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China and "our standard of living"

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Re: China and "our standard of living"

#31

Post by jfoutz »

cmars232 wrote: post #9
mistermann wrote: post #3

Wow, spot on! Likely not news to anyone here, but I really wonder how many people out there are smart enough to realize how amazingly cheap the stuff we buy is, and really think of where it comes from.

Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with. This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.

Pop culture disagrees. 22 years ago, Dark Helmet: Out of order? FUCK! Even in the future, nothing works!

I'd bet when you think of old stuff, you think of a singer sewing machine or a '57 chevy, stuff that withstood the test of time. well the world was full of crap then too, most of it broke and got thrown away. My toys are more than 20 years old. they are cheap plastic. they aren't even painted, just a few sucky stickers. Our microwave when i was a kid would make parts of food smoke while leaving other parts frozen solid. Consumer electronics? i think timex made it's reputation by being a slightly less crappy watch.

You name it. You can certainly find 1 example of a stellar product that lasts for years and years. There are hundreds of that products peers in the landfill.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#32

Post by jfoutz »

jdbeast00 wrote: post #24
cmars232 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with. This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.

Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.

It's worse than that. The cheapest thing possible from walmart is still better than average, and probably better than the best from 20 years ago. Plastic drinking cups now were anodized aluminum. 10 times the price, and make you crazy. Find a (new) t-shirt from 1989 and wash it 50 times. how much did that color change? how many holes are in it? Bet that walmart shirt is holding up fairly well.

I'm not a walmart fan, Old stuff just sucks. It can be fascinating and intriguing and cool, but a difference engine looses to a pentium core 2 duo. You can go buy a car for $20k right now, that is faster, safer, and more fuel efficent than anything sold in the 1970's.

time == tech. tech wins.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#34

Post by zimbabwe »

DrJokepu wrote: post #29
jdbeast00 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.

Actually, I must agree with the parent. While the iphone is really great and stuff, you can bet that everything that's not absolutely necessary and even a bit more has been engineered out of it, in the name of cost-efficiency. Otherwise it would be very expensive and unsuitable for mass production. Because it is a product of mass production, the iphone is definitely not a unique, luxury item even though it's very wel…

This is an argument that has quite a bit of nuance to it. I'd argue that the iPhone is a luxury item for certain definitions of luxury, that in fact it is more luxurious than something like a diamond necklace if you use a utilitarian definition of luxury.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#35

Post by silentbicycle »

jfoutz wrote: post #31
cmars232 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with. This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.

Pop culture disagrees. 22 years ago, Dark Helmet: Out of order? FUCK! Even in the future, nothing works! I'd bet when you think of old stuff, you think of a singer sewing machine or a '57 chevy, stuff that withstood the test of time. well the world was full of crap then too, most of it broke and got thrown away. My toys are more than 20 years old. they are cheap plastic. they aren't even painted, just a few sucky sti…

Indeed. It's easy to think that things were manufactured better in the good old days (whenever that was) when anything that didn't survive is out of sight and therefore out of mind.

While it's quite possible that several specific things were manufactured objectively better at some point in the past, basing judgments about the past solely on nostalgia and the few pieces that are still holding up well is not the foundation of a strong argument.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#36

Post by bbot »

c0nsilience wrote: post #33

While the story had some decent points to it, the ending was a really horrible cop out and cowardly way to accuse the young man of stealing an iPhone. Even if it is true.

Hey, let's do impressions.

I'm c0nsilience. I fail to understand obvious satire, and am frequently confused by very simple things in every day life. If only some incredibly handsome man could leave a very sarcastic comment explaining how I failed to Get It, that would surely solve everything.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#37

Post by jfoutz »

gaius wrote: post #26
whughes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you couldn't. You spend $10y on a computer or a cellphone made in Germany, it'll still be completely useless within a decade or two. Tech is different .

But that isn't true. 10 years ago were you having less fun on the original Playstation than you have on a PS3 now? What about 10 years before that on the Sega Megadrive? The upgrade treadmill is just fashion and marketing.

Entertainment competition goes up. More tv, more books, more movies, more games, more music. I don't think i can objectively quantify fun had in a game 10 years ago or a game now. However, I think we can agree that how people spend their leisure time is a pretty good indicator of how much fun activity X is. In the early 80's movies were more fun than video games for just about everybody. Now, you see moms playing games on the wii. I think video games are objectively more fun than the alternatives than they were with their alternatives 20 years ago.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#38

Post by whughes »

gaius wrote: post #26
whughes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you couldn't. You spend $10y on a computer or a cellphone made in Germany, it'll still be completely useless within a decade or two. Tech is different .

But that isn't true. 10 years ago were you having less fun on the original Playstation than you have on a PS3 now? What about 10 years before that on the Sega Megadrive? The upgrade treadmill is just fashion and marketing.

Yes, I was. Online play is a significant improvement, and the gameplay is substantially different. Plus, the PlayStation doesn't have a catalog of new games. In order to continue playing new video games, you have to upgrade.

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#39

Post by garply »

biohacker42 wrote: post #27
mistermann wrote: post #3

Wow, spot on! Likely not news to anyone here, but I really wonder how many people out there are smart enough to realize how amazingly cheap the stuff we buy is, and really think of where it comes from.

Well not quite spot on. It did mention that these people were willing to do what ever to get away from the hellish alternative they were born into. But if you blinked you missed it, you missed the most important point: People are doing this voluntarily. Rumors of forced labor are greatly exaggerated. Perhaps somewhere in Burma but in China and India and other places, people do this hard work because the alternative i…

Thank you for making this point. This happens to be the position on the economic ladder where these people are. A few people are higher, most people are at a level equal or lower to this.

In some ways I feel like the tone pieces like this take when discussing Chinese life is condescending. For some people this is just 'work.' Consider using this kind of pity to talk about American blue collar workers - does it seem appropriate?

Re: China and "our standard of living"

#40

Post by silentbicycle »

mrshoe wrote: post #12

This exposes the truism that there is always a standard of living continuum in society. In a different era there were Kings and Lords and Peasants. Now we have Europeans and Americans and Chinese and Indians. If globalization can succeed at improving the standard of living for those at the bottom of the continuum, it will have to be at the expense of those at the top. It's a zero sum game.

Yes, but in a different era kings still died from things that can be easily cured with antibiotics, or made endurable with insulin.
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