Berry relied on his wife to type his essays. Instead of expressing gratitude for his wife’s labors, he accused his feminist critics of a weak argument, and said that he preferred an old-fashioned marriage to the modern one of “two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended.”
I enjoy many of his essays, but his stance against abortion and his insistence that national laws are worthless compared to community-based norms seem to me now to feed into the rural, tradwife libertarianism that has contributed to where we are now. His theories are sound, but his solutions are impractical for the world we live in.
Concerned about egg prices? Just get your own backyard chickens! (Bird flu be damned.)
He is not some otherwise globalist liberal who was made some accidental error on and opted for the rural viewpoint on some small front. He is an advocate for the rural, plain and simple.
> Concerned about egg prices? Just get your own backyard chickens! (Bird flu be damned.)
Bird flu would be nigh impossible to spread if people opted for backyard chickens. It's the mass production of eggs, and the close promixity of tens of thousands of chickens in huge units, plus the subsequent remore shipping of eggs, that makes it possible to spread and thrive.
You miss my point. Emphasis is on libertarian tradwife-ism. The reason why family farms are failing isn't that they're not working hard enough in community. They're failing because the federal government has failed to reign in the excesses of our modern economy. No amount of supporting each other in community will make up for environmental regulations on PFAS, for example.
Again, lots of amazing ideas. Very inspirational, but definitely some blind spots.
It's not environmental regulations or PFAS. It's the lack of antitrust enforcement that allowed a handful of companies to roll up all the grain processing, all the meat processing, all the egg processing and so on. Those big corporations set the terms under which all smaller farmers have to operate unless they go artisanal which takes a whole other set of skills. Every year, they tighten the screws. Farmers used to be independent businessmen. Now, they're gig workers for megacorps. Try to fight them, and you're blacklisted. Of course, the they'll blame pronouns in the schools or something.
You're both right, and both wrong. Recently, I've been using AI to look at ways in which the European farmers have been shafted. It's partially because I dislike the unfairness of governments compulsory purchasing (our equivalent of eminent domain) at levels substantially below market value (before planning uplift). Most agricultural areas outside Europe and the US enjoy a cost advantage of between 20% and 100% due to agricultural regulations imposed by government. The rate depends upon the type of agricultural good produced and the level of compensatory subsides.
This realisation makes a mockery of economists who argue for the Doha Round. In almost every instance, if farmers in Europe and America were able to freely compete against the rest of the world, free from both unnecessary regulations and subsidies, they would literally wipe out the rest of the world in any area the rest of the world was forced to compete.
The other problem is that the regulatory cost burdens apply internally as well and many of the costs can be somewhat eliminated at scale. Kaleberg is also correct though. Almost every example of animal contagion in farming has been caused by operating as scale. With Mad Cow in the UK, not a single case was ever detected within either organic or prime beef herds- but they were slaughtered nonetheless, due to bureaucracy.
The other consequence is that small farms tend to be value farmers. With the Labour Party's punitive inheritance tax raid on small farms paired with a desire to steal their land at below market rates for housebuilding, Labour won't significantly be hitting volume. None of the volume suppliers are vulnerable to inheritance tax, because they're all corporations, and almost all of the wealth of the families which shifted their farms to the corporate model has long since been offshored.
But the farmers who will be hit will be the value farmers- the small farmers who grow or rear outside the conventional mass production model. Durum wheat and Einkorn. Higher quality watercress and other speciality crops. Angus beef and orchard pig. Shetland, Wensleydale, British Merino, and UK Alpaca sheep reared for speciality wools. It's basically anything supplied for speciality markets, artisanal or higher quality restaurants. The UKs cheese landscape will be particularly hard hit.
An interesting example of the flaws of operating at scale relates to Coleman's Mustard. They spent decades selecting for a branded taste to their mustard. Unfortunately, such a selective criteria for a specific crop also has vulnerabilities. When a particular form of contagion hit, the entire crop was wiped out in the UK. Luckily, they had an extensive seed bank based in Norwich. They were able to reconstruct their signature flavour by breeding from previous generations of mustard seed, but with the vulnerability selectively bred out of the crop.
The other issue is land management. Smaller farms tend to be more flexible, innovative and less ruled by accountants. They are willing to try cover crops, regenerative farming, break crops and 'no till' systems. One local farmer operates in collaboration with a local wildlife trust and university. He has a map for insect populations (important for native bird species) and plans his crops accordingly. The corporates just pay consultants for the cheapest option available at scale, to follow the letter of the regulation, whilst paying no heed whatsoever to the underlying intention.
Basically, government has a nasty habit of creating exploits for shrewd investors willing to operate both at scale and amorally. In both Britain and America the message to small farmers is clear- go big, or go home (and adopt the soulless corporate model in the process). The best models for regulators tends to be regulators willing to operate in good faith, without deference to a legalistic or rules-based format set in stone, and with broad discretionary powers. Unfortunately bureaucracies loathe such systems, because they require promotions be merit-based, particularly in terms of knowledge and experience- anathema to the ideologically driven or political tribes.
I'm not fond of the current agricultural system, but I've learned to live with it. I know a number of local farmers who sell artisanal products, but this is just a luxury I can afford. Modern industrial farming isn't going to go away, not with half the population dependent on industrial nitrogen for survival. We'd have to accept a dramatic plunge in population along with a collapse in living standards. (Granted, we might have to accept that anyway.) We can make the system work better, but that just means more bureaucracy and regulation. I don't believe in magic. I've seen all too much havoc released in the name of deregulation.
You're both right, and both wrong. Recently, I've been using AI to look at ways in which the European farmers have been shafted. It's partially because I dislike the unfairness of governments compulsory purchasing (our equivalent of eminent domain) at levels substantially below market value (before planning uplift). Most agricultural areas outside Europe and the US enjoy a cost advantage of between 20% and 100% due to agricultural regulations imposed by government. The rate depends upon the type of agricultural good produced and the level of compensatory subsides.
This realisation makes a mockery of economists who argue for the Doha Round. In almost every instance, if farmers in Europe and America were able to freely compete against the rest of the world, free from both unnecessary regulations and subsidies, they would literally wipe out the rest of the world in any area the rest of the world was forced to compete.
The other problem is that the regulatory cost burdens apply internally as well and many of the costs can be somewhat eliminated at scale. Kaleberg is also correct though. Almost every example of animal contagion in farming has been caused by operating as scale. With Mad Cow in the UK, not a single case was ever detected within either organic or prime beef herds- but they were slaughtered nonetheless, due to bureaucracy.
The other consequence is that small farms tend to be value farmers. With the Labour Party's punitive inheritance tax raid on small farms paired with a desire to steal their land at below market rates for housebuilding, Labour won't significantly be hitting volume. None of the volume suppliers are vulnerable to inheritance tax, because they're all corporations, and almost all of the wealth of the families which shifted their farms to the corporate model has long since been offshored.
