4 ms·

Why aren't you arguing directly that we should all live in soviet-style housing blocks? Concrete is good enough, right? Then we'd all be equal.

grawprog 8y ago
I'm not saying they're wrong to have them. I'm pointing out spending $20,000 on some piece of stone for you to prepare your food on is fairly non-essential. Though again, they remove mountains for this, the shop produces a bunch of toxic, fish killing dust and sediment every day that's slowly killing me and my coworkers and destroying the planet. But my main point was, the things I create every day are not essential. They are luxury items. Many of the other jobs i've had were also along the same line. Not that they don't make people happy or improve their lives I suppose,(though the people that got soapstone in their kitchen recently are in for a some trouble the first time they drop something on it or spill something acidic on it.) But, in the end, it's definitely not essential and detrimental to the world as a whole in many ways.
- sverige 8y ago
  I understand, but from that perspective, pretty much everything in "developed" countries is non-essential, including personal computers (whether desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet) and forums like this one to discuss such things. Think of the toxic waste created by all those computers, and the greenhouse gases created by shipping them all over the place! And to what end?
  - grawprog 8y ago
    Yeah you're right. I think that's the point the gp comment was making originally. It's not just developed countries either. There are massive industries supporting millions of people that are non-essential. The problem is many of them actually do provide a large increase to quality of life. The improvement granite counters make is questionable, things like computers, phones, vehicles and other large scale damaging things, while not necessarily essential, do bring a dramatic improvement to quality of life and paradoxically enough allow people to make money providing.what is likely another non-essential service or product. It's always been like this though. In the end, there's no reason for humans to have ever made most of the things we have over the millenia other than because we can and did. Once we had food and shelter and all these things pretty much taken care of, everythong else after was pretty much just for the fuck of it and we've always been at odds with the world and destroyed and altered our environments. The scale has just kept increasing to the point where there are massive global industries devoted to this. At the same time, humanity still follows our basic survival insticts. We still have that inner subconcious mentality of scarcity when it comes to essentials. So it ends up being treated the same way in our economy as luxury goods and you end up in this situation where people are trading non-essential things for essential things.
- philipkglass 8y ago
  If you were supplying things that less affluent people can afford, you might have different but equally strong regrets about the unsustainable ways that business operates. For what it's worth, the full life cycle environmental impact of cheap plastic laminate counters is likely worse than that of polished natural stone.
  - grawprog 8y ago
    Yeah probably. I mean pretty much any manufacturing is really at odds with the ecological restoration and ecosystem management degrees I have. I've come to reconcile this dissonance as the non-essential, environment destroying job pays enough money for me to live and have these non-essential things, while trying to help the planet did not. So...there's that. Turns out it's really difficult to live on sparse couple month contracts that are paid with grant money that typically only occur during spring-fall.
- robocat 8y ago
  > But my main point was, the things I create every day are not essential A country that only produces essential items (food, shelter) for its population is a very poor country. Almost by definition, a wealthy country predominantly produces and consumes non-essential goods and services. It gets really difficult to argue which non-essential goods are worthwhile. Is the art on the wall worth more than the stone lintel? Is it good art? Is it a second hand lintel?
petra 8y ago
soviet-style housing is a bit extreme. But what's wrong with being equal ?
- sverige 8y ago
  So far, all of the experiments to make everyone equal have resulted in soviet-style housing for the many and well-appointed dachas for the few -- and that's at best. I'm doubtful that future experiments will have a different result.
  - petra 8y ago
    Maybe. In countries with socialized medicine, access to healthcare services is usually more equal than countries without socialized medicine. So if some equality can be created in such an important choice, maybe it could be achieved in the less important choice of counter tops, if someone we're to bother.
    - tomp 8y ago
      Why would "equal" matter though? E.g. if noone has access to medicine (probably some African countries), they're all "equal". But... The point is, "equal" is just a buzzword that needs to be deconstructed and analysed in each specific scenario. In medicine in particular, extremes are usually bad (completely private => expensive, completely public => inefficient), and middle ground (public & private) seems to be decent.
      - petra 8y ago
        People living in equal societies are happier, and less stressed. Maybe it's because differences in status translate to differences in the natural anti-depressant chemical, Serotonin.
        htmk 8y ago
        No reason to force everyone to be equal, just create your equality paradise and open the doors to the world.

