"Altruism actually fucks up the economic self-interest and gamesmanship models by making individuals act on the behalf of others."

probably they just need some better models. There's probably some game theory experts reading this..

Did you ever read "The selfish gene"? I guess its quoted from others to a degree (wilson??) but there are some parts about competing stragegies altruism prisoners dilemmas and so on..

(chapter about "memes" is clearly bloocks tho!)