suffering = $$$
Nov. 26th, 2025 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f0rrestWhat's stopping mechanics from fucking with your car after leaving it in the shop? Aren't they sort of incentivized to do this, for $$$?
“Looks like the fuel injector’s got a buildup, gonna have to get that fixed.”
How are you supposed to know that the mechanic didn't put some sort of mineral compound in the line last time you took the car in? Or that they didn't make microscopic slashes in the tires so that you’d have to get them replaced in a month? Aren't they sort of incentivized to mess with your car in subtle ways so that you’d have to bring it back to the shop for more work to be done? Isn't the entire automotive repair industry kind of contingent on cars breaking down? Aren't they sort of incentivized to do this? Don't mechanics have sales goals or quotas or whatever? Aren't they pretty much just on the honor system? Why are they blindly afforded these high levels of trust? Is it because of the $$$ involved? Is it because we just assume they won't fuck with our cars because, if they get caught, they'll lose business? Is it the capitalistic exchange that protects these mechanics from scrutiny? Is it competition, is competition why we assume they'll do good work, so that we don't go someplace else? What if all the local repair shops are in cahoots? And what's really stopping them from fucking with our cars if they do it in such a way that’s almost impossible to trace back to them? There's pretty much nothing stopping them. We have no idea what they're doing to our cars in those shops. We just assume that the mechanic is having a good day and has already met his monthly quota or whatever and so we trust that he won't fuck with our cars, yet we still take all the valuables out of our cars before dropping them off because, per the sign in the main lobby, WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOST OR STOLEN ITEMS LEFT IN THE VEHICLE.
We’ll trust them to fix our cars but we won't trust them with anything else. Go figure.
And what about doctors, are they not sort of incentivized to fuck with our bodies in the same way a mechanic might be incentivized to fuck with our cars, you know for $$$? Like if you have cancer and you're getting chemotherapy or whatever, what's stopping the doctor from sabotaging the treatment? Isn't it true that the longer you're sick, the more the hospital gets paid? And how do insurance companies fit into all of this? Don't they make money from people being sick? And the pharmaceutical industry, isn't that whole industry reliant on people being sick? And don't we already acknowledge that pharmaceutical companies artificially jack up prices with no fucks given toward those sick people? Daraprim? Humira? Insulin? Isn't this like a confirmed thing? Aren't these systems ripe for abuse, because of $$$? And don't these medical industries all kind of work together? Like I remember when I was a kid, I would go to the dentist and they would clean my teeth, and afterwards they would say my teeth were fucked up, so they'd refer my mom to an orthodontist, and that orthodontist would then give their whole spiel about how my teeth were coming in crooked and how I needed braces and all that, and then they'd convince my mom to put all that metal in my mouth, which was very painful, and then they'd charge an arm and a leg for the whole procedure plus regular monthly check-ins, and how if we couldn't pay it upfront they would put us on a generous payment plan of $50 per month, and then after like a year of braces, they'd be like, “oh you actually need more braces,” and this happened like three times, until eventually I just stopped brushing my teeth, which forced the orthodontist to take off the braces, only to find out later that this whole braces thing was for cosmetic reasons, like there was no serious risk of medical complications from my teeth being kind of crooked to begin with, thus revealing that the whole procedure was kind of vain and pointless, and you have to figure that the dentist got some sort of $$$ kickback from the whole referral process. And furthermore, you have to figure that whenever some child psychologist or whatever prescribes some hyperactive kid Adderall, that they, the doctors, get some sort of kickback from that as well, be it through free samples or lucrative speaking engagements at pharmaceutical conferences or special funding to the doctor’s practice, thus incentivizing doctors to prescribe as many drugs to people as possible, with no fucks given toward the long-term, life-changing side effects of prolonged use of psychoactives, which the doctor may then use as an excuse to just prescribe more drugs, thus prescribing drugs to treat the side effects of other drugs, and then maybe they'd prescribe even more drugs for the side effects of the drug they prescribed for the side effects of the first drug they themselves prescribed, and so on, all for $$$.
Am I being paranoid here? Is this like totally crazy? I mean, I don’t want to be cynical about everything, but this $$$ stuff seems like it could maybe possibly drive some seriously bad behaviors. Like, if the goal is to be profitable, you can’t just sell one thing and be done with it, you have to ensure the future selling of things, be it medical procedures, drugs, fuel injectors, tires, and of course consumer goods.
Like, electronics companies, aren’t they sort of already doing this type of thing? Isn’t it pretty much confirmed that smartphone manufacturers design their products to be obsolete within a few years? Doesn’t Apple push software updates to soft-brick their old phones, requiring you to buy newer models? Aren’t slimy dudes in suits on Zoom calls right now discussing their planned obsolescence strategy for fiscal year 2026? Isn’t the whole electronics industry contingent on shit breaking? Hell, isn’t almost every consumer-goods industry reliant on shit breaking? Surely they can’t build products that last forever, where’s the $$$ in that?
