This summer I started decribing some bullshit Products, mainly on Linkedin.It was a great success, it got a lot of attention.The idea originated from readig the book Bullshit Jobs: I relised that whatever job, you can still but bullshit products….
Here is an update of those Bullshit products, previously describe don Linkedin. I will soon start a new series on Linkedin as well as here.
3 Home decoration Junk
I mean all the junk that passes by in home decorating programs on TV, with which they decorate the room at the last minute to give some ‘atmosphere’. Can I just throw up… Fake artwork, pots, vases, candles ( which poison the indoor air enormously) and to top it off, a sign on the wall with LOVE on it. Even with lights in it. Or even worse: a sign with HOME, in case you don’t know where you are… What a mess. In my opinion, in those sponsorship-only programs, I suppose the candidates are required contractually to be happy about it, and shout oh’s and ah’s. Only to dump it all in the dumpster a day later. Only to go back to shopping to buy other but ‘more personal’ junk….
Just ban imports, at least I hope they are not made in The Netherlands, that would make it worse.…
(4) The recirculating shower
I wrote about it before: the ‘water and energy’ recirculating shower. Which only starts working after 3 minutes, when I’m already out of it… And for this non existing advantage, a completely new shower system has to be produced, the existing one demolished and the new one installed, with all kinds of technical systems added. But then, they claim, I can shower for half an hour under a rain-shower without shame. …. Bullshit. We should shower less and shorter , its even better for your body. In stead of investing a lot of materials and energy to give the illusions that it helps the environment and climate.
See the extended version here. [3] http://ronaldrovers.nl/energiebesparende-douche-een-koude-douche/
(5)(commercial) Flowers!
Well, if they come from the edge of the forest, or from your own garden or local community garden, then it could be accepted. But not when coming from commercial agriculture, a greenhouse, and certainly not when flown in from Kenya for example, or other African countries. All grown with a lot of pesticides creating a lot of health issues.
And for what? I recently attended a funeral and ended up outside at the back of the crematorium. There was a row of garlands (bushes of flowers), the harvest of an entire day of funerals: dozens of them. And as I inquired at the reception: they were all thrown away later, the families didn’t take them home.
So those flowers firstly grew for weeks or months, then flew for six hours through the air, went around the auction hall, spent three hours in a truck on the way to the florist, who worked on them for an hour to make a garland, that spent just half an hour lying next to the coffin.
Aaaarrgghhhh. Bullshit, get rid of it.
PS. Someone made the suggestion of giving (in some occasions) a fruit plate instead…
https://www.nt.nl/economie/2023/02/13/meer-bloemen-uit-afrika-en-zuid-amerika-door-energiecrisis/?gdpr=accept
6 Bottled water ( and air….)
A big contender for the No. 1 spot in the Bullshit Products series is: bottled water. You go to a well, fill some bottles and sell them for a lot of money as bottled water. Claiming that its even better as tap water. While tap water sometimes comes from the same source! Not everywhere of course, but in many countries the quality is the same. The signs of “eau non potable” are long gone in many industrialized countries.
Very clever how the industry manages to fool us again and again with fake products. Requiring a lot of transport, plastics and energy.
At the same time, it is an example of how easily people are fooled, and let themselves be fooled. What do you do in a restaurant…? I usually ask for tap water, but then they look you out the door, Although that’s starting to get better. But it’s just air they’re selling. We won’t fall for that, do we? Sure we do, en masse. Its even worse: there’s already someone literally selling air. There is now a Canadian that sells air in mainly Asia. He has a flourishing business selling air in spray cans to people in cities heavily suffering from smog. [4] Canadian mountain air… And they are selling fast… Its not fake News….
If we continue to pollute water and air, ( and spill drinking water for producing bullshit products) it will probably become a self-fulfilling prophecy: we will run out of tapwater and fresh air.…
Bullshit, and cut it out.
(7) Cans. Of Aluminum, that is.
Drinking Cans , of aluminum, should be banned. Just don’t use them anymore. Aluminum has, for example, a 10 times higher impact in producing the material than iron. And yes, aluminum cans are getting thinner, so less impact, and yes you can recycle it, but you just shouldn’t use aluminum where it’s not necessarily needed. Recycling aluminum by the way still needs as much energy as new iron, and recycled iron even much less. Recently they introduced a deposit scheme in the Netherlands: this is fooling around at the end of the chain: and a lot of new deposit-machines have to be developed and built again, plus transport. And aluminum produced with renewable energy? That could have been used for more useful things, so that we would need less new windturbines.
So lets just get rid of cans. Done. Re-use /re-fill must be the norm, in any form, not recycling, remelt and manufacture. That’s only keeping business busy. Make that decision, and skip half-hearted approaches. Do not try to keep everything in the air, to maintain a ‘level playing field’ for industry. Aluminum Cans are bullshit products, only good for the aluminum industry.
