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as this fantastic video about the popcorn button explains. Our economic race to the bottom has been sabotaging almost every aspect of engineering in our society
by BMc2020 3y ago
as this fantastic video about the popcorn button explains. Our economic race to the bottom has been sabotaging almost every aspect of engineering in our society. To save a few cents per microwave, the cheap microwaves don’t include a humidity sensor and then lie about having a popcorn button when it can’t actually work properly, which leads to everyone saying “don’t use the popcorn button” and now nobody uses the popcorn buttons even on microwaves that actually have a humidity sensor and a working popcorn button.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- eru 3y agoThat's pretty silly. The 'economic race to the bottom' is exactly how we can all afford microwave ovens in the first place. Of course, you can make a special case for microwave ovens, and we could afford them to be slightly more expensive. But we need the general cost cutting and optimization in the economy to drive progress.
- croes 3y agoYes, but then we get useless microwaves and in the end dangerous microwaves.
- eru 3y agoWho buys those useless microwaves? Most gadgets I ever bought were far above legally required minimum requirements. Ie those minimum requirements were not a binding constraint. Why would that suddenly change?
- waterproof 3y agoYes, the problem here is that capitalism is good at some things (making microwaves cheap) and not others (dealing with externalities). We’ve let it be the dominant force shaping “progress” for quite some time, so we’ve made progress on a lot is things capitalism is good at solving. In the meantime we’re also backsliding or stagnant on various issues that capitalism can’t address alone. The pro- and anti-capitalist sides both have a point.
- eru 3y agoIf you are worried about externalities, either look into Coasian bargaining or slap the obvious Pigovian tax on (or do a cap-and-trade scheme). The latter has worked really well against acid rain. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program No need to intervene further to prevent some 'evil' race to the bottom. Just narrowly address exactly the externality in question, and stop there. Compare https://openborders.info/keyhole-solutions/ https://openborders.info/keyhole-solutions/
- hinkley 3y agoTechnology Connections just did a thing about this. I can confirm that some KitchenAid microwaves use a sound sensor instead of humidity.
- MeImCounting 3y agoWho did you think the quote was from?
- jerbear4328 3y agoThat’s the video mentioned in the quote: “What's the deal with the popcorn button?” https://youtu.be/Limpr1L8Pss https://youtu.be/Limpr1L8Pss Great video and channel, good stuff.