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1. Embed this notice
   𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 (straphanger@urbanists.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 01:54:14 JST 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

   When General Motors made fast trains!

   Everything you need to know about the GM Aerotrain, launched in 1955, including the story of the "Crapshooters' Special," whose maiden voyage into Vegas featured Liberace waving from the cab.

   https://www.trains.com/trn/railroads/history/five-mind-blowing-facts-about-the-gm-aerotrain/?utm_source=acs&utm_medium=email&utm_email=mike%40londonreconnections.com&utm_campaign=News0_TRN_231010_000000_0000000000&eid=mike%40londonreconnections.com

   • Embed this notice
     brad m (brad262run@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 01:54:09 JST brad m

     in reply to

     • Sally Strange

     @SallyStrange @straphanger
     See also Charles Kettering’s “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied” from 1929
     "We hear people complaining because of new models in automobiles”
     "You must accept this reasonable dissatisfaction with what you have and buy the new thing, or accept hard times”
     https://wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/documents/ch27_02.htm

   • Embed this notice
     Sally Strange (sallystrange@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 01:54:12 JST Sally Strange

     in reply to

     Also, wow: "Dating to the 1920s, planned obsolescence was developed by Alfred P. Sloan, GM CEO, and his associates. Many people believed that buying a car was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Such a consumer attitude dramatically slowed GM’s sales. GM’s goal was to get people to buy another new car — even if the one they had was not worn out — just to stay fashionable by driving the latest design. This is why automakers change models every year — another Sloan idea."

     fuck that guy

     @straphanger

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sally Strange (sallystrange@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 01:54:13 JST Sally Strange

     in reply to

     Images in post above:
     1. The aerodynamic nose of a shiny new chrome-colored locomotive, with windows high up and a red stripe down its side. A white man stands on a short wooden platform to its side and a white woman in a dress and pearls is smashing a bottle of (presumably) champagne on its front bumper as a few other men look on.
     2. Black & white photo of the spacious interior of a train, with ~20 white people seated, including some kids and a man about to light a woman's cigarette. A Black train attendant is putting a valise into the overhead compartment.
     #Alt4You #DescriptiveText #accessibility
     @straphanger

   • Embed this notice
     jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay” (jepyang@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:28 JST jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     in reply to

     • sidereal

     @sidereal Video game consoles seem like a good example.

     Basically nobody really needs an Xbox, not like a car. Original Xbox Ones didn’t stop working when the Xbox One X or whatever was released. Consumers really do have plenty of agency in deciding whether they want to upgrade or not.

     But because Microsoft’s intended effect is still to shorten the consumer purchasing cycle, it’s still planned obsolescence.

   • Embed this notice
     jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay” (jepyang@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:29 JST jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     in reply to

     • sidereal

     @sidereal Definitely true, though I suspect (maybe?) even Ed would agree that that is an example of planned obsolescence. What I’m saying is that it still counts as planned obsolescence even when there’s not life-altering external pressure to replace the good and even when the obsolescence is not related to the durability of the good.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     sidereal (sidereal@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:30 JST sidereal

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe
     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     @jepyang @edwiebe I mean if someone lives somewhere where they can't get to work without a car, and they can't move to somewhere near public transit, and their car broke down in exactly the way it was engineered to. This is not an accident. That consumer is being forced into buying a vehicle by the people who own the land, make decisions about urban development/public transit, and design the cars.

     As I see it, consumers do not have free will in capitalist society.

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:31 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     @jepyang

     Manufacturers can't force people to buy things. Are you forced to buy things? It's likely you will say that no, you choose to buy things. If then you choose to buy something new because you find the version you have is, say, unfashionable, would you say that was your choice or not?

   • Embed this notice
     jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay” (jepyang@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:31 JST jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe

     @edwiebe It’s not clear to me what you’re getting at.

     Yes, consumers have free will. No, manufacturers cannot force people to buy new things.

