Alright this women tries to get these videos shown in the classroom including my own classroom. So I'm a 17 year old senior in high school who has a startup that was just accepted into a tech incubator in Manhattan. We raised 60k in capital and have an office. This is due to the tech world she insults. My town is a poor upstate New York dump and communicating on smart phones and macs was how I got here. Her world would have kept me locked up.
only ignorant people who don't know how to fix and handle technology throw out alot of their "new stuff" after a couple of months. Oh and I love how she just loosely throws around the word "toxic" as if everything made with the chemicals is toxic... plus she never specifies in what quantities because the concentration is what makes something dangerous or not, in addition to the fact toxins and poisons have to actually enter the body -- its not like i rip open my laptop and eat the battery acid.
My PC is 7 years old, I just changed the graphics card last year and can still use the latest video games. Electronic design is not that bad, and you also have to see that the technology changes really fast.
The problem is more on the producers side (toxicity, bad recycling) and on the consumer side (do you REALLY need that new fancy cell phone ?).
If indeed processor speed doubles every 18 months, your designed to last computer
in just 4.5 years will be only 1% as fast as the new stuff. maybe people can deal with that, but in a system where the new web-pages require the power & processing speed of state of the art, a behind the times machine would simply NOT have access to the state-of-the-art web sites. oops ... oh well ... now what?
This video doesn't take in account that people are throwing away perfectly usable stuff all the time. Also modularity is already in most electronic gadgets, you can repair anything if you want (and if you are ready to shell out some money), but people prefer to buy a new computer rather than repair an old one.
PCs are already modular, easy to build and the components are quite durable... You have to keep in mind that compatibility is a problem that isn't intentional... AMD for example have full compatibility between their AM2 AM2+ AM3 and AM3+ sockets which means that you can for example install a AM2 CPU on any of these sockets... That's great when people already have "Superb CPUs" and need only a new motherboard (which is a much bigger component but not necessarily more important or expensive)
Check us out on google at ejunkezDotcom We use only E-Steward Recyclers to process all of our electronics. plus we are changing the face of the way recycling looks and is done by adding incentive programs for our customers.
I find it funny how she promotes "green" thinking but doesn't want to pay the cost of actually doing the green thing of repairing her DVD player. She speaks of having things being modular and repairable yet doesn't want to pay to actually do that. What a load of bull. I agree that we need to change our environmental thinking but people need to look at the REAL issues. That Prius you drive is much worse than anything else on the road because of the electronics in it. SEE THE BIG PICTURE.
@Cameronallanowens you missed it to. look at it this way. you buy a new car for 20.000$, you drive it for a while and something broke. you go to the repair shop and they want to charge you for the repair 25.000$. how can changing one part of the machine be more expensive then whole new machine?
@vBotics So don't buy health insurance. Really what people want is health care that cost cheaper than the market has set. It would be amazing if we had healthcare allow for competing costs instead of the oligarchical structure.
you cant make a law forcing companies to take stuff back. first of all that is unconstitutional. when you buy a product, its yours. simple as that. whoever sold it to you has no responsibility to take it back with exception of course if it doesnt work or there is something in the contract. they do have a responsibility not to harm people but we dont need new laws for this. we have too many laws as it is right now.
If you sold all the "stuff" only once and it would last for ever, just to break even on research and development costs, you would have to charge an unimaginable amount, and so when it becomes naturally obsolete people, specifically the poor would rarely be able to improve their lives, and that is the true source of inequality
Designed for the dump is so stupid my teacher had these two staplers one from back in the 1960's and another from a year ago. the 1960's one still works like a charm and the new one's always jamming up! And then when it does jam up it's almost imposible to get it to work again!
"Make the electronics modular," let's ignore the fact that at the PCB the chips are in modular cases and the the wifi chip can be taken out and replaced if wanted. Your definition of modular means that instead of my cell phone fitting in my pocket, it will fit in my car.
the people making these are people who have some macro idea of how things work, but no true understanding, it is just highly polished bloggers pretending they are journalist's.
Take Back programs will result in higher costs for the products consumers buy. I am willing to pay more, are you? By the way your theories also apply to energy consumers as well... Great video!
every year new abilities come out to the market which we think would solve our problem with this or that
and it's the human nature , we want to own better things . and because of all the awesome new products out there your great computer doesn't seem too good 2 or 3 or 4 years later
@hajar9911 let's put as a representative example the iPhone, ok? Apple just released iPhone 4S ... Do you think this is the best they have? no, they most certainly have an iPhone 25 designed... but if they realese the iPhone 25 this year, we would buy that and no more iPhones for the next 10 or 20 years... not a good bussiness to sell the best of the best inmediatelly.
I dont want better stuff, I want the best stuff right away so I don't have to buy more in a long time.
We don't need laws. We need to watch what we buy. Using violence to solve complex social problems is wrong and idiotic. We're better than that. We can do the civilized thing and solve our own problems in a peaceful way without getting people with guns (governments) involved.
YES! I want a universal charger! They don't need to make all the different plugs to charge something with 9 volts. OK, if it is a 5 volt charge fine, but not an different charger for each 5 volt device!!!!!!
@kaleidomagic Well look I'm sorry, but we don't need a government saying what kind of charger we should have. Also phones do work differently and it's a matter of branding, new technologies and more.
The only reason for desing product to get old quickly old or products that brokes so soon, is continues selling product, if the product doesn,t broke you will not buy another more.
@VideoSheap You want to pay a lot more for something that might last a decade and as Moore's law says will be obsolite in a few year or nowhere near as good as the new innovations?
@david52875 Yes, she does. Don't you know: what liberals tell others is what they expect them to believe. Watch (better yet, dont) her other video on Stuff. She says they change a tiny piece inside the computer every year and thats all the difference. I'm floored that anyone can listen to this and feel like they weren't just brainwashed.
I think geniuses are not designing for the sake of money, they design for the good reason and hobby, but these f'kng greed corporations(capitalism-addicts) are the reason why we're always having the worst result!
@wecantsee The reason we have the transistor, and therefore the computer, is because of BELL labs. They wanted to make a variable resistor for PROFIT. Steve Wozniac created the Apple I for PROFIT. He sold the Apple I for $666.66. Capitalism gave us computers, radios, electric guitar amplifies, basically all electronics. Need I say more?
@david52875 Not only that, capitalism brought all those items TO the people. When the government was incharge of artillery trajectory systems they didn't share their powerful computing engines with the very people that paid for them. When Bell did it everyone has access to more computing power then ever....and go figure that the free market almost instantly eclipsed the government as the premier innovators. Government 0 Private Market 1,039,049,0349,409,340,834.
More regulation good to ears but better not be the government beurecrats, it will just adds burdens to society, how about a private institutions & individuals (victims) that can put pressure on the producers.
@rourin, if you mean hinder the development of products designed to fail, stop the commercialism that has caused our economy to crash and quality of life to drop, and take dangerous means of slow suicide away from those in poverty, yes we do. Your so busy worrrying about the economy you can't see the forest for the trees. She explained this, you cannot "BUY" your way out of this situation. Your point is self-contradicting. (see argument pyramid before replying)
So what you really want to do is hinder development, stop commercialism, further hurt the worlds economy and take away jobs from people in poor countries. Yeah, that sounds very humanitarian.
@rourin the current way of commercialism and industrial tactics is just like a wall that blind us to see more far. if we take it out there are definitely more things we can do to create a better world. If you talk about poor, can smart phone fill their stomach? if not, then why we made so many to waste?
I appreciate the whole "story of stuff" series, however some of them are not stories in the educational sense. They are instead an activist opinion put on video. This video is accurate and ethically responsible, but it is less educational than it is a call to action for an environmental cause. Learn to differentiate between a history lesson and accurate propaganda. ;)
At 3:08 she's clearly describing a problem with herself, not the industry.
I have a 22 in flat panel monitor in front of me now, it's 4 years old now. My computer is about 10 years old, although I have upgraded the HDD a few times.
