Gluten Freedom

I live in the gluten-free capital of the world. I can’t go to a single restaurant in this city without seeing “gluten-free” all over the menu. Last month I saw someone selling gluten-free dog treats. Gluten-free’s super-SWPL, and likewise my city’s full of bike paths, farmer’s markets, microbreweries, tea shops, yoga classes, dispensaries, and Priuses, all of which are great to make fun of while being generally good things.

I have a problem with gluten-free, though. Only a small percentage of people who buy gluten-free products actually suffer from celiac; the majority (90%+) are people who think they’re “gluten sensitive.” Here are some symptoms of gluten sensitivity – gas, headaches, fatigue, irritability, depression. If you don’t experience at least one of those every week, you’re not a mammal. A recent study said “a third of the population can be sensitive to gluten or have the potential to be sensitive to it.” That’s great wording; for that matter 100% of the population as the potential to develop cancer. This is starting to sound like an old post of mine; the strategy’s called “scare tactics.” Make them think they’re sensitive to gluten, and they’ll pay a premium for the gluten-free stuff.

Of course, the idea that gluten is bad isn’t wrong, money just fucked it up as usual. There’s a ton of research out there that says avoiding gluten can be good for your health. So here’s how you avoid gluten – you don’t eat grains. You know what’s gluten-free? Meat. Fruits. Vegetables. The PHD. Taking the gluten out of a sugar cookie doesn’t make it a health food, bloggers. The problem isn’t just wheat protein; if I got 1000 calories from white sugar I’d have a headache too.

Gluten-free bread is like fake meat, something else I think is ridiculous. If you give up meat, you give up burgers and hot dogs. If you give up gluten, you give up bread and pasta. Self-discipline is part of a healthy diet. Here’s a nice quote from someone who’s not an idiot:

If you choose to be gluten-free, it’s best to avoid the “Gluten-Free” products as well, because they are often processed, starchy substitutes that are no better than their gluten-containing counterparts.

And gluten-free dog food? All for it. It’s called raw meat.

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New Edition – Can You Stand The Rain || 1988/Heart Break

Fiscal Responsibility

It was against this backdrop, namely, the ultimate and the infinite, that an organization known as the Vietnam Day Committee invited Kesey to come speak at a huge antiwar rally in Berkeley, on the University of California campus. I couldn’t tell you what bright fellow thought of that, inviting Kesey. Afterwards, they didn’t know, either. Or at least none of them would own up, despite a lot of interrogations and recriminations and general thrashing about. “Who the hell invited this bastard!” was the exact wording.

He comes on soft, in the Oregon drawl, like he’s just having a conversation with 15,000 people:

“You know, you’re not gonna stop this war with this rally, by marching… That’s what they do… They hold rallies and they march. They’ve been having wars for ten thousand years and you’re not gonna stop it this way… Ten thousand years, and this is the game they play to do it… holding rallies and having marches… and that’s the same game you’re playing… their game…

There’s only one thing to do… there’s only one thing’s gonna do any good at all… And that’s everybody just look at it, look at the war, and turn your backs and say… Fuck it…”

They hear that all right. The sound of the phrase—Fuck it—sounds so weird, so shocking, even here in Free Speech citadel, just coming out that way over a public loudspeaker, rolling over the heads of 15,000 souls.

There was no way one could prove Kesey had done it. Nevertheless, something was gone out of the anti-war rally.

-Tom Wolfe

Whenever someone mentions the occupy Wall Street protests I think of that scene, especially poignant when you compare the weight of the war with our current grievances. Let’s set some things straight.

Wall Street’s fucking beautiful. Because it’s going to destroy capitalism. Capitalism requires infinite growth to survive, but it’s a system based on finite resources. See the flaw? Capitalism was born in a time when labor produced product and product produced money; in that reality it’s a viable system. The stock market created a reality where money is both product and payment, a feedback loophole that literally makes money. Money’s created from money, and in the process it’s become less real. Money went from gold to fiat currency to pure mathematics. The problem isn’t Wall Street; Wall Street is the solution. Running capitalism in the 21st century is like trying to run CS5 on an Amiga. Wall Street is waving the flaws of capitalism in our face; it’s the herald of change, and it’s going to run the system into the ground by turning money into valueless, meaningless numbers.

That said:

In the meantime, here’s how you occupy Wall Street. You don’t. You don’t invest in stocks, you don’t get a portfolio, you don’t get an IRA. Don’t own a credit card. Don’t get a loan. Stop shopping at chains. Keep your money local. Rent from a person instead of a corporation, buy your food from farmers, put your money into a local bank or under your mattress. Don’t go to college. Live in a different country. If you can’t walk the walk, don’t bitch. Getting mad at Wall Street execs because your investment portfolio lost money is like protesting soccer because you got your ass kicked by Pelé.

If you don’t like a system, you don’t hold a rally. That’s their game. If you don’t like a system, stop being a part of it. That’s the only thing’s gonna do any good at all.

