Ultra-Processed Life

Sometime over the past four decades, life as we know it fundamentally changed in a way that is not readily obvious. A large part of this has been driven by the astounding changes in technology starting with the Internet, the massive impact of the smartphone, and now, with the evolution of AI. Today, you would be hard-pressed to go anywhere in the world and not see the majority of people with their faces buried in a screen. I travel extensively around the world and what used to be streets filled with kids playing and laughing is now like a scene from some horror movie, with zombified people all engaged in their virtual worlds. But it is not only the digital world that has changed but so too have other aspects of life. Food, if it can even be called that anymore, has evolved through a radical transformation via the industrialization of the food industry. From fruits and vegetables to meat and dairy, all manner of chemicals and processes have been used to ensure the product is addictive and has a taste that creates craving for more. Preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, and enhancers all ensure these products stay on shelves for months if not years. Finance is another area that has been transformed into a machine that demands infinite growth via relentless consumption. And when that consumption fails to deliver or there is a hint of a recession, central banks step in with freshly printed money to ensure there is no fall in asset prices for any meaningful length of time. Even the workplace is not spared, with most employees being mandated to follow the dictates of the companies who treat them more like modern day slaves or indentured servants. These areas, all which impact almost the entirety of what we call life, have something in common: they are all ultra-processed, synthetic versions of the natural world where we come from and will most definitely return to.

These layers of life, each with its own synthetic trappings, all draw us in and require different levels of engagement and management. The more we consume these products and services, the more we are abstracted from the real world and nature. The engagement is wide and deep since everybody is doing it, so we have no choice but to participate in this macabre dance of artificiality and inauthenticity. The arena upon which this imitation of life is built upon is designed and funded by the crony-capitalist corporatocracy whose only goal is ever-increasing profits. This machine sucks up resources across the world and converts them into stuff to be consumed, the impact to the environment and people be dammed. Aided by complicit or captured governments and their militaries, they ensure continued addiction to all the imitations of life they produce. The act of consuming has turned into a sport, a social activity, and a psychological necessity fed by the need to keep up appearances, to show one's worth through material possessions, and to live out an imagined version of success and happiness. This cycle of consumption is a potent manifestation of living an Ultra-Processed (UP) life, where authenticity is replaced by the synthetic and superficial. But hidden behind the constant flow of dopamine hits and the storm of emotions lies a hunger for all that is lacking in our UP-Life: a sense of inner peace, contentment, human connectedness, and physical well-being. The never-ending quest to find synthetic comforts in a world stripped of natural bliss literally is killing us. The more we consume, the hungrier we become for what cannot be found or bought in the UP-Life.

Ultra-Processing

Sorbic Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Yellow 5, Red 40, TBHQ, Monosodium Glutamate, and High-fructose corn syrup. No, this is not the list of things I needed for my latest science project but rather ingredients found in much of what passes for food nowadays, especially in the US. Perhaps the main component of our UP-Life is Ultra-Processed Food as it is very prevalent and spreading globally. It started with the desire by corporations to make their food products more flavorful and addictive to increase consumption, all while reducing costs and growing profits. This industrialization of food spawned many industries focused on how to make artificial (cheaper) versions of everything from flavors and colors to enhancers and preservatives. One of the most prominent examples of this is Coca Cola (itself a chemical concoction) switching from using sugar to high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) because it was cheaper and sweeter than sugar. Never mind that HFCS has been linked to health issues like fatty liver, high triglycerides, insulin resistance, high blood sugar, and an increased risk of type-2 diabetes. Today, almost all packaged and pre-prepared food items contain a variety of chemicals and artificial (flavorings, color, fragrance, etc.) stuff all designed to make you eat more while racking up the dopamine hits. UP-Food is edible, but it is not nutritious and causes harm to our bodies in complex ways we don’t fully understand. Given their addictive taste and empty calories, we can't stop consuming more, yet the more we consume the greater the damage to our health. The worse we feel, the more we eat to distract ourselves and to get that comforting dopamine hit. It's a terrible, negative feedback loop that ends in the destruction of our health and well-being.

