Blech. Nothing here that's obscure or likely to alter the path of some one's knowledge. No philosophy, no history, and the list includes Gladwell. Actually, the inclusion of Gladwell probably distinctly colors my thinking on the subject.
Maybe "How to read a book" or "The Alchemist" or I don't know, something that's not just so totally typical.
I recently bought some dry cat food from Amazon. One of my cats immediately got a massive skin infection that cost >$400 to cure. I can't prove it was from that but this is an indoor cat who has no real exposure to anything else that would have been different.
Needless to say, I totally agree with not buying anything that goes on or in a living thing.
Unrelated, but you're the first person I've ever heard who had optical migraines, which I have too. I experience them as shooting lights followed by essentially a shut down in vision in the affected eye. Never thought about Lasik making it worse but glad to never have done it if that's the same experience. It's miserable when it happens.
The manager's schedule is built around Taylorism and the idea that if she (the manager) just figures out the exact mechanistic steps for squeezing all the productivity out of the worker, everything will operate smoothly.
Unfortunately, that's not particularly useful in knowledge work where most of the time, we're dealing with a non-deterministic relationships and creatively figuring out a problem. The expression of the symptom is the manager's schedule but the actual disease is the outdated idea of command and control as a way to manage knowledge workers.
I guess we'll never learn from things like margarine and other lab invented foods. Beyond Meat is heavily dependent on seed oils which are terrible for us (expeller pressed canola oil is ingredient #2). Red Meat actually isn't unhealthy at the levels most people currently eat it. While it wouldn't surprise me if more people ate Beyond meat and its ilk in the future, it doesn't make it better for us and will likely just make us sicker.
What they learned is that solving problems with debt is bad. So they try to not have debt by saving a lot. The fact they do it with the same fiat currency system is another matter. But that history lesson is one the OP seems to be ignorant of.
I'm 46 with a 3 year old I spend a lot of time with (21-24 hours a week). I love that time but it's a little depressing to only have 5 years of free time left.
I'm using ProtonMail because I'm trying to de-Google-Amazon-Facebook my life somewhat as another user mentions. I'm tired of being the product and am willing to pay for certain things.
This idea ignores the levels at which we are manipulated on today's social media platforms. The manipulation is so inherent in the platform that we don't even realize it's happening. This is a different thing from say, a statement like "There's nothing stopping people from going back to riding horses instead of driving cars." Cars didn't manipulate where you went. They just made it easier to get there.
Social media platforms control, manipulate, curate and dictate the destination you arrive at all in an effort to generate clicks and then cash. They are a different thing, playing on our basest instincts and we have to ask ourselves if they actually are net benefits.
Louis Brandeis had similar beliefs. Leisure was important for workers and his battles against the monopolies of the day were often focused on this belief. Though his focus was on self-growth and learning in the leisure time provided.
I think this is important. The OP seems to think that management is totally open to just being fair and inclusive with individual employees but that the situation becomes too polarized when a union is implemented. This ignores the fact that it's in management's favor to keep people isolated and unaware of other employees issues.
No matter how great your workplace is, it's already us vs them whether you want to admit it or not. That's the nature of the beast.