this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
91 points (88.2% liked)

Asklemmy

43974 readers
612 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Let's imagine, a world where 10 month a year, men and women don't care about each other. However, twice a year, during 2-3 weeks, non pregnant women produce pheromone that men can't resist and start calling every boy around to breed with them.

How would this impact the civilisation ?

I know about David Brin's *glory season * but not sure whether any other writer explored that idea.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 64 points 4 months ago (3 children)

It would be a very large undertaking to describe the changes since hidden breeding cycles are one of the things that separates humans from other apes.

Human women being able to choose when and with whom to mate, secretly, is one of the most significant aspects of what it means to be human.

Humanity is one of the few species whose evolution is primarily driven by sexual selection and not just the “I survived long enough to find a female so I reproduced” strategy we know of as natural selection.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago

Username checks out,

But nice answer

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. Note a very fun answer, but I'd go so far as to say this was critical enough in hominem development that there wouldn't be human society if humans had a mating season. So many of critical points in human development seem to hinge on very social developments, and this may have played a large role in that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Boink once a year, get no fire or wheel.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's like when someone says something like "Oh if men could get pregnant there'd be an abortion clinic on every corner". Not getting pregnant is the core attribute that makes "men" a concept.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

We’re like humanity’s spartans. I literally feel less fear than is rational for my own survival, because it’s optimal for the group that I should be ready to be overwhelmed by rage or whatever and attack the lion and get killed so others can survive.

I spoke with a female marine once — someone who could kill me no problem — and she told me the fear she felt before training was still there. Conversely despite knowing from experience that I am useless in a fight, I feel cocky and self assured. Or, if I stay on top of the cockiness, I simply don’t feel afraid.

I don’t mean it’s not there. I’ve been terrified. But I’ve got a confidence that just slowly steadily increases in the absence of recent evidence, that somehow I’m invincible.

Anyway, I say it’s like spartans because this reminds me of some kind of drug cocktail you could inject into a solider to just make them not give a fuck.

I’m not complaining mind you. I’ve got no problem with having less fear. But mostly because I live in a super safe environment, so it doesn’t hurt me to have less fear.