r/Anticonsumption • u/Staturnalia • 28d ago
Philosophy Does anyone else feel like humanity has just been treading water for the past 50 or so years?
Every advancement the modern age has made is rather poor. Powerful computers and large storage devices have their possibility of making people's lives better obliterated by excessively large software.
Clothing, though cheap is often made very cheaply. Forcing you to purchase replacements. Rather than having a single garment last for along time, as it did in the past.
Food has fallen victim to this aswell - Fast food in particular is a good example of this. Excessive salt and excessive oil succeeds only in making food incredibly unhealthy.
It's all a bit drab.
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u/Hour-Watercress-3865 28d ago
If necessity is the mother of invention, capitalism is the abusive alcoholic father. Keeps the mother and child from achieving what they could otherwise.
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u/ImperatorUniversum1 28d ago
I’m convinced 1980 or so was a kind of flashpoint for this reality. Neoliberal economic policy has ruined the world
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u/mama146 28d ago
Funny, 1980 was the year the highest tax rate for the filthy rich began to decrease rapidly.
The rich stopped paying their share, infrastructure suffered, schools suffered, the middle class began to disappear.
The rich-poor gap increased year over year.
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u/Aware_Advertising290 28d ago
Don't forget the killing of free education and closing of all America's mental institutions. Say no to drugs campaign was brutal too. Nothing like the government giving it's citizens carte blanche to spy on and try to incriminate friends, family and neighbors.
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u/ILoveUncommonSense 28d ago
If you like to read, Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean (and other books, I’m sure) talks about the GOP’s decades-long plan to essentially get us to where we are today.
Scary and not fun, but important information that explains your post. This was not a careless mistake of society.
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u/kyleoftheend 28d ago
It's engineered to be that way. Software doesn't have to be that badly optimized and bloated, clothing doesn't have to be badly made out of polyester. Now technology is designed to break when it could last much longer, food could be healthy and good instead of pumped full of corn syrup, energy could be clean AND cheap with the resources we have and not pollute the Earth, people could be happy and healthy and educated, every one of us. It's kept this way on purpose because those who have unimaginable power want to keep it. They believe that they were born with a $400b silver spoon in their mouthes because they deserve it, and other people don't.
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u/ilovestoride 28d ago
It's mostly true but no one purposely says we're going to make bloated inefficient software. It's just a byproduct of the lazy get it done quick way.
I'll give an extreme example. Grabbing code off GitHub like Legos is fast but inefficient vs painstakingly writing it in machine language.
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u/Both_Lynx_8750 23d ago
Disagree we created the software correctly at the start, it's been enshittified for profits, not laziness.
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u/MiscellaneousWorker 28d ago
Sorry but no. Essentials have improved vastly in so many ways.
You can easily get quality clothing second hand. But even then, I don't know how often you are replacing your clothing but all I have ever had to replace are shoes, socks, and underwear. I either outgrew clothes or lost them or damaged them by mistake, not cause I wore them through.
As for food, nobody is stopping you from eating fruits and veggies and making home cooked meals.
And for computers, you can easily get away with not uof most services...
Advancements are far from poor if you, on average in America, can easily make these choices for yourself. That's my opinion.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 28d ago
Well now that you've stopped growing, you'll probably wear out pants and shirts if you stop losing them. Learning how to mend them is a good idea. I have stretched using my work jeans another year by patching and sewing them.
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28d ago edited 28d ago
In 1856 Karl Marx said famously:
„At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy. Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance. All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force.“ [1]
As Walter Benjamin wrote before the Holocaust:
„The astonishment that the things we are experiencing in the 20th century are “still” possible is by no means philosophical. It is not the beginning of knowledge, unless it would be the knowledge that the conception of history on which it rests is untenable.“ [2]
At the latest with the holocaust, when the Germans killed 6 million Jews for the sake of killing 6 Million Jews, it is clear that humanity has to stop the economical premises for irrationality. (Of course capitalism an nationalsocialism are not the same, but if irrational premises are not abolished it can happen again)
As Adorno reflects on (critical) theory after the worst happened:
„Within the sphere of influence of the system, the new—progress—is, like the old, a constant source of new disaster. Knowing the new does not mean adapting oneself to it and to the movement of history; it means resisting its inflexibility and conceiving of the onward march of the battalions of world history as marking time. Theory knows of no „constructive force“ but only of one that lights up the contours of a burned-out prehistory with the glow of the latest disaster in order to perceive the parallel that exists between them. The latest thing is always the old terror, the myth, which consists in that blind continuum of time that continually retracts itself, with patient, stupidly omniscient malice, just like Oknos’s ass, eats the rope as fast as he twines it. Only he who recognizes that the new is the same old thing will be of service to whatever is different.“ [3]
[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1856/04/14.htm
[2] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm
[3] https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/readings/adorno_classtheory1942.pdf (p. 95/96)
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u/LifeisWeird11 28d ago
The clothes thing is a choice. People could more durable clothes because they are made to feel less than if they don't wear something stylish. It's not like we are incapable of making quality items.
