DavidV

Image by Max Chen, via Pexels, license.Back in 2020, California's voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 22 in response to the infamous AB-5 gig work ban that had been passed and signed into law by their legislature and governor not long before.

Predictably, labor unions and other interests have challenged the measure in courts, with a state judge weighing in in August 2021.

That ruling allowed the measure to remain in force.

Most recently, a federal court has also ruled in favor of the proposition, holding that it is largely constitutional.

Absent a successful appeal by the labor unions and their allies, companies like Uber and Lyft will thus not be forced to hire their contractors as employees -- an important legal distinction, given the burdensome obligations that would mean under current American and Californian labor laws.

This is good news only in the short-term: The unions are considering an appeal, and the Biden Administration wants to federalize the very law that even Californians found intolerable.

More concerning, there is no mention within the piece -- or in any other news story I can recall -- of the right to contract, of an individual to trade with others on whatever terms that individual and another party might deem mutually beneficial.

The novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand once defined right succinctly as follows:It is certainly no surprise that the pro-union side -- whose motivation is clearly to dictate the terms under which men can trade labor for compensation -- would appear to be confused at best about the concept of rights.

But the comments by the winning side, while expressing relief that the "independence" of the workers has been preserved, could have been more forceful had they been made using the language of rights and backed by a clear understanding of the concept.

Instead, we have the article speaking of Proposition 22 as having "allowed freelance workers to be classified as independent contractors," as if men don't have the right to choose their own employment status or set their own bargaining terms. And most of the rest of the piece is a squabbling about the alleged "benefits" offered by the terms of driver contracts vis-a-vis what we so often hear referred to as union "protections."

The legal counsel for Uber speaks of the ruling "preserving independence" for drivers, but this is a "win" is a very narrow, strictly legal, and very delimited sense of the term.

Appallingly, the only mention of the term "rights" in this piece refers to such alleged "rights" as sick leave. (Calling sick leave a "right" is appropriate only if both parties to a labor contract agreed that sick leave would be part of the worker's compensation and he had satisfied whatever terms would entitle him to take it.)

We would do well to consider what Ayn Rand had to say about such inappropriate language:This is a holding action at best, and those of us who understand the basis of that "independence" for contract work -- that very much remains under threat -- must work to reestablish a proper understanding of rights within the broader culture.

-- CAVLink to Original

20 years ago, I came back from my internship at the Ayn Rand Institute's OCON conference excited to meet other Objectivists. 
This was a year before Facebook when IRC Chat was still the most popular venue for Objectivists to chat. So I decided to start my own Objectivism Forum - Objectivism (then )
Here is the post announcing the new site:  
 
 
After I graduated college in 2004, I handed off management to a series of admins and moderators, continuing to this day.  I've continued to host the forum over that time, accumulating the following totals:
10,160 members 31,374 discussions 337,656 posts The site was most popular for the first few years, hosting events such as a live chat with Onkar Ghate, all sorts of features like The Objectivist Metablog, hosting for Ayn Rand clubs, event calendars, hosted email accounts, photo galleries, and much more.  At live events, we would have hundreds of people participating and hundreds of posts per day.  After Facebook became popular in 2009, traffic dropped off a lot, but as you can see, the site is still active today.  

20 years ago, I came back from my internship at the Ayn Rand Institute's OCON conference excited to meet other Objectivists. 
This was a year before Facebook when IRC Chat was still the most popular venue for Objectivists to chat. So I decided to start my own Objectivism Forum - Objectivism (then )
Here is the post announcing the new site:  
 
 
After I graduated college in 2004, I handed off management to a series of admins and moderators, continuing to this day.  I've continued to host the forum over that time, accumulating the following totals:
10,160 members 31,374 discussions 337,656 posts The site was most popular for the first few years, hosting events such as a live chat with Onkar Ghate, all sorts of features like The Objectivist Metablog, hosting for Ayn Rand clubs, event calendars, hosted email accounts, photo galleries, and much more.  At live events, we would have hundreds of people participating and hundreds of posts per day.  After Facebook became popular in 2009, traffic dropped off a lot, but as you can see, the site is still active today.  