I guess the newest gadget I have is my phone, which is 18 months old, which I purchased after my old phone finally cracked open. I still have the old phone, but it's just for emergencies because it's so fragile.
Very nice idea, but hard to realize. Companies need cheap products or people won't buy them. And if people don't buy products they cant pay wages or employ people, which is a massive problem in a world with growing population. Like it or not, we're locked in this cycle. We can't be green cos the economy lives out of waste and "dump design"!
aah the same old story.. it's not my doing... it's someone else... who asked you to throw away the perfectly good phone just coz a better one came along...? who said replacing your laptop was necessary...? who asked you to buy a laptop (which is not upgradable) instead of a pc when all you do is use it at home... and even if you want to upgrade, upgrade your PC, not your laptop... this story is ridiculous... :)
The debate here reminds me of this cartoon strip I saw some time back . Some people wonder, "What the heck if these 'go green' guys are just fooling us, and we end up getting rid of all the harmful stuff/bad practices for nothing!"
hey... come to think of it~ My PSP lasted till now and it's still too precious to throw away knowing that there are millions of games out there waiting for me to play :D
Progressivism / Liberalism / Statism advocates changes or reform through GOV'T action.
Give ANY politician or bureaucrat the power to "redistribute & regulate" OTHER people’s money & choices and they will ALWAYS pass laws to benefit THEIR “special interest” campaign backers; Banks, Wall Street, Military-Industrial Complex, Marxist Unions, Giant "Green" Corps, Big Oil, Pharma, Insurance etc.
Statism = Political Cronyism.
The Fed’s FIAT (counterfeit) debt-currency FUELS THE FIRE!
you don't need more laws....... if you aren't willing to buy durable now you aren't magically going to bre willing to buy durable when new laws are passed.... if anything, this will limit the ability of people to find novel ways to be eco-friendly.......
Of course, Annie Leonard wants to live in a world where a few command the government to force us to have fewer choices rather than letting each individual choose for themselves. Not surprising.
It would be like asking car companies to make ever faster cars, but then complaining when the cars get cruddy mileage: it doesn't make much sense. Cars, of course, only need to go around 70-85 mph, and they only need to get there so fast, so there's some large leeway for them to be cleaner burning and such, but there is thus far no such practical limitation on how fast we want our data processed, and how much of it we want processed at the same time.
Use the money for these videos to go into manufacturing something clean that people will still buy enough to be competitive. Lastly, most computers are outdated in a few years because we ask more of them. Much more. Ridiculously more. As a result, manufacturers push technology to it's bleeding edge constantly to keep up with how fast we demand our technology to be. WE ARE ASKING FOR THEM TO DO WHAT THEY DO.
@gbell12 ....yes it does. For an iPod or cell phone to be modular it would have to be capable of being easily opened up, the parts easily exposed, all the chips to be set into sockets rather than soldered directly to the board, etc. This would make an iPod or cell phone cost twice as much, not be any faster or more capable, and be two or three times it's size. All that, and most people would still just throw them away like they do PCs, which are very modular already.
@vedinthorn it would cost more, but it probably wouldn't cost that much more unless the normal price is subsidized and it wouldn't be 2-3 times the size unless for some reason they decided to hold it together with Nine Inch Nails.
@IsaacKarjala I don't see how it wouldn't cost at least 50% more and add a minimum of a 1/4 inch in thickness to all devices. Chip sockets are relatively thick (at least as thick as the chip itself) because the pin-outs have to seat in them. There's also the extra time it would take to seat the chips by hand rather than just letting a robot solder it in place. It's not a lot of time, but a couple of seconds adds several dollars to each board.
@vedinthorn miniturizing chip sockets should be a lot easier than miniturizing the chips themselves... how much thickness it adds is going to depend on the product, my 3/4`` thick cell phone probably won't be any thicker... thinner devices are going to have more thickness added, but it'd probably be more like 1/8`` or 1/16`` than 1/4``..... as far as cost, that'd depend on the buisiness model...........
......... if the company expects to sell accessories it might cell the core product for cheap and charge an arm and a leg for the accessories, hell most printers on the market are sold for less than the cost to manufacture because the maker knows that they are the only one who can sell new caritages... if such a product where to switch to an open source model they'd have to raise prices significantly....for a couple seconds to equate to a few dollars, the employee would have to be paid $540/hr.
@IsaacKarjala But chip replacement isn't accessory replacement, and no end-user without an IT degree is going to look at the two as the same thing. I know tons of people that love their iPhone/Droid who are afraid to do anything more than take their battery out of the thing. You also have to (either as the phone company, or as the chip maker) make tons of chips that may or may not ever be used/purchased. In PCs that's not a huge deal considering the margin, lack of competitors, etc...
@vedinthorn I don't know all the specifics of every product..... but yea, the problem ultimately falls on the consumer, people who buy shit that doesn't last and don't even expect it to; and other dolts that think creating more laws is the solution....
...... completely ignoroing the fact that law accomplishes abolutely nothing except through violence..... I think most of the problems we face can be summarized with:
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and moree complex but it takes a stroke of genius, and a whole lot of courage, to move things in the other direction"
@IsaacKarjala But in the case of between 6 and 20 chips per cell phone, each needing it's own socket and replacement chipset at such low failure rates, selling only to people in repair businesses (by and large), you have to absorb the cost of the extra chips either per phone, or per chip sold to the phone company. You couldn't just make the phone cheaper at all, AND the extra chips would cost a lot both to make and install.
@vedinthorn I've never taken apart a cell phone, tried but even with all the screws I could find removed it seemed like I still would of needed a chisel; but I don't think even a desktop computer has that many socketed ICs, nor do I think that a motherboard by itself has that many ICs, socketed or not..... I don't think every IC needs to be socketed, but the ones most prone to failure or for which the most performance can be gained from an upgrade should be socketed.....
@IsaacKarjala A good chunk of PC motherboards have, well, varying amounts of ICs. The move has been to put most controller chips onto one large chip on the motherboard, while new kinds of controllers have been developed that can't fit yet. Most have two major chips with anywhere between 4 and 20 others. I've seen a few cell phones taken apart, and most have at least 4 separate chips (in smart phones anyway). Again, it's doable, but...
@IsaacKarjala The question is whether the cost is worth the benefit both to the companies who would do it as well as worth the increased cost to the consumer for very little gain. Desktop PCs, to my knowledge, have the longest chip lifespans in the CPU on the planet, and due to die shrinks, architecture changes, and so forth, they only stay in one socket for (usually) around 2-3 years. That's WITH the desire to make the motherboard last. I hold no such hope for phones.
@vedinthorn When a new processor comes out, it almost always has to change sockets because it will need a bigger data and address bus. So it's not just "planned obsolescence" like Leonard says. You could build a perfectly good work computer with a Pentium 4 cpu which was released about a decade ago.
@david52875 Faster clock usually, more cores, depends. When you're talking about comparing a Phenom II X6 and a Athlon II X2, you're talking about a socket that was designed for 6 cores, and can take a chip with only 4 cores with 2 disabled. When you're talking about going from an Athlon to an Athlon X2, you're talking about needing a new socket for the extra cores unless you get the mobo with the socket that already supports the extra core. Sockets are backward compatible, but rarely foreward
@IsaacKarjala Even if it adds very minimal thickness, I still say most people aren't going to bother repairing it themselves for fear of 'breaking it' like they fear opening a computer even to dust it. And sure, I can get on board with 1/8".
@gbell12 some devices are more modular than others, and some more durable than others, yet most people don't buy the most durable or most repairable, but rather either whatever is cheapest up front or whatever is the "coolest".... some companies sell very durable expensive printers and charge very little for ink cartiages that last forever, yet most people still buy the printer that is sold for less than the manufacturing cost but charge out the nose for priopritary cartiages that don't last.
