Corporate Greed - Blog Posts
Sewing Machines & Planned Obsolescence
I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.
I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.
I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.
How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.
Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.
Old Machine Guts
The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.
New Machine Guts
The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.
And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)
100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.
Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.
We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)
We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.
Nothing says dystopia like corporate greed
anybody else deeply hate spotify rn. like i used to use it all the time, i have around 50 playlists. but now it sucks ass. like 2 minutes of unskippable ads for like 5 songs. and now you cant even play individual songs! you can’t shuffle playlists. if you had your playlist on shuffle before the update, now it’s stuck that way.
it’s become more convenient to use basic youtube for music now. only 10 seconds of unskippable ads per song, plus you can play individual songs, make playlists, and shuffle/loop playlists!
i never thought we’d see the day where youtube became a better music platform than spotify. but here we are. corporate greed ruins everything.
rant!!
the american economy is single handily killing everyone middle/lower class. i turned 18 literally a month ago but im considering opening a credit card because i simply can’t afford to pay for things. i still live at home too, imagine if i didn’t. i wouldn’t be able to provide housing for myself or basic medical care (all the things my mom currently pays for.) that’s the sad reality of living here and homelessness is extremely normalized to where most people don’t even pay attention anymore. prices for anything even in low cost of living states are outrageous. i live in a small southern town and a pack of tictacs is $5!! mcdonald’s is $10 for one meal and that’s the CHEAPEST fast food here. ever since this country was built companies have just been taking more and more from their employees and continue to add on to the CEO’s salary. the media tells us it’s inflation but the reality is it’s just price gouging and greed. people here can’t afford necessities while our “leader” sends money overseas to fund genocide. we also can’t forget the TRILLIONS of dollars our government just “can’t find.” our government keeps us reliant on them and keeps it impossible for every citizen to be cared for. the united states COULD have free healthcare/university, lower prices, have a higher minimum wage, fix the teacher shortage, but they won’t. they keep us afraid and want us to feel trapped by our lives in this country. people are noticing now and their support will eventually run out to where we all go french revolution style and i DO NOT want to be here when that happens. thanks for reading, this whole situation scares me and i’d love to hear what y’all think because it’s all just so frustrating:(
This is pretty self-explanatory
It's Pride Month
And you know what that means!
Corporate pandering and more than usual homophobia.
Go pride!
Wonder Woman was a huge feminist icon with a great story and more importantly good to add on now she’s the girl of the big 3 to be drawn as a porn objects! Agh same for the fucken marvel
This is why I refuse to say that Kanye matters. People say he’s talented but I couldn’t care less.
WTF’s wrong with him…
🤦🏽🤦🏾🤦🏼
this is something I've felt since childhood and never been able to articulate.
turn this society upside down, and shake the trillions from the pockets of the aristocracy
Greedflation is manifest.
>abolish/defang the EPA
>abolish/hamstring the Endangered Species Act
>deregulate pesticides
...
this is ecocide
And also, the Nightmare Scenario of pesticide companies subsequently targeting natural pest control species (to increase their profit margins and consumer reliance however slightly) is a high possibility.
Combine this with their hope for an apparent necromantic revival of the coal industry (thus, reopening of old mining complexi), and by 2028 (if not sooner), multiple bat species might be extinct.
USAmericans
Read the Project 2025 manifesto RIGHT NOW
It's MUCH worse than y'all have been hearing
There is so much here you'll have to look at it for yourself, but the climate policy alone is nightmare fuel.
The republican coalition wants to essentially end funding for green energy, dramatically promote and expand fossil fuel industries, and eliminate funding and regulations in all sectors promoting climate change mitigation. Task forces and offices related to clean energy and lowering carbon emissions will be eliminated and replaced with offices for promoting fossil fuels.
They want to LOG NATIONAL FORESTS TO "THIN" THE TREES TO STOP WILDFIRES.
THEY WANT TO FORCE OREGON AND CALIFORNIA TO LOG THEIR NATIONAL FORESTS AND TREAT THEM AS FOR TIMBER PRODUCTION
There are specific provisions in Project 2025 to essentially destroy the Endangered Species Act, causing it to defer to the rights of "economic development" and "private property." The plan includes delisting gray wolves, cutting the budget so that a "triage" system is used to determine which species will get protection, removing funding for research, removing experts and specialists from the decision-making process, and preventing "experimental" populations of animals from being established.
This is so much worse than I expected it to be and there's much more past that: They want to deregulate pesticides and remove much of the EPA's ability to regulate pollutants as well.
Also included in the manifesto is that we should
withdraw from nuclear weapons nonproliferation agreements, build more nuclear weapons, and resume nuclear weapons testing
The manifesto comprehensively outlines the scorched-earth elimination of abortion access, down to ensuring doctors aren't even trained to perform abortions. There are plans in here to disrupt abortion access GLOBALLY, not just domestically.
Not only that,the Republicans plan on reframing family planning programs around "fertility awareness" and "holistic family planning."
I can't even describe it all. I'm trying to give screenshots of the most important things but there's so much.
The foreign policy is a nightmare. They plan to push fossil fuels onto the Global South and promote the development of fossil fuel industry in the "developing world."
It is aggressive and antagonistic towards other nations, strongly pro-military, proposing that we INCREASE (!!!!!) defense spending, improve public opinion of the military and military recruitment, and increase the power to fund new weapons technology.
Just read the Department of Defense section. It's about greatly increasing and strengthening the military-industrial complex, collaborating more closely with weapons manufacturers, removing regulatory barriers to arming our allies and to inventing new military weapons, and recruiting more people into the military. They include provisions to develop AI technology for surveillance. And of course, continuing to support Israel is in there.
Elsewhere it proposes interfering in foreign countries with creepy pro-USA propaganda campaigns, even establishing international educational programs where faculty have to pledge to promote USA interests.
There's a line in here about getting rid of PBS because SESAME STREET is LEFTIST for God's sake.
HOW are people claiming democrats have the same policies. I feel like i'm losing my mind.
Reminder: the companies and political entities pushing Project 2025 have addresses and go out to lunch a lot and should never eat a spitless meal for the rest of their lives.
Practice bagpipes outside their secure compounds.
Follow them around ringing a bell wherever they go.
If they are going to be farcically evil, be Animaniacally good. Be the definition of chaotic justice.
Also, vote. It might just kick the ball down the road a bit, but that gives people more time to organize a concerted resistance (in no way on any social media platform) to the fascist creep happening in America. It is possible to take this country from the bastards who control it, it will take work, effort, and occasionally going offline and talking to humans though.
