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This article begins with a toilet.

That may sound like a strange place to start a discussion about civilization. But sometimes the smallest details reveal the deepest patterns.

Across the world, two toilet designs dominate. One is the modern commode — engineered, comfortable, and widely regarded as a symbol of progress. The other is the squat toilet — simple, low to the ground, and used across many cultures for centuries.

At first glance, this looks like a minor difference in bathroom design. But these two designs quietly reveal two very different ways of approaching problems — one that engineers around the body, and one that works with it. That difference may explain more about modern civilization than we realize.

Human anatomy evolved long before plumbing.

The digestive system functions most efficiently when the body is squatting. In this position, the colon straightens and elimination requires minimal effort. When sitting on a commode, the body forms roughly a 90-degree angle. A muscle called the puborectalis maintains a natural kink in the rectum — useful for continence, but an obstacle during elimination that often requires additional straining.

Squatting straightens the path.
Sitting leaves a kink.

But the mechanical story is only half of it. The body’s nerve network tells the same story.

At the base of the spine runs a bundle of nerve roots that ancient anatomists named the cauda equina — Latin for “horse’s tail.” These nerves govern the pelvic floor, the bowel, and the sphincters. When squatting, the coccyx shifts backward and the sacral alignment opens naturally, placing these nerve roots in their optimal working position. The parasympathetic signals that relax the sphincters and stimulate peristalsis flow more freely.

Squatting, in other words, is not merely mechanically correct. It is neurologically coordinated. The horse’s tail nerves and the straightened colon are part of the same unified biological design — one that the squat posture activates, and the commode quietly bypasses.

The Hidden Costs of the Sitting Commode

The commode solved a genuine problem: comfort and privacy in an enclosed space. But good intentions and hidden costs can coexist, and they do here:

• Incomplete elimination. The kink in the rectum means evacuation is often partial, regardless of effort.
• Chronic strain. Repeated straining over years is associated with constipation, haemorrhoids, and pelvic floor dysfunction.
• Suppressed nerve coordination. The coccyx and sacral nerve roots never reach their optimal alignment for bowel function.
• Shared contact surface. Unlike squat designs where only the feet touch the fixture, the body sits directly on a shared surface.
• Infrastructure dependency. Each flush consumes clean water and requires complex plumbing and sewage systems — resources much of the world cannot reliably provide.

Commodes remain essential for elderly people and those with mobility limitations — that is a real and important use case. But the pattern is worth naming clearly: when convenience overrides biological alignment, the costs do not disappear. They go underground.

The Elegance of Subtraction

There is one more subtle feature worth noting. In the squat toilet, almost nothing touches the body except the feet. No shared seat. No surface where the body rests. Hygiene through removal, not addition.

This is a principle that appears repeatedly in well-designed systems: sometimes the most intelligent solution is not to add a technology, but to understand the system well enough to remove the problem entirely.

Artificial Light and the Loss of Night

For most of human history, light followed a simple rhythm: bright and cool during the day, warm and dim after sunset. This natural cycle regulated the body’s circadian rhythm — governing sleep, hormones, and cellular repair.

Modern lighting disrupted the biological signal that darkness once provided. Screens and LED lights now extend artificial daylight deep into the night, and sleep disorders have become one of the most common chronic complaints in urban populations.

The Millet That Got Away

For generations, traditional diets across India included diverse millets — ragi, jowar, bajra, foxtail, little millet, kodo, browntop, barnyard, and others. These grains were rich in fibre, resilient in dry climates, and well adapted to local ecosystems. Farmers grew them with few external inputs, and they sustained communities for centuries.

Then came the Green Revolution — an agricultural transformation that dramatically increased wheat and rice yields. millets were not merely supplemented. In many places they were replaced. Rebranded as “coarse grains” or “poor people’s food,” they gave way to refined wheat and polished rice as symbols of modern prosperity.

At the same time, industrial food systems expanded rapidly. Refined flour, sugar, and ultra-processed snacks engineered for taste and shelf life became increasingly common. The result: even as food availability rose, rates of type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance climbed sharply — in India, and globally. This is actually sinister.

Today, many people are rediscovering millets, traditional grains, fermented foods, and seasonal produce — foods previously considered ordinary but are extraordinary.