The Hardest Problem in Culture

The hardest problem in culture is that no matter its fitness for a stated preference, our dominant culture sticks in such a way as to make it almost impossible to consider alternatives.

Alternatives will seem Wrong.

Things only become loose enough to consider when the culture works less for you than it works for others. This simultaneously makes you less credible.

Two weeks ago, I had a problem in my mouth. Pain had been there for months, but it increased sharply. With it came swelling.

Then, bits of my tooth near the gum came off. After a lifetime of healthy teeth, it looked like I was losing a tooth.

I went to the dentist.

As it turns out, my teeth were fine!

It was tartar, calculus, filling my gums and lower halves of my teeth.

These are layers of fossilized bacteria, with calcium phosphate salts. Tooth enamel is mostly calcium phosphate.

So they're similar enough, but not the same. What I thought was my tooth cracking off was just these solidified salts breaking off.

What I thought had been something essential, my tooth, had simply been something that was actually causing the problem: tartar.

Jogging for the first time, if you've never run before, must feel like utter evil for the person attempting it.

If everyone is sick for long enough, then someone healthy seems mad, pointlessly subversive, or evil.

You may have seen this before, in groups where everyone is obese, and someone healthier is constantly mocked.

So how can we evaluate norms?

By their fruits! Their long-term fruits!

Time is the test of truths.

If we need the answer fast, then we need danger, either through conflict or risk.

Some norms are fertile for a given purpose. Others are sterile.

In an age where movement is given up for safety, sterility wins.

Consider a steam autoclave, the most effective practical method for sterilizing implements to date.

1. Air is removed.

2. Steam fills the chamber under pressure.

3. Condensation on the material transfers heat to the material.

4. “denaturation of the proteins and enzymes within the microorganisms” leads to “their eradication.”

5. Spores are killed with enough time.

6. Chamberr de-pressurizes and dries.

And what grows there, once it is sterile?

Not as much! Not as much.

So remember: sterile vs fertile.