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The [Potato] Hunger Games

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My apologies in advance for the “SEO Brilliance” in the title

In what world would it be appropriate where, owing to the cheapness, ease and availability of of cheap carbohydrates, industrial oils, and soy protein, folks would see the light and discover a whole food paradigm…but then spurn potatoes because it’s not low carb?

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CARBS!

It is about the carbs, a lot. It’s also about a lot of other stuff. It’s mostly about food engineering and marketing that in a land of plenty and cheap, you can pertty much eat all you want, when you want and that—THAT—is really the fundamental cause of obesity. Because almost any metabolically normal person could, with focussed effort, maintain a lean body comp on junk. I did it in my 20s. Lost 10-15 pounds on McDonald’s and going hungry….I had noticed that my Navy Khaki’s that were issued in Rhode Island as a Midshipman did not fit quite right almost 3 years later when I went to work for real. I got leaner at at 22, felt a lot better psychologically (connect dots).

But this is 30 years later for me. The general life damage was long since done: life, work, leisure…eventually not having to preen for pussy—and all the other stuff that got in the way year by year. And then, one day: I reached my own level of outrage.

Fast forward to now. paleo / Ancestral—just plain real food—is fantastic. And a potato is a real food. It just is. It grows in the ground, you dig it up, and you can eat it with little intervention. And it’s way easier to skin than a cat.

I haven’t measured my blood glucose once. In fact, I haven’t done that in years. I feel good eating a lot of potatoes mostly by themselves. Last night I had two, mashed, with some beef stock, reduced to thicken (zero fat, if it matters)…1.5 oz of roast beef chopped and added to the stock. It’s more than 16 hours later. I’m fine. Will eat soon. Took 6 hours after that 7pm meal to get tired enough to go to bed. But “I need to measure BG?” …And I don’t need to, should I happen to eat a 12-16 oz prime rib, baked potato with all the fixings and a salad smothered in blue cheese…and 2 hours later, I’m in a coma?

Occam’s razor?

This is just food. Probably the simpler you make it, the more one-off you make it, the less adverse consequences you’re going to feel. For example, I can eat just meat until I’m full, same result. Combine a lot of carb, protein & fat? Nope. It’s essentially scales of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner all year round when you do that, and it feels like shit to me and I’ll be goddamned that I still do it now & then. Do the same thing, but in extremely modest portions? I feel wonderful. That, and a toke or two of marijuana will have Robert & I kicking Bea and Julie’s asses in spades until 2 am, easy.

My conclusion? It’s partly about volume, partly about volume in the context of a lot of fat & protein with a lot of carbs. Single out macros in a real food context and that works too.

…But please don’t go all doctrinal on me. That’s why I highlighted Gene’s comment in the last post. Completely unexpected—and I had an email exchange or two with obesity researcher, Dr. Stephan Guyenet, about this potato hack—Stephan got a bit riled, which I don’t begrudge in the slightest; and if truth be told, love it. Try it. Like it. I also had no idea he had blogged about Poutine last Friday which was referenced in the comment; so yea, I got a bit Pwned there but it’s fine.

This commenter Gene is emblematic of the flippant, macho attitude toward understanding ancestral diets that is common in this community.

The argument about hunter-gatherers having sumptuous feasts eating aurochs is absurd. First of all, if you believe in the evolutionary logic behind the paleo diet, then you believe that we evolved mostly in African eating African game, which tends to be extremely lean (though there were other sources of fat such as nuts). Second, even if we did feast on relatively fatty megafauna for a couple thousand years before driving it to extinction in Europe (though there is actually no evidence whatsoever addressing the question of how much fat our ancestors ate during that relatively brief time), that does not mean the food was overall highly rewarding, give me a break! Imagine eating a meal that consisted mostly of unsalted, unseasoned, tough, possibly gamey, meat with no intramuscular fat (a characteristic of modern breeds) but lots of subcutaneous fat. Yeah, careful not to max out your food reward there. Third, we don’t even know that those HGs eating megafauna in Europe were our ancestors.

The comment on the Kitavans is particularly bizarre. The Kitavan diet is low in fat and low-ish in protein, 69% carbohydrate, and is mostly plain steamed/baked starch foods (cooked in an earth oven), in more recent times with a few flavorings such as ginger or chili pepper. Sometimes they do use grated coconut or coconut cream in their cooking, mixing it with the starches, but at a total fat intake of only 21% of kcals, how much grated coconut do you think they’re eating? Common sense please. The Kitavan diet is not the hedonic extravaganza the commenter makes it out to be. The average Westerner would not find the Kitavan diet particularly exciting, but it would certainly be considered more palatable than what most hunter-gatherers eat.

Gene said “I just don’t buy that it’s necessary, nor appropriate to our being to have to spend our days deliberately making our food as bland as possible – as though all of our taste and olafactory senses, and their links to our reward system were there by accident or as some kind of Devil-sent temptation”. This is 100% straw man. Who said we need to “spend our days deliberately making our food as bland as possible”? That seems a far cry from acknowledging that reward/palatability is a factor in food intake and body fatness.

The argument based on religion (“Judeo-Christian self-flagellation”) is nothing more than a cheap rhetorical trick. I suppose he thinks the research on food reward was funded by the Vatican, or perhaps that Christian fundamentalists changed the results of these experiments to trick us into thinking that food reward is relevant. Give me a break.

Making up just-so stories and arguing based on philosophy/religion is always more fun than taking a critical look at the evidence from a position of scientific knowledge, but it only leads to confusion.

Probably, that’ll be the last comment like that I’ll be lucky enough to get from someone I have as much esteem for as I do of Stephan. On the other hand, he’s known me and read my blog—and we’ve chatted in person—enough over the years to have no illusions about me. So, having been delighted by him, it would be untoward of me to not reciprocate in kind. Just the way I do shit.

I count myself lucky for having motivated Stephan to go there. Do you have any idea what a temendous value Stephan has been to me, this blog, and by extension, readers over the years? Without a doubt, I have linked to him more than anyone else and why? Because he did very good posts about many primitive societies doing very well on a wide range of diet—from the almost all meat & fat Inuit & Massai, to the high carb Kitavan and Kuna, and much in between. And how about his huge series on the Tokelauans? You know, the super healthy island population that gets about 50% of their whole calories from saturated fat? That link gives you the links to all 8 parts of his series.