The other day, I learned that there’s a lightbulb in Livermore, California that has been shining since 1901. That’s literally over 100 years. And after learning about this, I thought to myself, why do I have to change the lightbulbs in my house like at least once a year? Where are all these centennial lightbulbs? And, looking into this, I found out that, in the 1940s, there was this secret cartel of lightbulb manufacturers, General Electric being part of it, that conspired to ensure that any lightbulb sold would last no longer than 1,000 hours. They literally built a 1,000-hour cap into all their lightbulbs, despite the fact that those same lightbulbs could literally last for decades. And, back then, when this was found out, it was kind of a huge scandal, and a lot of reputations and egos were hurt, but now this practice is commonplace, not only among light bulb manufacturers, but with almost all electronics manufacturers, like Epson printers for example, they have a built-in “page counter” to ensure that, once like 10,000 pages are printed, the printer errors out and will not print anymore until you get the error professionally resolved or just buy a new printer. This is a confirmed thing. Look it up. And no one bats an eye. We have all sort of just accepted this planned obsolescence as the price of living in a world driven by $$$.
And if we’ve accepted this about the electronics industry, why haven’t we accepted this about other industries, like automotive repair, medical, pharmaceutical, insurance, and so on? Are we just hoping that the same $$$ incentive doesn’t apply to these other industries? Are we just deluding ourselves, pretending that the whole automotive repair industry isn’t reliant on cars breaking down, that the entire medical industry isn’t contingent on people getting sick?
And if these things are true, doesn’t this mean that one person’s suffering is another person’s $$$?
“Looks like the fuel injector’s got a buildup, gonna have to get that fixed.”
How are you supposed to know that the mechanic didn't put some sort of mineral compound in the line last time you took the car in? Or that they didn't make microscopic slashes in the tires so that you’d have to get them replaced in a month? Aren't they sort of incentivized to mess with your car in subtle ways so that you’d have to bring it back to the shop for more work to be done? Isn't the entire automotive repair industry kind of contingent on cars breaking down? Aren't they sort of incentivized to do this? Don't mechanics have sales goals or quotas or whatever? Aren't they pretty much just on the honor system? Why are they blindly afforded these high levels of trust? Is it because of the $$$ involved? Is it because we just assume they won't fuck with our cars because, if they get caught, they'll lose business? Is it the capitalistic exchange that protects these mechanics from scrutiny? Is it competition, is competition why we assume they'll do good work, so that we don't go someplace else? What if all the local repair shops are in cahoots? And what's really stopping them from fucking with our cars if they do it in such a way that’s almost impossible to trace back to them? There's pretty much nothing stopping them. We have no idea what they're doing to our cars in those shops. We just assume that the mechanic is having a good day and has already met his monthly quota or whatever and so we trust that he won't fuck with our cars, yet we still take all the valuables out of our cars before dropping them off because, per the sign in the main lobby, WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOST OR STOLEN ITEMS LEFT IN THE VEHICLE.
We’ll trust them to fix our cars but we won't trust them with anything else. Go figure.
And what about doctors, are they not sort of incentivized to fuck with our bodies in the same way a mechanic might be incentivized to fuck with our cars, you know for $$$? Like if you have cancer and you're getting chemotherapy or whatever, what's stopping the doctor from sabotaging the treatment? Isn't it true that the longer you're sick, the more the hospital gets paid? And how do insurance companies fit into all of this? Don't they make money from people being sick? And the pharmaceutical industry, isn't that whole industry reliant on people being sick? And don't we already acknowledge that pharmaceutical companies artificially jack up prices with no fucks given toward those sick people? Daraprim? Humira? Insulin? Isn't this like a confirmed thing? Aren't these systems ripe for abuse, because of $$$? And don't these medical industries all kind of work together? Like I remember when I was a kid, I would go to the dentist and they would clean my teeth, and afterwards they would say my teeth were fucked up, so they'd refer my mom to an orthodontist, and that orthodontist would then give their whole spiel about how my teeth were coming in crooked and how I needed braces and all that, and then they'd convince my mom to put all that metal in my mouth, which was very painful, and then they'd charge an arm and a leg for the whole procedure plus regular monthly check-ins, and how if we couldn't pay it upfront they would put us on a generous payment plan of $50 per month, and then after like a year of braces, they'd be like, “oh you actually need more braces,” and this happened like three times, until eventually I just stopped brushing my teeth, which forced the orthodontist to take off the braces, only to find out later that this whole braces thing was for cosmetic reasons, like there was no serious risk of medical complications from my teeth being kind of crooked to begin with, thus revealing that the whole procedure was kind of vain and pointless, and you have to figure that the dentist got some sort of $$$ kickback from the whole referral process. And furthermore, you have to figure that whenever some child psychologist or whatever prescribes some hyperactive kid Adderall, that they, the doctors, get some sort of kickback from that as well, be it through free samples or lucrative speaking engagements at pharmaceutical conferences or special funding to the doctor’s practice, thus incentivizing doctors to prescribe as many drugs to people as possible, with no fucks given toward the long-term, life-changing side effects of prolonged use of psychoactives, which the doctor may then use as an excuse to just prescribe more drugs, thus prescribing drugs to treat the side effects of other drugs, and then maybe they'd prescribe even more drugs for the side effects of the drug they prescribed for the side effects of the first drug they themselves prescribed, and so on, all for $$$.
