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Fixers Know What 'Repairable' Means—Now There's A Standard For It - Ifixit:
[Earlier this year], three years of arguing with industry finally paid off, as the European standard EN45554 was published. This official document with an unexciting name details "general methods for the assessment of the ability to repair, reuse and upgrade energy-related products." In plain English, it's a standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff. It's also a huge milestone for the fight for fair repair.
We want to repair the stuff we own, so we can use it for longer. This is not only important because we want our money's worth out of the things we paid for, but because manufacturing new products is a huge and underestimated driver of climate change. So if we want to avoid cooking our planet, we need to stop churning out disposable electronics and start repairing more. Like, right now.
The problem is, industry won't do this by itself. Managers get ahead by showing quarterly sales growth, not increased product lifespans. Hence we need the government to step in, banning unrepairable products and helping consumers—that's you!—to identify the most durable products out there, so as to empower them to make better purchasing decisions. And in the EU, our political leaders are getting ready to do so.
But here's the rub: those leaders don't know what a repairable product is. If you ask manufacturers, they will all tell you their products are repairable. If you ask us, some devices clearly are more repairable than others, and some are frankly just not repairable at all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 07 2020, @04:09AM (7 children)
You only perceive it as a problem because it is something you want. It wouldn't have come to this if a lot of people agreed with you. But like a lot of rights, you can voluntarily waive them and most of the world chose to do so. I see nothing that needs fixing.
And I certainly don't see anything that needs the gentle steel gauntlet of government force to regulate and control. Much less some dumbass effort to define repairability of products eventually for the purpose of said control.
I see it a lot like censorship in privately owned public forums. The owners have a great deal of control over what they allow. Rather than trying to use government to force them to allow what you think they should allow, it's better to look at existing tools. Forum owners and manufacturers still aren't allowed to commit fraud or make promises that they don't deliver on, for an important example. They also can be manipulated via boycotts, bad press, etc.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday July 08 2020, @06:16AM (6 children)
Again with time. You don't seem to see trends. You seem to look at everything as a freeze-frame. I coined the term "snapshot thinking". Not sure your background but in engineering and science we have to learn a lot about analyzing things that change over time, so maybe I'm more keen to it.
The point is: there's a growing number of people who do agree that the situation has gotten out of hand. Governments (which are largely supposed to work for the people) have allowed manufacturers a lot of latitude in this whole topic, and corporations have done exactly what I would have predicted: pushed and pushed and pushed because greed. Study economic history. Study the industrial revolution, robber barons, carpet baggers, monopolies, how Carnegie treated his workers, etc.
Again, point is: corporations went too far, pissed too many people off, and govt. finally took notice and action.
(for the record, I advocate for a much finer-grained corrective system, rather than waiting waiting waiting then "steel gauntlet" boom.)
Again, you're very oppositional / contrarian. Maybe state what you think should be done.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday July 08 2020, @11:42AM (5 children)
Well, why aren't you pushing back?
And yet, here we are with a vastly different world despite that government action. Those interests above weren't and still aren't the only ones in the world. What's missing from your analysis is that power shifted to labor during that period. It's that power, not government action, that resulted in the trends during this period. Similarly, when developed world labor had to compete with developing world labor, there was a modest shift back towards the employer - often despite consider shifts in government policy to favor labor! One doesn't need to invoke greed cooties to explain this, but rather basic economics.
One reason I'm not too concerned about all this is that it's temporary. We've already seen a half century trend towards greater demand for labor world-wide. The shift in power is moving back towards labor because the world isn't that big a place. We're already running low on dirt cheap labor. My take is that in a few decades, those trends will have shifted substantially towards labor again, and government's feeble actions will no doubt be blamed for it, if only to excuse future abuses of power.
Here. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 09 2020, @04:05PM (4 children)
Hey, I'm not forgetting nor ignoring you. You're someone I'd love to meet and talk in person. You've got great insight. Right now I'm in scramble mode- too much to explain but I just literally don't have time nor spare brain cells to enter into deep discussion. I see your points, well, but the older I get, the more I see and learn, the more complex and deep I realize life and society are. One of the problems I have with philosophical discussions is that most people's assertions / points are based on a limited and contrived set of circumstances- unlike real life. I see too many people being hurt, suffering needless loss, getting caught up in situations they could not foresee. I have a huge heart for the innocent, vulnerable, etc.