@IsaacKarjala yes, it's "cheapest" on the shelf even though that product is more expensive to society. The external costs include subsidies for resource extracting companies, cheap landfill rates, and the cancer and other illnesses from the chemicals released into the environment during manufacturing. There are dozens. None of these costs is built into the product price.
That's my point, and the video's. The system needs to be set up so that the "right thing" is cheapest. Simple.
@gbell12 which is an issue of legal liability, it doesn't require any new laws it juast requires that people who take actions that result in othert people being posioned being held criminally and civialy liable... and if they can't for whatever reason be held to account under law, then well..... they just need to be caught in a dark ally....... this will force companies to account those externalized costs, either through proper disposal or through constantly having to replace their CEO.......
@gbell12 Actually, in all but cases where companies do something illegal and don't get caught for it, those costs are accounted for in the products themselves. If companies have to clean up a spill, for instance, they do it from a stash of previous profits. Same with lawsuits for illness and whatnot. Again, I don't see anyone saying subsidies for companies are good: they need to all stop. To say that companies need to just be forced to not do regular business, though, is stupid.
@IsaacKarjala And that forces the companies to make such things. Every company will always make what makes them the most money because they are morally obligated to make profits to their investors as well as legally obligated.
.If you make companies pay to make things less toxic, fine, but now your 400 dollar phone is 600 dollars. If you're cool with that, start your own company that does it instead of whining about those who don't. If it were cheaper for them to make things this way, they would already be doing it. Cheaper=more profits...always. It isn't cheaper. It's more expensive which means we have to pay more for those gadgets. Again, if you think you can make a viable company that way, do it.
@vedinthorn you're missing key points. Your $400 phone actually DOES cost $600 - the difference is the externalized costs. Your $400 phone costs $200 worth of pollution and other damage to the wider world that the company does not have to pay for. Cheap is an illusion afforded us by a broken system. If those costs can't be internalized (ie. paid by the company), then the role of government is to structure things so that the right thing gets done anyway.
@gbell12 Again, those costs, normally, are accounted for by the company. Not ALL things made inexpensively are made because they cause some huge amount of pollution somehow. Regardless, in the cases where companies do rarely get away with horribly polluting some place, it's the fault of the government and buyers for collusion with the company: not the fault of the company for making money. Companies do what we tell them, and we vote with our wallets. More government just gives them...
@vedinthorn I'm not trying to be insulting, but it's obvious you haven't kept yourself informed on the reality. You're assuming perfect information exchange - that when I buy the $10 T-shirt, I'm deciding to support a company that uses child labor or pollutes a nearby river. I'm unaware of it usually, because the world's a big place. Also, I'm often not given a choice - maybe all shirts on that shelf use child labor. I'm certainly not telling the companies to do that.
@gbell12 I'm not assuming perfect information. I'm assuming distributed information. As a general rule if a company does something horrible, the information is easily available to people who look for it after a few minutes on Google. What's wrong with child labor in third world countries? It beats starving or prostitution, which is where the kids would end up (I've seen the statistics on it, so I'm not pulling this out of my ass) if they weren't allowed to work. They don't go to school.
@vedinthorn What evidence do you have that the costs are "normally" accounted for? I can give you one blaring example where they're not. Coal-fired electricity was used to make and run that little iPhone of yours. Burning coal puts mercury into the environment, where it's concentrated in fish, making them unsafe to eat. The doctors now warn pregnant women about this. The costs are staggering. None of them born by Apple.
@gbell12 Because when a company breaks a pollution regulation, they are fined for it and have to pay to have it cleaned. Mercury from coal burning is a slight problem, which has been getting far better in the last 30 years than in years previous thanks to scrubbers on smoke stacks. Only so much is allowed to leave the plant now, and since 'toxic' is relative to dosage, it's not as big of a deal. The companies pay for the scrubbers. Also, I don't own an iPhone: only rich people can.
@gbell12 More reason to put people in the government that play favorites for their company. And don't even pretend like all companies try to pollute on purpose just because they can. Not all things are so cut and dried. No law makes KFC make their bags from recycled material, and recycled material isn't always the cheapest material. They do it because they think the PR from it will bring more customers and money. We can totally work within our current system to change things AND make money.
It's not common practice of today that is the issue. Why the hell are you licking the lead in your TV? Yep, China's government doesn't protect the rights of individuals, and as a result individuals are so poor they can't afford protective gear. Even so, the alternative for them is starving since their government won't let them do much other work. They need freedom.
Something is only toxic TO something if that thing is exposed to it and would be harmed by it in sufficient quantities. Some things require sulfer to live. Others die with a tiny bit of exposure. It's relative to the thing being exposed. Silicon Valley has poisons in it's waters partly from a mine burned out a hundred years ago, and most of the rest is from accidental leaks from plants built over 40 years ago.
Moore didn't say 18 months. He said two years. Someone else misquoted him.
Electrical requirements for various devices change as new processes and circuit layouts enabled them to. Therefore, new devices often don't charge exactly the same way as old ones. That's why your old charger doesn't work on the new thing. Yes, they could theoretically make it so that they did, but that would be an arbitrary design limitation. "Toxic" is a meaningless term the way used in the video.
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@farhan00 I see. Yet Mercury does exist which ends up being somebody else's... presuming you live in a 'developed' country as your comment implies. Chemicals- not for fun but rather due to the fact that it creates greater profit for the company... thus shareholders. Yes you are right new technology is a great thing... yet the wasteful ways that it is achieved is not only more costly (factoring all cost) but very unsustainable.
@farhan00 adapters- if sustainability was considered at the developmental stage (possibly through regulation) this would not be an issue and thus you are of track again in my opinion. There is a great free book you might like go to natcap(.) org/ called Natural Capitalism.
@farhan00 it is true what you say, thank you for your comment. Yet most consumers are so out of touch with the environment they utterly depend on that the 'sustainable conscientious' consumer you speak of is unfortunately few and far between. Especially on considering the numbers needed to actually make a difference. So yes, initial cost would be high during the transition phase but as sustainable way are mainstreamed the cost will eventually go down. I'm sure the 99% of tomorro would gr8tful.
Planned obsolescence prevents manufacturers from producing anything that lasts. If they did, it would tank the economy. Their prime motivation is profit. Each year, they design products that are lower in quality than the previous year. Manufacturers offer distributors third party ESP or Extended Service Protection because they know how long their products are designed to last. Just call it insurance for low quality product. The distributor then passes the cost of product repair to consumer
@mirr0 They make what we ask for. It's not so hard. A good example is the EU directive that mobile phones should accept a micro USB plug for charging. That eliminates the need for an external charger.
dunno if its a placebo effect but I do feel happier so to speak when I put my groceries in a canvas bag, when I recycle old clothes into 50 items that I would normally bought (ei bags,shirts,holders,recyclable items) and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I make something from junk (recyclable crafts) then going out spending money on something new. Also when I make it I know it's going to last,not fall apart at first use and cost a ton.
My laptop is 4 years old and I am perfectly happy with it, though I need to replace the keyboard. My best friend and roommate uses a PC that was manufactured in 2001 and is perfectly happy with it. My cellphone is a basic phone that is over 5 years old and until recently when I got an ipod touch, I used a compaq handheld from 1998 with no problems other than replacing the battery. We really aren't utilizing our equipment to the best of it's ability.
@christo930 First of all, why shouldn't developing countries get our "e-waste" when they are the ones making the stuff in the first place. All these hi-tech manufactures are all in India and China, let them deal with it. There is also no need to dispose of working computers and phones, we can donate them to the poor so that they can have a computer or cell phone, even if it is 2 years old.
I think society is getting better at managing this stuff, thanks to the green revolution (although the environment has taken a back seat due to the economy).
Mmost electronic stuff now is modular and easy to get to, unless its an Apple laptop. You can't properly recite Moore 's Law correctly. And you seem to keep buying new stuff close to every year when even stuff from 10 to 50 years ago is still compatible enough to be used, like my home server is a 10 year old computer with a newer processor and a more efficient power supply. when my laptop hdd crashed i just used a usb pen drive with some file system mods, for reducing writes. What do you do?
