5 ms·

>that we've landed on milking as much money out of I take issues with your use of the word "we". If you asked them, 95% of people would say this should stop. I

>that we've landed on milking as much money out of I take issues with your use of the word "we". If you asked them, 95% of people would say this should stop. In the past, economic and political leaders were drawn from the nation as a whole, and had a sense of loyalty and social obligation to their fellow countrymen, even if it meant leaving a few dollars on the table. Globalization and the increasing cultural and ethnic divide between the upper and lower classes in western countries has ended that fealty. May it soon return.

js2 6y ago
99% of people also hate how airlines treat them and think appliances should last more than a few years, but then when faced with a purchase decision, choose whatever is cheapest. Unfortunately, money talks and bullshit walks. :-(
- peterwoerner 6y ago
  When it comes to appliances, price and longevity seem to have no correlation. I find it is nearly impossible to figure out which appliances will last longer.
  - jdc 6y ago
    Maybe you can find an engineer on YouTube or Patreon that does appliance teardowns.
    - tracker1 6y ago
      Even then.. a lot of times the hardware is fine, but the controller boards are not built to last, and they just don't make replacements, and they aren't covered under the warranty. Like the washer or dryer physically is fine, but the control board fried/died. For refrigerators (looking at you GE), they build up dust, and the airflow fan dies because of built up dust. And try getting a replacement if you aren't a GE Certified repair person. Even GE referrals often suck and cannot do the job. Took three repair visits to get a fan replaced. If anyone has some solid refrigerator suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Preferably with water and ice in-door .
      - peterwoerner 6y ago
        And sure, if I had unlimited time I could get an Arduino and a circuit board and build one myself, but I just want it to work because I have other things to do.
    - specialist 6y ago
      Ask a repair person what they own. That's how we chose to replace my SO's laundry, dishwasher.
  - alharith 6y ago
    Buy a Speed Queen washer. That's about all I can say.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  I've had to purchase a new fridge lately, the old one finally is giving up the ghost after far too short of a lifespan. I decided I was fine investing in a good, solid fridge... Quite frankly, none exist. Every fridge on the market in a regular kitchen size (smaller than industrial) is an entirely plastic piece of crap with a life expectency of 5-10 years. It wasn't an issue of money, of searching, or willingness to wait. There just wasn't any alternative.
  - m463 6y ago
    appliances are trying to get into ... all the monetization https://gefiltergate.com/ https://gefiltergate.com/ https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4bcef1e52 https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4b...
  - thewebcount 6y ago
    Add to this the way they try to require you to have subscriptions for your appliances now. My fridge has a water filter. They want me to subscribe to filter replacements. They have a light that tells me when to replace the filter. I suspect it's based on time rather than volume of water filtered. Sometimes the water continues to taste fine, so I don't replace it immediately. They do have an attachment you can use to not filter the water, but the filter does actually seem to do something I like. I just wish it didn't feel like such a ripoff. And this is after replacing the fridge our house came with and which couldn't have been 5 years old when we moved in. We went with a different brand but I'm not sure it will make any difference.
  - js2 6y ago
    This is basically true, modulo perhaps Subzero? I had a Kenmore Trio which gave up the ghost after 15 years late last year. I had repaired it myself a couple times, but this last time the sealed system failed and that's beyond my skill set and too expensive to pay someone to repair. I found basically the exact same fridge, manufactured now by Whirlpool, and the price was even within a few hundred dollars of what I paid in 2004. We'll see how long the replacement lasts. A few more bits of it that used to be metal are now plastic, but it also has a few improvements. (The plastic drawers which slide on plastic rails... what are they thinking? Terrible design.) I've kept my Fisher-Paykel Dish Drawers working since 2004, as well as my Fisher-Paykel double oven. The DDs have been interesting because FP has made incremental improvements over the years and they've made the parts available to retrofit to my models. Same for the oven, when one of the elements exploded, the replacement was a heavier duty element. I also retrofitted changes they made to the self-clean cycle and thermal limiter switches to prevent those from triggering incorrectly. Our washing machine also died a year ago after almost 12 years of service. I replaced it with a Maytag HE model, and took the opportunity to redo the entire laundry room and switch from gas to electric dryer. We'll see how long these models last. Anyway yes, while I basically agree, I've not had any appliance last me less than a decade, so I've done okay. Knock on wood.
- chooseaname 6y ago
  One could make a strong argument that the cheaper, top loading washer with no computer will last longer.
cool_dude85 6y ago
In the past economic and political leaders were drawn from the nation as a whole? What period of time are you talking about?
- dmoy 6y ago
  Maybe they mean a country other than the US? Certainly no significant period of time has drawn a significant portion of national leaders in the US from anything but the elite. Hell for more than half of the history of the US, half the population wasn't even allowed to vote, much less make it into the Senate.
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    I think he might be talking about career politicians vs "normal" elites who go into politics for a bit before returning to their previous field
MaximumYComb 6y ago
In which time period were the political leaders' drawn from the nation as a whole, and had a smaller cultural and ethnic divide between the wealthy and poor? According to wikipedia, 60% of the African-American senators EVER have been elected in the past 20 years. 40% of the total in the past 10 years. A significant proportion of the total African-Americans to have been in the house of reps are currently serving. Similar statistics for Latinos and Asian-Americans. Most western nations came from the British system, which literally had people born as noble.

