News:

Yes we're horrible toxic people, because this is 2020's Mental Illness Olympics, and the winners get a free pass on giving life-threatening advice with the bonus of having zero accountability for their shit behaviour.

Main Menu

How the West was lost.

Started by Adios, February 14, 2011, 04:30:20 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Adios



Western civilization Has over the last few decades become a world of consumerism. Once we were manufacturers, builders, innovators. Those days are all but gone now, we have become just consumers.

Think I'm being harsh? Think again.

I hear the youth of today prattle on about technology. Sure, it has helped make life easier. Maybe too easy. It is getting more difficult with every passing day to find someone who is willing to get dirty, who knows the nuts and bolts of how things work.

When I take my car in for service the mechanics wear those little doctors gloves. Can you believe that? Maybe I can see plumbers wearing some protection since we now have some rather spectacular diseases out there. But an auto mechanic?

Even games kids play today have predictable outcomes. Yes, I am talking about those video games so many are so addicted to. If the least desirable outcome happens, there is a reset button. This allows a second, third, etc chance of winning the game. This is not reality.

Reality doesn't have a reset button. What are they learning from this? There was a day when things like that didn't exist. Kids would be outside using their imagination.

A game involving a stick could turn into some kind of crazy invention that had a better than even chance of leaving a scar somewhere on your body. But we didn't quit, we would make it better.

We were thinking, inventing, doing. We had games like Erector sets, Lincoln Logs, things that required hands on participation and thought.

As the Boomer generation retires and dies off who will fill out shoes? Who will be willing to lay down on a dirty factory floor to keep the equipment running? Who will even know how to?

Real craftsmen are becoming more and more difficult to find. Sub-standard work is more readily accepted now. Why? Because this has to start at a time when one is young. What youth today would rather learn to make woodwork worthy of a gasp from its viewers when they have technology and games?

Who among us today would be willing and able to paint a ceiling so perfect that people would come from every corner of the world to see it and wonder at its glory?

The list goes on and on, but you get the idea. The West will finally be defeated, not by a great army at its borders, but by forgetting how to accomplish things.





The Good Reverend Roger

We've always been consumers, right from the very beginning...Capitalism can't function any other way.  The flaw has been revealed in that system, though, that if an interuption in the economy causes people to stop buying things they don't need, the whole system falls apart.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Adios

Once we were consuming what we made ourselves.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Charley Brown on February 14, 2011, 04:53:11 PM
Once we were consuming what we made ourselves.

Oh, sure.  And that's just the natural inclination of corporations.  If allowed to operate unchecked, they go for maximum profits, no matter what the actual cost.

Corporations exist solely to increase share values.  This is why they need to be regulated.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Captain Utopia

So.. if it had always been cheaper and feasible to outsource jobs and production, then this "we consumed what we made ourselves" golden age would never have existed?  That's kicking nostalgia in the teeth.


Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 14, 2011, 04:57:57 PM
Corporations exist solely to increase share values.  This is why they need to be regulated.

Such talk makes investors nervous.

I'm so nervous I'm going to crap my pants all over this italian leather upholstery.
Damn, then I'll have to buy a new jet.            
\                                                        

Cain

I'm not even sure what "the west" is.  Norman Davies has collected over 36 different definitions of that phrase, from history books and classes alone.  Nor am I especially sure why it matters.  Up until the 15th century, China and the great empires that rose up upon the Silk Road dominated the world in a way which would've made imperial Romans, let alone contemporary European powers, boggle.  In fact, up until at least the late 18th century, China's most economically developed region outstripped UK production massively, with many of the same technological innovations being used in both countries. 

And colonization, economic exploitation of the third world and technological advances were essentially built on the profits of consumption anyway.  The British didn't take over India because they thought it'd be a golly good wheez, they did it for cotton, opium and indigo dye.  Consumption leads innovation and technological advances - consumption alone cannot be blamed as a great evil, because without it, nothing much would be made in the first place.

