The gift of death?

[Miss Creant Commander of the picklement and baking BAb(Hons)]

A very interesting, thought provoking and saddening read IMO.



There’s nothing they need, nothing they don’t own already, nothing they even want. So you buy them a solar-powered waving queen; a belly button brush; a silver-plated ice cream tub holder; a “hilarious” inflatable zimmer frame; a confection of plastic and electronics called Terry the Swearing Turtle; or – and somehow I find this significant – a Scratch Off World wall map.

Researching her film The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard discovered that of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale(1). Even the goods we might have expected to hold onto are soon condemned to destruction through either planned obsolescence (breaking quickly) or perceived obsolesence (becoming unfashionable).


http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/

[GROWLER]

Well that's just about finished me off for the day reading that.

Think I'll go and top meself now with a solid platinum sword.

[Miss Creant Commander of the picklement and baking BAb(Hons)]

Well that's just about finished me off for the day reading that.

Think I'll go and top meself now with a solid platinum sword.

  Diamond encrusted I trust.

[Barman]

Doesn't George Monbiot support covering the country in wind farms...?

Or is that a different Monbiot...?

If it is the same then he is somewhat of a big fat hypocrite, supporting the destruction of the countryside and environmental pollution in China that results from them...   

[Barman]

There is a nice discussion about this here...

Utility isn’t what you think is useful. It’s what other people think is. And you don’t get to impose your idea of what utility is on other people.

And my favourite comment from the thread...

I’m an atheist, I don’t drink and I love Christmas. If I hear one more denunciation of the over-commercialisation of Christmas from some dour, plodding fucker like Mongbiot I am going to give them both barrels. The truly sad thing is he trots this shite out as if it were an original observation. Can anyone – anyone – no matter how long in the tooth remember a time when some grey little ponce wasn’t waffling on about ‘the true meaning of Christmas’? It used to be be reserved to dismal old tosspots who thought it was all about Jeebus, but now that sort of pontificating has fallen out of fashion* it’s the secular priests who get to wax all disapprovingly about over-consumption.

* along with Pontifex himself.