"Old things were made to last"
Bullshit. Old things broke all the time and were replaced by new things. Any old thing you see today is just 0.1% of what we used to have. It's called survivorship bias.
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Especially anything made post 1971
Not really, it does not apply to real estate in Europe. Especially from Roman times.
Less they were made to last, more they were capable of being easily repaired.
Old things, cars especially, we're built by engineers who knew they would break, and they prioritized repairability in their design philosophy.
Newer machines are designed not to be fixed, but to be thrown away and replaced.
That is true. Planned obsolescence is also true. If things not lasting is profitable, then things won’t be made to last
You make that statement based on what?
My age. I was there.
Nhaa I had a 70 year old Norwegian electrical stove in the old place I rented. No cannot convince me a new electrical stove last that long based on survivorship bias alone. There is something called inflation, and planned obsolescence rejecting you claim.
Your not start the car by cranking the engine age, not I go to school and half of my friends don’t wear shoes age, nor I buy the linen role for my local
Seamstress to
Make the dress age.
Also less over-optimization and more redundancy because they were humble to what they couldn’t model. So things were less fragile.
99.99% of cars that we had to crank the engine are dead.
And yes, I went to public school. A good number of kinds in my middle and high schoool didn't wear shoes.
You know why they are dead? Because they were not reliable.
My point exactly. It's not because it's old tech that it is good.
Give me an example of a car that was made like that
Good things are meant to last.
I think it’s both. You’re right to call out survivor bias. Also, a lot of food and housing is clearly garbage. Clothes are all made out of plastic. Everything is made in China now and they’re really good at optimizing for cost and not safety and health. Monetary debasement does actually affect these things.
You didn’t say that old tech was bad. You said that things previously were designed exactly the same as they are now but that you only see the things that survived. I disagree with that.
My 1988 Lincoln town car.
My 1996 F-150
My 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee
All easy af to work on. I could swap an alternator in the Towncar in under 10 minutes.
Now I go to wrench on any modern FWD car and it's a nightmare. Covers over everything. Specialty security bit screws. Electronic sensors everywhere.
There were over 200,000 Lincoln Town cars made in 1988 alone. How many of the 1988 model still exist today?
This car was a good car that was repairable. Eventually the government got involved.
I didn't say they were designed in the same way they are designed now. I just said they were not designed to last. And if they did, 99.99% of the stuff did not last. So, the "old things were designed to last" is just a fallacy.
Old things were also often prohibitively expensive. Hardly anyone owned anything, and everything was shared by lots of people.
My Grandpa's bed was solid and lasted a long time, but 6 people slept in it, at a time. Crowded in like sardines and sometimes kids would fall right off.
And there was one truck for 9 people and the kids rode in the open bed. Every bump in the road was life-threatening. People died in car accidents, constantly, even though the cars were glacially slow. Total death traps. And they guzzled gas like crazy.
Nobody misses that old bed.
Nobody misses that old truck.
VW beetle?
1st of all, i still see them driving around periodically, i doubt we will see many 2025 cars still on the road in the year 2062.
But that's not my argument. Im just pointing out that a shade tree mechanic could keep those cars on the road for cheap. Modern cars aren't built like that, they're built to be brought to a specialist and totalled out for insurance.
How many of them are still working today?
Unpopular opinion from someone who spent nearly a decade working for one of the world's biggest powertrain development departments:
old cars were actually really terrible and we're all lucky to have modern tech
Anyone who has taken apart both old and modern things has see the design choices the engineers made and they know things have moved from more durable to more inexpensive.
We've witnessed it first hand. It's abundantly clear, and no amount of gaslighting is going to get us to disbelieve what we've personally experienced.
Equally important though is that old things were much more repairable than the things we have now. This does make them **seem** more durable because they stick around for generations until eventually replacement parts are no longer available. But the hilarious thing about it is that they don't frequently **need** repaired. Ironic.
You'd have an easier time arguing that it's good that things are no longer made to last. One could argue that prices are lower, things are more readily available, and that the disposability is good because it creates more jobs (scraping things for metals to recycle, sales people, shipping companies, trash service, etc.). Perhaps the fact that they don't last as long is compensated by being able to buy multiple of them for the same price and the set of them combined might last as long as one of the old stuff.
I don’t have the numbers but I see enough people riding them unironically where I live to believe not only they are repairable but also dirt cheap to do so.
Sure. But that doesn't mean they were made to last. It just means that they were easy to repair. Because of the old tech, they broke more frequently than the newer tech. And things had to be replaced to keep it going.
Most of the old car parts are super rough in terms of precision. It's like how the hinge design has evolved in foldable phones. It's just a matter of better tooling over time creates better products that last longer (if the manufacturer wants it).
But the point is that, it's not because it is old that things were designed to last. A bunch of crap didn't survive.
