brilliant wrote:
rojo wrote:Nice point. I was reading an op-ed a year or two ago and the columnist retold a famous story from the 50s or 60s when some Ford or GM exec was taking a labor boss through a new plant and bragging about how they had robotic stuff and machines that would replace the workers. The union boss turned to him and said 'That's great. If we get rid of all the workers, who do you think will buy your cars?"
I think in 50 years we're going to have some weird problems. We'll need phones that self destruct or something after 5 years. Imagine if everything lasted forever, houses, cars, phones, etc. There would be no need to buy anything and the economy would crater.
Planned obsolescence had that covered a long time ago. Look no further than the light bulb.
Nah, our society would recalibrate. A significant portion of the economy already is centered on services. In our nation's history, we have optimized agriculture and moved, in sequence, from an agrarian to an industrial to a post-industrial, service economy and now add in computing technology. Even with all this optimization, it's not set it and forget it. Agriculture is still very important to our health and vitality, as is industry. If you got rid of planned obsolescence, it would simply be another step of real progress. Waste less time on bs, put energy into moral, interpersonal, environmental, medical, etc. other sorts of development. Optimizing processes does not mean we have mastered them. But it's an important step along the road to progress and mastery. It means we have more free time, flexibility and energy to problem solve and be aware.