And I'm entirely sure that tax-free offshore factories factor far more into this arragement than any arguments about "western" laziness.  Investors and companies go where the best profits are offered, and these tends to be countries where you can get your hand cut off for trying to join a union or ask your boss for a raise.

Adios

Quote from: Captain Utopia on February 14, 2011, 05:08:42 PM
So.. if it had always been cheaper and feasible to outsource jobs and production, then this "we consumed what we made ourselves" golden age would never have existed?  That's kicking nostalgia in the teeth.


Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on February 14, 2011, 04:57:57 PM
Corporations exist solely to increase share values.  This is why they need to be regulated.

Such talk makes investors nervous.

I'm so nervous I'm going to crap my pants all over this italian leather upholstery.
Damn, then I'll have to buy a new jet.            
\                                                        

Kind of missing the boat here. Once Americans was a blue collar nation. Everyone wanted to work. The economy was so different that no comparison can be made. There wasn't really any place to outsource jobs to. Then workers saw huge company profits and wanted some of it. Things went to hell.

Cain

There wasn't anywhere to outsource jobs to because Europe and Japan had been devastated in the course of the second world war, the Soviets weren't letting investors into their zone of influence and the third world was ablaze with revolutionary movements - either Communist or antiCommunist in orientation and both just as willing to seize some idiot foreigner's factory on a flimsy pretext.

Once things became more stable, outsourcing began.

Adios

Quote from: Cain on February 14, 2011, 05:11:20 PM
I'm not even sure what "the west" is.  Norman Davies has collected over 36 different definitions of that phrase, from history books and classes alone.  Nor am I especially sure why it matters.  Up until the 15th century, China and the great empires that rose up upon the Silk Road dominated the world in a way which would've made imperial Romans, let alone contemporary European powers, boggle.  In fact, up until at least the late 18th century, China's most economically developed region outstripped UK production massively, with many of the same technological innovations being used in both countries. 

And colonization, economic exploitation of the third world and technological advances were essentially built on the profits of consumption anyway.  The British didn't take over India because they thought it'd be a golly good wheez, they did it for cotton, opium and indigo dye.  Consumption leads innovation and technological advances - consumption alone cannot be blamed as a great evil, because without it, nothing much would be made in the first place.

And I'm entirely sure that tax-free offshore factories factor far more into this arragement than any arguments about "western" laziness.  Investors and companies go where the best profits are offered, and these tends to be countries where you can get your hand cut off for trying to join a union or ask your boss for a raise.

America, Great Britain, etc did move towards protecting workers from slave-like and horrible working conditions. This certainly drove up the costs for manufacturers. EPA laws was a big factor in driving up costs.

Developing countries are going to be very lax on all of these things, just to try to get out of poverty. This allows companies to earn untold amounts of money, making shareholders happy.

This is why I personally would love to see extremely high taxes on companies that are outsourcing jobs, that is the only way to level the playing field. Instead they are stepping through giant tax loopholes.

Jenne

...I'm pretty sure I still suscribe to the idea that it's better for the world in general for people in places like India and Mexico to improve their lot in life.  That, of course, is going to result in loss of luxury elsewhere.  And when I say "luxury" I mean goods and services that a lot of 1st worlders take for granted.

Just uh take a look at Africa and Afghanistan and you'll know what I mean.  Despotism and extreme poverty go hand in hand.  Guess who "fixes that shit" and guess who still ends up feeding that monster in the end?

Adios

Quote from: Jenne on February 15, 2011, 06:57:45 PM
...I'm pretty sure I still suscribe to the idea that it's better for the world in general for people in places like India and Mexico to improve their lot in life.  That, of course, is going to result in loss of luxury elsewhere.  And when I say "luxury" I mean goods and services that a lot of 1st worlders take for granted.

