baja blast mountain dew is made from mesoamerican jade that has been turned to liquid in a furnace, hence the name (and color)
theres even a jadeite version and a nephrite version
for this reason, several years ago UNESCO quietly banned mountain dew from operating in places with rare or in danger jade artifacts or deposits (for example, most people are unaware that there is jade from places such as italy and poland).
we associate jade with certain asian cultures, but theres actually a balkan nephrite culture that is very ancient, by some estimates even older than the chinese nephrite cultures (last sentence). conservators worried these artifacts would be liquified for baja blast production.
as a fun fact, i will mention that by some metrics, the largest single jade “stone” (here called a boulder) ever found in europe was found in poland. always wondered if this is somehow related to the “jade mother” in china being associated w “the west”. it is at least interesting
a large component of new age is a kind of neo-shamanism. this centers around connection to ancestors, or the land your ancestors came from. it also centers around alternative forms of healing, often via plants. easy to run the numbers on how this is presently politically parsed.
average new age person (who wouldnt identify this way obviously) is skeptical of institutions (often specific things like banking, media), government, normal medicine, historical narratives - “new age” itself could easily, perhaps best, be modeled a type of meta-conspiracy theory
it would be essentially impossible to be “new age” or anything downstream of it without also being open to what we call conspiracy theories. this excludes them from most forms of totally acceptable social or political views at this time, often to their own confusion (no offense).
recently, i was discussing with a friend if children's general aversion to killing animals was innate, or a modern phenomenon. his response was that it's completely modern: in fact, it's intentionally implanted as a social control mechanism.
[...]
if you distance people from the process of obtaining their food, which entails slaughter, it's easier to control them.
obviously, i have no way of knowing if this is true, but i find this interesting because: i have it. despite my ideology, i have the aversion and always have.
he's showing me pictures on his phone of him butchering a pig: all the organs, the skin, everything. i have no problem with this: actually, i think it's cool, and eat more meat than the average person. but i still feel the slight spiritual recoil. was it spontaneously generated?
one noticeable aspect of older media is that to “be political” for normal people usually just meant adopting a particular niche cause, something like “save tigers”, and to be have the now common level of awareness about day to day politicians and events made you a politics junkie
there was a time within recent memory where being the “political friend” just meant that you thought people shouldnt throw plastic into the ocean. that was it.
‘jesus camp’ (the movie) was only released in 2006. notably in one segment a radio host, who is talking about politicized evangelical christians, says “these people aren’t politicos - they’re your friends and neighbors”. the idea of them “being political” was itself a novelty.
i was sitting in an office recently and looked down at a table of magazines. one had a decorated cake on the cover. i asked myself: is it real, or AI? all images will now be run through this hermeneutic. this is, literally, “dehumanizing”: to deprive of positive human qualities.
once again the AI image conversation should be steered away from “is it good or bad?”, “is it cool or lame?” (subjective, no way to prove these) towards: what does it mean? what does it do? but this angle is less explosively polarizing and more difficult to get attention with.
one time i worked at a traveling art exhibition. it was billed as art from egyptian tombs, but it was actually recreations of the art found in egyptian tombs. this was crazy unethical but i got the job via a long convoluted process accidentally, then quit.
zygmunt bauman (modern social theorist) says that the constantly shifting and unclear nature of our time period also applies to interpersonal relationships: no one is quite sure what it means, specifically, to be a parent, a grandparent, a friend, a coworker, and so on.
[…]
this sounds nonsensical at first - we can define all these terms easily: what a friend or grandparent is. but no one is clear on the obligations that these relationships entail, their day to day norms, what is expected, what assumptions are being made on either side: all unclear.
you see this a lot with present discussions about new parents looking to their parents to step into the role of grandparent. what does that look like, specifically? what is to be expected? this is a huge source of frustration and tension for many people, with no clear answer.
photos instead of paintings (all this was later removed):
this is one of my favorite image parings to show people. in person when you swipe back and forth you can sometimes see it rewire something in their brain about america. same room in the white house, before and after: