This line sums it up nicely: I think part of why our society is so stressed out is that we've built tools that are exceedingly complex to use, which decreases our available time and thus requires...
This line sums it up nicely:
appropriate technology can be described as the simplest level of technology that can achieve the intended purpose.
I think part of why our society is so stressed out is that we've built tools that are exceedingly complex to use, which decreases our available time and thus requires more complex tools to save more time, repeat ad nauseum.
Vast majority of kitchen tools can be replaced with a can opener, 2 or 3 good knives, and a few pots and pans. We don't need sharpening machines, a sharpening stone set will do fine (and better).
I think this is driven in part on a hyper-focus on efficiency (read: cost savings) without looking at the broader picture. It might not be efficient to have people plant and harvest crops by hand, but there's no intrinsic reason for it to be, especially if the crops don't need shipped around the world. Eating local, in season foods will go a long way to mitigating global warming.
It might be less efficient for people to bike everywhere. But it's a hell of a lot cleaner, healthier and sustainable relative to a global supply chain to build and operate cars. If we're not being beholden to arbitrarily long hours doing arbitrarily complex tasks, perhaps it won't matter as much if someone is slow, late, or misses a day.
Why do we need so many cleaning products? Our family cut down paper towels,wet wipes, glass cleaners, toilet cleaners, pipe uncloggers, sanitizing sprays, toilet paper, tissue, and napkin usage by 99% simply by having scrap cloth, bleach, vinegar, distilled alcohol (70%+) and baking soda lying around.
Hell we don't even really need differnet types of distilled alcohol. Make 98% alcohol to distribute, let people dilute as desired. Isopropol alcohol shouldn't exist...it was purely created to get around prohibition and sin tax issues.
We don't need band aids. Clean gauze and medical tape will do the job better.
The list goes on and on and on. I implore everyone to go through their home and evaluate whether stuff you have is legitimatly useful, or is a byproduct of trying to create efficiency because we don't have time to do things simply.
We don't need packaged bread. We need simpler lives so we can spare the 30 minutes of work a day to make bread.
I actually just finished reading Small is Beautiful a few days ago, and you've hit the nail on the head here. To add, on, Schumacher also spends a large portion of the book talking about how that...
I actually just finished reading Small is Beautiful a few days ago, and you've hit the nail on the head here.
To add, on, Schumacher also spends a large portion of the book talking about how that focus on cost savings makes a "cutting-edge" technological approach inappropriate for developing nations. Who cares if you can make a lot of good product? There's people in the village who don't have a job, and you can't afford to give them one at your business because you've automated them out of the process. For the same money spent establishing a high tech, low labor workplace, you could create many lower tech workplaces, and actually create enough jobs to have a meaningful impact, even at lower wages.
I also really love his perspective on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources. Too often people think of these things as "income," we pumped X oil, so now we have X oil to burn or make into plastic. They'll pump more next year, right? In reality, these resources are more like "capital," we have a total reserve of oil, and every amount of it we use we can never get back. I think this kind of framing is super helpful to understand the scarcity of the planet's resources in comparison to human activity.
This line sums it up nicely:
I think part of why our society is so stressed out is that we've built tools that are exceedingly complex to use, which decreases our available time and thus requires more complex tools to save more time, repeat ad nauseum.
Vast majority of kitchen tools can be replaced with a can opener, 2 or 3 good knives, and a few pots and pans. We don't need sharpening machines, a sharpening stone set will do fine (and better).
I think this is driven in part on a hyper-focus on efficiency (read: cost savings) without looking at the broader picture. It might not be efficient to have people plant and harvest crops by hand, but there's no intrinsic reason for it to be, especially if the crops don't need shipped around the world. Eating local, in season foods will go a long way to mitigating global warming.
It might be less efficient for people to bike everywhere. But it's a hell of a lot cleaner, healthier and sustainable relative to a global supply chain to build and operate cars. If we're not being beholden to arbitrarily long hours doing arbitrarily complex tasks, perhaps it won't matter as much if someone is slow, late, or misses a day.
Why do we need so many cleaning products? Our family cut down paper towels,wet wipes, glass cleaners, toilet cleaners, pipe uncloggers, sanitizing sprays, toilet paper, tissue, and napkin usage by 99% simply by having scrap cloth, bleach, vinegar, distilled alcohol (70%+) and baking soda lying around.
Hell we don't even really need differnet types of distilled alcohol. Make 98% alcohol to distribute, let people dilute as desired. Isopropol alcohol shouldn't exist...it was purely created to get around prohibition and sin tax issues.
We don't need band aids. Clean gauze and medical tape will do the job better.
The list goes on and on and on. I implore everyone to go through their home and evaluate whether stuff you have is legitimatly useful, or is a byproduct of trying to create efficiency because we don't have time to do things simply.
We don't need packaged bread. We need simpler lives so we can spare the 30 minutes of work a day to make bread.
I actually just finished reading Small is Beautiful a few days ago, and you've hit the nail on the head here.
To add, on, Schumacher also spends a large portion of the book talking about how that focus on cost savings makes a "cutting-edge" technological approach inappropriate for developing nations. Who cares if you can make a lot of good product? There's people in the village who don't have a job, and you can't afford to give them one at your business because you've automated them out of the process. For the same money spent establishing a high tech, low labor workplace, you could create many lower tech workplaces, and actually create enough jobs to have a meaningful impact, even at lower wages.
I also really love his perspective on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources. Too often people think of these things as "income," we pumped X oil, so now we have X oil to burn or make into plastic. They'll pump more next year, right? In reality, these resources are more like "capital," we have a total reserve of oil, and every amount of it we use we can never get back. I think this kind of framing is super helpful to understand the scarcity of the planet's resources in comparison to human activity.