3 ms·

Somehow, shortening supply chains is seen as a bad thing.

• Teever 6y ago
  I know right? I feel like it runs counter to all contemporary economics but the actual progress of technology is the singularity like merger of products and manufacturing into a self replicating machine that in addition to copies of itself can make consumer goods. What lies after the event horizon of initial creation of such a device is anybodies guess but I have a feeling that if we as a species survive it people will forever look at the economic period that we're living in now as an absurd, kooky time filled with phrenology like beliefs about how an economic system should be. "You mean all your possessions were made by people you never and shipped to you often to be used once then thrown into a big hole in the ground or burned? You're making stories up Grandpa!"
  • exporectomy 6y ago
    If we had very cheap manufacturing without human labor then wouldn't things be even more disposable? Maybe we would care so little about consumer goods that we won't even call them possessions but just get whatever we need out of the machine when we want it and dump it when we're finished with it. That seems to have been the trend for a long time already.
  • sandworm101 6y ago
    Perfect recyclability would mean that all things would have a value as parts, feed stock for something new. That would make consumer goods more prone to age imho. If someone is going to pay me for my old computer I am more likely to replace it all the sooner.
• imtringued 6y ago
  One of the interesting developments today is that the average home shop is gaining in capability. Things that were previously only possible by well capitalized factories are now within reach of average of people.