Cites are like that BECAUSE they are not designed for people but for cars.
Design your city to be nice and people will come. Once people come, crime will go down. Of you design a shithole then don’t complain about the shit.
Start when? Tomorrow. Start how? Anywhere. Being with new construction requiring design for humans first. Make streets smaller and single direction. Build bicycle roads.
Oh also, stop the car manufacturer’s lobbyists because they don’t give a fuck that US cities are shit holes, they want to sell you more cars.
The Netherlands did t listen to them and see what it looks like now.
Marketing and advertising. They show a huge, juicy, scrumptous nice quality burger. You go to buy it and it’s a cold, limp, tiny, frail nothing burger.
There used to be a law about false advertising. But it doesn’t seem to be enforced anymore. Marketing and advertising can lie straight to your face. Its not right and shouldnt be tolerated.
And Americans are so complacent about it, they say things like, “It’s , what’d you expect?” Instead of demanding what was advertised. It’s soul crushing. It’s like we’ve given up.
Massage school. They say they’re teaching you a trade and will help with job placement but there is a glut of graduates and not enough jobs for them. Yet the school keeps signing up new students because that’s how they make money.
I’ll try to list things that aren’t in the typical internet echo chamber. Bring on the controversy. These are just my opinions.
50% of the shelf space at the grocery store is just different forms of corn syrup, sometimes with some trans fat mixed in, generationally twisting our idea of what food is in a race to the cheapest, most addictive product.
The only way it’s profitable for someone to knock on your door to sell ANYTHING is if they are obscenely inflating the price (think 100-600% markup)
Most supplements, especially expensive ones with TV ads
Dr Scholl’s and the goodfeet store
Genuine leather is just about the opposite of what you’d think
Bamboo fabric which is pretty much just a different way to say rayon but is pitched as a revolutionary and environmentally friendly cloth
Most bladeless fans just hide fan blades in the base
Many cleaning products don’t do better than diluted soap and water (even for sanitizing) especially the ones with TV ads
Financial planners who are actually financial product salespeople
Most single-purpose kitchen gadgets, especially as-seen-on-TV
The realtors racket: I just paid $30k for an internet posting and mediocre advice
Many personal hygiene products are just repackaging the same two or three active ingredients by the same one or two megacorporations
Essential oils (even ignoring mystical claims) big names charge an order of magnitude higher than they should
I believe he’s referring to “Genuine” leather as an industry term. Genuine leather is really low quality leather (but still comes from a cow). “Full grain” leather is what most people think of when talking about leather products.
The only thing worse than genuine is bonded, which is the plywood of leathers.
For some reason I was under the impression that “suede” was high quality. Is it just desirable because the collagen bundles are loose, and raise to make the surface fuzzy? Because it certainly isn’t durable, but my full grain backpack is.
Your list makes me realize just how far we peddle bullshit in our society. Virtually everything is lying to you, if only by omission or by being misleading. If you don’t know about cars, finance, food, technology, laws, housing, virtually anything, you will be taken advantage off, if only a little. Pretty much your whole list is spot-on, and it could go on for pages. Toothpaste? They’re lying about the quantity. You think your orange juice is healthy because it is very, very heavily suggested? Nope, it is old oranges with a lot of sugar. Anyway, I am not gonna type the entire comment I want to because it would become very rant-y.
In the ideal situation, resources are transformed into goods with zero waste and with fair compensation for every person involved in that process. Any expense outside of costs and pay for the people involved is either inevitable inefficiency due to our imperfect technology or the laws of physics, or it is some sort of scam, and thus profit itself is a scam.
Profit represents surplus value that can be excersized to either sustain an organization when demand is low or to increase productivity through expansion. If there was no profit then all businesses would be on the verge of collapse at all times
I’d argue profit is essential to capitalism, which of course is probably you meant, blaming capitalism I mean. I think charging interest on debt (some of which you are essentially forced to borrow) is what is truly scandalous. Sure it makes sense when it is oversimplified, and told from the point of view of the banks who need to make an honest living by risking money, but money is created from thin air from loans, so the whole thing makes no sense imo.
Profit is older than capitalism; capitalism is a particularly egregious form of it, but it is profit itself - intentional inefficiency in the conversion of resources to usable product, for the purpose of benefiting those creating the inefficiency that I refer to.
In theory, something very close to capitalism could exist without profit - with everyone getting back only a fair and appropriate compensation for their part in the process. It’s the 'put in a little and get back infinite returns ’ part that makes capitalism specifically a problem.
Thankfully they make their products easy to pirate. I didn’t mind forking over for Photoshop & Premiere CS6, but there’s no way in hell I am paying a regular subscription fee for CC. They already have my money.
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