But the farmers who will be hit will be the value farmers- the small farmers who grow or rear outside the conventional mass production model. Durum wheat and Einkorn. Higher quality watercress and other speciality crops. Angus beef and orchard pig. Shetland, Wensleydale, British Merino, and UK Alpaca sheep reared for speciality wools. It's basically anything supplied for speciality markets, artisanal or higher quality restaurants. The UKs cheese landscape will be particularly hard hit.
An interesting example of the flaws of operating at scale relates to Coleman's Mustard. They spent decades selecting for a branded taste to their mustard. Unfortunately, such a selective criteria for a specific crop also has vulnerabilities. When a particular form of contagion hit, the entire crop was wiped out in the UK. Luckily, they had an extensive seed bank based in Norwich. They were able to reconstruct their signature flavour by breeding from previous generations of mustard seed, but with the vulnerability selectively bred out of the crop.
The other issue is land management. Smaller farms tend to be more flexible, innovative and less ruled by accountants. They are willing to try cover crops, regenerative farming, break crops and 'no till' systems. One local farmer operates in collaboration with a local wildlife trust and university. He has a map for insect populations (important for native bird species) and plans his crops accordingly. The corporates just pay consultants for the cheapest option available at scale, to follow the letter of the regulation, whilst paying no heed whatsoever to the underlying intention.
Basically, government has a nasty habit of creating exploits for shrewd investors willing to operate both at scale and amorally. In both Britain and America the message to small farmers is clear- go big, or go home (and adopt the soulless corporate model in the process). The best models for regulators tends to be regulators willing to operate in good faith, without deference to a legalistic or rules-based format set in stone, and with broad discretionary powers. Unfortunately bureaucracies loathe such systems, because they require promotions be merit-based, particularly in terms of knowledge and experience- anathema to the ideologically driven or political tribes.
I am not sure where you get the idea that he did not express gratitude for his wife's work. For those interested in how Wendell Berry actually responded to criticism about his wife supporting his work, see this excerpt from"The World-Ending Fire":
"I understand that it is impossible to make an adequate public defense of one's private life and so I will only point out that there a a number of kinder possiblities that my critics have disdained to imagine: that my wife may do this work because she wants to and likes to; that she may find some use and some meaning in it; that she may not work for nothing."
A fetus ain't a baby, kiddo. You're abusing language to make an invalid point. A woman has a right not to be pregnant, and if you don't like that, you can lump it. And, your comment is off-topic.
A woman also has a right not to have unprotected sex.
Why the unnecessary rudeness? Your comment could have stopped here: "You're abusing language to make an invalid point. A woman has a right not to be pregnant,"
Free speech has nothing to do with an abuse of language here. I never condemned the poster's free speech rights. I simply pointed out that a fetus (or an embryo) is not a baby; the only way the poster has an argument is to conflate a fetus with a baby. Say whatever you want, and think what you like.
Exactly 100% agree. As long as there is full agreement with your arguments and conclusion, then free speech does not apply since there would be no dissention. Since all here agree with your thesis, then you are correct and I failed by promoting abuse of language as being conflated with free speech.
you say you know that he didn't express gratitude for his wife's labours?? where do you get this from?? b.s. if you ever read a book by wendell berry you'd have a very different viewpoint on the man..
I did read his books. And then I got to the point where he strenuously defends his position on abortion and I was like, wait, what? It was so bizarre. Then I went looking for more information and critiques and found them. Here's a little bit more discussion on how we reconcile his insistence on woman's traditional role: https://www.morningsideinstitute.org/cal-fall-2019/2019/11/4/berry
I mean, I wish I had a wife to do all my typing and manage my household so I could write full books without touching a computer, and travel to give paid lectures while she makes sure the animals are fed. What a life!
you are saying he didn't express graitutude towards his wife... that is bs!! if you want to talk about his views on abortion - that is another matter... you didn't read his books or get anything from him based on your derogatory commentary here.. that is really too bad..
We are all assuming she didn't enjoy this based on modern viewpoints or our opinions of what she should or shouldn't do. Perhaps his wife simply enjoyed the generous spirit of helping her husband with his writing in this way? Research shows how much more we receive from giving. It could have been their ritual as a married couple.
Perhaps she was more introverted and enjoyed staying home with the animals while he went out and talked about his work? We just don't know. I'm certain though, that she wasn't being held prisoner.
that is so true kate.. thank you for saying this! - ''we receive much more from giving'' then many people realize.... and that is what wendell berrys life has been too - one of a great generousity and giving of his spirit.. i really admire him and all he has done to enlighten me over the years..i've probably read 20 or more of his books and he is someone i aspire to..
Maybe she wants to do that shit?(idk a thing about them, but if theyre happily married theres a chance she does) What a life indeed! Two people supporting each other however the hell they want!
I edit myself better on a PC. My druthers is to write letters and personally with a pen. Try finding Parker Jotter pen refills. If you do, please get back to me!
I think WB is more concerned with the quality of family and community life than with efficiency of labor. Computers save time and consolidate labor, but Berry defends the intrinsic value of process, what we would today call "mindfulness."
A lot of us do. There's a reason writers started using mechanical typewriters and now word processors. Len Deighton who wrote thrillers actually had an IBM word processor delivered to his townhouse in the 1960s. They had to use a crane. His novel, Bomber, may be the first book written on word processor. Granted, his long time secretary took the IBM training course and did the actual typing, but word processing changed the way books were written.
So do many/most of us but it might come down to habit, how we are used to doing things. A good many very wonderful books were written by hand. We are certainly producing more words nowadays, but I'm not convinced they are better.
I did not, and would not ever, say that many wonderful books have not been written on a computer. That would indeed be a nonsense argument - and I,m not a nonsensical person.
Much technology has gone from creating value to extracting value (predation/rent-seeking). You, Cory Doctorow and others have helped to outline this development.
Technophagy has ill-served us, starting with our leading cause of early mortality: iatrogenic death—both chronic & acute. Medicine, our supposed 1st line of defense, has abysmally failed us. Glyphosate, fluoride, LED screens & lights, ultraprocessed food, seed oils, high fructose corn syrup, low fat diets, excessive vaccination, mRNA injections, food dyes, ... ad nauseum—"𝕯𝖔 𝕹𝖔 𝕳𝖆𝖗𝖒" was never considered as the 1st principle of our technological hyperphagia as our "civilization" mindlessly in•corporated im•provements without probing their long-term effects.
That our children are addled with anxiety & riddled with illnesses is the high price of idly opening Pandora's box & dispersing its contents throughout the earth. American healthspan & lifespan have both suffered. The Amish, the remnant, were never deceived.
I cannot even comprehend the energy crisis that would ensue if we all become more dependent on AI.
The Amish are wise to stay out of matters, live off the land, accept their medical fate based off their religion, and put family first. One doesn’t know what they miss out on if they’ve never experienced it. Rumspringa then gives them the freedom of choice so they can commit. Of course it’s not perfect, but it makes me wonder, who is the primitive one if our purpose here is soul growth? I believe that’s why we are here and AI is most definitely not my definition of soul growth.
The Amish accept modern medicine and a lot of modern farming technology. They're very efficient, so they are competitive in modern agricultural markets.