20 years ago, I came back from my internship at the Ayn Rand Institute's OCON conference excited to meet other Objectivists. 
This was a year before Facebook when IRC Chat was still the most popular venue for Objectivists to chat. So I decided to start my own Objectivism Forum - Objectivism (then )
Here is the post announcing the new site:  
 
 
After I graduated college in 2004, I handed off management to a series of admins and moderators, continuing to this day.  I've continued to host the forum over that time, accumulating the following totals:
10,160 members 31,374 discussions 337,656 posts The site was most popular for the first few years, hosting events such as a live chat with Onkar Ghate, all sorts of features like The Objectivist Metablog, hosting for Ayn Rand clubs, event calendars, hosted email accounts, photo galleries, and much more.  At live events, we would have hundreds of people participating and hundreds of posts per day.  After Facebook became popular in 2009, traffic dropped off a lot, but as you can see, the site is still active today.  

20 years ago, I came back from my internship at the Ayn Rand Institute's OCON conference excited to meet other Objectivists. 
This was a year before Facebook when IRC Chat was still the most popular venue for Objectivists to chat. So I decided to start my own Objectivism Forum - Objectivism (then )
Here is the post announcing the new site:  
 
 
After I graduated college in 2004, I handed off management to a series of admins and moderators, continuing to this day.  I've continued to host the forum over that time, accumulating the following totals:
10,160 members 31,374 discussions 337,656 posts The site was most popular for the first few years, hosting events such as a live chat with Onkar Ghate, all sorts of features like The Objectivist Metablog, hosting for Ayn Rand clubs, event calendars, hosted email accounts, photo galleries, and much more.  At live events, we would have hundreds of people participating and hundreds of posts per day.  After Facebook became popular in 2009, traffic dropped off a lot, but as you can see, the site is still active today.  

20 years ago, I came back from my internship at the Ayn Rand Institute's OCON conference excited to meet other Objectivists. 
This was a year before Facebook when IRC Chat was still the most popular venue for Objectivists to chat. So I decided to start my own Objectivism Forum - Objectivism (then )
Here is the post announcing the new site:  
 
 
After I graduated college in 2004, I handed off management to a series of admins and moderators, continuing to this day.  I've continued to host the forum over that time, accumulating the following totals:
10,160 members 31,374 discussions 337,656 posts The site was most popular for the first few years, hosting events such as a live chat with Onkar Ghate, all sorts of features like The Objectivist Metablog, hosting for Ayn Rand clubs, event calendars, hosted email accounts, photo galleries, and much more.  At live events, we would have hundreds of people participating and hundreds of posts per day.  After Facebook became popular in 2009, traffic dropped off a lot, but as you can see, the site is still active today.  

20 years ago, I came back from my internship at the Ayn Rand Institute's OCON conference excited to meet other Objectivists. 
This was a year before Facebook when IRC Chat was still the most popular venue for Objectivists to chat. So I decided to start my own Objectivism Forum - Objectivism (then )
Here is the post announcing the new site:  
 
 
After I graduated college in 2004, I handed off management to a series of admins and moderators, continuing to this day.  I've continued to host the forum over that time, accumulating the following totals:
10,160 members 31,374 discussions 337,656 posts The site was most popular for the first few years, hosting events such as a live chat with Onkar Ghate, all sorts of features like The Objectivist Metablog, hosting for Ayn Rand clubs, event calendars, hosted email accounts, photo galleries, and much more.  At live events, we would have hundreds of people participating and hundreds of posts per day.  After Facebook became popular in 2009, traffic dropped off a lot, but as you can see, the site is still active today.  

