How I Started to Hate Pink Color

How do children (and also people in general) decide what kind of clothes they like? People don’t pick their favorite outfits in a cultural vacuum. They don’t figure out how to clothe themselves from scratch. Instead, they look at what their peers are wearing. Sometimes, they also look at what some role model like, for example, a movie star, is wearing. Never mind advertisements. Fashion companies market specific clothes directly to children, and corporations wouldn’t be spending so much money on marketing to kids if it wasn’t effective. [Read more…]

How to Reduce the Amount of (Plastic) Waste You Produce

Modern lifestyles result in people creating a lot of waste. Plastic waste from single use items and packaging. Food waste. Last generation iPhones. Electronics that are actually broken and cannot be repaired or recycled (often due to planned obsolescence). Clothes that were worn for a couple of times and then thrown out. I believe that human societies should change how we live towards something more environmentally friendly. Those are the kind of lifestyle changes that must be simultaneously done by a significant portion of the society in order to make a difference, but individuals can still try to do at least something. [Read more…]

The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread: How Consumer Demand for Convenience Increases Food Waste

The idiom “greatest thing since sliced bread” always felt odd for me. I am not a native English speaker; I learned the language when I was already in my teens. And this idiom clashed with the cultural background in which I had grown up. In my opinion, sliced bread is a pretty terrible idea, there’s nothing great about it. When you compare another invention with sliced bread, you are basically saying that this new thing is just as terrible as sliced bread. Here’s the problem: I was raised to not waste food and not spend extra money on packaging and convenience-enhancing processing methods that don’t really save that much time anyway. I mean, sliced bread requires more packaging and it tends to cost a bit more even though for me slicing my own bread only takes a couple of seconds and it is not hard at all. [Read more…]

Different Responses to a Global Pandemic

Some countries have dealt with COVID-19 much better than others. With quarantine, social distancing, and good healthcare it is possible to significantly reduce the number of dead people. Politicians and the healthcare system can make a huge difference. Some countries have done a pretty good job. Others (hint: the USA) have been absolutely terrible. I believe that at this point it is possible for me to argue that the USA has the worst politicians and the worst healthcare system among all the developed countries. [Read more…]