On sharing meat and other lucky things

When are we likely to share resources?  At first glance, some of us might say that we share when we have more of something than other people around us.  It’s not that simple, however.

In “Evolutionary Psychology, Moral Heuristics in the Law,” Leda Cosmides and John Tooby discuss moral heuristics and the evolution of the legal system.  It is a well-written article throughout, though I’d like to focus on one aspect of the article that I found especially interesting.  I’d like to focus on their discussion the circumstances under which people are willing to share and when they are not.

Cosmides and Tooby note that the “hunter-gatherer life is not an orgy of indiscriminate sharing, nor is all labor accomplished through collective action.”  On the other hand, the hunting of large animals often is a social activity and the meat, whether caught by a few or by a large cooperating group, is often shared throughout the social group.  These transfers of meat are “not characterized by direct reciprocation in any obvious way.” Cosmides and Tooby go so far as to suggest that the sharing of meat may be closest to that predicted by Marx’s belief that hunter-gatherers “lived in a state of primitive communism, where all labor was accomplished through collective action and sharing was governed by the decision rule,’ from each according to his ability to each according to his need.'”

The widespread sharing of meat appears to challenge the evolutionary model, which would hold that “selection …

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Nakedness For A Better World

Have you ever noticed that certain people who drive Very Large Vehicles tend to drive slower than everyone else?  I followed a 4X4 pick-up truck of epic proportions this morning and the driver crawled along at just under 25 miles an hour on a 35 mph street.  He--there's only one…

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We Should All Be Messiahs

There may be little original in this post, but then, there seems to be little original in its subject.  It's just that, well, no one, or not many, manage to say the obvious. I was sitting before my tv the other day watching Dune.  The SciFi Channel version, not that…

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Toolmaking as the basis for religion

Those who have followed discussions concerning religious belief & non-belief know that it's never safe to say you've seen it all.  Surprising and worthwhile new positions come along at predictably unpredictable intervals. Biologist Lewis Wolpert has now entered the fray with a new book, Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, reviewed…

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Betamax promo takes us way back in time . . .

Check out Sony’s 1975 promo for Betamax.  More specifically, this is a seven-minute vintage promotional video for the Sony Trinitron/Betamax console   You probably know at least part of the Betamax story:  Betamax, a superior video product, was beat out by VHS.  I am sharing this video because it serves quite well as a…

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