I got to thinking the other day, and I was reflecting upon how people are polite. On the surface it seems normal, but then I questioned why. I thought to myself that often times, being polite and giving things up would get us killed before we were completely civilized ( yes, I do believe that we were, at some point, uncivilized beings, not necessarily apes though. I'm not necessarily religious or atheistic. Please try to keep religion out of this ). As I was saying. Before we were civilized human beings, what would politeness get us? Well, I can only think of one logical explanation. I think that it is a built in survival mechanism for humans. Think about it. You give what you have excess of, and because of the built in mechanism that they also have, they will want to return the favor when you need something. It's kind of like, you have a couple deer carcasses laying around in your cave ( bear with me here ). You notice another "person" starving, and you give them some meat. This is in hopes that, if you are in the same position, they will do the same for you, thereby helping increase your chances of survival. This tells me that everything we do is for greed, or very close to it. What are your thoughts?