Made to Break (Part III)

Planned obsolescence has been accelerated, weaponized, and as you read this it is attacking everything you own. Reading the third and last part of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America by Giles Slade, it is clear that planned obsolescence transcended to a whole new level with the advent of the computer. At least, that’s what I think Giles Slade believes. In this third portion of this book, Giles Slade goes into the new level of obsolescence that resulted from the creation of the computer and subsequent miniaturization of computers as well as all technologies. After that, he goes into how obsolescence was affected by the cold war, which drastically changed the generally assumed rules of planned obsolescence. Giles Slade discusses how planned obsolescence was used as a weapon to deter the Soviet Union from stealing the United States’ technology and actually created a new level of planned obsolescence, planned malfunction. Lastly, Giles Slade brings the book to a close by discussing the current state of planned obsolescence and the consequences of it. With the extreme acceleration of planned obsolescence resulting from the invention of the computer and America’s wholehearted willingness to accept this “throw away culture” ideology, this whole planet is going to become a “throw away world” if we don’t realize the consequences of planned obsolescence and take proper actions to rectify this situation.

Continually throughout this book, Giles Slade refers to his overall argument that people need to stop accepting and embracing planned obsolescence, but in this final part of his book he really explains why planned obsolescence needs to be controlled and what the consequences will be if it is not. Planned obsolescence really was not causing that much harm to the world until the computer was invented, but once it was the colossal acceleration of planned obsolescence really began to cause damage. This damage was to both the world and the mentality of the people inhabiting it. The mentality of the people began to become warped and skewed in a way that can only be described as complete indifference to the world. After the computer became popular, the time span that electronics would last shrank more and more as electronics became smaller and more sophisticated. As this happened, people began to think of electronics more and more as disposable items and would just throw them away when they broke or even if they just didn’t seem in style anymore. I’m not sure if people ever truly considered the effects that obsolescence had on the environment, but it seems like after computers and integrated circuits became popular practically no one even gave it a thought. This lack of concern about the consequences of their actions is exemplified during the cold war, when planned obsolescence was used as a weapon against Russian spies that were stealing United States technology. Perhaps the intentions made sense, but it was taken too far when a Trojan horse virus was planted in pipeline software illegally acquired by the Soviet Union. I don’t see much problem with this, but what does not seem right is the fact that the virus was made to cause the pumps and valve to produce pressure far beyond acceptable tolerances of the pipelines and cause a massive explosion that could be seen from space. (pg. 257) Instead just causing the pipeline to shut down or just malfunction it was purposely made to over pressurize the system. This form of planned obsolescent, or planned malfunction, really shows the lack of concern about the world or any consequences as long as the immediate goal was reached.

Furthermore, the negligence of people today might not be as instantly detrimental as an explosion that can be seen from space, but it’s proving to be just as destructive to the world. As Giles Slade discusses, the biggest form of e-waste, as he puts it, today are cell phones. The planned lifespan of cell phones has dropped dramatically and is now only approximately eighteen months. Cell phones have greatly contributed to the throw away culture that America has so willingly embraced. People replace cell phones so fast that they just think of them as disposable products that can just be tossed in a trash can like a paper towel. This mentality has pretty much spread to all electronics too. The problem with this is that the silicon based integrated circuits and cathode ray tubes in monitors and televisions and numerous other parts in most electronic products are extremely harmful to the environment. Either these products are burned, releasing tons of harmful chemicals into the air, or they are just stockpiled in waste plants, because no one knows how to properly dispose of them. Half the cell phones and products found in these stockpiles probably work fine too, but they went out of style or became outdated so they were replaced and thrown away. This book really parallels Technopoly by Neil Postman. These two books make extremely similar arguments about the disposable culture that America has embraced. The only difference is that Neil Postman seems to concentrate more on the effects of this culture on our society, while Giles Slade goes more into the effects on the environment. Whichever way you look at it though, this culture is going to cause disastrous problems for us in the future if we stay on this course. The world is being treated as if it is just another disposable paper towel that can be thrown in the trash once it’s used up, but there isn’t a replacement for this world if it gets used up.