I appreciate the advice, but I already do wear deodorant. I guess whether they are problems or not is subjective. I’m not convinced that being sanitised is a good thing. Microbiome of the skin is a thing. Being more hygienic and therefore more appealing is also subjective. Hygienic isn’t high up on my list of qualities of value. Obviously, there’s a threshold and everyone has a different value for it.

I didn’t say don’t use anything, I said it’s valid to decide not use products marketed as “deodorant” and “Antiperspirant”. It’s not like I follow that advice. I wear deodorant, and aftershave. But I have experimented with not wearing any, and using “eco” ones.

What I am saying is that I do agree with what is in the article, which is summarised as both products have created a false problem, and used that to create a market.

And it isn’t at all like AC. Humans smell. It’s not a completely negative thing to me. I don’t want a completely sanitised olfactory experience. If you wash daily, most of the time, Antiperspirant isn’t needed. But depends on what you are doing and what the climate is. In temperate conditions, I can go a day without smelling any different, without deodorant on. It changes when the weather is hot, and if I do strenuous exercise. But you can just wash more often.

What I’ve found is that certain soaps change the situation, as does what I eat. Garlic and Cumin seems to have a significant effect.

The article gets quite a lot right. Both sets of products are solving problems that didn’t exist, and create problems that very much do. These range from psycho-social problems to physical environmental problems.

The answer is don’t buy either. But that means being ok with being able to smell one another. That would be a return to the default state of probably a million years. But how are we all going to do that at the same time over night?

Haven’t read the work, but if I can extrapolate based on assumption, this seems like something that makes sense in an innate way.

Colour would be the best example. And I think it’s an interesting one. The utility in recognising district colours is fairly obvious. Our conscious and memory need a way to label the experience of encountering different wavelengths of light, Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to recognise them again surely? You at least need a form of language internally to have the ability to recognise a pattern you’ve experienced. To me that speaks to the utility of internal dialogue/monologue.

Your own experience of a specific colour can differ wildly from another person’s. However, because the wavelength is the same, you can attach a common label to it.

The question of which originated first is interesting to me, but because of the further point, a fundamental system of attaching common labels must exist. Kids can often sort objects in categories before language skills develop.

Seems to me that we do have a universal internal language innate to all of us and we learn a common language later. It also stands to reason that the origins of external language must be based on ancestral internal language.

Perhaps those without verbal internal monologue/dialogue have a more persistent innate language, that is not overwritten by common external language?

/Ramble

I counter this perspective with the fact that quality doesn’t improve proportionally with the price. You pay more and get Incrementally less. That’s actually not directly the consumers fault. If you paid two thirds more but got 150% more, then it would be worth it. But the only way to do that is probably to reduce the quality of the cheaper seats.