Is America Evolving into Stage Green?

[Maximilian]

It seems to me there is a growing movement of anti-corporate and health-conscious sentiment that has been spurred on by the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement.

I have my issues with RFK (his spreading of misinformation and conspiracy theories being one of them) but it appears to me as though this MAHA movement is helping a lot of people move up towards spiral dynamics Stage Green. 

I do marketing for a healthy food E-commerce brand (So my perspective may be a bit biased) but I am noticing more and more influencers bringing awareness to what is really going into their food, where their food is coming from, and investigation and questioning of the cheap corporate products that have been marketed towards Americans for decades.

I'm seeing more businesses emerge and thrive that put their customer's health and quality ingredient sourcing as their highest priorities.

I do see some issues with this. I've met people of this ilk who let their "Natural/Holistic" lifestyle to become a dogma and are neurotically afraid touch anything they view as "unnatural." And many of these people are rebelling against what they consider to be "the science" and are propagating a lot of conspiracy theories and health claims unsupported by any real scientific data.

But overall, I'm noticing a trend here. And it appears to me that there is a certain percentage of the population that is moving up towards stage green.

What do you all think? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment?

[Leo Gura]

There is healthy and there are corrupt versions of Green.

RFK is corruption.

[Maximilian]

 

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

There is healthy and there are corrupt versions of Green.

RFK is corruption.

What characterizes corrupt Green?

I agree that RFK is corrupt, but my point was more so about the deeper impact that this movement is having on the general population.

[Leo Gura]

29 minutes ago, Maximilian said:

What characterizes corrupt Green?

I agree that RFK is corrupt, but my point was more so about the deeper impact that this movement is having on the general population.

Yeah, it's making the general population irrationally paranoid about mainstream scientific medicine.

There is criticism of the mainstream science/medicine from above and from below. RFK fans are doing it from below using poor epistemic standards and conspiracy thinking.

Corrupt Green is stuff like rejecting science and capitalism is favor of something even worse.

You have to be precise and careful in how you criticize mainstream science and medicine, otherwise you flail around and generate worse outcomes. Empty criticism is easy, producing better outcomes is hard.

Edited July 30 by Leo Gura

[Joshe]

Never got deep into SD so not sure if taking an interest in one’s health is a green thing or not but if it is, seems absurd. 

See what had happened was, trust was eroded via unchecked capitalism. Then, disease started catching up. Media about red food dye, lack of vitamin d, the corrupt food and pharma industry, etc., eventually made it on the screens of the blues searching for why they or their family members are sick and how they can solve their problems. Then they have a revelation that intelligent people have in their teens: “ what you put into your body can make you unhealthy”. Most of them end up following some grifter health charlatan who tells them things like drinking apple cider vinegar 3x daily with olive oil and turmeric and black pepper will cure them completely so long as they avoid red food dye and gluten. 

So now, they’re running around going to “holistic” chiropractors getting their white-labeled vitamin d + proprietary herbal blend of the top superfoods, fighting cancer one pill at a time and scanning all their groceries with an app looking for red food dye. This is a growing trend, but I’m not optimistic it’s a sign of increased consciousness. I mean, I guess they’re more health-conscious, so that’s a good thing. 

Edited July 30 by Joshe

[Sempiternity]

I live in Seattle, WA. The city itself is a mix of Orange and some Green. But, I live in a community of thousands that is 100% Green. Everyone is empathetic, emotionally intelligent, loving, and dedicated to creative pursuits. They live their passions. They give fully of themselves without wanting anything in return. Which creates a mini-society of what we call "Contribution Culture". Everyone is giving fully of themselves, however they can, which creates this beautiful mini-society of abundance and love. We love to be in nature. We deeply love everyone in our community, like one would love a lover. Sure there are Ego issues (those most commonly associated with stage Green) from time to time, we are human after all. But it is quite Utopian. We like to think that where we are at is just a bit ahead of the curve of where the rest of society is going. I truly believe that in 30 to 50 years, the rest of society will be where we are at. Evolution only moves forward. 

[RendHeaven]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yeah, it's making the general population irrationally paranoid about mainstream scientific medicine.

There is criticism of the mainstream science/medicine from above and from below. RFK fans are doing it from below using poor epistemic standards and conspiracy thinking.

Corrupt Green is stuff like rejecting science and capitalism is favor of something even worse.