I read a doctor's account of treating an Amish child, and he had to admit that there was one really strange thing. The child's father paid cash.
I sometimes think of cities as population sinks, i.e., they don’t re•populate themselves & depend on in•migration to sustain their size. They also often suffer the effects of densely packed humans: the madness of crowds & the illnesses of tenements.
American nomad-hunters, not the heavily populated Meso-American civilizations, lived a tough life, but an existence in nature's awe, that once tasted, caused the return to that condition of many European raised individuals.
«When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them there is no persuading him ever to return, and that this is not natural merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoner young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.» —(9 May 1753) Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, is.gd/OInxcP
The purpose of civilization is to control human nature, to limit individual freedom to the purpose of socialized behavior. The denser the population, the more rules are necessary to limit natural (mis)behavior.
Awesome article Ted. I did not expect to read about Wendell in your column, but how appropriate! He and Tanya were neighbors for many years, and i still remember driving by and seeing their sheep along the river and singing in the church choir while Tanya banged on the piano.
His prescience and relevance…from things he wrote even 50 years ago…continue to astound me. If you haven’t read his most recent, The Need to Be Whole, I strongly recommend
I loved this post almost as much as I love Wendell Berry’s work. My first attempt to say so resulted in a login fiasco, the first of probably 20 that will happen today. QED.
Number 6 is a good point but rarely happens these days. I find when technology breaks these days you normally have to replace it as a lot of these items seem to have a limited life span
2 words from Ted Gioia's and my own yoot (I'm guessing circa 1960's thru my terminal adolescence...) spring to mind. This phrase was on all our lips not long after being gifted if we were lucky continuously since birth: "Designed obsolescence."
It was uttered by the schoolyard cynic and such knowledge is hard-won. I credit Ted for being able to write this piece of HONEST BROKER dot com without using those 2 woyds of woe and ethical malfeasance yet no longer the cliche it was back in the more entrepreneurial overheated phases of the Decline of Our Tech Empire.....
I must also credit a much loved high school social studies teacher, Elliot Abusch, for teaching us a bit about the less common knowledge behind our Tech Empire's rapid rise and darker shadows of many founding fathers cleaned up for history lessons: Sold as "Made to Last" yet pitched to investors as "Accessories unlimited" as the insurance biz began selling Extended Warranties on personal electronics.....Thank you, Uncle Ralph's!
I learned about Planned / Designed obsolescence long ago ... Having done & learned many many skills in my life ,one thing I always disliked was Auto Mechanics. Was never in to the Manly art of working on & worshipping a car. For me always just a way to get from A to B. So unfortunately it was the one thing I always had to go to an Auto shop for - any repairs.
In a very good pickup I had ,the Pull on Headlight switch seemed to go wrong way too often. When I asked the guy why he thought that was ,I got a great talk from him about Planned Obsolescence. He pulled the switch out of the dash & showed me how & why it had been made to fail & just how often the Parts maker knew it would likely fail.
It was something I had heard but never considered. I learned an Awful lot that day about So much ! And every thing the Mechanic pointed to occurred in my future dealings with Tech & Mech & so-called "Modern Life".
I've thought that way for a long time, but never in a concise list. Thanks to Wendell, and to Ted!
And I'm a technonerd. There was something about, not just Apple and Jobs, but a little thing called competition. It's gone from the tech world, replaced by innovation-stifling oligopoly, with political overreach as well, and I don't just mean Elon.
> (7) It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible. Finally I can give some tiny credit to our tech titans. They do offer home delivery—even if the product is made in a sweatshop far, far away.
Berry doesn't explicitly say it, but he implicitly means local repair. Not merely "home delivery" which is a different thing.
It's about not being dependent on huge networks (like courrier and transport services) and remote toolsets and processes for this repair - and also not to incur such waste as home delivery brings.
Not all that enthusiastic about this list to be frank. I think lists of principles should be at least compatible. I'm not sure how rule 1,2,3,4 can be true while 9 is also true. If any or all of 1 through 4 are true, than the tech will replace or displace at least one thing if not more. In fact the very reason we develop new tech is to replace and displace. So the list is not even compatible with the principle of progress. Also the old tech we are used to and able to easily repair was in the beginning hard to understand and difficult to fix, so 6 at least should be modified to say that an intelligent person should be able to learn how to fix, and parts should be available.
If progress is a lie, then there is no need to worry about replacement or displacement because nothing will be improved. So, go get a commadore 64, it would be as good as a modern day computer. The principle of progress in this case refers to the idea that the function of technology improves with iteration. It's not the philosophical ideal, that you seem to have a perplexing issue with. I was definitely not referring to an eschatological progress of culture through history, but that much should have been obvious.
My day (only temporary) was ruined early this morning by becoming very depressed doing my normal morning bit - Coffee - check on the "News" (now seemingly not much else but the latest overnight disasters of all flavors) ,then some late night Comics to cheer up a bit.
But this morning ("Liberation Day" ?) was especially Grim.
I did get some Mid-Morning good news that was better tan expected so ...
Insightful and true. Planned obsolescence, bunk warranties, and predatory practices on the elderly or the working class doesn’t fare well for a company’s integrity long term. I’m reminded of Aesop’s Town Mouse & Country Mouse. Berry’s wisdom reminds us it is more than OK to be the country mouse because what truly mattered in all of this? His relationship with his wife working alongside him with the typewriter which ultimately inspired his ideas. In the late 90s my brother was the only certified Apple repairman I knew. Now one has to travel to a major city to join a queue at a sterile Apple Store. I wonder how we can make our electronics and appliances, etc last instead of feeding American society anxiety of FOMO consumerism? Pre-coffee comment makes everlasting coffee sound even more appealing to me. Cheers!
This is a pretty limited view of the issue. What stuff costs depends a lot on how well we spend time to learn about what we're buying, who provides the most bang for the buck, and who sells and supports it well. Any analysis of costs must consider inflation. My first computer was a state of the art piece of electronic and acoustic test equipment, running a predecessor to DOS called CP/M. It had 64K of RAM. I paid $12,000 for it in 1982 dollars that I'd been saving for a down payment on a house in a Chicago neighborhood. Because my profession was a technical one, but I was also writing quotations and reports to my clients, the computer part of that test equipment produced them.
Four years later, my first desktop, running DOS, cost me $3,000 in 1986 dollars. Around 2000, the color monitor I needed for my business cost more than $2,000 in 2000 dollars. I just bought a very high power Lenovo laptop for my desktop for about $1,500; a monitor that blows away the late '90s version cost me $250. The very capable Android phones I bought for my wife and myself a couple of years ago cost about $300, and we'll continue using them for at least another year.
I guess Wendell Berry never worked in a typewriter factory, or a print shop, or a textile factory, all of which he depended on. (Plus the wife.)
Did he know how pencils and paper are made? Where does the cloth for his clothes come from, or the buttons that hold them together? Who invented the sewing machine, or the tractor?
Does he never go to a doctor in a city, or take a vaccine?
