occurs to me that audiophilia is like an advanced version of all this
― whoop, up the butt it goes (silby), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:18 (twelve years ago) link
you mean vinylphilia? there are plenty of audiophiles who swing wildly in the other direction, like a V.U. needle.
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:21 (twelve years ago) link
keep trying to resist the urge to argue about this but...between knives made by OH NO HIPSTERS!!!1!! and one made by people who aren't being paid a living wage, gimme the oh no hipster knife
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:23 (twelve years ago) link
nah I mean like Monster™ Cables audiophilia, not so much in regards the hand-made/artisanal sound, but in the pursuit of the truest/most authentic listening experience that is really just conspicuously consuming Veblen good wooden receiver knobs or whatever the balls those people spend their money on
― whoop, up the butt it goes (silby), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:23 (twelve years ago) link
xp seems fair to me aero
also would purchase a children's book entitled "Oh No! Hipsters!"
― whoop, up the butt it goes (silby), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:24 (twelve years ago) link
ok time to go to my local neighborhood artisanal butcher to buy some local free range ground beef (seriously this is what I'm doing now)
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, November 6, 2011 2:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
if you don't buy the serially oppressed knife, that person is gonna lose her job and become even more unable to live :(
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:27 (twelve years ago) link
make sure to pick up some brioche buns xp
― max, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:27 (twelve years ago) link
btw this ^xp^ is why utilitarianism and consequentialism more generally are complete horseshit
― whoop, up the butt it goes (silby), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:28 (twelve years ago) link
edit his experiences into a lifestyle
this is such a disgusting phrase!
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:28 (twelve years ago) link
everyone should just buy less stuff, regardless of where it comes from
― so solaris (Lamp), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:30 (twelve years ago) link
alternative to 'below-living wage' is not necessarily 'living wage' iirc
― blind pele (darraghmac), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:34 (twelve years ago) link
everyone should just buy less stuff, regardless of where it comes fromyeah - it's weird to me though that in the artisanal etc mindset there isn't more of a culture of re-use; it's there (see: a trillion etsy shops making use of found/repurposed materials) but like...idk I have this idea that if there were a cultural movement to stop producing shit for a year or two, to just quit making new stuff for a while, it'd be good for everything. I guess if yr position is more extreme ("you don't need more stuff whether it's new or used") then it doesn't matter, but that horse has left the barn in this culture, ppl are gonna consume, the only q is whether it's going to use up more resources or less.
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:37 (twelve years ago) link
there are things we can do to make environmentally unfriendly consumption more expensive than less-environmentally unfriendly consumption
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:39 (twelve years ago) link
if people stopped producing shit then you couldn't convert labor into value
capitalism would be ruined
the marxists would win
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:40 (twelve years ago) link
one of the thing drives me nuts is lamps -- and similarly cheap and simple electrical goods -- being apparently considered unrepairable nowadays, so that you have no choice but to chuck em out when they stop working
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:42 (twelve years ago) link
millions of non-economists would starve
― blind pele (darraghmac), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:43 (twelve years ago) link
it's not that they're considered unrepairable, it's that they're cheap enough that it's not even practical to repair it unless it's a really expensive lamp
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:43 (twelve years ago) link
(sound of 100 ilxor minds churning to come up w/ a good lamp joke)
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:44 (twelve years ago) link
yes but most of them involve doing an end-run around democratic processes which puts you in a tight spot, no?
xp @ mark s not just lamps!! when I was a kid there were these big awesome electrical-age TUBE TESTERS at supermarkets, and at shoe repair shops too if I remember right. they were for checking the tubes in your television for whether they were the source of why your TV wasn't working. (presumably also for your radio or amplifier.) present philosophy of "it's cheaper to replace than repair" 1) sucks and 2) is true; I can get a new TV cheaper than I can repair my new-ish TV
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:45 (twelve years ago) link
yup, pretty hard to convince a majority of americans that they're not paying enough $ for shit. at the same time we genuinely are overpaying for other things (housing, transit, health care) so even middle class people feel poor. everything's related and fixing those issues is gonna have to happen before we can get people to feel like they should pay more for consumer goods.
