Oooh, an opportunity for a little bit longer of an article, don’t mind if I do.
I think it’s interesting to what extent people miss reasonable things about the past, but also, don’t really understand why things have changed and moved in the direction that they’ve moved in. They just kind of lament the slow death of the past, and that’s about it. There’s no through-line, it’s just a series of disconnected events.
Like, the affordability and popularity of the middle class in yesteryear. Sure, this was partially due to latent new deal economic reforms, that were slowly stripped back in the years after, that’s true. But it was also due to a larger managerial class needing to exist, for capitalists, due to a lack of automation. We also can’t really minimize the amount and scale of exploitation that was still going on back then, even to a larger extent than today. Banana republics existed back then, just as they still are kicking around today.
Partially, right, these new deal regulations have been stripped back, that’s true. Partially the middle class has suffered from automation, which has extricated them from their labor, alienating them further, and shrinking their labor pool (programmers are the new managerial class, my man). Partially, it is the case that we are engaging in slightly smaller, or less direct, forms of interventionism.
So there are more reasons why the middle class has shrunk, and some of those, I would say, are kind of good things, some of those are progressions. It’s not to say that things always have to get worse, for them to be, like, equitable, right, which is what I think people are prone to believing in a cynical, idiotic, immoral kind of way. We just don’t walk in a straight line. Humanity walks the path of a total blackout drunk with two bum legs. It’s fits and starts, and there’s tons of piss.
I see this shit on tiktok all the time, where stupid retro flippers take, like, a fridge from the 60’s, and convince everyone it’s the bees knees and the cat’s pajamas so they can sell it to some rich freak for 4,000 bucks. I think, maybe, sure, average build quality is going to be higher than it is in the present, right. But we’re also experiencing survivors’ bias, so the higher quality stuff lasted longer, and we’re experiencing a decrease in value over time with those older products naturally, so you’re going to be able to get a higher quality thing, for maybe cheaper.
Especially if it’s mostly a “solved problem”, like a fridge. Which isn’t even to say that older fridges are solved problems, really. They’re going to have worse thermal coefficients from running all the time, having shitty thermometers, having shittier insulation. It is seen as higher quality because the evaluation of the product is done on almost a purely aesthetic value, rather than in any practical sense. Nobody really needs a fridge that’s capable of holding up to an atomic bomb. That’s a sense of quality that is totally external to the actual practicality of the product itself. It’s an aesthetic tactility.
We’re also going to be seeing shittier products as a result of a shrinking middle class, who’s no longer able to spend as much money on these sorts of luxuries. I dunno how many cool kickstarter gadget projects I’ve seen, that have to kind of, warp themselves in order to be bought up by techbro sensibilities, or else die. To the point where the original project intention often ends up suffering or being in some way misaligned with reality, and the project as a whole becomes shitty. But that’s also maybe just a point you could make about capitalism and society kind of, as a whole.
I dunno. I struggle with it, because I like old cars, they’re very cool. If you’re looking at it right, you can get 50-60 mpg, you can get something that has all your little simple tactile buttons, is easy to work on, and you can get that all for about 10,000+ dollars cheaper than your newer hybrid piece of shit. Which isn’t really something you can buy for cheaper used, since the batteries tend to start crapping out on you after the second owner, you gotta get more lucky to get those for cheap. But then we’re also in a weird transitional period for the used market so ehhhhh. At the same time, a super old car is gonna have worse safety standards, potentially worse reliability and drivability as a daily car. It’s going to have no features. Is it worse, or better? I dunno, it’s just kinda different. Really, I just want a higher quality honda civic vx. Maybe a little smaller, though.
I dunno, in summary. I think uhhh. Every present reality kinda sucks, probably. I will say also, as an addendum, that I think the past exists within the rose-colored stranglehold of the present. These simplified versions of the past that exist only in the mind, that exist apart from the present, with no chain of causality, that is a construct. It is unnatural, and it serves a purpose.
