The Mortal Mamba

We all must have faced the situation where we are in the authority to share some knowledge to another person and we enjoy the process, especially when we have to give the advice to someone, or when we have spotted a rare news we feel the temptation to immediately share it to our closed ones and to the community.

This temptation is rooted back to our historic era. Back in the hunter gatherer era, the knowledge possessed by an individual was extremely valuable (though it is valuable even today but it is easily accessible via means like internet, offline records, etc). It used to be extremely valuable because : 

• It was not easy to gather knowledge – there was no easy means. An individual would have to experience the phenomenon – which often meant sometimes getting killed in the process, or get it via some other knowledgeable person. 
• The knowledge gathered had no means to be stored, it used to stay with the individual. Hence it was very rare. 
• Knowledge in those days had a tremendous impact on survival. Concluding if a given mushroom is poisonous or not, detecting the presence of a wild animal, strategy formation, etc was key to survival.

We have this tendency to share knowledge because it helps us build a status quo – an invisible status quo. Being a knowledgeable person in the tribe was always helpful – less chances of getting kicked out of the tribe, more friendly allies, more chances of survival and so on. 

This desire is deeply rooted in us even today and hence we often feel really happy when giving advice and feel highly tempted to spread the news or gossip and rumors. We want to be seen as a valuable person of our community who possesses the rare knowledge and shares it when needed.