never reciprocated.)

[DiggyJohnson]

Surely its the middle-ground between your point and what you perceive GP's point to be?