We are not perfect. We are not flawed. We are who we are.

How Can Money Printing Work?

Either quantitative easing works and the US Fed's financial alchemists have invented infinite economic growth, or we are in for the Second Great Depression.

Bulk Nutrients Rice Protein Isolate Unflavoured

I've been trying different protein powders from Bulk Nutrients. I have always been purchasing protein from Bulk Nutrients, and I like to try different types of protein just because I love variety. I recently purchased rice protein in unflavoured form. I've heard that rice protein tastes horrible, but I have actually just tasted the product in person and it is incredibly bad. The description everyone gives is correct. It is chalky and tastes like sand. I'm going to have to mix it in with other protein powders and some flavouring (for example, pea protein and stevia). I've purchased two kilograms of the rice protein, so it might be hard finishing it all. 

Meritocracy is Oppression of the Stupid

Most of us agree that oppression is bad. We don't like to see groups of people oppressed, e.g. slavery. However, there is one type of oppression that seems to be acceptable and that is the oppression of the stupid, and it occurs due to the veneration of meritocracy. The theory is that in a meritocratic society, benefit go to the best. For example, the thinking is that if you are smart, you will get good grades, get a high-paying job, and your lifetime earning will be high.

In a meritocratic society, it is the stupid who suffer, and many people have no issues with blaming stupid people for their stupidity. In fact, if you hate someone, it is common to try to hurt them by insulting their intelligence.

The problem is that there are many people in this world who are just born stupid. They are simply just dull people and they cannot help it, and it is painful for me to see them failing at life due to something they have no control over.

Many stupid and naive people who are young and physically attractive are likely to be looked after by others who are more intelligent, e.g. most children or attractive young adults with intelligent partners or spouses. In these situations, stupidity, naivity, or vulnerability can be seen as an attractive personality trait that complements physical attractiveness.

However, physical attractiveness is also something you are likely born with, and for those stupid or naive people who do not have sufficient erotic capital to compensate for their stupidity, it is as if they are left to suffer in a world that shows them extreme prejudice.

Sugarless Organic Stevia from Chemist Warehouse - Review

As part of working out, I've been drinking pea and rice protein shakes for a few months now. I've learned that for those who have trouble gaining weight, you can mix in carbs to your protein shake to create a "mass gainer." I've been mixing in either powdered oats or waxy maize starch to my protein shake. As a result, the taste has gone south. My pea and rice protein (Earth Protein) was vanilla flavoured and tasted quite nice. However, once I added carbs in, the blend tasted horrible, especially with powdered oats, which not only made the blend taste bland but often clumped together and made the mixture thick.

Today I purchased Sugerless Organic Stevia from Chemist Warehouse for $8 (250g). It seemed pretty cheap. The product came with a spoon that measured half a teaspoon. I put two teaspoons into my carb and protein shake and tasted the mixture. It was surprisingly good. The product seemed to do the job.

The major surprise I got from this product came from looking at the nutritional information. According to the table, this product, which is labelled "organic stevia," contains 0.5% stevia (steviol glycoside). The product is 99% organic erythritol, which is a different type of sweetener.

I wonder then why this product would not be labelled "Erythritol + Stevia" or something less misleading because erythritol is a completely different product. Furthermore, it seems like you can purchase erythritol online for much less than $8 per 250g.

Could I Make My Own Soylent to Save Money?

Normally I spend about $10 to $20 on lunch. It is a lot of money, and many of my colleague like to bring lunch in from home. The problem is that I simply don’t want to cook. It is too much hassle. Furthermore, bringing in lunch to work and letting it decay and smell is just not an option. I have been reading about soylent, which is an open-source nutritional powder that can replace food. I am not sure the product ships to where I live, but given it is an open-source drink, I can simply make it myself. Supposedly soylent is about 50% carbs using maltodextrin and powdered oats and about 25% rice protein, with the rest being fats, vitamins, nutrients, enzymes, and so forth. I have already been mixing in rice and pea protein with powdered oats to create a “gainer” that will help me gain more weight and build more muscle, so I largely already have something that is similar to soylent anyway. (I am thinking of replacing powdered oats with waxy maize starch because the powdered oats usually clump up when mixed with my protein shake. Plus powdered oats have high GI.)

On the weekend, I love to browse the aisles of the local chemist and check out the latest “greens” powder. I have already purchased a powder that mixes many greens, e.g. chlorella, spirulina, and barley grass. I have mixed a small amount of greens powder into my protein shake. I find that these greens powder (especially spirulina) taste horrible, so I now try to minimize it to just a few teaspoons per week. By mixing multivitamin-type powders with protein and carb powders, I am making my protein shake something that is starting to resemble normal food.

Anyway, if my protein shakes have carbs and a little bit of greens powder in it, I figure I can probably use this as a replacement for my lunch at work. Given that powdered oats cost about $10 per kilogram and pea and rice protein cost about $25 per kilogram, then assuming each day at work you have two serves (two scoops or 60 grams) then the cost works out to be about $1 per day. That is a massive difference compared to $15 for lunch! I eat whole foods for dinner at home, eat out every now and then with friends and family, and take multivitamins, so it’s not as if I will rely on these powders completely. If I want to socialise and go out, then I am happy to do so, but often at work I am just hungry and need to eat something and I go out and eat alone, and I spend about $15 for that when I could be drinking something equivalent for $1. An excuse I used to use for myself to eat out is that I like to get out of the office and walk around and breathe in the fresh air. But I am always free, after drinking my shake, to go out for a walk in the park.

Two days ago, I purchased a bottle of iced coffee and drank it for lunch. I mainly wanted to buy it because it was an HDPE bottle, which is supposedly safe for reuse. I was going to mix my protein shake in it. However, I noticed that in the afternoon I was farting a lot. I may have developed lactose intolerance. I used to drink milk a lot. Recently I’ve experimented with vegan foods. It turns out that maybe my body has gotten used to it, and now I find I cannot drink cows milk. That’s okay for me because there are plenty of other alternatives e.g. oat milk or almond milk. Some people argue that cow milk has essential calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D for bone health, but the reality is that most of these are additives in the milk, and most milk alternatives are fortified with these anyway, and even if they are not, I take multivitamins.

Runaway Spider in my Bedroom

About ten minutes ago, I was lying on my bed with my spine lined up against a rolled-up towel. I was doing stretches that my osteopath prescribed for me. I have to do these stretches every day. It's very annoying. While stretching, I saw a spider on the ceiling. I took out a plastic container and then trapped the spider in this container. I put the lid on and was about to take this container outside where I would release the spider into the wild. Unfortunately, there was a hole in the container. The spider got out. It ran into a bunch of paper. When I moved the paper aside, the spider disappeared. 

I now fear sleeping in my room because I know there is a spider somewhere in this room with me.