I didn't know anything about recorded music until I was about 19 years old. That was when I got a job at the local department store selling stereo equipment. I developed a passion for audiophile equipment after obtaining a subscription to Stereo Review. Today I am the proud owner of what was at the time, the most awesome amplifier around, the Setton. That's right. I'm driving my home entertainment center today on a stereo component that is 30 years old.
I ran across the Setton on eBay several months ago and picked it up for about 100 bucks. It was something like a dream come true, but I digress. Some of the other things I learned during those exciting months was that records were not supposed to skip. That came from learning the difference between a record player with a needle and a turntable, tonearm, cartridge and stylus. And so I discovered the thrilling feel of playing an LP with the proper tracking and anti-skating forces at play in such a way that the record would last for months without skipping instead of simply taping a quarter on the record player's tonearm and digging an early grave into the groove. I realized that, for a price, there were actually things in this world that worked, and a lifetime of frustrations with the dinky technologies might be avoided if we only learned to read the specs, save money a little bit longer and buy the superior product. This is a lesson deeply embedded in my ethics.
Over at the Long Now is an article that rings perfectly with me.
In his Seminar for the Long Now Foundation in January, Saul Griffith mentioned what he called the Rolex/Montblanc Pen approach to solving climate change. As a way of cutting down on wasteful consumption (and the carbon embodied in consumer goods production), he suggests making and using fewer products. The few products we do use, he explains, should be of the highest quality so that they’ll last and be worth using for our entire lives. He exemplifies the idea by suggesting that everyone should be issued one Rolex watch and one Montblanc pen at birth.
So I have always purchased used BMW automobiles. I have always resisted buying t-shirts with trendy slogans. I have contempt for people who have yard sales. Yes I know. Why? Because it means they spent money on things that ultimately had only short term utility. I am seduced by classics. Anything that ever turns to junk, I shy away from.
But I must confess I've never seen the great beauty of a Mont Blanc pen. I've tried to, but nobody has made the right pen for me. Tombo came close. Rotring came close. But there has never been a pen for me like the Ulysse Nardin has become the watch for me, BMW has become the car for me and Setton has been my amp.
The principle espoused by the Long Now folks is essentially conservative, and I like it in many different dimensions. I find it crackling through my evolved sense of desire like a hot pastrami on rye with mayo, black olives and onions. There are many things that are designed so well that it is a sin of pride to try to sell someone anything else.
Save your quarters. They work better that way.
But I'm going to add one more thing here and take the principle a step further. I'm going to go towards the Victorians from Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age'. They replaced technology with people. They didn't buy any models, old or new. They hired people to build simple things by hand. They didn't drive cars at all, they rode horses.
Remember that there are several cities full of people who are inflating the cost of living in Northern California in feverish attempts to build a 2.0 for whatever is in the fat curve of the now. And they are trying to monetize every niche of the long tail, no matter how long it is. Squeezing money out of the new rather than utility out of the old. That is why these people need Twitter. They are literally scatterbrained from snuffling up every digital morsel on the floor. There are a lot of people chasing a whole lot of new, wild ideas. I wonder if they close the loop as 35 year old millionaires by funding revolutionary politics. One can only hope not.
At any rate, take this note in the consonant and direct relation between conservatism and conservationism. Sometimes it's just wrong to make artifical improvements on what has evolved slowly.
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