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u/americansherlock201 28d ago
Humanity as a whole has made ungodly technological advances in the last 50 years.
The most powerful computer in the world in 1975 had a total of 8.39MB of memory and 303MB of storage. It cost $8M.
We have the entire human genome mapped out. Cancer is more survivable now than ever before. Medicine alone is more accessible and treats more things than ever.
Yes we have hit some snags along the way socially, but overall society is better now than it was 50 years ago. Our water is clear. Our air is breathable. The hole in the ozone is repaired.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 28d ago
The hole in the ozone layer is smaller since the 80's and 90's, but it's still there.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153523/ozone-hole-continues-healing-in-2024
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u/Reworked 28d ago
The US has 90% fewer "peaker" demand-operation power plants than it did at their most prevalent, due to battery storage obsoleting them.
We've got a vaccine for an entire branch of cancers in trials.
A local orchard recently started grafting a species of apple that produces its own insect-repelling oil from the fertilized flowers that will never need to be sprayed for pests.
We have a commodity quantum computer hitting the market inside the year.
It's easy to get lost in the fog of the legitimately awful shit going on around the world; especially with the media having so much incentive to report the horror stories first, but in the words of Mr Rogers, always look for the helpers. No matter how rough things get, there's still folks out there burning the midnight oil to make the world better, and kicking ass at it.
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u/BlakeMajik 28d ago
Exactly this. Every time I come across some story like the new apple species or some cancer breakthrough I think to myself, why isn't this the leading story on the news? It sure would affect more people than some random tragedy or angry sound bite. The media, social or legacy, always has something to instill fear or divide people.
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u/mwmandorla 28d ago
Multiple vaccines, including polio, chicken pox, and mRNA vaccines. We're on the cusp of an AIDS cure. New treatments for autoimmune conditions that are transformative for quality of life. The difference between my life and future with the condition I have and the life my grandmother with a similar condition led is astronomical. Psychopharmacology pretty much altogether.
The existence of hip-hop. Queer rights and liberation. The disability rights movement. The environmental movement without which this sub probably wouldn't exist. Urban ecology.
Huge strides in access to clean water and food in much of the world. Environmental regulations (not everywhere, but it's a good and relatively new thing in the post-industrial world). Publicly available and usable GPS.
My parents were born in the 40s and 50s, and when I was a kid I used to ask them to tell me about things that didn't exist when they were kids. The polio vaccine. Tinfoil. I could take or leave Velcro, but it's an important accommodation for some people with mobility problems in their hands.
I'm pretty far left and I could go on all day about the structural problems with our global power structures and economy, the deaths and destruction caused by US Empire, the de-skilling of much of the population in rich countries, etc. But it's simply out of pocket to say that "every advancement" of the last 50 years is "rather poor."
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u/SmoothSlavperator 27d ago
After over a century from the industrial revolution got into full swing, "The machines took our jobs".
Since then, we've been at an equilibrium of cost of labor and cost of automation. This is why real wages haven't increased and why we kind of only have high skill and entry level labor with nothing in between. As the cost of labor increases, it gets automated out and puts downward pressure on wages.
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u/New_Performance_9356 28d ago
Seeing humanity in a non-human perspective, I've never understand humans, like what's with politics?, why do humans have that, and capitalism? What is the point of that?, why do I need paper to buy the food?, why can't I just hunt it / take it or trade for it?, why is it so weird to want to conserve life and protect life?, why is it so weird to want to be myself?, why do they turn wanting to live the way I want to live a crime?
I'm so confused by you humans.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 28d ago
I am really grateful for advances in medical care. My odds wouldn't have been so good in the 1990's. Immunotherapy has made a lot of illnesses survivable and manageable in my lifetime. My grandma died of a cancer that my dad had 20 years later. Dad only missed a few days of work, and they were able to shrink the tumor down without surgery.
