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As someone that does swing dancing and with quite a lot of people into vintage stuff there has been this talk of "survivor" bias whenever we talk about how stuf

As someone that does swing dancing and with quite a lot of people into vintage stuff there has been this talk of "survivor" bias whenever we talk about how stuff was made better back then. Naturally the cheap stuff didn't tend to even remotely make it this far. Curious what your opinion is as I haven't heard much about tools etc.

samstave 5y ago
Just a thought: There are a couple factors that would result in a longer lasting tool of Yore... There were no plastics and other ephemeral materials, and so tool handles were wood, leather or metal. There was no 'mass production at global scale' - effectively every tool was hand made, or made by machines that were made by hand to make the tools -- and all of which were done without aid of computational mathematical prowess-by-proxy... So, smaller batches of potentially longer lasting product because everything was continually being crafted by hand and observed by human eye...
- ido 5y ago
  In terms of building I remember hearing how in the distant past (anything before the last 200 years or so) the buildings that survived to this day have just used way too much materials in a way that would seen as wasteful today (e.g. double as much stone as was needed because they couldn't calculate it as precisely as we can today). Would you be willing to pay double for your new home to make it last 300 years instead of 100?
  - bluGill 5y ago
    When answering that question, note how much effort is needed to retrofit to modern needs. Electric, running water, closets, all things modern humans demand that you would need to retrofit.
Joeri 5y ago
I think modern day goods are better at being just durable enough to serve their intended lifetime, but no more than that. Also, I think every generation has products that last a really long time. My personal example is that 30 years ago I saved up my allowance to buy a casio keyboard, which after a few years moved into an unheated attic, and then some more years after that to a cold and damp basement. Recently I dug it up out of the basement, wiped off a thick layer of gunk, put in a fresh set of batteries, and aside from one status led not working it works as well as the day I bought it, and even the plastic hasn’t discolored much.
lm28469 5y ago
The transition to "everything plastic" definitely was a big jump in term of quality in general. If you look at cameras from example, "cheap" old (pre 1960s) cameras were just as reliable as expensive ones, if not more, they were just simpler in design and built with less tolerance. When they started building consumer grade cameras in the 80s they almost exclusively used cheap plastic and cheap electronics which inevitably die (LCD screens instead of mechanical displays, undersized rewind motors instead of manual advance levers, autofocus vs manual focus, &c.). The transition from hand built to machine built and the general miniaturisation of most mechanical/electronic systems since the 80s also means it gets harder and harder to fix. I do believe stuff was made better in term of repairability and simplicity, simply because they didn't have any other ways. That's why you can pick up virtually any pre 1960 camera and repair it but cameras from the late 80s early 90s are incredibly finicky. I just picked up a camera from 1950, opened it, cleaned its lens elements / shutter mechanism and it works just as good as when it came out of the factory. It took me an hour and two screw drivers to go from "unusable paperweight" to "fully functional", the most advanced pieces of machinery in there are metal gears and springs.
thechao 5y ago
My great-great grandfather argued this exact point to my dad in the late '50s: the buildings in Switzerland (and, later, Indiana) that "stood the test of time" were built to a different (far more expensive) standard.

samstave 5y ago

Just a thought: There are a couple factors that would result in a longer lasting tool of Yore... There were no plastics and other ephemeral materials, and so tool handles were wood, leather or metal. There was no 'mass production at global scale' - effectively every tool was hand made, or made by machines that were made by hand to make the tools -- and all of which were done without aid of computational mathematical prowess-by-proxy... So, smaller batches of potentially longer lasting product because everything was continually being crafted by hand and observed by human eye...

ido 5y ago
In terms of building I remember hearing how in the distant past (anything before the last 200 years or so) the buildings that survived to this day have just used way too much materials in a way that would seen as wasteful today (e.g. double as much stone as was needed because they couldn't calculate it as precisely as we can today). Would you be willing to pay double for your new home to make it last 300 years instead of 100?
- bluGill 5y ago
  When answering that question, note how much effort is needed to retrofit to modern needs. Electric, running water, closets, all things modern humans demand that you would need to retrofit.

Joeri 5y ago

I think modern day goods are better at being just durable enough to serve their intended lifetime, but no more than that. Also, I think every generation has products that last a really long time. My personal example is that 30 years ago I saved up my allowance to buy a casio keyboard, which after a few years moved into an unheated attic, and then some more years after that to a cold and damp basement. Recently I dug it up out of the basement, wiped off a thick layer of gunk, put in a fresh set of batteries, and aside from one status led not working it works as well as the day I bought it, and even the plastic hasn’t discolored much.

lm28469 5y ago

The transition to "everything plastic" definitely was a big jump in term of quality in general. If you look at cameras from example, "cheap" old (pre 1960s) cameras were just as reliable as expensive ones, if not more, they were just simpler in design and built with less tolerance. When they started building consumer grade cameras in the 80s they almost exclusively used cheap plastic and cheap electronics which inevitably die (LCD screens instead of mechanical displays, undersized rewind motors instead of manual advance levers, autofocus vs manual focus, &c.). The transition from hand built to machine built and the general miniaturisation of most mechanical/electronic systems since the 80s also means it gets harder and harder to fix. I do believe stuff was made better in term of repairability and simplicity, simply because they didn't have any other ways. That's why you can pick up virtually any pre 1960 camera and repair it but cameras from the late 80s early 90s are incredibly finicky. I just picked up a camera from 1950, opened it, cleaned its lens elements / shutter mechanism and it works just as good as when it came out of the factory. It took me an hour and two screw drivers to go from "unusable paperweight" to "fully functional", the most advanced pieces of machinery in there are metal gears and springs.

thechao 5y ago

My great-great grandfather argued this exact point to my dad in the late '50s: the buildings in Switzerland (and, later, Indiana) that "stood the test of time" were built to a different (far more expensive) standard.