Social interaction - what a complicated thing. I'm far from being able to describe how social interaction works, but "favours" seem to play a central role in society.
What's a favour? Well, a favour is an action (or, more generally, decision) made by a human A, which satisfies two conditions:
- It has a certain cost for A (in terms of time, effort, money, whatever)
- It brings a certain benefit for another human B.
Favour exchange
The simplest of all variants. A does a favour to B, and B does a favour to A.
Money
A variant of the former: A does a favour to B, and b gives money to A, which can be exchanged against favours with anybody else.
Biology
Humans sometimes do favours to others because their "unconsciousness thingy" wants it. This usually serves preservation of the human's DNA. A typical example is raising and nourishing children:
A variant are favours done as part of the humans' mating rituals:
Religious ethics
Very popular among religious people. The idea is the following: A does a favour to B, and G does a favour to A in the afterlife, where G is any real or imaginative benevolent supernatural power (usually the Enemy).
Atheist ethics
The same as religious ethics, but without G.
Gratitude
This one is one of the most popular - and for me, the most difficult to understand. It seems to involve some imaginary currency called "gratitude": A does a favour to B, and B gives "gratitude" to A.
I've no idea how this system works, whether or not gratitude from B can be given to another person C (like money), whether or not it is quantifiable etc. I think I have heared the expression "Mille Merci !" (1000 Thanks), but often the precise amount of gratitude is not specified.I will have to do some research to understand this social mecanism.
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