Although I am no longer active on this forum, I was recently sent a moderation request.   I decided to post this brief introduction to my involvement with the site in case it is of interest to some of the current users.
I created Objectivism Online in February 2003.  The original vision was much more ambitious but has gradually narrowed in scope and various social media platforms have superseded some of the original features.
The initial membership came largely from connections I made at the 2003 Objectivist Summer Conference.
For a number of years, this site was the primary online community for students of Objectivism on the Internet.  
I have not been active on the site for over 10 years, but it has continued thanks to a succession of administrators:
RationalEgoistSG - he helped complete the original vision for the site in 2003.
AshRyan - he organized live events and supported the forum through the rapid growth phase in 2005.
softwareNerd - he has been the de-facto leader of this forum since 2006.
JASKN - has been running the site since softwareNerd retired in (2015?)
I'll close with some other sites that I run on the server which hosts this forum:
WalletRecovery.info,  my Bitcoin Wallet Recovery business
Vellum Capital , a cryptocurrency hedge fund (in which I am a partner)
The Free Capitalist Network, a WordPress blog network with a few dozen (free) blogs.
RationalMind.net , my own blog, which was active from 2001-2013, until I co-founded Liberty.me , and set up my blog there.
In addition to these projects, I am the Director of Marketing and Technology for the Foundation for Economic Education, a free market think tank founded in 1946.
As I'm not currently active on the forum, if you want to contact me, you can find me on Facebook.
Let me end with a plug for The Objective Standard (I've been helping Craig run the site), and the TOS-Con 2018 conference, where I will be presenting content from my forthcoming book on personal finance.  It's in Richmond, VA August 16–19 2018.

Although I am no longer active on this forum, I was recently sent a moderation request.   I decided to post this brief introduction to my involvement with the site in case it is of interest to some of the current users.
I created Objectivism Online in February 2003.  The original vision was much more ambitious but has gradually narrowed in scope and various social media platforms have superseded some of the original features.
The initial membership came largely from connections I made at the 2003 Objectivist Summer Conference.
For a number of years, this site was the primary online community for students of Objectivism on the Internet.  
I have not been active on the site for over 10 years, but it has continued thanks to a succession of administrators:
RationalEgoistSG - he helped complete the original vision for the site in 2003.
AshRyan - he organized live events and supported the forum through the rapid growth phase in 2005.
softwareNerd - he has been the de-facto leader of this forum since 2006.
JASKN - has been running the site since softwareNerd retired in (2015?)
I'll close with some other sites that I run on the server which hosts this forum:
WalletRecovery.info,  my Bitcoin Wallet Recovery business
Vellum Capital , a cryptocurrency hedge fund (in which I am a partner)
The Free Capitalist Network, a WordPress blog network with a few dozen (free) blogs.
RationalMind.net , my own blog, which was active from 2001-2013, until I co-founded Liberty.me , and set up my blog there.
In addition to these projects, I am the Director of Marketing and Technology for the Foundation for Economic Education, a free market think tank founded in 1946.
As I'm not currently active on the forum, if you want to contact me, you can find me on Facebook.
Let me end with a plug for The Objective Standard (I've been helping Craig run the site), and the TOS-Con 2018 conference, where I will be presenting content from my forthcoming book on personal finance.  It's in Richmond, VA August 16–19 2018.

I’ve been thinking about the requirements necessary to create local forums, and the oversight that local members will have over that forum. I believe that some prerequisites are necessary to create forums that will be used appropriately.

Regarding forum creation:

By default, three local members must request a local forum before it is created. They can either second and third the original poster, or a single requester can name the other two members. There are some exceptions: If you’re from a major urban area (million +) only two member requests are necessary, and only one request is necessary from members with 500+ posts, patron members, or moderators.

Regarding forum ownership:

By default, local forums will be treated as part of the rest of the site. However, leaders of local Objectivist groups may request to become local leaders, and become moderators for the forum.

