[HN Gopher] "Logistics", an 857-hour movie, tracks a pedometer f...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       "Logistics", an 857-hour movie, tracks a pedometer from shop back
       to factory
        
       Author : dzuc
       Score  : 205 points
       Date   : 2022-08-13 13:48 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (readpassage.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (readpassage.com)
        
       | kevbin wrote:
        
       | akudha wrote:
       | Most people have no clue where/how everyday things are made.
       | Reminds me of this video where a teenage girl was saying food
       | comes from supermarkets, not farmers
        
         | zdragnar wrote:
         | My grandparents (who were farmers) would frequently joke that
         | city folk always thought beets came from cans at the store and
         | didn't know they grew in the ground.
         | 
         | I imagine the same city folk laughed at all the things country
         | rubes like my grandparents didn't know. Of course, one being
         | the child of an immigrant and the other immigrating as a child,
         | and quite poor to boot, they would have faced plenty of
         | derision for that as well. IIRC they also didn't get indoor
         | plumbing and toilets until the early 1950's, so they probably
         | would have been laughed at for that too.
        
           | AlbertCory wrote:
           | "City folk encountering their country cousins" used to be a
           | standard trope of comedy. The very fact that it's not anymore
           | tells you all you need to know about urbanization.
        
             | danjoredd wrote:
             | That was pretty much the entire joke behind both Green
             | Acres and the Beverly Hillbillies, to show the difference
             | of cultures in America in an absurd way. Seeing everything
             | become homogeneous is kind of sad
        
               | mbg721 wrote:
               | Sort of...Green Acres seemed more to exploit that
               | difference to create an absurd environment in general.
               | (Filmways had a lot of trained farm animals around
               | anyway.) The recurring joke was that Eddie Albert had an
               | idyllic vision of being a lawyer retiring to farm life,
               | and all of the objectively insane things people there did
               | made perfect sense to everyone except him, including Eva
               | Gabor.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | 29athrowaway wrote:
           | In 1957, the BBC pranked people for April Fools' day claiming
           | that spaghetti comes form spaghetti trees.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti-tree_hoax
        
             | KptMarchewa wrote:
             | The video is worth a watch' https://youtu.be/tVo_wkxH9dU
        
           | lumost wrote:
           | It does make one wonder how long the supply chain can get
           | before people forget what's on the other side of it. The
           | Roman's only had a vague concept of how silk was made and
           | where it came from. The Chinese a vague idea of daqin, the
           | opposite of the Qin empire.
           | 
           | A farmer be forgiven for believing that their fertilizer is
           | made from manure and not petrochemicals made thousands of
           | miles away?
        
             | seabird wrote:
             | Farmers know absurd amounts about the fertilizer they're
             | using. Frankly, they probably know more about any given
             | facet of the modern world than the average person. Having
             | to pull multi-million dollar lines of credit and constantly
             | staying up-to-date with any technology that touches your
             | business will do funny things to people. That extends to
             | most people that make things; they know who it goes to and
             | how it gets there, but the person who gets it doesn't know
             | where it came from and how it got to them.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Yeah there was a viral video awhile back where this young
               | woman on a family farm was sitting in her tractor talking
               | about how everything worked. The tractor has more
               | computer screens than my desk ever had and a GIS system.
               | 
               | > That extends to most people that make things; they know
               | who it goes to and how it gets there, but the person who
               | gets it doesn't know where it came from and how it got to
               | them.
               | 
               | People who make things seriously, at least. People who
               | think groceries come from the store and haven't thought
               | past that will still be able to cook a meal while a more
               | serious home cook or a good professional chef knows more
               | about where their ingredients come from. But this only
               | goes a couple levels deep at most. The chef might know
               | where the farmer's fertilizer comes from (I think that's
               | part of what's implied by "organic food") but the farmer
               | will definitely know. But for petrochemical fertilizer,
               | there's a whole petrochemical supply chain before that
               | which the fertilizer manufacturer will understand even
               | better than the farmer.
        
         | 29athrowaway wrote:
         | They have a Star Trek-style replicator.
         | 
         | "Computer, 1 whole of chicken please. Roasted."
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | kzrdude wrote:
         | There used to be plenty of how stuff is made documentaries on
         | tv, so I don't know. Nowadays I don't see tv, not that linear
         | medium anyway, so is it gone?
        
