371–380 of 446 posts
Any concept that helps us categorize real things also takes away their individuality. Every tree is different, but the word “tree” takes away its uniqueness. A “tree” becomes something that provides humans with food, or something that can be used for firewood or paper.
I've noticed as a kid, that strawberry flavoured candy doesn't actually taste like strawberries. They are clearly and collectively recognisable as strawberry candies, but that's just pattern matching and conditioning on wording. The flavour has not much to do with actual strawberries, even the sweetness is vastly exaggerated. The synthetic aroma is much less complex, as the author noted. We just fell into the habit (…
I think all "fruity" candies are pretty much the same sugar, and our brain merely looks at the color and packaging and fills in a "flavor" for it. Maybe my taste buds are just not working, but I don't think I could do a blind taste test and identify a candy's claimed flavor.
The strawberry example reminds me of the Instant Mashed Potatoes non-book review [0]. > Since World War II and the large-scale industrialization it fully unleashed, a core method driving ‘progress’ across many different fields of human endeavor has been to shred something real and reconstitute it into a faster, easier, less appealing IMPish substitute for what we used to make out of it. This is the parsimonious recip…
>In the interest of full fairness while writing this review, I purchased a plastic cup of my dad’s currently favored “Buttery Homestyle” Idahoan brand instant mashed potatoes for $1.99. The preparation was extraordinarily efficient; the aroma was decent; the taste was a reasonable facsimile; but the texture was all wrong - a smothering paste that coated my mouth and constrained my tongue like a straightjacket. 3/10 w…
obviously real potatoes taste better, but they haven't been dehydrated and reconstituted, destroying the cell structures. probably.
I've found that this engineered optimization has a more pernicious side effect: killing curiosity. Lack of complexity stunts the desire to become curious - to give reasons to look closer, ask questions, compare experiences - and ultimately develop 'taste'. When everything is optimized into its most obvious, frictionless, immediately-rewarding form, the sum of all experience becomes more 'pleasant' but harder to care…
What once motivated going deeper to satisfy the curiosity instinct is now satisfied by breadth. Quantity has a quality all its own.
"When everything is optimized into its most obvious, frictionless, immediately-rewarding form, the sum of all experience becomes more 'pleasant' but harder to care about." This is an insightful and important point. Humans place value on what requires effort and resources to achieve/acquire. The timeline has been condensed so that immediate rewards are required, or attention/effort is directed elsewhere. Any extended effort or depth requires frequent dopamine rewards. Those born well into the Internet age have a different disposition that is difficult for older generations to understand. In some ways, the difference is quite profound and not unlike that of a foreign culture.Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's worse than that. It promotes race to the bottom. I love strawberries, blueberries (bilberry variety) and tomatoes, but apart of the few times in the year when I can collect my own or visit a PYO farm I'm not eating them at all. Every shop (small and huge alike) only sells the fake, hyper-accelerated garbage (sorry Spain and Morocco, but that stuff is just gross), or - in season - locally grown similarly…
But what happens here, let me point that out for completeness, is not a dark conspiracy. At least not on this level. People go to the grocery store and buy the cheapest thing that does the trick, probably because they can't afford something else. Bills want to be payed.
They don't have a choice, they cannot encounter a good vegetables and fruits in the normal stores. They CANNOT, at least in the UK. It's that simple. Maybe during some events, as a curiosity.
Good quality vegetables are not available on the shelves in general. Maybe in some cases, yeah. Some. But generally not. Similarly with meat, although it's much easier here to find something decent.
The difference in taste and quality between the cheapest and most expensive fresh fruits and vegetables in the supermarkets is virtually none. If you don't believe me, you don't have to, I simply grew plenty of that as a kid and a teenager, I keep growing some, and the difference between the average garden-sourced (or PYO/small farm sourced) and the Aldi/M&S/Waitrose/Tesco is simply too big to describe, you'd have to try it.
So there's an illusion of choice between awful and bad - in that case I'm simply choosing imported (thanks to the landfill and manufacturing waste in our great British food chain). People who don't know, or don't care pick whatever looks the best.
Some buy the cheapest. Not everyone buys the cheapest - you can't seriously claim that in case of the expensive stores (Sainsbury's, M&S, Waitrose).
And then there's palate problem. If someone was raised on these garbage produce, they may even favour it over healthy, proper ones. Proper radish will have a bite to it. Proper tomato has a complex profile (and there's hundreds of varieties of that too), instead of how garden stores describe it being "tasty"....
Consumers have been dumbed down and trained into accepting inferior livestock feed as food, and thanks for that they can for example say with a straight face that they actually like or prefer Tesco white toast bread.
