I sometimes imagine, with horror, what would happen if after 500 years of progress, humanity were to realize that almost all cultural practices they painfully, one by one, undid, were all sensible to begin with for reasons that humanity didn't previously understand.

> I sometimes imagine, with horror, what would happen if after 500 years of progress, humanity were to realize that almost all cultural practices they painfully, one by one, undid, were all sensible to begin with for reasons that humanity didn't previously understand.

Especially since modern cultural change seems to have a tendency to be driven by the youngest politically-aware cohorts. Not a lot of time to acquire wisdom that might prevent that, if you're so young you haven't even collected enough knowledge yet.

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God”

Or, alternatively, you'll be driven mad by the sight and your entire civilization will collapse.

http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.h...

What an interesting writing prompt

Indeed, and submitted[0] right away.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/7p2ubq/wp_a...

Tiny positive effects are not worth the downsides of most of those. So even if that's somehow true it's okay.

You're just describing evolution. We almost assuredly don't practice most of the habits of whatever sludge we evolved from, regardless of how useful it is to sludge to continue such practices. And if we stop doing things, we will probably do so for reasons just as valid as why our ancestors started them.

This is basically the position of the alt-right, neoreaction, and similar "movements."

Beautifully written. This thought that I have often half-pondered has now become unified and unforgettable. Thank you.

>It might even explain why so many cultures had rites to male adulthood involving extreme pain.

Unless you believe that the rites were created to address the problem of "one day, there will be analgesics with antiandrogen effects, so we'll have a few centuries of practice at enduring extreme pain", then I don't see how there could be any connection.

> It might even explain why so many cultures had rites to male adulthood involving extreme pain.

Right. And a notable trend among those cultures is that they are all nearly extinct. So much for their fertility.

Of course this observation could biased due to my own ignorance. I only remember, like, 3 such cultures, and they were your typical African/Amazonian/Aboriginal tribes that still live in near-neolithic conditions.

Is there any industrialized culture that still follows such rituals?

Your comment is needlessly dismissive, and to be honest, just incorrect.

The cultures that are dominant today aren't dominant due to mere reproductive success. Ironically, fertility is low in almost all developed nations.

Fertility is only one aspect of evolutionary fitness.

Not sure why the downvotes, this is true.

Looks like it worked itself out :D

See: The NFL

When I think "painful initiation ritual", I think "glove made out of bullet ants" [1] not "organized sporting event in which everyone is wearing armor and hurting someone badly is grounds for stopping the game and rushing him/her to the hospital".

Even if you pick something like Boxing or similar contact sports where the goal is to intentionally hurt your opponent, it is still a far-cry from sticking your hand into a whiting mass of animals that have the most painful bite ever recorded.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraponera_clavata#Initiation_...

Ironically maybe having a glove full of ants once in a while is safer than shocking your head repeatedly every week for years...

Isn't that inferal tree in Australia more painful?

Pedantic: it's a tree so it doesn't bite? But yeah, the gympie gympie [0] sounds horrible - potentially too horrible/long-lasting effects for a rite of passage? Luckily, it's in Australia!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocnide_moroides

Clearly your father wasn't Scots

The whole body mod movement

You are absolutely correct. Pain is far more than a simple signaling mechanism to tell you to take your hand off the stove.

One of its more interesting applications is as a pathway to mystical experiences. In the Christian tradition for example one uses one's own pain to come into a kind of spiritual alignment with Christ's experience and in that way become closer to God.

I'm not particularly familiar with other spiritual traditions, but I'd be shocked if every single major one doesn't have some kind of mystical algetic praxis.

Would that bring a testosterone boost then, or like milder balls or something?

Where can I read about "dropping male fertility" as a medical thing? Just taking a blind guess, as someone who doesn't follow the medical field, I would suggest that increases in "infertility" are much more likely to be caused by the older age at which people are becoming interested in "fertilization" than environmental factors causing biological malfunctions. In other words, it's not that reproductive systems are breaking faster, it's just that people aren't using them until they're worse for wear.

testosterone levels have declined in most developed countries when comparing similar age cohorts over time. See the following studies: from Finland - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23161753. from USA - https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434

it is a bit of a medical mystery because the trend cannot be fully explained by lifestyle factors like weight gain.

This discussion came up sometime within the past few months. It was really interesting.

I recall mentioning some research into the effects of food/organics preservatives (namely Parabens) and low testosterone: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12419695

There are some metrics that are related to fertility like ejaculation volume and sperm motility[0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_motility