As alluded to in my post “Thor Ragnarok is Also About Climate Change,” here is the highly anticipated list of the top five most interesting books I’ve read in my entire life. They are in no particular order within this list. I’ve limited it to non-fiction because I’ve been reading more non-fiction recently. Reviews about why certain fictional books were interesting would require me to get into the mindset I was in while reading them in middle and high school and that’s a lot more personal than I want to be today. Disclaimers aside, let’s begin!
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
This book got me hooked on non-fiction. Jon Krakauer does a really good job of weaving the specific story of a murder into the larger story of Mormon fundementalism in the United States. Most of the book doesn’t feel like non-fiction because it is written like a story, the story just happens to be true and sometimes we take a break for a chapter to look at how the story connects to a larger issue. It’s a fascinating look at religious fundamentalism and the power of religion in general.
Invisible Countries by Joshua Keating
Like I said in my previous post about Thor Ragnarok, this book is quite possibly the most interesting book ever. It definitely makes the top five. The book was amazing. I was introduced to it because a friend was assigned the book for a class and was reading it next to me on the bus after a political rally we went to together. I was reading it over his shoulder, and was sucked in. I got my own copy and read it in less than a week. I was reading it on the couch when my six year old cousin joined me and demanded that I read it out loud to her. I did, and she seemed interested as well. Clearly, books about political geography and unrecognized countries have broad appeal. I’m rereading parts of the book now and I find them just as good, if not better, than the first time I read it. The book looks at unique geopolitical situations throughout the world, from unrecognized wannabe states like Somaliland, Abkhazia, and Kurdistan, to unique jurisdictional situations like the Akwesasne nation between the USA and Canada, to, of course, the potential demise of island nations with the threat of climate change. Every case study is fascinating. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by Kristen Ghodsee
I picked up this book because of the clickbait-y title. I’m susceptible to clickbait. I’m also susceptible to Instagram ads. It’s a character flaw, sue me. Anyway, this book is fantastic. True to clickbait form, you need to read the whole book before you find out how socialism can improve your sex life, but it is well worth it. The whole book is interesting and provides a well-reasoned argument for the benefits of socialism in all facets of life, including, of course, sex. This book is a good read for anyone looking for an analysis of the pros and cons of different economic models without needing a PhD in economics to understand. It’s also a good addition to your bookshelf if you’re looking to frighten those who despise socialism and satisfying women. All in all, this is a quick and compelling read, and is definitely interesting enough to make the top five list.
The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe
This book is the story of refugees and immigrants in a Denver high school who are learning English. It follows them through the course of the year, tracking the progress in English and their stories in general. I got personally invested in everyone’s story. I was especially invested in the track meet where one of the students from the ESL class was racing, and almost beat, a student from Denver East (Denver East was a debate team rival of my high school). It’s a sign of good writing that I can get an elevated heart rate while reading about a track meet that’s already happened. Overall, the book is an insightful look at what teenage immigrants and refugees go through while adjusting to life in the United States.
A Flag Worth Dying For by Tim Marshall
I like flags. This is a book about flags. I like this book. I learned so many fun facts about flags that I now pepper into conversation on a regular basis. That alone made it worth it. It is sprinkled with information about history and politics and culture. But mostly, I enjoyed learning about flags. The author has another book about geography which I am going to read at some point because of course I will, I love geography.
Recently, I rewatched How To Survive a Plague because I thought that it was thematically appropriate for the current situation. Let’s distract ourselves from the current pandemic by watching movies about a different one. Watching How to Survive a Plague and other movies and documentaries about the AIDS crisis refilled my endless loathing of Ronald Reagan. It’s kind of like when a restaurant offers bottomless drinks. You might be running low on soda at times, but someone always comes along and brings you right back to a good level. That’s how my endless rage towards Reagan was refilled.
It’s no secret that I don’t agree with the vast and overwhelming majority of Reagan’s policies. There are a lot of presidents with policies that I disagree with (present leadership included). However, Ronald Reagan’s handling of the AIDS crisis is, in my opinion, uniquely terrible, both for his presidency and for presidents in general.
Most of the things that Reagan did during his presidency that I find objectionable could be explained or justified. For example, Reagan implemented terrible tax policy as part of his belief in “trickle down economics.” This tax policy is not good for most Americans and it does not work. However, someone could try to explain Reagain’s economic failings away by saying that he was just trying out a new tax policy and was sticking to the fiscally conservative policies that he ran and that got him elected. I don’t think this is a good argument, but it is an argument that could be made to excuse this part of Reagan’s terrible presidency.
