saul griffith’s prediction for the future: heirloom products

this year’s greener gadgets conference touched on so many amazing and timely ideas about how human beings need to change the way they think about buying and discarding not only consumer electronics, but every object in our lives. the keynote address was given by inventor, technology renaissance man and stand up comedian (not really, but he should look into it!) dr. saul griffith who called himself and everyone in the audience a planetfucker! strong words, but no one was denying it.

dr. griffith presented way too many issues to contain in one post, so i’ll be writing them up in digestible little mini-posts beginning with what i thought was dr. griffith’s most powerful idea of all - his wish for us to throw away our notion that things can be discarded, because they really can’t, and adopt a culture of “heirloom products” that we keep with us for our whole lives and pass onto future generations.

he announced to the delight of the audience that he would be a father in seven weeks, and hoped to give his son with two things, a rolex watch and a mont blanc pen.

while he apologized for mentioning the name brands considering the current state of our economy, the point he really wanted to get across was that hopefully, his son will keep and cherish those two items so much that he will not feel the need to buy more watches and more pens throughout his life (okay, he may need a few more pens). i wondered if and how the consumer electronics industry, which has profited immensely from perceived obsolescence and the desire for constant upgrades would swallow this pill. wasn’t that like announcing at a dental convention that people would no longer get cavities? to my relief, no one threw produce, and many industry execs actually embraced the idea. how they could actually wrap their products around, and perhaps even profit from it still remains to be seen.

why is this a site?

swyyne has always been an experiment for me. with all of the other super eco sites out there, i've been feeling like i want to contribute something just a bit different. so for now, here are my random musings.