(On the uselessness (and needlessness ) of aluminum in construction, I wrote earlier [2])
(8) baby shakers !!
Yes…you wont believe this, but we are electrifying shaking babies….
Back in the days I used to make it a challenge to get our children to sleep, rocking the baby stroller in a non linear sequence. And it worked, we usually could have dinner in a restaurant with the baby a sleep. But now on my last holiday I was flabbergasted seeing a baby stroller shaking while no one was around…. On closer look it had a shaker built in! Just push a button….
And now even, if you happen to have bought a baby stroller without shaker, here is your chance: Now on sale: the mobile baby shaker… euphemistic called: baby rocker…
its symptomatic for how we are abandoning our responsibility for children: sending them to day care centers, , have grandparents take care, since both parents want to work to be able to afford more bullshit products, and now even too busy checking our cell phone messages to shake the baby stroller. Is it a next step towards robot mothers?
What a bullshit.
This is evolution, we wont be needed anymore soon, but then, we wont need babies either… have a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=XMUV9XZhItk
PS:Besides, You might have already a vibrating device of some kind in the house…, just connect it to the baby stroller…it might feel even familiar to the baby… Or if you haven’t, this shaker can have double use… makes it only a half-bullshit product… (But then, the baby might wake up, since the shaker is in use elsewhere, now what, we have to buy two of them…. Bullshit either way…)
On the other hand, I can imagine it can see some other uses as well…, so you get more value for your money… But then, the baby might wake up, since the shaker is in use elsewhere, now what, we have to buy two of them….
(9) Laundry dryers
Ever thought about laundry dryers? They cost a lot of money, require an extra m2 of housing, they require electricity, and you still have to fill and empty them yourself. So you have to work harder to afford all that.
What are you saying…? You have solar panels and wind power? And the clothes dryer is made of circular materials? They didn’t need to be produced at all, because with a simple clothesline, sun and wind would have done the job as well. Let wind and sun do its work directly, instead of us as a society having to build more wind farms to run those clothes dryers. Any idea how many wind turbines would be needed if everyone in the Netherlands had a clothes dryer? 620 ! A whole big wind-farm. And of course you don’t want those wind-turbines in your backyard, right?
Yes when it rains you have to wait a while, that is called adapting to nature, that is what we should do in many more areas, instead of going against nature with a lot of power, wanting to dry the laundry when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine. Living with the seasons, that’s what we should do.
But let me be honest, we at our house also have one of these from before this insight. Dumping it, is a waste and yes we have solar panels (..). Use it as little as possible then. But the mind is weak…
Bullshit, Rovers…. Help us and just ban those things nationally, we do need those windmills for more pressing matters….
*(2 MW on land)
( ik heb er eerder over geschreven….http://ronaldrovers.nl/windturbines-bouwen-om-de-was-te-drogen/ . En ja, wij hebben er ook een… wegdoen is zonde, en ik heb zonnepanelen (..). Gewoon zo weinig mogelijk gebruiken… )
zie ook http://ronaldrovers.nl/de-windmolen-index/
10 electric door bells (or video)
Who doesn’t have an electric doorbell? And what’s the advantage? That you can choose the tune: Ding Dong sounds nicer than Tring Tring? But there is a transformer, it is working 24 hours a day, for 2 x 1 second rings per day, and it costs energy, which is easily 24 kWh per year. And for what? ( All doorbells in the Netherlands require about 40 wind turbines of 2 MW on land, in your backyard of course)
Nonsense. Just install a pull bell, or a push bell (bicycle bell XL so to speak) . That works fine I can assure you. Saves a lot of electricity and pulling wires to the door. ‘Yes, but the iron rod of the pull bell is another hole in the air tightness of the shell..’. Help, and for that we should use extra power and material consuming techniques like electric bells? Nice example that would be of how more technology causes more technology.
Oh of course, now you want a video doorbell because it’s so dangerous these days… and that powerline is already there anyway. And what’s the advantage of that? Not only does increade energy consumption at home, but it takes a whole internet so you can see on vacation who’s at the door. The package delivery guy? And what do you say to him, take it to the neighbors? Wouldn’t he understand that himself? However, it is waiting until you can also open and close the door automatically by remote control: again more work, and more material and energy, but then you can open the door so he can put the package in the hallway. Nice, right?
Oh shit, now you can see, on the beach on vacation, how he walks further inside and swaps the package for a TV….
Or you are at home but want to see who is there and possibly not open the door? That’s what small door spies are for!
Advertisements make you believe that it is all very dangerous, and you cannot live without it. Bullshit. I really don’t see the advantage of an electric or even video doorbell , except that it is a nice gadget. Did you really think 10-20 years ago: Shit if only I had a video doorbell?
Everyone a pull bell or bicycle bell XL!
Soon more Bullshit products!
More in: ‘Exnovation, the not applying of innovations’, from the book: People vs Resources, retsoring a world out of balance,
https://eburon.nl/en/product/people-vs-resources/
