But if you think there’s no point adding any cinnamon because it has no nutritional value anyway, you’re sort of being more of a robot than a human.
It’s my rant and I’ll complain about what I want! But it’s funny you bring up cinnamon, because I also wrote this:
While I’m an American myself, I’ve come to agree with some of the complaints Europeans often have about American food culture, such as “Americans use too much cinnamon”.
The flavor of cinnamon comes largely from cinnamaldehyde and cinnamic acid, which were so named because...cinnamon contains them. Are those antioxidants? No. They’re anti-microbials. Cinnamon inhibits bacterial growth. That’s what it does for you. But what do Americans do? They make cinnamon rolls where cinnamon-sugar paste is put inside the food. It’s not accomplishing anything, it’s just flavor.
So, why do Americans like that flavor, more than Europeans? That’s because American kids grew up eating sugary stuff with cinnamon. There’s an unconscious reasoning that happens:
This has sugar, so it’s probably a fruit.
This compound is in things that are probably fruits, and fruits tend to be good for you for evolutionary reasons.
Therefore, these compounds are probably good for you, at least if they’re combined with sugar.
But that’s wrong! A cinnamon roll is not a fruit! You’ve been fooled!
Do you like cinnamon when it’s not combined with sugar? If not, is it really cinnamon per se that you like?
there is no point in arguing like the world depends on the outcome when you’re literally just a few guys on a private Discord server
What you said came more across to me as “don’t waste your time at all with discussions that have no real world impact”, I wanted to say more that I think it’s fine to enjoy them (or cinnamon, which I don’t think anyone thinks make rolls a fruit, it just tastes good), just as long as you’re aware it’s mostly just an intellectual sport, and you’re not at a UN summit on the future of the world.
Oh, maybe you were referring to my Alice/Bob bit, instead of the bit about not using debates as a point-scoring competition. Can you clarify the part you’re talking about by quoting?
If you’re saying you like debates with retrospective point-scoring as a sort of sport, I disagree about adding that scoring being a positive thing, because of the effect it has on the debates.
If you’re saying the Alice/Bob bit has Alice being too serious because debating Substack posts is fun, the point was that:
Alice doesn’t want to talk to Bob because “having Substack subscriptions” doesn’t make you interesting—but Bob thinks it does, which means there’s probably nothing interesting about him.
Bob is saying “we’re discussing the stuff I read” instead of finding something of mutual interest, and without understanding how you’d even go about finding something of mutual interest in an efficient way.
It’s my rant and I’ll complain about what I want! But it’s funny you bring up cinnamon, because I also wrote this:
To be clear, that’s what I was saying, yes.
What you said came more across to me as “don’t waste your time at all with discussions that have no real world impact”, I wanted to say more that I think it’s fine to enjoy them (or cinnamon, which I don’t think anyone thinks make rolls a fruit, it just tastes good), just as long as you’re aware it’s mostly just an intellectual sport, and you’re not at a UN summit on the future of the world.
Oh, maybe you were referring to my Alice/Bob bit, instead of the bit about not using debates as a point-scoring competition. Can you clarify the part you’re talking about by quoting?
If you’re saying you like debates with retrospective point-scoring as a sort of sport, I disagree about adding that scoring being a positive thing, because of the effect it has on the debates.
If you’re saying the Alice/Bob bit has Alice being too serious because debating Substack posts is fun, the point was that:
Alice doesn’t want to talk to Bob because “having Substack subscriptions” doesn’t make you interesting—but Bob thinks it does, which means there’s probably nothing interesting about him.
Bob is saying “we’re discussing the stuff I read” instead of finding something of mutual interest, and without understanding how you’d even go about finding something of mutual interest in an efficient way.
>Do you like cinnamon when it’s not combined with sugar? If not, is it really cinnamon per se that you like?
How do you feel about butter