3 ms·

Take for example the Sony Walkman, even if you want one really badly the actual factories that make the specialized parts have gone, been repurposed. Or a spec

Take for example the Sony Walkman, even if you want one really badly the actual factories that make the specialized parts have gone, been repurposed. Or a specific color yellow that only came from overfeeding cows at the turn of the century in India. Things that utilize that incredibly bright yellow color are going to have to use a replacement, and will never be exactly the same. Anyway, thinking of these ~fringe examples helps clarify my thinking on the matter: it sounds like we're basically targeting three different things: 1) The thing(s) you want. What is the finished product you're gunning after. 2) The raw materials that go into the thing(s) you want. What is the entire process ,, with , from an engineering perspective ,, all its "inputs" at different moments of the flow. 3) The actionable thing: Making a universal index of products that once were, so we can track what they are made of, and what their creation-cycle is from raw materials to assembly/assemblage. Additionally, here we can also track where you can still buy/procure/obtain them if versions/copies/prints exist today. But realistically my friend, you are better off just buying ten or twenty pairs of your favorite shoes when they exist, because the rotating crushing automaton of production-reality that underpins all of consumerism is constantly consuming itself. How many times have I purchased a one-time-print of a hoodie or piece of merchandise that is no longer available, nor will it ever be available again? I won't go so far as to wax poetical and say that rarity is what makes things valuable, because it's not, however tightly coupled those traits might be; but cool things being one-offs and highly scenario-bound for obtaining them is actually useful information about how the universe works. Reproducibility and the urge for regularity is a logos-construct [logical, rational, reasoning intelligence] while dwelling in the felt-sense of the realm and leaning into intuition is an eros-abiding [intuition, connection, relation, significance]. So while I understand the urge for the clothing you like to never end or be discontinued, I think a more useful approach is not how do we keep the cool versions existing forever, but how do we keep more fresh, new cool versions coming unabatedly. Sources get exhausted in multiple senses of the term, I think we need to think more metaphysically about how to replenish sources on every level of the meaning of the word source.

GreenPencil7 2mo ago
I like that we moved from things to philosophy. That's exactly what the project I'm building is about. I see that the pain I described here is shared by all of us. It doesn't matter what the item is, where we live, or what language we speak. And at this point I understand that I can't solve the whole problem. But I can solve it using one specific item as an example. I want to make a T-shirt that won't change after 1, 5, or 20 years. And every time it wears out, you can buy a new one and it will be exactly the same. No "discontinued." No "we quietly changed the material." How can this be done technically? I'll explain using color as an example. If I buy yellow paint today, it will be different from every manufacturer. A color passport, with a recorded spectral curve, allows the color to be fixed. The factory mixes the available color pigments to match the color passport. This is theory. Do we get that exact same T-shirt color after 1, 5, or 20 years? I think yes. Are we dependent on the weather, the country, or the manufacturer? I think not. Does this engineering solution answer the philosophy I'm talking about? I think yes. And I'm looking for people who need a T-shirt like this. )
- summarybot 2mo ago
  Not only does the molecular composition of something matter, but also the geography, climate, terrain, terroir, season, temperature, and more, amounting to "where" it was sourced from. Take, for tangible example, water. Water from a volcanic island like anything in the Pacific Ocean, Japan for example, has a particular deliciousness making it exceptionally suitable for green tea. The water itself is imbued with minerals and elements. On the molecular or atomic level we might call it water, h2o, but when we look at the varying strata of composition, we find that it does not just have one unique thumbprint/fingerprint for composition at the atomic level, like h2o, it also has many layers at different scales that affect its flavor and effects on the body. Similar to how cotton candy is made, by swirling all the surrounding elements into one substance, naturally occurring resources and fruits/crops are a seamless and edgeless amalgam of their surrounding "context" - constituted by temperature, air density, exposure-to-sun, rock-contents,, the thing itself is woven/weaved from the surrounding space/matter/properties and yields a very specific outcome-fruit. So when you cover yourself with a blanket your parents bought you when you were a child, you are covering yourself with cotton that grew in a specific climate, in a specific place, with soil and sunshine and water and temperature that baked that cotton plant and made it exactly what it is/was. Growing the same seed elsewhere will not have identical outcomes. If you grow it in a cold place, you will get a different fabric texture than if you grow it in a hot place, or a moist place, or a dry place. And beyond the suitable range for growing, it simply will not bear fruit. We label different crops and resources by the same label and call them "varieties" of one another, but in reality we are simply being lazy with our specificity and our categorization. A plant grown in a hot climate has a tendency to transmit the heat it was gestated/incubated in, and a plant grown in a cold climate has a tendency to transmit and transfer the coolness it was gestated in. These are subtle truths not noticed by the masses - the system of conditions is imbued, is etched, into the summary product. Consider how certain varieties of wine or lemons or drink are famous specifically because of the origin climate/temperature/soil. Sicilian lemons cannot be grown anywhere, just in Sicily. Champagne is named after the region from which it bears its eponymous name. And it is no secret that two "identical" dishes prepared in two completely different countries will taste very different and have different effects on the body, because the ingredients are sourced locally, and in the sourcing is the makeup, not on the exacting-chemical/chemistry level, but on layers that are subtle -- in the folds between the atom and aspect-of-the-naked-eye, true layers and strata that are largely invisible and untracked, knowable only by the environment which bore/gave-birth-to them. In certain mystical traditions there is the concept of the "mandala" which is not only the presence in the center, it is the surroundings. Every fruit comes not only from its own inherent properties as encoded in the seed, but also in the soil , the water, the metaphorical sunshine it receives, the steady state temperature of the spot. All these factors constitute what we call the "material."

