Im my sweet summers there were basically no commercial laptops.
I was trying to say that that laptop isnt just 25 years old. It just seems odd to even put 25 there, where 40 is used for the other two.
I was going to mention that the laptop looks like a “tough-book” heavy duty type thing. The only reason it seems old is because of the video ports on the side. Military laptops for field use still look similar, admittedly a bit smaller
I actually went smaller with my newer one. i am 197cm tall and thus have lather large hands, still the phones were getting too big, went from One Plus Nord 5G to iphone 15 pro.
Wouldn’t knowledge about crumple zones and need for space for things like airbags, make cars bigger?
Not saying that is the main reason, but size reduction may not be a factor to focus on its own, right?
Nah, we still make compact cars similar in size with the same safety features to econoboxes from 40 years ago. Like houses, people want more room in their vehicles than they had with the smaller cars plus some other misinformed choices like thinking bigger and taller means safer.
Plus along with the older small cars we also had the giant boats that got single digit mpg. It wasn’t like they were all small in the past.
Here is the same thing I posted, but reworded slightly to be more clear.
We make some cars now with modern safety feature that are big and some that are just as small as the econoboxes from 40 years ago. A Honda Fit for example is just as small, but with modern safety features.
In 1984 the smallest Volkswagen was the Polo, weighing 685 kg. Now it is the Up, weighing 991 kg. That's 45% more weight. Now you specifically didn't mention weight, but all that weight has to go somewhere, especially considering most materials mostly got lighter.
No, vehicles have gotten larger because of the same problem as most of the issues in the United States: politics!
You see automobile manufacturers have to meet an average fuel economy across their entire fleet under the CAFE (Corporate average fuel economy) act of 1975. CAFE was a good idea as it forced the auto industry into actually improving on fuel economy year after year throughout their entire fleet or be met with steep fines for ever 0.1mpg off the target.
In 2011 CAFE was changed which directly caused the auto market we have today. See in 2011 the formula on how you’d calculate your fleet’s avarage MPG got changed to now factor in vehicle footprint as a variable which auto manufactures quickly caught on to mean the larger a vehicle is the smaller their entire fleet’s MPG has to be.
On top of that in 2012 “medium-duty trucks” was added as their own category with a lower MPG requirement meaning if your truck or SUV fell into that category then you would have a smaller MPG target for your entire fleet.
Now put yourself into the shoes of an early 2010s auto manufacture, would you rather design small and light vehicles that require you to meet a pretty high fuel economy level across your entire product range or would you inflate the size of your vehicles and move all R&D into finding ways to get your entire fleet classified as a medium-duty truck/SUV with a smaller MPG requirement? Of course you are going to take the latter.
The changes to CAFE in the 2010s killed small vehicles as we knew it. Ensured light duty trucks stayed dead domestically built or chicken tax be dammed. Caused the explosion of crossover SUVs to flood the market. All while making vehicles more dangerous and worse for the environment.
I am not from North America. I’m in India.
Here, the average car has generally increased in size a bit, but doesn’t seem to be going too big. There are larger cars and they are indeed increasing in number, but due to our mixed traffic and high traffic density it is not that popular.
What? Theywent from portable PC/phone to even more portable PC/phone. The same way they went from shit car for assholes to more shitty car for assholes.
Euh, no. Used to have a renault clio, which was a lot safer than a car from the 80’s like, lets say, a vw beetle. Lighter too, as back then cars were mostly made of steel, while its a combination of steel, aluminium and plastic now.
Same size of car too, so size doesnt matter either.
We make a 2 ton metal box, cruising at 70mph, and driven by basically anyone. The only way to do this while having a reasonable level of safety is to cram it full of features that make it heavy and expensive. This is fundamentally terrible.
People’s needs for transportation will never cease to exist and there will always be some people that will need individual transportation so even in a world where only those who need a vehicle have one, I think it’s only fair that they should be as safe as possible in it.