Moore's law says that the number of transistors you can put on a chip increases every 24 months; Moore's law says nothing about 'processor speed.'
Even if Moore's law made predictions about processing speed: you would still be wrong. 'processor speed' (which you never defined, but I'll assume you meant clock rate) hasn't increased dramatically since 2005 (much less doubling every 18 months).
You don't know what you're talking about. If you got this wrong: how can I believe anything you say?
@signtucson It's true that processor speed hasn't increased, but the amount of cores you can put in a chip sure has. More chips in the same processor, as well as splitting up the work with thing like hyper threading, increases the processing throughput, which many people view as "speed."
It's important to be skeptical on someone's interpretation of facts. I respect your somewhat negative reaction. Just don't get the wrong idea and throw everything else stated out of the window.
This is so biased I don't even know where to begin.
If people wanted stuff that lasted, did not contains chemical and were willing to pay for it, company would produce it. In fact, people are demanding better stuff at a lower price.
This video is a prime example of how people are not willing to take there responsability when it comes to protecting the environnement. "It's the big company's fault".
If you don't want crappy stuff, don't buy crappy stuff.
@nosferatu156 Easier said than done. Tell me where to buy stuff that lasts >5 yrs, or a well built home/apt where stuff doesn't break every few months. It's impossible cause ONLY CRAPPY STUFF IS AVAILABLE. It doesn't matter jack sh*t if I hate crappy stuff, that's the only option. Even if companies claim to sell stuff costing 2x as much & lasting 5x as long, why should I believe them? They could be frauds selling the same crap for 2x as much. You won't know the lifespan of stuff til you use it.
@HyperSpify Maybe you should try some new store. Usually, specialized store know their stuff and will be able to help you finding the quality you need.
I don't know, please tell me if I'm wrong. I don't want to be those "fanboys" in this comment, but I know people that still uses iMacs G5 (2005), and they are still pretty good for normal tasks. This includes all Apple products, I have a friend that uses an iPod Nano 2005, I have an iPod Shuffle 2009 and never had a problem with it.
Keep eating organic food or producing ure own but.. Suddenly u must be forced to use water.. And what kind, contaminated sure.. Maybe u can choose old or modern life but u cant choose the world tht u were living.. That not depend just of u its depend of all us.
More sanctimonious shit from the RSA. They will only be happy when people are living in thatch roofed huts, eating roots and trade is a thing of the past. Secondly, I have no idea what a "happiness index" is, but to suggest people are less happy now compared to when half of all women lost at least one child before 1900 is absurd. Everyone has their "good old days", its called nostalgia but the fact is that if people preferred that lifestyle, they would keep it.
@kev3d It should also be noted that those who wish to live simply, can and do. My mother has never touched a computer in her life. My parents grow their own vegetables and raspberries (without chemicals, no less). No private company can force you to buy anything you don't want. But the Annie Leonards of the world want to tell you want you can and cannot buy basically because they don't like people making their own choices.
Alright this women tries to get these videos shown in the classroom including my own classroom. So I'm a 17 year old senior in high school who has a startup that was just accepted into a tech incubator in Manhattan. We raised 60k in capital and have an office. This is due to the tech world she insults. My town is a poor upstate New York dump and communicating on smart phones and macs was how I got here. Her world would have kept me locked up.
Charlesperalo 2 days ago
only ignorant people who don't know how to fix and handle technology throw out alot of their "new stuff" after a couple of months. Oh and I love how she just loosely throws around the word "toxic" as if everything made with the chemicals is toxic... plus she never specifies in what quantities because the concentration is what makes something dangerous or not, in addition to the fact toxins and poisons have to actually enter the body -- its not like i rip open my laptop and eat the battery acid.
MrJasonekos 4 days ago
My PC is 7 years old, I just changed the graphics card last year and can still use the latest video games. Electronic design is not that bad, and you also have to see that the technology changes really fast.
The problem is more on the producers side (toxicity, bad recycling) and on the consumer side (do you REALLY need that new fancy cell phone ?).
Coeurebene1 6 days ago
I agree :) :):)
ALOWGAMING 6 days ago
Well performed. Read a fiction novel on the topic: "Wokade mobiler". If your Swedish is up to it.
:-) /Carl
ebokenWokademobiler 1 week ago
If indeed processor speed doubles every 18 months, your designed to last computer
in just 4.5 years will be only 1% as fast as the new stuff. maybe people can deal with that, but in a system where the new web-pages require the power & processing speed of state of the art, a behind the times machine would simply NOT have access to the state-of-the-art web sites. oops ... oh well ... now what?
phr0gpheatherz 1 week ago
This video doesn't take in account that people are throwing away perfectly usable stuff all the time. Also modularity is already in most electronic gadgets, you can repair anything if you want (and if you are ready to shell out some money), but people prefer to buy a new computer rather than repair an old one.
cgmp84 1 week ago
PCs are already modular, easy to build and the components are quite durable... You have to keep in mind that compatibility is a problem that isn't intentional... AMD for example have full compatibility between their AM2 AM2+ AM3 and AM3+ sockets which means that you can for example install a AM2 CPU on any of these sockets... That's great when people already have "Superb CPUs" and need only a new motherboard (which is a much bigger component but not necessarily more important or expensive)
CRT4everafter 1 week ago
Let's not consume and help our country get even worse on this economy crisis
julinmorgan 2 weeks ago
Check us out on google at ejunkezDotcom We use only E-Steward Recyclers to process all of our electronics. plus we are changing the face of the way recycling looks and is done by adding incentive programs for our customers.
sinfulyetsaved 2 weeks ago
4:31 steve jobs and bill gates..? anyone? anyone? just me? :\
xMizuKun 2 weeks ago
Even if something is during an entire life, we can't stop women to get bored of they old stuff and buy new ones...
ChuckN0rr1sSMK 2 weeks ago
I find it funny how she promotes "green" thinking but doesn't want to pay the cost of actually doing the green thing of repairing her DVD player. She speaks of having things being modular and repairable yet doesn't want to pay to actually do that. What a load of bull. I agree that we need to change our environmental thinking but people need to look at the REAL issues. That Prius you drive is much worse than anything else on the road because of the electronics in it. SEE THE BIG PICTURE.
Cameronallanowens 3 weeks ago
@Cameronallanowens you missed it to. look at it this way. you buy a new car for 20.000$, you drive it for a while and something broke. you go to the repair shop and they want to charge you for the repair 25.000$. how can changing one part of the machine be more expensive then whole new machine?
eviltechnology 1 week ago
So true!!!
alexandersb1028 3 weeks ago
I can think of a billion different reasons why most of the statements here are wrong or unavoidable.
SandoboxProductions 4 weeks ago
oh gosh golly gee willigers the communists are invading with their propaganda!
LeonSkottKennedey 1 month ago
I hate you.
360newton 1 month ago
I wish you guys would do a video on Health Insurance, it's just a middle man sucking out money from healthcare.
vBotics 1 month ago
@vBotics So don't buy health insurance. Really what people want is health care that cost cheaper than the market has set. It would be amazing if we had healthcare allow for competing costs instead of the oligarchical structure.
matt4787 1 month ago
this lady is so condescending
therealallpro 1 month ago
I have no idea why, but when I see this, it seems like ellen degeneres would be narrating it.
DJMC5ive 1 month ago
when they legalize hemp, then Ill give a shit..
orison319 1 month ago
Please explain why people are living longer than ever before when the world is being as trashed and polluted as much as you claim?
jakeyw11 1 month ago
in the EU there is the Wee directive which is law. Producers of e waste have to take back eletronic waste.
sadsamcq 1 month ago
Long lasting toxic free products = a bad "economy"
F**king retarded really.
