Last week I commented some things about the first few chapters of The omnivore’s dilemma, this week I finished reading the first part, the one about the industrial food chain, and there are some more things to be said about it.

In chapter 8 the author talks about how the omnivore’s dilemma1 is solved by culture: One eats what one’s parents eat, they eat what their parents ate and so on; through generations cultural eating habits are formed, and those habits are generally sufficient to keep most people healthy. And how that solution to the dilemma is lost through the industrial food chain, through globalization people are distantiated from their food culture and through supermarkets and processed food they are introduced to a whole range of options that make it more difficult to eat right.

On the topic of food culture it elaborates on the evolution of food habits and touches how food is a central part of what made humans humans, not only in the evolutionary sense2 but on the identity of tribes and nations.

The first part of the book ends with some facts about fast food that made me think how sad it is that growing up I associated fast food, processed food and snacks with progress and how still today there are lots of people that think that way, when instead we should be exalting the ability to eat whole foods; we are giving up our health and future to a destructive food system with really powerful marketing.

[blog-post] Managers turn to surveillance software, always-on webcams to ensure employees are (really) working from home

An article about how companies shifting to remote work due to the quarantine are forcing surveillance software to their employees.

The article talks about two companies that make software targetted at companies with remote employees, one is some kind of “virtual office”, problematic because it forces a restrictive working paradigm on their remote employees under the excuse that working at home can be lonely, when the underlying motivation is to keep control over the employees, removing their ability to manage their own time. BTW, I have always worked from home, so it’s natural that I am hostile against working in an office.

The second company they mention is just evil, the software they sell can be installed silently, it takes constant screenshots, logs all activity on the computer and then sends reports of the activity to a manager; it is 1984 levels of surveillance in real life managerial spyware. This is outraging, I am outraged at the thought of companies existing with such disregard for their employees to the point that they are willing to micromanage them at that ludicrous extreme.

[blog-post] Narcissist Decoy: el cíber-narciso

An article about the practice in social media of uploading a selfie accompanied with a caption that doesn’t relate to the picture as a mean to ease the presentation of oneself in a narcissistic manner.

It is not a critique but a examination of the practice. As most of the people I know and follow in social media incur (and even I have in more than one oportunity) in what they call a “narcissist decoy”, it is interesting to note one’s seemingly unconscius behaviours.

[music] [youtube] [bandcamp] 地球 : ジャングル

Made by the legendary 猫 シ Corp., an adventure through your thoughts and through the forest. Ambient vaporwave blending itself into forest sounds. Only two songs of around 15 minutes each but really worth a listen, just play it in the background when you are doing something and be teleported to another reality.

  1. The idea that because we can eat basically anything the choice of what food is best for us is extremely difficult. [return]
  2. Richard Wrangham’s Catching fire: How cooking made us human is a good read about how controling fire and cooking food might be what made possible the enlargement of the brain and lead to the homo sapiens. [return]