That idea of different spaces in a room costing more or less is so interesting to me from the perspective of this time where we can make amenities be more or less evenly distributed throughout a room, and the whole cost difference is between buildings and sometimes levels.
To put your socks into a bit of perspective, an adult male's socks will likely take two 50g balls to complete. A durable but ordinary yarn that is widely available (patons) will be about $7 dollars right now, per 50g ball. A youtube creator, an exceptional fast knitter, once in a challenge, knit 28 pairs in a month, but a couple a weeks per pair is normally considered to be a good rate.
back when sock wars was a thing, i could manage a patterned pair (not just basic stockinette) to kill off my target in about 2 days.... and be glad of the break from knitting for the next few days to let my hands recover as they mailed on to the recipient.
Here's a suggestion for a collaborative project. The goal: create a newly made 'ancient artifact' which carbon dates as being ancient. For argument's sake, I'll assume it is a piece of linen cloth, but there are many other possibilities, such as papyrus. Step 1: Grow flax plants in an airtight enclosure with added CO2 from fossil fuel burning. They'll incorporate a mixture of natural CO2 (with normal C14 abundance) and fossil CO2 (with zero C14 abundance), resulting in artificially low C14 abundance in the plant tissue. Cody of Cody's Lab could do this. (I've already suggested this to him in a youtube comment, but I have no idea whether he saw it.) Step 2: Turn the flax plants into linen. This would be your job. Step 3: Carbon date the linen. I don't know who could do this, but there must be a carbon dating youtuber out there somewhere.
Nice video. Read a crank economics book where the author complained about economic growth and how it wasn't good. An example he used was shoe making, showing how cobblers and shoe makers lost their jobs to factories. He failed to mention that poor people, well into the 20th century in the American South, often went without shoes because they could not afford them. It wasn't just the boys Tom and Huck who were shoeless, adults were too.
It's a two sided thing. We're all undeniably richer because of the industrial revolution. What we lost was local variety, some kinds of satisfaction/control from cottage industry, and a kind of sustainability. I don't want to live in the past, but I do want to figure out how to keep the wealth and get those things we left behind at the same time. JB
as a sock knitter, i can def agree they won't be a couple of pounds. i can't even buy the yarn (or the wool to spin, since i also handspin) for the cost of commercially made socks.
Economics in One Easy Lesson talks about knitting machines; they had an explosion of employment in textiles _after_ the introduction of knitting machines because being able to make socks and clothing cheaper gave England a competitive advantage over knitters in the rest of the world. Automation increased employment.
And prices fell, making socks a commodity instead of homemade at the cost of hours of a wife's labor. Thus greatly expanding the number of people employed making socks. Never forget the benefits to consumers do to economic growth. Even a hundred years ago common people didn't own many clothes. Now clothing is incredibly cheap and people have to clean out their closets (get rid of perfectly usable clothes) or they risk being buried in them. When was the last time you darned a sock or repaired a seam? I haven't bothered in years.
That idea of different spaces in a room costing more or less is so interesting to me from the perspective of this time where we can make amenities be more or less evenly distributed throughout a room, and the whole cost difference is between buildings and sometimes levels.
To put your socks into a bit of perspective, an adult male's socks will likely take two 50g balls to complete. A durable but ordinary yarn that is widely available (patons) will be about $7 dollars right now, per 50g ball. A youtube creator, an exceptional fast knitter, once in a challenge, knit 28 pairs in a month, but a couple a weeks per pair is normally considered to be a good rate.
That really does put it in perspective. Amazing! JB
back when sock wars was a thing, i could manage a patterned pair (not just basic stockinette) to kill off my target in about 2 days.... and be glad of the break from knitting for the next few days to let my hands recover as they mailed on to the recipient.
Here's a suggestion for a collaborative project. The goal: create a newly made 'ancient artifact' which carbon dates as being ancient. For argument's sake, I'll assume it is a piece of linen cloth, but there are many other possibilities, such as papyrus.
Step 1: Grow flax plants in an airtight enclosure with added CO2 from fossil fuel burning. They'll incorporate a mixture of natural CO2 (with normal C14 abundance) and fossil CO2 (with zero C14 abundance), resulting in artificially low C14 abundance in the plant tissue. Cody of Cody's Lab could do this. (I've already suggested this to him in a youtube comment, but I have no idea whether he saw it.)
Step 2: Turn the flax plants into linen. This would be your job.
Step 3: Carbon date the linen. I don't know who could do this, but there must be a carbon dating youtuber out there somewhere.
That sounds super interesting ... I'm thinking about it. JB
Nice video. Read a crank economics book where the author complained about economic growth and how it wasn't good. An example he used was shoe making, showing how cobblers and shoe makers lost their jobs to factories. He failed to mention that poor people, well into the 20th century in the American South, often went without shoes because they could not afford them. It wasn't just the boys Tom and Huck who were shoeless, adults were too.
It's a two sided thing. We're all undeniably richer because of the industrial revolution. What we lost was local variety, some kinds of satisfaction/control from cottage industry, and a kind of sustainability. I don't want to live in the past, but I do want to figure out how to keep the wealth and get those things we left behind at the same time. JB
as a sock knitter, i can def agree they won't be a couple of pounds. i can't even buy the yarn (or the wool to spin, since i also handspin) for the cost of commercially made socks.
I do not fear automation or robotics taking my job. I fear a society that does not account for or make provisions for such occurrences.
سلائی مشین ولئیم لی نے ایجاد کی تھی ۔۔۔۔۔کیا یہ معلومات درست ہیں؟؟؟؟
Imagine living in a world where rulers still stand against disrupting sectors the poor rely on!
Economics in One Easy Lesson talks about knitting machines; they had an explosion of employment in textiles _after_ the introduction of knitting machines because being able to make socks and clothing cheaper gave England a competitive advantage over knitters in the rest of the world. Automation increased employment.
Only locally. Export just spreads the effect. JB
Supply and demand.
And prices fell, making socks a commodity instead of homemade at the cost of hours of a wife's labor. Thus greatly expanding the number of people employed making socks. Never forget the benefits to consumers do to economic growth. Even a hundred years ago common people didn't own many clothes. Now clothing is incredibly cheap and people have to clean out their closets (get rid of perfectly usable clothes) or they risk being buried in them. When was the last time you darned a sock or repaired a seam? I haven't bothered in years.