Wanted to add this to the above post...but couldn't without ruining the flow...

• in India they now make millions selling skin whitening cream TO MEN
• if you want to become & stay happy in a sustainable way you have to create your own value systems, as most external value systems are heavily corrupted
• if anyone gives you a list of things that you shouldn't do, then hidden somewhere in that list is probably an opportunity for you to be different: beautiful and remarkable :D

Thanks for sharing, Aaron, and remember to eat a lot of raw vegetables.

I lived in Thailand for several years and the skin whitening cream was everywhere. Not only that, but people would wear jackets outside (especially motorcycle drivers), despite temperatures over 100 degrees, just so their skin wouldn't get darker.

Now I live in Florida where pasty white people take off as much clothing as they can so they can get darker (though they usually just get red).

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Very Interesting Post. Thanks, Aaron.

Haha, ya those filipina girls don't mess around when it comes to that over there. While I was in Boracay (visiting the Phils with my friend who is filipino) I was talking to this one filipina, who I thought was drop dead gorgeous. She was all dolled up, spoke perfect english, and seemed pretty educated to me. I had a crush :). Later that night though, a few other filipina girls came up to me and asked why I was talking to her. They said she must be from a poor family and is uneducated and lower-class. I told them I disagreed , then one girl said "over here she is ugly like feet" hahaha. wtf? I asked my friend what the hell that girl could have done wrong and he explained the whole dark skin thing. I was pretty damn disgusted, because the girls who were talking trash didn't seem like they were joking one bit. Needless to say, I only talked to dark (they're not that dark over there) skinned girls for the rest of the trip. :) Good times. Love the Philippines.

My programmer had a great analogy for the above post & consumerism in general.

I stated that we cure symptoms, and he stated that "when you look at the Maslov hierarchy of needs, marketers try to sell people things at the top while teaching them that buying those products allows them to skip the steps in the middle."

And Fake Steve Jobs recently wrote the following, on iPad:

Some pundits have posed the question: Why do anyone need this thing? Indeed, even those of you are lining up and standing outside stores may be wondering, Why am I doing this? Why am I lining up like a zombie for an expensive piece of consumer electronics, a product for which there is no shortage and which, let’s face it, nobody really needs? Back in the early days of our design process, Jonny Ive came in to see me and we spent a long time trying to decide where on Mazlow’s triangle this product would sit. Because we knew if we couldn’t be way up above the very top of that pyramid, floating above it, totally outside the needs it describes, then this wouldn’t be a product we wanted to make. Some of our early iterations, in fact, had to be tossed out because when we looked at them we realized that parts of them were too, well, necessary. Don’t get me wrong. That’s fine for other companies. It’s just not what we do here at Apple.

hehe Aaron,

I use Fair and Handsome!!!

and you know what...

I am neither fair nor handsome ;-)

and I know these products will *not* make me one :-)...

I am educated - a post-graduate, but I still use these products.

So why do people here in India use these products?

Because these guys sell HOPE.

And Hope Sells.

I thought for a second there you'd spent your wedding night with the mayor of Manila :)

There is only one thing better than getting married in the Philippines with thousands of flowers. That's living here.

BTW any amount of high-fructose corn syrup is to much. Dr Byron Richards documents the serious harmful effects of HFCS.
I also highly recommend his books on Leptin.

This just reminds me of the star-bellied sneeches!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh1qWZWNGGE

Dr. Seuss was a genius.