           | wishfish wrote:
           | There's still plenty of professionally produced
           | documentaries. There are a zillion videos on Youtube which
           | talk about how stuff is made. Plenty of videos telling you
           | how to make your own stuff. There's subreddits directly or
           | indirectly dedicated to this. There's also quite a bit of
           | how-stuff-is-made on TikTok too.
           | 
           | Speaking of the latter, there's one related phenomenon on
           | TikTok which I never see talked about, but is quite
           | interesting / educational. Some production workers set up a
           | TikTok live feed at work so you can see their part of how
           | things are made or shipped. I've seen factory workers in
           | Vietnam, farmers from all over the world, loggers,
           | construction workers, and too many craftsmen to count. Once
           | had insomnia and ended up watching a 5 AM livestream of a
           | sawmill worker methodically turning various sized tree trunks
           | into uniform planks. That was oddly relaxing and fascinating.
        
             | kzrdude wrote:
             | (Since you mentioned it) I just recently watched all of
             | Stuff Made Here (brilliant guy and channel). One thing
             | really opened my mind - he built his own CNC machine! Now
             | that I know this I could almost believe that I could build
             | anything too. At least that it's possible to build at home.
             | 
             | Interesting about TikTok. But all the content niches are so
             | segregated now due to algorithm recommendations, I'm not
             | sure if these are being watched by only the interested, or
             | are they watched by "everyone" in general?
        
           | germinalphrase wrote:
           | That is classic "evergreen" content, so it's probably still
           | airing.
        
       | UIUC_06 wrote:
       | > However, if Logistics showed me anything, it's that time
       | belongs to the working people of this world, when we can find
       | ways to take it.
       | 
       | So deep. So profound.
       | 
       | > Logistics is the filmic annihilation of capitalist relations to
       | time by a force of ultra-cinematic space. Logistics isn't a feat
       | of temporal duration, it's a feat of spatial presence.
       | 
       | Such overwrought prose. Such "forcing everything into a Marxist
       | framework."
       | 
       | Leonard A. Read talked about the pencil and how no one person
       | could possibly make one, in 1958:
       | https://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl.html?chapter_n...
       | and he wasn't the first, either.
       | 
       | The supply chain expands, but the principle stays the same.
        
         | lisper wrote:
         | > Such overwrought prose. Such "forcing everything into a
         | Marxist framework."
         | 
         | One of the reasons Marx is so popular is that his writing is
         | vague enough that people can read a very wide range of meaning
         | into the words. Religious leaders and politicians often follow
         | the same playbook to great success.
        
           | eternalban wrote:
           | https://content.csbs.utah.edu/~ehrbar/cap1.pdf
           | 
           | For those interested, I recommend Michael Heinrich's
           | biography of Marx ( _' Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern
           | Society'_; volume 1 covers the young Marx up to the end of
           | his studies and delves deep into the intellectual and
           | political context of that time in Germany and Europe. Very
           | informative.)
           | 
           | His 'An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's
           | Capital' is on my to-read list:
           | 
           | https://files.libcom.org/files/Karl%20Marx%20and%20the%20Bir.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://files.libcom.org/files/Michael_Heinrich,_Alex_Locasc.
           | ..
        
           | bsenftner wrote:
           | My art school friends used to point out "artful ambiguity" as
           | a key success factor beneath religious leaders, political
           | movements and pop music.
        
             | kqr wrote:
             | Sure, also "early access" video games. People are willing
             | to pay a lot for them because it is still ambiguous enough
             | that everyone can imagine it will turn out into
             | specifically their future vision.
        
         | bjt2n3904 wrote:
         | That was a magnificent essay. Thank you for posting it!
        
       | forgotmypw17 wrote:
       | The crazy part is that this journey is only the tip of the
       | iceberg for this pedometer. It is made of many components, all of
       | which follow similar journeys to the pedometer factory from their
       | respective factories. And the components are made of raw
       | materials, which are also shipped around in a similar manner
       | after being mined. And the mining itself displaces those who live
       | in that space.
        
         | 7373737373 wrote:
         | I, Pencil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws
        
           | thefourthchime wrote:
           | Thanks, that was great
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | That's a great perspective to have on what it takes to make
           | even the simplest things, like a pencil. Unfortunately, (but
           | not unsurprising), Friedman makes the grand claim that
           | capitalism crates harmony in the world at the end of the
           | video, but besides that, it was a interesting and quick
           | watch. Thanks for sharing it.
        