I’m not a Stephan basher and it’s difficult to imagine I ever will be. I have my very own sense of propriety in the actions that span a lifetime, I rarely consider small trivial ones, and I always count on character to win out in the end. Call me an optimist. So how did I respond? Here.

“This commenter Gene is emblematic of the flippant, macho attitude toward understanding ancestral diets that is common in this community.”

Perhaps. That really doesn’t draw any conclusion as to whether that’s 1) a good thing (you’re just assuming it’s not) or, 2) a logical and well deserved backlash to the morass of bad science that is the root cause of perpetuating the obesity epidemic (I’m drawing a distinction between origination and perpetuation).

Occam’s razor, a bit? After all these decades and all the research, it’s not crazy to ask the question: would we have been better off in terms of increasing obesity if nary one single scientist had ever looked at it, one media outlet had ever promoted them, one university—or food company that makes earmarked donations to universities—ever funded them? I think it’s an excellent question.

Obesity research, in terms of _effectiveness_, has been a dismal—actually, laughable—failure. Top to bottom and wall to wall. One may argue that obesity researchers do now have the (or many/most) right answers, but that the right message is not being delivered, whatever. Fine, then stop researching and shut up. Eh? Go find work that at least shows some results. We’re talking DECADES, here. Decades of abject failure.

I say this as someone who actually does find merit in the reward/palatability thing and I have no doubt that obesity is primarily a multi-factoral (based on individuals) result of:

  1. eating too much
  2. too often
  3. of foods designed and engineered to entice eating too much and too often

But this is not really a characteristic of ribs, ribeye steaks, prime rib or many/most other real foods for most people when eaten in the context of an overall real food diet regardless of individual macronutrient ratios.

And you know this, Stephan. You’ve seen what tremendous benefits the Paleo/Ancestral movement has bestowed upon tons and tons of people over the last five years. It puts obesity researchers in short pants. Sorry, but it does. Yep, all these silly bloggers out there doing not only what the research community has failed to do for decades, but has arguably made worse.

Gene’s comment would be a perfect target for your criticism were it aimed at a group of Weight Watchers or any other group punishing themselves with various forms of crap in a box, denying themselves the pleasure of eating well—and he was admonishing them to raid the bakery and live it up.

Instead, his comment was in the context of a paleo group where people are trying to decide whether to eat potatoes plain, or with a bit of butter, salt, fat, etc.

And so after due consideration, I find your criticism pretty non-sequitur.

I hope everyone judges and evaluates that however they would. My indictment of obesity research is not directed at Stephan—he’s only been at it a short while formally. But I stand by it nonetheless.

There are a few things that puzzle me; so I’ll put them in bullets.

  • It is seems to me that reward/palatability is ultimately a study of psychology. Sure, you can deconstruct to biochemistry, but you’re still talking about psychology, because not everyone is susceptible to the marketing, reward, palatability, et al (chemicals, or hormones, are individual).
  • Stephan, in his comment, attempts to make the case that paleoman generally had an unrewarding or unpalatable food existence in comparison to us. But, context? He couldn’t call up a pizza. He was not 3 minutes away from a drive through. A 7/11 with microwave burritos was nowhere to be had and he didn’t have a freezer stocked with ice cream and convenience food…from freezer to table in 10. So, if you’re actually going to try to integrate paleoman into FRP, then do all of it. Oh, and oh…yea, how about a paper that honestly accounts for cannibalism in a FRP paradigm? …When you are hungry, cold and poorly sheltered, have trepidation about the next meal and from where it will come, gamey meat just might be psychologically rewarding and palatable. Y’think?
  • …Otherwise, please explain how all that FRP thingyness evolved in humans, please. Or, are you going to asset that we evolved a mechanism that we never commonly experienced, yet selected for in survival and reproduction…
  • I wait for a first sign that obesity research will morph into a measured trend where simple real food, ancestral methods, etc., will be emphasized. At it stands now, I cannot imagine current obesity research leading to anything but a quest for new drugs…perhaps even engineered “foods” that satisfy all aspects of FRP, but only for a short time; at which point the time-released engineered chemicals take sway and you feel like you just had a big ribeye steak.

Stephan knows what the real solution to obesity is. I’m banking on the fact that he’ll make a mark somewhere, sometime. When and if he does, there will be those like me who knew he’d do it eventually. Others will call it redemption…because when they got a PhD in biology and went to work for a respected obesity research lab, they all immediately—after proclaiming their principled resistance publicly—tossed their lean weight all over the place, told the media to fuck off, and changed the world within the space of a year. In that, Stephan ought hang his head in shame…had it happened.

…Yep, Stephan also had the option to just shut up on his blog. Sure, he could have lost that important social influence while working from zero on zero where he was. Good Choice!

He also had the option to add more perspectives of hypothesis and knowledge to what interested parties such as you and I already knew or suspected. Now, he’s in the belly of the beast. And we get a free front row seat. I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, while at the same time, I can be shocked at the raw, never-done-anything-much presumptuousness of almost everyone else.

Entitlement is a fucking epidemic.

I’ll finish with this. I have never once been offended, threatened, or in the slightest sort been taken aback or perturbed by a thing Stephan has ever said. In the end, this may be my most important point. I have never thought that by his posts on reward/palatability, he was doing a thing to make his readers care less about real food.

Quite the contrary.

The Potato Diet Hack – Observations

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People seem to be going at this from at least two different approaches, angles, perspectives, or however you care to characterize it.

…Back when I caught wind of all this, there was a discussion going in comments at Ray Cronise’s blog, as well as a forum thread or two at Mark’s Daily Apple. Other than a quick browse one day of a few posts at MDA, I have stayed completely away from all those discussions. Why? Well, I don’t have a lab or resources to do any sort of tightly controlled science. It’s all about my n=1 and the n=1 of each commenter here who shares their experience.

I also think there’s a good scientific vibe associated with a number of people going at essentially the same or a similar thing from different angles, approaches—dare I say…biases? I basically had the elements I needed to go at it from my own angle:

  1. Chris Voigt‘s 20 Potatoes a Day experiment.
  2. Peter’s speculation as to how this worked (low fat and protein being key)

I was getting enough anecdotes all in the same direction, that it seemed worth taking a serious look at. But from my own angle. Here’s what I wrote in the first post:

In essence, it seems as though if you eat only potatoes you will have a very difficult time eating enough to maintain body weight—so long as they aren’t dressed up with a lot of stuff like butter, sour cream, bacon…or deep fried. Apparently, people have been reporting weight loss of 1/2-1 pound per day on these diets without hunger. There might be a gut flora element to the deal as well.