It's also just an unfair comparison. Old cars hardly had any functionality. They were like small steam trains, except you'd shovel in gasoline instead of coal.
If you cut a modern car down to that primitive state, it would also be easy to repair. But nobody would want it.
I though you said it was 0.1% survivorship, now you're saying 0.01%. Are you just making up numbers that sound good?
Maybe not, but many things from past production used better materials and are simpler to repair. I've seen it in vehicles and many other things. Nothing lasts forever in every environment, but I call bullshit on the idea that things have always been as shitty as they are now. It is also true that things get replaced due to new features, efficiency, etc but that doesn't mean there won't be other downsides. One being reparability and complexity. New and old are neither always good or bad. But in general, quality and repairability have taken the backseat. Most things I see now seem to be disposable. Some of that is due to complexity demand (more stuff in a thing is harder to repair). Most is just fiat nonsense, in my opinion.
Yes and no. All that I restore are more than 50 years old. Nothing I see now withstands that. Also: almost all materials were “eco artisan friendly “ MEANING could be fixed/replaced/machined. Now mostly all dumped after 5 years cycles.
Yep.
You miss it a little when you work on a new truck. There can be middle grounds that optimize for the good parts of each. Modern vehicles have went far in one direction. Most are not durable or repairable now, and many of the efficiencies come at the cost of major repairs (often making the vehicle disposable) a lot sooner. Safety has been a good gain though. Having the car crush instead of occupants is much better. But shit like plastic oil pans and drain plugs that barely screw in are ridiculous when those parts failing costs an entire engine. Like most things, it's not all or nothing. Fiat doesnt help. Mass production is also an issue. We have more people than we used to.
I just wanna be able to swap the starter or alternator in my own car in a reasonable amount of time with basic tools in my own garage. I don't think that's too much to ask.
It isn't all or nothing either. There are so many variable that it just depends. Not everything should be made expensively. Some components are just fine being cheaper metal, plastic, etc. It really depends.
The old thing sucks, the new thing is much better!
New thing:
Not true. People love light duty trucks and little compact stripped down cars. The manufacturers just can't sell em due to government regulations.
Yes ... quality things last longer and still exist centuries later. The older, crappier stuff falls apart and gets tossed out. This gives the appearance that everything old was made of high quality.
Then there are old farts that experienced the general higher quality from decades ago, and know for a fact that things were generally higher quality back then.
Mercedes W123.
What code is easier to debug and fix:
Code written by a 25 year veteran
Code vibed by a kid with some Claude credits
Yeah like 1.0.0.3 isn't meant to last please fix whatever is causing crashes in 1.0.0.4 patch so I can use amethyst. It's constantly crashing & is totally unusable. It didn't even last 2 mins
Old details/solutions in building don't need maintenance every 5-10, more like 15-20+ years. More long term resilience in time tested, localized solutions for weather/earthquake resistance.
A lot is cost. The populations using the things have absolutely exploded in number and they managed to drive down the real price of everything, while still responding quickly to the increased demand.
People complain about quality, but they also complain about supply shortages and rising prices. Something has to give.
One reason real estate prices are so high is because the prices of consumer goods are so low. The money leftover went into investment-grade goods, driving up their prices.
AI code is almost always easier to understand and debug than any human I have worked with.
Oberklassenmodell. That's like referencing a Bentley. 🤣
I think more people were driving a Trabbi.
Only in eastern Germany naturally. This one was peak engineering.
I hate what this says about the human code you've worked with.
Yeah, totally unfair.
Don't claim a Porsche Carrera, next. 🤣
Fair enough. I haven't written much code but I doubt you've done much car repair either. Trust me when I say theyre making it harder to fix your own shit, and I believe theyre doing it on purpose.
Beautiful car 😅. One time in the early 90s when Porsche wasn't doing well Mercedes produced a car in their facilities. The 500E. Audi did the same a couple of years later.
Today, engines are built in China. And Chinese cars themselves are probably superior to modern German cars.
I didn't say the AI code was good or it did the right thing but it is miles *more understandable* than any human I have ever worked with. Sorry. Nothing beats AI in writing quality.
It does a good job in organising and indenting and stuff, yeah. I sometimes have it tidy mine up.
Usually price would be the give. But people complain about that too 😂
People want everything for free, in fact. That's why they put it on credit. Feels like free.
Yep. Distorts reality too.
You see it with vehicle markets in the US. People shop based on monthly payment now, which makes it easier for total sale price to soar. With almost decade long loans and high interest. Beautiful. Cash payers like me get fucked. For now. Distortions like that always break eventually. We are seeing increases in repos and missed payments now, as expected.
I wish they start building things that last again.
Intentionally making things that won’t last or that will break at a predetermined point is a new phenomenon.
yup. it is survivorship bias no doubt