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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4037 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 10, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm sure bushmen and sentinelese have long-running traditions in the style of the old semites, but I would not think they contain superior knowledge to me and my internet connection

Do you think you could survive in the African bush, the Australian outback, or the Sentinel islands for any extended period of time, if you were dropped off there and given an internet-connected smartphone (and weren't allowed to call an uber nor order supplies)? Is that knowledge useful to you, merely by having access to it?

That's what I'm getting at. Survival traits tend to be optimized for the environment in which they arise, and may protect against risks that you don't even perceive because they only arise if you fail to adhere to the processes that ward them off.

If, due to some major disturbance of global civilized society, we were to revert to a pre-industrial standards of living, I daresay you would find that your superior knowledge wouldn't be much use in ensuring your survival in this new environment.

Versus people who have a longstanding culture that has survived for eons might be able to just fall back on well-known behaviors that were inculcated in them and are thus more-or-less automatic and nigh-instinctual. See: the Amish.

Or, for another analogy, consider that there exist diseases which were frozen in Artic permafrost and contemporary humans might be susceiptible to. Whereas humans whose immune systems were adapted to these diseases might not be threatened at all, those without the resistance might die simply because they've never encountered this particular threat.

Whether you think our modern medical and scientific edifice is up to the task of shoring up this weakness may have to do with your take on how they responded to Covid19.

The loss of a cultural 'immune response' might, likewise, expose a society to hazards that it has long forgotten.

If these last few millenia were a thorough scientific experiment on appropriate clothing alloys, shouldn't the verdict be in by now?

Probably! But in some cases, if the tradition is relatively cheap to adhere to, might be acceptable to stay 'on the safe side' and just keep following it since it costs little to do so, and may be providing a large benefit.

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