The Supermarket is the most evil institution to have ever existed
7 replies·163 views
1 month ago#1853036
Sometimes the most horrendous evils in our world are the ones we don't even think about. We use the supermarket regularly, as have our parents, and our grandparents. It's become such a core part of society that we never really think about it. It's almost hard to believe there was a point when the supermarket didn't exist. It's interesting, because in theory, the supermarket consolidates much of the pre-war retail experience in such a way one would consider it a genuine innovation in retail. It's simultaneously a butcher, bakery, greengrocer, fishmonger, chemist, and general store rolled into one. Not even the humble milkman was ultimately spared from this violent centralisation. And this ties into another thing, the supermarket fundamentally changed our relationship with our food. For the supermarket to function, it requires not only an industrial logistics chain, but an industrial food chain to match. As if the innate and structural violence and system of ingrained cruelty towards animals wasn't enough, the very structure of the supermarket hinges on globalised principles. It doesn't matter if you live in a country with a large agricultural export economy, because it's one thing to have the produce, but another thing to convert produce into units of stock. If your economic system is contingent on the notion that the exportation of jobs, infrastructure, and livelihoods are worth the slight reduction in RRP, your economic system doesn't work.
>plebbitspace
Generally, before the Second World War, when you went to a butcher and purchased a cut of meat, you knew that that meat was sourced from a local pasture, sent to a local abattoir, and then sold by a local butcher. For all of human history, this was the nature of things. Likewise, a local farmer might harvest wheat, sell his harvest to a local miller, and sell the flour he produces off to a local bakery. People had a direct relationship with the land via the food they ate, even if that relationship was obscured over time by industralisation, it was still present. This all changed when the cost of logistics, particularly international logistics, dropped dramatically. Nowadays, livestock could live hundreds, if not thousands of miles from slaughterhouses. In many cases, live animal transportation allowed for livestock to be sent abroad on ships to be slaughtered and packaged in a foreign land where it'd be cheaper to do so, but thankfully this despicable practice is gradually being phased out. In any case, globalised food logistics chains dominate the supermarket.
>plebbitspace
The design philosophy of the supermarket is the accumulation of hundreds of years of advances in the "field" of psychology. Even before you enter the supermarket, your senses are completely and utterly raped. Bright LEDs and carefully curated music overwhelm your senses, and by that point you've barely passed the one-way gate that prevents your escape. Bounties your Steppe ancestors could have only ever dreamed of bombard your field of view, under the veneer of wax of pesticides. You don't realise the house of horrors you've entered because all of this is compartmentalised in such a way that you typically can't even consciously put your finger on it. Even if you have a clear idea of what you want, and have a clear idea of where it is, the narrow aisles force confrontation in such a way that only confound the level of innate stress. And after passing through the trolleys that only psychologically aid in this warfare you find yourself at the checkout. The checkout is a different beast. Some people like self-service checkouts, and that's one of the few experiences of the supermarket that I find somewhat bearable, but even this has a sinister undertone. The cost of convenience is only your soul. Most supermarkets now implement cameras at the self-service checkout, which in theory makes sense as a tool to aid stock theft, at least to them, but the fact is that you're being profiled. Artificial intelligence records your approximate age, sex, physiognomy, phenotype, fashion, and even mannerisms, and cross-references that with the purchases you make.
>plebbitspace
You might think that the only price you pay is the cost of the items you purchase, but you're also incurring a greater price, the death of your nation, and the betrayal of your countrymen and women. If you think I'm being hyperbolic, you've gravely misunderstood the nature of this thread. The price is a tribute to a uniquely evil and cunning institutional complex that cares not for the compassion and love of mother nature and her bounty, neither its patrons for which it has not only stolen and continues to steal individual livelihoods but an entire way of life from, but perhaps most importantly, (you). We live in bounty, but said bounty plays by far the most detrimental role to negative health outcomes in the western world. They rape you, steal your money, steal your livelihood and the livelihood of your compatriots, poison you, and kill you.
>plebbitspace
Generally, before the Second World War, when you went to a butcher and purchased a cut of meat, you knew that that meat was sourced from a local pasture, sent to a local abattoir, and then sold by a local butcher. For all of human history, this was the nature of things. Likewise, a local farmer might harvest wheat, sell his harvest to a local miller, and sell the flour he produces off to a local bakery. People had a direct relationship with the land via the food they ate, even if that relationship was obscured over time by industralisation, it was still present. This all changed when the cost of logistics, particularly international logistics, dropped dramatically. Nowadays, livestock could live hundreds, if not thousands of miles from slaughterhouses. In many cases, live animal transportation allowed for livestock to be sent abroad on ships to be slaughtered and packaged in a foreign land where it'd be cheaper to do so, but thankfully this despicable practice is gradually being phased out. In any case, globalised food logistics chains dominate the supermarket.
>plebbitspace
The design philosophy of the supermarket is the accumulation of hundreds of years of advances in the "field" of psychology. Even before you enter the supermarket, your senses are completely and utterly raped. Bright LEDs and carefully curated music overwhelm your senses, and by that point you've barely passed the one-way gate that prevents your escape. Bounties your Steppe ancestors could have only ever dreamed of bombard your field of view, under the veneer of wax of pesticides. You don't realise the house of horrors you've entered because all of this is compartmentalised in such a way that you typically can't even consciously put your finger on it. Even if you have a clear idea of what you want, and have a clear idea of where it is, the narrow aisles force confrontation in such a way that only confound the level of innate stress. And after passing through the trolleys that only psychologically aid in this warfare you find yourself at the checkout. The checkout is a different beast. Some people like self-service checkouts, and that's one of the few experiences of the supermarket that I find somewhat bearable, but even this has a sinister undertone. The cost of convenience is only your soul. Most supermarkets now implement cameras at the self-service checkout, which in theory makes sense as a tool to aid stock theft, at least to them, but the fact is that you're being profiled. Artificial intelligence records your approximate age, sex, physiognomy, phenotype, fashion, and even mannerisms, and cross-references that with the purchases you make.
>plebbitspace
You might think that the only price you pay is the cost of the items you purchase, but you're also incurring a greater price, the death of your nation, and the betrayal of your countrymen and women. If you think I'm being hyperbolic, you've gravely misunderstood the nature of this thread. The price is a tribute to a uniquely evil and cunning institutional complex that cares not for the compassion and love of mother nature and her bounty, neither its patrons for which it has not only stolen and continues to steal individual livelihoods but an entire way of life from, but perhaps most importantly, (you). We live in bounty, but said bounty plays by far the most detrimental role to negative health outcomes in the western world. They rape you, steal your money, steal your livelihood and the livelihood of your compatriots, poison you, and kill you.
1 month ago#1853076
This is true but how would you phase out from a supermarket economy like for example in the USA with all the walmarts targets and costcos and go back to local stores without crashing the economy or starting mass famine
1 month ago#1853078
Dnr
Slvt4BIBISI
In the fresh.
1 month ago#1853080
Word wall I like Walmart.
1 month ago#1853096
I don't know. I think about this a lot, but this is a deeply ingrained institution. Maybe civilisational collapse. The technology already exists, so unless economic policies are radically altered, and the failed experiment of globalism ends, I don't think it will. Even if global trade hypothetically ended tomorrow, countries that are large agricultural exporters/producers are typically geographically very large, so the seizure of one's connection to land and the systemic rape of animals would still continue, just on a national level.This is true but how would you phase out from a supermarket economy like for example in the USA with all the walmarts targets and costcos and go back to local stores without crashing the economy or starting mass famine
1 month ago#1855165
bump
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