Unwanted Corkpull

> What's not to like? Is it because they're not produced by a bearded artisanal blacksmith within cycling distance? The article seems to be searching for a problem.

Really? That's what you get after reading this?

> "This kind of vertiginous horror in the face of a seemingly cruel and infinite supply chain is reflected on a larger and more academic scale in the recent rise of critical logistics and supply chain studies. “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 in her recent essay surveying the field of supply studies. From mapping projects that follow the chemical, digital, material and labor inputs used in an Amazon Echo device upstream to their points of origin to genealogies of logistics that trace out the links between globalized production to militarization and collective violence, these projects seek to chart out small parts of a system so complex and flexible that it’s impossible for any individual to grasp.

> [...] people are driven to distraction trying to reverse-engineer a system that is purposely obscured, piecing together clues to see who’s behind the curtain and how we’re being screwed. This mode of paranoid reading, the “highly compelling tracing-and-exposure project” as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick describes in her famous essay, is a “position of terrible alertness,” of trying to uncover hidden connections and cruelty whose existence are assumed, if unseen. Emily Apter describes this paranoid orientation to logistics and globalization as “oneworldness,” referring to “a delirious aesthetics of systematicity; to the match between cognition and globalism that is held in place by the paranoid premise that ‘everything is connected.’”"

In summary: today's obscured global capitalist production system mangles many of the working class' minds and bodies (in the global south especially: hence the focus on supply chains, since they go on past the borders of our daily lives and the communities in which we live; into the horizon), creating an extremely uncomfortable, fear-inducing unavoidable sense of culpability (even though of course as working class people we're all stuck inside this capitalist hellhole) in the minds of global north knowledge workers.

I'm relieved to know that others share this feeling.

Oh, the supreme irony of cargo cult self awareness.

The author visits the entire pantheon of collective condemnations of consumerism, while never reconciling their own situation. The only things they don't like about their cork pull is its appearance and brand - by their own admission it works really well. These are relativistic social constructs that are pushed by marketers to get us to buy endless shit. You can't remain in their framework while trying to go against it! If one truly cares about the various social condemnations of consumerism, then one needs to wholly reject the foundational consumerist propaganda - a cork pull is a tool, it exists to facilitate a job, not to become part of your identity.

When you focus on functionality, the a similar core problem does still exist - items that are adequate, but somehow suboptimal. But the utilitarian metric at least gives you a framework that can converge, rather than endlessly floating in the doldrums of fashion. You can ask questions like "which of these options is most similar to items that I have used that worked well?" and "will the functionality gain be worth it", rather than falling for marketing. It also enables you to perform judgements soon after buying an item, and simply return it to the store if they've really made a piece of junk, as many things are these days.

In general, like always, the answer is to stop buying so much shit. Install adblock, don't let the (social) media tell you what you should want, and be realistic about whether you're actually going to use some item or whether you're falling for the hope of being able to use it. Doing so won't solve the world's problems, but it will minimize your part in them.

There seem to be many separate ideas in this article.

> I want to surround myself with tools that help me perform my daily tasks

That describes the OXO cork-puller, to some extent

> or beautiful objects that are frivolous but nice to look at and touch

This leads to more consumerism and waste, which is one of the other points in the article.

> I want things that last a long time, that are easy to fix, and that didn’t damage the people who made them or the places their materials were extracted from.

This is a reasonable point! Finally. (although it doesn't seem like the cork-puller necessarily doesn't also adhere to these traits...)

The article seems to be a hodgepodge.

Tangent: maybe we need to come up with more clever ways to use a single gadget to fulfill multiple functions, instead of buying one gadget per function. But wait, this is already partially true, at least with respect to kitchen tools - you rarely, if ever, need a large spoon with holes in it - just take your large spoon that doesn't have holes and drain the liquid out by pressing it against the side of the pot. Inconvenient? Sure. But less waste. So maybe the goal is to convince people to put up with some amount of inconvenience in order to save the environment...

Or, go back to expensive, but super-durable, goods that will last decades, and ideally also be made out of recycle-able materials.

There are many local grassroots neighborhood groups now from which you can easily find people to take a lot of your items. Look on Freecycle.org, or look for "Buy Nothing " on FB, or just post things for free on Nextdoor.

I've used these gotten rid of so many random doodads through these venues, and each time it feels great knowing that whoever picking up actually will likely use it. My impression of charity donations is that they dump a lot of their donations if they don't immediately see things as being high enough quality to resell.

I've been to thrift stores. They no longer allow after-hours drop-off. They are quite selective about which items they will take. They certainly wouldn't waste their time and shelf-space with the "corkpull" mentioned in TFA. I have installed an under-cabinet jar-opening vise for my mother, which I only ordered because she specifically asked for it. No one in the family would dream of foisting it off on Goodwill if for some reason she didn't need it anymore. Admitting that trash is actually trash and throwing it away is the first step in living a life that produces less trash.