I hope this idea makes it into legislation around the world! Don't forget to extend it to make illegal the planned obsolescence of software, firmware and hardware in digital components.
What a great idea! I'd suggest that abolishing the much beloved "public - private partnership" that has led to so many government agencie$ being captured would be a great addition to reformed and enlightened public policy as well.
The planned obsolescence idea poisoned several generations of design engineers and product planners. Society has paid the price - so much time, money, materials and labor have been wasted since this terrible idea was trumpeted by GM and the various Alfie inspired B-Schools. A large part of the world's landfills can be attributed to this mans big idea, supported by institutions like MIT. Tons of waste, thanks Alfie and all of the rest who saw profit at the cost of squandering societies treasures. As a former test engineer in the automotive industry and a design engineer in aerospace - I can attest to the fact that the design philosophy at GM was suffocating. I remember the day I resigned from GM... I took off my tie in the parking lot and double knotted it around the top of the antenna on my door-less Jeep CJ-7 and drove up 12 Mile never to return to the "Tech Center." It was a streamer of freedom! LOL, finally perhaps we are turning the corner. Thank you France.
By the way, often times the difference between infinite life and high cycle fatigue is a few cents of material. Maybe just one more design iteration... disgusting.
This is an incredible example of a bad idea gone wild as the profit incentives blurred everybody's sensibilities. It happens in governments too. We all know a bad idea when we see it. Hopefully the energy crunch can help us find our voices to speak up when we see the bad ideas coming. Not all manufacturers succumbed to this money making ploy. Several high quality auto manufacturers would not "get with the times" and eshewed the idea of planned obsolescence as dishonest and wasteful. They went out of business being truthful to their moral convictions. Sadly. Public conscientiousness is too often easily manipulated and spun - thanks to a legion of folks like Bernays. That is our fault. Stay vigilant my friends. Our future depends on it.
"You have to know the truth..." (53:45 ) I too agree but manipulating perceptions is a time honored attribute of those among us who invent their own agenda driven forms of control. A sad footnote to the human experience. Objectivity is easily blurred. Fear is unfortunately a commonly manufactured ingredient. Just look at the work of Bernays and many others. It is often created to destroy rational thought and achieve the desired fidelity of the individual or group in cults. It is not an answer, it merely manufactures a reality around a false narrative. Oil, conserving energy, and how to get the masses to capitulate especially in the future is a sociopolitical quandary. Truth telling and rational discourse leverages the minds and wills of the community of our planet towards a solution. But alas, there are those who think they have the solution already...
We can assume the geopolitical implications of energy depletion and the ability to maintain the current World's population and quality of life - let alone look at what is going to be required to adapt in the short time ahead are tough to grapple with. The ivory towers don't seem to be very helpful in applying what they are supposed to be good at - crickets from published anything recent in scholarly research. The recent COVID antics have shown us that debating "science" is now censored - so what good is "tenure" I ask? But I digress. As Bernay's made it clear, it's the behavior you want, the message just has to achieve that end... to that regard the message could be anything to achieve the desired result. The universities are such a disappointment.
Don't look to the Politicians and Wall Street types who got us here to lead this time LOL I can't imagine a single individual "winning" a campaign based on delivering these facts without an informed populace... so here we are. A financial system, political system and global trade apparatus that was warned this day would come repeatedly by a few who were men and women of science. Their problem of course was... they weren't economists. They saw the world as bounded by those curmudgeon laws of physics. The others... well they saw the world as a giant candy store to be exploited. When one bin emptied, don't worry - our subsidized egg heads in academe and our infinite printing press all tell us great things are only a few dollars away. Their financial growth model has no analogue in nature, but don't worry we'll just reset it all - with depleting feed stocks of energy no less. Doubling down on digital tools when famines are forming. Green solutions that require fossil energy to implement and support with greatly reduced efficiency. Now if you were writing the energy balance equation, taking into consideration all of the very many inputs, it would sadly be apparent. This strategy will not be a solution. Rather it will create a winner-looser game in which geography and geology have more to do with success than financial institutions and talking heads. The universities so disappoint.
Do your research, plan thoughtfully. Discuss the possibilities with friends, colleagues and neighbors. Perhaps the organic nature of a "grass roots" movement can push us forward in a sane and rational way once these issues are common knowledge.
There is time to bring about debate and to discuss the real issues. But not a lot of time to waste.
Challenging the Bernays inspired messages of our global institutions and the PT Barnum laden politics may be a waste of time in the short term, but the voices and intellect of the many need to know the truth - and only then can we be assured that we have the best strategy to cope with these profound changes. When you hear a Barnum statement like "for the good of the many..." it only makes sense when "the many" know what the problems really are and how smart the "decision makers" are. In itself and without full transparency that phrase is just another Barnum Statement.
