[sudo-discuss] Friday Filosophy - Ides of March '13: Planned Obsolescence

[Eddan Katz]

Date: March 15, 2013, 11:22:29 AM PDT
To: "kopimism at lists.sudoroom.org" <kopimism at lists.sudoroom.org>
Cc: sudo-discuss <sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org>
Subject: Friday Filosophy - Ides of March '13: Planned Obsolescence

To the Sudo Kopimist congregation -

This week for Friday Filosophy we will be having something from the Athenian Deli on Franklin off of Sudo Square. (http://www.atheniandeli.com/). Since last week's email got lost in the abyss of the mail server switch, I am also including last week's email as well below.

Following up on last week's discussion of manufacturing and consumer culture, we will be picking up the thread focusing on Planned Obsolescence. The excerpt below is from Giles Slade, Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America (2006) pgs. 23-24. http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0674022033. 

A bit of context for the quote - Slade describes the break-through in shifting cultural norms about disposable products with the popularity of sanitary napkins for women, in the inter-war period when women were exercising more control over family budgets. Slade digs up fascinating research on the explicit Anti-Thrift campaigns after World War I, when American advertisers linked together conspicuous consumption for social status and disposable products as patriotic support of the American economy.

> Anti-Thrift Campaigns
> 
> Encouraged by the repetitive consumption of disposable paper products for both men and women, paper manufacturers developed toilet paper, paper cups, paper towels, and paper straws (rendering rye stalks obsolete). Gradually, the popularity of disposable personal products, purchased and used in the name of hygiene and health, caused Americans to generalize their throwaway habits to other goods. This was a significant development in the history of product obsolesence. As a throwaway culture emerged, an ethic of durability, of thrift, of what the consumer historian Susan Strasser calls "the stewardship of objects," was slowly modified.  At first, people just threw their paper products into the fire. But as the disposable trend continued, it became culturally permissible to throw away objects that could not simply and conveniently be consumed by flames.


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Friday Filosophy 3/8: Stuxnet & the Problem of Evil 

Dear Sudo folk.

The spanakopita are just about ready to take out of the oven - ricotta & cheese (sorry, vegans). My daughter, Eva, will be coming today (home with a bit of a fever), but likely not participating in the discussion. She wants to be an epidemiologist, like her mom, and may chime in about viruses - which apparently kind of look like nasty little monsters and have crooked teeth.

We will be picking up the subject left off last time of the communicative value of executable virus software with a real-life example about which to ruminate. Stuxnet (see http://www.stuxnet.net/) will be the focus, with an emphasis on the implications for the techno-social role of programmers, and the future of cyberwarfare.


sent from eddan.com

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