Podcast Summary – 80,000 Hours Podcast #144 Classic Episode: Athena Aktipis on Why Cancer is Actually One of the Fundamental Phenomena in Our Universe Release Date: January 9, 2026
Host: Rob Wiblin
Guest: Athena Aktipis (Associate Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University)
Key Theme: Cancer as a Universal Evolutionary Phenomenon in Multicellular Life — and What This Says about Cooperation, Cheating, and Societies

Episode Overview

This classic conversation delves into why cancer is not just a medical problem, but a deep and fundamental feature of how life and cooperation work in the universe. Athena Aktipis, evolutionary biologist and author of The Cheating Cell, argues that cancer—and the conflict between cellular cooperation and cheating—is a natural, expected outcome of multicellular existence. Rob and Athena explore analogies between cancer in biology and social cheating in human organizations, as well as applications to existential risk and disaster preparedness.

Main Discussion Points & Notable Insights

1. The Nature of Cancer and Cooperation

• Cancer as a Breakdown of Multicellular Cooperation

  • Cancer arises when individual cells in a multicellular organism begin “cheating”—proliferating for their own sake, ignoring signals to stop, and thus undermining the organism’s collective functioning.
  • “The opposite of cancer, I would say, is multicellular cooperation. The opposite of cancer is us.” (B, 10:47)

• Five Foundations of Cellular Cooperation ([11:12])

  • (1) Inhibition of proliferation
  • (2) Control of cell death
  • (3) Mechanisms for resource transfer
  • (4) Division of labor
  • (5) Creation and maintenance of the extracellular environment
  • "Cancer is a breakdown in each of those." (B, 11:12)

• Cancer Cells and Evolutionary Pressures

  • Within the body, cells face rapid evolutionary timescales: short generation times, massive populations, high mutation rates, and strong selection.
  • "The body is a world with all these different ecosystems in it. A day is at least, you know, ten years for them." (B, 15:45)

2. Why Isn’t Cancer Even More Prevalent?

• Immune System, Intrinsic and Local Defenses ([26:22])
  • There are layers of cancer suppression:
    • Cell-intrinsic (e.g., TP53, cell “conscience”)
    • Neighborhood monitoring (cells signaling to each other)
    • Immune system as a systemic monitor
• Contagious Cancer and Why It’s Rare ([30:05])
  • Early multicellularity had to develop robust systems to prevent contagious cancer — otherwise, free rider cells from one “body” could hijack another.
  • "The very evolution of multicellularity is not just about regulating cooperation within, but also prevention of contagious cancer." (B, 34:42)

3. Life History Theory and Cancer

• Peto’s Paradox: Why Don’t Big Animals Get More Cancer? ([48:50], [52:47])
  • Elephants and other large, long-lived animals have evolved much stronger cancer suppression systems at significant metabolic cost; short-lived, small animals do not invest as much.
• Trade-offs in Cancer Defense
  • Faster healing, more cell division = more cancer risk (e.g., wound healing, gut lining turnover)
  • "There are all sorts of trade-offs. If you want to divide quickly, then you have to deal with the potential of having more mutations." (B, 56:33)

4. Evolutionary Dynamics Within Tumors

• Tumor as Its Own Society ([66:21])
  • Cancer cells, although “cheaters”, can develop division of labor and cooperate amongst themselves (e.g., specializing in growth factors, immune evasion).
  • This can lead to “hypercheaters” — defection within the cancer itself: “You can have like a hyper cancer or meta-cancer.” (B, 68:29)
• Collapse and Regrowth Dynamics
  • Analogous to collapse of civilizations; over-exploitation of resources (e.g., tumor angiogenesis) can lead to rapid shifts within the tumor ecology. ([70:12])

5. Evolutionarily-Informed Cancer Treatment

• Why Killing All Cancer Cells Isn’t Always the Best Strategy ([86:17])

  • Standard high-dose chemotherapy selects for resistant cancer cells.

• Adaptive Therapy

  • Manage—not eradicate—tumors; keep sensitive cells present to suppress resistant ones.
  • “What kind of tumor do we want to cultivate? ... One that's going to respond when you treat it, that's going to be controllable, that's not going to become invasive and metastatic.” (B, 87:18–88:00)

• Other Novel Approaches

  • Supplying steady nutrients to discourage dispersal/metastasis ([95:05])
  • Disrupting cancer cell cooperation ([97:23])
  • Reducing mutation rates with NSAIDs (though newer evidence is mixed) ([98:02])

6. Analogies: Cancer, Cheating, and Human Societies

• Cheating in Cells vs. Societies
  • Body = highly authoritarian system; cells that step out of line are killed — but this isn’t a moral prescription for societies ([102:10])
  • In human institutions, sometimes “rule-breaking” (cheating) can be progressive (challenging exploitation), but excessive autonomy can lead to breakdown ([110:33])
  • “Cheating is not always bad… sometimes we do need to challenge the systems that we're in and, and push them a little bit or even straight up cheat in the rules so that we don't have… exploitation.” (B, 110:33)
• Levels of Selection and Cultural Evolution
  • Firms, charities, teams = analogies to genetic recombination and organizational experimentation ([115:01])
  • “Maybe the analogy between the innovation you'd get from sexual reproduction ... is that we start new firms, new social groups, with different rules, and the successful ones spread.” (A, 115:01)
• Information Viruses/Memes as “Cultural Pathogens”
  • Some memes spread just because they’re good at replicating, not because they benefit holders ([120:57])
  • “They act as if they are [cheating], because the ones that do it are the ones that proliferate.” (B, 119:37)

