I never quite understood why companies designed products that were difficult to open and repair.
A long time ago, waaay before I was born, products were built with repairability in mind. Everything could be taken apart, parts could be swapped; things were so simple, products outlasted the lifetimes of their owners.
But then some capitalist prick decided that he needed to make money every year until the end of his lifetime. So he introduced product designs that ensured the products would be useless once something went wrong or stopped working. If it was broke, there was nothing you could do to fix it. So you had to buy a new one.
Several decades later, there was plastic and e-waste everywhere. People couldn’t repair their electronic devices so they just dumped them and bought new ones. The e-waste was shipped across the oceans to third world countries, where they were dumped promptly in landfills that were the size of small cities.
Modern landfills weren’t just filled with electronics. They were also filled with textiles and plastics.
When the poor bums in third world countries burned these waste, they were subjected to poisonous gases that shot up into the atmosphere and changed the sky.
I remember Beijing was the first city where one couldn’t see the sky in the morning. The sky was always filled with smog from the air pollution in and around the city.
But nobody paid any attention.
And the air pollution became widespread.
The human lifespan went from somewhere around 90 down to adolescence. If you were lucky, you would live through your teens.
Most people didn’t make it past 30.
The mines of radioactive elements were left in hazardous conditions. Radioactive waste was dumped in open grounds. It affected the health of the poor villagers and everyone in the surrounding areas. Children were born with tumors and scary diseases. But nobody paid attention.
The corporations that had created the problem moved on. It wasn’t their problem anymore. As usual, the problem was passed on to the next generations.
Each generation of humans created bigger problems and left them behind for the next generation of idiots to deal with.
It’s not my problem. I’ll make money for the next 20 years, and retire to live in luxury.
This was the mentality of the average capitalist prick who’s actions affected the lives of thousands and millions of people.