Just uh take a look at Africa and Afghanistan and you'll know what I mean.  Despotism and extreme poverty go hand in hand.  Guess who "fixes that shit" and guess who still ends up feeding that monster in the end?

I think I hope I don't understand what you are saying.

Jenne

You probably do.  I don't think we have to "worry" about the preservation of the GREAT, GRAND WESTERN CIVILIZATION.  I'm not sure we were really ever so very great and grand, in the scheme of things.  We were LUCKY.  Lucky fuckers. 

With that in mind, in a global view, it makes more sense to foster increased wealth, health and education in places that are vulnerable to despotism.  They'll less likely be apt to follow that path, whether we're "helping" instigate it or not.  I don't think it's anything to worry about if our wealth as a nation suffers a small bit in this endeavor.  I'm not talking about making the rich richer and the poor poorer in America.

But I'm not going to begrudge CALL CENTER jobs to India over it, either.  We disagree in this as we do about illegal labor, Hawk.  I'm not anti-illegal labor here.  At all.  *shrug*

Adios

Quote from: Jenne on February 15, 2011, 08:33:46 PM
You probably do.  I don't think we have to "worry" about the preservation of the GREAT, GRAND WESTERN CIVILIZATION.  I'm not sure we were really ever so very great and grand, in the scheme of things.  We were LUCKY.  Lucky fuckers. 

With that in mind, in a global view, it makes more sense to foster increased wealth, health and education in places that are vulnerable to despotism.  They'll less likely be apt to follow that path, whether we're "helping" instigate it or not.  I don't think it's anything to worry about if our wealth as a nation suffers a small bit in this endeavor.  I'm not talking about making the rich richer and the poor poorer in America.

But I'm not going to begrudge CALL CENTER jobs to India over it, either.  We disagree in this as we do about illegal labor, Hawk.  I'm not anti-illegal labor here.  At all.  *shrug*

Wow.

So in the interest of making those countries more immune to their fate, America needs to suffer to pay for our past success?
Lucky? Really? People worked their asses off for that 'luck'. I don't give a fuck if Afghanistan has a dictator, what's new about that? It's not just call center jobs leaving the country either.

The rich? I don't care about them. I care about the family who is loosing their home because their job is no longer here. About those kids who are are homeless now.

Charity begins at home.

East Coast Hustle

As callous as it sounds, though, Jenne is right about several things.

The "Guarantee of American Primacy" is a fallacy of the worst order. Socieities and civilizations are never static entities, and neither is trade or global economics. The outsourcing of production from wealthier high-wage countries to poorer low-wage countries was inevitable. Nostalgic talk of a time when american blue-collar workers could make a wage that would support a family is nice and all, but it's talk of a tiny window in time set during very particular circumstances. And nobody wants to think about the fact that, in the end, such talk brought to fruition would result in $20 disposable razors, $5000 laptops, and $65,000 compact cars.

If your wages suddenly double, but your cost of living more than doubles, who's coming out ahead?

And at what cost do we protect those unable to adapt to ever-changing economic conditions?
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

Adios

Quote from: Rip City Hustle on February 15, 2011, 09:16:32 PM
As callous as it sounds, though, Jenne is right about several things.

The "Guarantee of American Primacy" is a fallacy of the worst order. Socieities and civilizations are never static entities, and neither is trade or global economics. The outsourcing of production from wealthier high-wage countries to poorer low-wage countries was inevitable. Nostalgic talk of a time when american blue-collar workers could make a wage that would support a family is nice and all, but it's talk of a tiny window in time set during very particular circumstances. And nobody wants to think about the fact that, in the end, such talk brought to fruition would result in $20 disposable razors, $5000 laptops, and $65,000 compact cars.

If your wages suddenly double, but your cost of living more than doubles, who's coming out ahead?

And at what cost do we protect those unable to adapt to ever-changing economic conditions?

At the cost of not bringing back sweatshops, slave-like conditions and destroying the environment. Or is that not happening in the countries the companies are moving into?