(h) TROM - 2.10 Consumption and poor quality

http://tromsite.com - Full documentary, very well organized (download, youtube stream, subtitles, credits, share, get involved, and many more)

Documentary´s description :
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TROM (The Reality of Me) represents the biggest documentary ever created, it is also the only one that tries to analyse everything : from science to the monetary system as well as real solutions to improve everyone's life.

A new and ´real´ way to see the world.

"Before the Big-Bang, till present, and beyond."
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[Consumption and poor quality]

Consumption is vital for the monetary system

because if consumers didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be any sellers.

Without sellers and consumers,

manufacturers have no reason to produce anything.

In the monetary system, people need to consume,

from food to services and comfort.

If manufacturing was automated

it would create abundance

and along with it remove the need for prices.

Without a price tag, goods would be of the highest quality.

If everything is good quality, sellers wouldn’t have a purpose.

That would lead to the end of cyclical consumption

and the end of monetary system.

That's why in order to maintain cyclical consumption

they have limited automation

and produce poor quality goods through planned obsolescence.

Many foods, few nutrients, many mobile phones, mostly of poor quality.

No wonder that your computer or your phone

will become obsolete within months of their market release.

Think of how many cars are produced for consumption.

Cities are already overcrowded by cars.

And think that a 2 ton car

transports a 70 kilo passenger most of the time.

Dangerous to humans and the environment.

Or think about how many electronics are thrown away

every day as they go out of style.

What a waste of materials and human labour.

1. The need for cyclical consumption.

The roles of people in the monetary system

are basically broken into three distinctions.

The Employee, the Employer and the Consumer.

The employee performs tasks for the employer

in exchange for a wage or a monetary payment,

while the employer sells a good or service to the consumer

for a profit, another classification to monetary payment.

In term both the employer and the employee function as consumers

for the monetary payment they obtain

are used to purchase goods and services relevant to their survival.

This act of purchasing goods and services

is what allows the entire system to perpetuate,

thus allowing for the employer and the employee to make money

and thus continue consuming.

In other words this is the requirement of perpetual

or cyclical consumption that keeps the entire economy going.

If consumption where ever to stop the whole would collapse.

This produces two severe consequences for society.

1 Nothing physically produced

can ever maintain a lifespan longer than what can be endured

in order to maintain the needed `cyclical consumption`.

In other words

everything must breakdown in a respective amount of time in order to continue

the financial circulation needed to power the economy.

This characteristic could be defined as `Planned Obsolescence`.

Planned obsolescence is essentially the deliberate withholding of efficiency

so the product in question breaks down respectively fast.

This happens both intentionally

with manufacturers timing their products for breakdown

often as soon as the warranty runs out,

and indirectly, where profit based shortcuts taken in production,

usually in the form of cheap materials and poor design,

translate into an inferior product immediately

with the failure of the product simply a matter of time.

The second consequence is that new products and services

must be constantly introduced

regardless of functional utility

generating endless waste.

The result of these two issues are nothing but unacceptable.

For not only are resources being neglectfully used in products

that are design not to last, wasting human energy and materials,

the amount of frivolous waste and pollution that results is staggering.

In other words, waste is a deliberate byproduct of industries' need

to keep `cyclical consumption` going.

The obsolete or expired product is trashed

often to landfills, polluting the environment

while the constant multiplicity accelerates this pollution.

To express this from a different angle

imagine the economic ramification of production methods that strategically

maximize the efficiency and sustainability of every product

using the best known materials and technics available at the time.

Imagine products so well designed

that they didnt need maintenance for say, a hundred years.

Imagine a house that was build from fireproof materials

for all appliances, electrical operations, plumbing and alike

were made from the most impermeable

highest integrity resources available on earth.

In such an saner world where we actually created things to last,

minimizing pollution and waste,

a monetary system would be impossible,

for cyclical consumption would slow tremendously.

Forever weakening so-called economic growth.

All manufacturers have contempt for you.

To sell you the toothpaste...

the products that they sell you are deliberately,

deliberately designed to wear out, break down,

so you have to continually service those things.

You notice that your telephone is pretty reliable?

-Yeah the instrument, the phone, that stays forever. -You bet.

If the automobile companies had to maintain their cars,

it would be a forever... -The phone company has to maintain the phone.

-You bet! -That's why it's good. -That's why your units hold up.

-I never thought of that. -Right on, most people haven't.

-You know operators can be bad, they can be bad, but the phone itself

-It's the same for your TV sets by the way.

-You mean if RCA, if everybody had to maintain their own...

-You bet. They'd all be ...

They'd all be automatic systems which you pull out

shove in a replacement unit.

If your engine breaks down, they pull out the engine,

shove in a courtesy engine, and you take off.

Why hold up the the whole car when you need a battery job?

If you did that in the Army Air Force, you couldn't operate at all.

Your society is really comprised of very stupid men.

You live in an insane culture where we duplicate things, it's like

having a television station in every home or every apartment building.

[ Alternative Solutions ]

Textile technology,

programmable materials,

nanotechnology,

biotechnology,

those technologies, along with automation

can create sustainability and would also replace labour.

The monetary system creates these situations.

In order to progress and to get rid of these situations,

we have to get rid of the monetary system.

Well, the decision making system now is mainly based upon

different industries which feel that they have a good product

so they advertise and convince people to buy that product.

Whereas in the future, in a saner system

we would design products

not to wear out and break down, to last as long as possible

so that the responsibility of the service sector

would not be overloaded.

The longer materials last

the less burdensome to society.

Therefore, our major concern is not profit,

it's the well-being of human beings throughout the world.

To the degree that we neglect people, we hurt our own future.

In essence, to me, all of the marvels of science and technology,

all the electronics and the mechanical wonders

are just so many millions of tons of junk

unless it enhances the lives of men.

It's sad, knowing

that human beings are able to understand their existence,

but are merely consumers in our system.

As for the bad quality of products...

food is threatening people’s lives

and our well being is the most important thing for us

and for the evolution of humankind.

It’s about time we realize this.

Technology should be an extension of our lives,

the best possible tools,

otherwise what's its purpose?

Knowing what technology is capable of

such a situation is inexcusable.