Another deeply problematic thing that the Reagan administration did was selling arms to Iran in order to fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. This was a bad idea for many reasons. But an ardent supporter of Reagan could point to the fact that Reagan promised to stop communism, and by funding Contras to take down Sandinistas in Nicaragua, he was merely taking an appropriate stance to prevent the spread of communism in Latin America. There’s also the fact that Reagan was never indicted for any of these actions, so in theory this could be excused as well. Again, in my mind, neither of those arguments are good, and many of Reagan’s actions in Nicaragua were in violation of international law, but I can also understand how someone could explain this away as well, leaving Ronald Reagan’s legacy intact.
A great many other things that Ronald Reagan did during his presidency are wrong. He had a bad record on civil rights, women’s rights, and pretty much any other social issue. But again, ardent supporters of Reagan would point to the fact that he was elected by the “Moral Majority” so he had an electoral mandate to be a horrible person. I disagree with this, but I also know that this argument holds some water. In this way, Reagan’s actions could possibly be excused or justified.
Here is what is completely and totally inexcusable and unjustifiable: Ronald Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis and hundreds of thousands of people died as a direct result of his inaction. He has the blood of thousands on his hands. This is inexcusable, and this is why I have such a deep and unending loathing for Ronald Reagan.
People were dying and Ronald Reagan did nothing because he did not care about the people that AIDS was affecting.
The first cases of what would later be identified as AIDS appeared in the late 1970s. By 1981, the CDC recognized a pattern of gay men becoming ill and dying of diseases like Pnemonia and Kaposi Sarcoma. At the time, this was known as GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency). (Side note: You shouldn’t call AIDS a gay disease and you shouldn’t call COVID-19 a Chinese disease. Doing this puts these communities at risk of violent retaliation.) Over 100 people had already died.
In 1982, the CDC confirmed that AIDS (as it was now called) was linked to blood. Despite the fact that over 800 people have died, Ronald Reagan refuses to speak about AIDS in public, and one of his staffers jokes about it.
It took until 1985, after well over 5000 people had died for Ronald Reagan to even mention AIDS in public.
But even after taking four years to respond to the crisis, the Reagan Administration was still slow to take necessary actions. The scientific community implored the Reagan administration to take the necessary measures to stop the spread of the disease, and Reagan did nothing of substance.
Beyond passively presiding over thousands of deaths, Ronald Reagan caused major harm to the gay community in other ways. The AIDS crisis stigmatized gay men, and Reagan’s administration helped exacerbate this issue.
It is not morally reprehensible to not be a fan of the gay community, it is not morally reprehensible for Ronald Reagan not to shout his unconditional support for advancing gay rights from the rooftops. It would be better if he did, but that wasn’t why he was elected, and that’s not horrible.
What is horrible is mishandling a public health crisis (modern mishandling of COVID-19 included). What is especially horrible is willfully ignoring it because you didn’t care about the people who were dying. Ronald Reagan did this, and that is why I despise Ronald Reagan.
Thor Ragnarok is one of the best Marvel movies to date. It’s one of the funniest and has some of the best music, in my humble opinion. It is also one of the most political. The movie comments on several salient issues. Many have written about how Thor Ragnarok addresses the issues of refugees and colonialism. The movie absolutely addresses those things, and plenty of people have written and analyzed these aspects of the movie very well, so I don’t feel the need to explore that here. I would, however, highly recommend reading what other people have to say about refugees and colonialism in Thor Ragnarok, its a quick google search away and very interesting and insightful.
I think that along with issues of the past and present–colonialism and refugees, respectively (though not to discount the fact that colonialism and its effects are not relegated to times of yore and are very much present today)–Thor Ragnarok is also a movie about issues of the future, specifically, the existence of small island nations as sea levels rise due to climate change.
The movie’s connection to climate change was not immediately apparent to me. It was only while reading Invisible Countries by Joshua Keating (stay tuned for a post about the five most interesting books I’ve read in my entire life because that book comes in around number two) that it hit me and I thought “Holy s***, this is exactly like Thor Ragnarok,” which is not an epiphany I expected to have while reading a book about unrecognized countries and places that have a unique geopolitical situation.