grawprog 8y ago

I'm not saying they're wrong to have them. I'm pointing out spending $20,000 on some piece of stone for you to prepare your food on is fairly non-essential. Though again, they remove mountains for this, the shop produces a bunch of toxic, fish killing dust and sediment every day that's slowly killing me and my coworkers and destroying the planet. But my main point was, the things I create every day are not essential. They are luxury items. Many of the other jobs i've had were also along the same line. Not that they don't make people happy or improve their lives I suppose,(though the people that got soapstone in their kitchen recently are in for a some trouble the first time they drop something on it or spill something acidic on it.) But, in the end, it's definitely not essential and detrimental to the world as a whole in many ways.

sverige 8y ago
I understand, but from that perspective, pretty much everything in "developed" countries is non-essential, including personal computers (whether desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet) and forums like this one to discuss such things. Think of the toxic waste created by all those computers, and the greenhouse gases created by shipping them all over the place! And to what end?
- grawprog 8y ago
  Yeah you're right. I think that's the point the gp comment was making originally. It's not just developed countries either. There are massive industries supporting millions of people that are non-essential. The problem is many of them actually do provide a large increase to quality of life. The improvement granite counters make is questionable, things like computers, phones, vehicles and other large scale damaging things, while not necessarily essential, do bring a dramatic improvement to quality of life and paradoxically enough allow people to make money providing.what is likely another non-essential service or product. It's always been like this though. In the end, there's no reason for humans to have ever made most of the things we have over the millenia other than because we can and did. Once we had food and shelter and all these things pretty much taken care of, everythong else after was pretty much just for the fuck of it and we've always been at odds with the world and destroyed and altered our environments. The scale has just kept increasing to the point where there are massive global industries devoted to this. At the same time, humanity still follows our basic survival insticts. We still have that inner subconcious mentality of scarcity when it comes to essentials. So it ends up being treated the same way in our economy as luxury goods and you end up in this situation where people are trading non-essential things for essential things.
philipkglass 8y ago
If you were supplying things that less affluent people can afford, you might have different but equally strong regrets about the unsustainable ways that business operates. For what it's worth, the full life cycle environmental impact of cheap plastic laminate counters is likely worse than that of polished natural stone.
- grawprog 8y ago
  Yeah probably. I mean pretty much any manufacturing is really at odds with the ecological restoration and ecosystem management degrees I have. I've come to reconcile this dissonance as the non-essential, environment destroying job pays enough money for me to live and have these non-essential things, while trying to help the planet did not. So...there's that. Turns out it's really difficult to live on sparse couple month contracts that are paid with grant money that typically only occur during spring-fall.
robocat 8y ago
> But my main point was, the things I create every day are not essential A country that only produces essential items (food, shelter) for its population is a very poor country. Almost by definition, a wealthy country predominantly produces and consumes non-essential goods and services. It gets really difficult to argue which non-essential goods are worthwhile. Is the art on the wall worth more than the stone lintel? Is it good art? Is it a second hand lintel?

petra 8y ago

soviet-style housing is a bit extreme. But what's wrong with being equal ?

sverige 8y ago
So far, all of the experiments to make everyone equal have resulted in soviet-style housing for the many and well-appointed dachas for the few -- and that's at best. I'm doubtful that future experiments will have a different result.
- petra 8y ago
  Maybe. In countries with socialized medicine, access to healthcare services is usually more equal than countries without socialized medicine. So if some equality can be created in such an important choice, maybe it could be achieved in the less important choice of counter tops, if someone we're to bother.
  - tomp 8y ago
    Why would "equal" matter though? E.g. if noone has access to medicine (probably some African countries), they're all "equal". But... The point is, "equal" is just a buzzword that needs to be deconstructed and analysed in each specific scenario. In medicine in particular, extremes are usually bad (completely private => expensive, completely public => inefficient), and middle ground (public & private) seems to be decent.
    - petra 8y ago
      People living in equal societies are happier, and less stressed. Maybe it's because differences in status translate to differences in the natural anti-depressant chemical, Serotonin.
      - htmk 8y ago
        No reason to force everyone to be equal, just create your equality paradise and open the doors to the world.