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Chad Valley – Ensoniq Funk || 2010/Chad Valley EP

Why I Don’t Give a Shit About Retirement

As of now I’m self-employed, and I plan to be for as far ahead as I care to plan. When you’re self-employed you pay twice as much in taxes, you don’t get a 401k, you don’t get cheap insurance, and you don’t get a pension. People don’t want you to be self-employed. They’ll remind you that you need those things to have a comfortable retirement.They get a little worried when you tell them you don’t give a shit about a comfortable retirement.

Most people work safe, incorporated jobs for 40-odd years, saving up their sick days to take a three-week vacation one year. Retirement’s the carrot on the stick, the milk and honey for a lifetime of work. And then they spend most of it sleeping and watching TV. Sure, I could do that. Or I could live like I do now.

I have an extremely low cost of living, mostly because I’m not in debt and I don’t feel the need to buy useless shit or throw money into funnels like smartphones and mixed drinks. I live in a gorgeous area where everything I need is within biking distance. I’ve mastered a skill that allows me to earn money without a college degree. If I want, I can pay the bills working 30 hours a month. If I feel like saving up for something worthwhile like a month-long road trip, I’ll work a little more. I love what I do, so I don’t mind if I have to work three hours a day.

Sure, I could work 40 hours a week, make twice as much. Math: that’s a 400% increase in labor for a 100% increase in earnings. Besides, I don’t need the money. Nothing I want costs $20,000. I’ve got no desire to buy a house. If I want, I could do this for the rest of my life. If I felt like it I could save for retirement. I could get a Roth IRA; $100 a month would make me a millionaire by seventy. The thought makes me laugh – I’d have even less use for a million dollars at that age than I would now. Nope, I’m not doing either of things, not now. I don’t give a shit about retirement.

What’s retirement, anyway? Twenty years of not working with a little travel thrown in? That sounds exactly like what I’m doing now, only I’m in the prime of my life when I can truly appreciate it. I don’t need anything a retirement has to offer; I have it already. Everything I want to be doing I’m doing. I’m pursuing my happiness in the present, not the future. I could die today with no regrets. I feel like I’ve lived. To have this for thirty, forty more years? So much life – the thought almost scares me.

I could go on living into old age, if I’m in good health and feel like sticking around for things. Still, those of us who make their mark on the world do it in youth and adulthood; rarely is something notable accomplished in senescence. Nor do I have any desire to linger on past my due; when my health, strength or mind reaches its limit, so do I. I look forward to dying as much as I look forward to living. After a life like this, I’ll be happy to retire permanently. That’s my retirement. Choose yours.

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Brokenchord – A Girl of 13 Summers || 2011/A Girl of 13 Summers/Orion

The End of Materialism

And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

-I Timothy 6: 8-10

As I mentioned in a previous post, we’re beginning to see a new economic paradigm emerging in the free-data environment of the internet. As expected, it’s meeting with resistance in many forms. Intellectual property is a common subject brought up in discussions of copyright in the digital age; the joke is that the only true argument against information freedom applies only within the monetary economy that information freedom is trying to transcend! Intellectual property is first and foremost a concept created to protect private wealth (primarily of corporations) based on information. Ideas have monetary value, and must therefore be protected within a capitalist economy. In a post-scarcity/trans-monetary economy there is neither monetary value nor private wealth, and concepts of intellectual property are not only impossible to uphold, but a hindrance to progress.

The Inevitability of Trans-Monetary Economics

Western civilization is now crowing over the fact that the only opposition it ever had…has now collapsed upon itself. There should be no congratulation in that, because the contradictions which undid Marxism lie in wait to undo this society as well.

-Terence McKenna

Ever since watching “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” (and completely disagreeing with its proposed solution), I’ve felt that it’s only a matter of time before monetary economics will collapse entirely, paving the way for an entirely new economic paradigm. I was seeing glimpses of it everywhere, from Napster’s copyright revolution and sites like FreeCycle and CouchSurfing, to Creative Commons licensing and the free software movement, to the Economics 2.0 of Charles Stross’ brilliant fiction.

Now it’s beginning to become clear. We’ve seen what happened to the concept of copyright when applied to digital information – a cornerstone of capitalism eroded overnight, dissolved by concepts completely beyond the scope of the system. Capitalism has no answer for resources that are infinitely replicable and infinitely abundant; it is a system based on supply and demand, of scarcity-based values. What we’re seeing with the arrival of the internet is the self-manifestation of a post-capitalist economic system that transcends all existing economic paradigms. Though it may seem to resemble communism at first glance, communism was a system designed to allocate finite resources – it was the “other answer” to scarcity. What we’re seeing now is not a system designed to deal with scarcity, but one that is arising in response to post-scarcity. It transcends and includes the ideals of both capitalism and communism, exceeding the goals of both.

When nanoscale 3-D printing becomes commonplace, physical information (matter) will be in the same arena as digital information. The implications of this are profound. The revolution that began with the internet will completely depose our current economic systems when it applies to the physical sphere. What will be the worth of paper bills when they can be replicated exactly? What will be the worth of gold when it can be assembled out of atoms in air? What will be the worth of money when the things it buys can be infinitely replicated?

Or, a much more interesting question: what things can hold value in a post-scarcity economy? And how will we determine their value?

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See also:

The End of Materialism

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Jazzanova – Soon [ft. Vikter Duplaix] || 2002/In Between