been thinking about the problem of the world and how to solve it
The books I've been reading lately, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The End of Over-eating, and The Story of Stuff, have got me thinking first about simplifying and improving my own life, but also wondering how much of what I'm learning can be extrapolated to American culture at large.
The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Story of Stuff, and The End of Overeating all kind of converge onto a central thesis
"stop being fukkin wasteful"
they all come at it from different angles
story of stuff is straight up 'man overconsumption is BAD'
omnivore's dilemma is like 'umm, why do we spend so much money on making corn when we could be making better things for us'
and end of overeating is like 'the industry deliberately caters to our evolutionary traits to make us buy more food than we could eat'
what does it say about meat production
that we feed animals to animals of the same specie and wonder why they rapidly contract diseases
that we feed them food they aren't biologically equiped to digest and wonder why they can't process it well enough on their own
that we keep them in incredibly confined quarters, bred for obscene qualities of meat
and yet, we throw so much food away
well, if you read about the island of wild chickens in hawaii, you learn that wild chickens are nasty as hell, like, stringy and gross
he doesn't propose that all animals run free, but that when people actually perform animal husbandry, the results are good
as opposed to animal warehousing
yeah animal warehousing is gross
anyway, I thought it was kind of neat the way they all kind of converged on the topic from different directions
hell, thinking about it, the whole reason my company was founded was the idea of taking a hit in profitability to maintain sustainable long-term growth
by not throwing people away just because we didn't need them after a project ended
but rather, letting them build their skills while waiting for the next one to come along
If we make the goal to increase happiness and contentment, rather than increase profits, what would happen?
Without a drive to increase profit, I think a lot of [positive] changes would occur:
* marketing and brand awareness budgets shrink
* the reduced redundancy of having brilliant minds siloed into competing companies, rather than collaborating on a common goal
* the practice of using more effective materials and methods in place of more efficient ones
* false dichotomy of identical products in different packaging is removed
* less incentive to "save money" by buying more than you can use because it's cheaper in bulk.
* more free time, and as a result, increased artistic effort, participation in sports and recreation, and free-form learning
* education and health systems attract more people suited to those lines of work, resulting in more passionate and compassionate care
The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Story of Stuff, and The End of Overeating all kind of converge onto a central thesis
"stop being fukkin wasteful"
they all come at it from different angles
story of stuff is straight up 'man overconsumption is BAD'
omnivore's dilemma is like 'umm, why do we spend so much money on making corn when we could be making better things for us'
and end of overeating is like 'the industry deliberately caters to our evolutionary traits to make us buy more food than we could eat'
what does it say about meat production
that we feed animals to animals of the same specie and wonder why they rapidly contract diseases
that we feed them food they aren't biologically equiped to digest and wonder why they can't process it well enough on their own
that we keep them in incredibly confined quarters, bred for obscene qualities of meat
and yet, we throw so much food away
well, if you read about the island of wild chickens in hawaii, you learn that wild chickens are nasty as hell, like, stringy and gross
he doesn't propose that all animals run free, but that when people actually perform animal husbandry, the results are good
as opposed to animal warehousing
yeah animal warehousing is gross
anyway, I thought it was kind of neat the way they all kind of converged on the topic from different directions
hell, thinking about it, the whole reason my company was founded was the idea of taking a hit in profitability to maintain sustainable long-term growth
by not throwing people away just because we didn't need them after a project ended
but rather, letting them build their skills while waiting for the next one to come along
If we make the goal to increase happiness and contentment, rather than increase profits, what would happen?
Without a drive to increase profit, I think a lot of [positive] changes would occur:
* marketing and brand awareness budgets shrink
* the reduced redundancy of having brilliant minds siloed into competing companies, rather than collaborating on a common goal
* the practice of using more effective materials and methods in place of more efficient ones
* false dichotomy of identical products in different packaging is removed
* less incentive to "save money" by buying more than you can use because it's cheaper in bulk.
* more free time, and as a result, increased artistic effort, participation in sports and recreation, and free-form learning
* education and health systems attract more people suited to those lines of work, resulting in more passionate and compassionate care