Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

> Couldn't one argue that there is not that much engineering needed to keep producing emergency vehicles that we already have

And what you would do when the necessary knowledge would be lost? 'It wouldn't be' you want to say? But who would want to spend an entire life for doing things what would be replaced like once in a decade?

> It's not like an ambulance fundamentally changes every year.

Not every year but modern ambulance and the one from 30 years are quite a different things, despite they are both just box on wheels and a stretcher.

> Would each unit be more expensive without mass production? Most likely, but... it's not like firefighter trucks are mass-produced for people who use them to go to work

But ambulances are produced on the chassis of the common (and cheap) designs which are mass-produced for all other markets and sectors. If your idea of firetruck is American behemoths then sure, they are not like firetrucks in other countries which just use... the common chassis from the cargo trucks. Yes, they are deeply overhauled, but the main benefit is what they get that chassis and parts cheap because they are mass-produced. And if they are not - they are no longer cheap.

> Military equipment is typically much more expensive than consumer products, but still... it's there.

And just like American firetrucks they share a lot of parts (and means of production) with their civilian counterparts.

And by the way, ambulances and firetrucks, good. What about delivering a new AC unit to you? It's no longer 40 minutes on the highway from the warehouse. It's a multiday affair and hours and hours of manual labor. Do you expect to still pay $20 for that?

>I'll add in that "we should get rid of all these modern flimflam" is generally a rallying cry by quite well off people who choose not to see the obvious future of poor people getting squelched as resources dry up.

Poor people like degrowth just fine. When they let them, that is, and not, e.g. take their land and their forests and their livelihoods.

Also, that the first world pro-growthers care for the "poor people" is hypocrisy of the highest order. If it was a choice between them letting the third world "peasants" die of hunger in exchange for the first world continuing their "way of life" and "progress" they wouldn't even blink.

In fact, it's not even theoritical, this has been a choice the first world consistently made for centuries: milking them, impoverising them, stealing their lands and resources, and even making them downright their subjects for centuries to fuel their own greed and growth.

Look at people who are consuming corporate-paid subscription to "Headspace" and alike meditation apps. Ironically these apps are solving the problem created by latest capitalism (or corporatism if you wish): unsatisfaction with ones life. People searching for piece in corporate-sponsored meditation apps is a direct representation described in these lines from the article:

> Illich defined conviviality as “autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment.” He contrasted this to “the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others” from above and afar in the name of advancing progress. “I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value,” he wrote in “Tools for Conviviality.” “I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society’s members.”

Reads like pretty normal English to me, even though English is my second language.

Ильич is a patronym (son of Ilya). Lenin's father's first name was Ilya.

It's not clear whether Иллич (pronounced differently) is related, apparently it's used as a given name in some countries, or it might be an unrelated surname, or it might be a misspelling/mistranscription of the Russian patronym. Who knows!