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“The Phelps Dodge Corporation was to produce the bathrooms but they were met with resistance from plumbers fearful of losing their jobs and so the bathrooms wer

“The Phelps Dodge Corporation was to produce the bathrooms but they were met with resistance from plumbers fearful of losing their jobs and so the bathrooms were never produced.” This is why we can’t have nice things.

Twisell 4y ago
Welp this is probably to read with a grain of salt, Buckminster had a great inspirational idea with the geodesic dome, a narcissistic obsession for detail with the Dymaxion Chronofile but also fathered deadly and badly executed concepts like the Dymaxion car... While he remain an inspirational figure he was also eager to attribute shortcomings of his inventions to pretty much any scapegoat passing by. It's totally plausible that dodge corporation did some market study and ultimately decided that this was definitively not ready for production. In such scenario Buckminster would probably have quickly invented a more dramatic reason for failure of yet another of his concepts.
- chrischen 4y ago
  The thing is though prefab toilets are used in Japan… though to be fair I’m not sure why plumbers would be against them.
m463 4y ago
smart phones were stalled in the same way for far too long. I remember verizon gimping phones so you couldn't put ringtones on them unless they sold them to you. (and now we've been stuck with user-hostile smart phones for far too long)
- wyldfire 4y ago
  It's interesting that you bring the smartphone up because Apple broke the mold by offering a product as a one-of-a-kind luxury good that offered far superior style and function. The Dymaxion Bathroom was not sought-after because it would only deliver function parity at lower maintenance cost. And it looks considerably less stylish than the contemporary bathrooms available then.
nemo44x 4y ago
I don’t think that’s the cause at all. A plumber wound have plenty do ensuring water is coming in and draining. Additionally things wound break that they’d have to fix. Connecting bathroom fixtures is probably the least of what plumbers do.

Twisell 4y ago

Welp this is probably to read with a grain of salt, Buckminster had a great inspirational idea with the geodesic dome, a narcissistic obsession for detail with the Dymaxion Chronofile but also fathered deadly and badly executed concepts like the Dymaxion car... While he remain an inspirational figure he was also eager to attribute shortcomings of his inventions to pretty much any scapegoat passing by. It's totally plausible that dodge corporation did some market study and ultimately decided that this was definitively not ready for production. In such scenario Buckminster would probably have quickly invented a more dramatic reason for failure of yet another of his concepts.

chrischen 4y ago
The thing is though prefab toilets are used in Japan… though to be fair I’m not sure why plumbers would be against them.

m463 4y ago

smart phones were stalled in the same way for far too long. I remember verizon gimping phones so you couldn't put ringtones on them unless they sold them to you. (and now we've been stuck with user-hostile smart phones for far too long)

wyldfire 4y ago
It's interesting that you bring the smartphone up because Apple broke the mold by offering a product as a one-of-a-kind luxury good that offered far superior style and function. The Dymaxion Bathroom was not sought-after because it would only deliver function parity at lower maintenance cost. And it looks considerably less stylish than the contemporary bathrooms available then.

nemo44x 4y ago

I don’t think that’s the cause at all. A plumber wound have plenty do ensuring water is coming in and draining. Additionally things wound break that they’d have to fix. Connecting bathroom fixtures is probably the least of what plumbers do.