[ExI] road to wellville, was: RE: morality

[spike at rainier66.com]

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From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
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Subject: Re: [ExI] road to wellville, was: RE: morality

>...Thank you very much for the story and the recommendation! I am generally
more of a book reader than a movie watcher, so I will definitely add it to
my "to buy" list. =)

Daniel I found that era of history most entertaining for it provides such a
great insight into unfettered capitalism and what happens under those
circumstances.  There were no government controls of any consequence on what
people could sell as food.

Malted corn made into flakes are nearly inedible without quite a bit of
sugar.  There are lower-sugar corn flakes, such as Special K, but even that
has a lot of sweetener.  What corn flakes did (although it was not the
intention of John Kellogg) is to seduce the world into eating sugar in huge
quantities.

I find this mysterious: corn, wheat and rice sustain humanity.  If you take
rice and pound it, the result takes on a vague sweetness.  But corn doesn't
do that.  If you create a corn malt, then form it into flakes and bake it
with no additives, the result in inedible (as shown in the movie.)  The
stuff really tastes awful.  You can add a lot of sweetener to it before it
even comes to the point where it seems to have no taste at all.  I don't
understand why that works that way.

In the early days of corn flakes, John Kellogg was a strong believer that
sugar or any other sweetener was bad.  So he make corn flakes that no one
would eat.  No food is healthy if left in the bowl.  His brother Will
Kellogg created a similar product with sweetener in it, which people bought.
So he formed a rival company going under the same name (hey, unfettered
capitalism, anything goes.)

In the Wellville book, the rival company was formed by swindlers and took in
John Kellogg's adopted son in order to use his name, and call their product
Kellogg's, allowing them to hitch a ride on George Kellogg's famous father
who had invested millions of dollars (by around 1900) in advertising.

>...But the story does remind me of sugar filled Tony Tiger moments of my
childhood. ;)

Didn't we all.  Kellogg's and Post taught Americans to start their day with
a little corn and a lot of sugar.  

>...But that's another aspect I find very fascinating with US business
life....

There's a lotta fun stuff in Wellville that offer insights into true
unfettered capitalism.

 >...Some companies have such a strong connection with Christianity. I read
up on chik-fil-a and apparently the CEO was very strongly against gay
marriage and spoke up, and cause a lot of controversy (according to
wikipedia)...

Tis true.  Our local ChickFila offered to do a PTA fundraiser, but several
of our local teachers tried (and are still trying) to block them on the
grounds that they are anti-gay.  But then what about those companies which
have connections to Judaism and Islam?  Both of those groups' religious
literature are far more explicitly anti-gay that Christianity.  The new
testament says very little about that, but the religious texts of the other
two major Semitic religions are very explicitly anti-gay.  So where's the
outrage against them?

I remind the anti-Chicks that the founder Truett Cathy died several years
ago.  There is nothing wrong with the food. 

>...I received a Buck knife as a gift some years ago, and on a note in the
box it said that Jesus was their most important board member who they turn
to in difficult moments. Best regards,
Daniel

Ja, but it didn't hurt that knife one bit.  I don't begrudge anyone having
an imaginary friend they turn to in their difficult moments.  I consider
that an odd quirk of human nature.  It cannot be reformed, or if so, not
easily.

spike