h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just noticed this 'the wold is going to end' thread on Ask... is it just my impression or is hootoo invaded by such people at the moment? What do they think they will achieve by coming *here*. I mean, this is h2g2...

The world IS going to end. It's just a matter of when (and how)

<>

i want to give him a soft spot

with an to the

Re-instating the subject line because I'm losing track of what thread is what and I have no idea what we are talking about

<< just noticed this 'the wold is going to end' thread on Ask... >>

where ????????????

post on it to drag it to the top....

Yes, well if people would use the correct subject line we'd know which thread was which


It's pretty obvious if you look at the Ask list.

you mean the NWO thread????

That's the most obvious candidate. Unless you count WWW.... Americans?

F19585?thread=6720503
that's the one I meant

Since I missed out when the topic briefly moved from theology to anthropology...

First of all I have to correct Stanley's suggestion that we ev0olved from simians. We're *still* simians.

We're a peculiarly hairless kind of simian, mostly. Our vestigial clumps of hair remain, apart from on our heads (with the exception of some older males), in some interesting places where their function seems to be to act as a reservoir for sexy odours.

As some of us migrated northwards out of Africa, we began to lose our natural dark pigmentation the better to be able to manufacture vitamin D under conditions of decreased sunlight. Simultaneously with that we will, presumably, have had to develop clothing to protect us against the cold.

(incidentally - it's surely fairly obvious that we developed technologies in parallel with migration? Shelter technology also helped us to move north: we developed shelters because we were moving north - chicken and egg).

BUT: as Stanley rightly implies, clothing is about more than protecting us against the elements. We observe that in some cultures, either males, females or both use minimal clothing to cover the genitalia. Presumably this is a device to regulate fertility?

Now...I'm not sure of this...it it seems plausible...am I right in observing that wheras hunter-gatherers in suitably warm climates are often naked or minimally clothed, in agrarian or urban cultures, clothing is more thourough. Could this be due to a need to control fertility more thouroughly in such cultures?

I wonder if there's any anthropological evidence of breeding rates (and child mortality rates) in hunter-gather vs other cultures?

As a corollary...and I really *am* speculating wildly here...nowadays we've got the control of fertility pretty much licked, so in modern societies, birds are free to flash their bits.

Ain't life sweet?

>>Presumably this is a device to regulate fertility?<<

How did you get to that?


>>we've got the control of fertility pretty much licked<<

Says someone who's never been pregnant

>>Presumably this is a device to regulate fertility?<<

>>How did you get to that?


Pure, unfounded, unadulterated speculation . Stopping the goods from being on display? Other speculation welcomed as to why some cultures wear minimal genital-covering apron-y things. Like a cross between nudists and Freemasons.

Can you be more specific about the culture/s you are thinking of? I can't see how small bits of clothing would regulate fertility.

no

no

no

Do you think that clothing stops people from having sex?

page 3 or burka????

which do you WANT to have sex with?????

You think Muslims don't have sex? We're not talking about what you consider to be sexy, we're talking about whether any kind of clothing used within a culture would have an impact on fertility*. I can't see it myself, so am waiting for someone to explain.


* and in case it's not already obvious, perceptions of sexiness and fertility are not the same thing.

Damn! Now I'm going to have to find some pictures.

There are, iirc, some cultures that go in for genital covering. Such clothing doesn't prevent sex per se...but I'm assuming it was developed as part of a modesty culture which - I'm speculating - has to do with fertility control.

>>perceptions of sexiness and fertility are not the same thing.

Accepted. And, indeed, sometimes the genital coverings can be sexual ornaments. Just as in our own culture.


On a wider note...is there at least *something* in my notion that the move from nakedness to clothing goes hand-in-hand with that from hunter gathering to settlement? In temperate climates, leastways. If so...why?

Taff:

Are you aware of the women-only shopping mall in Riyadh which has branches of La Senza and Victoria's Secret?

Interesting. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_clothing

'At a slightly later date (25,000 years) the Venus figurines were depicted with clothing. Those from western Europe were adorned with basket hats or caps, belts worn at the waist, and a strap of cloth that wrapped around the body right above the breast. Eastern European figurines wore belts, hung low on the hips and sometimes string skirts.'

'Course, thse *could* have been depicting paleolithic lingerie...