Quotes & Sayings About Planned Obsolescence

I have this old '57 Porsche Speedster, and the way the door closes, I'll just sit there and listen to the sound of the latch going, 'cluh-CLICK-click.' That door! I live for that door. Whatever the opposite of planned obsolescence is, that's what I'm into. — Jerry Seinfeld

Planned obsolescence is not really a new concept. God used it with people. — Robert Orben

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like'. Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity. — Richard J. Foster

Publishers, naturally, loathe used books and have developed strategies to depress the secondhand market. They bring out new, even more expensive editions of popular textbooks every three to four years, in a classic cycle of planned obsolescence. — James Surowiecki

Like Godard, Tati is also remarkably appreciative of the odd beauty that can be revealed in the shapes, patterns and colors created by the technology of planned obsolescence. — Vincent Canby

Many profit-driven corporate strategies are based on fashion, planned obsolescence, unneeded upgrades, and masterful emotional manipulation --marketing--causing people to continuously replace goods which are still in good working order. — Jacob Lund Fisker

Only one rational path is open to us - simultaneous de-development of the [overdeveloped countries] and semi-development of the underdeveloped countries (UDCs), in order to approach a decent and ecologically sustainable standard of living for all in between. By de-development we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence. — John Holdren

The more subtle thing is more speculative. The world is well past its long-term carrying capacity for human beings living a European, much less an American, lifestyle predicated on planned obsolescence. International economic growth is largely a matter of accelerated movement of materials from mines and forests to the dump. Instead of saving and buying decent furniture we can pass on to our children, we charge our credit cards for shaped heaps of sawdust and glue that fall apart in less than three or four years. — Denis Hayes

Rant said that view of time was set up so folks won't live forever. It's the planned obsolescence we've all agreed to ... 'Nothing says you have to swallow this,' Rant told me. 'You can always just die. — Chuck Palahniuk

Planned obsolescence is another word for progress. — James Jeffrey Roche

We live in a disposable, 'cast-off and throw-away' society that has largely lost any real sense of permanence. Ours is a world of expiration dates, limited shelf life, and planned obsolescence. Nothing is absolute. — Myles Munroe

Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster. — Aldous Huxley

Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence. — Brooks Stevens

Perhaps it is this specter that most haunts working men and women: the planned obsolescence of people that is of a piece with the planned obsolescence of the things they make. Or sell. — Studs Terkel

If I seem to be over-interested in junk, it is because I am, and I have a lot of it, too - half a garage full of bits and broken pieces. I use these things for repairing other things. Recently I stopped my car in front of the display yard of a junk dealer near Sag Harbor. As I was looking courteously at the stock, it suddenly occurred to me that I had more than he had. But it can be seen that I do have a genuine and almost miserly interest in worthless objects. My excuse is that in this era of planned obsolescence, when a thing breaks down I can usually find something in my collection to repair it - a toilet, or a motor, or a lawn mower. But I guess the truth is that I simply like junk. — John Steinbeck

But planned obsolescence is possible only if the rate of technological change is contained. — David Harvey