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The Microwave Economy - David Perell

perell.com · 3,857 words · saved by 2 readers

David explains how the American economy has prioritized cheap functionality over meaningful beauty and what that means for Americans. Read here.

My life is better because of microwavable meals. They taste good and fill me up, and they’re ready in 5 minutes. Still, I wouldn’t want to have one every time I eat: I’d miss out on the joys of fresh food and the hard-to-measure satisfaction of meal preparation. Switching to an all-microwave diet would rob me of my humanity, making me feel soulless and uninspired. And yet, America has become a Microwave Economy. We’ve overwhelmingly used our wealth to make the world cheaper instead of more beautiful, more functional instead of more meaningful. We don’t value what we can’t quantify, so our intu

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