Thanks for the link to that interesting essay.

Would be more interesting had author defined what he means by "highly evolved tradition" and added some real world examples.

Most small deviations, and practically all "radical" deviations [in cultural beliefs], result in the equivalent of death for the organism: a mass breakdown of civilization which can include genocide, mass poverty, starvation, plagues, and, perhaps most commonly and importantly, highly unsatisying, painful, or self-destructive individual life choices.

Genocide is usually (and traditionally) fate of traditional society that meets more modern one. And as for mass poverty, starvation and plagues, these were traditional part of life for all recorded history and were abolished by modernity. I'm afraid the author disproves his own thesis...