Welcome to Z-Pack: a newsletter guaranteed to make sure you’re not the dumbest at dinner.

If this is your first Z-pack, welcome - I'm Zach.

I’m chronically online, finding out how the world works.

⬇️ Let’s get it.

🌹 Smell the roses, y’all

Below is a tweet from the account, i/o, taking the account, Culture Critic, to school on how things were NOT all sunshine and rainbows in the American past.

I’ve heard both sides of the American political spectrum fantasize about the American past - from the libs thinking of the abundant nature & pre-microplastics days to the conservatives thinking like the image above.

But they’re both wrong.

Yall, let’s please be real - life in the US is SO much better now than it was generations ago.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s a list of just a few things of what Americans in the 50s (and before) had to deal with:

• No A/C

• Kids died way more often and way earlier

• Disease was way worse and could easily leave you with long-term damage

• Fewer civil rights (of course)

• Electronics were not as near as cool or cheap as they are now - phones, TVs, battery-powered items, etc.

But most importantly - no Advil or Pepto for the hot girls with their tummy aches - hello!!!

To wrap up, anytime I get in the dumps about problems we still need to figure out, I think of how there are thousands upon thousands of people working on these issues 24/7 - and they’re making progress.

🚮 How to flush your trash

Everything around us was built and designed by people just like you and me.
Which means that it can be changed.

From turning tons of car lanes into greenery-lined bike lanes, like in Paris, to building lots of housing, like Austin, TX*

So why not shake up how we do trash?


*fun fact: Austin has permitted more housing than LA, San Francisco, & San Diego COMBINED for 2024.

📱 Hope-ium for the masses.

Aside from Dare’s point about Elon Musk being a genius with his other companies but not X/Twitter, this big decline in social media usage is good, methinks.

It’s good because social media companies aren’t making us more social - they’re not designed to do that. Tbh, they’re just designed to keep you using the app.
So this means keeping your eyes glued to the content that’ll keep you engaged - whether it’s violence, negative headlines, celebrity images, etc.

The more we can leave our echo chambers to get out and touch grass, the better.

🚜 Farm-to-table doesn’t matter

1. The whole farm-to-table thing is kind of… whack. Why? Not because I’m a hater. It’s just misguided. When we think of “farm-to-table,” we typically associate it with less emissions, because the farm is closer.

   Turns out, this really doesn’t matter when it comes to global emissions. Instead, we need to focus on WHAT we eat, not on where the food is from, to have an actual impact on reducing global emissions.
   

2. To the men who think we should go back to a hunter-gatherer lifestlye: those days are long gone.

   Why? Because there’s not enough land and animals to hunt for all of us to make it. If everything went to hell and we all tried hunting and gathering, billions would die.

   To feed all of us 8 billion humans, we rely on BIG crop yields (the amount of crops we can grow on the same amount of land) and LOTS of industrial fertilizers and pesticides. So if I had to choose between (a) everyone gets fed, or (b) billions starve, I’m going with the former.

What will we be eating in the future? Lab-grown meat on an industrial scale, baby. Which is also good! It means everyone gets fed with same quality food + an end to our brutal slaughterhouses.

Trying to reduce your personal emissions?
Focus on eating less beef, like once or twice a week.

For more details: Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data, broke down the problems behind “organic” labelled-food and farm-to-table with Derek Thompson on Spotify.

🧨 Some thoughts to start your week

-especially when it comes to your friends, partner and family. Communicate, communicate, communicate - people aren’t mind-readers.

Thanks for taking the Pack,

Zach

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or recommendation for any investment. The Content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.