I would make the observation that country people do not realize how much they depend on city people, and vice versa. Who do the farmers sell their food to, only those within walking distance? Oh, half the soybeans go to China. Oh, the government gives billions in subsidies to agri-business?
Likewise, city people just assume that food and energy and stuff just "come" automatically from somewhere, but they never think about where, or how.
My first computer, an Osborne 1, also ran CPM and had just 64 K. But miracle of miracles, it liberated me from the typewriter, which never let you edit anything, never let you fix errors. Even with its tiny display, the Osborne let me edit my work without making me retype everything whenever I had to make a single change. I had to take out a loan to buy it, but never regretted it.
If computers did not exist, you would not be reading this.
I am typing on an iMac, with a beautiful display, and it weighs half as much as my previous one (meaning only half as much physical stuff was required to make it) and uses very little energy. On the other hand, Apple says this will be obsolete in just 5 years. And they would really really like you to be constantly buying their newest, even when they don't do much new for you. Now they are in a fix, their strategy of making everything in China looking increasingly risky. And they have angered a lot of their customers by their obvious rent-seeking, manipulative behavior towards us.
Let's keep a balanced perspective: keeping the baby, and throwing out the bathwater. There was a reason people were not satisfied with life in the past; it was nasty, brutish, and short. There was a reason people left the farms, and the small towns: to be free, and to grow. They voted with their feet. Sometimes they crossed oceans! One of my ancestors was on that Mayflower. It was perilous:
We humans use both our minds and our mind-made tools. Sometimes we use them, sometimes they use us. We have to be vigilant.
I use a Tracfone, not an iPhone, and I never made that small-screen device the center of my world. I don't use social media; does Substack count? I have a 15-year-old Corolla.
These are my choices.
People live in different ways. Isn't that interesting? No matter, reality is not going away, no matter how hard we try to escape it. We have to be prepared to be uncomfortable. The only certainty is change. One day we will all be gone.
Hah!
I live in Connecticut, a small place which is not what people think it is. You can drive through it in a couple hours on I-95. Do you think it is a "country" state, or a "rich person's" state?
Have you ever eaten the "Mystic Pizza?"
Past generations here actually cut all the trees down to burn them for fuel, to clear space for farming, and to make stuff of wood. We stopped doing that, and now the trees have come back:
There's often a tradeoff between being easy to repair and not needing to be repaired very often. Your fifteen year old Toyota is an example. In the 1960s, cars were relatively easy to repair, but they broke down often. Back then, BMWs came with a repair kit in the trunk. If you look at cars a hundred years ago, they needed new oil and other repairs all the time. Modern cars are inscrutable. Everything is software running on a network, but they break down much less often..
It's like that with modern computers. It used to be easy to upgrade memory. The chips fit into special slots. Unfortunately, they could wiggle loose or fail in interesting ways as they thermally cycled. You had better buy your new computer with all the memory you are going to need. It will be soldered in place. You can't upgrade, but it is very unlikely to fail.
You seem to have missed my points that 1) I don't live in the Apple world where things are far more expensive than necessary for MY needs; and 2) I've been an early adopter all my life. I don't need to buy a phone every year because I don't live on it; I do live on the Lenovo that's been on my desktop for 8 years, and it's been sufficiently capable for my needs because I bought a top line machine. I just bought a replacement, because the existing one won't take Win11. And I don't live on my phone because there's no cell coverage in the redwood forest where we live.
Won't get any argument from me! Like a lot of visual creators, I started with the Mac 30 years ago because nobody else had anything affordable to do page layouts, and later Photoshop. Still later, Final Cut. Apple takes image quality seriously, which is why I had to get the iMac: literally no one else makes a competitive display at that price.
If I just wrote stuff, or worked with numbers, I could use almost anything. For me, word processing was solved decades ago. That old Osborne with the tiny display was enough to cover the basics. What on earth more does anybody need Word to do? You just need digital "cut and paste." Most people don't need fancy software, they need to learn how to write! Cut out the words that don't advance the point. If we all wrote whole pages perfectly in our minds, a typewriter could do it, but a computer makes editing (the soul of writing) much less painful, so encourages it.
We have pretty much arrived at the final sizes and forms for laptops, tablets, and phones, so no need to replace them so often. They should last a long time, they are not "fashion."
John Bogle, who started Vanguard, wrote an unfashionable book called "Enough." He died with an estate worth eighty million that could have been 8 billion had he been more selfish. He realized he actually had enough. He wasn't driven to accumulate endlessly.
People mistake "minimalism" of the $$$$ variety for actual simplicity, which may be cheap or expensive, but is no more or less than it needs to be.
Anything that really needs to be efficient tends to have a certain beauty also, like sailboats or aircraft. Aerodynamics require smooth shapes, usually.
Appropriateness is beautiful, whether a diamond or a paperclip.
I used to fly gliders, and believe me they require that you get intimate with the air you are flying in, or you will be on the ground again pretty soon. While aloft you might run into a hawk, or see a cloud forming. Plus you got to smell the grass on the field you took off from, and you didn't have to talk on the radio unless you went near other planes. Bliss, except you were working so hard all the time to stay up!
I ran my old iMac for 14 years, but it became obsolete. Last new car I bought, a Honda CRX HF, I drove for 360,000 miles, then it got stolen.
I like Shaker style. It never indulges, it requires and teaches discipline. I like honest design, and people. Don't like waste.
A paid-for computer, like a paid-for car or home, is a thing of beauty.
Love this, Ted. Berry is such an important voice for our time.
Most readers have probably encountered this list in his classic essay "Why I Am not Going To
Buy A Computer." The main text is classic, but my favorite part is the reader replies and Berry's replies back to them. Well worth a read for anyone reading this post. https://classes.matthewjbrown.net/teaching-files/philtech/berry-computer.pdf
Berry relied on his wife to type his essays. Instead of expressing gratitude for his wife’s labors, he accused his feminist critics of a weak argument, and said that he preferred an old-fashioned marriage to the modern one of “two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended.”
I enjoy many of his essays, but his stance against abortion and his insistence that national laws are worthless compared to community-based norms seem to me now to feed into the rural, tradwife libertarianism that has contributed to where we are now. His theories are sound, but his solutions are impractical for the world we live in.
Concerned about egg prices? Just get your own backyard chickens! (Bird flu be damned.)
> seem to me now to feed into the rural
The "rural" is Berry's whole point.
He is not some otherwise globalist liberal who was made some accidental error on and opted for the rural viewpoint on some small front. He is an advocate for the rural, plain and simple.
> Concerned about egg prices? Just get your own backyard chickens! (Bird flu be damned.)
Bird flu would be nigh impossible to spread if people opted for backyard chickens. It's the mass production of eggs, and the close promixity of tens of thousands of chickens in huge units, plus the subsequent remore shipping of eggs, that makes it possible to spread and thrive.
You miss my point. Emphasis is on libertarian tradwife-ism. The reason why family farms are failing isn't that they're not working hard enough in community. They're failing because the federal government has failed to reign in the excesses of our modern economy. No amount of supporting each other in community will make up for environmental regulations on PFAS, for example.
