During the 2020 lockdowns, there were some stores that hid empty shelves with posters of shelves with food. I came across a Reddit thread about this and some descendent of East Germans said “wow this is just like east Germany”
Then an actual ex-East German guy showed up and said “actually, it’s nothing like east Germany. There weren’t many options to choose from but no one ever starved or struggled to find a home.”
The descendent guy got upset and said “stop praising a murderous regime.”
The addiction to the theater of "choice" that comes with US consumerism is one of the most mind-numbing things to have to keep retreading with reactionaries. I don't give it a shit if there are forty brands of oatmeal on the shelves. Just give me one that's minimally processed and not covered in sugar and corn slurry.
Variety and choce is nice when there is actual variety and choice. Like I like being able to choose different types of bread for different meals. But when you look in the bread isle of any store 70-90% are all basically identical over-sugared loaves sliced bread in different bags. With no real difference other than price it just leads to paralysis. Basically everything is fucking like this, I defy anyone to really explain the scientific material difference between goddamn shampoo brands and conditioners to me.
socialist takeover kellogg's factory in venezuela added a 4th kind of cereal to their production, up from 3. We can have variety it'll just be sensible like a dozen flavors of potato chip instead of 5 competing brands of plain chip alone before we even get to all the fun flavors.
My favorite supermarket chain in the world is a Colombian chain called D1. There's only one choice for most things and they're nearly all store brand. Prices are low, quality is consistently high (their wine/liquor buyer in particular is a genius), and because they aren't filling up aisles with 100 variations of the same thing, they can stock a little bit of everything in a small corner store. It is perfect.
Ask any psychologist at random and they'll tell you straight-up that excess choice drives people insane. It's even more infuriating because half the shit here comes out of the same chute, into seven different labeled bags with difference price tags because the suburban boat dads need to feel like they're buying something better than the filthy poors.
Can confirm. I experience real bad analysis paralysis when it comes to making consumer choices. It's multi-faceted. Part of it is being poor and wanting to ensure that whatever I do spent the limited amount of money I have on isn't going to fall apart immediately coupled with the vast amount of information available online and trying to sift through that to figure out what's a paid ad and what isn't.
During the 2020 lockdowns, there were some stores that hid empty shelves with posters of shelves with food. I came across a Reddit thread about this and some descendent of East Germans said “wow this is just like east Germany”
Then an actual ex-East German guy showed up and said “actually, it’s nothing like east Germany. There weren’t many options to choose from but no one ever starved or struggled to find a home.”
The descendent guy got upset and said “stop praising a murderous regime.”
The addiction to the theater of "choice" that comes with US consumerism is one of the most mind-numbing things to have to keep retreading with reactionaries. I don't give it a shit if there are forty brands of oatmeal on the shelves. Just give me one that's minimally processed and not covered in sugar and corn slurry.
Variety and choce is nice when there is actual variety and choice. Like I like being able to choose different types of bread for different meals. But when you look in the bread isle of any store 70-90% are all basically identical over-sugared loaves sliced bread in different bags. With no real difference other than price it just leads to paralysis. Basically everything is fucking like this, I defy anyone to really explain the scientific material difference between goddamn shampoo brands and conditioners to me.
socialist takeover kellogg's factory in venezuela added a 4th kind of cereal to their production, up from 3. We can have variety it'll just be sensible like a dozen flavors of potato chip instead of 5 competing brands of plain chip alone before we even get to all the fun flavors.
My favorite supermarket chain in the world is a Colombian chain called D1. There's only one choice for most things and they're nearly all store brand. Prices are low, quality is consistently high (their wine/liquor buyer in particular is a genius), and because they aren't filling up aisles with 100 variations of the same thing, they can stock a little bit of everything in a small corner store. It is perfect.
Ask any psychologist at random and they'll tell you straight-up that excess choice drives people insane. It's even more infuriating because half the shit here comes out of the same chute, into seven different labeled bags with difference price tags because the suburban boat dads need to feel like they're buying something better than the filthy poors.
Can confirm. I experience real bad analysis paralysis when it comes to making consumer choices. It's multi-faceted. Part of it is being poor and wanting to ensure that whatever I do spent the limited amount of money I have on isn't going to fall apart immediately coupled with the vast amount of information available online and trying to sift through that to figure out what's a paid ad and what isn't.