thegreekdog wrote:I've always wondered about the second one when it comes to various products.
Pharmaceuticals, for example, are man-made, but the components exist naturally. Anyway, I thought - "Aren't all products natural or organic?" I think of weird stuff sometimes.
I think about stuff like that often, except I usually take it to far more ridiculous lengths.
For instance, based on the idea you mention I then thought about people's tendency to associated "not natural" with unhealthy. Of course this is bullshit, you can find many things as natural as they come (ie. growing out of the ground) that'll kill you and many thinks as artificial as they come (eg: most modern drugs) that'll save your life.
Then I though, if it's a bullshit and potentially harmful idea (especially when taken to extremes, such as not vaccinating your kids cause they'll get autism), then why does it persist? Is it just an unfortunate side-effect of some larger evolutionary system that provides enough benefit to overcome the disadvantage of that particular neurosis?
But, then I remembered about the many people who followed premature scientific advice, such as taking ridiculously high doses of certain vitamins or taking 2 aspirins a day and lately suffered because it turned out that taking that shit in such high quantitied causes more problems than it solves. (one example of this taken to extremes is futurist Ray Kurzweil, who is, to quote wikipedia, taking "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to 'reprogram' his biochemistry").
So maybe this irrational and ultimately bullshit belief is actually useful as some kind of a heuristic that incentivises you to stick with the stuff you've consumed from childhood(and which you therefore probably consider "natural")
I have no idea why I wrote all that out, but f*ck it, not gonna delete it now. Anywho:
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@ 3rd one. My feelings exactly. God do I hate those fuckin commercials.
Edit:
Also, 50th page. Not bad.
