Wanting to punish people who cooperate with the state (because the state just takes everything away) doesn't imply wanting to punish people who cooperate in the contrived example game where the game does not take anything away. Unless OP means to imply that people can't mentally separate the machinations of the state from the rules of a game, I don't think the explanation is satisfactory. (Although I don't have a better explanation myself).
> Unless OP means to imply that people can't mentally separate the machinations of the state from the rules of a game
I think this is pretty much it. Behavior is learned. The participants were playing the game in a way that was irrational when viewed in isolation, but natural in the context of their lives.
If the commons takes more than it gives, it becomes irrational to participate. This tendency persists and spreads over time and people and eventually crystallizes into an aspect of morality, where collaborating with the (exploitative or oppressive) commons is viewed with suspicion and distrust (think "Party Officials"). Eventually this habit becomes so ingrained that it emerges even during simple games.
Agreed -- humans aren't reassessing the utility of a given pattern of action (e.g. group cooperation vs. selfish behaviour) every time they engage in it, they are building mental heuristics that permit quick decisions without re-evaluating the priors (system 1 vs. system 2 thinking, if you will).
Under that model, it's expected that humans would have a similar attitude to group/commons cooperation in a game as they would in their real-world interactions.
Taking the next step from this observation -- I wonder how much meta-level discussion would be required to break this tendency? Could we apply such meta-level discussion to the real-world, too, and improve cooperation in the societies where these old strategies perhaps don't apply as much now?
Wanting to punish people who cooperate with the state (because the state just takes everything away) doesn't imply wanting to punish people who cooperate in the contrived example game where the game does not take anything away. Unless OP means to imply that people can't mentally separate the machinations of the state from the rules of a game, I don't think the explanation is satisfactory. (Although I don't have a better explanation myself).