OK, but how about if you could make them a bit more palatable with only a small addition of other calories, but still achieve a similar result? This is what I aim to find out.

Well, since I have not been following what others have been doing other than my own commenters here, I was unaware that apparently, there’s a bit of dissension in paradise over what this is all about or, at least, ought to be about. I’m not getting into personalities or sources. I’m just going to stick to my approach.

As I gist it, there are two basic approaches:

  1. Keep it to nearly plain potatoes, as unpalatable as possible, no added fat, let your gut bacteria change to suit that regime and change relationships to food. Or, to state it plainly: the perspective coming from a plant based-diet bias.
  2. Accept that in some undetermined measure, humans are generally OK with starch, and an interesting hack or self-experiment might be to go mostly starch via potatoes for a time, making dishes just palatable enough to retain some enjoyment from them. This involves the addition of very small amounts of added protein & fat (and herbs & spices). Or, to state it plainly: the perspective coming from an animal based-diet bias. (that would be me).

I don’t think it takes a lot of analysis to conclude that my approach is actually the more radical one given the starting point. It’s simply that potatoes or similar root vegetables are the ideal food for this sort of thing because they have a good amino profile and are very filling. On the other hand, as big a shift as this is for someone like me and most other Paleos, I have ZERO interest in a plant based diet. Zero. Forever. It is something that I consider scientifically settled (we’re omnivores, are supposed to be omnivores, and if there is any such thing as “ideal,” it’s to be found somewhere on that spectrum of eating everything that’s real food).

What does that mean? It means that there will never be good science to conclude that humans ought to derive most energy from potatoes or similar starches, or plants in general. Even in my first post, I showed clearly that just the addition of a simple 1.8oz of beef liver radically upped the nutrition profile for an entire day of potatoes.

So I ask you: what would be the real point of excluding that liver, or similar bits of nutrient dense animal food? I could not imagine pegging it on anything but an agenda. And how about fat? I’ve been talking about 1 teaspoon of whatever fat per potato. Hardly earth shattering. Hardly a lot.

Alright, I’ll conclude with a comment this morning from Gene. Says it all.

I don’t believe we evolved to not enjoy our food to some – perhaps even a significant – degree. This quasi-monastic vibe you get from *some* of the reward/palatability crowd has the whiff of Judeo-Christian self-flagellation about it.

That said, we evolved in conditions when the satisfaction of that desire for reward required more work. However, if we supply the work in the form of exercise and movement, as well as satisfying mental undertakings, I don’t see the need to pull out the dietary whips on ourselves.

Fuck the monks. Love, move, work, fuck and eat with exuberance. Get/be strong and don’t demure. That’s how you fulfill your genetic potential; by being vibrant, gregarious and feeding on the bounty of life without self admonishment and concern that a slight misstep here or there on the nutritional path is going to significantly diminish your life expectancy. As though we’re delicate little things that aren’t built to survive a little punishment now and again.

“Oh noes! The poutine is too rewarding!” Shut the fuck up and eat it, you fucking gimp. And enjoy it to the last little bit of greasy gravy-soaked curd you lick from your fingers. Just the way a hunter-gatherer would’ve gorged on fatty, highly palatable aurochs marrow and ribs (http://news.discovery.com/history/ancient-barbeque-aurochs-110627.html), wasting no time after the kill to satisfy their desire for food reward. I bet the dopamine and serotonin were flowing that night. Probably a couple of babies made, too.

As most people have noticed, the more that most people eat whole, real foods, the more our bodies send out satiation signals, naturally moderating appetite and consumption. Sure, we live in a time of plenty, so there are times when we may have to exercise a little restraint with food beyond the constraints of a whole foods diet. But I just don’t buy that it’s necessary, nor appropriate to our being to have to spend our days deliberately making our food as bland as possible – as though all of our taste and olafactory senses, and their links to our reward system were there by accident or as some kind of Devil-sent temptation. Ever whipped up some SWEET potato with super FATTY coconut milk like the Kitavans? Don’t tell me that’s not wholly satisfying to the reward system. It’s positively more-ish. And don’t forget to light up a fag when you’re done.

Less Christ. Less Aristotle. Screw the Stoics. More Epicure, more Neitzsche, more Ikkyu, more getting on with it and doing it with the sort of joy and gusto you see on the faces of people who don’t spend their time trying to figure out how to disable/workaround the parts of us that evolved specifically so we can enjoy things. Silly bitches.

And so, I reiterate: this potato thingie is a hack! Nothing more. Should never, ever be more and I believe it would cause long term harm to health to make it more than a short term hack and then a long term intermittent tool (like intermittent fasting).

There will never be any valid science that humans ought to be vegan or mostly so. It would be like looking for science that a car would be better off as an airplane. It’s just non-sequitur: properly dismissed out-of-hand with zero consideration. And even if in some 5th dimension there was such valid science, then in the spirit of Gene, I’m reverting to the old saying: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!”

My next post on the topic will show a couple of other recipes I’ve come up with.

Memo to Carb-Insane-Asylum: Here’s My AHS Presentation in Video (Choke on it)

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In August of 2011, the inaugural Symposium of the Ancestral Health Society kicked off on the beautiful campus of UCLA. Offhand, there were about 40 presenters from across the globe, many sporting decades of achievement in fields surrounding health and well-being—all from a human evolutionary standpoint. And then there was me.

Why was I presenting amongst this Who’s Who? Uh, probably because I put forth a lot of effort on this blog to promote it from day one, and had done a lot to promote Paleo/Ancestral in general. Big surprise, eh? Go figure. I continued to promote the Society and Symposium, as well as the underlying mindset and lifestyle in general, and by great fortune, was welcomed back to present a 2nd time. AHS12 took place on the prestigious campus at Cambridge: Harvard University, School of Law.

None of this would have happened had I, instead, sought to tear down anything and everything virtually everyone else but me was doing…attempting to elevate myself…not through the promotion of valiant efforts by others—errors here & there & all—but by seeking an easy, lazy route to self-importance by tearing down those values created by others.

One person’s effort to get Nikoley out of AHS

From: Evelyn aka CarbSane
Date: Thu, May 24, 2012 at 2:56 PM
Subject: Richard Nikoley and AHS12
To: Aaron Blaisdell , Brent Pottenger

Hello Sirs!

