The Story of Stuff

[Burninator]

Anyone checked this out?

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I'm not what sure to think about this. On the one hand the idea of being less wasteful and making a more sustainable economy/lifestyle is something I support. But a lot of it seems like environmental fear mongering. The part about the government economy conspiracy was a stretch. The part about a computer was completely idiotic. And I don't think Annie would have been posting this on the internet if our economy wasn't the way it is, because we wouldn't have come this far.

Has anyone looked into this more? There was an awful lot of "really, it's true!" for me to trust without some real back up.

[icecube]

There wasn't much to argue with in that feature from my perspective. Some may call it fear mongering, but it is reaching the point where it's time to be scared. Natural resources arent unlimited and they are being consumed at unsustainable rates. Period.

[Boblobla]

I wonder if her travel over those 10 years was done on a plane. If so, that is quite the carbon footprint...

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by icecube

There wasn't much to argue with in that feature from my perspective. Some may call it fear mongering, but it is reaching the point where it's time to be scared. Natural resources arent unlimited and they are being consumed at unsustainable rates. Period.

I don't think anyone is in the wrong for suggesting that we can't continue to produce and consume what we consume forever using current production and retail practices. However we don't live in a bubble where extrapolations can be made without adjusting for changes in the fundamentals in why we buy so many things that get thrown away. The answer to that question is simply because we can. Long before we 'run out' of many of the implements, these things will simply cost so much that either A) The average person can't afford to purchase them and thus consumptionn decreases sharply or B) More sustainable alternatives emerge or C) An extreme disincentive to have more children in the form of these costs lowers birthrates around the globe and thus these issues become less of a problem or D) A combination of all of the above.

A good case can be argued that many of these things have been happening all along, evidenced by low birthrates in the first world (And even falling birthrates in the third world), Increasing prices for recycled Aluminum, Better water conditions in the Great Lakes, high gasoline prices, higher food prices, etc. The last thing I want to see is the means of production being seized by various World governments in an overblown reaction to this alarmism.

[Jason14h]

I guess they use stick figured cartoons to appeal to the only people dumb enough to believe these contrived stats

[troutman]

George Carlin has a routine about how our homes are just places to keep our stuff.

http://www.writers-free-reference.co...y/story085.htm

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...13084482448693

[Metro Gnome]

Originally Posted by icecube

There wasn't much to argue with in that feature from my perspective. Some may call it fear mongering, but it is reaching the point where it's time to be scared. Natural resources arent unlimited and they are being consumed at unsustainable rates. Period.

Yes, yes "peak everything is imminent!" has been the shrill cry of fear mongers for hundreds of years. "If current trends continue"...

Guess what...current trends never "continue". Stuff changes and people adapt. For example, consider the gross fears of "Peak Whale Oil!" in the late 1800's:

My main concern is that my calculations show we are approaching peak whale oil and no one seems to be listening. Inspect my numbers below. If my estimations are correct we have surpassed a population of 24,000,000 persons, far more than the estimates of 17.000,000 from the last census. There simply are not enough whales

http://www.scientificblogging.com/sc...peak_whale_oil

Oh Noes!

[Ford Prefect]

I gave this some thought about 10 years ago. I went around our house and looked at the place of origin of a lot of stuff in our house, and then thought about what went into the development of those products from both a natural and human resource point of view. I became a label reader after that exercise and try to buy stuff with at least a little consideration of the resource exploitation that went into it, as well as consideration of the political regime(s) involved. You can never sort all of this out and buy wholly ethical stuff, but you can make improvements.

[Ro]

Thanks for posting that. A good way to kill the first intermission of the Canada game.

Watching it reminded me of Michael Moore's films- while it's important to question some of the facts and opinions presented, many people are simply going to be too lazy/indifferent to do just that. But what does remain with them is the overall message and tone of the piece, which in this case seems to be "try and consume less."

