Contrary to popular belief, in times of disaster, people around the world exhibit greater cooperation, being willing to help others and expect nothing in return. Various societies have need-based helping systems, such as Osotua among the Maasai, Kerekere in Fiji, and Neighboring in the Malpais Borderlands. These systems foster mutual aid and build relationships, emphasizing support in times of need. Humans have the ability to create larger-scale systems to manage risk and help one another. This understanding of helping others and getting nothing in return extends to unpredictable and uncontrollable situations.
When I talk to people about the apocalypse, oftentimes they say “Isn’t the fabric of society going to break down, once people realize that there are only so many resources and that they have to fight for their piece of the increasingly scarce pie?”
This is a common misconception - it turns out that in times of disaster people around the world are actually more cooperative, not less.
In the societies that we have studied with The Human Generosity Project, this is exactly what we have found.
Among the Maasai of East Africa, there is a need-based helping system called Osotua. Maasai have herds of cattle which grow and shrink depending on ecological circumstances, including shocks like droughts and disease. They rely on these herds for sustenance. If they go below the threshold that they need to sustain their families, they can ask their Osotua partners for help. And their Osotua partners will give without expecting to get paid back - as long as they can do so without going below their own threshold of need.
If you’re thinking “well, they're probably keeping track somehow of who owes what,” make no mistake: Maasai have another system called Sile, which they use if they’re asking for something that they plan to pay back. The fact that there is a whole different system for these debt-credit requests makes it clear that Osotua is NOT about getting paid back. It’s about something else entirely: building relationships of mutual aid that they can depend on in times of need. As Osotua partners come to rely on each other, they build a relationship - a relationship that they know they can both rely on if things get apocalyptic.
Many other societies around the world have need-based helping systems. In Fiji, they have a system called Kerekere where people ask their neighbors for help if they need something. And when things get really bad - say a cyclone comes through and destroys an entire village - they can Kerekere a neighboring village for help. Just like the Maasai build relationships with their Osotua partners where they help each other in times of need, Fijian villages build relationships with other villages to help one another in times of need as well. Not only do we humans have the ability to help each other one-on-one when the you-know-what hits the proverbial fan, we also have the ability to create systems that help us manage risk on a larger scale.
It’s not just societies on the other side of the world that have need-based systems of helping; we’ve found the same thing here, close to home in the Malpais Borderlands region of Arizona and New Mexico. Ranchers live on vast tracts of land where they herd and graze their cattle, and despite a strong ethic of independence, they rely on each other for help with all sorts of needs that arise while living their modern-day cowboy lifestyle. And it turns out that they have a need-based helping system as well, simply called Neighboring. When these ranchers encounter a challenge that they can’t deal with themselves - whether it is something serious like death in the family or something more everyday like branding cattle - they ask for help from their neighbors. And - when the thing that they need help with is something that is unpredictable and uncontrollable, like death, illness or injury - they don’t expect to get paid back for the help they give. We found this same pattern - that people didn’t expect to get paid back for help with things that were unpredictable and uncontrollable - with an online study that we did as well. We humans seem to really get it, that sometimes you help without expecting return, especially if the need arises from things that we don’t have much control over, whether it’s a large-scale catastrophe, or just an everyday apocalypse.