Supposedly humans are autonomous and sometimes rational individuals. Overwhelming them with huge quantities of information while restricting the scope of that information – with the declared goal of keeping them focused – will shortly reduce those individuals to the status of highly biased and eventually completely programmed hu(man)-bots.
Since when is anything around us ‘chemical free’?
Water is itself a chemical substance while vinegar is nothing but a solution of acetic acid dissolved in water so washing produce in vinegary water is bathing them in chemical substances.
‘No artificial chemical substances’ ?!?
OK, water is probably ‘natural’, even though some tiny amounts of it were indeed produced by us.
You don’t believe me?…But you know that we all burn things, right? And if we don’t burn it ourselves we have others burning it for us. A considerable part of the electricity we use is produced by burning things. Locomotion is mostly ‘produced’ by burning things. Oh, you weren’t aware that by burning a gallon of gas you produce 1.52 gallons of water. Well, now you know. For natural gas the ratio is even higher – more hydrogen – so it’s 2.2 pounds of water for one pound of natural gas. Don’t worry too much about the coal burning power plants, they don’t produce too much ‘artificial water’ because coal contains almost no hydrogen so… sorry, only CO2 in this case.
And how much water do we produce? I don’t know, if you’re interested you may use these figures: 90 million barrels a day of oil/day/world in 2011 (approx 32 billion barrels/year) and 3 427 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas in 2012(some 5000 billion pounds per year). And since all of this water first goes up in the air and then rains down on us there is more than a slight chance that a few molecules of it end up in your sink.
And this goes both for the tap water and for the one already in the vinegar.
As for the acetic acid it doesn’t really matter if it came from vine – usually the case for balsamic vinegar – or from ‘industrial’ Ethyl alcohol, the kind brewed and distilled from starch (potatoes, corn, etc) and used to make vodka among other things. It’s the same chemical substance. Oh, by the way, alcohol, caffeine and THC are also chemical substances.
And for those of you who are really interested in where it makes any sense to wash anything using vinegar, yes, it seems that it can be useful in some instances. Check out here for more information.
A friend of mine shared this on FB. Thanks Sheeja!
It was then that I realized that I do sometimes worry.
Only I don’t worry for tomorrow. I worry for me. Worrying ‘for tomorrow’, per se, is indeed ludicrous but wondering what I’ll be doing tomorrow seems only natural for a sensible person.
After all it’s me who is going to live that day so how about living it to my liking, not somebody else’s? Provided that I don’t hurt anybody in the process, of course.
Found this picture on FB.
A very strong reminder that we really need to start thinking with our own heads.
‘Newspapers’ are just as technological as smartphones are!!!
It’s how WE chose to use the available technology that makes all the difference in the world!
Well…yeah …probably…. but I’m not sure about ‘do more drugs’ though! While smarter people are indeed more curious and more inclined to experiment than the rest of us they also understand faster that one cannot remain smarter for long after ‘doing drugs’ on a regular basis. So ‘try more drugs’… maybe… ‘do more drugs’… not if they are really smart!
First about Marx being a dialectician. He was one alright. Only there is a small problem with dialectics. In order to work they need at least two equivalent proponents, one on each side. You cannot have proper dialectics by talking to yourself, eventually you’ll take sides and the whole exercise loses its scope.
At this point I’ll make a short break and let you in on one of my moments of shame. As a high school student (Romania under communist rule) I had to participate in a compulsory class about ‘dialectical and historical materialism’ – the ‘scientific formula’ used by communists to describe their creed in those times. At one point the teacher asked me “What are the reasons for ‘dialectical’ materialism being ‘better’ than all other forms of materialism?”. “‘Dialectical materialism’ constantly checks its concepts against the reality and adjust them as the reality changes. By doing this its practitioners constantly deepen human knowledge and build an ever improving understanding of the world.” The teacher congratulated me for this answer and I felt very proud at that moment. But only momentarily. Very soon I started to understand that the theory was fine indeed but that it couldn’t be put into practice.
Precisely because of how Marx had envisioned the communist society:
In fewer words he had stated that the communists were the sole guardians of truth and that that truth was unquestionable. Hence everybody else was wrong and the communists had an obligation to bring everybody back to the ‘straight and narrow’!