I’m not sure whether Brent is familiar with me, but I do believe Aaron and I have had (cordial to my recollection) exchanges on the PaleoHacks website.  My name is Evelyn  Kocur and I blog at My Carb Sane-Asylum.

While the majority of the content on my blog is analysis of peer review nutrition literature, I’m probably most notorious for my outspoken criticisms of various low carb advocates, especially Gary Taubes.  I think if either of you take an unbiased look at my blogging (rather than relying on characterizations of it), it should become clear that my criticisms are backed by the science as we know it and not personal character assassinations.  Still, I cannot hold my tongue that I think it is an abomination that jimmy moore is going to be moderating the Safe Starch debate or that Jack Kruse is (I can only hope was?!) to be on that panel.  If the purpose is a serious consideration of the benefits/drawbacks of starch content of the diet, it would behoove the Foundation to cast panels with some expertise in the matter.  Is there a biochemist in the bunch?  Any scientist with training in the field?  It’s not like they don’t exist in the community (Wolf, Lalonde, me!). [emphasis added to exclamation]

Which brings me to the subject at hand. I have a ticket to AHS12 and thanks to generous donations by my readers, I’m able to attend.  My total cost to attend will be around $1000, and this would be far more if I weren’t road-trip “local” and had to fly. I’ve made this commitment to attend your conference and many of my readers have donated to this specific cause. […]

As if Kruse’s actions were not bad enough, they were certainly compounded by one Richard Nikoley. […]

I suppose there’s some logic by which a Loren Cordain type (note, not Loren, but someone of his stature in the community) might be afforded some leeway in their personal behavior were they to be this sort of certifiable misogynistic jerk. But what does Richard Nikoley bring to the table? He IS a blogger. Therefore this sort of behavior on his blog goes directly to whatever “value” there is to having him speak at AHS12.

As a paying attendee and the target of his vile actions, I request you disinvite this man from speaking.  I’ve said on my blog, and feel very strongly, AHS12 and the community as a whole would be better served watching 20 minutes of webcam footage from the Bronx Zoo.

I decided not to bother to submit my own proposed talk for AHS12 on early reports that many “in” folks were turned away. […]

…But if you value the integrity of your organization, please consider weeding out the Richard Nikoley’s in your midst.  He has no business presenting at such a conference.

Word I got is that she got no response from AHS organizers to this. What is known is that I attended, delivered my presentation for the 2nd consecutive year to a good audience (even though in the other speaking venue, I was up against the multiple sclerosis self-“cured” physician and TED Talk extraordinaire, Terry Wahls), and that even after all that, CarbInsaneAsylum did not attend, citing “scheduling conflicts.”

I win.

I won’t bore you with the number of her posts in the aftermath that wined on and on about it all, a clear record in pure volume for anyone who’s never actually attended an event.

30960400
 

Alright…</gloating>.

So here’s the presentation. Runs about 17 minutes. Yea, I’ve been doing the Anarchy Begins at Home series, up to Part 7 just yesterday; but here’s a completely encapsulated version. Check it out. I usually hate the videos of my presentations, but I’m satisfied here—perhaps 20 minutes is perfect for me. I always begin my preparation the early morning of actually giving it, do a dry run immediately prior, then give it. I want it honest, fresh, genuine…not too contrived or too clever.

Richard Nikoley—Paleo Epistemology and Sociology from Ancestral Health Society on Vimeo.

AHS has just put out the call for presentation submissions for AHS13 in Atlanta next August. Deadline is January 15th, and while I have mostly leaned toward not doing it again, I’m leaving it open for consideration. I’ll chew on what value I might be able to bring and then decide definitively.

I wholeheartedly support the endeavor regardless. I support the investment every single presenter ever made to be there—in spite of nit-picks or serious disagreements I might have. I trust your brains to sort it out. I am not your authority. I’m your biggest cheerleader—and I always, always understand and know my place.

Be sure to browse the other presentations already up, of both 2011 and 2012, more coming every few days. Don’t take me, yourself, or anyone else too seriously. Take seriously the people who put this together. So, my thanks for Brent Pottenger and Aaron Blaisdell for the vision and execution. Thanks also to Calos Toro—who seems to be the on-ground executive BMOC, so far as I can tell; and his team. Thanks also to the Harvard video team who labored to record all of this, edit it and publish it. They have integrated the PP slides perfectly with the video of the presentation. Job well done.

…Now, see how easy that was, Insane? You ought to try it sometime and see if things roll your way more often.

Anarchy Begins at Home: The Blog Series Part 7 – The Quality of Paleolithic Social Power

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This is a blog post rendition of my 1-hr presentation at The 21 Convention in Austin, TX in August, right after I gave a 20-minute abbreviated version of same at the Ancestral Health Symposium, 2012, in Boston, at Harvard University School of Law.

Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. — Artistotle

I began this series writing about the quality of knowledge in a Paleolithic context;  i.e., animal tracks, weather, climate…all very real stuff. That was juxtaposed with the quality of knowledge in the Neolithic; i.e., bibles, priests, politicians, authority in general.

What’s interesting to me is that contrast or difference is only possible by virtue of society, and we’re social animals. Sure, if anyone wants to be Mountain Man, have at it, and you’re guaranteed to take the Paleolithic quality of knowledge as guide, should you wish to survive.

Screen Shot 2012 11 27 at 3 43 00 PM
Where are the guns? The police?

As social beings, we live our entire lives in a give-&-take scenario, by nature. So, in a hyperbolic sense, we’re “socialists” and “commies” at heart. That’s the root of the problem…no; actually, it’s not. The root of the problem is that the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived are of good heart morally—which is to say that they have distinguished between right & wrong generally, and in the vast swath of history, have willed themselves to make right most of the time. We would not exist, otherwise. Unfortunately, that essential virtue gets turned inside-out and is a bad combination with the foregoing socialism.

It does not scale beyond the evolutionary norm. Now let’s see why.

What happens when, as most people do, you treat a domesticated dog or cat as it ought to be treated? They’re universally lovers, in exchange for the love and care you bestow upon them. What happens when trailer trash morons take a pit bull and punish him, deprive him, and intend him to be mean?

You get a politician, except one more honest and direct. My point? We’re domesticated as well, being treated as trailer trash treats pit bulls. Fortunately, most humans are still of good heart virtue in spite of all catechisms…from holy books to federal statutes, all admonishing you to be a thief and murderer, by proxy. …Yep, you can put your claws and fangs away. God & State have it covered for you. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Screen Shot 2012 11 27 at 3 43 14 PM
Where’s the City Council?

