The future I want and we used to be promised looks like the Jetsons or Star Trek, where everything menial is automated away, I have time to pursue what actually interests me, and I get to chose my own path in life. The future we got was Cyberpunk 2077 without the neon aesthetic and socks that wear out from standard use in the span of a year because nothing is built to last any more.
Valid point, the Star Trek universe is not without its dark history and calamitous events, still the Federation, for all its flaws, its evil admiral problem, and Section 31, even shortly after the atomic crisis, it’s still a society that has solved poverty and homelessness on their own planets and eliminated most medical annoyances, like the common cold and headaches.
And even the Ferengi the cartoonish caricatures of unrestricted capitalism are quaint compared to the horrors that capitalism of the real world present day.
I think what they’re saying is that companies have a financial incentive to provide goods and services that don’t last after use, so consumers have to either make do with what they have already bought or consumers have to buy more, thus giving the companies more money
Yeah, it seems as though this person learned the buzzwords, but not the concepts. You are going to be using your labour regardless, so why would it not be preferable to use it directly for yourself? Of all the things capitalism promised, free stuff was never included.
Capitalism promised us better technology, cheaper products and more efficient use of our time and energy, and yet we went from fully metal constructed refrigerators that used to last multiple decades of borderline abuse to cheap pieces of plastic that break and shut fown if you use the wrong drm controlled water filter and we can’t even fix it ourselves any more because the corporations owned by capitalists don’t sell replacement parts to the public, don’t have schematics freely available, and purposefully design their stuff to break even worse if you do try to repair it.
Yeah, this is a really lazy attempt. Boo hoo, my sock has a hole in it and I don’t want to fix/replace it, therefore capitalism sucks? Come on, you can do better than that. Your socks will still get holes regardless of our socio-economic system.
We have all kinds of branding on socks about all the SpEcIaL sWeAt WiCkInG tEcHnOlOgY for maximum sweat wickage, and yet companies can’t make a sock that lasts as long as socks from 50 years ago. What the fuck are companies spending all their research on to make these apparently incredible socks that barely last a year or 2 before they wear themselves thin? And then because they’re these super proprietary blends of synthetic materials, any repair job is going to be a pain in the ass to make even as good of a repair as decent quality cotton socks from 50 years ago.
It might be just me, but I truly don’t understand the argument being made here after thinking it through a bit more.
I think maybe that instead of relying on dedicated craftspeople, we have to compromise and attempt to do things ourselves as unskilled individuals.
Products and services did not keep getting cheaper and better under capitalism. I think thats the promise failed.
and still paying a high price for still having to compensate for shitty goods.
if capitalism is incabable of making them durable, we should at least have free time to deal with this shit.
The future I want and we used to be promised looks like the Jetsons or Star Trek, where everything menial is automated away, I have time to pursue what actually interests me, and I get to chose my own path in life. The future we got was Cyberpunk 2077 without the neon aesthetic and socks that wear out from standard use in the span of a year because nothing is built to last any more.
I think the star trek future is still coming…just remember that in star trek canon, the 21st century is very interesting.
Valid point, the Star Trek universe is not without its dark history and calamitous events, still the Federation, for all its flaws, its evil admiral problem, and Section 31, even shortly after the atomic crisis, it’s still a society that has solved poverty and homelessness on their own planets and eliminated most medical annoyances, like the common cold and headaches.
And even the Ferengi the cartoonish caricatures of unrestricted capitalism are quaint compared to the horrors that capitalism of the real world present day.
I think what they’re saying is that companies have a financial incentive to provide goods and services that don’t last after use, so consumers have to either make do with what they have already bought or consumers have to buy more, thus giving the companies more money
Yeah, it seems as though this person learned the buzzwords, but not the concepts. You are going to be using your labour regardless, so why would it not be preferable to use it directly for yourself? Of all the things capitalism promised, free stuff was never included.
Capitalism promised us better technology, cheaper products and more efficient use of our time and energy, and yet we went from fully metal constructed refrigerators that used to last multiple decades of borderline abuse to cheap pieces of plastic that break and shut fown if you use the wrong drm controlled water filter and we can’t even fix it ourselves any more because the corporations owned by capitalists don’t sell replacement parts to the public, don’t have schematics freely available, and purposefully design their stuff to break even worse if you do try to repair it.
Yeah, this is a really lazy attempt. Boo hoo, my sock has a hole in it and I don’t want to fix/replace it, therefore capitalism sucks? Come on, you can do better than that. Your socks will still get holes regardless of our socio-economic system.
We have all kinds of branding on socks about all the SpEcIaL sWeAt WiCkInG tEcHnOlOgY for maximum sweat wickage, and yet companies can’t make a sock that lasts as long as socks from 50 years ago. What the fuck are companies spending all their research on to make these apparently incredible socks that barely last a year or 2 before they wear themselves thin? And then because they’re these super proprietary blends of synthetic materials, any repair job is going to be a pain in the ass to make even as good of a repair as decent quality cotton socks from 50 years ago.