To support the corporatocracy that brings us the wonderful UP-Life, we need a significant, ever-growing quantity of Ultra-Processed Finance. It all started during the 2008 financial crash in America which resulted from excessive risk-taking by financial companies and lax lending standards. As housing crashed, so too did the stock market and for the second time during that decade, many investors were wiped out. It is after this that the US Federal Reserve (which is not a federal organization but owned by the big, private banks) decided it would print money to fund more government programs which, in theory, would help the economy. Starting under Ben Bernanke in 2009, the Fed embarked on a money printing program, obtusely called Quantitative Easing to confuse the tax donkeys, that ignited asset prices in the US and across the world. Followed by Janet Yellen and the current chair Jerome “Jay” Powell, the 3 moved interest rates to zero and printed about $23,000,000,000,000 (that is TRILLION) to “save the economy”. It was really to save their banking benefactors who had made too many huge bets which had all gone bad. Far from saving the system, it has caused all manners of asset bubbles to inflate, the highlights being property and stocks. House prices went up 100s of percent as stocks went up, up, and up, some like Apple reaching multi-TRILLION $ valuations. Not to be left out, the rest of the world followed suit with China outdoing even the US in the amount printed and spent. It is as if governments found the magic money printer and went mad using it. Built upon this ocean of money are all kinds of ultra-processed financial products that are offered to clients to try to make even more money. Cryptic and exotic sounding names like reverse repos, swaps, derivatives, collars, options, etc., are used to make leveraged bets on every corner of our UP-Life. This frenzy has gotten so out of control that the mere hint of slowing (not even stopping) the wellspring of money causes stock markets to crash and companies to go bust. With just over $303 TRILLION in global sovereign debt (US is around 13% of that), countries can no longer afford NOT to keep printing least they altogether financially collapse. But, the day of reckoning fast approaches and we are just now starting to feel the winds of change ahead of the massive, violent storm. Have a look below to see the monster we have created. 

Figure 1: United State Debt

(Image Source: FRED)

As if these two mockeries of real life were not enough, we now have created ethereal versions of ourselves in the Ultra-Processed Digital Reality. With no pretense, the digital world is quite literally a fake version of our natural life and one we now must service in addition to our real lives. The younger generations spend the majority of their time online, glued to a screen and living out multiple lives. Most of these lives or “personas”, have little bearing to the natural world and cause all manner of physical and psychological damage to boot. Social media like Facebook or Tik-Tok bear the brunt of the blame, but the other millions of offerings online are no less harmful. From the photograph we use for profiles to the way we build and project our online life, all of it is manipulated, processed, altered, remixed, and “optimized” so that the end result is a far cry from the reality it represents. I know people who have spent hundreds of dollars to get the perfect profile picture, one without blemishes or faults, a picture-perfect smile, and smoothed to present their “authentic” self to the world. Influencers program their followers to buy products by claiming the wonderful benefits, all the while getting paid to do so. The entirety of the UP-digital world offers an alluring alternative to reality, one where you can be anything, say anything, and process yourself to be the person you want to be versus the one you are. Like UP-Food, UP-Digital also serves up massive portions of dopamine hits that keep its prisoners engaged in a doom-scrolling loop. Just go to a beautiful sunset and watch the people around instead of the sunset. A vast majority will be furiously trying to get the best photograph on their phones and manipulate it for their digital life without bothering to actually watch and enjoy the sunset. Technology companies create digital versions of us by harvesting all your actions so they can sell you more. If you have not watched The Social Dilemma yet, do so. UP-Digital is so pervasive and engaging that most believe anything that is told to them online. This has led to all manner of scams, fake news, and many nefarious ways of parting you from your money. But, as a friend of mine once said “Internet + smartphone cured one of mankind’s worst problems… boredom!” He is correct but how it did that is by helping create an ultra-processed, fantasy version of ourselves, one that we must constantly maintain and nourish.