             | ed wrote:
             | > Unfortunately
             | 
             | What's the argument against capitalism/international trade
             | in this context? Trade increases the cost of war, which is
             | a good thing, right?
        
         | desindol wrote:
         | There is also one more focused on manufacturing from Red Bull.
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iptAkpqjtMQ
        
         | logisticsfilm wrote:
         | Yeah its unfathomable, we were inspired by an article in the
         | German magazine Der Spiegel about the components of an electric
         | toothbrush. Our dream was to follow the components of the
         | pedometer all the way back to the mines, however, we haven't
         | done so yet.
        
       | wizardforhire wrote:
       | While not nearly as harrowing a journey nor the commitment as
       | watching the film described in this article, reading this article
       | in its entirety was surprisingly riveting and oddly fulfilling.
        
         | permo-w wrote:
         | I found the opposite. to me it felt like retracing the same two
         | - admittedly interesting and valuable - meta points over and
         | over*, while refusing to describe what the film was actually
         | like to watch. I assume it did actually get to that point, but
         | I stopped reading after the nth paragraph that I didn't feel
         | provided any new information.
         | 
         | this isn't to say you're wrong to enjoy it, or that my
         | impressions were correct, just that I felt differently. I'm
         | also extremely aware of the irony of complaining about the
         | length of an article about the experience of watching an 857
         | hour film, but c'est la, as they say
         | 
         | *i.e. how it is an art piece about capitalism compressing time
         | and space into innocuous objects; and how much of a time and
         | schedule commitment it was for him
        
       | codeflo wrote:
       | So the entire freighter journey is shown in real time, to show
       | how "crushing" (a word used in the article) capitalism is?
       | Because before capitalism, there were no freight ships, or what?
        
         | lm28469 wrote:
         | Every week my office restocks on bananas from Latin america
         | 
         | Every week at least a few end up in the trash, because they
         | turned black and no one wants them anymore
         | 
         | So some dude, thousands of kilometers away, grew his bananas,
         | put them in a boat, for a weeks long trip to Europe, followed
         | by hundreds of kilometers in a truck, to end up in my office
         | trash
         | 
         | This is a simple example
         | 
         | It's not about what was possible before, of course we've been
         | shiping stuff world wide for a long time, it's about the scale
         | and banality of it and the scale and banality of waste that
         | comes with it. Nothing is measured with the "absurdity" scale,
         | everything is measured with the "money" scale. A lot of what we
         | now consider normal is complete madness
        
           | philwelch wrote:
           | It's not like each individual banana was artisinally grown in
           | a flower pot. They literally grow on trees.
        
             | lm28469 wrote:
             | And petrol grows in the soil so I guess we're all right
             | then
             | 
             | I took a single banana as an example, now think about the
             | millions of animals we slaughter every year which end up
             | straight to the bin etc.
             | 
             | It's like cars, a single car is fine, 1.4 billion cars are
             | not, I think most people just don't comprehend the scale of
             | it all
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Petrol does not, in fact, "grow" on human timescales.
        
           | onos wrote:
           | I don't like the waste but I also like bananas. Not sure what
           | to make of your example.
        
           | kortilla wrote:
           | The economies of scale make this nearly no different than you
           | wasting a locally grown banana. Very little energy was spent
           | on that particular banana to get it do you.
        
           | drexlspivey wrote:
           | Alternative: You've never eaten a banana because they don't
           | grow in Europe. How does this measure in the absurdity scale?
        
             | lm28469 wrote:
             | Who cares, I haven't tried the majority of fruits,
             | vegetables, meats out there, I'm fine
             | 
             | Life isn't a race to consume everything as much and as fast
             | as possible
        
           | bm3719 wrote:
           | You can take them home to add to your compost bin. Then you
           | can put this excellent and free compost in your garden.
        
             | bitwize wrote:
             | Blackened bananas can also be frozen and used later to make
             | banana bread.
        