You have to be precise and careful in how you criticize mainstream science and medicine, otherwise you flail around and generate worse outcomes. Empty criticism is easy, producing better outcomes is hard.

RFK is wrong about vaccines but right about seed oils.

Which is a shame because his wrongness discredits him polarizes people into full-blown conspiratorial RFK fans or mainstream shills that denounce everything RFK says, and neither camp has accurate discernment

[RendHeaven]

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

red food dye, lack of vitamin d, the corrupt food and pharma industry, etc.

these are actually genuine risk factors

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

drinking apple cider vinegar 3x daily with olive oil and turmeric and black pepper

yeah this is dumb

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

chiropractors

also dumb

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

vitamin d

this is good

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

proprietary herbal blend of the top superfoods

this is garbage

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

scanning all their groceries with an app looking for red food dye

app = wasted effort; takes 3 seconds to read the label and notice red40. generally a good habit

overall you make a good point

my stance is to stack the small meaningful habits (avoiding red40 is actually a conscious move. Of course, that by itself wont "cure" you of anything. It's just good fundamentals) and don't fall for the overblown miracle products (no single product will save you)

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, RendHeaven said:

but right about seed oils

So what?

It's not like government controls seed oils. If you don't like seed oils don't eat them.

People eat seed oils for the same reason they eat McDonalds. This is not a serious political issue. You're not banning McDonalds. We don't even ban cigarettes or alcohol which is way worse.

Edited July 30 by Leo Gura

[RendHeaven]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

So what?

So it's a shame that people will continue to slam seed oils (or god forbid defend them as good for you) without considering that it might actually be harmful.

There's already a stigma going around academic circles branding seed oil skeptics as "conspiratorial," and RFK's image is not helping. 

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not like government controls seed oils. If you don't like seed oils don't eat them.

I agree.

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

People eat seed oils for the same reason they eat McDonalds. This is not a serious political issue. You're not banning McDonalds. We don't even ban cigarettes or alcohol which is way worse.

seed oils will never go away.

the genie is out of the bottle, so to speak.

if we waved a magic wand and erased all seed oils, the entire food supply chain would collapse over night and 99% of restaurants will go out of business. so our entire society is codependent on and built atop a foundation of seed oils now.

And yet, it may be the case that seed oils are harmful nonetheless.

In which case, I would hope that individuals are given the choice of making an informed decision about what they put in their bodies

But academia and nutritionist circles still defend seed oils and go out of their way to smear seed oil skeptics, lumping them in with anti-vaxxers and such. Indulge me for a second and let's just assume that seed oils are actually harmful for humans. If that's the case, then our current information climate gives rise to a shitty epistemic cesspool where if you listen to the experts, you will get vaccinated (good) and chug seed oils (bad), but if you listen to the conspiracy theorists, you will avoid vaccines (bad) and avoid seed oils (good). In either case, the mind is corrupted and the outcomes are sub-optimal.

of course, this is a wider issue than just one ingredient. As you know, companies do everything to take shortcuts and obscure externalities.

If there is a "serious political issue" here, it would be the lack of transparency driving profit which gives rise to the cesspool of an information climate that forces individuals to figure it out for themselves (but often they won't figure it out, and just follow a popular talking point, which is almost always partial or flawed)

If food companies came clean with everything they put in our foods and its full transparent ramifications, there would be outrage and blood. and so that will never happen :]

[Daniel Balan]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

There is healthy and there are corrupt versions of Green.

RFK is corruption.

One of the biggest blind spot of spiral dynamics is that the model doesn't account or measure for corruption, nor does it explain how corruption manifests at different stages. All it says is that corruption diminishes the more you go up the spiral, which is true, but in my eyes the more you go up the spiral the more sneaky and clever the corruption gets and manifests.

[Raze]

Based on how stage green behaved during the wokeness wave, I suspect their will be a strong shift leftward when the boomers are gone, but it will be so toxic and self destructive, combined with other social and economic forces, it will fail and society will revert to lower stages for a long time.

What passes for stage green in the US just enables the worst of lower stages and collapses social structures needed for early stage development, and causes chaotic gender and race wars.

Edited July 30 by Raze

[Spiral]

If I ever go the US again, I would be worried about the food there.

[nerdspeak]

18 minutes ago, Raze said:

Based on how stage green behaved during the wokeness wave, I suspect their will be a shift when the boomers are gone, but it will be so toxic and self destructive, combined with other social and economic forces, it will fail and society will revert to lower stages for a long time.