I would love to live in a libertarian society where everyone "did the right thing" but reality is: people don't, and some people are really really horribly bad. That's when people collaborate, form a govt., set rules, punishments, etc., as has been done throughout history. So far obvious and I know you agree. We just don't agree on where to draw the line for those rules. I literally have no more time. Take care and I'll check back, sometime...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 11 2020, @04:28PM (3 children)
It's not the really horribly bad people that are a problem in the hypothetical libertarian society. They'd run afoul of other people in a libertarian society (because one can't be really horribly bad in isolation) and eventually some posse would deal with them. It's their extremely non-libertarianfollowers. It's the widespread human tendency to follow leaders no matter how really horribly bad they are that is the real obstacle to a libertarian society.
When we revisit this conversation, there are a few things I'd like for you to consider. First, why did wages and related statistics (like union membership) decline over the past century despite the greatest degree of protection of labor in US law in history? Are we in a position where we have to worry about where to draw the line at rules and such, when we presently are adding rules faster than anyone can read them? And are those rules which are being created now protect us from the really horribly bad, or the other way around?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 11 2020, @05:38PM (2 children)
Agreed, but I'll continue to say that you're more of a philosopher than realist. I so wish things could be more like you pose, but reality is different.
You ask good questions, and believe it or not I'm quite intelligent, so much so that I realize there is SO much I don't know and probably can NEVER know.
Again, I fully agree and I think you're overly pushing your points. What bugs me the most about people and life: most people know this stuff is going on, and far far more, and we're powerless. It's simple psychology- take people's power away and they become passive, often to the point of unintended subconscious denial. It's a defense mechanism we all have. Well, there are a few who don't.
I'm a descendant of the American Revolution, so I know a little bit about saying enough is enough. But 244 years ago they could do something about it. We now have a huge huge machine that includes military power that we the people can't overpower. These marches and riots show that some people are really fed up. But the big machine is just going to appease them, and the political fighting and the news media just keeps parts of the machine going.
Why union wages have gone down? I don't agree with your premise- some union workers make huge $/hour. But many don't, and many jobs are "outsourced" which breaks up the labor market- kind of lets them know they have no power in the long run.
Listen, I comprehend everything you're saying but again, 1) there's so much that we don't know, and 2) people are overwhelmed by the machine and have given up.
The most power we the people have is voting, which happens very seldom compared to the rate of societal change. Politicians don't usually do what they promised before the election, and don't do the will of the people no matter what.
20+ years ago (literally) I was where you're at. We the people have no power anymore, at all.
If you have ideas of how to fix it, please stop ranting about the obvious and suggest something we can all do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 12 2020, @04:30AM (1 child)
The people of that time had their own huge, huge machine to contend with. The UK empire had tremendous resources as well. It got overpowered just the same.
You just described that competition with developing world labor that I spoke of. In the long run, it won't matter what message is supposedly being sent now. Labor will become more in demand globally (I think mirroring how US labor power grew over the late 19th and early 20th centuries) and the pendulum will swing back. It doesn't mean the US will return to former prosperity because there are plenty of opportunities for mistakes and bad decisions in that.
Not at all, we act in many other ways. For example, merely acting on our own is an exercise of power. Economically, this becomes the choices we make there. Recall, that the story was about businesses compromising their products. The obvious way to resist that remains by our choices.
As I already noted here [soylentnews.org], the government shouldn't be so deeply involved in voluntary transactions. It seems to me that if you're complaining about a huge, huge machine, making it even huger isn't positive change.
Well, am I realist enough? I guess we'll see.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday July 12 2020, @11:36AM
You just love being argumentative, no matter how much I try to agree with you!
When I try to buy a quality product from my local store, oh wait, my local store is GONE because WALMART. I went out of my way (literally) to AVOID Walmarts for the past 25 years. But 99% of the herd goes to Walmart, and the other stores are OUT OF BUSINESS. Gone. Not there anymore. I've tried to fight the crowds and tides. At at some point, brother, you are "preaching to the choir." Stop wasting your time writing to me here. Put your efforts into something and someone where you might have a chance to make a difference. Write to your congressman/woman. I already hear your response "who says I don't". Nobody! Just stop badgering me. I'm on your side, I just see the deeper reality. You keep writing about the obvious- look deeper!