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There are at least two ways to optimize:

1. Max profit for a small group of shareholders

2. A cool place to work with people you like.

Try explaining #2 to a PE group.

[edit: typos]

> As a person who was raised without religion, I've been noticing that it can be a major reason why people make food of "irrational" quality.

I don’t follow, can you explain how religiosity relates to food quality?

There's a certain emphasis, by people of a certain type of religiousness, on focusing heavily on the base needs of a person instead of "worldly" desires. I don't mean this in a condescending way, I'm having trouble expressing how it manifests. It's sort of a focus on the gifts God gave us and the way he wants us to live. I'm not religious btw, but I think I understand the mindset.

Well said - I think of Quaker (edit: I meant Shaker) furniture as a great example of this.

In areas that have them, Amish roofers are known for top-quality workmanship, period dot.

As a Quaker I appreciate the callout, but you probably mean Shaker furniture. The Religious Society of Friends isn't known for their carpentry.

Known for something even better though; banning a certain practice from their society more than a decade before the Constitution was ratified.

Since my kitchen cabinets are "modified Shaker," I appreciate this.

There's something about simple design that you can appreciate without being in any way religious. Christopher Alexander tries to get at it.

D'oh - thank you, you are correct. I was thinking of Shaker furniture.

That said, I also admire the Quakers for their values.

I don't think religiousness is a prerequisite or an indicator for the mindset of enjoying the simple things in life or quality craftsmanship. Perhaps religious people are more likely to use religion to rationalize these proclivities.

It sounds like by "base needs", you mean basic, or foundational needs. Like, making sure that people have food, water and shelter. Which makes sense, if the foundation is strong, you can build a lot on top of it.

It's quality in general. If you are building something for whatever god you happen to believe in, you are going to want to build something of high quality to honor that. Why make a shoddy sacrifice?

So atheists hate quality now?

I don’t recall chick-fil-a sandwiches being offerings to god, I’m pretty sure they’re sold to consumers.

This theory also doesn’t really explain why a lot of Christian products are very low quality.

The eggs at Aldi with the Bible verses are downright terrible compared to a pasture raised product from a brand like Vital Farms.

MyPillow pillows are bottom of the barrel.

Tyson Foods is certainly not known for quality.

Or... atheists like quality for other reasons?

Saying "some people associate quality workmanship with their belief in God" doesn't mean:

1. all religious folks care about quality workmanship

2. all people who care about quality workmanship are religious

I agree with you but that’s not really what all these parent commenters are strongly implying.

They’re giving religion way more credit than it’s due.

Religion is a reason for many great things that people do.

Food quality, perhaps. But art, music, architecture, definitely.

Not all religious people do great things, not all great things are done for religious reasons.

Your logic directionality is failing you badly here.

It is possible to say nice things about someone without implying condemnation of another.

Keep in mind that I’m responding to people that are using the exact same directional logic, the only difference is that their directional logic is pro-religion.

> If you are building something for whatever god you happen to believe in, you are going to want to build something of high quality to honor that.

That’s a very broad generalization and pro-religion statement. I provided a number of counter-examples of products whose religious ownership hasn’t motivated them to produce great quality products with ethical practices.

I would present the hypothesis that based on the demographics of US citizens that, statistically, most publicly traded companies are likely majority owned by Christian shareholders. After all, a commanding majority of Americans (70%). So this idea that a non-dollars-and-cents higher calling motivating Christian business owners to make better quality products seems like complete bunk.

Seems to me that the Christians get to cherry pick one company that focuses on product quality and give credit to religious thought despite the fact that most US companies including the shitty ones that dump toxic chemicals into rivers are also owned by Christians.

Friend, your comment made me laugh out loud. You know nothing about me and my religious/spiritual beliefs. I think you would be quite surprised if you knew what they were.

For what it's worth, I am not a Christian and I was not thinking of Christians or "Christian products" in my original comment you quoted.

I was just watching an old episode of Top Gear that had Steven Tyler as a guest. He mentioned a quote that his mom said, "The ark was made by amateurs while the Titanic was made by professionals". I found it amusing.

