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Excellent article. I’m fascinated with this subject. There is a temple in Japan that exists for hundreds of years. It’s the same temple only in a “Ship of Thes
by hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
Excellent article. I’m fascinated with this subject.
There is a temple in Japan that exists for hundreds of years. It’s the same temple only in a “Ship of Theseus” sense, as it gets rebuilt every 20 years by experts. But in a sense, it’s the same temple.
Or take another example: dressing shoe. A shoemaker can reform your father’s and grandfather’s shoe back to brand new if you so desire. The materials are easily sourced, all it takes is trained labor.
Why can’t we have this for everything?
Modern economic practice has optimized for cutting back intensive labour dependency in favor of simpler disposable goods. It’s a “win” from multiple angles: less durable goods means more sales, costs of materials and residue are externalized anyway so that makes up your margin, and you don’t have to deal with expert workers demanding better pay. It’s beautifully optimized - just not optimized for what matters.
If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years.
But like a professor once said: water is free - therefor we pollute the rivers with plastic by selling bottled water since free water doesn’t contribute to the GDP.
This discussion (how long should objects last?) is fundamentally tied to current economic practice and incentives.
- userbinator 2y agoBottled water is invaluable in places where the naturally occurring water is not potable.
- hcarvalhoalves 2y agoIt is. That also isn’t the reason keeping anyone in the bottled water business. The top 10 bottled water markets are countries with good to excellent public water service.
- fragmede 2y agois flint, Michigan located inside one of these countries?
- Kerb_ 2y agoFlint's city water is fine now, their biggest issue currently is that the city didn't replace all the pipes that they damaged in people's houses, so individuals are still getting lead poisoning but it's not the city as a whole. I personally don't think it's significantly better but it's worth noting if you're using Flint as an example.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoIs Flint, Michigan a justification for bottled water everywhere else in the US?
- nsguy 2y agoMyself (and a few others) fought to get rid of bottled water from our office. A location with great tap water quality. Filtered water dispensers. But still people wanted to have their (worse quality) bottled water. Eventually we won...
- carlosjobim 2y agoI never understood the hate against bottled water. If you're on the go and get thirsty, what's wrong with getting water instead of an unhealthy soda? I can't drink only beer.
- fragmede 2y agobecause of all the oil and plastic (which comes from oil) that is used to get it to you means more emissions which contributes to global climate change.
- int_19h 2y agoIn the described scenario, the oil and plastic are going to be used either way; the only question is which liquid is going to be inside the container.
- thfuran 2y agoThe described scenario is a false dichotomy.
- int_19h 2y agoHow so? People do need to hydrate while running errands etc. You could argue that we need to install more water fountains around so that one doesn't need to use bottled drinks for this. That's fine, but right here and now there are very few working water fountains, so if someone finds themselves in the middle of a city needing to drink, bottled water is their best option; so why would you disparage them for it?
- hcarvalhoalves 2y agoChoosing between bottled water or soda/beer is the false dichotomy. Bottled water wasn’t mass produced prior the 90s, but started being heavily promoted since Pepsi and CocaCola would go out of business with people cutting back soda consumption. I’m amazed how well their marketing worked to convince people that water is literally toxic unless it comes bottled. I have a funny story: I went to a place here in the country with natural mineral water springs, the absolute purest water dripping straight from the rock - but visitors (US and Europe) not only requested but insisted bottled water during the stay. The funny part is the bottled water comes from the same place.
- VHRanger 2y agoThe name for this is the Baumol Effect [1]. Sometimes called the "cost disease". The only real way to fix it is to increase the relative price of raw materials used compared to labor. Yes, this means government intervention, because it's a market failure. A carbon tax would be a start, but there might have to be a non-renewable raw materials tax in the future, as well. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
- trgn 2y agoSlightly tangential. Somebody needs to eli5 why baumol effect is supposed to be so paradoxical or special. Of course services will tend to cost more over time as other industries generate wealth increases. The value of an orchestra performance is relative, two hours of enjoying art. Those two hours of enjoying art are not a commodity, they will cost whatever share of disposal income people like to spend on it. I've encountered it so many times now, and for whatever reason, my mind grinds to a halt, why is this a discovery, what are the implications, why is it meaningful? Not being facetious, sincerely asking.
- VHRanger 2y agoIt's surprising or meaningful because the parts of the economy that don't get more productive get more expensive as a fraction of overall costs as other things grow. It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those things would be devalued.
- trgn 2y agoThank you. > It's surprising because intuitively you'd think those things would be devalued. I guess this is where my intuition totally fails. In an economy that grows more productive, commodities _fall_ in value, as they cost less to produce. A society with more yards of linen is a wealthier one than one with fewer, all things being equal. That intuitively makes sense. But that non-commodities, say, two hours listening to music, would need to fall because they aren't part of that productivity increase in other industries makes no sense to me. You pay performers for two hours of _your_ enjoyment, not theirs. So obviously you would value it more if you're richer (say, as a highly productive linen producer). I mean, simple supply-demand should still explain it. Demand is elevated (more disposable income of linen producers), and supply remains constrained (only so many performers). Where is that paradox? I don't know. Some things I never grok, and beaumol is really one of these things.
- dunekid 2y ago>If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years. Oh my! I have been telling people just this. The sheer number of people who consume and throw this needlessly created packages is baffling. We have figured out water and its sanitation for most of the cases now. Just carrying a reusable bottle with water from home, and refilling potable water from sources you trust would save the environment from a lot of empty bottles. I would not say everyone can do this. But a lot of us can do this. Besides the bottles with less than a litre capacity are the worst.