Philosophy
As I wasted a perfectly good hour of vacation fixing the shorter of the short people's mechanical pencil -- a stocking stuffer he asked for and received -- Marx's notion of false needs came to mind, that is, the idea that in order to sell more stuff, the capitalists will have to convince the consumers that they need things they really don't need. If the consumer was the rational agent that classical capitalist theory assumes, then there would be markedly less activity in the marketplace.
Along these lines, there is absolutely no reason for the existence of the mechanical pencil. It is less convenient, less dependable, and more expensive than its traditional counterpart. It does nothing the regular pencil doesn't and does what it does less well. It is an example of technological regress where something new and cool is actually less effective than the thing it replaces. Yet, we think we need it because it looks shiny, new, and cool. It is not only unnecessary, it is anti-necessary.
What other products can you think of that are hailed as advances on its predecessors, yet are actually a step backwards in terms of utility? MicroSoft Word would be example number 2 from me (I suppose the pencil should have been number 2, but that's a different issue). Others?
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Is there an inherent worth to variety? Is it a response to the modern notion of boredom that doesn't come about until industrialization gives us leisure and people trying to sell us things to do with our leisure time? The word "bored" doesn't...
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This weekend, the short people had some very good questions. The taller of the short people asked whether doing a number of good acts made it ok to do a bad one, whether we save up ethics points that can be redeemed on something we know we shouldn't...
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Just read a wonderfulpiece by John Hardwig called "Epistemic Dependence" in which he argues that for most of our beliefs, it is rational to not think for ourselves. He considers cases in which we are not capable of understanding, muchless evaluating,...
- No 2...pencils--nicolas-jacques Conté
Nicolas-Jacques Conté August 4th, 1755 to December 6th, 1805 Nicolas-Jacques Conté was a "French inventor who devised a method of manufacturing pencil leads by mixing a finely powdered graphite with finely ground clay particles, baked, and used encased...
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The intricate relationship between technology [manifested in a variety of goods and services] and human dependency is one that eventually will be faced by all. The recent power grid failure in the northeastern section of the United States is a prime...
Philosophy
False Needs, Technological Regress, and the Mechanical Pencil
As I wasted a perfectly good hour of vacation fixing the shorter of the short people's mechanical pencil -- a stocking stuffer he asked for and received -- Marx's notion of false needs came to mind, that is, the idea that in order to sell more stuff, the capitalists will have to convince the consumers that they need things they really don't need. If the consumer was the rational agent that classical capitalist theory assumes, then there would be markedly less activity in the marketplace.
Along these lines, there is absolutely no reason for the existence of the mechanical pencil. It is less convenient, less dependable, and more expensive than its traditional counterpart. It does nothing the regular pencil doesn't and does what it does less well. It is an example of technological regress where something new and cool is actually less effective than the thing it replaces. Yet, we think we need it because it looks shiny, new, and cool. It is not only unnecessary, it is anti-necessary.
What other products can you think of that are hailed as advances on its predecessors, yet are actually a step backwards in terms of utility? MicroSoft Word would be example number 2 from me (I suppose the pencil should have been number 2, but that's a different issue). Others?
- Is Variety The Spice Of Life?
Is there an inherent worth to variety? Is it a response to the modern notion of boredom that doesn't come about until industrialization gives us leisure and people trying to sell us things to do with our leisure time? The word "bored" doesn't...
- Short Ethics Questions
This weekend, the short people had some very good questions. The taller of the short people asked whether doing a number of good acts made it ok to do a bad one, whether we save up ethics points that can be redeemed on something we know we shouldn't...
- Is It Ever More Reasonable To Not Think For Yourself?
Just read a wonderfulpiece by John Hardwig called "Epistemic Dependence" in which he argues that for most of our beliefs, it is rational to not think for ourselves. He considers cases in which we are not capable of understanding, muchless evaluating,...
- No 2...pencils--nicolas-jacques Conté
Nicolas-Jacques Conté August 4th, 1755 to December 6th, 1805 Nicolas-Jacques Conté was a "French inventor who devised a method of manufacturing pencil leads by mixing a finely powdered graphite with finely ground clay particles, baked, and used encased...
- Technology And Dependency
The intricate relationship between technology [manifested in a variety of goods and services] and human dependency is one that eventually will be faced by all. The recent power grid failure in the northeastern section of the United States is a prime...