Why exactly is Thor Ragnarok about climate change? And how did Keating’s book make me realize this? Read on, but beware, I disclose several important points of both Thor Ragnarok and Invisible Countries. Though the movie has been out for a while and it’s not customary to warn people about spoilers for non-fiction books, you should still consider this your spoiler warning for both Thor Ragnarok and Invisible Countries.
At the end of Thor Ragnarok, Asgard is destroyed and the survivors board a ship and head for Norway where they will make New Asgard. This is because according to Odin, and later Thor, “Asgard is not a place, it is a people.” Essentially, it doesn’t matter if the original Asgard was physically destroyed, Angard lives on in its people.
The final chapter of Invisible Countries discusses the threat that rising sea levels pose to Kiribati, a country made of islands in the Pacific which will be swallowed by the ocean. The question that Keating attempts to answer in the book is whether a country can still exist, even when the land it had no longer exists. The question is not really answered; there is no precedent for this and therefore there are many unknowns. What is clear, however, is that Kiribati and other island nations, will need to figure this out ASAP because we aren’t going to figure out how to reverse this climate change.
In the United States, we don’t talk about the fate of Kiribati. We don’t even really talk about climate change in any meaningful way. However, Pacific Islanders do. And the director of Thor Ragnarok, Taika Waititi, is from New Zealand and is Polynesian. It is therefore plausible that this is another intended message of the film. However, full disclosure, I have no proof for that, I haven’t talked with Taika Waititi or seen an interview about this or anything, so this could be a coincidence.
So let’s assume that Thor Ragnarok is also about climate change and the almost inevitable fate that low-lying island nations face due to rising sea levels. Can Thor Ragnarok answer the all-important questions of what will happen in these situations? Now that I’ve explained how Thor Ragnarok relates to this issue, I will also explore what that connection can mean.
Can a country still exist when its land no longer does? International law doesn’t know. Joshua Keating and other people who have researched this don’t know. Kiribati and other island countries don’t really know either. So when international law is silent, we turn to Thor Ragnarok.
Let’s assume that Asgard is exactly like a country here on Earth in the 21st century. I don’t think this is too much of a stretch, because as far as I know, Asgard meets all of the criteria put forth in the Montevideo Convention which is usually the definition people use to define a country. Full disclosure: I don’t actually know that much about how Asgard works, so this might not be perfect. I am, at best, a casual viewer of Marvel movies. Applying the Thor Ragnarok precedent to Kiribati, no matter what happens to Kiribati’s land, so long as the people of Kiribati still exist, so will Kiribati.
There are several other ideas that are interesting to consider when applying the Thor Ragnarok precedent to Kiribati. Firstly, most of the surviving Asgardians went to the same place. It is unclear if they are living in a community within Norway, or if they have sovereignty separate from Norway (i.e. Asgardians have taken land from Norway and formed their own country). Both situations are interesting to consider, and I’m not sure which is appropriate for the Marvel Cinematic Universe or for Kiribati.
Another interesting consideration is what would happen to Kiribati if they spread out into a worldwide diaspora instead of relocating to a single location. The current president of Kiribati did purchase some land on Fiji which will potentially be used for people of Kiribati to evacuate to when their islands succumb to rising tides. This implies that they largely be in a singular location, but of course, when the time comes, reality may play out much differently. Thor Ragnarok is silent about this issue. Odin’s statement that “Asgard is not a place, it’s a people” does not specify whether this means that as long as an Asgardian exists somewhere Asgard will continue or if Asgardins need to be living in the same place.
I imagine that in order to maintain a seat at the United Nations, Kiribati would need to have sovereignty over something. This would be much harder to achieve if people from Kiribati were in a single community that was part of a larger country or if they ended up all over the world. Again, the Thor Ragnarok precedent provides no clarity here. Apparently the quest to destroy Thanos deserved more screen time than explaining the nuances of New Asgard’s sovereignty.
Essentially, Thor Ragnarok says that even when a country’s territory is literally wiped out of existence, by rising seas or a fire demon thing, the country will live on in its people. Thor Ragnarok does not paint a detailed picture of how this would work. Nonetheless, it does provide more than international law or scholarly opinions, so without any examples from Earth for Kiribati to turn to, we can turn to the next best thing: Thor Ragnarok.
