Oddbean new post about login | logout I went into the local supermarket yesterday and noticed that there were maybe two dozen types of produce (all of which had been sprayed with poison and grown in nutrient starved soil), and I thought to myself, “What the hell are we doing to ourselves?” It’s sick, sad, and hard to come to terms with, but we are being fed poison for the most part. nostr:note1yk6e5f3peetw70asmxqmtj3llmvr0ru988z6hewqm4dhuwy2pldqzhej92
It's legitimately hard to grocery shop in the US.
I have heard that. My brother travelled East Coast to West Coast in an open top Mustang many years ago now. He could not believe the state of the food across the country. It was fine if you're on vacation and it's time to overindulge, there was plenty of amazing food for that. But he got home feeling desperate for fresh vegetables and unprocessed food. He also found the widespread use of disposable cutlery and crockery in motels very strange.
Ultimately it's because humans automatically optimize for whatever they measure (observe). What can't be measured, will be neglected. So we end up with LARGE SWEET BRIGHTLY COLORED fruit with little aroma and lots of poison in it. Because nutrition is hard to assess objectively. Same with buildings: Huge, square, concrete slabs optimized for energy efficiency, square meters, cost etc. But ugly as fuck, because beauty isn't an objectively measureable thing. Many other examples. Once you discover the "measureable vs relevant" dichotomy, you'll see it everywhere.