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Musings Report 2025-26 6-28-25 Five Taboo Headwinds
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Five Taboo Headwinds
The first step in solving a problem is to face it directly and identify its sources. If for whatever reason this can't be done, the problem festers and eventually consumes us.
Enter cultural biases and taboos.
The American culture has two biases that border on taboos. One is the bias/taboo against dwelling on negatives. We're trained to respond with a positive statement: a reassurance, discounting the problem or voicing a solution.
The second is that every problem has a solution that's within reach of everyone. This manifests the "can do" spirit: if there's a will, there's a way.
These are both laudable biases, as focusing on solutions is the only way to find solutions.
There's a difference between a real solution and an air-brushed "stop talking about negatives" response, and this is where the taboo kicks in: if there is no easy solution, then we stop talking about it, and anyone pushing knotty problems further gets the cold shoulder.
These biases/taboos have upsides--focusing on solutions within reach of everyone, and reassuring those in a slump that things will get better--and downsides: by rushing past the sources of the problem in our hurry to be positive, we render the problem unsolvable.
A second downside is the necessity to find a solution right away leads to quick/easy solutions that aren't actually solutions: they're either assurances disguised as solutions or faux solutions that paper over the problem.
By distracting us from facing the problem directly and identifying its sources, no matter how painful and difficult this process may be, we set a course of self-destruction, as the undiagnosed problem can't be solved by assurances and half-measures.
In January I posted this essay: Catch-20: The 20 Dynamics That Will Shape the Next Decade.
One of the main points was to describe the paradox of transformation:
"Catch-20 is the system has to first transform itself as the means to accomplish all the wonderful things, but it's incapable of transforming itself due to the vested interests who will move heaven and earth to keep it locked in its current configuration. The euphoric expectations are based on the belief that the system as it is today is perfectly capable of transforming the economy, society and daily life."
In other words, if the problem is the system is incapable of transforming itself due to arrested equilibrium (being locked in place by those benefiting from its current configuration), then all the other problems will go unsolved because they all require a flexible, adaptive system.
This is Taboo Headwind #1: facing knotty problems directly and identifying their sources is automatically interpreted as "dwelling on the negatives," which is taboo.
Taboo Headwind #2 is: any attempt to truly solve knotty, complex problems runs into the buzzsaw of vested interests who will move heaven and earth to protect their perquisites in the current configuration.
Self-interest fuels a delusional belief that that system is so wealthy and permanent that it can fund my gravy train without any difficulty, so why should I relinquish anything?
The inevitable result is the vested interests squabbling over their gravy trains brings the system down from within, as any solution that demands sacrifice is politically impossible. So the system collapses, much to the surprise of the elites and vested interests who reckoned it permanent.
Taboo Headwind #3 is the bias favoring simple, quick and easy solutions over real solutions that tend to be systemic and demand transformation, not a pill or phone app.
This leads to fantastical "solutions" that aren't solutions, they're just versions of "stop talking about negatives." The Mythology of Progress I describe in my book feeds these delusions.
The GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are a current example.
To an objective observer, the problem is obvious: our entire way of life--from the incentives to increase profits by pushing addictive products and services to a consumer culture's obsession with novelty and convenience--is unhealthy, and so the inevitably result is we're unhealthy.
But this runs counter to the simple-quick-fix taboo, which is enthusiastically enthralled with a pill or jab to reverse all the negative health consequences of an unhealthy diet and lifestyle.
The downsides of these medications get relatively little media exposure, as why "dwell on the negatives"? So the meds must be taken for life, or the weight is gained right back, side effects include dental issues, acute pancreatitis and so on--a very long and sobering list.
That the only real solution is to completely transform one's way of life from the ground up is taboo, unless there's a way to profit from it. And so the "solutions" outside of GLP-1 meds are billion-dollar industries: surgical procedures, diet programs, wellness clinics, costly supplements, gym memberships, life coaches and so on.
That the "solution" boils down to only eating a variety of real food in moderation and maintaining a strict but not excessive fitness routine--a brisk daily walk is enough--is taboo because there's basically no profit in it. The profit margin in a raw carrot is thin and cannot be fattened up like the profit margins of ultra-processed foods.
That our entire way of life is profitably unhealthy is the subject of my book Ultra-Processed Life, and the solution is to withdraw from this unhealthy way of life as much as possible.
Taboo Headwind #4 is the chronic ill-health our way of life generates is a headwind for all proposed solutions, as the soaring costs of treating all the manifestations of ill-health will bankrupt the nation all by themselves.