Again, lots of amazing ideas. Very inspirational, but definitely some blind spots.
It's not environmental regulations or PFAS. It's the lack of antitrust enforcement that allowed a handful of companies to roll up all the grain processing, all the meat processing, all the egg processing and so on. Those big corporations set the terms under which all smaller farmers have to operate unless they go artisanal which takes a whole other set of skills. Every year, they tighten the screws. Farmers used to be independent businessmen. Now, they're gig workers for megacorps. Try to fight them, and you're blacklisted. Of course, the they'll blame pronouns in the schools or something.
You're both right, and both wrong. Recently, I've been using AI to look at ways in which the European farmers have been shafted. It's partially because I dislike the unfairness of governments compulsory purchasing (our equivalent of eminent domain) at levels substantially below market value (before planning uplift). Most agricultural areas outside Europe and the US enjoy a cost advantage of between 20% and 100% due to agricultural regulations imposed by government. The rate depends upon the type of agricultural good produced and the level of compensatory subsides.
This realisation makes a mockery of economists who argue for the Doha Round. In almost every instance, if farmers in Europe and America were able to freely compete against the rest of the world, free from both unnecessary regulations and subsidies, they would literally wipe out the rest of the world in any area the rest of the world was forced to compete.
The other problem is that the regulatory cost burdens apply internally as well and many of the costs can be somewhat eliminated at scale. Kaleberg is also correct though. Almost every example of animal contagion in farming has been caused by operating as scale. With Mad Cow in the UK, not a single case was ever detected within either organic or prime beef herds- but they were slaughtered nonetheless, due to bureaucracy.
The other consequence is that small farms tend to be value farmers. With the Labour Party's punitive inheritance tax raid on small farms paired with a desire to steal their land at below market rates for housebuilding, Labour won't significantly be hitting volume. None of the volume suppliers are vulnerable to inheritance tax, because they're all corporations, and almost all of the wealth of the families which shifted their farms to the corporate model has long since been offshored.
But the farmers who will be hit will be the value farmers- the small farmers who grow or rear outside the conventional mass production model. Durum wheat and Einkorn. Higher quality watercress and other speciality crops. Angus beef and orchard pig. Shetland, Wensleydale, British Merino, and UK Alpaca sheep reared for speciality wools. It's basically anything supplied for speciality markets, artisanal or higher quality restaurants. The UKs cheese landscape will be particularly hard hit.
An interesting example of the flaws of operating at scale relates to Coleman's Mustard. They spent decades selecting for a branded taste to their mustard. Unfortunately, such a selective criteria for a specific crop also has vulnerabilities. When a particular form of contagion hit, the entire crop was wiped out in the UK. Luckily, they had an extensive seed bank based in Norwich. They were able to reconstruct their signature flavour by breeding from previous generations of mustard seed, but with the vulnerability selectively bred out of the crop.
The other issue is land management. Smaller farms tend to be more flexible, innovative and less ruled by accountants. They are willing to try cover crops, regenerative farming, break crops and 'no till' systems. One local farmer operates in collaboration with a local wildlife trust and university. He has a map for insect populations (important for native bird species) and plans his crops accordingly. The corporates just pay consultants for the cheapest option available at scale, to follow the letter of the regulation, whilst paying no heed whatsoever to the underlying intention.
Basically, government has a nasty habit of creating exploits for shrewd investors willing to operate both at scale and amorally. In both Britain and America the message to small farmers is clear- go big, or go home (and adopt the soulless corporate model in the process). The best models for regulators tends to be regulators willing to operate in good faith, without deference to a legalistic or rules-based format set in stone, and with broad discretionary powers. Unfortunately bureaucracies loathe such systems, because they require promotions be merit-based, particularly in terms of knowledge and experience- anathema to the ideologically driven or political tribes.
I'm not fond of the current agricultural system, but I've learned to live with it. I know a number of local farmers who sell artisanal products, but this is just a luxury I can afford. Modern industrial farming isn't going to go away, not with half the population dependent on industrial nitrogen for survival. We'd have to accept a dramatic plunge in population along with a collapse in living standards. (Granted, we might have to accept that anyway.) We can make the system work better, but that just means more bureaucracy and regulation. I don't believe in magic. I've seen all too much havoc released in the name of deregulation.
You're both right, and both wrong. Recently, I've been using AI to look at ways in which the European farmers have been shafted. It's partially because I dislike the unfairness of governments compulsory purchasing (our equivalent of eminent domain) at levels substantially below market value (before planning uplift). Most agricultural areas outside Europe and the US enjoy a cost advantage of between 20% and 100% due to agricultural regulations imposed by government. The rate depends upon the type of agricultural good produced and the level of compensatory subsides.
This realisation makes a mockery of economists who argue for the Doha Round. In almost every instance, if farmers in Europe and America were able to freely compete against the rest of the world, free from both unnecessary regulations and subsidies, they would literally wipe out the rest of the world in any area the rest of the world was forced to compete.
The other problem is that the regulatory cost burdens apply internally as well and many of the costs can be somewhat eliminated at scale. Kaleberg is also correct though. Almost every example of animal contagion in farming has been caused by operating as scale. With Mad Cow in the UK, not a single case was ever detected within either organic or prime beef herds- but they were slaughtered nonetheless, due to bureaucracy.
The other consequence is that small farms tend to be value farmers. With the Labour Party's punitive inheritance tax raid on small farms paired with a desire to steal their land at below market rates for housebuilding, Labour won't significantly be hitting volume. None of the volume suppliers are vulnerable to inheritance tax, because they're all corporations, and almost all of the wealth of the families which shifted their farms to the corporate model has long since been offshored.
But the farmers who will be hit will be the value farmers- the small farmers who grow or rear outside the conventional mass production model. Durum wheat and Einkorn. Higher quality watercress and other speciality crops. Angus beef and orchard pig. Shetland, Wensleydale, British Merino, and UK Alpaca sheep reared for speciality wools. It's basically anything supplied for speciality markets, artisanal or higher quality restaurants. The UKs cheese landscape will be particularly hard hit.
An interesting example of the flaws of operating at scale relates to Coleman's Mustard. They spent decades selecting for a branded taste to their mustard. Unfortunately, such a selective criteria for a specific crop also has vulnerabilities. When a particular form of contagion hit, the entire crop was wiped out in the UK. Luckily, they had an extensive seed bank based in Norwich. They were able to reconstruct their signature flavour by breeding from previous generations of mustard seed, but with the vulnerability selectively bred out of the crop.
The other issue is land management. Smaller farms tend to be more flexible, innovative and less ruled by accountants. They are willing to try cover crops, regenerative farming, break crops and 'no till' systems. One local farmer operates in collaboration with a local wildlife trust and university. He has a map for insect populations (important for native bird species) and plans his crops accordingly. The corporates just pay consultants for the cheapest option available at scale, to follow the letter of the regulation, whilst paying no heed whatsoever to the underlying intention.