Oooh, an opportunity for a little bit longer of an article, don’t mind if I do.
I think it’s interesting to what extent people miss reasonable things about the past, but also, don’t really understand why things have changed and moved in the direction that they’ve moved in. They just kind of lament the slow death of the past, and that’s about it. There’s no through-line, it’s just a series of disconnected events.
Like, the affordability and popularity of the middle class in yesteryear. Sure, this was partially due to latent new deal economic reforms, that were slowly stripped back in the years after, that’s true. But it was also due to a larger managerial class needing to exist, for capitalists, due to a lack of automation. We also can’t really minimize the amount and scale of exploitation that was still going on back then, even to a larger extent than today. Banana republics existed back then, just as they still are kicking around today.
Partially, right, these new deal regulations have been stripped back, that’s true. Partially the middle class has suffered from automation, which has extricated them from their labor, alienating them further, and shrinking their labor pool (programmers are the new managerial class, my man). Partially, it is the case that we are engaging in slightly smaller, or less direct, forms of interventionism.
So there are more reasons why the middle class has shrunk, and some of those, I would say, are kind of good things, some of those are progressions. It’s not to say that things always have to get worse, for them to be, like, equitable, right, which is what I think people are prone to believing in a cynical, idiotic, immoral kind of way. We just don’t walk in a straight line. Humanity walks the path of a total blackout drunk with two bum legs. It’s fits and starts, and there’s tons of piss.
I see this shit on tiktok all the time, where stupid retro flippers take, like, a fridge from the 60’s, and convince everyone it’s the bees knees and the cat’s pajamas so they can sell it to some rich freak for 4,000 bucks. I think, maybe, sure, average build quality is going to be higher than it is in the present, right. But we’re also experiencing survivors’ bias, so the higher quality stuff lasted longer, and we’re experiencing a decrease in value over time with those older products naturally, so you’re going to be able to get a higher quality thing, for maybe cheaper.
Especially if it’s mostly a “solved problem”, like a fridge. Which isn’t even to say that older fridges are solved problems, really. They’re going to have worse thermal coefficients from running all the time, having shitty thermometers, having shittier insulation. It is seen as higher quality because the evaluation of the product is done on almost a purely aesthetic value, rather than in any practical sense. Nobody really needs a fridge that’s capable of holding up to an atomic bomb. That’s a sense of quality that is totally external to the actual practicality of the product itself. It’s an aesthetic tactility.
We’re also going to be seeing shittier products as a result of a shrinking middle class, who’s no longer able to spend as much money on these sorts of luxuries. I dunno how many cool kickstarter gadget projects I’ve seen, that have to kind of, warp themselves in order to be bought up by techbro sensibilities, or else die. To the point where the original project intention often ends up suffering or being in some way misaligned with reality, and the project as a whole becomes shitty. But that’s also maybe just a point you could make about capitalism and society kind of, as a whole.
I dunno. I struggle with it, because I like old cars, they’re very cool. If you’re looking at it right, you can get 50-60 mpg, you can get something that has all your little simple tactile buttons, is easy to work on, and you can get that all for about 10,000+ dollars cheaper than your newer hybrid piece of shit. Which isn’t really something you can buy for cheaper used, since the batteries tend to start crapping out on you after the second owner, you gotta get more lucky to get those for cheap. But then we’re also in a weird transitional period for the used market so ehhhhh. At the same time, a super old car is gonna have worse safety standards, potentially worse reliability and drivability as a daily car. It’s going to have no features. Is it worse, or better? I dunno, it’s just kinda different. Really, I just want a higher quality honda civic vx. Maybe a little smaller, though.
I dunno, in summary. I think uhhh. Every present reality kinda sucks, probably. I will say also, as an addendum, that I think the past exists within the rose-colored stranglehold of the present. These simplified versions of the past that exist only in the mind, that exist apart from the present, with no chain of causality, that is a construct. It is unnatural, and it serves a purpose.