Regardless of how you feel about Peter Thiel, everyone should read Zero to One. He eloquently ties together the concepts of entrepreneurialism and contrarianism

Real entrepreneurs only go into business because they believe they know something that otherwise efficient markets do not. So that means you have to be a contrarian and believe in secrets or undiscovered principles.

Some of the more interesting data points he includes is the decline in cult membership and belief in secrets. We as a society are generating less iconoclasts, so all that's left in business is an efficiency puzzle.

Sounds like someone who want to rationalize being a billionaire.

Another funny thing is to learn about "principles" of Ray Dalio. Man has a cult but tries to proof otherwise.

Cults and conspiracy thinking just went mainstream.

Back in the day, conspiracies were kind of unique and interesting and you could talk to a believer about it for hours about all the details and complications. People put a lot of thinking into it.

Today, conspiracies are like everything else - as shallow as the first page of google search.

> the decline in cult membership

Was that written before QAnon, etc.?

I find it really interesting this went from the top comment to the bottom one.

We downweighted it because it veered off topic and generic. That's standard moderation practice.

Thanks for sharing the internal workings.

I am top mod on a few large ("top 1% by size") subreddits and am always interested in those sorts of perspectives.

I have zero idea of what that would be like! But FWIW downweighting top comments that are generic tangents, or flamey, is probably the biggest thing we ever figured out about thread quality. I just wish it could be automated.

maybe it's a commodities mindset? vs. other companies who do a Veblen good type of market targeting, i.e. the point where raising price and quality expands the market/market segment (i.e. LVMH, Hermes, to a certain point, Apple)

I have a friend who is Orthodox Christian and follows a very strict fasting schedule. I disagree with her about many things but I've always found her very thoughtful when it comes to her religion. She says she sees fasting not as a requirement from God but as a gift from God.

It is a opportunity to emphasize with those in poverty. It is a way to truly appreciate every meal - saying grace before a meal take on a real significance. And it is an opportunity to be truly thoughtful about the food you are putting into your body - particularly as the fasts are often "no meat" or something else specific.

She is also not surprisingly a very good cook and cooks most things from scratch. If she were to start a food company, I'm sure she'd use the same values.

> She says she sees fasting not as a requirement from God but as a gift from God

It's hard to be in prayer all day. If you're hungry however, you are perpetually reminded and thinking of God.

It also allows you to focus better, undistracted by the next meal.

Undistracted by the next meal, but maybe by a growling belly

Orthodox Lent is not about fasting, but about abstaining from certain foods (so probably incorrect to call it a "fast").

You are not supposed to go hungry, just be strict on what you consume.

I looked into one of those Trappist Abbey breweries way back. The monks appeared pretty well fed. Brewing is fun, but getting up at 5am and praying all day...

Fasting is less "do this for ritual purity" and more "this is an exercise for building self control" like weightlifting is an practice for building physical strength.

Some religious diets are perpetual, like "no pork ever". Orthodox fasting is "eat everything half of the year" and then practice self control by abstaining from the meat/wine/oil/dairy the other half.

I feel like the obvious thing to point out in this whole discussion is that this practice isn’t inherently religious at all. You can reap 100% of the benefits of fasting without the religion.

There's no need to turn a thoughtful thread into a justification of the moral superiority of your identity.

Many religious practices are borrowed from other religions or have some secular origin/reasoning. This is especially true for many of the food restrictions. Prior to germ theory, you ate something unclean and now God must be punishing you for it, etc.

"I think atheists actually empathize with the poor even more"

I think both this statement and the one you are responding to are getting to general/stereotypical. Fasting can be some meaningless ego/status religious thing. Just as some atheists might be more empathetic.

In my limited experience, the religious fasters seem mostly to be doing it because their community (church) does it and they want to belong, not for the exercise in self control or empathy. Although i msure both exist. It's also been my experience that atheists aren't any more empathetic towards the poor than the average person, religious or not.

I've been thinking about something like this recently. I was raised Catholic but have since become atheist. I've connected the health benefits of fasting and eating less red meat to some of the practices in Catholicism during lent. Personally, I find it hard to remember to try and do a fast or really build a long-term avoidance of red meat. So lately I've been thinking that while I may not believe in any gods, becoming "culturally Catholic" and re-adopting some of those practices could give me the structure I need to make some of those beneficial changes.

