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Story of Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever. It is a very simple but impactful 20 minute expereince for anyone who invents, developes or manufactures stuff.

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15 Comments

Current View: 15 / Show all Comments

whackman : LVL 31: VP 4: said:

whackman

6 votes NegativePositive

199 days 1 hour ago...

o i just watched this earlier today, very good video. But its soo true, you wanna upgrade cpu gotta buy new mobo and everything, and video cards are out of date once you have bought them. Stupid companies.

5/5 tho

Venomousvole : LVL 36: VP 4.4: said:

Venomousvole

22 votes NegativePositive

198 days 23 hours ago...

You can`t really call the companies stupid, they get to do whatever they want, beyond the reach of any law. That`s evil, not stupid.
We are the stupid ones for bending over for it.

If we don`t turn consumerism on it`s head, you (probly) cannot imagine the horror that awaits your children. And I do mean horror.

And we will have to fight for it as well, PLEASE just give me a gun and drop me off outside Coke Cola. hunt down all the mad dogs.... I`m gonna stop there because you know the rest.

libertarianriots : LVL 30: VP 3.9: said:

libertarianriots

3 votes NegativePositive

198 days 14 hours ago...

I`ve seen this before and I love the message, but this presentation isn`t nearly as powerful as it needs to be. E.g., at 3:10, she has a calm but assertive tone that only makes that information seem typical, but if I were to give that information, I`d be yelling it.
We need a leader, cultural or otherwise, who can voice this information with some real effectiveness.
If we don`t find one soon, I wouldn`t be surprised to see killings over waste as Venomousvole describes.

nerdicus : LVL 34: VP 4.2: said:

nerdicus

1 votes NegativePositive

198 days ago...

the whole idea of planned obsolescence is so retarded and we, the people who buy this shit, are the ones who are being retarded. It is for this reason that our natural resources are being depleted at alarming rates. Copper alone is being used up way way way faster then we can actually afford to use it so that we can buy $20 mp3 players from super store of some other mass retailer.

Everything should be way more expensive and last way longer.

gremwood : LVL 41: VP 4.9: said:

gremwood

-5 votes NegativePositive

197 days 21 hours ago...

This is a great video. People need to watch this; it`s way better than whatever the hell else they pass through Hollywood.

Recycling doesn`t do shit. You can reuse it as much as you can, then you`re going to have to recycle. You can recycle as much as you can, but it`s going to become unusable; it`s now trash. Reduce is the better way, I think.

Also: Breast is best. Yes. I like.

dude_from_detroit : LVL 24: VP 3.3: said:

dude_from_detroit

-1 votes NegativePositive

197 days 8 hours ago...

She said we are 5% and we use 30% of the worlds resources,
deal,
shes fired,
LUNCH!
ps. The shoe shopping conspiracy!wo0o0o0o lmaooo!

Caramelman : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

Caramelman

8 votes NegativePositive

197 days 7 hours ago...

Why the fuck is this not 5/5?

worth the whole watch.

( oh yeah, I want to do her as she babbles on about renewable energy)

synthetix : LVL 34: VP 4.2: said:

synthetix

-1 votes NegativePositive

197 days 7 hours ago...

great movie, not to sidetrack, but isn`t it toxins...not toxics?

extensionwire : LVL 21: VP 3: said:

extensionwire

1 votes NegativePositive

197 days 6 hours ago...

metaphorically speaking "I just cant wait till Linux outdate Windows corp" that would be really awesome.

in addition to the presentation: as an immigrant myself i understand how it feels to have no option and move to a better country for survival, but with this pain my research led me to our country`s (philippines) history that we were once richer than u.s. Before wwI, soon after ww2 our system just collapsed after replacing our leader with a "catholic zealot". We had unfair trade laws, (sounds more like a credit card dept in a bigger scale). f*cked up media ( which made everybody like selfish and stupid). All of this unfairness was a tradeoff from U.S. Gov for our democracy "our republic government" and our socalled freedom yet corrupted. Almost all our resources gets exported with an unfair deal, workers working hard at an extremely low wage. Mining companies are owned by large corporations.I come to think that our pre ww1 era led by a brutal overdisciplined dictator made the majority more happier that what we have now. but hey, maybe fate or evolution on earth has is working its ways.
truth is just painful to see.