Basically, government has a nasty habit of creating exploits for shrewd investors willing to operate both at scale and amorally. In both Britain and America the message to small farmers is clear- go big, or go home (and adopt the soulless corporate model in the process). The best models for regulators tends to be regulators willing to operate in good faith, without deference to a legalistic or rules-based format set in stone, and with broad discretionary powers. Unfortunately bureaucracies loathe such systems, because they require promotions be merit-based, particularly in terms of knowledge and experience- anathema to the ideologically driven or political tribes.
I am not sure where you get the idea that he did not express gratitude for his wife's work. For those interested in how Wendell Berry actually responded to criticism about his wife supporting his work, see this excerpt from"The World-Ending Fire":
"I understand that it is impossible to make an adequate public defense of one's private life and so I will only point out that there a a number of kinder possiblities that my critics have disdained to imagine: that my wife may do this work because she wants to and likes to; that she may find some use and some meaning in it; that she may not work for nothing."
Gracey Olmstead wrote an essay in the Front Porch Republic on "Tanya Berry's Faithful Art". https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2020/06/tanya-berrys-faithful-art/
Why are all USA young women obsessed with killing babies.
A fetus ain't a baby, kiddo. You're abusing language to make an invalid point. A woman has a right not to be pregnant, and if you don't like that, you can lump it. And, your comment is off-topic.
A woman also has a right not to have unprotected sex.
Why the unnecessary rudeness? Your comment could have stopped here: "You're abusing language to make an invalid point. A woman has a right not to be pregnant,"
So no one ever explained to you where babies come from. Aw.
And the original pro-abortion comment was on topic?
is free speech really an abuse of language?
Free speech has nothing to do with an abuse of language here. I never condemned the poster's free speech rights. I simply pointed out that a fetus (or an embryo) is not a baby; the only way the poster has an argument is to conflate a fetus with a baby. Say whatever you want, and think what you like.
Exactly 100% agree. As long as there is full agreement with your arguments and conclusion, then free speech does not apply since there would be no dissention. Since all here agree with your thesis, then you are correct and I failed by promoting abuse of language as being conflated with free speech.
They are not, Jane.
In 2022, the abortion rate in the UK was 21.1 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 while in the US it was just 11.2 per 1,000 women aged 15-44.
It was just the Camel lady then
I hope you will explain your thinking on this a little more: "the rural, tradwife libertarianism that has contributed to where we are now. "
Not sure, but it is possible that you have misread WB. Or maybe I am misunderstanding "rural, tradwife libertarianism."
This isn't really relevant to the article. No need to politicize things. (And being pro-life is not exactly a fringe position.)
Good points.
you say you know that he didn't express gratitude for his wife's labours?? where do you get this from?? b.s. if you ever read a book by wendell berry you'd have a very different viewpoint on the man..
I did read his books. And then I got to the point where he strenuously defends his position on abortion and I was like, wait, what? It was so bizarre. Then I went looking for more information and critiques and found them. Here's a little bit more discussion on how we reconcile his insistence on woman's traditional role: https://www.morningsideinstitute.org/cal-fall-2019/2019/11/4/berry
I mean, I wish I had a wife to do all my typing and manage my household so I could write full books without touching a computer, and travel to give paid lectures while she makes sure the animals are fed. What a life!
you are saying he didn't express graitutude towards his wife... that is bs!! if you want to talk about his views on abortion - that is another matter... you didn't read his books or get anything from him based on your derogatory commentary here.. that is really too bad..
We are all assuming she didn't enjoy this based on modern viewpoints or our opinions of what she should or shouldn't do. Perhaps his wife simply enjoyed the generous spirit of helping her husband with his writing in this way? Research shows how much more we receive from giving. It could have been their ritual as a married couple.
Perhaps she was more introverted and enjoyed staying home with the animals while he went out and talked about his work? We just don't know. I'm certain though, that she wasn't being held prisoner.
that is so true kate.. thank you for saying this! - ''we receive much more from giving'' then many people realize.... and that is what wendell berrys life has been too - one of a great generousity and giving of his spirit.. i really admire him and all he has done to enlighten me over the years..i've probably read 20 or more of his books and he is someone i aspire to..
I guess this is like "if you don't like abortion, don't have one." If you don't want to mind the farm and type, don't.
Um, so he was pro-life . . . so what? Most of the country is opposed to abortion after the first trimester.
Maybe she wants to do that shit?(idk a thing about them, but if theyre happily married theres a chance she does) What a life indeed! Two people supporting each other however the hell they want!
It’s such a lovely article in its entirety and made better with the response to the letters. Thank you for sharing this.
I for one write vastly better on a computer than with a pencil.
I edit myself better on a PC. My druthers is to write letters and personally with a pen. Try finding Parker Jotter pen refills. If you do, please get back to me!
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
I think WB is more concerned with the quality of family and community life than with efficiency of labor. Computers save time and consolidate labor, but Berry defends the intrinsic value of process, what we would today call "mindfulness."
A lot of us do. There's a reason writers started using mechanical typewriters and now word processors. Len Deighton who wrote thrillers actually had an IBM word processor delivered to his townhouse in the 1960s. They had to use a crane. His novel, Bomber, may be the first book written on word processor. Granted, his long time secretary took the IBM training course and did the actual typing, but word processing changed the way books were written.
So do many/most of us but it might come down to habit, how we are used to doing things. A good many very wonderful books were written by hand. We are certainly producing more words nowadays, but I'm not convinced they are better.
A good many very wonderful books were also written on a computer. This is an absolute nonsense argument.
I did not, and would not ever, say that many wonderful books have not been written on a computer. That would indeed be a nonsense argument - and I,m not a nonsensical person.
Try reading a little more carefully.
Thanks, Josh!
Much technology has gone from creating value to extracting value (predation/rent-seeking). You, Cory Doctorow and others have helped to outline this development.
This is so damning because as you point out, technology actually gave us most of these criteria not so long ago.
Except the last one, which is the most important.
In general this post accepts as "meeting the criteria" tech that Berry would outright denounce.
Technophagy has ill-served us, starting with our leading cause of early mortality: iatrogenic death—both chronic & acute. Medicine, our supposed 1st line of defense, has abysmally failed us. Glyphosate, fluoride, LED screens & lights, ultraprocessed food, seed oils, high fructose corn syrup, low fat diets, excessive vaccination, mRNA injections, food dyes, ... ad nauseum—"𝕯𝖔 𝕹𝖔 𝕳𝖆𝖗𝖒" was never considered as the 1st principle of our technological hyperphagia as our "civilization" mindlessly in•corporated im•provements without probing their long-term effects.
That our children are addled with anxiety & riddled with illnesses is the high price of idly opening Pandora's box & dispersing its contents throughout the earth. American healthspan & lifespan have both suffered. The Amish, the remnant, were never deceived.
I cannot even comprehend the energy crisis that would ensue if we all become more dependent on AI.
