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Anecdote: A professor once told me he read that whole essay after I referenced it in a paper for an addictions Psych class and he loved it. But yes, I agree, I

• oskarth 14y ago
  This is getting awfully off-topic, but I just re-read the essay and stumbled across this: It will actually become a reasonable strategy (or a more reasonable strategy) to [suspect everything new] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet ) I didn't notice this double-meaning the first time around. As a fellow reader of the essay, do you think pg is implying that the Paleo diet is new or that it's a reaction to new food? First time reading it I assumed it was the latter, now I'm leaning to it being the former.
  • StavrosK 14y ago
    As I see it, it's pretty clearly the latter.
  • jalanb 14y ago
    As I see it, it's obviously the former
  • freshhawk 14y ago
    The former. The latter interpretation didn't even occur to me, although now that you mention it I can see how if you were a fan of the paleo diet you would interpret it that way. That's interesting, it is certainly possible it was the latter but it seems unlikely. I'm still not sure I buy the double meaning interpretation either. pg probably meant to imply only one of the interpretations. He writes pretty clearly and directly. I think the former is much more likely, since that's the simplest interpretation of the sentence and it's accurate. The paleo diet is new (to avoid any argument from paleo fans it doesn't actually have much to do with what paleolithic humans actually ate, so it's not old in that way).