Am I being paranoid here? Is this like totally crazy? I mean, I don’t want to be cynical about everything, but this $$$ stuff seems like it could maybe possibly drive some seriously bad behaviors. Like, if the goal is to be profitable, you can’t just sell one thing and be done with it, you have to ensure the future selling of things, be it medical procedures, drugs, fuel injectors, tires, and of course consumer goods.
Like, electronics companies, aren’t they sort of already doing this type of thing? Isn’t it pretty much confirmed that smartphone manufacturers design their products to be obsolete within a few years? Doesn’t Apple push software updates to soft-brick their old phones, requiring you to buy newer models? Aren’t slimy dudes in suits on Zoom calls right now discussing their planned obsolescence strategy for fiscal year 2026? Isn’t the whole electronics industry contingent on shit breaking? Hell, isn’t almost every consumer-goods industry reliant on shit breaking? Surely they can’t build products that last forever, where’s the $$$ in that?
The other day, I learned that there’s a lightbulb in Livermore, California that has been shining since 1901. That’s literally over 100 years. And after learning about this, I thought to myself, why do I have to change the lightbulbs in my house like at least once a year? Where are all these centennial lightbulbs? And, looking into this, I found out that, in the 1940s, there was this secret cartel of lightbulb manufacturers, General Electric being part of it, that conspired to ensure that any lightbulb sold would last no longer than 1,000 hours. They literally built a 1,000-hour cap into all their lightbulbs, despite the fact that those same lightbulbs could literally last for decades. And, back then, when this was found out, it was kind of a huge scandal, and a lot of reputations and egos were hurt, but now this practice is commonplace, not only among light bulb manufacturers, but with almost all electronics manufacturers, like Epson printers for example, they have a built-in “page counter” to ensure that, once like 10,000 pages are printed, the printer errors out and will not print anymore until you get the error professionally resolved or just buy a new printer. This is a confirmed thing. Look it up. And no one bats an eye. We have all sort of just accepted this planned obsolescence as the price of living in a world driven by $$$.
And if we’ve accepted this about the electronics industry, why haven’t we accepted this about other industries, like automotive repair, medical, pharmaceutical, insurance, and so on? Are we just hoping that the same $$$ incentive doesn’t apply to these other industries? Are we just deluding ourselves, pretending that the whole automotive repair industry isn’t reliant on cars breaking down, that the entire medical industry isn’t contingent on people getting sick?
And if these things are true, doesn’t this mean that one person’s suffering is another person’s $$$?
no subject
Date: 2025-11-30 04:57 am (UTC)Since cars will break down without tampering, and since people will get sick without tampering, mechanics and doctors will also have business even without shady dealings. And people have an instinct for when they're being taken advantage of (maybe not all people all the time, but collectively). So a place that's always pulling you in for more work will have people start to be suspicious of it, and places that don't do that will benefit from a good reputation. (I feel like a shill for capitalism right now, but honestly, that's what I've found in my own life.)
I feel really lucky in my car mechanic, for example. I don't feel like he ever suggests work the car doesn't need. And he's swimming in business. Like if you want to schedule maintenance (like an oil change, say), it'll be a week or so out.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-30 05:34 am (UTC)When you find a good mechanic, you stick with them. This seems to be a common practice.
We had a guy that was just some random guy my wife knew from long ago, and he was our mechanic for the longest time, would come to our house and stuff, as long as we paid for the parts and whatnot. I don't remember what happened to him. Now I've got a Toyota that I take to the dealership nearby, for fixing, and it's real shady over there, gotta find a new place and/or guy here soon.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-30 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-30 12:10 pm (UTC)PPS Okay I guess it wasn't quite repeating myself, but practically... [also am not rereading what I wrote very attentively, heh.]
no subject
Date: 2025-11-30 02:11 pm (UTC)Unforgivable.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-30 02:24 pm (UTC)