And where are the symptoms of his alleged ‘schizophrenia’? Read the manifesto. It is comprised of a ‘theoretical’ introduction, in which Marx exposes his view on what had happened until the dawn of mankind till his days, and a ‘to do’ part which contains Marx’s recomandations about what people should have done from there on. I find it extremely baffling that a person who gathered such a complex understanding about a certain situation could come up with such completely erroneous ideas about how to proceed from there on. Quite a lot of people entertain the notion that Marx was right only Lenin got it wrong and hence the failure of Russian/European communism. No! Marx was right only when he described and explained what had happened. What he had said about the ‘conquest of political power by the proletariat’ was plain wrong. There is no such thing as a ‘good’ or ‘right’ dictatorship, no matter how dialectical it pretends to be.
You see, bona fide dialectics is about people freely, but considerately, contradicting each-other. In no way about ‘sheeple’ submissively caving in to peer pressure or crushing authority.
And here we have ‘it’: under communist rule, in order to save both their mortal beings and their inner souls quite a lot of people apparently toed the line but nevertheless kept a mental reserve about what was going on around them. Not clinical/proper schizophrenia indeed but how else would you call it?
PS. I still have to explain where my shame came from. When I eventually did understand the unbridgeable contradiction between my fine theoretical demonstration about the relative superiority of ‘dialectical materialism’ above over all other forms of materialism and the day to day tragic consequences of that specific brand of materialism being put into practice I remembered how proud I was about the praise I received on that day. Remembering that moment is a fail proof method to prune down my pride!
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
So 27 American Navy personnel were scarred shitless by an extremely powerful experimental device soon to be deployed on ‘all the advanced Russian planes’!
OK, let’s get this straight. I’m no privy to any military secrets, Russian or American. For all I care/know this might have taken place ‘as advertised’. But there is one thing I know for certain, the Russians have actually published this article. So lets see what we can gather from this, undeniable, fact.
Actually yes. It makes some sense.
Judging by the fact that somebody took the trouble to translate and disseminate the article in other languages than Russian and English means that that somebody thinks the effort is worthwhile. People have forwarded it so, at least apparently, the whole thing got some traction. After reading the comments on the original link that impression is beefed up even more.
But what if we dig a little deeper?
To me at least it starts to smell like desperation. Do you remember how much hype Hitler made about his ‘secret weapons’ towards the end of WWII? No I won’t dismiss altogether the Russian military establishment, it still is very capable of throwing a hefty punch. The problems arise, exactly as they did in Hitler’s case, from the extreme concentration of decision power in present day Russia. Dictators tend to become elongated from the real world and to see nothing but enemies everywhere they look around. Enemies that have to be frightened into submission, no matter how, no matter what. In fact it’s more about alleviating one’s own fears (dictator’s own fears) than anything else. Hiding desperation under a blanket of extreme aggression.
One other thing. Romania suffered for some 40 years the rigors of communist rule. During 25 of those years if somebody would have disseminated news about how strong the Americans were and how they had humiliated the Red Army that person would have gotten a hefty prison term for defeatism and propaganda favorable to the enemy. Nowadays bashing America is …. you find the right word… No, the Americans are not whiter than Snow White but piling on their heads things that don’t belong there isn’t helpful for any of us.
He who doesn’t know he doesn’t know is stupid. Avoid him. He who doesn’t know he knows is asleep. Wake him. He who knows he doesn’t know is untrained. Train him. He who knows he knows is wise. Follow him.
Really? I prefer a different approach…
He who doesn’t know he doesn’t know is innocent. Leave him be. He who doesn’t know what he knows is unsure. Comfort him. He who knows he doesn’t know is wise. Help him and both of you will learn something. He who is convinced he knows anything is conceited. He is the one you need to avoid. Widely.
We all know were the ‘cost culture’ has taken the ‘old’ GM: into the ground.
I’ll be blunt on this one. In fact it is not about minimizing the costs. That is not only rational but also natural. The real problems arise from ‘maximizing profits’, sometimes at “all costs”. Non financial costs that is. I.e. lives. Human lives in this case.
And this will keep on happening until we’ll finally understand that profits are good – inexorable even – but only as long they are an indicator for being on the right track towards long time survival (sustainable growth if you want to call it that way).
Allowing for the customers to get killed just for the sake of some pennies shaved from the costs is an extreme but compelling symptom of the present confusion. Short time profits, made at the expense of the customers, can be extremely dangerous.
Eventually they’ll kill the business itself, not just the customers.
PS Click on the highlighted quote, or here, and read the entire Bloomberg article. It’s worth it.
nicichiarasa 