A resource based economic model is needed for this not to happen.
reevolutionable 1 month ago in playlist Favorite videos
you cant make a law forcing companies to take stuff back. first of all that is unconstitutional. when you buy a product, its yours. simple as that. whoever sold it to you has no responsibility to take it back with exception of course if it doesnt work or there is something in the contract. they do have a responsibility not to harm people but we dont need new laws for this. we have too many laws as it is right now.
edlover78 1 month ago
If you sold all the "stuff" only once and it would last for ever, just to break even on research and development costs, you would have to charge an unimaginable amount, and so when it becomes naturally obsolete people, specifically the poor would rarely be able to improve their lives, and that is the true source of inequality
zJLpie77J 1 month ago
SONY GREENHEART IS THE ANSWER!
TheJulian12398 1 month ago
I'm watching this on an iPod touch 4g. :P
cmc033098 1 month ago
I'm watching this on a laptop.(Irony)
intergalacticchanel 1 month ago
Great Job! very informative.
amirahisgr8 1 month ago
Designed for the dump is so stupid my teacher had these two staplers one from back in the 1960's and another from a year ago. the 1960's one still works like a charm and the new one's always jamming up! And then when it does jam up it's almost imposible to get it to work again!
higurashikai09 1 month ago
@higurashikai09 I've got tools from the 50s that still work, where the same type of tools bought 5 years ago have quit working.
DJMC5ive 1 month ago
I used to be a good programmer, but then I too an array to the knee...
TheEcologically 1 month ago
"Make the electronics modular," let's ignore the fact that at the PCB the chips are in modular cases and the the wifi chip can be taken out and replaced if wanted. Your definition of modular means that instead of my cell phone fitting in my pocket, it will fit in my car.
the people making these are people who have some macro idea of how things work, but no true understanding, it is just highly polished bloggers pretending they are journalist's.
sunal135 1 month ago
herpaderp
Gunnarr123abc 1 month ago
Take Back programs will result in higher costs for the products consumers buy. I am willing to pay more, are you? By the way your theories also apply to energy consumers as well... Great video!
tarzanthejunglelover 1 month ago
@tarzanthejunglelover no i am not. Too bad
Gunnarr123abc 1 month ago
im gonna paint my computer green... ... so i can recycle better :D
marcuschiawj 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
If you want to learn about a possible solution, watch this documentary
/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
Vanillarain03 1 month ago
you forgot one important thing
we want better stuff '
at least most of the people do
every year new abilities come out to the market which we think would solve our problem with this or that
and it's the human nature , we want to own better things . and because of all the awesome new products out there your great computer doesn't seem too good 2 or 3 or 4 years later
hajar9911 1 month ago
@hajar9911 let's put as a representative example the iPhone, ok? Apple just released iPhone 4S ... Do you think this is the best they have? no, they most certainly have an iPhone 25 designed... but if they realese the iPhone 25 this year, we would buy that and no more iPhones for the next 10 or 20 years... not a good bussiness to sell the best of the best inmediatelly.
I dont want better stuff, I want the best stuff right away so I don't have to buy more in a long time.
GABOBO1991 1 month ago
Product X contains 1 µg less toxic materials and uses 1mW less power. Hurray! It's marketed as a "green" product!
busybjorn 1 month ago
We don't need laws. We need to watch what we buy. Using violence to solve complex social problems is wrong and idiotic. We're better than that. We can do the civilized thing and solve our own problems in a peaceful way without getting people with guns (governments) involved.
PluralOfEverything 1 month ago
Isnt it true that the more people that live the more waste we have? (sorry just playing devil's advocate)
XazntheifX 2 months ago
Joyfay Electronics (Camers & Photos, Electrical equipment, Computer & Network, Car electronics, Batterias & Chargers) at joyfay.com ♥
ininin86 2 months ago
lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.... NOT !!
ultidoc 2 months ago
YES! I want a universal charger! They don't need to make all the different plugs to charge something with 9 volts. OK, if it is a 5 volt charge fine, but not an different charger for each 5 volt device!!!!!!
kaleidomagic 2 months ago 14
@kaleidomagic you can blame patent laws and the government to regulates that ............
deathlogic1 6 days ago
@kaleidomagic Well look I'm sorry, but we don't need a government saying what kind of charger we should have. Also phones do work differently and it's a matter of branding, new technologies and more.
Charlesperalo 2 days ago
The only reason for desing product to get old quickly old or products that brokes so soon, is continues selling product, if the product doesn,t broke you will not buy another more.
They need the products fail to keep growing
VideoSheap 2 months ago 3
@VideoSheap You want to pay a lot more for something that might last a decade and as Moore's law says will be obsolite in a few year or nowhere near as good as the new innovations?
FrankiePoker 2 months ago
This fucking idiot actually expects us to believe that she opened her computer and instantly became an electrical engineering expert?
david52875 2 months ago
@david52875 Yes, she does. Don't you know: what liberals tell others is what they expect them to believe. Watch (better yet, dont) her other video on Stuff. She says they change a tiny piece inside the computer every year and thats all the difference. I'm floored that anyone can listen to this and feel like they weren't just brainwashed.
0HippyHunter0 2 months ago
I think geniuses are not designing for the sake of money, they design for the good reason and hobby, but these f'kng greed corporations(capitalism-addicts) are the reason why we're always having the worst result!
wecantsee 2 months ago
@wecantsee The reason we have the transistor, and therefore the computer, is because of BELL labs. They wanted to make a variable resistor for PROFIT. Steve Wozniac created the Apple I for PROFIT. He sold the Apple I for $666.66. Capitalism gave us computers, radios, electric guitar amplifies, basically all electronics. Need I say more?
david52875 2 months ago
@david52875 I said "GREED" ones.
wecantsee 2 months ago
@david52875 Not only that, capitalism brought all those items TO the people. When the government was incharge of artillery trajectory systems they didn't share their powerful computing engines with the very people that paid for them. When Bell did it everyone has access to more computing power then ever....and go figure that the free market almost instantly eclipsed the government as the premier innovators. Government 0 Private Market 1,039,049,0349,409,340,834.
0HippyHunter0 2 months ago
That was verry helpful
44samul 2 months ago
More regulation good to ears but better not be the government beurecrats, it will just adds burdens to society, how about a private institutions & individuals (victims) that can put pressure on the producers.
lims4n 2 months ago
ugh. so whiny.
k4ur0 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
1:02 <3
Hug!
sharvok16 2 months ago
Comment removed
sharvok16 2 months ago
Comment removed
sharvok16 2 months ago
@rourin, if you mean hinder the development of products designed to fail, stop the commercialism that has caused our economy to crash and quality of life to drop, and take dangerous means of slow suicide away from those in poverty, yes we do. Your so busy worrrying about the economy you can't see the forest for the trees. She explained this, you cannot "BUY" your way out of this situation. Your point is self-contradicting. (see argument pyramid before replying)
kynaston1474 2 months ago
So what you really want to do is hinder development, stop commercialism, further hurt the worlds economy and take away jobs from people in poor countries. Yeah, that sounds very humanitarian.
rourin 2 months ago
@rourin this comment speaks loads about how much you understand design.
as a designer, let me assure you, this would do everything but what you said.
BlueStrikeP 2 months ago in playlist More videos from storyofstuffproject 11
@BlueStrikeP completely agree with you there.
SandoboxProductions 4 weeks ago
@rourin the current way of commercialism and industrial tactics is just like a wall that blind us to see more far. if we take it out there are definitely more things we can do to create a better world. If you talk about poor, can smart phone fill their stomach? if not, then why we made so many to waste?
eyunu 2 months ago
This is why I keep all my old shit and use it for something else whenever I can. my old computers are workhorses for backup purposes.
Maxpound 2 months ago
226 people actually know how to think.