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
you can convert labour into value if decrease production, also marx was right so w/e
i guess my opinion is:
- productivity gains are generally p good for ppl at the bottom since they make goods cheaper and increase wealth- reverting to pre-industrial means of producing goods is p stupid for that reason- at the same time many industrial/postindustrial goods dont reflect their 'true' cost since producers take advantage of all sorts of externalities- if you want to own a tv you should be paying the cost of poisoning the air above shenzen &c- we need to find ways of taking advantage of productivity gains and efficiencies w/o encouraging consumption
― so solaris (Lamp), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:57 (twelve years ago) link
- if you want to own a tv you should be paying the cost of poisoning the air above shenzen &c
lol TVs weren't always made in Shenzen man!
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
- we need to find ways of taking advantage of productivity gains and efficiencies w/o encouraging consumption
ya can u get on this? we need an answer by like... 100 years ago
― max, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:03 (twelve years ago) link
we used to poison the air over pittsburgh...toledo...akron.... man those were the days
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:03 (twelve years ago) link
it's so nice that america's skies don't have to be polluted anymore, we can just outsource it to china
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:04 (twelve years ago) link
who can tell me with a straight face they wouldn't repoison akron & toledo to bring back the glory days of shenzen
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:06 (twelve years ago) link
shenzhen used to be a nice quiet fishing village. 30 years ago a fisherman would catch a fish.
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:07 (twelve years ago) link
100% would sacrifice toledo & akron to make that fisherman happy
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:09 (twelve years ago) link
the key is that 'consumption' includes services and 'goods' that are 1s and 0s. and we should encourage a shift to that type in the long run and in lots of ways it's happening already. otoh is buying an iphone app for $5 better for the world than buying a hamburger for $5? if you just isolate that purchase, yeah, but a. can't isolate that b. I guess we're also more willing to spend money on these 1s and 0s in a world where we can already afford the material goods we want.
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:10 (twelve years ago) link
idk aero, I guess my point is that if america wants TVs then america should be ready to handle the pollution that comes with it instead of dumping it all elsewhere
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:12 (twelve years ago) link
chinese air pollution already reaches california iirc
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:13 (twelve years ago) link
Has anyone informed the Minnesota ilxors that they may be untapped reserves of cultural capital? This knife dude seems to have a fair amount of press relating the fact he is from REAL PLACE, MINNESOTA
― mh, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:19 (twelve years ago) link
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, November 6, 2011 3:12 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark
or rather, that if americans want flatscreen TVs, then hopefully they would not be against paying a higher price so that the waste associated with manufacturing TVs doesn't get improperly dumped into the environment, whether that environment happens to be in china or in toledo
but that would mean TVs would cost more, guess it's okay for poor people in china to suffer from heavy metal poisoning in their land and in their food so that joe sixpack can watch football on his 60" as cheaply as possible
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:38 (twelve years ago) link
ok c u soon
― so solaris (Lamp), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:39 (twelve years ago) link
dayo I'm not sure who you're arguing w/. I'd be in favor of heavy enough tariffs to stop China from ruining itself to provide worthless consumer goods to the west, but can you really put that ruin on the west? China had several systems that didn't result in the destruction of China, they had various pluses and minuses; participating in the market capitalism of the west seems easily the most destructive of them to my mind, but I don't think western demand gets to shoulder all the blame for the fate of rural China
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:54 (twelve years ago) link
participating in the market capitalism of the west seems easily the most destructive of them to my mind
wait what
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:56 (twelve years ago) link
I think China about thirty years from now will make the worst years under Mao look like a picnic
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:57 (twelve years ago) link
there really isn't any way to make 30 million people starving to death look like a picnic
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:59 (twelve years ago) link
hold that thought man!
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:00 (twelve years ago) link
a key component of a good picnic is making sure that everyone has food
― max, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:01 (twelve years ago) link
lol max u are on fire today
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
arguably that is the #1 most important characteristic of a good picnic
― max, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
ants
― horseshoe, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
picanic baskets
― iatee, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:03 (twelve years ago) link
China had several systems that didn't result in the destruction of China, they had various pluses and minuses; participating in the market capitalism of the west seems easily the most destructive of them to my mind, but I don't think western demand gets to shoulder all the blame for the fate of rural China
wait what? I'm as critical of deng xiaoping as anybody but this is just trolling
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:12 (twelve years ago) link
I do agree though that if china could get into a time machine and go back to mid-qing dynasty living, everybody would probably be better off
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:14 (twelve years ago) link
right but where are you going to make that time machine, shenzen?
― max, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:17 (twelve years ago) link
bespoke time machine handcrafted in brooklyn by artisans
― mh, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:18 (twelve years ago) link