If this guy is correct, stunning that in this day and age, when we are supposed to be looking after the environment and cutting down on stuff dumped on landfill, and cutting down energy usage, that planned obsolescence is still a thing.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2025Oct 9 by martin-w

It should be made criminal when done by intent, but Capitalism is all about consuming, it can’t survive without more and more and more consumption … which also means more population growth … can you see where this cycle leads?  Human race is great at ignoring things with “it doesn’t affect me” … until it does and it’s too late.

Sure, products do expire due to a natural cycle of usage over time … but when a manufacturer decides the expire date via poor design they know will fail so as to require repairs or replacements, that’s clearly criminal negligence.

Then we have the folks saying we’re all Doomsday predictors … they don’t even see the irony in their statements (that’s how uninvolved they are … or maybe it’s just they need to feel comfy).  Oddly those same folk don’t seem to call “revenue projection meetings” as “Doomsday prediction meetings”.  Apparently financial planning is ok, human/environment/sustainability planning is not.

Good video, hopefully it bring awareness.

 

Edited October 9, 2025Oct 9 by SayAgain

None of it matters I'll be dead soon!🤣

Edited October 9, 2025Oct 9 by FBW737

14 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

It should be made criminal when done by intent, but Capitalism is all about consuming, it can’t survive without more and more and more consumption … which also means more population growth … can you see where this cycle leads?  Human race is great at ignoring things with “it doesn’t affect me” … until it does and it’s too late.

Sure, products do expire due to a natural cycle of usage over time … but when a manufacturer decides the expire date via poor design they know will fail so as to require repairs or replacements, that’s clearly criminal negligence.

Then we have the folks saying we’re all Doomsday predictors … they don’t even see the irony in their statements (that’s how uninvolved they are … or maybe it’s just they need to feel comfy).  Oddly those same folk don’t seem to call “revenue projection meetings” as “Doomsday prediction meetings”.  Apparently financial planning is ok, human/environment/sustainability planning is not.

Good video, hopefully it bring awareness.

 

If you have a spare hour or so, there's an excellent (albeit a little bit old now) lecture about population growth and resource usage by Dr. Albert A. Barlett that you might find interesting:

 

Yeah, have seen that and read/watched many other shows/articles/papers on population growth.  There are a few statements that I don’t understand suggesting population growth for humans will start to decline (around 2100) when we reach 10-11 Billion (we’re at 8 Billion now).  Doesn’t sufficiently explain exactly why other than fertility rates are going down … what would stop them from going back up (material resources, food/agriculture limits)?

I’m a humanist (yes that’s a thing folks) so I want to see the human race survive (kids, grand kids, relatives, etc.) as life is not owed.  As Martin points out in that video … why do we equate “jobs” with “products designed to fail” as if there is no other type of job people can perform?  The mantra to “create more jobs thru manufacturing” with no regard to the actual type of job nor it’s long term consequences.  Does a company have to design their products to expire to stay in business and is that the only way to provide jobs?

It feels like we have this 1950’s mantra that manufacturing is the “only job” that matters?  AI and robotic automation is going to replace MANY jobs (there is no stopping that) so why can’t different jobs be viable?  Change and adapt is how all life survives, Humans are no exception.  

I’m 40 years of software engineering and I can see the writing on the wall years ago.  Heck, I use AI every day when coding web apps or desktop apps or mobile apps (JetBrains, Video/Audio, etc.).  Job markets change, natural progression … the obsession with manufacturing is a dead end road (that should be painfully obvious by now).

We always seem to be looking at the short term, never the long term sustainability. 70% of the US population lives paycheck to paycheck … that’s frankly insane!

 

It used to apply to inkjet printers, I recall, a counter that disables the printer after X number of prints.

Certainly doesn't apply to my Brother laser printer. I've just ordered new toner after litteraly years of occasional use. Usually to send back cloths my daughters ordered and rejected. 😅

The fact is that most manufacturers don't build things to last a long time any more.  TVs, cars, and other things built 50 years ago could easily last 20+ years - that's rare nowadays.  Perhaps it's planned failure so that customers will have to buy a new one every 5 years to keep the money rolling in, or perhaps it's just that quality overall has declined due to cheaper materials and faster production with less quality control.  Anyway, it makes sense, actually, in that if you produce a million washing machines in a few years that will last 25 years, then unless the population grows substantially every year, eventually demand for those washers will fall and you'll be out of business. 

This is a big reason why the economy desperately needs sustained, high population growth, and why govts. do everything they can to make that happen.  Our economic prosperity model is based on high growth, and without a lot more people that model fails.

This is a real quandary, because there are way too many people on earth right now, and most consuming way too much, especially Americans.  Now countries like China and India want what we've had, and they have billions of people vying to live the Western-style middle-class consumerist lifestyle.  This is not sustainable in the long run.

One last point.  The efforts to re-shore manufacturing to the USA is more about economic security than a huge growth in manufacturing jobs.  I don't expect millions of new manufacturing jobs to be created as most modern factories use a lot of automation.  The jobs that will be created in this sector are pretty good jobs that generally pay well, though.

Population, especially in the West, is set to decline substantially over the next 50 years, which is why, IMO, govts. have allowed millions of people to flood in.  This doesn't fix the root problem of overconsumption, however, and only makes things worse in the long run.  We need to learn to live with less and do a lot more recycling.  The recycling industry could create a lot of new productive jobs.

