I wonder how much of our social issues are caused, at the root, by a growing (is it growing or just more visible now?) inability to handle negative emotions.
We draw cultural boundaries around 'acceptable pain' and 'unacceptable pain.' Acceptable pain is stuff like
Unacceptable pain is stuff like having too many kids living in one room or
The boundary between acceptable and unacceptable pain looks a bit like a gerrymandering district
Probably in a century circumcision will be seen as barbaric, but today circumcised men don't mind that much
My point is that, as a whole, our tolerance of suffering is
1. Arbitrary and influenced by incentives
2. Relative and dictated by society
What does this mean?
Weaponizing pain as an agent of regulatory change is a terrible way to run a government or guide a culture. There's obviously so many flaws - pains aren't weaponized equally, but rather by