I am furious. I am irate. I am seething. I am fuming. I am so unbelievably angry.
I just saw Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker and I am furious about several key aspects of the movie. This is long, get ready.
Spoilers ahead. Obviously. Final Warning
Okay. First and foremost, what truly inspired this rage filled writing is the end of the movie where Rey and Kylo Ren kiss. This angers me beyond belief for several key reasons.
The deeply flawed redemption of Kylo Ren
The parallels between Kylo Ren and the villains of today
Romance and chemistry vs. obsession
The kiss was between Kylo Ren (a bad guy) and Rey (good). It was probably meant to symbolize that Kylo Ren had redeemed himself, but that simply is not the case. Kylo Ren was not sufficiently redeemed by the end of the movie. He just wasn’t. He did not have a meaningful redemption.
In order for a redemption arc for a character to be truly meaningful, it has to originate with the character. Kylo Ren showed absolutely zero interest in redemption at any point during most of this movie as well as the two previous ones. He was offered more than his fair share of chances to abandon the Dark Side and the First Order, but he universally refused them. Everyone else was trying to save Kylo Ren from evil, but he ignored them and dove further into the Dark Side. At NO POINT did he realize on his own that he was wrong. At NO POINT did he apologize, forsake the First Order, or do anything else to show that he knew that he was in the wrong. Others can try all they like to make a person see reason, but at the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the individual to recognize the error in their ways AND to begin to remedy all the harm that was done. Kylo Ren did not do anything to address the harm he caused in the past. He never clearly renounced his time as Supreme Leader of the First Order. While he may (or may not; I’m personally not convinced) have ended up on the right side at the very end, this does not mean all of his past sins can be forgiven. Without acknowledging and remedying past wrongs, Kylo Ren was not sufficiently redeemed and he should NOT have been rewarded by getting to kiss the object of his obsession.
Secondly, art does not exist in a vacuum and there are obvious parallels between the villains of the modern Star Wars and the villains of today. Kylo Ren is obviously similar to entitled white boys of today, whether that takes the form of Neo-Nazis and other members of the Alt-Right, incels and other violent misogynists, and/or school shooters and other domestic terrorists. Regardless of which modern threat you choose to liken Kylo Ren and the First Order to, it is incredibly dangerous to say that, with the bare minimum of effort and no acknowledgement of wrongdoing, they can be vindicated and get the girl. This is absolutely unacceptable, and I am furious that a multimillion dollar company would decide to give tacit approval of terrible behavior.
Finally, even if Kylo Ren was sufficiently redeemed, and even if he wasn’t a clear metaphor for entitled young men in our society today, I would still be furious at the kiss between Rey and Kylo Ren because it simply does NOT fit with Rey’s character and the established chemistry. It just doesn’t. In previous movies, Rey has made her loathing and disgust of Kylo Ren clear. She repeatedly rebuked his advances and Kylo Ren ignored the fact that she wasn’t interested and persisted. In the most horrifying version of this, Kylo Ren actually gets inside of Rey’s head and sees her thoughts, even though Rey very clearly does not want him inside her head and tells him to get out. Kylo Ren does not respect her boundaries in this situation, or ever and it is unbelievably creepy that he is able to eventually wear her down and get what he wants, even though this is not something that fits with Rey’s previous characterization and attitudes towards the Supreme Leader of the First Order. This was not love or chemistry, it was one-sided unrequited obsession, and to legitimize and reward that behavior is disgusting. This goes back to viewing Kylo Ren as a metaphor for the larger evils in our society. This movie sends the message that one need only continually pursue a woman while ignoring her clear disinterest or disgust, and eventually you will wear her down and she will give in. This is horrifying.
But even if you ignore all that, or explain it away by saying that there everyone involved had a change of heart that simply wasn’t explained on screen, it was just bad writing because there wasn’t any chemistry between Rey and Kylo Ren whatsoever. None. The movie had very clearly establishing chemistry between Rey and Finn and all of that was thrown out for shock and to appeal to the whiny and entitled male demographic. Neither of those are good reasons to undermine all of the very legitimate relationships between characters that were healthy and justified.