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u/petricholy 28d ago
I feel like humanity has been teetering on the precarious edge of a cliff for a while, but in a very different way. To keep it short: look up what a social contract is; it’s been broken on purpose after decades of build-up; wtf do we do to fix society to have a functional social contract now??
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u/moonsion 28d ago
Things are much cheaper now when compared to the past. Look at the following article for reference.
https://cepr.net/publications/in-the-good-old-days-one-fourth-of-income-went-to-food/
We now spend way less money on food and clothing. If you are spending at the same level we used to spend, then sure you can still get quality organic produce and durable clothing.
Same thing with appliances. Adjusted for inflation the average TV and fridge are so much cheaper now. They may not last as long, but they are more accessible. If you are willing to spend the money people spent in the 70s and 80s then you can also get brands that can last 20+ years.
https://humanprogress.org/kitchen-appliances-are-getting-more-abundant/
I get the nostalgia. But no way I am traveling back to live in a 900-1000 sq ft home with only one bathroom, with cars that broke down often, and leaded gasoline, leaded paint as well asbestos.
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u/Dreadful_Spiller 28d ago
Wow says the person living in the 1,000 sf, one bath home and satisfied and loving it. The largest place I have ever lived in.
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u/summon_the_quarrion 27d ago
I found a 90s clothing catalogue the other day at a thrift store and was looking through it and the thing that surprised me was the price of clothing. Clothing is cheaper than its ever been
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u/MikeUsesNotion 28d ago
Why do you think today's software is excessively large? Why do you think smaller software would make people's lives even better?
If you don't include computer games or professional software like CAD, even a cheap desktop or laptop can run just about anything a person would want to take advantage of most of today's technological progress in their daily lives. We're pretty much at the point where your phone can do all that now.
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u/dwynenmcleod 28d ago
I have a theory that in December 2012 the Aztec calendar thing was right. Life as we know it hasn't been the same since.
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u/JiveBunny 27d ago
50 years ago was 1975. Even between 1975 and, say, 1990 the world changed an awful lot - you might not consider it's mainly for the good, but 'treading water' is an absurd way to describe it.
In my lifetime, HIV has gone from a certain death sentence to a condition as manageable as Type 1 diabetes, and every time I remember that I think about how remarkable that is.
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u/pyromaster114 27d ago
There's a lot of good advancement-- but yea, some bad comes with it, as well.
I feel it particularly in the "bad software" parts... It's bad that some pages load slower today than equivalently useful ones did 20 years ago. -_-
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u/jeffeb3 28d ago
Software is a super power. You can produce something one time and then replicate it a billion times across the entire planet (or in space) in a few minutes. No other design in human history has been that flexible.
Modern software has a ton of applications and there aren't a ton of people that can do it. That makes software engineering a scarce resource.
So if you need something done, you have to balance paying an engineer a lot of money, or paying them less to do it quickly (poorly). The quicker solution is often better because a modern cell phone is more powerful than a personal computer even 10 years ago. Software is easier to make than ever and the devices that run it are more capable than ever.
Where this really breaks is open source software. Since they are passion projects, you get a lot of coders making beautiful projects without worrying about money. They have limited resources but they make high quality code without worrying as much about the cost/benefit of engineering hours. Projects like Wikipedia, blender, Linux, arduino are huge advantages that enable people to do things that were completely impossible 50 years ago without requiring 100 billion valuations and huge silicon valley campuses. For every project you may have heard of, there are thousands that are silently moving humanity forward or just making life a bit more enjoyable. For free. Because people love to do it.
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u/TR_RTSG 28d ago
I think you have a rather rosey view of the past. Clothing from the past probably was hardier than the average now, but that hardiness came with also being thicker, stiffer, rougher, and with much less variety. You can still buy that type of clothing today, it's just much more expensive. Clothing back then was also expensive, which is why people didn't have as many things in their closets.
You don't have to buy fast food. You can get all the same ingredients now that we're available 50+ years ago and cook at home. That's what people did back then, and you can do it now.
You've lost your mind if you think data storage is worse than it was before. You can get multi-terabyte hard drives relatively cheap that will store more data than you can ever produce (unless you have a massive digital movie collection, or some other data hoarding type hobby).
You have the option to live a simpler life like they did in the past. You don't have to buy things just because there are more options available. I thought that's what this sub was about.