Furthermore, the workforce needed to transform our economy is suffering from the many negative consequences of an unhealthy way of life. This reduces productivity and adaptability, the two key dynamics of evolutionary problem-solving.
Taboo Headwind #5 is the loss of resilience and adaptability resulting from our cultural bias in favor of simple, quick and easy solutions. To mention one example of many, students now use AI tools to write papers, with the net result being they learned essentially nothing and did not develop any useful cognitive skills. A recent MIT study found what the researcher call "accumulation of cognitive debt," a fancy way of saying "dumb and dumber."
Your Brain on ChatGPT (mit.edu)
ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study (time.com)
Consider this essay: 100 Practical Life Skills That Every 18-Year-Old Should Have.
This is a rather demanding list for an 18-year old, but it's certainly a practical list--what the author calls "a recipe for success in adulthood."
While an AI tool might help locate online instructions, what stands out about this list is its experiential nature: you can only learn these skills by practicing them in the real world.
In many cases, each item actually requires a number of experiential skills, not just one. This means the listed skill cannot be mastered in a few moments. It actually takes months of effort and attention, and there are no short-cuts or life-hacks because the experience itself is the teacher.
For example, using power tools. Minimum time to be both safe and useful, months. Minimum time to mastery, years. Even a handsaw takes hours of practice to be useful.
Consider this article: Facing entry-level job crunch, new grads question the value of a degree.
Two things stuck out in these accounts: 1) the education they received did not actually prepare them for the job market as it is, and 2) the graduates seemed clueless about what to do next once the predictably low-success-rate strategy of applying for jobs online and going to interviews failed.
(I've written two books on these topics: The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy, and Get a Job, Defy a Bewildering Economy and Build a Real Career.)
This disconnect from reality is not unique; rather, as I outline in my book, it's systemic, embedded in the whole of Ultra-Processed Life. Raised in a culture that demands simple, quick and easy solutions, the graduates are flummoxed when the real world doesn't respond to simple, quick and easy solutions, which are by their very nature commoditized products, not experiential skills.
These cultural biases have reinforced taboos that ironically claim to seek solutions while undermining real solutions, which are rarely simple, quick or easy.
Highlights of the Blog
The Economy--and its Future--in Four Charts 6/27/25
Hollowed Out 6/25/25
Is Life Now a Snack? 6/24/25
Meta-Thoughts on the War 6/23/25
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Voice-to-text and text-to-voice have been around for 20+ years, but they've improved to the point that KDP (Amazon's publishing division) is beta-testing a free tool that turns a print book into an audio-book. Since my nine novels have never justified the expenses of producing an audio-book, I created audio-books with the free tool for eight of the nine.
The tool offers about 60 choices of voices, male and female, British, American and Australian. Regional voices are limited to three "Southern" American voices.
I had fun listening to the voice options--remarkably "life-like"--and selecting different ones for the many genres I've explored: road novel, young adult adventure, satire / send-up, contemporary romance, mystery, romantic comedy, AI espionage, adventure and romantic adventure. Here's the entire list.
And to celebrate the launch of my new book: sugar cookies.
What's on the Book Shelf
The Nature of Money by Geoffrey Ingham
The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of the Twenty-First Century Capitalist Societies by Neil Fligstein
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
Diabolus Ex Machina
The Best Sunscreens
Google Takes Aim at AI Firms Challenging Its Search Dominance
In Defense of Drudgery: AI is making good on its promise to liberate people from drudgery. But sometimes, exorcising drudgery can stifle innovation.
Meet the ‘Stealthy Wealthy’ Who Make Their Money the Boring Way. -- making real, useful stuff...
The Real Reason No One Is Hiring or Getting Hired.
Severed Fingers and ‘Wrench Attacks’ Rattle the Crypto Elite.
What Are All the Laid-off Programmers Going to Do? For starters, they may have to leave high-cost urban centers for cheaper suburban or rural areas.
To Gen Z, Everything Is a Recession Indicator. -- and they're right...
CEO Who Bragged About Replacing Human Workers With AI Realizes He Made a Terrible Mistake.
What is ‘Ozempic Teeth’? The Truth About the Rapid Weight Loss Treatment’s ‘Damaging’ Side Effects.
Therapists Say This Is The One Thing That Harms Eldest Daughters' Happiness The Most, And As An Eldest Daughter, I Can Confirm.
"The fallacy of attributing to one cause what is due to many causes." Alfred Korzybski
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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