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Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

johnwhiles.com

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Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never put the least bit of thought or effort into frying eggs in cast iron over, say, stainless. It is a better non-stick surface overall. Teflon is gross, do you really want to risk breathing the fumes and eating even more plastic?

Stainless is hands down the best fried eggs I've ever had. It and maybe carbon steel is the only thing that gets hot enough to make it crispy. You just need to let the pan heat up, drop a teaspoon of oil or butter, let if soak in a second then blast it and drop your egg. More butter more better but that's flavour at that point. For figuring out if your plans at the right heat, a spalsg of water should bead and float…

Stainless steel is also leaching metals..

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4284091/

I kind of suspect the bizarre health correlation for olive oil relates to its poor temperature range.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $50 angle grinder and a little time will turn $20 lodge cast iron pans into the kind of quality cast iron pans that I've seen people spend hundreds of dollars on to buy antiques.

what do you do with the angle grinder?

Well, you don't use it to cut the handle off.

You grind the bottom of the pan smooth. Isn't that obvious? I guess not, apparently. But it seems like it should be.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#294
post #158

>Other examples of products that seem to exhibit a similar trend, where purported convenience leads to higher prices >Cooking equipment: essentially indestructible Cast Iron skillets transition into teflon pans. The newer pans perform worse, and must be replaced on a shockingly regular basis. They also seem to be poisonous. They have their uses. I wouldn't try frying eggs in a cast iron, for instance (technically you…

>>*Also, claiming that they "seem to be poisonous" without any qualifiers is a little misleading. To my knowledge they're only poisonous during manufacturing (ie. the precursor chemicals) and when they get too hot.* Watch this documentary, "The Devil We Know" (About the history and toxicity of teflon. tl;dw - its a cancer causing birth defect, testosterone/endocrine system atomic bmb and there isnt a single person al…

>Watch this documentary, "The Devil We Know" (About the history and toxicity of teflon.

Sorry, but I'm not going to watch a 95 minute documentary on a whim. Based on the wikipedia summary, it doesn't seem to contradict what I said, specifically

>regarding allegations of health hazards from perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, also known as C8), a key ingredient used in manufacturing Teflon

I specifically mentioned in my last comment that they were "poisonous during manufacturing ".

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#295
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It's far far creepier to be overly concerned about plastic waste than about the gasoline cars on the road. Plastic waste has almost zero impact, zero, compared to the gasoline, brake dust, and tire microplastics coming off of cars. Where do all the microplastics in bodies of water come from? It's not plastic waste in landfills, it's tires on the road, which wear down and wash into bodies of water. Every single time y…

I didn't want to get in an argument with with you because you seem to presume A LOT. So much "we" and "people" in your posts. This is one of the reasons your take frustrated me as much as it did. Mid 20s, still high on hormons?

The way you argue is pointing out things that you do, and applying said behaviours to everyone else, or at least the the people on this site. Again, very frustrating.

I, for one, do not drive a car. Nor does my wife. We only use our tiny - by your US standards - every few months, and just for a few hundred kilometers. So yeah, you don't get to tell me how much I pollute or waste because you don't know me. I didn't say anything about cars until now but I hate almost everything them and especially the people who "can't imagine life without" them.

Your initial post was a really bad take. At least admit to that. My response was a shit one. See, if I can take some responsibility, so can you

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#296
post #158

>Other examples of products that seem to exhibit a similar trend, where purported convenience leads to higher prices >Cooking equipment: essentially indestructible Cast Iron skillets transition into teflon pans. The newer pans perform worse, and must be replaced on a shockingly regular basis. They also seem to be poisonous. They have their uses. I wouldn't try frying eggs in a cast iron, for instance (technically you…

My wife and I got rid of our TV last year when we moved. It was a nice break, but we want at least one in the house, so we're currently shopping around for a nice 4K 70+ inch. I've come to realize the market is headed toward a TV without any ports. You'll plug it in and immediately prompted to link with wifi so you can log into your streaming services. Fuck that. I'm hell-bent on getting something with zero smart fun…

A TV without smart software and a lot of ports is called a PC monitor.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#297

The argument seems to be that people pay more money for products they find more convenient. That's true, but I don't think it's a problem by itself: it's their choice how to spend their money. The problem would arise if the more convenient choice also externalized in some way: if it hurt other people, or the planet, and so on. There is some vague idea that throwing away a cartridge "produces more waste" than throwing…

> throwing away a cartridge "produces more waste" than throwing away a razor blade alone, which may be true, but the difference between them seems like a trivial amount

Trying to do approximate math for this is difficult and the difference seems small but greater than trivial. The larger point raised by the author is that the more packaging, dyes, adverts, etc. that a product has associated with it, the more likely a consumer is to buy it(??), and each step of the marketing-to-consumer pipeline costs more environmentally and energetically.

This is not a condemnation of advertising or marketing. In order to sell an environmentally-conscious product, you still need to sell the product.

It might seem impossible but there probably are long-term solutions to much of consumer waste. We aren't even really trying that hard overall to cut down on this and amazon et al are world leaders in packaging and return waste. There might not be easy answers but even partially solving the consumer packaging problem would cut down on landfill/recycling use.

It's a good thought exercise to imagine how you would sell razor blades without any packaging.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#298
post #158

>Other examples of products that seem to exhibit a similar trend, where purported convenience leads to higher prices >Cooking equipment: essentially indestructible Cast Iron skillets transition into teflon pans. The newer pans perform worse, and must be replaced on a shockingly regular basis. They also seem to be poisonous. They have their uses. I wouldn't try frying eggs in a cast iron, for instance (technically you…

> I wouldn't try frying eggs in a cast iron, for instance (technically you can, but it requires an absurd amount of oil). FWIW it's pretty easy to fry eggs in a cast iron. You do have to oil the pan, but I wouldn't call it absurd. Just a dollop of oil in the pan. And the end result has a crispy, yummy texture that's hard to achieve with Teflon. It just takes a little practice and an open mind.

If you are making eggs in a Teflon pan without butter, I don't want any.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#299
This post sounds a bit like an ad but i havn't looked back from the phillips oneblade. Its cheap, can be used wet or dry and cost like £30 and its the first razor that actually manages to remove the hairs on my neck effectively, only have to replace the blades every 6 months...

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#300
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To my knowledge they're only poisonous during manufacturing (ie. the precursor chemicals) and when they get too hot. Teflon pans kill birds unfortunately. Once you live with a bird, you can’t have any hot teflon in the house because it releases toxic fumes. Fine for a human because we’re large animals, smol birds reach lethal levels within minutes. There’s stories of people turning on an air fryer and their pet bir…

Overheated Teflon. Not egg cooking temps

At regular cooking temps, the chemicals still leach into the food. Also, you should throw a teflon pan out if it has a single scratch, since it leaches much more rapidly after that.
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