Just before this article went up, I had posted to my blog: "Prediction: cars will become disposable" https://joshuaspodek.com/prediction-cars-will-become-dispo

Just before this article went up, I had posted to my blog: "Prediction: cars will become disposable" https://joshuaspodek.com/prediction-cars-will-become-disposable https://joshuaspodek.com/prediction-cars-will-become-disposa... Then I saw this article and followed it up: "More disposable cars: Ignoring unintended side-effects" https://joshuaspodek.com/more-disposable-cars-ignoring-unintended-side-effects https://joshuaspodek.com/more-disposable-cars-ignoring-unint... I started by saying: > Walking around Manhattan, with many people moving out, sidewalks are overflowing with what they don’t value enough to keep. What are they disposing? Sofas, mattresses, shelves, chairs, books, televisions, printers, scanners, lamps, mirrors, plates, toasters, silverware, . . . I could go on. > Notice anything about them? All those things used to be once-in-a-lifetime purchases. Some were high-tech wonders when introduced—now disposable. We don’t value them as much as the effort to maintain them. We turn them into pollution. > Our market system has shifted from creating value to creating craving. People like novelty, I guess, so marketing engineers figure out how to generate craving so they can temporarily satisfy it. > Meanwhile, markets motivate people to figure out how to deliver with lower cost. The result? Everything becomes disposable—food, plates, furniture, silverware (now plasticware), clothing, everything. . . . and ended with > We don’t lack comfort and convenience. We’re choking on waste. > We like comfort and convenience, but our world doesn’t lack it. On the contrary, we’re drowning in it. Our lack of physical activity and feeling entitled is making us depressed, obese, and sick, lacking resilience, discipline, or initiative to respond. > History implies people will buy this product in droves, competitors will match it, the market will keep driving down cost and durability, increasing landfill waste. We will increase total waste and lower quality of life, meaning, and purpose.