I would disagree. As a Christian who practices fasting, one of the purposes (probably the major one, in my opinion) of fasting is to focus oneself more on a relationship with God. I can see how there can be secular benefits to fasting, but I fail to see how athiests would reap this particular benefit.

Not just spiritually healthy but physically too: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/fasting-benefits

That is mostly different but the nomenclature is confusing. The orthodox christian tradition of fasting is rarely ever strictly fasting in the medical sense. What they mean is voluntary abstinence from certain kinds of food on certain days, with the specifics varying by tradition & individual particulars.

Most lay orthodox christians only "truly" fast before taking communion and around a few particularly important holidays. So when they talk about fasting they are not normally talking about something that resembles intermittent fasting in practice.

Hm I'm glad this story made it to the top. I'll indulge this train of thought some more, since it's something I've been thinking about. (But still in honor of the person who this article is about)

Again, growing up without religion, I always wondered what the deal was with rules like "kosher" and "Halal". To me, it seemed like people were following old rules that didn't make sense in the modern world (though thankfully I never really voiced these opinions).

Now, you can argue about the details of these rules, but the point is that there actually have to be rules beyond "rationality", as I said.

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The "rational" thing is to adulterate food, and this has been a big problem throughout history.

For example, here's a picture of stamped bread from the first century AD in Pompeii - https://ridiculouslyinteresting.com/2013/07/22/preserved-loa...

The stamp apparently being required to identify the baker in case of fraud.

One way you can get a sense of the incentive to adulterate food is to look at all the colorful punishments for doing so - http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2011/09/bakers-dozen.html

In Vienna, bakers caught selling underweight bread were put in the baeckerschupfen – a sort of cage which was then plunged into the river several times.

In Turkey, a bad baker was stretched out on his own kneading table and the bastinado (foot-beating with a stick) was administered.

Perhaps the most public and painful punishment was in ancient Egypt, were an offending baker could be nailed by the ear to the door of his shop, where no doubt his customers gave him even more abuse.

More - https://musingsonfoodhistory.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/death-...

A law in Britain - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_of_Bread_Act_1757

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So the "rational" thing is to adulterate food, just like the "rational" thing is to spray ads all over web content, and add dark patterns to iOS apps. It makes money, in the short term.

But the cultures that survived and took over the world had rules beyond what's "rational". Christians, Jews, and Muslims all have extra rules you have to follow with regarding food. You don't really question why, but the act of compliance is a virtue.

So now I no longer think the arbitrary rules are so strange. You can argue with the details, the high level bit is that you don't just optimize for your own business. You have a higher duty.

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If a society has 10,000 food producers, and all of them are doing the bare minumum, then eventually the health of the citizens is going to be the bare minimum too.

The neighboring clan with stricter rules - and yes MORALS - will overtake them.

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And my point is that we're back in this situation NOW. Corporations have optimized the production of food for profit, while remaining technically legal.

America’s packaged food supply is ultra-processed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20551847 - https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/07/us-packaged-fo...

America exported this problem to countries like Brazil, which started the recent research on ultra-processed foods:

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/feb/13/how-ultra-proce...

Stories on Hacker News - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ultra+processed+food

(People who don't think this is real have to answer the question of why men and women weigh 30 or 50 pounds more on average than they did in 1960, etc.)

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Similar line of thought with respect to gambling and crypto - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33910537. A younger me would have thought that gambling is each person's choice. It's a free country.

But if you have a society of 10,000 people where 50% of people are playing negative sum games, then pretty soon that society is not competitive anymore. They're not producing anything. The societies that simply banned gambling are the ones that survived. (And even now I don't necessarily agree with banning gambling, just saying there is a a group selection phenomenon there.)

Likewise, imposing burdensome and arbitrary rules on food is probably good in the long term. That has to be a bigger reason for doing things other than making money tomorrow. We might want to bring back some of the colorful punishments, rather than letting corporations make the rules.

In tech, we have poisoned our own information supply, which is profitable in the short term, but obviously bad in the long term.

i can't imagine many people would agree with how you're using the term "rational". short-term thinking is not an automatic outcome of rationality... you seem to be describing some of the negative effects of capitalism instead.

