Obsolesence information

Hello friends,

I am telling you about obsolesence.

Reader & wants to know about why come they stop making the lightbulbs they like

Basically first off you've got a thing, right? Let's say it is a green cube that when it is hit by sunlight, over the course of about 30 minutes, grows a hamburger sandwich with all the fixings inside of it. That's pretty good! With a little bit of planning this cube could make your life quite convenient and pleasing, it would certainly reduce your quarterly bill from the Hamburger Woman. But now you've owned the cube for three years and they've come out with a new pink cube that also grows a side order of crispy french fried potatoes, and does the whole meal in only 15 minutes. This renders the green cube obsolete!

So obsolescence is pretty much when there is a clearly better version of a thing? SORT OF! There's two versions, Obsolesence and Planned Obsolesence. With Obsolesence Classic the green cube is invented and that's so good and if somebody invents another cube later well that's fine but for now we've got the green cube. With Planned Obsolesence they build the green cube kind of crappy so it only lasts for about a year or two by which time they intend to release the pink cube, with the orange cube that also makes a soda quick on it's heels. Planned Obsolesence is preferred by the Bastards of Reality because you pay more money more often while being under the impression something cool is happening. I'm sure someone could make an argument for why planned obsolescence is really cool but theres almost no chance they don't give off a vibe like they know a lot about the differences in age of consent laws country by country? So probably it's bad.

Now this email was requested specifically to find out about why come they don't have the lightbulbs that reader & likes at the store, which are the ones that get really hot and have the burning thingy in them. Basically what happened there is that they invented new lightbulbs that don't get as hot and last much, much longer and use a lot less electricity. Aside from people who got Vinyl Opinions about lightbulbs everybody wanted that more once it became available so even though the now obsolete incandescent light bulbs are still being made you can't really get em at Walgreens. You gotta go to a special lightbulb website and even that one might not have the exact right one as I found out at Christmas time. This is how it is with a lot of obsolete things is that even though they are no longer a main thing there's still people who love them and kiss them and want them around so they make some of them, but also now that it's like that they know they've got your ass so you might wind up having to pay great Sums so that you can have an old ass blender or whatever it is.

Now here is a sticky wicket!!!!! Planned obsolescence, we just talked about her right? Now in the example of lightbulbs it made sense to switch over to the different ones because you can put those in a lamp and then not think about lightbulbs for five to ten years, anybody can see how that's a good deal. But historical machines were often built with the intention that you were buying that thing and then you simply Had it instead of making it so it breaks after a while and you buy a new one that uses the teen suicide machine to chirp out a robot voice that says "Wow! It Seems Like You're Trying To Make Salsa - And Only You Can Do That, Because Other People Are Pretend. They Don't Feel Pain The Way You Do!" which is both weird and irrelevant because you're making pesto. Meanwhile tons of people have washing machines from the 80s that work totally good and don't send their Stain Data to some Computer Valley creepazoid. So lots of people as I understand it are trying to thrift or otherwise obtain machines like this that just need parts and regular maintenance to work even though they are Meant to be obsolete. So obsolescence is sometimes False and not something you need to adhere to.

But there is a sticky wicket HERE too?! Goddamnit! The thing is that sometimes people will internalize the above about stuff that is Truly obsolete, like medical treatments from back when leading scientists thought if you left meat out it just turned into maggots of its own accord or heaters that are made mostly of lead and asbestos and emit a sort of Instant Cancer Gas when turned on. They will say that because they Drank From Hose and walked away unharmed the pursuit of new notions and use of new fangled contraptions is a callous abandonment of the Old Ways, which are Best. The beauty part of this scam is all the little kids who died of polio or hose water based giardia or cars with no seatbelts in them can't really pipe up about how much they would have appreciated these new ways and contraptions because they're just tiny little skeletons.

So how do you know if something is obsolete or not?! Why am I making everything so complicated?! It is an unfortunate addiction to considering All Possible Information but I think I can boil down how to figure out if something is obsolete:

1. Was the reason that this thing came to be considered obsolete that someone invented something that worked better or that they invented something worse you could buy more often?

2. Does it work in the way you want it to/could it work in the way you want it to with regular maintenance?

3. Is it possible to have maintenance performed without having to redevelop an entire set of skills lost to history from scratch?

4. Is the additional effort of doing something this way truly enjoyable to you?

5. Was a factor in it's coming to be considered obsolete that loads of people died from using it?

6. If you use it now will it be harmful to yourself or others even though you, personally, think it is neat?

7. Was it at any point the dream of untold millions for the idea or object in question to be considered obsolete?

Now if you have determined that the thing you are using is obsolete BUT the answers to the Harm Questions all land it in a category of Gentle Obsolesence and you still wanna use that thing, go ahead! If using a harmlessly junky machine or choosing to believe that moon and sun are enemies who fight every day for control of the sky makes you happy go ahead and do it, just don't be pissed when other people don't wanna do your special thing.

Thank you for reading my big Obsolesence email! If you would like to find out about something, tell me and I will try to already know about it.

Love,

Ryland Duncan