A bunch of people seemed to like my recent article Doing Good in the Addiction Economy. Abstract:
The world is becoming ever-more addictive and distracting, showering us with short-term rewards. But we can still take control of those mechanisms in order to do good in the world, and make ourselves into better people.
My loved ones say that I cook well, and I enjoy cooking. However, my enjoyment turns out to be a rather manufactured experience!
If I go to a typical grocery store to buy onions, I see onions that have been cleaned and sorted. Few of them have bruises, to say nothing of mold or weevils. (I'm not actually sure if weevils eat onions.) The crappy-looking onions are not presented to me; they are diverted into other uses in the pipeline. If an onion is not pretty, I don't ever get to see it as an onion; it ends up dried and powdered as a component of chili powde...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.