None of what follows is new. I know this stuff happens all the time. And yet somehow this insignificant thing shocked me and it’s been gnawing at me for the past few days. And today was the icing on the shit cake.
So my wife ordered a a foot massage machine. $50, typical el-cheapo thing made in China. The thing was shipped to our home out in the boonies in less than 48 hours. Wow!
My wife opened the box, got the device out onto the floor and… she couldn’t fit her feet inside. She’s not big, but apparently the device was designed for customers in the Shire. Unusable.
So she emailed the distributor who told her to cut the cord, send them a photo proving the destruction and throw it away herself. Not return the device. Not pretend to return the device and the device is thrown away behind her back. No no: this time, the distributor told her in no uncertain terms that it’s cheaper for them to let her destroy the thing herself.
And then it hit me: here is a device that was born in China, put together by some underpaid workers in a nondescript factory, designed by someone who didn’t give a shit, made out of materials that probably came out of the ground somewhere in Africa and in Saudi Arabia - probably involving child labor at some point or other - put on a boat, shipped halfway around the world, then put into a truck, only to be landfilled here.
It didn’t even see a single second of use. This is utterly absurd and completely depressing.
I’m not compatible with that. When I buy something, the thing has value and I want it to have a decently useful life. It’s not about ecology or money: it’s just basic respect for the resources and the human labor that went into this thing. The value of the object is what it cost the Earth and the people who toiled to make it and ship it to me. When I use my things, I show respect for those who made them and it justifies the use ot the materials they’re made of.
But here I was looking at that poor thing across the room, unloved and unlovable, whose sole purpose as an object was to be landfilled without ever seeing any use. It consumed resources and someone worked to make it, yet somehow it never had any value for anybody.
And the most depressing thing about it is, its very existence from Chinese factory to my local landfill is totally absurd and makes no sense at all, yet all the invididual steps that contributed to it being fabricated and ultimately landing on our doorstep were a series of perfectly rational economical decisions: someone found added value in designing and building a shit foot massage machine, my wife found it worth buying sight unseen, someone figured there was money to be made shipping it here, and the distributor decided to outsource its destruction to the customers because it’s cheaper than destroying it themselves - let alone shipping it back to Shenzen or wherever. And yet when you string everything together, the net result is senseless waste and production of things that have no inherent worth. How crazy is that eh?
I couldn’t throw it away. So I replaced the cord and I gave it to the local Red Cross store yesterday to give to someone in need or sell it for pennies. Today, I passed by the shop on my way to work and saw the damn thing in their garbage container behind the store. In the box. Unopened. I guess it will be going to the landfill after all…
That really put the final damper on my day today…
Sorry if this is the wrong venue, but I really needed to vent.
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One of the worst things about Capitalism is that many a time it’s cheaper to do the wrong thing, than the right thing. It promotes doing the wrong thing.
A lot of people misunderstand economic systems by anthropomorphizing (it means to give them human characteristics) them, giving them the illusion of thought or feeling.
Capitalism doesn’t care at all about humans, it’s not human, it doesn’t think, it doesn’t feel. It has no concept of right or wrong.
Capitalism says “what is most profitable”, do that. If killing someone to make money is the most profitable, it’s supposed to go ahead and do it, and it absolutely DOES already do this on a daily basis.
Now clearly, that’s going to give us some really fucking bad outcomes from a human perspective. So government regulation is how we attempt to prevent corporations from doing these bad things.
If we tell a company: “if you kill people it will cost $X” and $X would reduce their profit below “most profitable” they will stop doing it.
If we want to fix the bad stuff corporations are doing, simply put a larger cost on those things. It’s that simple. Pollution, Safety, Health, whatever… price the negative externalities (economic speak for bad things humans don’t want) properly and the market will sort itself out.
If we want to fix the bad stuff corporations are doing, simply put a larger cost on those things. It’s that simple. Pollution, Safety, Health, whatever… price the negative externalities (economic speak for bad things humans don’t want) properly and the market will sort itself out.
The part where it goes right off the rails however, it seems now that its cheaper to buy and own the politicians, and buy and own the media to manufacture consent to kill these regulations than it is to operate responsibly. Which seems to be right around where we are now.
The thing is, it always has been. Regulations slowly bubble up over the decades anyway, so that’s nice. The only question is how much damage happens in the meantime.
I don’t disagree.
Ho there pardner!
You’re saying that capitalism isn’t inherently evil and it serves an actual purpose? That capitalism itself doesn’t destroy the world, but an improper use of the system is to blame? And might even imply that there is a way to keep using the old, familiar capitalistic systems without extorting the working class and stripping the world of every last resource?