js2 6y ago

99% of people also hate how airlines treat them and think appliances should last more than a few years, but then when faced with a purchase decision, choose whatever is cheapest. Unfortunately, money talks and bullshit walks. :-(

peterwoerner 6y ago
When it comes to appliances, price and longevity seem to have no correlation. I find it is nearly impossible to figure out which appliances will last longer.
- jdc 6y ago
  Maybe you can find an engineer on YouTube or Patreon that does appliance teardowns.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    Even then.. a lot of times the hardware is fine, but the controller boards are not built to last, and they just don't make replacements, and they aren't covered under the warranty. Like the washer or dryer physically is fine, but the control board fried/died. For refrigerators (looking at you GE), they build up dust, and the airflow fan dies because of built up dust. And try getting a replacement if you aren't a GE Certified repair person. Even GE referrals often suck and cannot do the job. Took three repair visits to get a fan replaced. If anyone has some solid refrigerator suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Preferably with water and ice in-door .
    - peterwoerner 6y ago
      And sure, if I had unlimited time I could get an Arduino and a circuit board and build one myself, but I just want it to work because I have other things to do.
  - specialist 6y ago
    Ask a repair person what they own. That's how we chose to replace my SO's laundry, dishwasher.
- alharith 6y ago
  Buy a Speed Queen washer. That's about all I can say.
vorpalhex 6y ago
I've had to purchase a new fridge lately, the old one finally is giving up the ghost after far too short of a lifespan. I decided I was fine investing in a good, solid fridge... Quite frankly, none exist. Every fridge on the market in a regular kitchen size (smaller than industrial) is an entirely plastic piece of crap with a life expectency of 5-10 years. It wasn't an issue of money, of searching, or willingness to wait. There just wasn't any alternative.
- m463 6y ago
  appliances are trying to get into ... all the monetization https://gefiltergate.com/ https://gefiltergate.com/ https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4bcef1e52 https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4b...
- thewebcount 6y ago
  Add to this the way they try to require you to have subscriptions for your appliances now. My fridge has a water filter. They want me to subscribe to filter replacements. They have a light that tells me when to replace the filter. I suspect it's based on time rather than volume of water filtered. Sometimes the water continues to taste fine, so I don't replace it immediately. They do have an attachment you can use to not filter the water, but the filter does actually seem to do something I like. I just wish it didn't feel like such a ripoff. And this is after replacing the fridge our house came with and which couldn't have been 5 years old when we moved in. We went with a different brand but I'm not sure it will make any difference.
- js2 6y ago
  This is basically true, modulo perhaps Subzero? I had a Kenmore Trio which gave up the ghost after 15 years late last year. I had repaired it myself a couple times, but this last time the sealed system failed and that's beyond my skill set and too expensive to pay someone to repair. I found basically the exact same fridge, manufactured now by Whirlpool, and the price was even within a few hundred dollars of what I paid in 2004. We'll see how long the replacement lasts. A few more bits of it that used to be metal are now plastic, but it also has a few improvements. (The plastic drawers which slide on plastic rails... what are they thinking? Terrible design.) I've kept my Fisher-Paykel Dish Drawers working since 2004, as well as my Fisher-Paykel double oven. The DDs have been interesting because FP has made incremental improvements over the years and they've made the parts available to retrofit to my models. Same for the oven, when one of the elements exploded, the replacement was a heavier duty element. I also retrofitted changes they made to the self-clean cycle and thermal limiter switches to prevent those from triggering incorrectly. Our washing machine also died a year ago after almost 12 years of service. I replaced it with a Maytag HE model, and took the opportunity to redo the entire laundry room and switch from gas to electric dryer. We'll see how long these models last. Anyway yes, while I basically agree, I've not had any appliance last me less than a decade, so I've done okay. Knock on wood.
chooseaname 6y ago
One could make a strong argument that the cheaper, top loading washer with no computer will last longer.

cool_dude85 6y ago

In the past economic and political leaders were drawn from the nation as a whole? What period of time are you talking about?

dmoy 6y ago
Maybe they mean a country other than the US? Certainly no significant period of time has drawn a significant portion of national leaders in the US from anything but the elite. Hell for more than half of the history of the US, half the population wasn't even allowed to vote, much less make it into the Senate.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  I think he might be talking about career politicians vs "normal" elites who go into politics for a bit before returning to their previous field

MaximumYComb 6y ago

In which time period were the political leaders' drawn from the nation as a whole, and had a smaller cultural and ethnic divide between the wealthy and poor? According to wikipedia, 60% of the African-American senators EVER have been elected in the past 20 years. 40% of the total in the past 10 years. A significant proportion of the total African-Americans to have been in the house of reps are currently serving. Similar statistics for Latinos and Asian-Americans. Most western nations came from the British system, which literally had people born as noble.