The Amish are wise to stay out of matters, live off the land, accept their medical fate based off their religion, and put family first. One doesn’t know what they miss out on if they’ve never experienced it. Rumspringa then gives them the freedom of choice so they can commit. Of course it’s not perfect, but it makes me wonder, who is the primitive one if our purpose here is soul growth? I believe that’s why we are here and AI is most definitely not my definition of soul growth.
Beautifully expressed!
The Amish accept modern medicine and a lot of modern farming technology. They're very efficient, so they are competitive in modern agricultural markets.
I read a doctor's account of treating an Amish child, and he had to admit that there was one really strange thing. The child's father paid cash.
In many ways, the Amish are hard-core realists. They don't waste time on sentimental ideas.
I sometimes think of cities as population sinks, i.e., they don’t re•populate themselves & depend on in•migration to sustain their size. They also often suffer the effects of densely packed humans: the madness of crowds & the illnesses of tenements.
American nomad-hunters, not the heavily populated Meso-American civilizations, lived a tough life, but an existence in nature's awe, that once tasted, caused the return to that condition of many European raised individuals.
«When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them there is no persuading him ever to return, and that this is not natural merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoner young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.» —(9 May 1753) Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, is.gd/OInxcP
The purpose of civilization is to control human nature, to limit individual freedom to the purpose of socialized behavior. The denser the population, the more rules are necessary to limit natural (mis)behavior.
When dense environments aren't super-socialized, things go to hell pretty quick.
You're lumping low-fat diets in with glyphosate and mRNA injections?
Low fat diets in conjunction with seed oils & exogenous sugars &c., — the totality of ingested & injected insults of modern technophagy.
Thank you for mentioning Wendell Berry. I wish his essays were more widely read.
The only advances that corporate America has made in a very long time are new and better ways to extract money from stuff that already exists.
Awesome article Ted. I did not expect to read about Wendell in your column, but how appropriate! He and Tanya were neighbors for many years, and i still remember driving by and seeing their sheep along the river and singing in the church choir while Tanya banged on the piano.
His prescience and relevance…from things he wrote even 50 years ago…continue to astound me. If you haven’t read his most recent, The Need to Be Whole, I strongly recommend
I loved this post almost as much as I love Wendell Berry’s work. My first attempt to say so resulted in a login fiasco, the first of probably 20 that will happen today. QED.
Number 6 is a good point but rarely happens these days. I find when technology breaks these days you normally have to replace it as a lot of these items seem to have a limited life span
2 words from Ted Gioia's and my own yoot (I'm guessing circa 1960's thru my terminal adolescence...) spring to mind. This phrase was on all our lips not long after being gifted if we were lucky continuously since birth: "Designed obsolescence."
It was uttered by the schoolyard cynic and such knowledge is hard-won. I credit Ted for being able to write this piece of HONEST BROKER dot com without using those 2 woyds of woe and ethical malfeasance yet no longer the cliche it was back in the more entrepreneurial overheated phases of the Decline of Our Tech Empire.....
I must also credit a much loved high school social studies teacher, Elliot Abusch, for teaching us a bit about the less common knowledge behind our Tech Empire's rapid rise and darker shadows of many founding fathers cleaned up for history lessons: Sold as "Made to Last" yet pitched to investors as "Accessories unlimited" as the insurance biz began selling Extended Warranties on personal electronics.....Thank you, Uncle Ralph's!
Health and balance,
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
I learned about Planned / Designed obsolescence long ago ... Having done & learned many many skills in my life ,one thing I always disliked was Auto Mechanics. Was never in to the Manly art of working on & worshipping a car. For me always just a way to get from A to B. So unfortunately it was the one thing I always had to go to an Auto shop for - any repairs.
In a very good pickup I had ,the Pull on Headlight switch seemed to go wrong way too often. When I asked the guy why he thought that was ,I got a great talk from him about Planned Obsolescence. He pulled the switch out of the dash & showed me how & why it had been made to fail & just how often the Parts maker knew it would likely fail.
It was something I had heard but never considered. I learned an Awful lot that day about So much ! And every thing the Mechanic pointed to occurred in my future dealings with Tech & Mech & so-called "Modern Life".
I've thought that way for a long time, but never in a concise list. Thanks to Wendell, and to Ted!
And I'm a technonerd. There was something about, not just Apple and Jobs, but a little thing called competition. It's gone from the tech world, replaced by innovation-stifling oligopoly, with political overreach as well, and I don't just mean Elon.
> (7) It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible. Finally I can give some tiny credit to our tech titans. They do offer home delivery—even if the product is made in a sweatshop far, far away.
Berry doesn't explicitly say it, but he implicitly means local repair. Not merely "home delivery" which is a different thing.
It's about not being dependent on huge networks (like courrier and transport services) and remote toolsets and processes for this repair - and also not to incur such waste as home delivery brings.
Not all that enthusiastic about this list to be frank. I think lists of principles should be at least compatible. I'm not sure how rule 1,2,3,4 can be true while 9 is also true. If any or all of 1 through 4 are true, than the tech will replace or displace at least one thing if not more. In fact the very reason we develop new tech is to replace and displace. So the list is not even compatible with the principle of progress. Also the old tech we are used to and able to easily repair was in the beginning hard to understand and difficult to fix, so 6 at least should be modified to say that an intelligent person should be able to learn how to fix, and parts should be available.
Progress is a lie. It's also an illusion used by the clever ones to control the dim ones.
If progress is a lie, then there is no need to worry about replacement or displacement because nothing will be improved. So, go get a commadore 64, it would be as good as a modern day computer. The principle of progress in this case refers to the idea that the function of technology improves with iteration. It's not the philosophical ideal, that you seem to have a perplexing issue with. I was definitely not referring to an eschatological progress of culture through history, but that much should have been obvious.
You have Faith -aaaaa- burst of gregorian chant - in the lie. Thats so sweet.
Incredibly prescient and terrifyingly true.
Thanks, Ted, for ruining my day with reality. [Emoji of smiling and winking through tears.]
My day (only temporary) was ruined early this morning by becoming very depressed doing my normal morning bit - Coffee - check on the "News" (now seemingly not much else but the latest overnight disasters of all flavors) ,then some late night Comics to cheer up a bit.
But this morning ("Liberation Day" ?) was especially Grim.
I did get some Mid-Morning good news that was better tan expected so ...
Insightful and true. Planned obsolescence, bunk warranties, and predatory practices on the elderly or the working class doesn’t fare well for a company’s integrity long term. I’m reminded of Aesop’s Town Mouse & Country Mouse. Berry’s wisdom reminds us it is more than OK to be the country mouse because what truly mattered in all of this? His relationship with his wife working alongside him with the typewriter which ultimately inspired his ideas. In the late 90s my brother was the only certified Apple repairman I knew. Now one has to travel to a major city to join a queue at a sterile Apple Store. I wonder how we can make our electronics and appliances, etc last instead of feeding American society anxiety of FOMO consumerism? Pre-coffee comment makes everlasting coffee sound even more appealing to me. Cheers!
