Did anyone consider that our society IS artificial conditions? Not sure about you all, but western society feels much more akin to a zoo than the wilderness.
If we've achieved nothing else, at least we've added a layer of political and economic indirection to our cannibalism.
That you can certainly opt in to artificial nonsense, as wholeheartedly and completely as you want, doesn’t mean society is artificial. It just means that’s the part you’ve decided to live your life in.
People are beginning to consider that the most pervasive aspects of society—parts that you don’t have a choice whether you’re a part of it or confronted by it—are social constructs, and that humans are constrained in what they’re allowed to believe in and how to come to terms with those beliefs amongst one another.
Zero-sum, yes, but why only artificial scarcity? It seems like this would arise in a natural situation as well... Even if you lived on abundantly producing land that is not (yet) heavily populated there is still going to be mate competition.