It’s totally your second explanation. The stronger faction doesn’t need you—value of you joining them is really tiny. The weaker faction needs you a lot—if you joining significantly alters the balance of power, they will reward you significantly.
Because of this mechanics of power, both coalitions are close to 50:50, and it’s almost always in your best interest to join the slightly smaller one. For empirical evidence look for any modern democracy, with either coalitions of parties (most of continental Europe), or of interest groups (USA). Coalitions tend to have no sense whatsoever—blacks and gays and labour and lawyers vs born-again Christians and rich people and rural poor and racists? Does it make any sense? Not at all, but the 50:50 balance is very close.
I believe without that much evidence (I’ve seen some mentioned in context of game theory, so I guess someone has it) that this kind of almost 50:50 coalition making is very common in tribal societies, so it might very well be very common in our ancestral environment. In which case sympathy for the underdog makes sense.
Also notice that this is just one of many forces, it will be decisive only in cases where the coalitions are almost even otherwise, just as predicted. If one coalition is far bigger than the other, or you’re more aligned with one that the other, sympathy for the underdog won’t be strong enough to overcome those.
The stronger faction doesn’t need you—value of you joining them is really tiny. The weaker faction needs you a lot.
But we’re talking about a zero-sum situation. The stronger faction needs you not to join the weaker faction exactly as much as the weaker faction needs you to join.
You don’t always have to join Zug or Urk. Often you can let them fight it out and remain neutral, or choose how much of your resources to commit to the fight. Urk needs everything you have, whereas Zug would be perfectly happy to see you do nothing and in most conflicts most people stay out of it. Because of this Zug can’t afford to go around rewarding everyone for not joining Urk the same way Urk can reward you for joining him.
It’s totally your second explanation. The stronger faction doesn’t need you—value of you joining them is really tiny. The weaker faction needs you a lot—if you joining significantly alters the balance of power, they will reward you significantly.
Because of this mechanics of power, both coalitions are close to 50:50, and it’s almost always in your best interest to join the slightly smaller one. For empirical evidence look for any modern democracy, with either coalitions of parties (most of continental Europe), or of interest groups (USA). Coalitions tend to have no sense whatsoever—blacks and gays and labour and lawyers vs born-again Christians and rich people and rural poor and racists? Does it make any sense? Not at all, but the 50:50 balance is very close.
I believe without that much evidence (I’ve seen some mentioned in context of game theory, so I guess someone has it) that this kind of almost 50:50 coalition making is very common in tribal societies, so it might very well be very common in our ancestral environment. In which case sympathy for the underdog makes sense.
Also notice that this is just one of many forces, it will be decisive only in cases where the coalitions are almost even otherwise, just as predicted. If one coalition is far bigger than the other, or you’re more aligned with one that the other, sympathy for the underdog won’t be strong enough to overcome those.
But we’re talking about a zero-sum situation. The stronger faction needs you not to join the weaker faction exactly as much as the weaker faction needs you to join.
You don’t always have to join Zug or Urk. Often you can let them fight it out and remain neutral, or choose how much of your resources to commit to the fight. Urk needs everything you have, whereas Zug would be perfectly happy to see you do nothing and in most conflicts most people stay out of it. Because of this Zug can’t afford to go around rewarding everyone for not joining Urk the same way Urk can reward you for joining him.
I like the thought, that we wish balance and vote accordingly.