Let's do that now:
I split my portfolio into 3 equal parts at start of 2009.
Gold: 86 to 183, down to 128 : 49% up International securities: 29 to 52, 45 now: 55% up S&P 500: 825 to 2173 : 163% up I would have done better if I had gone 100% S&P 500.  It's fair to say my doomsday predictions were quite wrong (or at least too early).  I did quite a lot better than the markets in 2009 and 2010, but did not sell when gold crashed in 2013+, and slightly trailed the market from 2011 on when foreign markets stalled while the USA boomed.    In conclusion, while I had some good and bad luck, I mostly matched the overall market.  My superior returns were mostly due to luck.  The one smart thing I did was to invest every penny I had when the market was worst, specifically in the assets which suffered the most.   I that again in January 2016 with similar success.   This post and the upcoming one cover the lessons I learned from investing on my own.

The deeper answer is that the human mind is the ultimate resource -- and it's one we'll never run out of, as long as men are free.

One reason is that if there is a major recession in my field, I could lose my job and face a decline in my standard of living. Investing in unrelated industries lowers my risk.

The "electric universe" theory is unscientific nonsense.  I'm closing this topic to discourage real science from being posted here to give it an air of legitimacy.

Brook's explanation smacks of rationalization.  The Rothbard / Hess brand of libertarianism lost its dominance about forty years ago.  The ARI people wanted to make some strategic alliances and had to explain away their past statements.  This is what they came up with.

I am the sole founder, but there are four people without whom this forum absolutely could not have happened. (I will not reveal real names out of respect for their privacy.)

RationalEgoistSG - he helped complete the original vision for the site in 2003.


AshRyan - he organized live events and supported the forum through the rapid growth phase in 2005.

HaloNoble6 - he helped provided content for the main ObjectivismOnline.com site.

softwareNerd - he has been the de-facto leader of this forum since 2006.

Also of course none of this would be possible without the admin and moderator team.

About me:

I am a technical leader working mainly in software development in Shanghai, China. I was born in Ukraine, then lived all over Texas and in New York City before moving to China in 2011. I got married in 2009 and am expecting my firstborn next week :-)

My background in Objectivism comes from co-founding the Objectivism Club at Texas A&M University (2000-2004) and participating in the Ayn Rand Institute's OAC (Objectivist Academic Center) 2002-2004. I met some of the leaders of this forum when I was an intern at OCON 2003. In addition to founding Objectivism Online in 2003, I have been the webmaster/technical architect of Mises.org since 2004. I also co-founded the now-defunct Objectivist Club Association.

ObjectivismOnline was created 10 years ago on 03 February 2003. Here is the first post, in which I described my plans for this website.
In 10 years, we've received 270,156 posts from 8,962 members.

ObjectivismOnline was created 10 years ago on 03 February 2003. Here is the first post, in which I described my plans for this website.
In 10 years, we've received 270,156 posts from 8,962 members.

ObjectivismOnline was created 10 years ago on 03 February 2003. Here is the first post, in which I described my plans for this website.
In 10 years, we've received 270,156 posts from 8,962 members.

