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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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There was a bit I read once, possibly even on Slate Star Codex, that went a bit like this:

Person A: I don't want to eat (food item), it has too many chemicals in it.

Person B: I don't understand what you mean. Everything we eat is composed of chemicals - even water is a chemical!

Commentary from blogger: But, of course, B is being deliberately pedantic, and knows perfectly well that A is objecting to ingredients with complicated names that nobody uses in home cooking and most people don't even know what they are, e.g. sodium benzoate.

It seems like you're being Person B here? Yes, "chemicals" and "processed" are technically overbroad, but they work pretty well for normies to communicate concepts like, "this category of food tends to be low in fiber, high in added sugar and salt, and has good odds of being designed by food scientists to be as tasty and un-satiating as possible so you'll eat more of it per sitting and thus spend more money buying more of it".

B knows what A is gesturing at, but doesn't know what A means because A doesn't either, and that's the point of the objection.