Believe me, i agreed with that concept for many years, but i just don’t think the voting with your wallet thing is possible any more. For one, my wallet is pretty wimpy. My vote is pretty insignificant. But many people make a difference sure.

Ultimately the problem is a lack of producers and retailers. There’s no choice anymore. You can buy the crappy version, or you can buy the really crappy version. If your only choices are bad, you will chose poorly.

I like the idea that consumers could become experts, but this becomes harder and harder. People work longer hours, labels and such become more confusing and less informative. If you really wanted to be an informed consumer it would take all of your effort. To be safe in the marketplace we need to at some level trust some sort of oversight to make sure we aren’t harmed or defrauded. I’d love if what you suggest could happen, just don’t think its possible. And really i think this is evident in the world. We’re seeing less regulation and its equating to people consuming more poisons and being defrauded and receiving crappier products.

I also like the idea of fixing and maintenance. Definitely. But again it comes down to how many levels of expertise can the average consumer keep in their brains. Many things even need practice to keep it up. To get to the point where we are able to be wise shoppers and handy fixers i think we first need to free up some spare time.

I think its all in effort again to blame the common man for the ills of society. When you purchase something you pick it up and swipe a card or some paper- that’s about your only real connection to the product. You did not instruct someone on how to make it or where you wanted it distributed. You didn’t hire people to create it, ship it, package it, sell it. You really had very very little to do with it and all the bad stuff happened long before you got there.

We need people to be accountable, pure and simple. You did it, actually did it. You are the one responsible. Authority follows an easy hierarchy. Consumers didn’t sign the document that ordered the pit dug, it was the CEO. Someone made the decision, always. We’ve been led to believe corporations and retailers are completely inhuman and social as though we create them day by day through our actions- in the same way we create the blogosphere, or traffic, or cultural movements. But retail/manufacturing is completely different, its not a social construct. Its designed by managers.

If you planned to sell a product that is designed to fail you are defrauding your customers unless it says on the box “this is designed to fail prematurely”. Surely your customers aren’t aware of the planned demise, in fact, we’re often misled entirely as to the quality and intention of a manufacturer. They write things like ‘great’ and ‘amazing’ on the package, doesn’t that at least imply they gave it a good effort, tried to make it good? I’d have trouble writing ‘amazing’ on something and selling it to someone knowing i designed it to crap out ahead of schedule. Feels like fraud, and i think there should be legal consequences.

http://remistevens.com/2010/04/03/you-cant-vote-with-your-wallet/

Even beyond the environmental concern though its terrible the labour wasted on PO. Ultimately working more hours won’t save you from poverty, quite the opposite, it’ll just keep you too busy and dependent. The amount of stuff you actually get to consume relates to how much we produce and how we distribute- not to how many hours you work.

Real world, how does this relate. I think its pretty easy really, drop the standard work schedule. Lets do 6 hour days or 4 a week or something. We create a system where we value our time above all else. Quality goods so we can spend less time making them and more time enjoying them. Less hours per person quickly employs a lot of people to make sure everyone can find an average income. Ideally we push it to 3 maybe 2 days a week as technology takes over for us.

Hard times hundreds of years ago, people worked literally all day to stay alive, but all that necessary labour recedes with technology….Other history, WWII created a massive need for labour. When the war ended they changed the work day from 10 to 8 because there simply wasn’t enough that needed to be done anymore.

The work week keeps increasing because shorter work hours would mean a return of entrepreneurs and free market- not really allowed any more….People would have the means to dedicate their own labour to their own endeavours.

Thanks for commenting.

In my opinion I think all of us individually are at fault for the trend of planned obsolescence. We buy things everyday that are junk and don’t take the time to really think about that purchase and what is going to happen. I am at fault too, just as much as the next guy. Apple has a very bad reputation for making this obsolete far quicker than they need to be but look at how many people line up as soon as they have put two new features into your iphone.

The real way that people are going to win in this fight is to A) Research everything they buy and be informed before they go to the store and support a company by buying anything from them. B) Stop buying any and everything that they don’t need. C) Take care of the products that they want and need and learn enough about them that they can fix what there is a chance to fix themselves. If everyone did these three things no company could exist that didn’t build an open and solid product. Also the companies business model would change because they couldn’t rely on the constant re-buying of the same product.

The power is really in each of our hands. First step is just getting the information out there and helping others to realize that this is going on. If you haven’t already check out the youtube movie the “Lightbulb Conspiracy” It is really informative on the subject of planned obsolescence.

I find there is a real disconnect within those ‘party loyalists’. The only goal seems to be winning. What the politicians say and do is irrelevant, what counts is that my team is winning. Like its as unimportant as picking your favourite sports team.

Of course there are the loyalists who turn many blind eyes to stay the course over moot social issues like who’s allowed to get married. Someone is stealing your productivity, forcing you into pointless labour that destroys you community and environment. and now, now they don’t even feel they need to be elected properly. —PRIORITIES!

Revolutionists always need to respect that you start small and make it grow. Do the little here and now that you can, and then tackle the next hill.

Would love to hear about some of your protesting back in the day lumpy…

Thanks for the great comment!

The leader of Uganda has caused millions of deaths in Congo- he’s the guy we would need to team up with to enter the region.

Kony only has a couple hundred soldiers left in his army.

Kony probably hasn’t been in Uganda for years.