Wow, what an exquisite piece of writing.

The core idea of modernity's tendency to take a Good Thing and chop it up into tiny pieces and bind it into Something Resembling Good Thing[1] hit me hard. I've long felt a discomfort with things that pretend to be other things[2]; just be the thing that you are! There's something particularly macabre about the fake version of the thing being built from the ground up bones of the actual thing.

Also: the Incas invented a natural freeze drying method‽ Totally tracks that would lead to a big military advantage before there were many effective ways to preserve food. But also like, what? It took ~500 years for us to rediscover that.

1. examples from the article: McNuggets, American cheese, instant coffee, deli ham, Pringles, particle board, sheetrock, video compilations, gig economy jobs

2. like fake window shutters on houses, brick siding that's meant to look like the house is made of brick, artificial food dyes, the fiberglass shell on the outside of cars, things painted look like they're a different color.