In a scenario where your survival, happiness—the well being of your family in the face of nature—depended upon your efforts to success, combined with the efforts of a lot of others, you become socially mature, adept. Some are always more capable that others, some better suited to just do laborious things, and some forward looking, and a list would go on.

Ever noticed in any given family how over time, strengths and weaknesses shine through and everyone naturally gravitates to an equilibrium of contributing what they contribute best? How do you think hunter-gatherer groups managed to survive over aeons, migrating the globe from equator to arctic, sea level to thousands of feet…no 7/11, McDonald’s, Mega-Market or election of their next King in sight?

Screen Shot 2012 11 27 at 3 43 26 PM
Talking about the next election, or something important?

Yep, it’s primitive. The fallacy is in concluding that their simple social system is the cause of their primitivity. It’s not. They simply didn’t contemplate agriculture. Every single comfort you have rests squarely upon the technological domestication of grains and animals.

The people in all of these pics have one thing in common: none of them have a single thing worth stealing.

But agriculture and animal domestication was the single biggest boon to humanity ever, and you really can’t fault anyone for that. It has given us everything materially—not least of which is leisure, pure pleasure in life, down time, vacations, and so on.

Screen Shot 2012 11 27 at 3 43 38 PM
“And then, I shot that politician right through the neck.” (He had no heart)

Where there is something to steal, you will have thieves.

…Protecting yourself from theft increases your costs. And what is the natural tendency? You socialize costs. That’s what we have done since we had brains big enough to know where to take a proper shit. It’s in our genes, as social animals. Families do it all the time and have, for all time. It’s all a give & take; everything is shared, both profit and loss. And, that is as absolutely essential for a group of 30-60 primitive people, as it is for a wolf pack.

But it doesn’t scale. See? It just does not scale, and it doesn’t for myriad reasons. You may not mind Korg from across the camp coming over and messing in your shit while you’re asleep, because he deems he needs it. You can always deal with him as the world turns. It’s a far cry from Guido messing with your shit at gunpoint because Judy and her kids, 3,000 miles away, need something. And of course, Guido get’s his cut, too. A simple example, but an enormously important distinction, because, guess what? We’re social animals. There is absolutely nothing social or even communal about you having to give even a runny shit about anyone but your own peeps you can look square in the eye.

It does not scale, and it never ever will. The fantasy that it can is actually even more pernicious than the “personal god” fantasy of child-adults. Shit, most “atheists” really only turned in their God badge for a terrestrial substitute in the form of the State. Just like the original commies.

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The Ultimate Social Power, Able to Take Down Generals

That was intended as a funny slide during the presentation, but it is quite interesting qua social power, when you consider the latest political BS.

Neolithic social power was as important as it needed to be, and was, because we’re here.

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It does not scale to thousands, millions, billions

Sorry, but it doesn’t. It never will.

We evolved from primates, not bees & ants. I have no idea what it is with so many people, that they seek a hive existence.