Veence1987 2 months ago
Amazing...Thank You!
kokakikiki 2 months ago
I appreciate the whole "story of stuff" series, however some of them are not stories in the educational sense. They are instead an activist opinion put on video. This video is accurate and ethically responsible, but it is less educational than it is a call to action for an environmental cause. Learn to differentiate between a history lesson and accurate propaganda. ;)
judah248 2 months ago
@judah248 Wouldn't you say a history lesson is not much than but an accurate story told from one parties perspective too?
alexbyehi 2 months ago
At 3:08 she's clearly describing a problem with herself, not the industry.
I have a 22 in flat panel monitor in front of me now, it's 4 years old now. My computer is about 10 years old, although I have upgraded the HDD a few times.
I guess the newest gadget I have is my phone, which is 18 months old, which I purchased after my old phone finally cracked open. I still have the old phone, but it's just for emergencies because it's so fragile.
fuzzywzhe 3 months ago
@fuzzywzhe
Guess whether or not most people are like you in that respect
flegolas 2 months ago
very nice video
guru25ish 3 months ago
Very nice idea, but hard to realize. Companies need cheap products or people won't buy them. And if people don't buy products they cant pay wages or employ people, which is a massive problem in a world with growing population. Like it or not, we're locked in this cycle. We can't be green cos the economy lives out of waste and "dump design"!
TheBigMtt 3 months ago
Excellent, thank you!
amudanmaney 3 months ago
Excellent production! Thank you : )
willievega 3 months ago
Lee Doren Owns Annie Leonard!!
MadBadVoodo 3 months ago
aah the same old story.. it's not my doing... it's someone else... who asked you to throw away the perfectly good phone just coz a better one came along...? who said replacing your laptop was necessary...? who asked you to buy a laptop (which is not upgradable) instead of a pc when all you do is use it at home... and even if you want to upgrade, upgrade your PC, not your laptop... this story is ridiculous... :)
ananth1987 3 months ago
how did you film this...with your asshole?
p24barbosa 3 months ago
@p24barbosa your mom anus.. mmm tasty
tiburcio9999 3 months ago
thumbs up if you closed the video after "Aaaagh!" at min 1:03
th3orist 3 months ago
The debate here reminds me of this cartoon strip I saw some time back . Some people wonder, "What the heck if these 'go green' guys are just fooling us, and we end up getting rid of all the harmful stuff/bad practices for nothing!"
tutenEbatuta 3 months ago
hey... come to think of it~ My PSP lasted till now and it's still too precious to throw away knowing that there are millions of games out there waiting for me to play :D
ducttaperulestheworl 3 months ago
Yeh, let's stop sending our computers to China to be recycled. They would much prefer to some vague environmental benefits to a livelihood!
phil8888 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Progressivism / Liberalism / Statism advocates changes or reform through GOV'T action.
Give ANY politician or bureaucrat the power to "redistribute & regulate" OTHER people’s money & choices and they will ALWAYS pass laws to benefit THEIR “special interest” campaign backers; Banks, Wall Street, Military-Industrial Complex, Marxist Unions, Giant "Green" Corps, Big Oil, Pharma, Insurance etc.
Statism = Political Cronyism.
The Fed’s FIAT (counterfeit) debt-currency FUELS THE FIRE!
yakyakyak69 3 months ago
this video is so stupid :) no words
marcink213 3 months ago
you don't need more laws....... if you aren't willing to buy durable now you aren't magically going to bre willing to buy durable when new laws are passed.... if anything, this will limit the ability of people to find novel ways to be eco-friendly.......
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
Of course, Annie Leonard wants to live in a world where a few command the government to force us to have fewer choices rather than letting each individual choose for themselves. Not surprising.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
It would be like asking car companies to make ever faster cars, but then complaining when the cars get cruddy mileage: it doesn't make much sense. Cars, of course, only need to go around 70-85 mph, and they only need to get there so fast, so there's some large leeway for them to be cleaner burning and such, but there is thus far no such practical limitation on how fast we want our data processed, and how much of it we want processed at the same time.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
Use the money for these videos to go into manufacturing something clean that people will still buy enough to be competitive. Lastly, most computers are outdated in a few years because we ask more of them. Much more. Ridiculously more. As a result, manufacturers push technology to it's bleeding edge constantly to keep up with how fast we demand our technology to be. WE ARE ASKING FOR THEM TO DO WHAT THEY DO.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn our demands as consumers don't change the point that products are intentionally designed to be not modular or serviceable.
gbell12 3 months ago
@gbell12 ....yes it does. For an iPod or cell phone to be modular it would have to be capable of being easily opened up, the parts easily exposed, all the chips to be set into sockets rather than soldered directly to the board, etc. This would make an iPod or cell phone cost twice as much, not be any faster or more capable, and be two or three times it's size. All that, and most people would still just throw them away like they do PCs, which are very modular already.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn it would cost more, but it probably wouldn't cost that much more unless the normal price is subsidized and it wouldn't be 2-3 times the size unless for some reason they decided to hold it together with Nine Inch Nails.
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
@IsaacKarjala I don't see how it wouldn't cost at least 50% more and add a minimum of a 1/4 inch in thickness to all devices. Chip sockets are relatively thick (at least as thick as the chip itself) because the pin-outs have to seat in them. There's also the extra time it would take to seat the chips by hand rather than just letting a robot solder it in place. It's not a lot of time, but a couple of seconds adds several dollars to each board.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn miniturizing chip sockets should be a lot easier than miniturizing the chips themselves... how much thickness it adds is going to depend on the product, my 3/4`` thick cell phone probably won't be any thicker... thinner devices are going to have more thickness added, but it'd probably be more like 1/8`` or 1/16`` than 1/4``..... as far as cost, that'd depend on the buisiness model...........
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
......... if the company expects to sell accessories it might cell the core product for cheap and charge an arm and a leg for the accessories, hell most printers on the market are sold for less than the cost to manufacture because the maker knows that they are the only one who can sell new caritages... if such a product where to switch to an open source model they'd have to raise prices significantly....for a couple seconds to equate to a few dollars, the employee would have to be paid $540/hr.
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
@IsaacKarjala But chip replacement isn't accessory replacement, and no end-user without an IT degree is going to look at the two as the same thing. I know tons of people that love their iPhone/Droid who are afraid to do anything more than take their battery out of the thing. You also have to (either as the phone company, or as the chip maker) make tons of chips that may or may not ever be used/purchased. In PCs that's not a huge deal considering the margin, lack of competitors, etc...
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn I don't know all the specifics of every product..... but yea, the problem ultimately falls on the consumer, people who buy shit that doesn't last and don't even expect it to; and other dolts that think creating more laws is the solution....
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
...... completely ignoroing the fact that law accomplishes abolutely nothing except through violence..... I think most of the problems we face can be summarized with:
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and moree complex but it takes a stroke of genius, and a whole lot of courage, to move things in the other direction"
-- Albert Einstein
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago 31
@IsaacKarjala But in the case of between 6 and 20 chips per cell phone, each needing it's own socket and replacement chipset at such low failure rates, selling only to people in repair businesses (by and large), you have to absorb the cost of the extra chips either per phone, or per chip sold to the phone company. You couldn't just make the phone cheaper at all, AND the extra chips would cost a lot both to make and install.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn I've never taken apart a cell phone, tried but even with all the screws I could find removed it seemed like I still would of needed a chisel; but I don't think even a desktop computer has that many socketed ICs, nor do I think that a motherboard by itself has that many ICs, socketed or not..... I don't think every IC needs to be socketed, but the ones most prone to failure or for which the most performance can be gained from an upgrade should be socketed.....
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
@IsaacKarjala A good chunk of PC motherboards have, well, varying amounts of ICs. The move has been to put most controller chips onto one large chip on the motherboard, while new kinds of controllers have been developed that can't fit yet. Most have two major chips with anywhere between 4 and 20 others. I've seen a few cell phones taken apart, and most have at least 4 separate chips (in smart phones anyway). Again, it's doable, but...
