The question still lingers, though, whether cheating, manipulating, competing unfairly and so on... is simply an inevitable part of human nature.

Well, my dear friend @denmarkguy. After have been 17 months here in steemit. I gotta confess you something of supreme importance to add to this discussion. ;)

The only way to defeat that supposedly innate human nature tendency of cheating, manipulating and competing unfairly when you are in the middle of competing on anything at all. Is that you always simply see yourself as the greatest and only adversary to overcome.

I mean. When I was young, I used to be a formidable (almost unbeatable) pool player. Yeah! snooker, 8 ball, nine ball, straight pool... You name it!! And through those early years I had to face all kinds of hustlers, gamblers and tricksters using every sort of unfair strategies, (including those approved in the manual) to beat me up. I just never had to resort to any of those tricks, not even those approved in the manual either. Because in what came my turn to play, Haha, they would have to stay seated watching me masterfully play my game for a long long time. }:)

That's why I'm so sorry I did not have the opportunity to have attended to SteemFest in Lisbon and have played one or another pool game over there against some wealthy competitive steemians who attended to the event. I can assure you, that I would have returned from that fest with my pockets full with SP and undoubtedly I would have become an instant whale in steemit. LoL

So, ¡Again! The infallible cure to avoid the temptation to compete by cheating:

It's that you always simply see yourself as the greatest and only adversary to overcome. :)