7. Cooperation at Even Smaller (and Larger) Scales

• Within-Cell Cheating: Genetic Conflict and “Selfish Genes” ([135:45])
  • Even within a single chromosome, genes can “cheat” by replicating themselves extra times.
  • Major transitions in evolution (from genes, to cells, to organisms, to societies) are all cases where cooperation had to be enforced, and defectors/cheaters continually arise.
• Parent-Offspring and Parental Conflict (Genomic Imprinting, Preeclampsia) ([146:52], [153:14])
  • Maternal and paternal genes in offspring are often in “arms races” over extracting resources, sometimes to the detriment of both.
  • “It's like you've got the balance in the middle, and the paternal interest would like it a little bit this way and the maternal would like it a little bit this way, but none of them want the rope to go slack.” (B, 153:14)

8. Existential Risk, Disasters & Apocalypse: How to Cope and Prepare

• Athena’s New Book: Everything is Fine – A Playful Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse ([03:38], [160:54])

  • How to manage existential risk and prepare for disaster by networking our brains together.
  • Use playfulness, humor, and community-building to make risk management accessible.

• Universal Appeal of Apocalypse Stories ([163:04])

  • “There's something just appealing about imagining yourself, out there or inside, trying to survive in challenging odds.” (B, 191:18)
  • Humans have always been gripped by cycle-of-disaster stories; risk management (from annual storms to full apocalypse) is universal.

• What Actually Happens in Disasters ([193:21])

  • Contrary to “every person for themselves” myths, people overwhelmingly cooperate and support one another in the immediate aftermath.

• Practical Risk Management Advice ([179:03], [183:24], [188:06])

  • Prepare for at least 72 hours of self-sufficiency (“apocalypse casual”)
  • Build your “Z Team” — a network of trusted friends, family, or neighbors with whom you’d share resources and support.
  • Community and cooperative networks (“need-based transfers”) are critical for handling unpredictable shocks.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the scale of evolution within bodies:
  “You can get, you know, the opportunity for evolution by natural selection to operate... just over the course of cancer progression is much vaster than all of the evolutionary time that we have had as humans since Homo sapiens came about.” (B, 15:45)

• On cheating and cooperation:
  “Anytime you have the conditions that will select for cooperation, you can get the evolution of cooperation.” (B, 66:44)

• On cancer as a metaphor for social breakdown and reform:
  “The body is a very authoritarian place. Cells that step out of line get shot... but if you take seriously the perspective of the cell, it's a different story.” (A & B, 102:05)

• On constraining “cheating” in genomes:
  “The only reason that it works is because there is a suppression of all of these sort of, you know, gene-level cheaters.” (B, 135:45)

• On coping with the apocalypse:
  “It's an invitation to play a little bit of make believe about the things that could go wrong, things already going wrong... If we go into that place of having fun imagining the zombie apocalypse, it makes it easier for us to engage without fear dominating.” (B, 191:47)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 05:30 – Athena’s interdisciplinary approach to studying cooperation and existential risk
• 10:47 – Defining cancer as the breakdown of multicellular cooperation
• 26:22 – Three layers of defense against cancer: cell-intrinsic, neighborhood, systemic
• 34:42 – Evolution of multicellularity driven by need to fight contagious cancer
• 48:50 – Peto’s paradox and why elephants don’t get more cancer than humans
• 66:21 – Cooperation within cancer cells and tumor heterogeneity
• 86:17 – Adaptive therapy and evolutionarily-informed cancer management
• 110:33 – When “cheating” is—sometimes—a path to progress
• 146:52 – Genetic conflict and parental-fetal gene “arms races”
• 160:54 – How to maintain well-being when thinking about disaster and existential risk
• 193:21 – The myth of societal breakdown during disaster; humans as instinctive cooperators

Final Takeaways

• Cancer isn’t a "mistake" — it’s a fundamental outcome of life’s evolutionary structure. Suppressing cheating at all scales is a never-ending challenge.
• Lessons from biology — and especially cancer — are deeply relevant to understanding moral, social, and civilizational cooperation and risk.
• Preparing for disaster is best done playfully and collectively; our evolved drive to cooperate, especially under adversity, is our greatest resource.

Further Reading:

• Athena’s book: The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer
• Athena’s upcoming (2024) book: Everything is Fine: How to Thrive in the Apocalypse

Contact & Learn More:

• Athena Aktipis is online on Twitter, Instagram, and through her ASU profile.
• Zombified Media/Conference: Zombified Media

This summary aims to preserve the tone, spirit, and intellectual excitement of the original episode while serving as a comprehensive guide for those interested in the profound connections between cancer, cooperation, cheating, and societal risk.