This is a pretty limited view of the issue. What stuff costs depends a lot on how well we spend time to learn about what we're buying, who provides the most bang for the buck, and who sells and supports it well. Any analysis of costs must consider inflation. My first computer was a state of the art piece of electronic and acoustic test equipment, running a predecessor to DOS called CP/M. It had 64K of RAM. I paid $12,000 for it in 1982 dollars that I'd been saving for a down payment on a house in a Chicago neighborhood. Because my profession was a technical one, but I was also writing quotations and reports to my clients, the computer part of that test equipment produced them.
Four years later, my first desktop, running DOS, cost me $3,000 in 1986 dollars. Around 2000, the color monitor I needed for my business cost more than $2,000 in 2000 dollars. I just bought a very high power Lenovo laptop for my desktop for about $1,500; a monitor that blows away the late '90s version cost me $250. The very capable Android phones I bought for my wife and myself a couple of years ago cost about $300, and we'll continue using them for at least another year.
Hooray for yesterday?
I guess Wendell Berry never worked in a typewriter factory, or a print shop, or a textile factory, all of which he depended on. (Plus the wife.)
Did he know how pencils and paper are made? Where does the cloth for his clothes come from, or the buttons that hold them together? Who invented the sewing machine, or the tractor?
Does he never go to a doctor in a city, or take a vaccine?
I would make the observation that country people do not realize how much they depend on city people, and vice versa. Who do the farmers sell their food to, only those within walking distance? Oh, half the soybeans go to China. Oh, the government gives billions in subsidies to agri-business?
Likewise, city people just assume that food and energy and stuff just "come" automatically from somewhere, but they never think about where, or how.
My first computer, an Osborne 1, also ran CPM and had just 64 K. But miracle of miracles, it liberated me from the typewriter, which never let you edit anything, never let you fix errors. Even with its tiny display, the Osborne let me edit my work without making me retype everything whenever I had to make a single change. I had to take out a loan to buy it, but never regretted it.
If computers did not exist, you would not be reading this.
I am typing on an iMac, with a beautiful display, and it weighs half as much as my previous one (meaning only half as much physical stuff was required to make it) and uses very little energy. On the other hand, Apple says this will be obsolete in just 5 years. And they would really really like you to be constantly buying their newest, even when they don't do much new for you. Now they are in a fix, their strategy of making everything in China looking increasingly risky. And they have angered a lot of their customers by their obvious rent-seeking, manipulative behavior towards us.
Let's keep a balanced perspective: keeping the baby, and throwing out the bathwater. There was a reason people were not satisfied with life in the past; it was nasty, brutish, and short. There was a reason people left the farms, and the small towns: to be free, and to grow. They voted with their feet. Sometimes they crossed oceans! One of my ancestors was on that Mayflower. It was perilous:
http://www.genealogytrails.com/mass/mayflower.html
We all came from somewhere.
We humans use both our minds and our mind-made tools. Sometimes we use them, sometimes they use us. We have to be vigilant.
I use a Tracfone, not an iPhone, and I never made that small-screen device the center of my world. I don't use social media; does Substack count? I have a 15-year-old Corolla.
These are my choices.
People live in different ways. Isn't that interesting? No matter, reality is not going away, no matter how hard we try to escape it. We have to be prepared to be uncomfortable. The only certainty is change. One day we will all be gone.
Hah!
I live in Connecticut, a small place which is not what people think it is. You can drive through it in a couple hours on I-95. Do you think it is a "country" state, or a "rich person's" state?
Have you ever eaten the "Mystic Pizza?"
Past generations here actually cut all the trees down to burn them for fuel, to clear space for farming, and to make stuff of wood. We stopped doing that, and now the trees have come back:
https://explorect.org/history-of-forestry-in-connecticut/
Today, we are modern here. We import people, and export hedge funds.
How is it where you live?
Great Observation:
"Likewise, city people just assume that food and energy and stuff just "come" automatically from somewhere, but they never think about where, or how."
There's often a tradeoff between being easy to repair and not needing to be repaired very often. Your fifteen year old Toyota is an example. In the 1960s, cars were relatively easy to repair, but they broke down often. Back then, BMWs came with a repair kit in the trunk. If you look at cars a hundred years ago, they needed new oil and other repairs all the time. Modern cars are inscrutable. Everything is software running on a network, but they break down much less often..
It's like that with modern computers. It used to be easy to upgrade memory. The chips fit into special slots. Unfortunately, they could wiggle loose or fail in interesting ways as they thermally cycled. You had better buy your new computer with all the memory you are going to need. It will be soldered in place. You can't upgrade, but it is very unlikely to fail.
You seem to have missed my points that 1) I don't live in the Apple world where things are far more expensive than necessary for MY needs; and 2) I've been an early adopter all my life. I don't need to buy a phone every year because I don't live on it; I do live on the Lenovo that's been on my desktop for 8 years, and it's been sufficiently capable for my needs because I bought a top line machine. I just bought a replacement, because the existing one won't take Win11. And I don't live on my phone because there's no cell coverage in the redwood forest where we live.
Won't get any argument from me! Like a lot of visual creators, I started with the Mac 30 years ago because nobody else had anything affordable to do page layouts, and later Photoshop. Still later, Final Cut. Apple takes image quality seriously, which is why I had to get the iMac: literally no one else makes a competitive display at that price.
If I just wrote stuff, or worked with numbers, I could use almost anything. For me, word processing was solved decades ago. That old Osborne with the tiny display was enough to cover the basics. What on earth more does anybody need Word to do? You just need digital "cut and paste." Most people don't need fancy software, they need to learn how to write! Cut out the words that don't advance the point. If we all wrote whole pages perfectly in our minds, a typewriter could do it, but a computer makes editing (the soul of writing) much less painful, so encourages it.
We have pretty much arrived at the final sizes and forms for laptops, tablets, and phones, so no need to replace them so often. They should last a long time, they are not "fashion."
John Bogle, who started Vanguard, wrote an unfashionable book called "Enough." He died with an estate worth eighty million that could have been 8 billion had he been more selfish. He realized he actually had enough. He wasn't driven to accumulate endlessly.
People mistake "minimalism" of the $$$$ variety for actual simplicity, which may be cheap or expensive, but is no more or less than it needs to be.
Anything that really needs to be efficient tends to have a certain beauty also, like sailboats or aircraft. Aerodynamics require smooth shapes, usually.
Appropriateness is beautiful, whether a diamond or a paperclip.
I used to fly gliders, and believe me they require that you get intimate with the air you are flying in, or you will be on the ground again pretty soon. While aloft you might run into a hawk, or see a cloud forming. Plus you got to smell the grass on the field you took off from, and you didn't have to talk on the radio unless you went near other planes. Bliss, except you were working so hard all the time to stay up!
I ran my old iMac for 14 years, but it became obsolete. Last new car I bought, a Honda CRX HF, I drove for 360,000 miles, then it got stolen.
I like Shaker style. It never indulges, it requires and teaches discipline. I like honest design, and people. Don't like waste.
A paid-for computer, like a paid-for car or home, is a thing of beauty.
Good luck with that Lenovo!
But if all this were true, my toaster wouldn't be able to talk to my refrigerator.