On Disposable Society

America.

For 60 years, we have been number 1.
The most powerful nation in the world.
The most influential country.
We invented modern society.

Boy, did we screw up.


You hear it talked about all over the place... we have entered a period hallmarked in part by "disposable" things. It started with little things.
The original?
Probably Gillette razors.
I think i've written about them before, but, King C. Gillette followed the business philosophy that a successful product is one that is purchased over and over again.
We buy a razor, and we buy new blades every few months.
We throw the old ones away.
Light bulbs are another great example.
We buy a light bulb, it stays lit for ~500 hours of use, and then we toss it.
The World's supply of Tungsten is dwindling... because we use light bulbs.

You can buy a brand new Hyundai Accent for $10,775.
At that price, you can use it for 6 years, and when it starts to fall apart, you can junk it for a new one. Disposable Cars.

Computers... another excellent example.
People buy computers (laptop in particular) and say, "woah mang, this thing is sooo fast!!"
Then apple rolls out the next iMac in a month, and the first thing you do is start complaining about how slow your computer is.
So you get a new one, and junk/ebay the old one.

We live in disposable society.

TV repair men are hardly ever seen anymore.
We don't pay people to fix our TVs. It's cheaper to just buy a new one.
And that's the thing.

IT'S CHEAPER TO BUY A NEW ONE THAN TO KEEP THE OLD ONE.

is there something wrong with this?
i think so.

There is a dual element to this phenomenon.
The first part is the money.
But there's the second part.

SAT scores are curved in such a way so that 500 always falls on the average score.
The College Board actually slides grades up so that the average will be 500.
Over the years, average scores have technically gone down.
What does that mean?
Americans are getting dumber.

In the same ammount of time, our obsession with media, entertainment, and networking has skyrocketed.
We don't spend a lot of time learning how our world works anymore.
We spend our time fussing over things that are completely meaningless.
The result?
BestBuy can get away with charging $160 to put a wireless router in your house.
Auto shops charge $101 per HOUR to work on your car.
It is more expensive to get your TV fixed then to buy a new one. (already mentioned)

What does it come down to?
We're so lazy, we'd rather pay someone to do something, than do it ourselves.
We're so cheap, we'd rather rope off hundreds of acres of land to dump our crap in, then bother to make re-usable products.

What does it come down to?
One word: Mindset.

We have this "slouchy" mindset.
We complain that american companies outsource all the labor... but people in India and the Philippines are willing to do more work for less pay.
If americans were willing to do more work for less pay, there wouldn't be outsourcing.
And if business owners weren't greedy, or if consumers didn't demand lower prices, there wouldn't be a reason to in the first place.
It's because of our lazy, slouchy, pass-the-buck mindset and attitude towards work.

There are people who sit on the couch all day, in their mom's house, complaining about not having a job.

HELLO!!
if you want a job, GET ONE.
go outside and DO SOMETHING.
We are americans.
We have more freedom than any people in history.
We can do anything we want.
Anyone can get rich, you just have to be willing to figure out how.
But we'd rather sit on our couch and complain about how bad the world is.
It's disgusting.

One plea:
Fix It.

Stop spending all your time on myspace.
Don't watch TV for 4 hours a day.
Get a job.
Grow in faith.
Get into ministry.
Set yourself into motion so you're not standing around doing nothing.
Go to uturn.