Unwanted Corkpull
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Unwanted Corkpull
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Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#2This sounds like a writing deadline in search of a problem…
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#3When I think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any car-load of fashionable furniture. […]
At present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning’s work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man’s morning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.
1854
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#4This is a really insightful essay.
Although it isn’t part of the main thrust of the essay, this jumped out at me:
> “Every single thing you see is future trash,” says Robin Nagle, anthropologist of material cultures and anthropologist-in-residence at the New York Department of Sanitation. This system that “not only generates so much trash, but relies upon the accelerating production of waste for its own perpetuation”…
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#5First world problems.
Just download the Corkpull app.
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#6This is a really insightful essay. Although it isn’t part of the main thrust of the essay, this jumped out at me: > “Every single thing you see is future trash,” says Robin Nagle, anthropologist of material cultures and anthropologist-in-residence at the New York Department of Sanitation. This system that “not only generates so much trash, but relies upon the accelerating production of waste for its own perpetuation”…
I think the comment by Nagle, which indeed seems to include "everything you see" [0], is a bit too extreme. Is water future trash? A piece of rock? Also, how is "future" defined here? I don't think that a piece of gold will be considered "trash" even in 1,000 years. I think what he means is this: the added manufactured value of any object will degrade over time.
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#7This is a really insightful essay. Although it isn’t part of the main thrust of the essay, this jumped out at me: > “Every single thing you see is future trash,” says Robin Nagle, anthropologist of material cultures and anthropologist-in-residence at the New York Department of Sanitation. This system that “not only generates so much trash, but relies upon the accelerating production of waste for its own perpetuation”…
I think the comment by Nagle, which indeed seems to include "everything you see" [0], is a bit too extreme. Is water future trash? A piece of rock? Also, how is "future" defined here? I don't think that a piece of gold will be considered "trash" even in 1,000 years. I think what he means is this: the added manufactured value of any object will degrade over time. [0] https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-robin-nag…
Heck, that corkpull is probably some rather amazing alloy to be recovered and recycled.
Of course, it's better to not make or buy useless things rather than recycle them...
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#8This sounds like a writing deadline in search of a problem…
microplastics and planned obsolescence (and other side effects of proprietary black box capitalist supply chains [1]) aren't real problems?
from the article:
> “Every single thing you see is future trash,” says Robin Nagle
> “If the corporate goal is to build a supply chain so seamless that its existence barely registers with consumers, such researchers seek to turn this process inside out, exposing the human and environmental costs obscured by slick design and packaging,” writes Jackie Brown
> Hold them and hold onto them until they become sacred, accruing value through ritual and nostalgia and thought exercises that send me back in time and up the supply chain past supermarket cashiers and drill press operators and industrial designers and miners to the sedimentary layer on the ocean floor.
[1] yes, there are alternatives! http://valueflo.ws: "Purpose: to enable internetworking among many different software projects for resource planning and accounting within fractal networks of people and groups. The vocabulary will work for any kind of economic activity, but the focus is to facilitate groups experimenting with solidarity / cooperative / collaborative / small business ecosystem / commons based peer production / any transitional economies.
Or, with less buzzwords, "let's help a lot of alternative economic software projects that are solving different pieces of the same puzzle be able to work together"."
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#9[deleted]
Re: Unwanted Corkpull
#10I have a similar view on most gifts. It would be ungrateful to throw them away, but annoying clutter in my life to keep them. What can you do?
I have started asking for "non-perishable consumables" such as light bulbs, tinned foods, and wine, whenever someone asks me what I want for a gift.