Meditation on an overfull stomach: Let's not be too proud of ourselves.

Yes, modern technology is wonderful. People in today's industrialized nations may not be much happier than people in the past, but our lives are better by most objective measures. Our economies are awash in plenty, and medical science has reduced other threats to the point that the biggest health issues in America today, aside from cancer, are clogged arteries, obesity, and other ailments that result from eating too much food. That's an achievement to be celebrated. Hooray!

Okay, we're done celebrating. Now let's get to work on solving those issues, maybe by sending more of the food we eat too much of to places like Africa and South Asia, where people are still starving by the millions.