Taming nature
The same discipline, if not creativity, has helped make Budweiser the most popular beer in the world. Its sheer consistency, across tens of billions of bottles and cans, is a technical marvel, and even the crankiest craft brewers harbor a secret admiration for it.
I want to write some text about what it means to feel like you’ve tamed nature. Budweiser does this. You can buy Budweiser anywhere in the world, and it will taste pretty much the same. McDonald’s does this, too. Yoshinoya. Starbucks. Big industrial magnates take something that is fundamentally variable, and they smooth it into something that is legible, familiar, and consistent.
It happens in small ways, too. Nobody in the world has ever complained about Intelligentsia’s house blend or espresso being different year to year. Ditto Letherbee, which you’ve probably never heard of but which makes a lot of gin year to year. You’d have to A/B different versions of these side by side, which materially nobody is going to do.