5/5 for the vid. hope more people download this to their brains.

sato : LVL 28: VP 3.7: said:

sato

-4 votes NegativePositive

197 days 5 hours ago...

i think a more likely reason for the decline in happiness is that there`s more stuff that we *don`t* have. she`s right on about how little products change though, all those `all new` car ads r really pissing me off these days, there`s nothing new about them at all. the monitor wasn`t a very good choice of example though, lots of people buy a flat screen not because it`s cooler but because it takes up a lot less space.

Stretch2000mm : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

Stretch2000mm

5 votes NegativePositive

197 days 5 hours ago...

It`s the government`s "job" to "take care of us"? That damn "promote the general welfare" clause really got distorted over the years, didn`t it.

deathfrombelow : LVL 5: VP 1.4: said:

deathfrombelow

0 votes NegativePositive

197 days 4 hours ago...

argggghhhhh......TOXIN! not TOXICS!!! that wound me up in the vid.

Also she seems a bit dumb, because i agree with most of it, but the stuff about toxins in toxins out, and the brominated fire retardants have had much R&D to show that they are safe, well i say safe, i mean keeping the stupidity of those who insist on smoking in bed and falling asleep. As soon as people stop being so stupid and start thinking for themselves a lot of these problems will just evaporate...

i say 4.5/5 for this, since its rite and all but i cant forgive the Toxics bit...

1og0s : LVL 19: VP 2.8: said:

1og0s

3 votes NegativePositive

197 days 4 hours ago...

When she talks about computers she neglects to mention that there are a lot more parts of a computer that are discarded than just the cpu. The video card, memory, and motherboard just to name a few. For software engineers, media designers, people that play computers games, they are always replacing pretty much every computer part just to keep performance high in order to effectively make use of whatever it is they`re doing.

That`s sort of the problem, certainly there are companies making products that will become obsolete very quickly, but at the same time, devices becoming obsolete is just due to technological growth. Technology at the moment is advancing at an exponential rate and we`re trying to keep up with it. I only see 2 options to address this issue.

Either we stop advancing technologically and go back to hunter-gatherer mode, or we try to figure out a sustainable way of technologically advancing without destroying the planet in the process. It begs the question, can you have your cake and eat it too?

Tada : LVL 43: VP 5: said:

Tada

5 votes NegativePositive

196 days 22 hours ago...

While the overall message is at least sound and decent; "Don`t buy shit you don`t need and understand that nothing comes without a price", it is full of bullshit and straight up lies.

For example the part where she talks about how the poor natives are forced into working in factories and this is horribly compared to their ancient lifestyles. This is really a half truth.

You have to understand that most of the world is currently undergoing their industrial revolution which works exactly the same way as ours did. Work is cheap because labor is abundant and working condition is horrible because the owners don`t have to worry about working conditions since people are very reluctant to quit their job since they know they might not get a job right away, mean which no money for food and rent.

The fact is that most people that go to cities for work in developing countries are farmers that want to work in factories because it`s better than the subsistence farming their ancestors had to put up with. You work most of the day and barely make enough food to survive. You`re going to be on the absolute fringe of existence for most of your life. If you don`t manage to get a good yield one season, you`re going to starve for the next couple of months. Then if you get what is by our standards a mild and treatable illness or condition like a hernia or appendicitis, you could very well die because you`re malnuritioned or don`t have money for medicine or there simply aren`t any doctors around to treat you. Even if you don`t die, your going to be much less productive which means you`re most likely going to end up with less food. The average lifespan of a person living with subsistence farming is about 30 and and only about a quarter to, at best, half of people reach adulthood.

They go to factories because it`s frankly a better than working on a farm. No it isn`t fucking paradise but it`s the lesser or two evils and people are very much aware of this. This idea that city life is horrible compared to idyllic farm life is a complete myth based on nothing but children stories.

The working conditions in developing countries will improve as the country becomes increasingly advanced over time. Unions will form once people are able to organize strikes. This will make employers pay their workers more and offer them better working conditions. Of course once people are able to quit their jobs and find better ones it will give owners incentive to not treat their workers like dirt. That`s how it worked here and that`s how it`s going to work there and it won`t happen over night. If fact the transition from "shit life" to "decent life" will go much faster for them than it did for us because we had to wait until better and safer methods of doing things were invented while they already have the methods and only need to accumulate enough capital to pay for it.

Cahu : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

Cahu

0 votes NegativePositive

196 days 22 hours ago...

Amazingly well put

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Entry Dates: 9/8/2007-9/14/2009