Human beings naturally group people into those we identify with and “others.” We understand and empathize with “our” kind of people, but simplify others into stereotyped models. We treat our family, school, city, country, race, sport team, political or sexual identity, or whatever with various degrees of familiarity.
And then perhaps we travel to another city or country or social circle and meet some people who are different. Perhaps we get to know some of them. And when we return to our old grounds and see someone from the new group we have gotten to know, perhaps we feel a little different and a little less “otherness” about them. Perhaps we repeat this process a few more times. Everyone does this to some extent.
I think some people always feel a need to categorize other human beings into “us” and “them.” But travel allows some of us to make a generalization about human beings: there is no “us” and “them.” There are only human beings, and we all have dreams and fears and hopes. You can call that awareness empathy — the intellectual and emotional integration of the knowledge that other beings have a consciousness just as you are conscious. Even animals and plants, in their own ways. Maybe for some people this is natural, but I think for the vast majority it is something that has to be learned. This is one of the virtues of travel. Unfortunately, I think many people are never really aware of their own consciousness, so cannot see it in others. They see only the meaningless, superficial traits of physical appearance and cultural trivia.
I think once you see parts of yourself in others, it changes how you treat people. If you come to learn that you are flawed and believe in and love the good in you nonetheless, you will love it in others. You still see the good and the bad — without expecting the same understanding in return. You will not feel hate or anger because they are different from you. You will celebrate their values just as you celebrate yours and maybe feel some sadness when you see the consequences of bad ideas, but only in the sense of a lost opportunity, not as a wall between you or a fault which you must correct.
To accept the values of others as inherently justified is to accept other people as ends in themselves, just as your life is an end in itself. Accepting that others are ends in themselves means accepting self-ownership, and this is the key to peaceful, non-violent coexistence.
To recognize the commonality of life is also a means come to terms with mortality. Your life is important and unique, but it is just one combination of many. That particular combination will never exist again, but many other sets containing the same values and ideas will. The meaning of life is creating an aesthetic and authentic expression of elements, not mere survival.
Does the idea of universal empathy seem like a utopian dream? It’s an ideal — not a destination, but a direction. But I think it’s a path which contains some truth and practical usefulness.
Self-understanding is a requirement for other-understanding. We build models of other people’s consciousness by applying our self-image to them. At the same time, we form our own self-image by observing and interacting with other people. It’s necessarily synergistic process. As we come to know others, we discover ourselves. As we discover our own nature, we better understand the actions of others. And if we learn to love ourselves (and I believe that value is a necessary facet of all knowledge), we learn to love others — all others.
When I speak of universal love, I do not mean an abstract, unconditional, and ignorant kind of love, but of love which comes from understanding and seeing our ideas and values in others. And not just a few values which our conscious mind labels as important, but all values — values as such. Not that thin slice which is a shared background, but everything that makes us — us. We may disagree with ideas on the abstract level but still appreciate the broad base we all share. The taste of our favorite foods, and the hugs of those we love, and the reason we go to work every day, and the hero-worship and the starry nights and taste of the water we drink. To see and to value this in all people on a deep intellectual-emotional level is an essential part of self-understanding.


Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TruthJusticeAndTheAmericanWay/~3/LjqPAOTGdMI/

Corporations are obviously not people –they are groups of people who share a common purpose. However an individual does not lose his rights by acting on behalf of a group. The purpose of the group is irrelevant - whether a group exists for the purpose of prayer, or political advocacy, or profit does not change the rights of the people involved.

The attack on “corporate personhood” is an attempt to deny the rights (primarily the freedom of speech) of people working for certain non-politically correct groups – namely groups with the primary purpose of making a profit. This is just a veiled attack on capitalism and property rights.

