Planned obsolescence
Quarter-baked thought, extending from yesterday's half-baked thought. Planned Obsolescence is an exception to the pattern I observed. 1950s. Automobiles were actually stable and invariant, but flashy exterior style changed every year and distinguished brands visually. It's an intentional crossover of wiggly culture onto stable tech.

It's a real problem, much bigger than chrome and fins.

A lot of our current mess arises from misuses and misunderstandings of obsolescence. Misuse isn't important when it's just a marketing trick, but it can be life or death when the misuse is required by government.

Examples:

Evolution vs ID. Evolutionists insist that every living thing is constantly turning obsolete, replaced by "random mutations". IDists say (correctly) that everything was set up just once, and all genetic purposes are always available.

Dolezal vs Natural Law. The transians insist that basic distinctions and divisions such as gender and species and variety can be discarded like last year's fashion. This is indisputably false. Natural Law is permanent. Morality is permanent.

Modernist architecture vs Historical Preservation vs Vernacular architecture. This is a three-way. Modernists insist that all forms and practices determined by long experiment MUST be discarded. Preservationists FORCE the retention of SPECIFIC buildings that have become Cooooool, regardless of their usefulness. Vernacular simply follows experiment. Use old forms that people actually like to live in.

In language we have the same three-way with the same names. Modernists want to Dolezal the language. Each word means what I think it means, and you're in DEEP SHIT if you don't understand what it means, and you're in EVEN DEEPER SHIT if you dare to ask what it means. Preservationists insist on holding to a few old "rules" that were never rules in the first place, because the "rules" have become Coooool among preservationists. Vernacular grammarians simply record common usages that are commonly understood, and encourage people to speak in a way that will be understood.

Protectionism vs globalization. This isn't intrinsically a question of permanent vs transient, but the globalizers have forced it into the category. Advocates of tariffs and restricting automation are treated as hopelessly obsolete. We can't go back and we shouldn't go back. NONSENSE. We had a functional system just 40 years ago. Humans haven't "evolved" since then, money is still money, and the products of 40 years ago weren't all that different. Cars, phones, washing machines, TVs, clothes. We MADE THOSE THINGS and we got PAID FOR MAKING THEM and corporations MADE PROFITS from the making. There is NO REASON why we can't return to that setup, and there's NO REASON why we can't return to the equally profitable pre-ZIRP banking system. The old system didn't NATURALLY become impractical or unprofitable. THIS IS PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE enforced by government guns and tanks.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, skill-estate

  ¶ 10:51 AM