…In Part 8, we’ll have a very good laugh contrasting Paleolithic real social power with the laughably impotent Neolithic social impotence where people strut around pretending they have power. Yea, not just children. Actually, children instinctively know better. You have to be trained to be as stupid as you can possibly be.

~~~

Anarchy For Fun & Profit

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“Producing laws is not an easier problem than producing cars or food,” says David Friedman, author, philosopher, and professor at Santa Clara University. “So if the government’s incompetent to produce cars or food, why do you expect it to do a good job producing the legal system within which you are then going to produce the cars and the food?”

So as I wrote yesterday, regular blogging shall resume. I’m busy drafting, and the next post will be a continuation of the Anarchy Begins at Home series. That will focus on how in a Paleolithic context, we’re pretty much socialists and commies at heart (hyperbole alert!). Of course, there’s a twist…a twist I’ll show you.

To get you in the right mindset, get your outrage fired up, get your commie on—or whatever—for comments, I have an interesting little video that popped onto my radar screen just a bit ago. Reason TV entitles it: David Friedman on How to Privatize Everything. Bullshit title: because, the whole 7 minutes is about anarchy, through and through. Take a look.

David (webpage the same design since 1995 or so), son of Milton, looks great…I think. Actually, better than when I had a dinner with him—at he and his wife’s favorite Chinese restaurant, circa ’95…so 17 years ago. David was on Usenet where I met him, read his longstanding anarcho-capitalist tract, The Machinery of Freedom (now free on the web, PDF as well as mobi), argued, etc.

I always liked David primarily for his intellectual honesty. In the context of an academic, he has the rare disposition of a practiced humility and skeptic of even his own ideas—but not skepticism to the point of impotence. He simply never overstates, never appeals to the authority of Milton, etc. Here was his 11/16/2006 post on his blog the day his dad died.

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David Friedman’s blog Eulogy of his father, Milton Friedman

I part with others who insist David and Milton’s epistemology, principles, whatever…are not as I would prefer.

Above all, I aced accounting classes in college. Get it? I never overly focus on one side or the other of a balance sheet, or a profit and loss. I’m a bottom line guy, and there is simply no such thing as a bottom line all about pluses—except in religious fantasies or other ideologies that demand rigid adherence and allegiance to principles, regardless of how good or valid such principles might be.

In the end, we’re all fallible, frustrating, sidetracked and…human; and rule number one is dealing with that reality.

Uwe Nikoley: Tough Mudder at 65

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My dad’s “baby” brother, Uwe (pronounced ‘oovah’).

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Uwe Nikoley

He was the youngest of 6 children when they came over on the USS General Hersey in 1952 and bussed it from Ellis Island to Reno, NV where their sponsor lived, and where I was born 9 years later. He did the Tough Mudder earlier this year and made it through very well.

Back when I was in my 20s, he did the Western States 100, from Squaw Valley to Auburn, CA—over the top. He may have done it more than once. In terms of credentials, he has a bachelors in nuclear engineering and a masters in electrical. he knows a lot about good food, gourmet preparation, world class wine.

But in the end, look at what he looks like, 2 months out from his 65th birthday. That’s just a win. …I believe Pepper, the doggie, is about 14. Takes one to know one, I guess.

…I have just commissioned my dad, who’ll be 75 right before I turn 52, to write up an essay about how he almost starved to death in post WWII Germany. Potatoes saved him. 


Aren’t We All Suckers for a Great Inspirational Story?

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I am.

That’s pretty much in the Must Watch category. Hell, I didn’t even take time to vet it to make sure I wasn’t being pwned. Then again, I saw Life of Pi over the holiday and enjoyed being pwned by a nonetheless good story.

Regular blogging to resume shortly.

Update: Here’s a 2-minute Good Morning America story on Arthur Boorman.

Diamond Dallas Page Helps Arthur Boorman with DDP Yoga- Good Morning America (SD) from Dallas Page on Vimeo.

Another Quick & Easy Hash Brown Potato Method and Potato Diet Speculations

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It’s of great interest and intrigue to me to explore the depths of this deal, so for right now, the blog has been almost exclusively about this potato diet deal, or “hack” as I prefer calling it: because I don’t consider it a long term deal; probably a month or two.

A few days back I did some hash browns using a sandwich griller (a George Foreman would work too). Pretty easy, but here’s another method that in terms of getting crispiness is really quick.

Ingredients

  • 3 potatoes, peeled, & grated
  • 1/4 of an onion, chopped
  • 3 teaspoons butter or fat of choice
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • Malt vinegar
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Once the potatoes are grated, put them all on a plate and into the nuker. Nuke on high until the steam coming off them begins to diminish. This took about 10 minutes for 3 grated potatoes. For those who’ve done hash browns the traditional way, you know how long it can take to get the high water content out. Here, it’s all automatic.

While that’s going on, sauté the onion in your butter.

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Lay the microwave potatoes on top of the onions and butter. Add some salt to the top (or, you can just wait and go with taste). I gave it a pretty liberal shaking and just a dusting of pepper. While I almost never use non-stick pans, I have one around just for such applications, especially when not cooking with a lot of fat, and the hash is already somewhat desiccated. This is a recipe for a huge stick to the pan problem.

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Separately, I had this other pan on the flame to get it hot, then I used it as a press and then let it sit there until time to flip. Just use a hot pad on top to get a good press on.

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Slicing it into quarters made the flipping easy. I’m pretty good at just a pan flip of the whole deal, but didn’t want to risk a big break up on this first try. As you can see, the onions are nice & toasted while the potatoes, nice & brown.

Serve it with malt vinegar, which I dash on somewhere between skimpy and liberally. You can also salt to taste. It just sends it over the top for me. It’s like a plate of fish & chips, and you don’t even need to do the chips.

I ate about 2/3 of it (2 potatoes worth) and Beatrice ate the other third. We’re both stuffed. This was about 10:30 AM and neither of us had had a morsel since the mashed potatoes and fat-free gravy last night at 7 PM.

OK, now onto some musings and speculation. On that mashed potato post last night, Marie comments:

Richard, today (after 5 days) still losing apace, total is down 2.8 lbs.

Once I could verify that there is a bit of latitude with the fat and protein so that it’s actually enjoyable for more than a few days, I feel I can recommend it to family members, since it’s also nutritionally sound…especially with the liver that you had pointed out at the start.

Of course, even without the little extra fat and protein, potatoes are nutritionally decent, at least for the short term – a ‘hack’ as you say.

I’m fascinated by the thermodynamic ‘dissonance’ (no way can lose approx. 0.6 lbs/day on avg. 550C deficit), so looking forward to Ray Cronise eventually being able to release his results.

I’ll have to stop when I’ve lost 8 lbs, I can’t really afford to lose more weight than that, but at that point I’d be fairly sure there isn’t just a 3-4lb ‘starter’ effect (even though on other diets that effect is usually water and, er, ‘bulk’, which shouldn’t apply here with ~2 lbs of potatoes).

So here’s some of my random musings & speculations.

  • A 2.8 lb loss is about 10,000 kcal of energy, yet she has only restricted about 3,000 calories, so she should have lost only about a pound. What gives? Other people report similar results, a loss that’s orders of magnitude more than the calories restricted. Peter at Hyperlipid did suggest one mechanism, that of body fat being needed to feed pancreatic beta cells to produce insulin to keep blood glucose in line. Perhaps that’s what’s going on, or part of it.
  • It’s hard to believe it’s water. For one, people report consistent weight loss, not just in the first few days as in a VLC or ketogenic diet where you’re depleting glycogen and then peeing out the 3 grams of water per gram of glycogen depletion you no longer need. I for one have found myself decidedly not thirsty. Normally, I drink about 2-3 liters per day of sparkling water. Now, about 1/2 liter per day, and I no longer wake up in the middle of the night thirsty.
