Nowadays the upper middle classes pays high taxes so the poor can wreck public housing projects and smoke crack.

Neither arrangement is optimal, IMO. Replace the welfare system with either a negative income tax or a basic income guarantee and the upper middle class could afford servants again, but the servants would be better paid (and have more options for career advancement compared to the 1960s).

We also pay a lot for environmental regulations, but we’re getting something in return: clean air and water. I can remember when you could see the air in cities like Richmond VA or Washington DC. No longer. Cars are a LOT cleaner and so are factories.

The energy crisis is a security issue more than an energy issue per se. Breeder reactors could provide enough electricity to heat our McMansions with resistance heating while keeping a few windows cracked for fresh air. The problem is how to keep bac guys from getting hold of chemically separable fissionables. The thorium folks think the gamma emissions from U232 would make U233 an impractical bomb material. Maybe so for a terrorist cell. But what about for a government?

As for long lasting stuff, why bother? When the repair man made less per hour than the assembly line workers who made the original object, it paid to repair. When the assembly line workers are in China making a tiny fraction of a local repair man’s hourly wage, it pays to replace. Duh.

I find that this is an unsustainable and blatantly dishonest/greedy method for companies to operate, but sadly the market and our culture supports this approach. What I found even more disappointing when I worked there was that when I suggested recycling returned products or donating them to free-cycle computer repair groups it was shot down. Apparently this type of behavior constituted theft from the company even though no money whatsoever was changing hands. Instead the products were destroyed to ensure that dumpster divers would find no value in raiding our bins (or so people could not try to return products repeatedly). Rather than recycle a product or develop longer lasting units we trash them and ensure that they go to landfill, I wonder why the environment has seen such massive degradation in recent times…?

Coca Cola Machine 1955
Craftsman Table Saw 1962
Colt .45 M1911A1 1939
Craftsman Drill Press 1970
Dining Table/4 chairs/
Sideboard (Handmade) circa 1900
Ithaca 12 GA Shotgun 1950
Smith-Corona Typewriter circa 1940
7 Day Chime Clock (German) circa 1915
Switchblade Knife (illegal) circa 1940
Glass Lamp circa 1945
Floor Lamp/Tiffany Shade circa 1930
Pocket Watch Gold Inlay circa 1920

These are but a few of my favorite items. Many from the family.

@vga,
I agree that use of 1960 does grate a little, but tell me some, was there anything as radical as that leapfrog that happened in terms of technology today as it happened back then?

I reiterate my early stance, the technology/medicine advances that we largely experience today can be easily lived without (except something so trivial and overlooked as access to clean drinking water and sanitation. If these fail, pestilence will wipe out entire cities in an instant)…. It would help if we were to engage in small experiments of our own as Jacob does to test this hypotheis. (I have done so, and hence my assertion that “Yes, We can” live without ).

Regarding medical advances, less than 1% of the medical advances today is affordable to the larger population and, what’s life worth living for, if we’ve survived a certain (expensive) healthscare thanks to modern technology, only to find that we have to pay off the huge bill, for most of the rest of our (re-booted) existence!!

@Robert Muir,
Clearly we humans also have a pre-determined shelf-life stamped on us, when we come out of the manufacturing plant… If we all lived all-rounded lives, most health-problems won’t even touch us (My grandparents were living examples of this, at a time when technology and medicine advances were not as great as now… so nothing will convince me otherwise).

Sure medical treatments for conditions you mention is great, but it is certianly not the end of the world. Where there’s a will, there’s certainly a way (Just one example of such determination. Thanks to Ryan Martin for pointing me to him).

Best,
Surio.
—

I don’t think it is worth doubling the work hours to gain internet, iphones, and lasik. Besides, Saturn V Rocket beats iPhone

Maybe you can’t grasp the magnitude of this, but if I was born in 1960 it is unlike that I would have survived. Should I have been lucky enough to live, I would have still been left significantly impaired.