Dave

 

 

Edited October 9, 2025Oct 9 by dave2013

31 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

The efforts to re-shore manufacturing to the USA is more about economic security than a huge growth in manufacturing jobs.

Economic security is thru partnerships, not ego games and threats … one planet, one human race.  Conflict solves nothing, never has, never will (we don’t seem to learn from our short history) … me vs. the world has never worked at any level.  Application of “judgement” (aka what is and isn’t fair) is irrelevant.  

No one has “economic security”, not even Musk … Millionaires and Billionaires and now Trillionaires make money from other people … a dependency they either forgot or think they can control … like a battery in the Matrix 😉 

We need to work with our environment because can’t win working against it.  Not so much “less”, just more about efficiency and sustainable which does NOT inherently mean “less” in terms of quality of life.  Technology has improved efficiency considerably, but manufacturing and greed and the hiding behind “job creation” and cheaper products as a means to be less efficient ultimately fails but has sold to the consuming public.  

Shoes for example, I used to buy all my shoes from cheap sources like Kmart, Target, etc. … the shoes would last about 1 month before they started to fall apart.  I’d buy 12 pairs of shoes at $30 each per year ($360) … I finally did the math and went the route of 2 pairs of good shoes at $400 and they last 5 years.  The Kmart, Target shoes are design to last about 1-2 months … but they are short term cheap and fit the budget of the 70% of the US population that live paycheck to paycheck … you see the control in that?

We’re more than able to design quality long lasting products, but we encapsulate ourselves in how the manufacturers want us to progress thru life … this is NOT bound to any specific country or political incarnation.  

 

9 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Well, that really does sound nice, and I'd love it if things could be this way, but it has never happened in all of human history, and sadly it never will happen. 

For most of human history we have not been numerous enough or technologically advanced enough to make too much of a serious impact on our planet with our levels of consumption.   I think it's obvious now (to me) that human numbers, combined with an ability to pollute and consume on a previously unimaginable scale, allied with most people's innate selfishness and short term ism, means that "it's always been this way" isnt a sustainable perspective.

Adapt or die.  I really hope humanity can overcome its addiction to selfish consumerism, excess and all the things that go along with it, but I fear we won't, and should that be the case, I hope I'm not around to see what happens.....

Before this thread gets the lock, I will say that a little over 30 years ago I bought a clothes washer and dryer made by Maytag (Ames, Iowa manufactured).  I have replaced the timer on the washing machine once because it developed a dead spot.  I have replaced the timer in the dryer once because it stopped automatically advancing.  I have replaced the drum rollers, belt and plastic fan in the dryer 3 times, the most recent replacement was late last year.  I am seeing the supply of replacement parts for these machines dwindle, but other than the timers, the replacement parts have been inexpensive and all of the repairs have been relatively easy to perform.  Cannot do any of that with the new machines.   The best way to combat the growing problem of how to dispose of or recycle appliances is to go back to making them more durable and repairable, but I doubt that will happen.

Edited October 10, 2025Oct 10 by stans

OK......any more insults being hurled will result in Michone doing her thing!

7 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

I think it's obvious now (to me) that human numbers, combined with an ability to pollute and consume on a previously unimaginable scale, allied with most people's innate selfishness and short term ism, means that "it's always been this way" isnt a sustainable perspective.

I made it quite clear that I don't support excess and overconsumption and that we should focus more on reducing consumption and recycling.  You focused in on and quoted a single statement I made criticizing what SayAgain believes based on his past and current posts. 

The current levels of consumption are not sustainable in the long run.  Conservation and recycling can buy more time, but ultimately the problem is that there are too many people.

We can make strides in reducing our own consumption and recycling more, but what would you do about China's and India's 3 billion people who are moving fast into the middle class and want air conditioners, washing machines, and cars like most of us in the West have?  Any solutions? 

Dave

The problem is not too many people. The problem is the selfishness of the human heart. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is too much for the fallen nature of man so the beat will go on until “that day”. 

As you can tell the pissing match has been removed! 🥷

I will not resume a "pissing match", but there is one point I'd like to make in response to the assertion that economic security isn't important:

The U.S. is currently gaining significant production capacity of computer chips, one of the most important products in our modern age, as without them all of our computer systems would disappear over time as they age and fail.

In 2023 "Taiwan accounted for 20 per cent of global semiconductor production, 37 per cent of logic chip manufacturing, and a dominant 92 per cent of the world’s most advanced logic chip capacity. TSMC alone was producing 70 per cent of smartphone chipsets and 35 per cent of automotive microcontrollers."

Should a blockade or conflict break out involving Taiwan, which is probable in the next 5 years based on official statements, the U.S. and Europe would immediately be cut off from supplies of chips from Taiwan.  One can imagine the chaos, panic, and economic turmoil that would result.

There are other products such as pharmaceuticals, electrical equipment, rare earth minerals, and a number of other essential goods for which we are heavily dependent on foreign sources and which could be cut off at a moment's notice.  We saw the difficulties caused by a shortage of baby formula during Covid, for example.  It makes sense to bring at least some of this manufacturing to our own shores. 

It's not about "us vs them" or threats, or ego - it's simply about having a secure supply of critical goods.

Dave