4 ms·

smell being good/bad seems to me to be learned? Go to Taiwan and smell stinky tofu 臭豆腐. To most non-Taiwanese it smells like cat poop or sewer water. Eating it

smell being good/bad seems to me to be learned? Go to Taiwan and smell stinky tofu 臭豆腐. To most non-Taiwanese it smells like cat poop or sewer water. Eating it as a non-fan feels like I'm eating in a dirty public restroom where the food itself doesn't taste bad but the smell from the over full toilet next to me is off putting. Similarly shrimp paste. Many cheeses also smell pretty bad. All of them stop smelling so bad once you train yourself to enjoy them. Is the smell of poop any different?

Spooky23 4y ago
Good point. I used to work on a dairy farm. Poop didn’t register after awhile.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> smell being good/bad seems to me to be learned? Go to Taiwan and smell stinky tofu 臭豆腐. I don't understand your example. The name of the item explicitly identifies it as smelling bad.
- pjscott 4y ago
  And if you go to Taiwan and look around, empirically you can see that people try to avoid being immediately downwind of a stinky tofu cart. (It’s pretty tasty, mind you, but IMO not worth the hassle.)
- asiachick 4y ago
  Sure, but what about other examples. Tons of people like blue cheese. But it smells bad. It doesn't have "smells bad" in the name. Neither does "durian" 榴莲
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > Sure, but what about other examples. But these aren't relevant examples. The claim was that people learn to think of certain smells as "good" or "bad". The example given was 臭豆腐, which makes no sense because it is thought of as smelling bad. You don't even claim that your examples are thought of as smelling good. You don't have to have "smells bad" in your name in order to smell bad. The lesson to draw here is that people are willing to eat things that both (1) taste good, and (2) smell bad. If you like blue cheese and it smells bad... how is that a counterexample? (I'm open to the idea that people disagree on whether durians or blue cheese smell bad. But I'm less open to the idea that their opinion of the smell is learned - from what I've heard, some people think durian smells disgusting, and other people never saw anything wrong with the smell, but I haven't heard of people who initially thought the smell was disgusting but grew to like it.)

Spooky23 4y ago

Good point. I used to work on a dairy farm. Poop didn’t register after awhile.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> smell being good/bad seems to me to be learned? Go to Taiwan and smell stinky tofu 臭豆腐. I don't understand your example. The name of the item explicitly identifies it as smelling bad.

pjscott 4y ago
And if you go to Taiwan and look around, empirically you can see that people try to avoid being immediately downwind of a stinky tofu cart. (It’s pretty tasty, mind you, but IMO not worth the hassle.)
asiachick 4y ago
Sure, but what about other examples. Tons of people like blue cheese. But it smells bad. It doesn't have "smells bad" in the name. Neither does "durian" 榴莲
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > Sure, but what about other examples. But these aren't relevant examples. The claim was that people learn to think of certain smells as "good" or "bad". The example given was 臭豆腐, which makes no sense because it is thought of as smelling bad. You don't even claim that your examples are thought of as smelling good. You don't have to have "smells bad" in your name in order to smell bad. The lesson to draw here is that people are willing to eat things that both (1) taste good, and (2) smell bad. If you like blue cheese and it smells bad... how is that a counterexample? (I'm open to the idea that people disagree on whether durians or blue cheese smell bad. But I'm less open to the idea that their opinion of the smell is learned - from what I've heard, some people think durian smells disgusting, and other people never saw anything wrong with the smell, but I haven't heard of people who initially thought the smell was disgusting but grew to like it.)