I find it quite convincing. I’m involved in activist groups with a lot of young people here in Northern Europe, and I see a lot of this “smash capitalism” attitude. And I think it’s very relatable, and in some places has real potential for changing things. But I wish to see it combined ever more often with concrete goals and plans in eroding and taming capitalism. And I think it is important to keep the rage there, in the spirit, not to become cynical and calculative and opportunist.
Building alternatives to capitalism is not just about eroding it, but also abut developing a working alternative to capitalism, which can be scaled up in case of a revolution. A lot of people just look at the bad parts of capitalism and forget that there are even worse options. Revolutions just change the balance between already existing forces in a country. So without a working alternative, they just end up looking like the old system with different branding. There are a lot of “socialist” countries like that in history.
The other part of it, is to increase the anti capitalist movements power. Basically people believe you, when they see that what you do is working for them. This article explains this fairly well.
Other then that we can implement degrowth ideas within a capitalist framework. EU emissions trading for example is massively neoliberal in its approach, but it is also a clear way of limiting environmental damage by limiting fossil fuel consumption. Also things like UBI are clearly possible, as most Nordic countries already have social welfare systems, which are more limited, but certainly have some similarities.
Y'all are no longer buying new stuff to take care of the environment. I'm not buying new stuff because everything costs an arm and a leg plus taxes. We're not quite the same I guess.
Just bought a secondhand ssd for my secondhand steam deck. I am now the proud owner of a 512 gb steam deck for sub 300. I love buying the shiny things covered in dust by others
first of all, the irony in this comment is incredible. Second of all, literally just start buying used shit first and foremost (it’s already out there, using it is better for the environment) and if you do buy something new, try and buy something that you know you can get a good lifetime out of.
have a proper sit down, and think about what you really need to keep going in life. Focus on that. I’m not saying you should drop every hobby you’ve ever had, but if you collect newly released shit, maybe pivot into finding older stuff that’s interesting to collect. If one of your hobbies has a consumable material/s maybe think about how you can better fill that gap. Perhaps try a different hobby every once in a while.
I’ve always enjoyed computer hardware, i recently got my hands on a few older thinkpad models. x20 series and an x50 series. Both used, both seen some shit in their day and age. Gave me a handful of usable laptops, most of the parts i bought for them were used. All of them are fantastic machines though.
E-Books are a thing, as are libraries, which allow you to borrow a book and return it. You also have the option of buying books second hand and then sell it again or give it away. That is really one of the key parts of degrowth. As soon as you share things, you need less things as a group. Hence the impact is much lower.
Besides a paperback book has a climate impact of 1kg of CO2. The average US American emits 4.6t per year just by driving their car. The impact of reading books is a complete joke against that and again no libraries, no second hand or anything else to reduce the impact.
Also books are really incredibly usefull resources. They are much better at actually explaining more complex ideas, then shorter articles.
So please do not just presume, somebody is going out to buy something. For the most part the big choices an individual can make on personal consumption are housing, transport and diet.
Oh that’s so true. I have looked through all the thrift stores in my surrounding and they all had really bad clothes for bad prices. When you can get a new top in a size that fits for 5€ at H&M it makes no sense to pay 12€ for an H&M shirt that has holes in it and doesn’t fit right just because it is from a thrift store.
I don’t buy clothes often, I have much more than enough from when I was a teen. But I think that when I do, in the future, I’ll just go straight to a normal store. I don’t see the sense in spending the time and energy if it isn’t worth it at all.
There’s also this thing now where “trendy” thrift stores go to regular thrift stores and pick them clean of anything worth buying, then they Jack up the price.
I look for thrift stores in or around proper rich neighborhoods. There’s one I go to that routinely has stuff from last year or that no one’s ever worn, tags and all.
I have never bought a car, I looked at prices for new cars last year and I was blown away. I didn’t know at the time that they were at an all time high
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