  • I have bouts of heat radiation from hands & feet, such as this morning after waking. It was low 60s in the house and my hands & feet are sweating. What’s that about? I hadn’t had a morsel of food in 12 hours.
  • I wrote that mashed potato post last evening right after dinner. Typically, with a plate of taters like that, I expect to be comatose in 1-2 hours, and quite possibly doze off if sitting in front of the TV. In this case, I blogged, then we waited for Sunday night football to wrap up, then watched the newest Spiderman film down in our dark & warm entertainment room that doesn’t even have windows. Both Bea & I were fully alert throughout and she almost always falls asleep during an evening movie like that (I kept asking if she was still awake). I hit the sac about 11:30 and it took longer than usual to fall asleep.

Unfortunately I seem to have more questions than answers but this is highly intriguing and becoming more so by the day. Perhaps the biggest mystery to me beyond the greater than expected weight loss is having steady, high energy after a huge load of carbs like that (2.5 potatoes last evening), and then this morning, 2 whole potatoes worth of hash browns a hour or so ago and still running strong. In scientific terms, isolating variables is a great way to figure stuff out. What I’m doing here is isolating carbohydrate and in this case, a special kind of carbohydrate in that while it has the high glycemic index I see so many folks up in arms about, it has a low glycemic load, i.e., quite a different thing when accounting for actual portion sizes. See:

GI chart
Glycemic Index / Serving Size in grams / Glycemic Load

Here’s a good explanation of GL vis-a-vis GI:

The Glycemic Index (GI) is a measure of the degree to which a carbohydrate is likely to raise your blood sugar (glucose) levels.  The scale is 0 to 100 (based on either white bread or glucose), with 0 being low and 100 being high.  The GI compares equal quantities of carbohydrates and provides a measure of carbohydrate quality but not quantity. So the drawback with GI ratings is that they are not based on commonly-consumed portion sizes of foods.

For example, only about 7% of a carrot is made up of are useable carbohydrates. But because a 50g carbohydrate content is employed as the standard measure for a GI rating of individual foods to show how fast blood sugar level are raised, a larger than normal food portion is used for the GI calculation.  In the case of carrots, for example, the amount is equivalent to 1.5 lbs – far more, of course, than people normally eat as a snack or part of a meal.

As a result, the GI rating often overstates relatively small carbohydrate content in a food item like a carrot.

The reverse is also true, i.e. the glycemic effects of foods containing a high percentage of carbs like bread, can often be understated under the GI system.

So, now that I know that for potatoes—at the least—I don’t get comatose, meaning: it’s not the carbohydrate in this form, even lots and lots of carbohydrate. That is called falsification and when something has been falsified, there is nothing more to see there (at least in my case, my wife’s, and anyone else experiencing the same). So, it’s either protein, fat, the combination (high carb along with high protein, fat, or both), overall meal size, or some complex combination of all the above. But it’s certainly not this kind of carbohydrate isolated as a near single variable (both fat & protein very low). Incidentally, I can eat meat only, a lot of it, and have the same zero problem, and same goes for very high fat, very low carb.

What’s my suspicion? If you’re going to pound carbs, keep the fat & protein very low. If you’re going to pound protein, fat, or both, keep the carbs very low.

Alright, now it’s your turn in comments.

Two More “Potato Diet” Dishes

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Simple Mashed Potatoes & Fat-Free / Gluten-Free Gravy

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Ingredients

  • 4 potatoes
  • 4 teaspoons butter
  • 1 quart beef stock (I use Kitchen Basics)
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 1/2 shallot, chopped
  • 6 crimini mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 rounded teaspoon potato starch
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Reduce your cup of red wine to nearly a syrup, add stock, shallots and mushrooms. Bring to a boil on high and reduce by half. Once reduced, strain out the shallot & mushroom, return to heat, bring back to a boil and introduce your potato starch in a cold water or cold beef stock slurry. Bring back to a boil & stir to thicken. Salt & pepper to taste (about a tsp of salt & half tsp of pepper for me).
  2. Peel potatoes, cut into large chunks, boil until a fork will pierce through with no effort and break the chunk in half. Strain the water, toss your butter in the bottom of the pan, return the potatoes and take a masher to them. Salt & pepper to taste (about 2 tsp salt and half tsp pepper for me).

And that’s it. The shallot & mushroom really make the sauce or gravy special. Typically, you’ll want to sauté those in butter first, but since we’re doing this the low fat way, I just tossed ’em directly into the stock reduction at the front end. Didn’t notice any difference.

I recommend eating it with a spoon. I had the equivalent of probably 2 1/2 potatoes and Beatrice one potato. We have some leftovers for breakfast.

Marie’s Fried Potato, Bacon, Mushroom, Roasted Garlic and Grape Tomato Extravaganza

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Marie writes:

See picture. Shouldn’t this be making me fat? And yet…. down 2.2 lbs this morning after 4 days of this diet.

On a caloric deficit of only about 500-600 C a day.

And I’m well hydrated (not thirsty, skin plump) as you’d expect from topped-up glycogen stores.

Plate:

  • 1.2 lbs microwaved then ‘fried’ potatoes in 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 4-5 marinated mushrooms
  • 3 grape tomatoes
  • 4-5 roasted garlic cloves
  • 3 slices bacon

Twice a day, but the other time no meat and a bit less potatoes, about 1 lb. Can’t handle more than a total of about 1.8 – 2.2 lbs a day. Sometimes instead of bacon, I use strips of liver (6oz) or strips of steak (4oz). First day was straight-up boiled potatoes, but still with the goodies.

So there you have it, 2 dishes and as you can see from Marie’s story, a bit more protein and a bit more fat doesn’t seen to have any adverse effect.

Here’s one more idea I did this afternoon, 1 potato. I think this has been mentioned by someone in comments somewhere. Nuke it for 5 minutes, then place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. It’ll be warm by this point, neither hot nor cold. Peel it by just using your fingernail to raise a piece and pull. Slice it about 1/4″ think, lay out on a plate and sprinkle liberally with salt. Then dash it with malt vinegar, not too much. Very, very tasty.

My Second Book Kicks Off

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Apparently due the very nice success with the beginner’s guide to weight & fat loss on a Paleo diet, my first book published last January and hugely updated a few months ago (there’s a 12-part video course, too, and includes the book), I got an email from my publisher, Hyperink, this morning under the title: “Let’s do another book.”

Richard – ready to do another book? ….We feel like—especially with our growing audience base—that a followup to FTA could do really well.

It’s pretty cool when you don’t have to do a book proposal, get an agent, toil forever for rejection after rejection as is so common in the traditional sphere. I deal directly with the CEO and founder of this venture-capital backed disruptive entry into new publishing. It’s also cool to still be one of their best sellers amongst their more that 1,500 published books, many authored by well known personalities.

They want to have it done in a few weeks. That’s why they’re hyper-ink. As usual, a team of me, a professional journalist, a junior editor and a senior editor. Around the clock for days and days and it get’s done.

While not totally worked out in terms of title and theme, it’s self empowerment in a far, far wider scope than just diet and weight loss. The essentials:

  1. The Manifesto (copied below and serves as the general outline)
  2. The Anarchy Begins at Home Series (still a few more parts to go on that, part 7 in draft now)
  3. Reams of references, notes, thoughts I have going back 20 years on all of this.

The paleo dietary part will be small, just a touch, because the 1st book covers that in detail. The real meat will be in the mental and social health aspects. So here’s the general outline, in case you didn’t see it when originally posted in 3 revisions: getting to this final with the help of LVX, a reader, commenter and damn fine thinker for a young girl gamer.

Physical Health

1. Human beings possess the ability to quickly change everything about themselves, their society, and often even important aspects of their physical environment. In the span of time humans have been on the planet, the Neolithic age is but a blink. Similarly, while it takes years, even decades, for individuals to become unhealthy and mentally numb, it will take much less time to reverse that. This is the most important thesis to internalize.

