Made to Break Part 3

The third part of Giles Slade's book "Made to Break"  continues the argument of how technology in America is planned obsolescence.  Despite the large amount of positive things that technology has provided us, there is a large amount of negativity as well.  I thought it was interesting to learn things about the cold war and how planned obsolescence can be applied to war situations and weapon manufacturing.  What is most interesting to me is how this concept of planned obsolescence has evolved from first being introduced from small things like female products to the large mass production of things like computers that will be out of date within a year.

Its also very interesting that this notion of obsolescence is somewhat hidden to the majority of the public.  People cannot realize the harmful effect that constant technological advances has on society.  This notion is also deeply embedded into our culture that its hard to see the other side of things.  For example, I am not one that believes in the idea of leasing a car.  I think its not to smart to basically "rent" a car for three years and just trade it in for something else.  Although you get to use the car everyday but you still aren't really paying towards something.  Many people that I know lease cars and they prefer not to have it any other way.  Everyone wants something new, but they are not exposed to the giant waste that is being produced.

Although Slade mainly displays the negative effect that technological obsolescence has on society, I think that there is still some positive effects to this.  For instance, we use technology in our hospitals that help save lives everyday.  We are constantly evolving our technology in our hospitals to better serve to public and save lives.  We have technology now that we didn't have ten years ago, and this fact is keeping people alive from things like injuries and cancer.

Although technological obsolescence is mainly a negative concept for society, I think it would be best to find some sort of balance that can ultimately cut down on our waste but improve other things to help us be a cleaner, more efficient society.