Recently, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave Pope Francis a gift: a model of one of his new solar-powered Aquila drones, hyped to be the way to spread Internet access and by extension his empire of likes, selfies, and unwanted posts from relatives throughout the globe.

The press made it out to be a benign event, a far cry from last year, when Zuck got dunked on by Chinese president Xi Jinping, who rejected his request to give his unborn child an honorary name. Zuckerberg, ever the overeager humblebragging helicopter child, reported that it was cool just to be there speaking Mandarin.

But as any anthropologist will tell you, gift-giving is a ruthless endeavor, especially when it takes place in public. It’s a competition over who can show the most magnanimity, who has the most to give while having the least care over what they lose. It’s also an opportunity for symbolic intervention, one seized by Bolivia’s Evo Morales when he presented the pontiff with a hammer-and-sickle crucifix. It was a classic wedge maneuver, underscoring the political commitments of the slain Jesuit priest for whom Francis had earlier prayed.