I saw a video on 'planned obsolescence'. It said that companies are deliberately early ageing products. It all started, it seems, with the life of an electric bulb deliberately reduced from 2500 hours to 1000 hours by the Phoebus cartel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
And now, companies routinely do planned obsolescence for most of their products.
'What about humans?' I asked myself. Isn't retirement age which is mandated by governments and companies planned obsolescence or 'forced obsolescence', if you will? I mean, the Indian Army, till only a few years ago, retired servicemen at the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid as young as 35. Couldn't blame the Army, though. It wanted to keep the Army young. Similarly companies got fresh blood when they fill the gaps, mostly with lesser salary than the outgoing retiree. Sometimes, they don't even fill up the void because of advancement of technology or perceived or actual cost cutting. In that sense, from the point of view of the upstream manufactured product - in this case some college and university students - they will fall through the cracks, and never make it as a replacement to the 'planned obsolescence'.
But not all folks in the service of community or God cross over to planned obsolescence. For example, Supreme Court Justices of America choose the time they want to retire; or, the Pope at Vatican can retire when he chooses; or, a King/Queen can choose when s/he wants to abdicate.
Then I asked myself, 'What about God?' Has He got some obsolescence plan for humans? When someone unfortunately gets Alzheimer's, is it planned obsolescence of Providence? A thing we often call Karma? When a person becomes a cripple after an accident, or a vegetable after a stroke, is it God's planned obsolescence?
What I have noticed though is that Government's and companies' planned obsolescence often times do not coincide with God's plan of obsolescence.
3 comments:
Very aptly stated Ashish.Good post.Congrats
Very profoundly expressed, Sir!
Very interesting thoughts Ashish.
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