Is that such a terrible message? Is it so blatantly false and wrong that anti-alarmists everywhere should critique it with voracity and pick apart every inconsistency? I don't think so. If the overall message is one that suggests we start making our economies more sustainable, I am willing to forgive the occasional shortcoming the film may have had.

I also liked the section on "Planned Obsolescence" and "Perceived Obsolescence." Very, very interesting. Reminded me of an article I read once about Gillette, and the fact that they had designed about 10 different versions of the "Sensor/Mach 3" line of razors before the first one ever came out. Then, one by one, an expertly timed and well crafted marketing campaign would hit the masses, proclaiming a slightly improved version of the razor to be a "must-have." Then, wait 12-18 months or so, and bam, new razor. And again, and again. Making the consumer think they are tinkering with and improving the product in between versions, when in fact all the R & D has already been completed and they are just waiting for the days to tick off the calendar before they can release the Mach 3000 Turbo or whatever.

One critique I do have is that all too often presentations/articles/movies like this one spend 80% of the their time explaining what the problems are and why they're so scary, and only 20% of the time offering solutions, alternatives, ideas for a brighter future. I suppose it's important to try and convert those who for whatever reason don't agree, but for the rest of us, and especially that lazy/mostly indifferent/"set in their ways" group I referred to earlier (which is the category I fall into some of the time), spur us into action with some useful ideas.

Edit- I missed the "Another Way" link after I finished the video, but found it after searching around the site again. Plenty of "what you can do" stuff there.

[Jason14h]

Mach 3000 Turbo

I want one of these! When do they come out!!!

[Ro]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I guess they use stick figured cartoons to appeal to the only people dumb enough to believe these contrived stats

My thought was that it might appeal more to students in, say, a middle school class, than if there was no animation.

If somebody thinks the stats are contrived and the message is ill-informed, no amount of next-gen 3D animation is going to save the piece from bashing at the hands of dissenters.

[Ro]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I want one of these! When do they come out!!!

12-18 months I think. Bam, new razor.

[Boblobla]

I hear that 67.3% of all stats are made up on the spot.

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

I hear that 67.3% of all stats are made up on the spot.

You must listen to Todd Snider ... that's a line in one of his songs. He goes on to state that 80-some percent of people believe them whether they're true or not.

[J pold]

For someone who claimed that our former reasoning was too linear a lot of her example and ideas where…well pretty linear

The guy going around working, watching T.V., and shopping for example I don’t know about you but my daily routine consists of a bit more

She also forgot one big piece IMO and that is self interest of the individual, we don’t just make our consumer choices based on ads and being in the latest fashion

But she did have some good points it just seems that she could have gone into more detail and produced it so the target audience doesn’t seem like 10 year olds

[Iggy's Forehead]

Down with materialism! Let's all live in the wild! People suck! And such and such..

[MelBridgeman]

meh, we all get the message, the delivery was terrible...turned it off after 5 minutes..

[llama64]

Materialism is another side effect of our constant push for economic growth. No one is satisfied with maintaining status quo. Profit must rise otherwise companies are seen as stagnant. The current market based trading scheme, in my opinion, could be seen as a core reason for a lot of social, environment and moral issues we face.

One day, we will not be able to meet our needs. Society will change drastically on that day.

Unless some how everyone on the planet stops thinking that growth is the only direction.

[Iggy's Forehead]

Originally Posted by llama64

Materialism is another side effect of our constant push for economic growth. No one is satisfied with maintaining status quo. Profit must rise otherwise companies are seen as stagnant. The current market based trading scheme, in my opinion, could be seen as a core reason for a lot of social, environment and moral issues we face.

One day, we will not be able to meet our needs. Society will change drastically on that day.

Unless some how everyone on the planet stops thinking that growth is the only direction.

Fill in the blank: If you ain't going up, you're going _____.

[llama64]

Originally Posted by Iggy's Forehead

Fill in the blank: If you ain't going up, you're going _____.

Down. Flat. Nowhere.

The fact that any answer other then "up" is considered bad is what I'm saying is wrong.