Topic: The Story of Stuff

I was on my computer the other night, when I came across this video:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
It is a 20 minute film about the ugly side of consumerism, and made by a woman who used to be a member a Greenpeace (who we all have mixed feelings on). It is being show to nine year old children across the States (but if I saw this when I was nine, it'd freak me out!)

I have very mixed feelings about this video, and there seems to be quite a bit of scaremongering about it. Watch it for yourself- what do you think about it?

(A word to the administrators- please let me know if this is not a suitable topic for the forum, as I don't intent on provoking an argument or want to encourage bile!)

As the parent of a 9 year old, I haven't heard anything about it from school, etc. I'll preview it at home, instead of work, just to be on the safe side, but my kid isn't watching it unless it's Magi-approved even IF it may be shown at school.

From what I've seen of it so far, it looks fine for 9 year olds.
EDIT: The part about toxic breast-feeding might be a little too much, but other than that, I think it's fine.

I didn't know it was being shown in schools, but I don't see why not. If facts are scary, that doesn't mean they should be hidden. I think she does a good job of making complicated systems easy to understand even if it does glance over a lot of details.

This chick is full of stuff, at about 2:00 in she says (about the government) "to protect us to take care of us. It's their job" It is NOT the governments job to take care of the citizens, it is the individuals job to take care of themselves. This video is nothing more than indoctrination into the progressive lifestyle of government control, distribution of wealth and socialism.

Calm down, Glenn.

Edit: Clever censorship, TBD, haha.

I saw this in middle school, 2 years ago. It was pretty interesting. Don't remember the fine points, guess I'll watch it again.

I found a better video about stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

To whom it may interest, there is a critique of this video on youtube (type in "story of stuff critique"), which challenges many of the points made.
Personally, I'm not going to take one side- both video's have much to offer, but neither are flawless.
It does make me think, however, about all the video games there are. I'm not going to preach or go off gaming at all, it's just that hundreds of bad games have been made- how many are now in landfill sites? What impact does the industry have on the environment?

What a bunch of anti-capitalism BS. Maybe she should show this video in China, who pollute more than we do. Oh that's right, she wouldn't be allowed to. Send this anti-American socialist hag to Venezuela.

EDIT: I wonder if this idiot is aware that if people stop spending, businesses can't afford to pay their employees, meaning layoffs and massive unemployment. I know it may be hard to believe, but these "evil corporations" and their "evil profits" provide jobs. Not everyone can live off government grants, after all somebody has to work to give the government the money to give as grants. I also wonder if this hypocrite grew the fabric to sew her own clothes so as a third world worker didn't create them, or if she made her camera and computer to edit the film herself to prevent some poor factory workers in China from being paid poor wages. She should have just made this with cave paintings.

Seems to me like both sides are scaremongering...

There's not a whole lot of facts there. Let's hope "our kids" are clever enough to do a bit of research on their own, huh.

EDIT: Lol, the critique failed me really hard within 5 minutes as well. I'm not watching either of this crap.

@brooks @Link It doesn't do any good to use facts when dealing with people on the left that obviously have much better data given to them by such luminaries in Science and Economics as George Clooney and Michael Moore.

@brooks83

How much of the pollution in China is generated by the manufacturing and shipment of products to the United States? Seeing as China is an export driven economy and the US is it's biggest market, it seems sort of silly to put too much of the blame on them, especially seeing as per capita pollution is still far lower than that of the US. (Unfortunately for them, they just happen to have significantly more people).

If you're going to call a video ignorant, do some research yourself. I personally haven't watched the video (youtube is unfortunately blocked in China), but I'm guessing it does pose some legitimate issues with consumer culture amidst some overtly political baloney. Without consumer culture most of us would still be working as subsistence farmers. Consuming is necessary, although, there is something to be said about not being wasteful as well. If business and consumption isn't sustainable, by definition, it can't last forever and will eventually begin to hurt not only our planet but the economy as well (scarce resources are more expensive).

@Rowdy - I wouldn't consider some of the people the right are getting their facts from the best sources either (I'm looking at you, Sarah Palin). We'd all be better off being forced to pick up an economics textbook at some point in school, learning the basics of market principles (and perhaps basic personal finance while they're at it...it seems many Americans don't understand the basic "don't spend more than you earn" principle which is fed by a consumer culture that emphasizes a need to keep up with the figurative Joneses), and making educated decisions ourselves.

I had economics classes for about 3 years but they never did properly explain how our monetary system works. Or how it could be viewed as flawed.

If someone can't even out argue Glen Beck, I don't see what value his critique could possibly have.

@Adam

To be fair, having seen his show, I probably wouldn't be able to out argue yell louder than Glen Beck either.

Hey, to the man's credit, he didn't yell one bit. I was surprised -- not that I watch his show, but my expectations were based on his reputation and the precedent set by the few other political shows I've seen on Fox. Every time I've seen an opposing argument brought onto this fair and balanced network they've simply been shouted down into silence, so this was a first for me.

@Token Girl - I do realize that China produces goods for the US. I guess the reason I brought up China (and the same goes for India) is that their industries aren't being forced to slow down and produce less by the government. There is no legislation in either country attempting to limit production, or greenhouse gases etc. unlike in the US where there is proposed legislation to do just that. China and India understand that more production = wealthier nation. Unfortunately our current government doesn't like capitalism, and I find this propaganda being shown to our kids to be disgusting.

I've recently found two new videos by Annie, in very much the same vain, The Story Of Bottled Water (a very specific one following the broad "stuff"), and The Story of Cosmetics, both are easy to find. However, I don't like the cosmetics one. It sounded very biased, and made lots of wild claims we are meant to believe. Judge for yourself.

I'm really not sure what to think- I agree with many of the points made, but I can't help feeling sceptical about her and her videos. She has written a book which goes into much more detail, so I think I will read that, then make up my mind.

This seems rather biased but there is a certain thruth in it.

What concerns me is that many people take our system for granted without question without being critical. It's not that I am anti-capitalist or anything, I am against the religious form of it that has led us into this crisis and will continue to to do so, both in an economic, social, environmental and possibly even political way.

Resources will eventually dry up, whether you like it or not. We will need to recycle more and promote a larger percentage of sustainable energy resources.