My most used tool is a standard Swiss army knife with philips screwdriver and scissors. I sharpen my knives with a very inexpensive and long lasting system like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Smiths-CCD4-Field-Sharpening-System/dp/B000N35D2E

I think it’s been mentioned before; a great site for some awesome tool recommendations is Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools.
http://kk.org/cooltools/

As for a decreasing standard of living from the 60′s, I have to strenuously disagree. Transportation, to communications, to health care (naming just a few) have all increased in efficiency and effectiveness.

Cars in the 60′s required massive maintenance. Gaskets, linkages, carburetors, etc. required constant adjustment and rebuilding. There’s no need to go over how bad the American autos in the 70′s and early 80′s were. Nowadays, I replace the oil on a regular basis and have a mechanic do a once-over every couple of years and the car keeps on running. Soon we’ll have LED bulbs and one more maintenance pain will be eliminated. I have two Ford station wagons (97 Escort and a 2000 Tracer). The Escort has over 250k miles. I’ve had to get the top end rebuilt on each car at around the same mileage, but other than than, minimal maintenance. I love computer controlled fuel injection systems!

We’re still at the very beginning of the Information age. I have the barest glimmer of understanding about the collaborative benefits for scientists. Pre-Internet, many researchers would have to wait until journals published findings before finding out where other scientists were in their fields; now they can communicate and collaborate in real-time.

Yes, health care costs have increased, but then the “routine” procedures have greatly improved as well. Laser eye-care, knee replacements, by-pass surgeries are just a few of the procedures that are commonplace. A friend of mine was recently lamenting the slow progress of medical technology and I had to remind him that he had just had a knee replacement and his daughter had just had laser cataract surgery.

In the 60′s with no cable or satellite, OTA broadcasts were free for the three channels available (not that that was a bad thing). If you had a telephone, you sure didn’t make many long distance calls on your leased (no purchase allowed) AT&T dial telephone (any color available as long as it was black). No A/C. Food was a lot healthier though, since it was local and seasonal.

I have had my microwave oven since 1987. It has two settings – cook and defrost. It has a dial for its timer.

My main A/C I bought in 2000 which replaced one from the 1960s or 1970s (before I moved here; it came with the apartment because it is in its own wall sleeve). The fridge I replaced in 2001 after its predecessor conked out.

I have a dishwasher since 1993 but I don’t use it any more once I stopped working full-time (switched to part-time) in 2001 and had the time and energy to wash all my own dishes again.

I go through TVs every 7-9 years but my current one is working fine at 7 years. I picked up a used VCR at a garage sale last year for $5 to replace the previous one which died.

My PC is from 2001 but it may be next to go or at least get the hard drive replaced because of its capacity.

My telephone is from the mid-1990s which has speed-dial and its own set of push-buttons. It works fine. The answering machine is only a few years old but doens’t need those mini-cassette tapes.

My dinette set is 20 years old but works fine. I acquired some furniture drt cheap from my cousin when he moved just after I did.

I have some kitchenware going back 20-30 years, things I picked up as I moved from place to place in the 1980s and others left behind for me.

I would say our technology has advanced well but our lifestyles have become more costly. I mean, 30+ years ago hardly anybody (or nobody) spent $$ on cable TV, internet, VCRs, computers, or cell phones, so that money could be saved or maybe spent on less costly leisure activities.

But I find most things are willing to last as long as I’ll tolerate them. I’ve had a cheap hanes shirt for near 10 years. Started as a regular shirt, then became a work shirt, and now serves life as several rags. I’ve got a 8 year old laptop I still fire up on occasion. I’ve even had a set of cheap Ikea furniture last me through college and several apartments. It only left because now that I have a house I was hit with the desire to have ‘proper’ furniture that ‘would last’. But given the Ikea’s track record I’m willing to bet that was more just a self-justification to upscale my lifestyle. I’d say disposability is more a mindset of people than any inherent lack of quality in most products.

Also the guy with the Rolex? Spends $5k on it, then $200 more every couple of years to keep it repaired and working. The guy with the 25 watches, $625.

I do think we use much more nowadays. With the cars that only seem to last 10 years, I wonder what’s the mileage per year on old cars versus now. Maybe it’s just we’re driving far more on vacations and road trips and further to work everyday.