Watch this and pass it on

[elfy]

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Very neat little movie about where stuff (consumer goods) comes from, where it goes to etc. I knew about everything mentioned there, but not everybody does and so I thought I pass it on. It's also nice to have everything together in a short movie like that.

And here a link to the article the website was featured in:
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/26/26939/1.html

Modern-day capitalism requires constant growth, and lately this pace of growth has been accelerated. If growth stagnates or a contraction sets in, the consequences would be catastrophic. (...) It may be a little ironic but the capitalists of today have much in common with the Marxists of yesterday. Both look upon the future as an endless period of inevitable growth. Likewise, both see the environment as an exploitable resource, and have an unwavering faith in the virtue of technological progress. Consequently, both are of the belief that nothing must stand in the way of this inevitable progress - including the environment.

Comments

Story of Stuff

[cos]

Thanks for the Story of Stuff link!

I just watched it, and liked it, and also found several flaws:

- Some concepts presented as obvious are sloppy. For example, "toxics in, toxics out" in the simplistic form suggested isn't necessarily true in general, though it may or may not be true in specifics. So when she uses the example of the pillows, she doesn't present any actual data to show whether the material used to make them flame retardant actually does harm people, she simply presents it as "of course, you don't even need to study it, you can just assume it".

As another example, the planned obsolescence of computers: She says it's contrived because all we need is a new CPU. Back in the 90s I actually bought a PC whose main selling point was that the CPU was a replaceable module and the manufacturer was going to make new CPU modules available as better CPUs were designed, so I could just upgrade that. Seemed like a great idea, but of course it didn't work: I eventually needed a bigger hard disk, faster RAM, more RAM than my motherboard could handle, a faster bus, new more flexible peripheral buses (like SCSI or USB) ... it's not just the CPU chip that we want to replace. Planned obsolescence is a real thing, of course, but her presentation and factual errors will trigger many viewers' skepticism.

- She casts many portions of the story in a way that creates mental barriers for anyone viewing it who doesn't already mostly agree with her message. For example, in referring to all stuff as "junk" several times, and in other choices of words at various other times. I suspect many people who could learn from this movie would be turned off just a few minutes into it, and not readily hear the things she has to say.

She has some very valuable things to say, about resource depletion and externalising costs and perceived obsolesence and so on, so I wish she had made the film more accessible to more people who ought to hear those things.

When she talks about how things were different 50 years ago, for example, she presents it as all about reusing and stewardship... a lot of it was about poverty and lower standards of living too. It was about the inability to travel frequently to other places & live where you want to live; it was about having your place in life much more likely to be determined to a narrow range of options at birth, picking a career from your limited choices and staying with it for your whole life; there were many things in that past we do not want to go back to. By presenting the contrast as simpler and more clear-cut, I think she does a disservice to the issue she's presenting.

Re: Story of Stuff

[elfy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that lengthy feedback :)

I can't add much to that, I fear... I was sure there were/are flaws in the movie, I just could never express them so eloquated, at least not in english.
From my impression she tried to make things as simple as possible so as many as possible people understand. I am sure some will turn away like you suggested, but I think especially for teenagers the movie is good, especially if they are willing to think about sustainability and such.

About the computers for example, sure it's know only the CPU, but still I think she is right with her example... many things are built in a way that average people in the industrial world rather replace the whole thing instead of upgrading or replacing one necessary part, it doesn't have to be a computer... I have a thrash bin at home that works with little pieces of wire to open automatically when you push a button, but these little pieces got lost. I honestly ran to at least 5-6 shops in hope to get a replacement, but nobody could help me. I go on using my thrash bins, but my new flatmates want different ones, because they don't want to use the broken ones.

But yeah, I also know what you mean about 'who she reaches' with her documentary: Mostly people who already agree to her already. Thats true. But I guess one movie never can change the way someone thinks (at least not usually), but still I think it's a neat little contribution to the information many people aren't aware of.