             | lm28469 wrote:
             | I don't know if you're sarcastic or not, because this is
             | exactly what I mean by using a monetary scale. It's free to
             | me but it still is an incredible waste of energy, time and
             | ressources
        
               | bm3719 wrote:
               | I'm being serious, and I do this when possible. My non-
               | gardening relatives will sometimes even drop off a pile
               | of unusable produce for such purposes when visiting.
               | 
               | Ideally, it's better not to overproduce and overbuy. But
               | I'm suggesting making the best of a situation where the
               | bananas can either go to the landfill or still be of some
               | use.
        
             | delusional wrote:
             | In that case we shipped literal dirt around the world so
             | that he could put it in his garden. Is that any less
             | absurd?
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | What do you propose as an alternative?
        
               | stevenally wrote:
               | Eat locally grown food?
        
               | jimbobimbo wrote:
               | So, no banana for you, eat potatoes instead?
        
               | lm28469 wrote:
               | You haven't tried the vast majority of fruits, veggies,
               | meats, fishes out there and I'm sure you don't feel like
               | you're life is miserable because of it
        
               | nautilius wrote:
               | That argument makes no sense. Presumably, jimbobimbo
               | already sources ~100% of their intake from some producer
               | outside of their apartment, to not be stuck on eating the
               | mushrooms growing in the bathroom.
               | 
               | Just because there is _even more_ out there to miss out
               | on doesn't make missing out on bananas less of an issue.
               | 
               | I assume you can just stop to eat altogether, because
               | you're not consuming the vast majority of food out there.
        
               | jimbobimbo wrote:
               | You do understand that this position comes across as
               | incredibly paternalistic? It's like mom telling a child
               | they can't have a cookie until they finish their broccoli
               | first.
               | 
               | I don't have to try "the vast majority" of other stuff to
               | enjoy the banana.
        
               | karaterobot wrote:
               | This may come as a surprise, but there's plenty of
               | wastage in locally shipped produce too. It's not so much
               | the distance as the act of picking things and putting
               | them into boxes, and taking them out of boxes again that
               | does it.
        
           | orangecat wrote:
           | _So some dude, thousands of kilometers away, grew his
           | bananas, put them in a boat, for a weeks long trip to Europe,
           | followed by hundreds of kilometers in a truck, to end up in
           | my office trash_
           | 
           | Along with millions of other bananas that got eaten. You're
           | arguing against economies of scale here, and you'll need to
           | show your work rather than dismissing long-distance trade as
           | "madness".
        
             | rakoo wrote:
             | That's the thing. Under capitalism the only way to measure
             | something is money. Millions of tons could be sold, profit
             | was made, so it's OK to throw away a few tons.
             | 
             | Environment, living and working conditions, resources and
             | materials being taken from non-renewables sources, all of
             | those are unimportant under capitalism, all of those are
             | unimportant with capitalism and are the reason why no one
             | asks themselves whether it's really worth shipping fruits
             | from the other side of the world. Sometimes even by plane.
        
               | kqr wrote:
               | Right. In a system where people feel forced to work crazy
               | hours in the middle of the ocean; in a system where
               | someone else pays the externalities of petroleum; in a
               | system where the raw materials for a freighter can be dug
               | up by people who may not need to understand why anyone
               | would need bananas shipped to them; in a system rich
               | people have shaped so that it feeds them whatever exotic
               | fruits they desire... only in such a system can shipping
               | bananas to be thrown out be considered "cheap because
               | economies of scale".
               | 
               | Economies of scale means individual suffering turns into
               | statistical noise.
        
               | fallingknife wrote:
               | Because the environment is so much less polluted and
               | working conditions are so much better in non capitalist
               | countries?
        
               | kqr wrote:
               | I don't know if there's been a good example of an
               | actually non-capitalist country yet. I'm not a historian,
               | but all examples I can think of have a small class of
               | people owning the means of production. They aren't always
               | the bourgeoisie but sometimes a political elite or
               | dictator's following.
               | 
               | What I can say is that on a more local scale, the non-
               | capitalist systems I've had experience with have been
               | much more pleasant than the ones where a small set of
               | people held most of the power over production.
        