GreenPencil7 2mo ago

I like that we moved from things to philosophy. That's exactly what the project I'm building is about. I see that the pain I described here is shared by all of us. It doesn't matter what the item is, where we live, or what language we speak. And at this point I understand that I can't solve the whole problem. But I can solve it using one specific item as an example. I want to make a T-shirt that won't change after 1, 5, or 20 years. And every time it wears out, you can buy a new one and it will be exactly the same. No "discontinued." No "we quietly changed the material." How can this be done technically? I'll explain using color as an example. If I buy yellow paint today, it will be different from every manufacturer. A color passport, with a recorded spectral curve, allows the color to be fixed. The factory mixes the available color pigments to match the color passport. This is theory. Do we get that exact same T-shirt color after 1, 5, or 20 years? I think yes. Are we dependent on the weather, the country, or the manufacturer? I think not. Does this engineering solution answer the philosophy I'm talking about? I think yes. And I'm looking for people who need a T-shirt like this. )

summarybot 2mo ago
Not only does the molecular composition of something matter, but also the geography, climate, terrain, terroir, season, temperature, and more, amounting to "where" it was sourced from. Take, for tangible example, water. Water from a volcanic island like anything in the Pacific Ocean, Japan for example, has a particular deliciousness making it exceptionally suitable for green tea. The water itself is imbued with minerals and elements. On the molecular or atomic level we might call it water, h2o, but when we look at the varying strata of composition, we find that it does not just have one unique thumbprint/fingerprint for composition at the atomic level, like h2o, it also has many layers at different scales that affect its flavor and effects on the body. Similar to how cotton candy is made, by swirling all the surrounding elements into one substance, naturally occurring resources and fruits/crops are a seamless and edgeless amalgam of their surrounding "context" - constituted by temperature, air density, exposure-to-sun, rock-contents,, the thing itself is woven/weaved from the surrounding space/matter/properties and yields a very specific outcome-fruit. So when you cover yourself with a blanket your parents bought you when you were a child, you are covering yourself with cotton that grew in a specific climate, in a specific place, with soil and sunshine and water and temperature that baked that cotton plant and made it exactly what it is/was. Growing the same seed elsewhere will not have identical outcomes. If you grow it in a cold place, you will get a different fabric texture than if you grow it in a hot place, or a moist place, or a dry place. And beyond the suitable range for growing, it simply will not bear fruit. We label different crops and resources by the same label and call them "varieties" of one another, but in reality we are simply being lazy with our specificity and our categorization. A plant grown in a hot climate has a tendency to transmit the heat it was gestated/incubated in, and a plant grown in a cold climate has a tendency to transmit and transfer the coolness it was gestated in. These are subtle truths not noticed by the masses - the system of conditions is imbued, is etched, into the summary product. Consider how certain varieties of wine or lemons or drink are famous specifically because of the origin climate/temperature/soil. Sicilian lemons cannot be grown anywhere, just in Sicily. Champagne is named after the region from which it bears its eponymous name. And it is no secret that two "identical" dishes prepared in two completely different countries will taste very different and have different effects on the body, because the ingredients are sourced locally, and in the sourcing is the makeup, not on the exacting-chemical/chemistry level, but on layers that are subtle -- in the folds between the atom and aspect-of-the-naked-eye, true layers and strata that are largely invisible and untracked, knowable only by the environment which bore/gave-birth-to them. In certain mystical traditions there is the concept of the "mandala" which is not only the presence in the center, it is the surroundings. Every fruit comes not only from its own inherent properties as encoded in the seed, but also in the soil , the water, the metaphorical sunshine it receives, the steady state temperature of the spot. All these factors constitute what we call the "material."