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10/ however as we built cities and increased ability to travel and communicate over long distances we started interacting with STRANGERS more than friends. in some cities you’d see hundreds or even thousands of strangers for each friend. there was just no way to “know” everyone

11/ some places decided to decree and Iron Law. they said “everyone is your Brother and Sister, we are all Comrades” but just like sometimes you’ll say someone is your friend, deep down you’re faking it bc he or she just isn’t nice and you don’t want to share your cookie

12/ so you lie and say that you don’t have a cookie or hand over a plastic cookie. because everyone is FORCED to be friends what happens is there are no cookies anymore because no one can tell the truth

13/ other places did the opposite. they embraced “what you have” the havers would tell the non-havers what to do. sometimes they’d lie of course just because as you know, being Boss can be pretty fun!

14/ but because you could just leave and say “i think you’re lying!” people who wanted to STAY boss had to keep coming up with useful things for their followers to do. overall this incentivized better “leaders” b/c otherwise no one would follow them

15/ this actually worked a lot better than forcing everyone to be friends even when they didn’t want to be. remember when you were so mad at your friend that you didn’t speak to him? that passive aggressiveness brought the whole community down bc noone could communicate

16/ vs with “what you have” you could say “that guy is showing a better way of getting lots of gold, i’m going there” and there’s be no hard feelings. everyone could speak their mind and ask for what they wanted

17/ there is a downside though. remember how “who you know” is the basis of small communities? when everyone shifts to “what you have” then the only thing being communicated is “what i WANT!”