Once upon a time, there was a research study conducted in which two men and a woman were put in a situation in which the study's designers believed they had accounted for all of the possible variables that they would encounter and thereby be able to specifically determine what motivated them to do this, that, and the other.
The situation involved the three subjects being put in a 10x10 foot room. They were all of the same age, same height and weight, same educational background, same socioeconomic background, same ethnic ancestry, same geographic region, and so on, all the way down to the length of their toenails. Quite a study, really. Historically speaking.
But there was also an apple, a dildo, and a knife. The three were told to stay in that room for 24 hours together. Once in the room, the researchers stated over an intercom that the only person who would be allowed to live would be the person who ate the apple while the dildo was in their ass. For some reason, the researchers believed they knew exactly how the scene would play out except for one tiny detail. That detail involved speculation over whether the woman would wait until one of the men killed the other or if she would team up with one of the men. They were certain the two men would not team up.
What happened, though, was that three had sex using the dildo, slept, had sex, shared the apple, used the knife to carve tattoos into their arms and legs, had sex, slept, and then died all together when the gas was released into the room. This was not considered an unethical experiment at the time. It was state-sanctioned. It happened.
What are you gonna do, right? Well, some things were done after the fact, but they were related to the volume of such odd and useless experiments. Strangely, oddity became the fashion. Macabre oddity in the form of academic research. For the first time in history in any country, academics delivered knowledge to the public in ways most understood and could apply in their daily lives to improve the quality of their lives. The only people who didn't understand what was happening were the academics.
"The ideas are too simple," one scientist said to another.
"It's like they think they know something worthwhile and aren't telling us what they know," said another scientist. "It's baffling."
"We must do more research," said another.
So they set up a new research study at a renown university. This time they lined up a bunch of people who came from undereducated backgrounds, working class folk, plumbers and pipefitters, mechanics and warehouse workers, clerks and receptionists. They asked each of them what they knew. It only took a few days to ask all of the subjects to express all that they knew.
The researchers were flabbergasted. "How could they know so little and yet be so satisfied?" asked one. "What are they not telling us?" asked another. "They are clearly withholding in bad faith; we must be more aggressive with our methods," they all decided. They tortured them to extract whatever they were withholding, using intelligence interrogators for the most hard-to-crack subjects. Even after months, they knew little more than the number of vowels that could be screamed in succession without taking a breath for most subjects.
One subject thought it was odd that they should be called subjects, wondering how being the object of research could grant anything approximating the status of being a subject. The researchers recognized this man's insight as a legitimate breakthrough. They further tortured him and discovered that the man began creating wild delusional theories as to why the researchers were doing what they were doing.
They decided to plant this man's initial question into the interrogations of the others and they discovered that introducing one question alone could lead subjects to become frightfully inquisitive in general, completely changing their orientation. They discovered, in a sense, how to transform everyday people into academics by torturing them and putting them in a position in which they had to try to answer all of their questions about why they were being tortured so that they could somehow figure out a way to stop being tortured.
There were two conclusions reached after four decades of ongoing research in this vein: One, that the people who held little knowledge lived in worlds in which little was needed to live a fulfilling life. Two, that being put into excruciating pain leads people who may have only had a six-grade education to spontaneously become academics, questioning everything. Only one academic asked the question, "What in the hell does that say about me?"
He killed himself immediately after asking the question which led to an era of academic censorship. All was well and good for a couple decades, but then climate change got out of hand and people thought, "Shit, we need the fucking scientists again!" Overnight, academics emerged from the woodwork like bedbugs, swarming over the landscape, torturing people in the name of climate research, discovering that the fear of torture was much greater than the fear of climate change. This calmed people down and helped them accept that they were going to drown if they insisted on living in Miami. The academics cheered, screaming, "No, no, we won't go, we've got Reason, Rationality, and Logic, yo!"
That immediately changed everyone's perceptions of the academics and everyone who wasn't an academic said, "What a bunch of nerds. Let's torture them this time." And so what was later called the Dark Ages by academics who rose to power again centuries later came into being. We could say it isn't known what happened without the university informing the public, but there was the Internet and smart phones so everything was documented.
Seemed like a pretty boring time in history. Not a lot of fights. No arguments to speak of. No one wondered anything. They just sat with pina coladas on beaches everyday without a thought or care in the world once they figured out how to handle climate change, end racism and sexism, and simplify everything so even children could thrive. It was utopian, in some sense, but eventually someone asked a question about what time the party ended and someone else wondered if parties should ever end and then someone said it's too bad life ends and then someone wondered whether life had to end and then science came roaring back into practice and everyone doubted everything and everyone again, returning the world to its natural academic state.
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