Clothes Dryers, for one thing. I remember a while back I was looking into ways to reduce my electric bill/footprint and I learned the hard way that the HOA where I used to live bans you from using a clothesline to dry your shit.
It's all about asking the question "is this technological solution actually an improvement, and is that improvement worth all of the costs associated with getting it?" Under capitalism the drive is to sell as many devices as possible with no regard to the downstream costs of adding them. It's easy to see where that drive clearly goes too far as it often does with terrible kickstarters for $500 DRM-protected juicing machines, but it would be worthwhile for society to apply that lens of analysis to every technological solution that we've come to take for granted.
Clothes Dryers, for one thing. I remember a while back I was looking into ways to reduce my electric bill/footprint and I learned the hard way that the HOA where I used to live bans you from using a clothesline to dry your shit.
It's all about asking the question "is this technological solution actually an improvement, and is that improvement worth all of the costs associated with getting it?" Under capitalism the drive is to sell as many devices as possible with no regard to the downstream costs of adding them. It's easy to see where that drive clearly goes too far as it often does with terrible kickstarters for $500 DRM-protected juicing machines, but it would be worthwhile for society to apply that lens of analysis to every technological solution that we've come to take for granted.