Co-operative Decision-making: The Balancing Act of Risk and Safety in the Modern Era

Decision-making is a critical advanced cognitive skill that pervades all aspects of our daily lives. In parallel, the evolution of the human species is intimately tied to the use of tools, enabling us to extend our bodily utility at multiple scales. Interestingly, aspects of risk and safety-driven information processing are inherently embedded in all life forms, and our progress through millions of years is highlighted by overcoming risky environments and ensuring safety for our immediate bodies and progeny. We achieved this by constantly developing tools to change our immediate environment and aid us in our decision-making. By being part of a system for millions of years, our actions on the environment not only changed the environment, but they also changed the system dynamics as well. These actions have elements from categories of Tools, Information, and Information Processing. However, in the process, we have affected the global ecosystem to an unimaginable extent, and quite ironically, made the world more unsafe. With the benefit of knowledge, we can understand the dynamic attributes of systemic and cooperative decision-making and develop a shift in the population-level mindset of how to make decisions for the future. The article takes a look at historical, modern, and promising approaches to cooperative decision-making to balance risky and safe endeavors. Through the lens of Tools – Information – Information Processing, the dynamics of the balance are probed, and future directions of enabling and sustaining cooperative decision-making to address uncertainties are discussed. The paper concludes with the notions of harmonizing our actions with the natural environment, instead of an anthropocentric and exploitative relationship with this planet.