Unsarcastically, yes.
Capitalism can be great, if given the correct regulations to improve quality of life for everyone.
I will say however, that not all industries should be handled by capitalism, there are a few big ones where market competition simply doesn’t work due to inherent physical flaws (like for example needing to run five sets of water pipes to your house if you wanted to have choice among water providers)
I think that’s your point, but yes. Well, assuming capitalism = markets. Sometimes capitalism = the ultra rich, who are way harder to justify without resorting to just-so stories.
A lot of people misunderstand economic systems by anthropomorphizing (it means to give them human characteristics) them, giving them the illusion of thought or feeling.
Just in case that was directed at me, versus part of your overall opining, I do not.
It’s an economic and social system, ‘Bartering 2.0’, and not a mechanical or otherwise thing.
Good opinion piece overall though.
Yea, was more of a general take. Thanks.
This isn’t just true of capitalism. Greed and laziness exists in most economic systems.
Imagine in 100 years that footbath is rotting in a pile somewhere. Some desperate little creature is being stalked by some terrifying predator. Just as the predator is about to strike the little creature spots a hole he can squeeze through and makes a mad dash for it. He makes it just in time and peeps out of the holes in your footbath as the frustrated predator lumbers off in search of an easier meal.
That’s how I get past the depressing aspects of the absurdity of our civilization- just imagine even more absurd extensions until you find something that’s more fun to imagine than it is depressing.
To be fair, they may have a rule about anything without the original plug/cord I know places near me do. Still a shame it ends up going to waste.
The only problem with that theory is, they didn’t even open my box. I know that because the box still had the tape I closed it shut with. So they couldn’t know I had replaced the cord.
Besides, it wasn’t a shitty splice: I actually opened it and replaced the whole cord. You could never tell it wasn’t the original thing.
My first thought too
This is straight up c/BoringDystopia - it’s cheaper to produce new shit than to repurpose it.
At every step try to avoid Amazon. All of us using it is actively making the world a worse place.
Ramen.
I don’t usually read walls of text (attention span) but this was a good one, worth reading to the end. Well said tbh
Thanks!
What’s really insane is to think that it’s cheaper to manufacture something like this halfway across the world and then put it on a boat spewing god knows what into the atmosphere just to get it here. Something is broken when rinky dink items like this aren’t manufactured on your own continent.
It pisses me to no one end when i think to all the trash factories. Items designed to look good for e-commerce but they are poorly designed and unusable. Directly to the landfill…
Mad respect, this is the exact same outlook I have
This is also a reason I use Open Source software, because I know that if it’s not the developer, then someone else can pick up the project and live on in perpetuity, as long as it’s useful to even only one, the software will always be there
Wanted to say that actually Hobbits have quite large feet, but as it turns out that was just something in the movies, and nowhere alluded to in the books.
https://www.thegamer.com/weird-things-hobbit-anatomy-lord-of-the-rings/
But yeah, too bad about your, you know…
Bilbo had large, furry feet in the 1977 cartoon, so it’s at least as old as that.
I mean, yeah. All of this. Absurd.
But, FWIW, offloading cheap tat onto charity shops is not going to work well. It costs them money to put it on a shelf and it probably takes up more space than it is worth. Plus, they very likely can’t sell electrical equipment that has had its cord chopped up and repaired, or at least not without spending more on having it tested than they could sell it for anyway.
Next time, find a friend with small feet who would like to take it off your hands.
Plus, they very likely can’t sell electrical equipment that has had its cord chopped up and repaired
I did it proper. You couldn’t tell the cord had been replaced. For the rest, yeah I know what you mean. That doesn’t mean it’s not crazy that the Red Cross should refuse free shit. My Dad lived through the war and the food restrictions, and let me tell you, he would have been outraged.
Next time, find a friend with small feet who would like to take it off your hands.
The funny thing is, I’m a clear foot taller than my wife, but my own feet have been shortened surgically a few years ago and are now shorter than hers, and I fit inside the machine just fine. But I didn’t want the machine because I hate foot massages 🙂
Wait I’m curious about the foot shortening thing. How and why?
Ok now the post is coming alive
With a scalpel and a bone saw - at least that’s what the surgeon said - and because sometimes people are born with issues that need fixing later in life.
someone found added value in designing and building a shit foot massage machine,
I bet they didn’t. Someone screwed up, and someone (maybe not the same person) is taking a loss on it. Chinese factory labour is cheap, but not free.
It’s still a bummer, though. Sorry this happened.
There’s a thrift store near me called Saver’s, and it’s stocked by donations to Big Brother. I have no doubt this would have gone into the store if they received it.
