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loqi comments on Why Support the Underdog? - Less Wrong
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Your mention of signaling gives me an idea.
What if the mechanism isn't designed to actually support the underdog, but to signal a tendency to support the underdog?
In a world where everyone supports the likely winner, Zug doesn't need to promise anyone anything to keep them on his side. But if one person suddenly develops a tendency to support the underdog, then Zug has to keep him loyal by promising him extra rewards.
The best possible case is one where you end up on Zug's side, but only after vacillating for so long that Zug is terrified you're going to side with Urk and promises everything in his power to win you over. And the only way to terrify Zug that way is to actually side with Urk sometimes.
But Zug probably doesn't care about just one person. Doesn't the underdog bias still require a way to "get off the ground" in this scenario? Siding with Urk initially flies in the face of individual selection.
Zug can be only slightly more powerful than Urk to start with, and then as more individuals have the adaptation, the power difference it's willing to confront will scale. I.e. this sounds like it could evolve incrementally.
Ah, makes sense. The modern bias seems specifically connected to major differences, but that doesn't exclude milder origins.