               | lm28469 wrote:
               | They're virtually all playing the capitalist game,
               | slapping "communist" in your country/government name
               | isn't enough
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | robocat wrote:
               | Can you name a mostly capitalist country? Most countries
               | have a significantly socialist element, greater than 30%
               | of the economy.
               | 
               | For example, the government sector makes up a third of
               | New Zealand GDP.
               | https://www.statista.com/statistics/436523/ratio-of-
               | governme...
               | 
               | Also if you look at how you "spend" your own time you
               | might find that a lot of it is not on purely capitalist
               | hours, but instead time is spent on hobbies, sports,
               | children, friends, family and other pursuits that would
               | be regarded as non-capitalist.
               | 
               | Edit: I would be regarded as a capitalist within New
               | Zealand (I am a successful founder, I don't much believe
               | in agricultural/industry subsidies), but I would be
               | regarded as on-the-left in the US (I'm generally
               | supportive of government health systems and social
               | equality).
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | The problem isn't capitalism; it's the imperfection of
               | humanity. No economic system in history has eliminated
               | waste. The only industrialized alternative to capitalism
               | was notoriously even more wasteful.
               | 
               | Price systems work by simplifying and transmitting
               | information relevant to production and consumption
               | decisions. If the price goes up, consumers who can go
               | without the thing can stop buying it and producers who
               | can make more of the thing can start making it, and they
               | each have the incentive to do so.
               | 
               | When it comes to externalities with the environment,
               | these can be incorporated into the price system. That's
               | how a carbon tax would work. It turns out that the
               | intuitions of would-be central planners are often
               | completely wrong.
               | 
               | The truth is, lots of people do ask themselves if it's
               | really worth it to ship bananas from Latin America to
               | Europe. They work for the fruit company and their
               | decision is based on the costs and benefits. If there are
               | costs that they aren't considering, then the solution is
               | to incorporate those costs into the price system, not to
               | have some banana commissar decree that oceanic banana
               | shipping is banned because, in his enlightened gut
               | feeling, it's "absurd".
        
               | lm28469 wrote:
               | > The only industrialized alternative to capitalism was
               | notoriously even more wasteful
               | 
               | Or eating locally grown stuff that doesn't need to be
               | shipped form the other side of the planet, but when you
               | say that people think you're the mad man... I'm telling
               | you, the whole system is mad, you're just too deep into
               | it to realize, the dissonance would be too strong
        
               | missedthecue wrote:
               | Are you under the impression that Ecuadorians never
               | discard brown bananas?
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | What exactly is your basis for thinking it's crazy to
               | ship things from the other side of the planet? What cost
               | benefit analysis have you done to come to this
               | conclusion? Or are you just appealing to your own amateur
               | intuitions?
               | 
               | If there's an ecological cost that isn't being accounted
               | for, the solution is to adjust policies so the cost is
               | reflected, e.g. via a carbon tax. And I'm sure if we had
               | a carbon tax, we would eat more locally grown food
               | because it would be more cost effective. On the other
               | hand, different parts of the world vary widely in terms
               | of what can be grown there and how efficiently it. It's a
               | complicated problem that can't be solved top-down, and
               | certainly can't be solved by some armchair hippie going
               | "the whole system is mad, man!"
        
               | agalunar wrote:
               | This may be a bit pedantic, but I think it's worth
               | discussing.
               | 
               | > The problem isn't capitalism; it's the imperfection of
               | humanity. No economic system in history has eliminated
               | waste.
               | 
               | The fact that no economic system yet implemented at scale
               | has eliminated waste does not necessarily imply that
               | waste is unavoidable; we'd need to convincingly show that
               | no such economic system could be possible. Similarly, I
               | don't believe we can conclude that capitalism minimizes
               | waste among all feasible, stable economic systems.
               | 
               | As far as balancing exploration and exploitation goes, it
               | might be argued that we should focus on reaping the
               | benefits of our current economic system and deprioritize
               | the exploration new economic systems, but it's too much
               | at this point (imo) to assert that exploration is futile.
               | 
               | My other thoughts:
               | 
               | * "Capitalism or central planning" is a false dichotomy;
               | there are economic systems besides capitalism that have
               | free markets.
               | 
               | * The goal of capital holders in a capitalist system is
               | not efficiency (in the colloquial sense), but profit -
               | planned obsolescence is perhaps the perfect example of
               | this.
               | 
               | * I agree with you that central planners can be
               | catastrophically wrong, and my current opinion is that
               | incorporating externalities into the pricing system
               | (through taxes) is a good idea. It can be difficult to
               | correctly identify, distinguish, and price externalities;
               | I wonder if a benefit of more local economic systems is
               | that there are fewer externalities (by which I mean,
               | actors experience more of the effects that they cause and
               | impose fewer incidental effects on third parties), which
               | would reduce the number of things we need to manually
               | identify and correct.
        
