1y ago

Innovation makes useful things smaller - overconsumption makes them bigger and more meaningless

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/9992203

Source: https://norden.social/@hart/112513927064083221

Degrowth @slrpnk.net

MrMakabar @slrpnk.net

1y ago

Innovation makes useful things smaller - overconsumption makes them bigger and more meaningless

40 comments

Tbf phones grew bigger at one point.
Actually the display always grew bigger and the rest of it always grew smaller and at some point, the sum grew bigger
- When the screens started getting good enough to watch porn on, the size trend reversed.
- Yeah I was going to say, phones are currently growing bigger after hitting a sort of "peak small" lol.
  They're getting so huge that it's hard to find a small one without ordering an old model. I like to be able to see things and all but at a certain point they don't fit comfortably in my pockets
  
  Ya, they're too big now. I liked it when I could use my phone with one hand.
- TVs might be an even better example
  
  I don't think so. They never shrank which makes them an even worse example for the meme or what do you mean?
Poorly thought out government policy caused cars to get bigger, not over consumption. Over consumption is a problem with tech too.
- It's a mix of the CAFE laws and consumer habits based on decades of unsafe street design pushing consumers to larger vehicles which makes them feel safer and anyone outside them less safe, which makes them lean toward larger vehicles to match. Viscous cycle and arms race. Point being policy is part of it, but consumer behavior isn't blameless.
- Check out the Unihertz Jelly Star. I have a Jelly 2E, it's amazing.
What I find the most funny and ironic personally is the fact that the old BMW looks like it has a lot more space for passengers than the new oversized one.
- Probably has less structure to the frame, smaller crumple zones, and probably no airbags in the pillars.
- Not to speak up for this ludicrous inflation of motor vehicle dimensions, but often the shrinking of cabin space on modern cars is often in pursuit of crashworthiness and safety.
It doesn't help that carmakers get incentivised to go big by fucked up fuel standards. Here in the US the CAFE standards were gutted during their creation to carve out looser standards for obese pickups and hummer-sized SUVs. The bigger they get even within a given segment, the less stringent the requirements are.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popularity-federal-policy-pollution
Plus people "feel safer" and all that other jazz when they drive them. It's just... It's so stupid to have to watch people continuing to chose shit like this.
IMO it's such a multi-faceted problem that at this point about the only thing that makes sense is to switch lanes (heh) and focus on other transit methods. More people will take transit or bike if it's easier than parking their mile long farm vehicles in tight urban spaces and being helplessly fumigated by standstill traffic.
- Most laptops have batteries of a size that can go on a plane I believe. I could be wrong.
- Most usb-c charging capable laptops will charge off large external high powered usb-c batteries. Allowing you to optionally choose to just buy a reasonably priced one to leave in your bag.
  The work field technian bag has something like this in it: https://www.amazon.com.au/INIU-27000mAh-Capacity-Powerbank-Compatible/dp/B0CB1FWNMK
- The P series of thinkpad or framework 16 are as close as I'd say you could probably get
- 100 watt hours and you can't take that battery on a plane in the US.
Safety standards caused passenger cars to get larger more than anything else (trucks got bigger because of weird fuel economy regulations).
Roll back safety standards and we can have small cars again. It’s probably worth the amount of excess deaths it will create, but someone should do a study.
- Dpn't forget the fact that most car safety only applies to people in the car. For others it may or may not make it in fact less safe.
  
  Actually pedestrian safety standards are a thing and explains a lot of design choices and why many cars have a very similar profile.
- Were already at an all-time high of vehicle related deaths. We'd actually probably see a decrease in fatalities if we made cars smaller.
  
  Proportional to the number of km driven or just raw number?
- Safety standards is the stated reason, but the actual reason is that weight is unregulated and can always be increased in pursuit of any more profitable dimension. If weight was the taxable dimension, we'd live in a much better world.
- Smaller cars still exist though?
  
  yeah in europe (obviosly it varies a lot cross-country and rural/urban) but lots of places with high safety standards , and high emissions taxes. Still lots of small cars around .
  Mostly due to parking in big-dense-cities though probably.
  US does come out badly on deaths per billion pax-km: 8 ish vs 3-5 for most euro countries
  it's not far off Belgium (7) though . . . .
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listofcountriesbytraffic-relateddeathrate
  So on the face of it small cars dont sem to correlate - but these data look a bit hodge podge, so not sure to read too much into it without knowing the underlying sources.
  Other factors like the "stroad" thing might be an issue.
  And a lot of European municipalities give the elderly free public transport, and have ok bus service, so many doddery old coots have a viable option.
  I remember that southpark episode about senior drivers, with the jaws music . . .
  Maybe not as funny when you look at that US death rate. To quoe Father Maxi: "No god needs complex irony and subtle farcical twists that seem macabre to you and me, all that we can hope for is that god got his laughs . . ."
I mean, you do need to fit into one of those

40 comments