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Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

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Family Values 505Foraging peoples, to be sure, really do share with nonrelatives, but notout of indiscriminate largesse or a commitment to socialist principles.The data from anthropology show that <strong>the</strong> sharing is driven by cost-benefitanalyses and a careful mental ledger for reciprocation. People sharewhen it would be suicidal not to. In general, species are driven to sharewhen <strong>the</strong> variance of success in ga<strong>the</strong>ring food is. high. Say in someweeks I am lucky and have more food than I can eat, but in o<strong>the</strong>r weeksI am unlucky and in danger of starving. <strong>How</strong> can I store extra food in <strong>the</strong>fat weeks and draw on it in <strong>the</strong> lean weeks'? Refrigeration is not anoption. I could gorge on it now and store it as blubber, but that worksonly up to a point; I can't eat enough in a day to avoid hunger for amonth. But I can store it in <strong>the</strong> bodies and minds of o<strong>the</strong>r people, in <strong>the</strong>form of a memory of my generosity <strong>the</strong>y feel obliged to repay when fortunesreverse. When <strong>the</strong> prospects are risky, it pays to pool <strong>the</strong> risks.The <strong>the</strong>ory has been confirmed in nonhuman species, such as vampirebats, and it has also been confirmed in humans in two elegant studiesthat control for differences among cultures by contrasting <strong>the</strong> formsof sharing within a culture. The Ache of Paraguay hunt game and ga<strong>the</strong>rplant foods. Hunting is largely a matter of luck: on any given day an Achehunter has a forty percent chance of coming home empty-handed. Ga<strong>the</strong>ringis largely a matter of effort: <strong>the</strong> longer you work, <strong>the</strong> more you bringhome, and an empty-handed ga<strong>the</strong>rer is probably lazy ra<strong>the</strong>r thanunlucky. As predicted, <strong>the</strong> Ache share plant foods only within <strong>the</strong>nuclear family but share meat throughout <strong>the</strong> band.The !Kung San of <strong>the</strong> Kalahari Desert are perhaps <strong>the</strong> closest thing<strong>the</strong> world has to primitive communists. Sharing is holy; boasting andhoarding are contemptible. They hunt and ga<strong>the</strong>r in a harsh, droughtproneecosystem, and trade food and access to waterholes. The //GanaSan, a neighboring branch of <strong>the</strong> same people, have taken to cultivatingmelons, which store water, and to herding goats. They do not yo-yobetween good times and bad as much as <strong>the</strong>ir cousins, and unlike <strong>the</strong>m,<strong>the</strong>y hoard food and have developed inequalities in wealth and status. Inboth <strong>the</strong> Ache and <strong>the</strong> San, high-variance foods are shared, low-variancefoods are hoarded.These people do not pull out calculators and compute <strong>the</strong> variances.What goes through <strong>the</strong>ir minds when <strong>the</strong>y decide to share? Cosmidesand Tooby note that <strong>the</strong> psychology is hardly exotic; it matches our ownsense of fairness and compassion. Consider what makes people more orless willing to help <strong>the</strong> homeless. Those who urge that we all share with

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