Kylo Ren didn’t love Rey. he didn’t care about her as a person. To him, she was just a prize to be won, a pawn to move to the Dark Side to get him more power. She was just something to obtain to prove that he was right. If Kylo Ren had actually cared about Rey as an independent person, if he had truly loved her, he would respect her boundaries, respect the fact that she is not interested, and leave her at peace. This never happens because Kylo Ren does not care about Rey’s wellbeing. Kylo Ren does not care that his presence brings Rey anguish. He wants to be with her and nothing can possibly stop him because he is not in love, he is unhealthily obsessed and will stop at nothing to possess the object of his obsession. This is not romantic, it’s creepy, and it shouldn’t be rewarded.
Kylo Ren is an entitled teenager with an obsession with repeating the horrors of the past who had anger issues. These people exist (far too prevalently) in society today. They are not good people, and should not be allowed cheap, easy, and surface level redemption after minimal effort. And they should NOT be rewarded for this minimal effort by wearing down the object of their obsession until she gives them what they want. This narrative is disgusting and horrifying when viewed through this context and I am rightly furious.
“But wait!” you say. “What about…”
Didn’t Rey make Kylo Ren (Ben) good when she did that force healing thing after stabbing him? Isn’t that why he is no longer on the dark side?
I honestly do not care if that’s what happened. In fact, if that’s what happened, it’s almost worse because it puts the burden of redemption on the victim and not on the person who actually inflicted the harm and again, that’s not good storytelling for a redemption arc.
Wasn’t Han Solo a bad person before he met Leia? Didn’t he also change and get rewarded with a girl?
Nope. You’re confusing morality with legality and they are two entirely different things. Sure, Han Solo broke laws and was a little rough around the edges, but he was a good person, he wasn’t in charge of the entire evil empire. Morality in Star Wars is generally pretty cut and dry. The Dark Side is bad. The people opposed to the Dark Side are good. When Kylo Ren was on the Dark Side (and he wasn’t just some lowly soldier, her was literally the Supreme Leader of the First Order) he was bad and because he never adequately forsake the First Order or worked to fix the harm he had caused while he was in the First Order, he is still bad. At best, if you really want nuance, he is a very dark gray. He is not even a little bit good. Han Solo was consistently on the good side. The two are not comparable.
Shouldn’t we be doing something to help the aforementioned groups of bad people in our society? They shouldn’t be permanently labeled as evil, right?
I do believe that everyone is capable of good and that all people have the capacity for growth and change. However, I also think that violent misogynists shouldn’t see the narrative of “oh just keep trying to win over the girl and if she doesn’t respond to your attempts to being her down to the same level of evil and prejudiced as you, just wait for her to show you the smallest sliver of kindness and then do the absolute bare minimum and then BOOM, she’ll be yours.” That’s not how these things work. Yes, redemption is possible, but if you have been in charge of an organization that eliminated entire planets and waged massive war resulting in countless deaths, your redemption should be a little longer and more involved than what was shown in the last third of the movie.
So that is why I am angry about that part of the movie. On the whole, however, I did actually like most of the movie. To end this with a bit of positivity, here is a list, in no particular order, of things I liked.
Poe’s outfit
Literally any scene involving Poe
C3PO
The friendship between BB8 and that new cute droid
Babu Frik, especially Babu Frik’s voice
Actually most things, it wasn’t a bad movie, except for the issues with Kylo Ren and Rey
Finally, because it’s worth repeating, Poe’s outfit. That was well done. I really liked that.
That’s all. Please let me know your thoughts because I’d love to continue ranting with like-minded individuals or refuting any additional arguments from people who weren’t angered by this particular scene.
This post is not about Biden’s policies or my thoughts on him as a candidate in the 2020 presidential election or his time as Vice President. Perhaps one day I will make a post about that, because I sure do have a lot of political thoughts about Biden as well, but that is not why I am here today. This post is not even really about Biden at all, it’s more about how people react to Biden when he talks.
I was a a debate watch party for the most recent 2020 Democratic Primary debate. It bothered me when I was there and people were laughing when Joe Biden would mess up his speech. When he talks, Biden often stops and starts, picks different words, or switches thoughts entirely. People know to expect this, and so while watching the debate with people, they would sort of chuckle when Biden would seem to have trouble expressing his thoughts. I’ve also seen people online or in the media critique Biden’s speech. There are a lot of things to critique Joe Biden on, god knows he has some policies that are questionable at best and full on problematic at worst. But critique Biden on that, critique him on the policies he advocates for, not for how he says it.
