I'm not arguing here that we are. I'm arguing that it is conceivable that intelligent creatures could exist that were.

Why would such a cooperative require intelligence, never mind high intelligence? We already see such vast cooperatives in fungi, but they have no selection pressures for intelligence. Far from it, competition is the driver that made us "smart".

I'm not saying that cooperative behavior requires intelligence. I'm saying that cooperative behavior is a reasonable and effective choice for creatures intellectually capable of choosing between behavioral strategies, no matter what the evolutionary forces were that developed them to the point of being intelligent.