2. Humans are animals. The same forces of physiology, biology, climatology, geology, and sociology that determine health and prosperity throughout the animal kingdom apply equally to humans.

3. The key to being lean, strong, and healthy is in your head. There is no definite prescription or proscription that will work for everyone. You must craft your own diet, health and fitness paradigm from your own trial and error experience. You must learn to regulate your hunger and satiation. The burden is squarely on you. Modern institutions only want to sell you stuff. They don’t care about your belly or health. They care about their bottom line and your spending.

4. Non-human animals evolved to thrive in a great variety of environments worldwide. Humans, however, migrated across the globe in order to survive, or even with the the purpose to better thrive and prosper. From the equator to the poles, from sea level to 16,000 feet, humans have evolved to exploit the environment in which they’ve found themselves.

5. The human animal can live a long and productive life without the decline we now associate with age in modern society. It is possible to experience health, vitality, and happiness right up until the last few days, hours, and even minutes of life. Encoded in our genes is the ability to survive and thrive to the very end on a wide range of food sources.

6. Humans become obese. Non-human animals don’t become obese or die unnaturally without human intervention. The pets and zoo animals under the stewardship of human animals become as debilitated as humans. This is the result of the failure to identify and implement a humanely appropriate diet and environment. Humans become stressed, depressed, unfulfilled, unproductive, dependent, sexually starved, uncompetitive, and unhappy for the same fundamental reasons.

7. Good health is natural, by definition. It’s not something that needs to be industrialized or drug-induced. By eating natural foods available to us, humans can enjoy good health and longevity. Industrialization comes with powerful advantages, and powerful disadvantages. We each have the responsibility to use the advancement of knowledge, technology and profitable implementation with great care. Technology should not separate us from or destroy the natural or man-made habitats we and the non-human animals need to live and thrive in good health.

8. Humans manipulate nature and their environment to a degree non-human animals can’t and don’t. The ability to “create reality” by means of marvelously, powerfully, creative human minds is a double-edged sword. Man’s manipulation of his environment can be used to create breathtaking achievements in the pursuit of survival, happiness, and prosperity…or it can be used to destroy all of those.

Mental Health

9. Our large brains desire more, far more, than mere survival. And so the human animal, by means of super intellectual capacity, division of labor, and trade, evolved the capacity to exploit and control nature to its own ends in terms of prosperity, happiness, and sexual pleasure.

10. Health increases as self-determination and independence increase. Your best must come from you. Rigid, authoritative plans and roadmaps are doomed to mediocrity, at best. So you must test and critically evaluate the effectiveness of whatever you apply toward self-improvement. You must be principled and disciplined in your thinking, because TV and the media change their messages daily toward their own ends, not yours. Striking out on your own means freeing yourself from these influences, but you’ll be left to fend for yourself without the crowd to confirm and condone your actions. That choice is yours: the easy way or the hard way, and only you can decide which will ultimately be more fulfilling.

11. The ability of humans to work against their best interests, individually and collectively, is the root cause of all unnatural problems. Unlike non-human animals, people can consciously and purposefully act against their own best interest, even to the point of suicide. Adverse human conditions from stress to ill health to suicide to general failure are tied to dishonest irrationality and rationalization. Non-human animals only concern themselves with the environment in which they find themselves. They thrive automatically. They are neither honest, dishonest, rational, irrational, moral, immoral. They just do.

12. Human animals are the only animals who can be dishonest. Dishonesty in this context is purely intellectual. It is the willful failure to logically and rationally integrate and act upon data from our senses. Dishonesty can be internal to an individual, or external by collaborating with others. In society, dishonesty is the fundamental root cause of disease, failure to flourish, and early, unnatural death. Reducing and eliminating the dishonesty in our own lives and society has far reaching potential.

13. Dishonesty is an adverse consequence of “free will.” It is the product of super intelligence, owing to our ability to fake, simulate or “create” reality through wishful thinking or delusion. Apart from innocent error, dishonesty is the failure to diligently integrate sensory input from the world around us into a logical framework or hierarchy of valid knowledge and context. Ultimately, all lasting value for survival and prosperity is the product of individuals honestly dealing with the reality around them. It’s not just necessary, it’s mandatory for survival.

14. The consequences of dishonesty are unnatural disease, unhappiness, obesity, failed relationships, predation, and more. When such calamities befall non-human animals, it’s natural or environmental. Humans, on the other hand, create problems where no problems otherwise exist. Such problems are created deliberately, or happen by default. Man harming his fellow man through fraud, violence, or predation is a deliberate problem. Consequences that happen by default occur when we fail to take advantage of what we need to survive, leaving us vulnerable to injury, disease, or exploitation.

15. Like other animals, human males and females are different physiologically. Our nature that requires us to identify, choose and pursue values for our survival and happiness opens the door to sexual values not driven by reproduction. Humans have the capacity to pursue and enjoy sex for pleasure alone and to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Societal Health

16. Human animals are social beings. We collaborate to produce values, and then exchange them with others to mutual benefit. In small circles, individuals can hold each other accountable. But agricultural civilization has seen the development of large, centralized, bureaucratized, hierarchal power structures where a few dominate the rest. Even when the domination isn’t totalitarian and brutal, it’s nonetheless dishonest and fraudulent because it is unnatural, based in domination and force, and not social cooperation. The powerful few engender welcome cheerleading from their subjects. When we no longer hold each other personally accountable, those in power dishonestly sustain parasitic livelihoods through force, fraud, manipulation, promise of reward.

17. Modern humans in “first world” democratic societies are fooled into thinking that they possess power over those few at the top of the hierarchy. But in reality, trinkets like a voting ballot are much the same as lottery tickets, keno cards, slot machines and roulette wheels in terms of effectiveness and power. Conversely, we know ancient humans were individually and socially powerful, because they survived on their own, without modern technology, as social beings. Nobody voted on it.

18. A domesticated animal can exhibit shame, but will not sacrifice its well being over it. Human animals invented unearned guilt and shame, and they teach it to their offspring. It’s reinforced socially most often through religion and politics. Guilt and shame keep humans tamed and domesticated, not inclined to buck the system.

19. Religious institutions, government institutions, many in the media, many social and political activists, many large and multi-national businesses, many in the the legal profession, medical profession and ivory-tower academia use unearned guilt and shame to induce fear, to keep everyone malleable, submissive and seeking external authority. Fear is a natural part of our evolved behavioral makeup. In a primal and primitive world, fear motivated action that worked towards survival. Since then, there have arisen those who dishonestly manipulate unearned guilt and shame in order to secure an unearned livelihood.

20. Fear is what gives legs to unearned guilt and shame. Fear is natural, something we would feel even without the urging of society or external authorities. Neolithic institutions use our natures against us. Overcoming the effect of unearned guilt and shame leaves Neolithic institutions with their only other option against you: brute force.

~~~

Alright. I’m out of here for about a week of travel doing various things. But I’ll probably manage to blog still. Often in these times, I blog even more. Expect me to wrap up the series on Anarchy at Home so I can move on to the book.