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@IsaacKarjala The question is whether the cost is worth the benefit both to the companies who would do it as well as worth the increased cost to the consumer for very little gain. Desktop PCs, to my knowledge, have the longest chip lifespans in the CPU on the planet, and due to die shrinks, architecture changes, and so forth, they only stay in one socket for (usually) around 2-3 years. That's WITH the desire to make the motherboard last. I hold no such hope for phones.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn When a new processor comes out, it almost always has to change sockets because it will need a bigger data and address bus. So it's not just "planned obsolescence" like Leonard says. You could build a perfectly good work computer with a Pentium 4 cpu which was released about a decade ago.
david52875 3 months ago
@david52875 In cases where the only change is the number of cpu cores, or a faster clock then chip manufacturers actually DO use the same socket.
david52875 3 months ago
@david52875 Faster clock usually, more cores, depends. When you're talking about comparing a Phenom II X6 and a Athlon II X2, you're talking about a socket that was designed for 6 cores, and can take a chip with only 4 cores with 2 disabled. When you're talking about going from an Athlon to an Athlon X2, you're talking about needing a new socket for the extra cores unless you get the mobo with the socket that already supports the extra core. Sockets are backward compatible, but rarely foreward
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@david52875 I was saying exactly that, actually.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@IsaacKarjala Even if it adds very minimal thickness, I still say most people aren't going to bother repairing it themselves for fear of 'breaking it' like they fear opening a computer even to dust it. And sure, I can get on board with 1/8".
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@gbell12 some devices are more modular than others, and some more durable than others, yet most people don't buy the most durable or most repairable, but rather either whatever is cheapest up front or whatever is the "coolest".... some companies sell very durable expensive printers and charge very little for ink cartiages that last forever, yet most people still buy the printer that is sold for less than the manufacturing cost but charge out the nose for priopritary cartiages that don't last.
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
@IsaacKarjala yes, it's "cheapest" on the shelf even though that product is more expensive to society. The external costs include subsidies for resource extracting companies, cheap landfill rates, and the cancer and other illnesses from the chemicals released into the environment during manufacturing. There are dozens. None of these costs is built into the product price.
That's my point, and the video's. The system needs to be set up so that the "right thing" is cheapest. Simple.
gbell12 3 months ago
@gbell12 which is an issue of legal liability, it doesn't require any new laws it juast requires that people who take actions that result in othert people being posioned being held criminally and civialy liable... and if they can't for whatever reason be held to account under law, then well..... they just need to be caught in a dark ally....... this will force companies to account those externalized costs, either through proper disposal or through constantly having to replace their CEO.......
IsaacKarjala 3 months ago
@gbell12 Actually, in all but cases where companies do something illegal and don't get caught for it, those costs are accounted for in the products themselves. If companies have to clean up a spill, for instance, they do it from a stash of previous profits. Same with lawsuits for illness and whatnot. Again, I don't see anyone saying subsidies for companies are good: they need to all stop. To say that companies need to just be forced to not do regular business, though, is stupid.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@IsaacKarjala And that forces the companies to make such things. Every company will always make what makes them the most money because they are morally obligated to make profits to their investors as well as legally obligated.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
.If you make companies pay to make things less toxic, fine, but now your 400 dollar phone is 600 dollars. If you're cool with that, start your own company that does it instead of whining about those who don't. If it were cheaper for them to make things this way, they would already be doing it. Cheaper=more profits...always. It isn't cheaper. It's more expensive which means we have to pay more for those gadgets. Again, if you think you can make a viable company that way, do it.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn you're missing key points. Your $400 phone actually DOES cost $600 - the difference is the externalized costs. Your $400 phone costs $200 worth of pollution and other damage to the wider world that the company does not have to pay for. Cheap is an illusion afforded us by a broken system. If those costs can't be internalized (ie. paid by the company), then the role of government is to structure things so that the right thing gets done anyway.
gbell12 3 months ago
@gbell12 Again, those costs, normally, are accounted for by the company. Not ALL things made inexpensively are made because they cause some huge amount of pollution somehow. Regardless, in the cases where companies do rarely get away with horribly polluting some place, it's the fault of the government and buyers for collusion with the company: not the fault of the company for making money. Companies do what we tell them, and we vote with our wallets. More government just gives them...
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn I'm not trying to be insulting, but it's obvious you haven't kept yourself informed on the reality. You're assuming perfect information exchange - that when I buy the $10 T-shirt, I'm deciding to support a company that uses child labor or pollutes a nearby river. I'm unaware of it usually, because the world's a big place. Also, I'm often not given a choice - maybe all shirts on that shelf use child labor. I'm certainly not telling the companies to do that.
gbell12 3 months ago
@gbell12 I'm not assuming perfect information. I'm assuming distributed information. As a general rule if a company does something horrible, the information is easily available to people who look for it after a few minutes on Google. What's wrong with child labor in third world countries? It beats starving or prostitution, which is where the kids would end up (I've seen the statistics on it, so I'm not pulling this out of my ass) if they weren't allowed to work. They don't go to school.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@vedinthorn What evidence do you have that the costs are "normally" accounted for? I can give you one blaring example where they're not. Coal-fired electricity was used to make and run that little iPhone of yours. Burning coal puts mercury into the environment, where it's concentrated in fish, making them unsafe to eat. The doctors now warn pregnant women about this. The costs are staggering. None of them born by Apple.
gbell12 3 months ago
@gbell12 Because when a company breaks a pollution regulation, they are fined for it and have to pay to have it cleaned. Mercury from coal burning is a slight problem, which has been getting far better in the last 30 years than in years previous thanks to scrubbers on smoke stacks. Only so much is allowed to leave the plant now, and since 'toxic' is relative to dosage, it's not as big of a deal. The companies pay for the scrubbers. Also, I don't own an iPhone: only rich people can.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
@gbell12 More reason to put people in the government that play favorites for their company. And don't even pretend like all companies try to pollute on purpose just because they can. Not all things are so cut and dried. No law makes KFC make their bags from recycled material, and recycled material isn't always the cheapest material. They do it because they think the PR from it will bring more customers and money. We can totally work within our current system to change things AND make money.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
It's not common practice of today that is the issue. Why the hell are you licking the lead in your TV? Yep, China's government doesn't protect the rights of individuals, and as a result individuals are so poor they can't afford protective gear. Even so, the alternative for them is starving since their government won't let them do much other work. They need freedom.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
Something is only toxic TO something if that thing is exposed to it and would be harmed by it in sufficient quantities. Some things require sulfer to live. Others die with a tiny bit of exposure. It's relative to the thing being exposed. Silicon Valley has poisons in it's waters partly from a mine burned out a hundred years ago, and most of the rest is from accidental leaks from plants built over 40 years ago.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
Moore didn't say 18 months. He said two years. Someone else misquoted him.
Electrical requirements for various devices change as new processes and circuit layouts enabled them to. Therefore, new devices often don't charge exactly the same way as old ones. That's why your old charger doesn't work on the new thing. Yes, they could theoretically make it so that they did, but that would be an arbitrary design limitation. "Toxic" is a meaningless term the way used in the video.
vedinthorn 3 months ago
Anyone else dig them using the devices they dump on to make and distribute this video?
vedinthorn 3 months ago
Consider you're seeing manufacturers in the U.S. doing take back already. And they also have lead free solder now.
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Dianatyler100 3 months ago
why does this only have 500k views... we need a much much higher number!
mystico09 3 months ago in playlist More videos from storyofstuffproject
Wow...just wow.
This is wrong on many levels.
farhan00 3 months ago
@farhan00 ?????? what you mean?
mystico09 3 months ago in playlist More videos from storyofstuffproject
@mystico09 Honestly, where do you want me to start?
Half or misleading truths left and right
Yes old TVs have mercury, but unless you break them open and look for the mercury, you're fine. No one sprays toxic chemicals on products for fun.
Advances in technology lead to new products. This is a *great* thing, but she makes it seem bad.
Power adapters come in different sizes because of voltage/amp differences required to power the device. Its not a conspiracy.