               | jstummbillig wrote:
               | People did ask themselves. They found, yes, it's worth.
               | You might disagree, but I don't I think the number of
               | rotten bananas a process produces offers any meaningful
               | answer. At best it's a baseline and by itself about as
               | useful as "x people die from y every year". What about
               | it? Is that number supposed to be good or bad and what is
               | the bigger context?
               | 
               | Doing stuff causes other stuff to happen. People die in
               | car accidents, but a lot of death is prevented _because_
               | we have cars, but then people also die because of
               | pollution or get depressed because of noise pollution,
               | and it keeps goin from there. It 's hard. Let's be
               | empathetic with each other, and good, and also think a
               | lot about what is going on.
        
           | yellow_postit wrote:
           | I can recommend "The Fish that Ate the Whale" [1] -- this
           | race against time for bananas is a tale told over many
           | different phases of shipping.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13166586-the-fish-
           | that-a...
        
           | AlbertCory wrote:
           | I actually see a food bank "gleaner" regularly at my Safeway.
           | Bananas with any black spots at all are considered
           | unsaleable, although they're perfectly edible.
           | 
           | So long before they turn all black, they're taken to the food
           | bank and given away to whomever wants them at their central
           | location. If a banana does make it all the way to black, it
           | means someone bought it and then didn't eat it.
           | 
           | There is actually competition among the food banks for
           | supermarkets' unwanted food. One will go to the supermarket
           | manager and ask for their unwanted food and get told "Sorry,
           | we're already giving it to Second Harvest."
           | 
           | It isn't only produce. The gleaner regularly fills up his car
           | with breads, milk, and lots of other stuff.
        
           | hypertele-Xii wrote:
           | This is a failure of your office, not of the logistics
           | network. The bananas arrive just fine, why does your office
           | stock so many they go bad?
           | 
           | I eat plenty banana and _almost_ never throw any away. And
           | when I do, the reason is never  "because I didn't eat it in
           | time".
        
           | karaterobot wrote:
           | I apologize for my ignorance: under what economic system do a
           | small fraction of bananas not get bruised during shipping?
           | Sign me up!
        
         | iforgotpassword wrote:
         | Before "capitalism" (globalization really I guess), you were
         | eating apples from your neighbor's garden, wearing shoes made
         | by your town's shoemaker, not from half around the world.
        
           | Manuel_D wrote:
           | This is not correct, the ancient world and the ancient
           | Mediterranean especially saw food get transported by sea.
           | Rome.had to import much of it's food, for instance, as did
           | Athens.
        
             | iforgotpassword wrote:
             | Well you're not wrong, but that was still the exception,
             | and on a smaller scale. So maybe food wasn't the best
             | example to get my point across. Like you said, they _had
             | to_ , it's not like some clever Roman said "hey you know
             | what, I'll just buy cheap stuff from overseas to make more
             | money and then fuck our farmers." Nobody sent locally
             | harvested produce for processing to a country half around
             | the world and then back. Or look at when ancient Rome and
             | China did trade. That was for luxury goods, not for basic
             | household items the average Joe would buy.
        
           | yunohn wrote:
           | You could do that in the modern day too, if the West decided
           | to stop their exploitation of developing/colonial countries.
           | 
           | Instead, they've decided that minimum wages at home need to
           | be X $PSEUR and X/100 everywhere else, so they can offshore
           | everything. Nobody is forcing the West to make shoes in
           | China!
        
           | cptnapalm wrote:
           | Expand that to things like olive oil, wine, lumber, jewelry,
           | and the like, you'd have to go back before the bronze age.
        
