Saturday, June 17, 2023

Hand-Washing Dishes Taught Me Dirt Homeostasis

Airbags easily kill more users than they save due to risk homeostasis: the driver drives more recklessly because the airbag makes them feel safe.

Likewise, dishwashers afflict peasants with dirt homeostasis. 

Dishwashers wash dishes better than a drudge can, for the same reason LLMs can write better than a peasant scribe and mastery systems can diagnose better than peasant doctors. Next, work expands to fill the budget allotted to it, and dirt proliferates to the edge of intolerability; companies respond to efficient dishwashers by making dishes cling to dirt. Plastic is highly efficacious at retaining both rancid oils and the soap you try to wash it off with; though you can also do things like make cavities that can't be reached by finger or hand. 

If you actually wanted to save lives you would install a big ol' spike on the steering wheel which will impale drivers during minor scuffles. Bonus round: by promiscuously killing bad drivers, the roads in general become less hazardous. Likewise it is correct for soaps to smell truly foul. Perhaps they should include capsaicin so improperly rinsed dishes have a severe bite. Amplify discipline instead of (seemingly) tempering it.
Of course if you really wanted to promote human welfare, you would all but ban cars, so there's that. Likewise there's no good reason to allow plastic to contact food at all. There's a possible risk, and no upside.

It would cost more, but negligibly so. Amusingly, due to another homeostasis. When you make packaging cheaper, all that happens is shoppers buy more packaging. If packaging were more expensive, they would buy (and thus, would be sold) bigger, more efficient packages, that's all. Cheap packaging makes the food lower quality and efficiently fills landfills. 

No wonder they like cheap packaging.
Wait...landfill homeostasis. If you make landfills cheaper, all that happens is you generate more waste. Malthusian trash trap.
Did you catch that? Step 1: subsidize trash collection &c, so as to generate more trash. Step 2: complain about 'reusing' and 'recycling,' don't touch the subsidies. Americans approve of things by complaining about them.

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