Lots more msg me if you're interested
farhan00 3 months ago
@farhan00 I see. Yet Mercury does exist which ends up being somebody else's... presuming you live in a 'developed' country as your comment implies. Chemicals- not for fun but rather due to the fact that it creates greater profit for the company... thus shareholders. Yes you are right new technology is a great thing... yet the wasteful ways that it is achieved is not only more costly (factoring all cost) but very unsustainable.
mystico09 3 months ago
@farhan00 adapters- if sustainability was considered at the developmental stage (possibly through regulation) this would not be an issue and thus you are of track again in my opinion. There is a great free book you might like go to natcap(.) org/ called Natural Capitalism.
mystico09 3 months ago
@mystico09 Sustainability can be considered by the consumer, who can chose to buy better products.
Regulation will result in higher prices for poor consumers. In essence, it'll just make the poor poorer. That's something the 99% can't take anymore.
farhan00 3 months ago
@farhan00 it is true what you say, thank you for your comment. Yet most consumers are so out of touch with the environment they utterly depend on that the 'sustainable conscientious' consumer you speak of is unfortunately few and far between. Especially on considering the numbers needed to actually make a difference. So yes, initial cost would be high during the transition phase but as sustainable way are mainstreamed the cost will eventually go down. I'm sure the 99% of tomorro would gr8tful.
mystico09 3 months ago
At least my computer from 1994 can still do YouTube, email and stuff. I guess that was not designed for the dump....
Polygon6789 3 months ago
Planned obsolescence prevents manufacturers from producing anything that lasts. If they did, it would tank the economy. Their prime motivation is profit. Each year, they design products that are lower in quality than the previous year. Manufacturers offer distributors third party ESP or Extended Service Protection because they know how long their products are designed to last. Just call it insurance for low quality product. The distributor then passes the cost of product repair to consumer
Greg10164 3 months ago
Now why doesn't this mam explain how exactly she wants to force Chinese Hardware Corporations to change their behaviour?
mirr0 3 months ago
@mirr0 They make what we ask for. It's not so hard. A good example is the EU directive that mobile phones should accept a micro USB plug for charging. That eliminates the need for an external charger.
grieske 3 months ago
dunno if its a placebo effect but I do feel happier so to speak when I put my groceries in a canvas bag, when I recycle old clothes into 50 items that I would normally bought (ei bags,shirts,holders,recyclable items) and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I make something from junk (recyclable crafts) then going out spending money on something new. Also when I make it I know it's going to last,not fall apart at first use and cost a ton.
louietheduke 4 months ago
My laptop is 4 years old and I am perfectly happy with it, though I need to replace the keyboard. My best friend and roommate uses a PC that was manufactured in 2001 and is perfectly happy with it. My cellphone is a basic phone that is over 5 years old and until recently when I got an ipod touch, I used a compaq handheld from 1998 with no problems other than replacing the battery. We really aren't utilizing our equipment to the best of it's ability.
christo930 4 months ago
@christo930 First of all, why shouldn't developing countries get our "e-waste" when they are the ones making the stuff in the first place. All these hi-tech manufactures are all in India and China, let them deal with it. There is also no need to dispose of working computers and phones, we can donate them to the poor so that they can have a computer or cell phone, even if it is 2 years old.
christo930 4 months ago
Weak minded people have to keep up with the Joneses.
ion010101 4 months ago
I think society is getting better at managing this stuff, thanks to the green revolution (although the environment has taken a back seat due to the economy).
b1gr1g 4 months ago
Hey don't let yours eletronics in the trash... Send to me, i live in Brazil, here is expensive all the eletronics, and we repair all of them
moisesmpf 4 months ago
Mmost electronic stuff now is modular and easy to get to, unless its an Apple laptop. You can't properly recite Moore 's Law correctly. And you seem to keep buying new stuff close to every year when even stuff from 10 to 50 years ago is still compatible enough to be used, like my home server is a 10 year old computer with a newer processor and a more efficient power supply. when my laptop hdd crashed i just used a usb pen drive with some file system mods, for reducing writes. What do you do?
TheDenialist 4 months ago
Now THE CLOUD makes sense.
123456789basil 4 months ago
Moore's law says that the number of transistors you can put on a chip increases every 24 months; Moore's law says nothing about 'processor speed.'
Even if Moore's law made predictions about processing speed: you would still be wrong. 'processor speed' (which you never defined, but I'll assume you meant clock rate) hasn't increased dramatically since 2005 (much less doubling every 18 months).
You don't know what you're talking about. If you got this wrong: how can I believe anything you say?
signtucson 4 months ago
@signtucson It's true that processor speed hasn't increased, but the amount of cores you can put in a chip sure has. More chips in the same processor, as well as splitting up the work with thing like hyper threading, increases the processing throughput, which many people view as "speed."
It's important to be skeptical on someone's interpretation of facts. I respect your somewhat negative reaction. Just don't get the wrong idea and throw everything else stated out of the window.
DMCpawn 4 months ago
Planned Obsolescence
not
Design for the Dumb
I knew my laptop was killing me, it is so obvious
nameoffeather 4 months ago
Apple reduce the use of toxic chemicals every 18 months :)
KoltTv 4 months ago
"Poor people can't afford cheap things" - I do wonder when we, and I'd argue most of us *are* relatively poor, forgot about that mantra.
CoughUpBlood 4 months ago
This is so biased I don't even know where to begin.
If people wanted stuff that lasted, did not contains chemical and were willing to pay for it, company would produce it. In fact, people are demanding better stuff at a lower price.
This video is a prime example of how people are not willing to take there responsability when it comes to protecting the environnement. "It's the big company's fault".
If you don't want crappy stuff, don't buy crappy stuff.
nosferatu156 4 months ago
@nosferatu156 Easier said than done. Tell me where to buy stuff that lasts >5 yrs, or a well built home/apt where stuff doesn't break every few months. It's impossible cause ONLY CRAPPY STUFF IS AVAILABLE. It doesn't matter jack sh*t if I hate crappy stuff, that's the only option. Even if companies claim to sell stuff costing 2x as much & lasting 5x as long, why should I believe them? They could be frauds selling the same crap for 2x as much. You won't know the lifespan of stuff til you use it.
HyperSpify 4 months ago
@HyperSpify Maybe you should try some new store. Usually, specialized store know their stuff and will be able to help you finding the quality you need.
nosferatu156 4 months ago
she is kind of stupid.Electronix are awsome, if you are stupid don't use them and you won't will broke them.stupid biatch!
soloboy1991 4 months ago
I don't know, please tell me if I'm wrong. I don't want to be those "fanboys" in this comment, but I know people that still uses iMacs G5 (2005), and they are still pretty good for normal tasks. This includes all Apple products, I have a friend that uses an iPod Nano 2005, I have an iPod Shuffle 2009 and never had a problem with it.
victorteles95 4 months ago
@kev3d try not to breath contaminated air..
Keep eating organic food or producing ure own but.. Suddenly u must be forced to use water.. And what kind, contaminated sure.. Maybe u can choose old or modern life but u cant choose the world tht u were living.. That not depend just of u its depend of all us.
linkp3 4 months ago
More sanctimonious shit from the RSA. They will only be happy when people are living in thatch roofed huts, eating roots and trade is a thing of the past. Secondly, I have no idea what a "happiness index" is, but to suggest people are less happy now compared to when half of all women lost at least one child before 1900 is absurd. Everyone has their "good old days", its called nostalgia but the fact is that if people preferred that lifestyle, they would keep it.
kev3d 4 months ago
@kev3d It should also be noted that those who wish to live simply, can and do. My mother has never touched a computer in her life. My parents grow their own vegetables and raspberries (without chemicals, no less). No private company can force you to buy anything you don't want. But the Annie Leonards of the world want to tell you want you can and cannot buy basically because they don't like people making their own choices.
kev3d 4 months ago
But if they dont last... Then the Economy :0 the planet might be greener, but the