} Getting food and avoiding boredom has been the lifework of humankind
} for some millennia now, supplicant.
}
} I suppose what you mean is "Most munificent Oracle, what is causing the
} vast proliferation of disgusting fast food places and cheesy
} pseudo-entertainment venues in what passes for the modern industrial
} world?"
}
} The answer to *that* question is that people in the modern industrial
} world have gotten fairly good at getting other people to do the dirty
} work of getting foodstuffs for them. No longer does the effete townie
} have to soil his well kept hands (and risk breaking one of his
} fabulously manicured nails) wringing the neck of tonight's chicken. No,
} he merely goes down to his local 24 hour grocery store (closed
} midnite [yes, midnite] to 6 am on Sunday) and picks up some boneless,
} skinless chicken breast which has already been marinated. Either that,
} or he goes out to the new trendy restaurant down the block and orders
} the new salad made with the new trendy lettuce, imported from the new
} trendy country that used to be part of the Soviet block and still
} hasn't quite got the hang of the nuclear waste disposal thing. This
} counts as entertainment, supplicant.
}
} Then, after the salad, which also included baby corn and baby carrots,
} the townie goes back to his fabulously decorated loft apartment in the
} warehouse district and has some interesting moments with the baby oil.
} This also counts as entertainment. Disdaining the wondrous literary
} works his grandparents bought and never read, the townie turns on some
} awful American television show, and thinks himself an intellectual
} because he catches a quarter of the references on "Jeopardy".
}
} Do not get the Oracle started on the subject of Disneyworld.
}
} You owe the Oracle a well-read copy of John Locke's "An Essay
} Concerning Human Understanding", and while you're at it, read Arthur
} Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation".
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