Bob the Intelligent Designer creates the Universe:
People who claim that the earth is younger than it is (4.54 ± 0.05 billion years) tend to do so for two reasons: either because they claim the evidence points to it or because it was created recently but made to look as it were old. Considering that all the evidence shows the universe to be 13.75 (± 0.11) billion years, a claim that it is literally millions of times younger requires massive ignorance of obvious observations – such as starlight or canyons cut into bedrock. But let’s consider the other common argument – that the universe was only made to appear young. Perhaps the stars were put in place with the light beams already in progress. That is an interesting philosophical question. What are the implications of an Intelligently Designed universe?
To avoid taking sectarian sides, let’s call our creator Bob the Universe Builder. How would Bob’s universe-creating activity change the way we look at the world? Let’s consider a few scenarios:
Some people believe that Bob “got things started” via the Big Bang or some other mysterious event, and then let things run on their own, much as they would in a purely naturalistic universe. In that case, cosmology would certainly be different, but biology could generally be left alone. This view was plausible until recently, when physicists and cosmologists
for how the Big Bang got started and why the laws of nature are what they are. Suddenly the starting point is not so mysterious as to need a supernatural explanation. What is the creation theorist to do – retreat once again to the next frontier of scientific discovery? Perhaps we can make a more general argument.Whether the universe was created 13 billion or 6 thousand years or yesterday, we can generalize the creationist argument and make some conclusions about it. Suppose we grant that the universe looks as if it evolved purely by natural laws, but in fact some intelligent agent created it more recently. What would that imply?
Let’s first consider the universe going forward. If the universe is naturalistic from the present onwards (gravity causes rocks to fall, horses don’t become unicorns, etc.), then we can assume that it will remain so in the future. So as far as our understanding of new phenomena around us, the existence of a non-interventionist creator makes no difference. But what about the past? If we assume that all the evidence points to a natural universe (for example the stars look billions of years old, even if they were only put up there yesterday), then it makes no difference whether the universe only looks natural or it really is natural.
Before he could create the universe, Bob would have to calculate the precise makeup of the universe on his computer (which could be his “brain” – the details are irrelevant) to determine the initial state of his Creation. For example, if he creates the universe after the Triassic period, he will have to figure out where to place all the dinosaur fossils. If he wanted to maintain the pretense of age, he could not place them just anywhere. He would have to carefully arrange sedimentary layers to simulate geological processes.
The only way to do this consistently would be to simulate the entire history of the observable universe on his computer. There is no way to shortcut the process. So, for example, if a dinosaur fossil is 200 million years old, Bob must calculate its gravitational effect on every atom and subatomic particle in a light cone expanding to 200 million light years over 200 million years. Alternatively, consider the implication for evolution: even if did not happen in “real” reality, to create a plausible explanation for the variety of life on earth and their fossil predecessors, Bob would have to calculate the form of every ancestor by playing out the life of every plant, animal and bacteria in his “virtual” earth to derive their fossils and their present form. Because the present state of any object in the universe is the total of all the interactions of that object with all the other objects in its sphere of influence, and there is no way to know the sum of all these states without calculating all of them sequentially.
To avoid glaring inconsistencies from being discovered by scientists, Bob would have to calculate the interaction of every entity in the universe with every other entity in its causal sphere to the minutest level of detail. And given the sub-atomic perspective granted by modern science, that detail must be very fine indeed. This would mean that there couldn’t be any observable difference between a simulation of the universe and the real thing. Whether the universe was ever a simulation in someone’s “imagination” or is simulation today makes no observable difference and this has no relevance to our understanding of reality.
My conclusion from this chain of thought is this: There is no essential difference between “Young Earth” Creationism and the more “respectable” theory of Big Bang Creationism. Neither is there any point speculating about a perfectly simulated universe (aka various theories that the universe exists “in the mind of God”.) The only logical conclusion is to regard the universe as always having been purely naturalistic.


Original entry: See link at top of this post

This is not true. Radio waves fade in strength according to the inverse-square law. They are undedectable before they reach the nearest star. To communicate with our father-flung satellites (Voyager) requires massive antenna arrays that know exactly where to look - and they have not left the solar system. To communicate inter-solar distances would require massive concentrated EM bursts with energy draw on a Kardashev type 1+ scale.

This is not true. Radio waves fade in strength according to the inverse-square law. They are undedectable before they reach the nearest star. To communicate with our father-flung satellites (Voyager) requires massive antenna arrays that know exactly where to look - and they have not left the solar system. To communicate inter-solar distances would require massive concentrated EM bursts with energy draw on a Kardashev type 1+ scale.

Loving strange food or: how I learned to stop being picky and love food:


Like most Americans, I used to hold some self-evident beliefs about food:

The three dogmas of the food phobiac:


There are foods I “like” and foods I “dislike” and I ought to stick to the things that I like.
The better something tastes, the more unhealthy it must be and vice versa. You must choose between a long life of disgusting food or indulge yourself and die early.
There is a value hierarchy for all the edible parts of any animal. For example, top sirloin is the ideal for beef. There’s a similar value hierarchy for animals themselves. Decisions about which animal and which part of the animal to eat are therefore a simple cost/benefit equation.

