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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
Designed obsolescence isn't a sin. It can be annoying, but it also creates the drive to create better products. If I embrace your theory, technological advance slows to a crawl. I'm much happier with the status quo.
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Technological progress slowing down to a crawl is a popular pro-planned obsolescence argument. However, I very *much* doubt its correlation to reality. There will always be demand to buy a new product, there will always be new individuals to buy the new product and older products will break or become unintentionally obsolete in turn. I think its a profoundly naive belief to think that honest design will slow progress in any way. Heck, honest design *itself* is progress, don't you think? I would sure as hell like our engineers to invent things to last as much as possible, such devices would be inherently superior to any "status quo" alternative.
The only thing that *might* slow down is commerce. But contrary to what you've been brought up to believe, that is
not an invariably bad thing. If anything, engineers would be hard pressed to dramatically improve products in order for people to adopt them since their 30 year old blender still blends the same way.
So you see, once you pierce through the clever economist rhetoric we've all been spoon-fed, you actually realize that
banning planned obsolescence is actually an
incentive to technological progress. (ie: the opposite of what the defending premise tried to pass for a fact)
Having a profound love for technology, engineering and the sciences in general; I do, in fact, consider planned obsolescence a sin. A sin, a lie and an insult to our intelligence. And all of this without even *touching* the issue of wasted natural resources.
You're not your fucking khakis.
We'll wear leather clothes to last us the rest of our lives.
Tyler was on to something
