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The Story of Stuff
| by your friend
The Story of Stuff is a fascinating 20 minute documentary hosted by Annie Leonard on our Materials Economy, the system we use to produce consume and dispose of products.
Presented as a lecture in front of an animated white board, the main point the video makes is that we’re running a linear system of consumption on a planet with finite resources. Where there should be a circle there is only a line.
From the blast-mining of mountains to coating our pillowcases in toxic chemicals to feeding babies cancer-milk produced by pregnant factory workers, The Story of Stuff is a fairly horrific look at how we’re winding down our time on planet Earth.
One gripe with is Leonard’s fervent belief that the government exists to take care of the people. Maybe that was true at one time, but if you still cling to that plank you deserve to be swept out to sea.
Also her argument that by upgrading your technology and buying new clothes you are playing into advertising’s Perceived obsolescence strategy is fairly weak. The rate at which technology expands kind of demands that we juice up our goods, unless we’re all going to be writers or something.
Anyway, it’s a great video and you should watch it. We learned a lot.
Watch The Story of Stuff.