     That is why a definition of planned obsolescence that centers on whether consumers are “forced” to buy something new—which, as far as I can tell, is what you’ve been arguing—is worthless. It’s not a real thing.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉 (adrianriskin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:33 JST Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe
     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     @edwiebe @jepyang My point is that you assume you know what "purpose" means when you say "fit for purpose." This is an empirical question that you insist on treating as answerable a priori. It's just not. You assume that the one true function of cars is to move their owners and their goods around but this is empirically wrong. Cars have economic and expressive functions for some people that they cannot fulfill if they're unfashionable. What makes you qualified to determine how everyone should use their car?

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:33 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”
     • Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     @AdrianRiskin @jepyang

     It's not at all unanswerable. Some people include an item's appearance in its suitability. That's a clear answer.

     I have been arguing people who do that are not forced to buy a replacement item because the new one looks different.

     This means that they, not the manufacturer, bear responsibility for the obsolescence.

     Manufacturers certainly take advantage of this, which is depressing, but are they causing it to happen?

   • Embed this notice
     jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay” (jepyang@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:33 JST jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe

     @edwiebe > Manufacturers certainly take advantage of this, which is depressing, but are they causing it to happen?

     Causing it? Irrelevant question.

     The “taking advantage” part is all that’s needed. That is the “plan” in planned obsolescence.

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:34 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”
     • Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     @AdrianRiskin @jepyang Nonsense. Many people buy a new car because they're tired of the old one, not because the old one didn't carry them and their goods around.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉 (adrianriskin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:34 JST Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe
     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     @edwiebe @jepyang Like I said elsewhere, you don't know what people use their cars for. You're not the final arbiter of some putative proper function of a car. Just because you use your car to do X doesn't mean that other people don't use cars for a whole range of other purposes.

     Evidently some people use them for purposes other than "carry[ing] them and their goods around." Some people use them to please their aesthetic senses, or just to enjoy having, or to make a living driving for Uber, or who knows what? These are very common purposes that cars are used to fulfill. Tools have multiple capabilities which can only be discerned by looking at how they're used, not by a priori reasoning.

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:34 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”
     • Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     @AdrianRiskin @jepyang I think planned obsolescence refers to things that are no longer fit for purpose or fail to work because of design choices. Including fashion in that makes it possible to include every manufactured thing under this umbrella and then to blame everything on manufacturers and marketers. I had thought it was obvious that we all bear some responsibility in the waste we see around us. In this thread, at least, it seems that we don't.

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:36 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     @jepyang No one whose car meets their requirements and still works fine has to buy a new car. Yet, many, many people do.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉 (adrianriskin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:36 JST Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe
     • jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     @edwiebe @jepyang if they buy a new car obviously the old one didn't meet their requirements.

   • Embed this notice
     jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay” (jepyang@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:37 JST jnpegay, emphasis on the “gay”

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe
     • Sally Strange

     @edwiebe @SallyStrange Distinction without difference

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:38 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • Sally Strange

     @SallyStrange The car thing isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s fashion. Planned obsolescence is designing and building something with the intention that it be non-functional before it otherwise could be with a different design or material construction.

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:38 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • Sally Strange

     @SallyStrange selling a new car that looks different or is built differently doesn’t make the old one obsolete. It makes the old one unfashionable.

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:40 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • Sally Strange

     @SallyStrange Fashion, culture, vanity are only 200 years old?

   • Embed this notice
     Sally Strange (sallystrange@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:40 JST Sally Strange

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe

     @edwiebe if the REAL problem is 200,000 years old then why did planned obsolescence take 199,850 years to manifest?

   • Embed this notice
     Sally Strange (sallystrange@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:41 JST Sally Strange

     in reply to

     • Ed Wiebe

     @edwiebe so in 200,000 years of human history, something that was invented less than 200 years ago is probably human nature? Elaborate please

   • Embed this notice
     Ed Wiebe (edwiebe@mstdn.ca)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 04:02:42 JST Ed Wiebe

     in reply to

     • Sally Strange

     @SallyStrange Isn’t the actual problem that most people are fickle, selfish, vain, and, frankly, more than a bit stupid? The quote is describing fashion and culture, both of which were around long before cars.