-(well, there's a reason the ascension of Earth-that-was would be sparked by the _H. sapiens_ line of hominids some millions of years later, rather than by the Plain Speech species 9792 and 9794.)
+To which it is replied: evolution wouldn't necessarily select for that. Survival-relevant opportunities are often rivalrous: two squirrels can't both eat the same nut, or hide in the same one-squirrel-width hole. Or as it was put in a joke popular amongst the west-valley ground squirrels (according to Harrod's post-habilitation thesis on pre-intelligence in the days of auld lang syne): I don't need to outrun the _predator_, I just need to outrun my _conspecifics_. Thus, secrecy instincts turned out to be adaptive: a squirrel keeping a valuable secret to itself and its friends would gain more fitness than a squirrel who shared its knowledge freely with anysquirrel who could listen.
+
+A few students inquire further: but that's a _contingent_ fact about the distribution of squirrel-survival-relevant opportunities in the Valley of of Plain Speech in the days of auld lang syne, right? A different distribution of adaptive problems might induce a less secretive psychology?
+
+To which it is replied: yes, well, there's a reason the ascension of Earth-that-was would be sparked by the _H. sapiens_ line of hominids some millions of years later, rather than by the Plain Speech species 9792 and 9794.
+
+Another adaptive infromation-processing instinct in species 9792 and 9794 was a taste for novelty. Not all information is equally valuable. A slight variation on a known secret was less valuable than a completely original secret the likes of which had never been hitherto suspected. (Among pre-intelligent creatures generally, novelty-seeking instincts are _more_ convergent than secrecy instincts, but with considerable variation in strength depending on the distribution of adaptive problems;
+
+Pre-Intelligent Novelty-Seeking Scale
+
+Appendix G of Umi's grand encyclopædia
+
+the different distribution of adaptive problems