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 running patterns for fleeing 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.
+Like many pre-intelligent creatures, both subspecies of Plain Speech Valley squirrels were highly social animals, with adaptations for entering stable repeated-cooperation relations with conspecifics: _friendships_ being the technical term. Much of the squirrels' lives concerned the sharing of information about how to survive: how to fashion simple tools for digging up nuts, the best running patterns for fleeing 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 their lives.
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?!
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.
+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 subspecies 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;
+Another adaptive infromation-processing instinct in subspecies 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 derivatives of the distribution of adaptive problems; Dripler's Pre-Intelligent Novelty-Seeking Scale puts subspecies 9792 and 9794 in the 76th percentile on this dimension.)
-Pre-Intelligent Novelty-Seeking Scale
+The coincidental conjunction of a friendship-forming instinct, a novel-secret-seeking instinct, _and_ a nearby distinct subspecies with similar properties, led to some unusual behavior patterns. Given the different survival-relevant opportunities in their respective habitats, each subspecies predominantly hoarded _different_ secrets: the secret of how to jump and land on the thinner branches of the reedy pilot tree was of little relevance to the daily activity of a west-valley ground squirrel, but the secret of how to bury nuts without making it obvious that the ground had been upturned was of little import to an east-valley tree squirrel.
-Appendix G of Umi's grand encyclopædia
+But the squirrels' _novelty-seeking instincts_ didn't track such distinctions. Secrets from one subspecies thus functioned as a superstimulus to the other subspecies, on account of being so exotic, thus making cross-species friendships
-the different distribution of adaptive problems
+[TODO: but species differences also make them frustrating]
-[TODO: novelty instincts about secrets make cross-species friends more desirable, but species differences also make them frustrating]
+At this, some extremely naïve novice students of historical mammology inquire: [TODO ...]
-"I wish I had a special friend. Someone who understood me. Someone to share my secrets with."
+To which it is replied:
+
+A few particularly naïve students inquire further: [TODO ...]
+
+To which it is replied: there's _no reason whatsoever_ for evolution to select for that, _dummy_. What's wrong with you?
+
+And so, many, many times in the days of auld lang syne, a squirrel in a burrow or a tree would sadly settle down to rest for the night, lamenting, "I wish I had a special friend. Someone who understood me. Someone to share my secrets with."
And beside them, a friend or a mate would attempt to comfort them, saying, "But _I'm_ your friend. _I_ understand you. You can share your secrets with _me_."
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