Pizza… Pizza…

Posted on by Frank

Growing up Chinese, my introduction to pizza was public school lunches.  We got sectioned trays where they could separate each course, like green beans.  On the days with pizza, the cooks in the kitchen would slice rectangular portions from a large, tall-lipped cookie sheet.  The school lunch slices ran a bit thicker than traditional circular pizza, and they didn’t fit into the largest rectangular section.

Naturally, I eventually tried traditional pizza.  I believe that it was Pizza Hut, though I honestly don’t remember if I was at the table or from take-out.  What many found to be perfectly normal, I found to be wildly exotic.

However, eating pizza felt taboo in ways.  First, it has cheese; I know that this sounds trivial to most of you, but Chinese food does not have cheese.  I have heard that this is likely since many Chinese people are lactose intolerant.  Second, Chinese people almost always have rice (or noodles) with their meals; deviating from this felt unnatural.

Pizza and mathematics

Pizza fascinated me in mathematical ways.  First, I pondered all the combinations.  Having 10 options for toppings will yield over a thousand combinations.  Bump that to 16 toppings, and the numbers jump to 65 thousand combinations.  Even if you had a different set each day, it’d take you nearly 180 years to try them all.

Next, the entire pizza pie is a two-dimensional disc.  I understand that it doesn’t technically have zero thickness, but that’s the shape that we normally think about when we think of it.  It’s all reminiscent of a passage in Microserfs, with the talk of sliding two-dimensional foods under the door to a fellow programmer.  Or more appropriately, a reference to Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.  I don’t remember precisely when I read it, but it was certainly thought-provoking.

Finally, pizza teaches us about fractions.  The first cut across the entire pie divides the pie in two; each subsequent cut adds two more slices.  If cut properly, each slice is about the same size.  Even if you didn’t see the original pizza, the angle of the tip hints at its fraction.  An angle of 45º tells us it’s cut into eight pieces.  Similarly, 30º tells us that it’s cut into twelve pieces.

Bad lessons about pizza

Other food items are individual units, like burgers or hot dogs; pizza is different.  At this stage in life, I’ve seen my share of pizza parties or morale events with pizza.  We can all remember stacks of pizza boxes over a foot tall.  Don’t get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoy pizza.  There’s nothing wrong with it, in and of itself.

However, there’s a subtle, nefarious subtext with pizza.  The problem lies in how we think about pizza.  It doesn’t matter how many boxes of pizza we have; we still think of it as a unit, not an amount.  There’s a profound sadness about finishing a single pizza pie; it doesn’t matter if there are a dozen additional pizza boxes underneath.  The very shape of a pizza slice implies a fraction, and we can’t help but look at it that way.

We struggle to think of pizza as anything but a limited resource.  Furthermore, we extend this same perception of ‘limited resource’ to other concepts that have no practical limitation.  Consequently, we’ll then assert that this limited resource shall be hoarded and only given to a precious, deserving few.

The sin of empathy

How much does it cost us to feel for and empathize with others?  This term, the sin of empathy, is not new.  In fact, they even use the term “toxic empathy”.  However, what I find truly interesting is that they generally do not believe that empathy is bad.  In fact, they don’t even believe that excessive empathy is necessarily bad.  They only object to empathizing with undeserving people.

So who deserves our empathy?  If we can agree that no one is completely innocent, what makes one person more deserving than others?  Or perhaps who doesn’t deserve our empathy?  However, I won’t answer that question myself; I’ll quote PBS:

For them (the Christian Right), empathy is a cudgel for the left: It can manipulate caring people into accepting all manner of sins according to a conservative Christian perspective, including abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, illegal immigration and certain views on social and racial justice.

Sin?  Uhmm…  Okay, is telling your child that Santa Claus exists a sin?  In fact, here is a list of mortal sins.  Here’s the problem: there are venial sins and mortal sins.  The former are smaller than the latter, but all mortal sins are of the same scale.

This means that the sin of sacrilege (merely saying “Oh my God”) is as detestable as the sin of homosexuality.  It’s not my scale; I didn’t invent this.  You can’t cherry-pick which mortal sinners are undeserving of empathy.

Here’s the blunt truth: you don’t run out of empathy.  It’s not as if you wake up one day in your fifties and you’re abruptly out of empathy.  It is not a limited resource.  They will continue to call it “sin of empathy” because it is more palatable than words like homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and misogyny.

Not enough room for more people

Sadly, our country is often perceived as a giant pizza with a fixed number of slices.  Therefore, they’re unwilling to share.  We’ll hear people use the term “America First” to denote that we, the residents of this country, deserve more resources, a bigger slice of the pie, if you will.  Tragically, they don’t know the history of that phrase, or even worse, they don’t care about the association with Nazis.

Before we go further.  Here are some cold, hard facts about immigration:

Furthermore, no matter what phrases like “they’re not sending their best” may lead you to believe, their “not their best” is still pretty good.  In fact, once you filter out the misdemeanor of unauthorized entry, immigrants commit fewer crimes than natively born citizens.  That’s truly embarrassing.  Their “not best” (if you believe the assertion) is better than our “average”.

I’m not suggesting that we allow hardened criminals like murderers or rapists into the country; deny them authorized entry.  Nor do I suggest we allow them to run around free after committing a crime here; arrest them.

Naturally, now you’ll harp on the “unauthorized entry” angle.  Fair.  Let’s discuss that.

Why deny them entry?

I understand that we now default to denying entry unless explicitly authorized, but why?  Most people will answer with an answer that resembles the “America First” mentality.  You need to take care of your own first and ignore others.  The gigantic pizza that is the United States has a fixed number of slices.  However, let’s entertain the idea of defaulting to allowing entry unless explicitly unauthorized (like their having a criminal history).

We are allowed to rewrite the policy.  Distributing alcohol wasn’t initially prohibited, but then it was for a while.  It’s no longer prohibited.

The picture that many envision is that we’d collapse under our own weight.  Immigrants would be too much of a strain on our society.  They’ll suck up our tax dollars and drain Social Security.  Let’s dispel the myths:

  • Immigrants pay taxes; yes, even undocumented immigrants.  They file taxes with an ITIN.
  • Undocumented immigrants do not collect Social Security.  An ITIN is not sufficient to collect Social Security.
  • Undocumented immigrants did not get free hotel rooms in New York City; those were asylum seekers.  They generally wanted to be self-sufficient and work, but were not allowed to.  The Biden administration gave many of them the right to work, specifically to minimize the drain on our resources.

Immigrants contribute in many ways:

  • Undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in taxes in 2022.  That figure has likely grown.
  • Undocumented immigrants contribute to production.  The jobs they hold contribute to society.
  • Undocumented immigrants patronize businesses.  They buy cars, groceries, pay for services, etc.

Mass amnesty

Here’s an idea:  give every undocumented immigrant who has not committed a violent crime an easy path to permanent residency.  Sure, they’ll take some jobs, but a larger economy also means that they’ll produce more jobs.  The GDP will be larger with them in the country than without them.

It costs us considerable money to find them and deport them.  It’s far cheaper to give them legal residency status and document them.  It’s the best thing to do for both them and us.

The problem is that those who oppose this still see the country as a pizza.  They envision that every slice that immigrants get is a slice that they don’t.  They look at a tiny 10-inch pizza cut into fourths and believe that immigrants will take one of those slices (25% of the resources).  What they fail to understand is that, by merely having immigrants here, the pizza grows from a tiny 10-inch pizza (with four slices) to a much larger 17-inch pizza (with twelve slices).  There is plenty for everyone.

That’s what I think about when I think about pizza.

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