[sdiy] Getting over eBay (rant)

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Don 'n' all.
         Without meaning to stray too far from the white line.

At 10:58 AM 6/13/02 -0700, Don Tillman wrote:

>I don't have any statistics on hand or anything, but I would guess
>that most musical instruments aren't recycled because they're reused
>and resold so many times.  Reused is significantly better than
>recycled because all the parts of the thing are employed best.  It's
>not like there are landfills clogged up with Les Pauls, Stratocasters
>and Steinways, y'know?  The piano I have at home is roughly 100 years
>old, has had several owners, and it's got a few more decades on it for
>sure.

Lucky bastard. :) I concur. This leads right back to the original point. It 
is far better to reuse where possible. It's far better to consider this in 
the first place. Both as a designer and as a marketer. And this is also 
where economics rationalism breaks down entirely. Greenies say mystic 
things like, "There is a cost that can't be measured." Like it's some 
mysterious factor-x. The quantum level of economics or something. Maybe 
this is true in a way but the closest thing I've ever seen to a currency 
for this kind of thing is carbon emission rights. And while that's another 
major good intention on the road to hell, it's really only a small part of 
the accountability required to put market forces and economic rationalism 
into perspective. And I can see that happening any day now. In fact I 
remember someone on LateLine one night from the UK talking about how he and 
his economics students in Germany somewhere had actually worked out how to 
do this but it was largely just a student exercise. And besides, the guy 
pointed out a lot of the crap in the greeny's arguments so he managed to 
alienate himself from both sides. Bravo.

>Besides, if the supply of lumber was at risk then it's price would
>rise significantly.  Which hasn't happened last I checked.

Lumber? We're not talking about a lump of 4 x 2 you bought a Joes timber 
yard and hamburger emporium. Hell there's plenty of that around. But you go 
try making a great instrument out of it. The cost of acquiring wood that is 
of the right quality (And I don't mean that it hasn't got any knot holes in 
it) suitable for building instruments from (And I'm sure there must be 
thousands of requirements across the board here.) is rapidly moving up 
scale and beyond affordability.

Ya ever wondered why half the world's furniture is made out of pine 
chip-board covered with a veneer? Coz forrests of cultivated pine trees can 
grow to harvest in 30 - 40 years. More exotic timber could take thousands. 
Let me reiterate. I AM NOT A GREENY. I'm sick of giving a rat's ass about 
this stuff.   But you want some statistics. Try this one. About 70 percent 
of Australia's natural vegetation no longer exists. The Europeans use to 
call this place a big desert when they got here 200 odd years ago. You can 
only imagine what it looks like now. And they're still clearing land as 
fast as they can hook a chain to a bulldozer.

>I also heard an unsubstantiated statistic that automobiles, at least
>in the US, were the most reused and recycled product (by some
>measure).  This is because after they've been sold or passed on
>between a number of owners, and either racked up 200,000 miles or
>smashed in an accident, they have most of their parts sold off for
>repair work on other cars, and finally the raw materials are recycled.
>
>So I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be.

Let me just restate again. I'm not making anything out to be bad. Fact is, 
I don't give a rat's ass. If I could do something I would but I learnt the 
hard way that in this country, if you stick your neck out, some mongrel 
with a lot more money and power is going kick your teeth in. All I'm doing 
is calling 'em as I see 'em.

And bear in mind that the orignal point that started all of this was that 
the Japanese culture does not condone the re-use of pianos and that Yamaha 
activly discourage the resale of second hand black&whites on the 
international market. So this begs the question. "What happens to them?" 
Surely they don't all get turned into sofa beds or something?

And let us all kick back and reflect. As we listen to the hum of our 
air-conditioning or our heaters, in our thoughtfully provided comfort zone 
and raise a glass to the human race and all it's achievements. Or as that 
great Scottish Philosopher, Alexander Harvey once said.

"Give my compliments to the chef."

NB: Some dick wad from the fossil fuel lobby actually said, in all honesty. 
"I don't know why people are worried about global warming. We all have air 
conditioners these days."

Be absolutely Icebox.

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