"Short-term" is also relative. Reading what the original author wrote, I interpreted it as them working backwards from the severe punishments for underweighting bread and what might cause them. Perhaps it's not the original baker underweighting bread, but their son or their grandson who doesn't have the right context for not doing so. Maybe they are trying to get more out of the family bakery, try something new, shake things up. It might be rational in the sense of game theory and the expected outcome of multiple generations of bakers. So over 100 years time you might find half your bakeries have reduced the size of their bread while the competing town has not and they overtake you.

Or maybe the town faces hard times and the baker might want to cut costs by reducing the weight of their bread to help their own family. That might be rational under those circumstances.

Good post. (I appreciate the thoughtful responses and references, so thank you.)

> In tech, we have poisoned our own information supply

Curious to know more about what you mean by this, if you have the time... poisoned how? cheers!

I mostly mean the common criticisms of Google for incentivizing web spam, and Facebook for pushing low quality / addictive / political content into people's feeds. (Though if you ask people outside the tech industry, they might not agree on these problems!)

The counterargument is that they both provide a ton of value, they didn't take anything away, and you don't have to use them. (defense of Google - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39054621 )

There's some truth to that, but it seems like we could be past peak social media (?) It feels like people are kinda treating it like smoking -- it was a poisonous fad that went too far, and it's wise to dial it back.

Greed and Corruption! And blame Milton Friedman for the corrupt economic philosophy. He foolishly believed and preached that shareholders would never act irrationally such that they would harm the company. Alan Greenspan believed that too but at least admitted that he was wrong, post 2008 bank meltdowns.

To some extent, I think that the problem comes down to communities. If you feel like your work is your contribution to your community, and especially to specific people, your goal isn't to make money. It's to contribute. You're incentivized to make good things that people like and help people. But when it's a massive crowd of people that you don't even know, ordering your stuff from afar because it's cheaper than whatever local source, you're not really of them. You have no responsibilities towards them. It makes sense that, as a society grows, it needs either stronger ways to tie people to each other (religion, nationalism, war), or some other form of control (laws, stamps, inspectors, baeckerschupfen).

The job of corporations is to optimize for profit.

The job of society is to set the rules within which they can do so.

Our ruleset is thousands of years old and is rooted in religion, myth, tradition, and millennia of practical compromises. The evolution of this ruleset should not be taken lightly, nor should old rules be discarded out of hand because they stem from now-unfashionable traditions.

This seems like a very cynical take of how private equity optimization works, it may be true in some instances, but it hardly universal as you seem to be implying. There is often a tremendous amount of low hanging fruit for businesses run by individuals that is easy to replicate across businesses and industries. Focus areas like implementing basic accounting and administrative systems are often at the core of optimizing a business when you do it professionally. These things almost always add value and are entirely rational from a market perspective.

> These things almost always add value and are entirely rational from a market perspective.

From the perspective of efficiency for the ownership, yes. However, every laid off staff member still needs to eat, house themselves, and pay their other bills.

It seems to me that the long run effect, apart from good or bad intent, is that the people in society who don't have access to capital wind up having to manage at a subsistence level.

So if you want to do something interesting and worth remembering, you need a better reason than being "rational". So kudos to Bob for this -- it seems like his life was its own reward.

You're going to need to define what 'rational' is. Optimizing a certain kind of metric beyond all reason is going to destroy whatever economic engine that is currently providing people their livelihood.

Doesn’t seem to be true. Bob’s Red Mill seems to be doing fine.

I believe they are referring to the modern economist's definition of "rational", which is equivalent to "profit-maximizing".

> Optimizing a certain kind of metric beyond all reason is going to destroy whatever economic engine that is currently providing people their livelihood.

I agree. The general trend of optimizing only for shareholder value has destroyed the livelihood of countless workers. Heck, it's destroyed legacy companies like kmart and sears. It's all but killed off manufacturing in the US. And, were the quality better, it'd kill off the jobs of most HN commenters as businesses would love nothing more than to offshore everything to the cheapest location possible.

The economy is a giant prisoner's dilemma. It'd be far healthier if wealth was better distributed yet individual companies and shareholders can make a boatload of money by taking shortcuts and keeping things running at barebones levels.