Another example that has its own version of ultra-processing is the corporate workplace. From the company orientation the day you start to when you are let go, constant processing is the reality of UP-Corporate. From how you should behave and interact with others or what you can wear to ensuring you use the right pronouns or kiss the relevant ass, a multitude of processes and regulations are there to ensure you leave your real self at home. I recently had to take a training on DEI concepts that explained how I could and should bring my authentic self to work. All the while showing me how to do the exact opposite via rules and regulations. In all interactions, whether it be a peer, subordinate, manager, customer, whoever, there is always the need to put forth the company image and never let your true self show. If I had a folder for every email I have wanted to send in response to stupidity during my corporate years, I feel I would have run out of space in my email folder’s storage capacity.  From the beginning, we are molded in the image of what managers want us to be and the competitive nature of the workplace ensures he who conforms the most, moves up the fastest. This is worse in tech companies due to the handcuffs known as stock options. Because these can be worth many times one’s salary, most have no desire to rock the boat and question things, least they are sidelined, or worse, fired. Ironically, in my own career, it’s only when I no longer cared about the money, I truly became free to push and question things with no fear. This has gained me some of the best appraisals and compensation because I “moved the needle”, which really means that I made progress with programs despite opposition. But generally, in all companies or businesses, we just become another ultra-processed version of ourselves when we enter into any engagement that involves the office and the workplace. The tagline on the first day of work should really read “assimilate, conform, and bring the best version of your inauthentic, processed self to work every day”.

Conclusion

While there are many, many other examples of UP-Life, these are the most prevalent and across cultures, countries, and age groups. All these are consumed in vast quantities and they all taste and make us feel good, at least in the short term. But the more we consume, the more UP-Life consumes us. A majority have mostly disconnected from what is real life and have instead invested most of their resources into building and maintaining the processed versions. Over time, we have become ghosts of our real selves, enslaved to the UP-Life and unable to satisfy our elemental needs for authenticity, nature, and spirituality. It is only when the body reminds us of its mortal nature, enabled in no small part by UP-Life, that we shockingly wake up to reality. A friend of a friend in Dubai who was ultra-rich, answered the siren call of the UP-Life and gave into it a long time ago. He bragged that he would live to 150 years and beyond due to fantasized advances in medicine and science, his money allowing him to partake ahead of the unwashed masses. He dropped dead of a massive heart-attack at age 55, brought on by all the damage incurred by living the UP-Life, I assume. At the office, I see 20 and 30-something people take pills every morning as they drag themselves to the kitchen to make coffee, much like zombies in some post-apocalyptic movie. These are pills for chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes, something I never imagined anybody at that age could get. But almost to a person, one hand is always engaged with the smartphone, constantly servicing the UP- Digital Life.

We are past the stage of acknowledgment or even denial and literally don’t see our UP-Life for what it is: a manufactured, mirror world of synthetic approximations and distortions of life that have consumed us so fully that we have lost the ability to see what has been lost. Worse, we have created and woven together multiple UP personas that are all connected together to feed the firehose of mental diarrhea that we have come to think of as life. But with the advent of AI and our warp-speed enablement of its abilities, maybe this is all for the best. ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) is that level of AI evolution that is way past the limits of humans where AI becomes an entity of its own. As so eloquently prophesized by the movie The Matrix, AI can give us all the best UP-Life by creating it for us as reality. At that point, we don’t need to bother ourselves with the nuisance of having to maintain a decaying body and leave that to the AI to manage. We can instead exist in the dream world that is the ultimate version of the UP-Life, never having to live in or interact with the real world.

I will leave you with what is perhaps my favorite analogy of the ultra-processed, fake lives we live; the Styrofoam carvable pumpkin. It is made from foamed polystyrene which can take up to a million years to decompose and usually breaks into smaller pieces, entering our water supply or being ingested by wildlife. It is colored with 100% artificial dyes which consist of multiple (probably somewhat toxic) chemicals which also take generations to break down. But it does come with this lovely warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. To avoid the mess of carving a real pumpkin, we have this abomination which costs more than the real thing. Of course, it is made in some factory employing child-labor in China and then shipped halfway across the world to our local supermarket. The same supermarket that also offers locally grown pumpkins which decompose after they are carved and discarded or can be composted for use in the garden. It is carved once, viewed for a few days, and then discarded into the trash can to go live out its remaining 999,999.99 years in our environment.