Joe Biden had/has a stutter (I put had/has because Biden says he overcame stuttering, yet listening closely, speech fluency issues persist). Stuttering does not make a person less intelligent (see Isaac Newton and Alan Turing) or less capable of leading a nation (see King George VI and Winston Churchill) or otherwise worse to listen to (see James Earl Jones). It bothers me when people laugh at or critique Biden on his speaking when Biden is stopping, restarting, picking a different word, or any number of other things are all related to this legitimate neurological disorder.
Maybe people don’t know about Biden’s stutter. I don’t know if this is common knowledge to people who didn’t spend countless hours in the waiting rooms of speech therapists with walls adorned with posters about famous people who stuttered. But I know about Biden’s history with stuttering and I am inclined to respond with empathy when he struggles to speak clearly on the debate stage.
I spent so many hours in the waiting rooms of speech therapists because I spent even more hours in their actual offices trying to fix (?) my own stutter. I have a lot of feelings about this time in my life, most of them negative, but regardless, I am personally familiar with stuttering and the ways that dealing with it can affect a person. I respect Biden for being in a job that requires so much speaking and that places so much importance on speaking perfectly. Though he has years of experience in this field, that doesn’t make a person magically immune to any speaking challenges.
We all crave representation, and we all seek role models that share with our traits that make us different. Knowing that Joe Biden (and Ed Sheeran, and Tiger Woods, and Charles Darwin, and many others) also stuttered meant a lot to me as a kid who felt devastated (and several other feelings) when I was told that I stuttered. I want people to respect Biden and other people who stutter so that kids (and adults) who also stutter can see a successful and respected person who is like them.
Does this mean that I will support Joe Biden for president because he stutters? NO. I’m also not supporting Bennet because he’s from Colorado, Klobuchar because she’s from Minnesota, Butigieg because he’s gay, or Harris because she’s a woman. I disagree with a lot of Biden’s policies and I think there are better candidates in the Democratic primary. I’m picking my candidate based on their positions on important issues, not how clearly (or not clearly) they speak.
That said, there are times when Biden misspeaks and we absolutely should criticize that. His quote saying poor kids are just as smart as white kids is a great example of this. Biden regularly misspeaks about race and this is something that we should talk about and hold him accountable for. I acknowledge that there is a lot of gray area here to debate what is a forgivable stutter and what is a genuinely problematic slip of the tongue. Can something be both of these things? Probably. I don’t claim to have a perfect answer for this, but I want people to err on the side of kindness and empathy for all people, but especially for people who stutter.
What’s the conclusion here? Do people have to be kinder to Biden when he speaks than to another candidate? Does Biden get a free pass to mess up? I don’t think so. But I do want people to be kinder and understanding of people who stutter, including Joe Biden.
Every single buffet line you have ever been in has started with salad. You grab your plate and then BOOM, there’s the lettuce and the croutons and the salad dressing. You know there’s delicious food further down the line and you know that you would rather eat all the other food instead of the salad, but you take some salad anyways. You take the salad because you are hungry and your stomach is growling too much for you to be patient and skip the salad and/or because everyone else is putting some vegetables on their plate and you don’t want to deal with the judgement of your peers when you skip the healthy salad in favor of the objectively less healthy options down the line.
After you have reached the end of the buffet line, you look at your plate, only to realize that, had you not added salad at the beginning of the line, you would have had room for more of the pulled pork, cheesecake, or some form of potato. But alas, here is all of this subpar lettuce taking up precious plate Real Estate. Had the salad been at the end of the line, or nonexistent, you would be much happier with the food on your plate and would be in for a much more satisfying meal.
This begs the question: “why is salad the universal first stop in a buffet line if no one enjoys it?”
The answer, of course, is capitalism.
You see, a bowl of lettuce is cheap. Uncle Matt’s Famous Cornbread is more expensive. The buffet relies on the salad to keep people from filling their whole plate with food that takes more resources and labor to produce. They rely on this so that can make more money. They are prioritizing their bottom line over the happiness of the people eating.
Of course, there are plenty of other examples of capitalism prioritizing profit over the general well-being of people that are far more egregious than a slight annoyance at a buffet. Actual structural change is needed to prevent capitalism from ruining lives, but it takes very little to stop capitalism from ruling buffets in the meantime. Don’t cave to peer pressure, skip the salad, be happy.
Riley's Ramblings 