Two things completely changed by attitude on food: getting married, and moving to China.

The psychology of taste

Our perception of taste is closely associated with our memories of things such as the taste of past meals, our emotional states, and sensory associations with similar foods. We come to associate foods with sensory reactions based on many factors such as familiarity, the quality of most meals, the people we were with, etc. By dissociating taste as such from negative experiences we can learn to appreciate food for its inherent taste, without emotional baggage. We can learn to prefer the taste of healthy foods by the same process.

Sensory integration therapy for food phobiacs

The first step to fixing food phobias is to recognize the problem: it’s not OK to exclude foods because of food sensitivities. All the “most hated” American foods are delicious when prepared properly. Having recognized the problem, here is the program that worked for me:

The strategy is to gradually introduce foods in different settings, gradually building exposure and positive associations with certain foods. For example, when my wife learned that I hated zucchini, she gradually introduced it into my diet starting with small amounts balanced by other flavors, and growing to having zucchini be the dominate ingredient. Here is what she cooked:





Stuffed peppers with zucchini and sausage
Potato and zucchini frittata
Roasted vegetable meatloaf with zucchini
Grated zucchini topped with marinara
Lasagna with zucchini noodles
Zucchini gratin
Zucchini latkes
Zucchini fried in butter with onions
Parmesan crusted fried zucchini


The same program was used for eggplant, brussel sprouts, avocados, cabbage, and okra. Once I learned to appreciate food for its taste and texture of foods rather than negative associations and new textures, it was no longer necessary to disguise the ingredients. When I have a negative reaction to something, I isolate the components of the food (source, flavor, smell, texture) and think about which aspect I reacted to. Oftentimes I react to negative memories and associations and not the food itself. Consciously understanding that a negative reaction has no rational basis is often enough to overcome it.


The importance of ceremony



The ceremonial aspect of dining is very important when learning to appreciate food. If you merely try to inhale as many calories as quickly as possible, any unusual tastes will be an unpleasant distraction. A proper sit-down meal is required to take the time to really analyze the taste of foods and form new positive sensory-conceptual associations to replace the old negative ones.




A cosmopolitan attitude to dining



One of the main differences between the Chinese diet and the Western diet is that the entire animal is considered edible. Whereas Americans stuff everything other than “choice” cuts into burgers, sausages, and McNuggets, the Chinese proudly consume the head, claws, organs, and other miscellaneous parts of animals as delicacies. This is not because they’re poorer – the head and feet are the most expensive parts of the animal. Neither do they restrict themselves to a few “blessed” animals – the entire animal kingdom is on the menu.

The difference is that of the food elitist versus that of the food connoisseur. The elitist believes that only a narrow socially accepted list of foods is good enough for him. The connoisseur is an explorer, who uses his palate as the universe-expanding sensory organ it was meant to be. The elitist lives within the small dietary-social circle he was born into. The connoisseur traverses the biological and cultural realms.

The approach I now take to eating new things now is exploratory one. Instead of responding with “like” or “dislike” I try to understand the flavor components and texture of food. I appreciate meals from many perspectives – sensory, anatomical, social, and historical, to fully integrate it with my worldview.




Note: I have found that adopting a Paleo diet enhances flavor discrimination. For example, a carrot is actually quite sweet and delicious to eat raw, but a typical carb-addict wouldn’t know it.


None of this is to claim attitude alone will make everything taste good. Meals must be prepared skillfully to taste good. The notion I want to dispel is that taste is either genetic or set by undecipherable psychological factors we cannot affect. Human culture has a rich history of many culinary traditions and we ought to learn to appreciate them without emotional baggage or provincial bias.




Original entry: See link at top of this post