(they've been scammed)
Reminds me of Adornos "Dialektik der Aufklärung" and its take on what he calls the "Kulturindustrie". Almost 100 years ago he foresaw how the cultural offerings of society get commodified and chopped into bite sized chunks for each individual to receive theirs. He did not forsee us taking it this far, nor the addictive nature of the consumption though. An additional danger is how this pulls all of us down. Staying wi…
As someone who has struggled with understanding Adorno for a long time, I found this recent review of a book about Frankfurt School a pleasant read : https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-dialectical...
Did capitalists do this in any comprehensive or satisfactory way prior to the advent of capitalism? I’m not a communist, but this seems like a fairly weak criticism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores? (and for real, not fake). Or is your point that Europe has a different supermarket chain per country? Malls have the same stores across countries ... but they differ, somewhat, if you move from one country to the next. And they're fake. Every company has 3-4 store brands these days so malls have 4-5 stores that look different, but aren't. So ... what a differ…
> Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores? (and for real, not fake) I live in a small european town and all the followings are found less than 3 minutes away from my home: butcher, baker, shoes store, newspaper store, convenience store, barber. The town hosts a market once a week that sells more divers products, and many people do shop there. Some of the stores are owned and operated by descendants…
walking, cycling, or driving? For where i live, in the USA, all three net me no shops. I have to travel 3.5km round trip to get candy and a cold drink at a gas station, ~19km to get fresh vegetables and fruit at all, and sixty-four kilometers to get to a "real" grocer. those are all round trip distances (had to edit 11 to 19 because i just multiplied by three instead of 6, and corrected the distance, too; oops!)
I think we have a vastly different definition of "small town"!
Now, i grew up in Whittier, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles, and a city so big it's the size of a parish/county most other places. Nominally 80,000-150,000 people in the city/metro limits. all of those things you mentioned were within 10 minutes of my house, including a "German butcher" and a non-German butcher, salons, barbers, etc. there was a pretty big mall within 10 minutes, too.
Whittier's population was "quaint" when i lived there, as it's 100% US suburb, with a long way to go to get to any freeway/interstate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to be joking, right? So you are saying that it's all fine, because we can just go to Harrods to get quality food? Nevermind that I hate Harrods and that entire area with a passion. It's a tasteless, glitzy tourist trap. My post was all about the fact that barring a tiny percentile of people who a) live in an affluent area and b) are willing to pay 2-3x the regular supermarket prices, you cannot get good qual…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the grade of the maple syrup you tried ? (the new grading system is stupid everything is grade A with a color name) In my opinion, The A golden is light and subtle, I don't know what it's for; it's the variety we sell in tourists, and to peoples that likes fancy bottles and higher prices! The A amber is great as a condiment in small quantities, for pancakes it's the best. The A dark is the best for cooking des…
This is where I would note that tastes can be deformed. It is possible, for various reasons, to acquire bad tastes (here, childhood nostalgia).
Jeesus. Very silly elitism here.
There's no such thing as an obvious "Perfect" taste. Everyone has different taste preferences. Some people legitimately prefer and like the thing you consider "lesser" for reasons like they literally experience it differently than you do and that experience is not as good for them.
People have dramatic differences in their tastes. Some people are far more sensitive to sour flavors. Some people have way less tolerance for bitter. Your diet will radically change how salty something tastes. Same for sweetness. Same for spicy.
I grew up eating homemade maple products from my Uncle's trees he tapped and cooked himself. I've had the real deal.
It's just not that good for most uses of "Sugar syrup" to me. A molasses cookie is tastier than a maple cookie to me. Maple syrup on a pancake will pollute the pleasant flavor of a literal cake I am eating for breakfast with all sorts of complicated tree resin compounds. I prefer a simple light caramel flavor in my sugar syrup to go on top of my cake that I am eating for breakfast. I want to taste the light and subtle flavors of butter and sweetness and a simple cake. I don't want the complexity of a good maple syrup.
Now when I make my ham, that's when I use a maple glaze. That's exactly when all the complexity shines, against the powerful savory ham flavor.
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The problem of 8yr olds watching too much YouTube is definitely not one for YouTube to fix. We're quickly getting to a point where all parenting is delegated to people and institutions that have nothing to do with raising children. And then we complain that our kids are not being raised properly. We don't even know who to blame for this any more.
I'd like to agree but practically there are difficulties enforcing it. Anecdotally I know of some parents having a battle with their local school because their kids have been watching this sort of crap in kindergarten. Fundamentally it seems like building products designed to target children with harmful content, or content that substitutes for educational material, should not be accepted by society. So yes parents a…