Is Advertising, fuelling dislike of the West?

[Dr_Herbz]

That is a commendable attitude.

But it isn't, is it? I should keep it until it ceases to work, throw it in the bin and go out and buy a ZX80

I don't mix up development of technology with useless excessive production of the result thereof. Nor do I look beyond the ultimate goal: to force the consumer - even subconsciously - to buy the latest model because the - also new - X or Y application doesn't work at the older ones. Modern version of old commercial tricks on a scale never seen before in history.

That image looks like a screen from an old movie. Is that Alien Import?

salaam.

nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. I buy what I need to do my job but if I wanted to buy something bigger/better, should I not be allowed?

Do you own a car or bike? ... Do you own a black and white TV?

 

[Aldebaran]

But it isn't, is it? I should keep it until it ceases to work

That would be a better option as long as it doesn't interfere with what you need it for.

nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. I buy what I need to do my job but if I wanted to buy something bigger/better, should I not be allowed?

I should have used teh word "coercion" but that is a difficult one to spell for a dyslexic.

Do you own a car or bike? ... Do you own a black and white TV?

Everything I find useful. Which doesn't include replacing items with an other of the same kind for the sake of it being "new".

salaam.

 

[Dr_Herbz]

If people didn't buy the newest toy, there wouldn't be a second-hand market and only the rich would be able to afford a car/bike/television etc.

Why do I get the feeling that you don't wear your shoes until they have holes in them? I also wonder if you go out in jeans full of holes... etc, etc, etc

 

[Aldebaran]

If people didn't buy the newest toy, there wouldn't be a second-hand market and only the rich would be able to afford a car/bike/television etc.

That is a good point, but how many of what is uneccesary replaced end up on such second-hand market?

Why do I get the feeling that you don't wear your shoes until they have holes in them? I also wonder if you go out in jeans full of holes... etc, etc, etc

Wearing them until they are that ruined is plain idiocy.
If something is wrong with them they get repaired. Which creates income for the shoemaker, just like making them does. (I don't wear jeans.)

salaam.

 

[Fruitloop]

Even the economists seem to have stopped arguing in favour of trickle-down economics these days.

 

[Dr_Herbz]

That is a good point, but how many of what is uneccesary replaced end up on such second-hand market?

Who decides what is and isn't necessary?
I replace my computers every 2 years because I use them for important stuff and I can't afford for them to break down.

If someone wishes to replace their car for the same reason or for any other reason, surely it's their decision?

If you can afford the initial outlay and choose the right car, it can actually be cheaper to replace it every year than to buy and run a second-hand car. The same can apply to computers or indeed, anything with a limited life-span.

Wearing them until they are that ruined is plain idiocy.
If something is wrong with them they get repaired. Which creates income for the shoemaker, just like making them does. (I don't wear jeans.)

salaam.

If you can justify the cost of repairing your shoes, then I assume you paid more that a fiver for them, what was wrong with the £5 pair?

 

[Aldebaran]

I replace my computers every 2 years because I use them for important stuff and I can't afford for them to break down.

You said it: you can't afford them to break down. If that is meant litteraly, you have reason to replace them.

If you can afford the initial outlay and choose the right car, it can actually be cheaper to replace it every year than to buy and run a second-hand car.

If you cnan afford it, it is actually much more economical responsible to buy the best quality you can find instead of replacing every year.

what was wrong with the £5 pair?

They aren't made by someone whom I know earns very directly an honest income from it. Most probably such chaep shoes are made in some exploitative sweat shop. Possibly even by children.

salaam.

 

[Dr_Herbz]

They aren't made by someone whom I know earns very directly an honest income from it. Most probably such chaep shoes are made in some exploitative sweat shop. Possibly even by children.

salaam.

There's a lot of assumptions going on there.

So you know the person who makes your shoes?

Your 'reason' could be used by anyone as a reason for wanting the best of anything.

 

[Aldebaran]

There's a lot of assumptions going on there.

No doubt, but do you know how it is possible to produce products that cheap other than by exploitation?

So you know the person who makes your shoes?

Yes.

Your 'reason' could be used by anyone as a reason for wanting the best of anything.

Yes. Which is not the same as changing your mind about it every time you see something presented as new while it is in its core absolutely the same.

salaam.

 

[Dr_Herbz]

No doubt, but do you know how it is possible to produce products that cheap other than by exploitation?

CNC machines

Yes. Which is not the same as changing your mind about it every time you see something presented as new while it is in its core absolutely the same.

salaam.

I realise there are people who aren't happy unless they have the first/best/latest of everything but i'm pretty sure they're a small minority.

If you do know the person who makes your shoes, I'm guessing you pay good money for them. This is your choice/right, just as it is the right of everyone else to spend their money on whatever they wish to spend it on.

 

[8ball]

I used to like it when Nike shoes came with a little letter inside them from the eight-year-old girl who made the shoes and how thanks to your kind donation she hopes one day her grandchildren will be able to go to school.

It's all got very impersonal these days.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Yeah.

Except that people without much money don't have computers because they buy second-hand ones. If they have computers, they are ones that they bought a long time ago and simply have not upgraded, because they can't afford to. They're not donated by kindly Western capitalists; those ones tend to end up in landfill, they're rarely shipped to Africa or wherever.

Poorer people have older computers because they don't throw them away and keep with what they have; it's as true in this country as it is across the world, and it has bog all to do with consumerism and the repetitive production of things that are ever-so-slightly better than the previous year's version. And nothing to do with "choice".

 

[Dr_Herbz]

I do find the following a bit hypocritical

...Not to mention seeing these things advertised when you yourself are in great poverty.

Quite. The poor are even too poor to take notice of it and even if they do they don't have time or money to waste on diets in order to be able to fit into it.

You're on a forum where some of its members don't have a pot to piss in and advertising the fact that you have your shoes tailor made

 

[Aldebaran]

You're on a forum where some of its members don't have a pot to piss in and advertising the fact that you have your shoes tailor made

Kindly re-read your posts and see who was asking questions.

First of all, it isn't an uncommon thing to do. Secondly, wherever possible I prefer to avoid participation in the never-ending suffocation of small business and craftwork in favour of the Capitalist Consumer Cult.
If you have a problem with that I'm starting to doubt you ever sent one "old" PC to some place where it can still be at good use.

salaam.

 

[Aldebaran]

.../... They're not donated by kindly Western capitalists; those ones tend to end up in landfill, they're rarely shipped to Africa or wherever.

Sometimes private persons however gather and ship them to a destination where they know useful. The same happens with bycicles. I also know of a Catholic convent who organises shuch shipments privately. Inevitably all this comes across as drips on a hot plate but I think similar initiatives exist at many locations worldwide.

salaam.

 

[Dr_Herbz]

In case anyone is interested, Computer Aid International do a great job of recycling your puterz.

 

[kyser_soze]

therefore there was no way to consume your way to higher social status.

There isn't now either - even among the ultra-rich status that is bought only last's so long, and it takes nothing more than the error of getting caught for it to fall away - viz Conrad Black, for example. Other than for their celebrity 'pull', do you think that Wayne Rooney and Colleen would ever be accepted as 'upper class' by any real aristos?

Lacking a system of branding, luxury good also only represented what they themselves were, they didn't take part in a wider discourse of brand signification

So you don't think the work of individual craftsmen, who reputations were well known and requested wasn't branding? That in the C18th owning a Hugens telescope wouldn't have been bought to impress others. Just because no one had descontructed it to the extent we have today doesn't mean that it was there, in just the same way that coorporate sponsorship of the arts has always been there.