What passes for stage green in the US just enables the worst of lower stages and collapses social structures needed for early stage development, and causes chaotic gender and race wars.

"stage green" in the US was weaponized by Democratic Party operatives trying to preserve hegemony of neoliberal financialization, it's not real green, it's orange capitalizing on green and turning it into a propaganda narrative 

[Nivsch]

10 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

So it's a shame that people will continue to slam seed oils (or god forbid defend them as good for you) without considering that it might actually be harmful.

Actually this topic is controversial

[Maximilian]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

So what?

It's not like government controls seed oils. If you don't like seed oils don't eat them.

People eat seed oils for the same reason they eat McDonalds. This is not a serious political issue. You're not banning McDonalds. We don't even ban cigarettes or alcohol which is way worse.

Agree with this a lot.

Most of what I've seen RFK doing has been performative, meaningless slop. Switching Steak & Shake's french fries to beef tallow is going to do NOTHING to help the health of Americans. If anything, he's actively promoting a fast food establishment and more people will likely eat there because they are dumb and think it's somehow "healthier" now.

Same goes for removing red dye, switching coke from HFCS to cane sugar, it does nothing meaningful to address the health crisis in America.

I agree with you Leo, this is corrupt Green. MAHA is performative and it's a distraction from what truly matters.

[Maximilian]

11 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

So it's a shame that people will continue to slam seed oils (or god forbid defend them as good for you) without considering that it might actually be harmful.

There's already a stigma going around academic circles branding seed oil skeptics as "conspiratorial," and RFK's image is not helping. 

I agree.

seed oils will never go away.

the genie is out of the bottle, so to speak.

if we waved a magic wand and erased all seed oils, the entire food supply chain would collapse over night and 99% of restaurants will go out of business. so our entire society is codependent on and built atop a foundation of seed oils now.

And yet, it may be the case that seed oils are harmful nonetheless.

In which case, I would hope that individuals are given the choice of making an informed decision about what they put in their bodies

But academia and nutritionist circles still defend seed oils and go out of their way to smear seed oil skeptics, lumping them in with anti-vaxxers and such. Indulge me for a second and let's just assume that seed oils are actually harmful for humans. If that's the case, then our current information climate gives rise to a shitty epistemic cesspool where if you listen to the experts, you will get vaccinated (good) and chug seed oils (bad), but if you listen to the conspiracy theorists, you will avoid vaccines (bad) and avoid seed oils (good). In either case, the mind is corrupted and the outcomes are sub-optimal.

of course, this is a wider issue than just one ingredient. As you know, companies do everything to take shortcuts and obscure externalities.

If there is a "serious political issue" here, it would be the lack of transparency driving profit which gives rise to the cesspool of an information climate that forces individuals to figure it out for themselves (but often they won't figure it out, and just follow a popular talking point, which is almost always partial or flawed)

If food companies came clean with everything they put in our foods and its full transparent ramifications, there would be outrage and blood. and so that will never happen :]

The only reason Seed Oils is a "controversial topic" is because mainstream science shows that consuming seed oils improves health markers (lowers LDL and heart disease) while MAHA people argue that they cause inflammation (with weaker science to back it up & then also claims that lowering LDLs is not actually healthy).

Edited Wednesday at 08:48 PM by Maximilian

[Nivsch]

@Maximilian Because the response of the body to seed oil depends on many factors including the amount consumed, the form (if cosumed with or without whole food at the same meal), if the oil is refined or unrefined, if one's omega 3 to 6 ratio is balanced or highly imbalanced before he consumes the oil, and more parameters. A mild consumption of an unrefined seed oil may be beneficial to many. In a perfect world we would all eat the seeds only in their original whole form intuitively at the amount nature made accessible to us. But today in the industrialized world we try to compensate as much as we can with imperfect strategies to get our nutrition right.

Edited Wednesday at 09:15 PM by Nivsch

[RendHeaven]

6 hours ago, Maximilian said:

The only reason Seed Oils is a "controversial topic" is because mainstream science shows that consuming seed oils improves health markers (lowers LDL and heart disease) while MAHA people argue that they cause inflammation (with weaker science to back it up & then also claims that lowering LDLs is not actually healthy).

Perfect example of blindly trusting the experts, and MAHA's negative image only doing a disservice to the truth

[aurum]

Seed oils do improve outcomes, within a context.

All health interventions are done within a context. If that context is not understood, we get silly debates.