poke at "Friendship Practices"

diff --git a/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md b/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
index f061ad2..f18066a 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
+++ b/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
@@ -6,9 +6,13 @@ Status: draft
 
 In the days of auld lang syne on Earth-that-was, in the Valley of of Plain Speech in the hinterlands beyond the Lake of Ambiguous Fortune, there lived a population of pre-intelligent squirrels. Historical mammologists have classified them into two main subspecies: the west-valley ground squirrels and the east-valley tree squirrels—numbers 9792 and 9794 in Umi's grand encyclopædia of Plain Speech creatures, but not necessarily respectively: I remember the numbers, but I can never remember which one is which.
 
 
 In the days of auld lang syne on Earth-that-was, in the Valley of of Plain Speech in the hinterlands beyond the Lake of Ambiguous Fortune, there lived a population of pre-intelligent squirrels. Historical mammologists have classified them into two main subspecies: the west-valley ground squirrels and the east-valley tree squirrels—numbers 9792 and 9794 in Umi's grand encyclopædia of Plain Speech creatures, but not necessarily respectively: I remember the numbers, but I can never remember which one is which.
 

-Like many pre-intelligent creatures, both subspecies of Plain Speech Valley squirrels were highly social animals. Much of their lives concerned the sharing of information about how to survive: how to fashion simple tools for digging up nuts, the best techniques for running away from predators, what kind of hole or tree offered the best shelter, _&c._ Possession of such information was valuable, and closely guarded: squirrels would only share true secrets with their closest friends. Maneuvering to be told secrets, and occasionally to spread false secrets to rivals, was the subject of much drama and intrigue in the squirrels' lives.
+Like many pre-intelligent creatures, both subspecies of Plain Speech Valley squirrels were highly social animals. Much of their lives concerned the sharing of information about how to survive: how to fashion simple tools for digging up nuts, the best techniques for running away from predators, what kind of hole or tree offered the best shelter, _&c._ Possession of such information was valuable, and closely guarded: squirrels would only share secrets with their closest friends. Maneuvering to be told secrets, and occasionally to spread fake secrets to rivals, was the subject of much drama and intrigue in the squirrels' lives.

 
 

-[TODO: why be secretive? Surely if they pooled information together, they could accumulate mastery over the environment]
+At this, some novice students of historical mammology inquire: why be secretive? Surely if the squirrels were to pool their knowledge together, and build on each other's successes, they could accumulate ever-greater mastery over their environment, and possibly even spark their world's ascension?!
+
+To which it is replied: evolution wouldn't necessarily select for that for that. Survival opportunities tend to be 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 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_.
+
+[...]

 
 (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.)
 
 
 (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.)