> They are probably not actually closet misogynists or anything like that, they probably just haven’t thought that far ahead.
I agree, this is more probable than the closet misogyny theory. But it's still not exactly a ringing endorsement to say "whoops, we didn't think about who would have to do all that labor once we took away all those labor saving devices!" It's not like this is some hard to predict third order effect, after all.
Overall, the whole argument they're making is kind of silly. Washing clothes by hand sucks, people rushed to buy machines to replace this labor for a damned good reason. If someone's plan for the future involves persuading people to go back to doing labor the vast majority of people don't want to do, then they should prepared for a lot of failure. Given the continued sales of brand new washing machines at my local home improvement store, I would argue that they have failed thus far.
(Ironically, there is probably a good lower-tech argument in making labor saving devices simpler and more reliable. The short lifespan of our appliances is both deeply unpopular and environmentally problematic, and doing anything to make them more repairable would both be good for the environment and incredibly popular.)
Back to their original argument, there's a reason why I hold up the e-bike as an unqualified success that the authors here are incorrectly ignoring. Cycling enthusiasts--myself included--have argued for decades that biking is better and people should switch over to using bikes for more trips. Repeated appeals to the environment, the wallet, and ones health haven't really moved the needle much in this area. Yet it's the high-tech (gasp!) e-bike that appears to be finally getting commuters out of cars and into the saddle. It turns out that while moralizing is fun, actual change involves making compromises towards the convenience and comfort of your average person.
Yup, I'm with you, lowtechmag has a lot of articles that seem unmoored from reality. There's always a few good ones though. There's one arguing if the grid was designed for 98-99.9% uptime instead of 99.999999% uptime, we'd a) survive just fine b) have cheaper power and c) be more resilient against power failure when it inevitably happens, which I found pretty thought provoking.
I agree, this is more probable than the closet misogyny theory. But it's still not exactly a ringing endorsement to say "whoops, we didn't think about who would have to do all that labor once we took away all those labor saving devices!" It's not like this is some hard to predict third order effect, after all.
Overall, the whole argument they're making is kind of silly. Washing clothes by hand sucks, people rushed to buy machines to replace this labor for a damned good reason. If someone's plan for the future involves persuading people to go back to doing labor the vast majority of people don't want to do, then they should prepared for a lot of failure. Given the continued sales of brand new washing machines at my local home improvement store, I would argue that they have failed thus far.
(Ironically, there is probably a good lower-tech argument in making labor saving devices simpler and more reliable. The short lifespan of our appliances is both deeply unpopular and environmentally problematic, and doing anything to make them more repairable would both be good for the environment and incredibly popular.)
Back to their original argument, there's a reason why I hold up the e-bike as an unqualified success that the authors here are incorrectly ignoring. Cycling enthusiasts--myself included--have argued for decades that biking is better and people should switch over to using bikes for more trips. Repeated appeals to the environment, the wallet, and ones health haven't really moved the needle much in this area. Yet it's the high-tech (gasp!) e-bike that appears to be finally getting commuters out of cars and into the saddle. It turns out that while moralizing is fun, actual change involves making compromises towards the convenience and comfort of your average person.