             | dijit wrote:
             | Not sure that's the strongest take you could have made.
             | 
             | Some things cannot reasonably be produced domestically.
             | 
             | Some things are about attempting to shrink labour costs.
             | 
             | It's cheaper for Britain to send its shellfish to China to
             | be de-shelled by hand, then send it back than it is to pay
             | some folks to do it in the UK (or mechanise the task).
             | 
             | This is an extreme example (and a real one) that highlights
             | what the parent is talking about.
             | 
             | Even when accounting for the human, fuel, cooling and
             | spoilage cost of shipping around the world it's "cheaper",
             | but that doesn't make sense to me because at the end of it
             | there is much less fuel and much less fish than it would
             | have otherwise been.
             | 
             | There's also not a strong reason to buy shoes made in China
             | except for economic reasons, and more recently supply chain
             | ones.
             | 
             | We can weave fabrics and we have domestic cotton. However,
             | the economics (pushed cheaper by dirt cheap freight) are
             | emphasising a global supply chain where one isn't needed in
             | most cases.
             | 
             | I'm picking on China a bit but it applies to basically
             | everything where the labour is cheaper and the supply chain
             | bends itself in a more inefficient path (everything else
             | being equal) to capitalise(heh) on the lower labour costs.
        
               | hypertele-Xii wrote:
               | > It's cheaper for Britain to send its shellfish to China
               | to be de-shelled by hand, then send it back than it is to
               | pay some folks to do it in the UK
               | 
               | This is a tiny fraction of a much bigger picture. The
               | shellfish do not get their own private ship. It's cheap
               | because the UK is already importing so much that when the
               | ships return to China empty, they might as well pick up
               | some shellfish on their way home. Then, the de-shelled
               | shellfish is valuable enough to get a spot on the next
               | full ship heading out again.
               | 
               | Not nearly as crazy sounding.
        
               | iforgotpassword wrote:
               | I think it's still as crazy sounding! We send shellfish
               | around the globe and back to get them de-shelled. Not
               | because they do it better, but _cheaper_. And for the
               | company doing it it makes sense, since they benefit, and
               | the now unemployed countrymen get compensated by the
               | government, ie. taxes, ie. everyone.
               | 
               | And yes, of course there's always one more step that
               | leads you to where you got in the end. Nobody established
               | a new shipping route and built a new dedicated ship just
               | to start de-shelling in China.
               | 
               | It's like when you look at some complex software that has
               | a batshit crazy architecture, spaghetti code, 5 different
               | code styles, hacks and is half procedural half OOP, and
               | whatever else you consider a crime. But then you look at
               | its history, how it's almost 30 years old, started
               | procedural on a different OS, how its requirements vastly
               | changed and extended over the decades in ways nobody
               | could possibly anticipate, and suddenly, most of the
               | crazy things don't seem so crazy anymore if you know the
               | story behind the individual "crimes" committed. But thst
               | still doesn't mean that looking at the whole picture
               | can't reveal a batshit crazy codebase that you wouldn't
               | touch with a 5ft pole if you can avoid it.
        
               | UIUC_06 wrote:
               | > a global supply chain where one isn't needed in most
               | cases.
               | 
               | And you say this from your vast expertise in global
               | economics?
               | 
               | Things evolved this way because a whole globe full of
               | individual actors thought they made sense, based on
               | prices. If they cease to make sense, those same actors
               | will start doing something else because the prices they
               | see will change.
               | 
               | It could take a while, but so would having another
               | meeting of the Global Planning Committee.
        
               | dijit wrote:
               | I'm drunk right now, so I can't give you much rebuttal
               | honestly.
               | 
               | But it's kinda funny you said this:
               | 
               | > And you say this from your vast expertise in global
               | economics?
               | 
               | Because I actually have a masters degree in international
               | economics (with a focus on China) from Lund university in
               | Sweden.
        
               | UIUC_06 wrote:
               | Well, sorry, then you're _certainly_ qualified to
               | reorganize the whole world 's economy.
        
               | dijit wrote:
               | I am certainly qualified to understand it.
        
               | UIUC_06 wrote:
               | No doubt. You must have global companies calling you all
               | the time, seeking to hire you for your expertise. Why not
               | work for one and apply it?
        
               | dijit wrote:
               | > You must have global companies calling you all the
               | time, seeking to hire you for your expertise.
               | 
               | Technically yes, though that's because I'm working in
               | tech.
               | 
               | I think you're being sarcastic, though but you should
               | understand that my education is not esoteric.
               | 
               | 30 people in my class. Countless classes of the same
               | curriculum in the same years. Countless years that this
               | has been a thing.
               | 
               | I'm not sure what your problem is. That someone knows
               | something with regards to global economics? That despite
               | understanding economics I gave an argument from the
               | ecological perspective?
               | 
               | Honestly. Get over yourself, you're not as smart as you
               | think by trying to drag people down.
               | 
               | I mean. For christs sake if not _a person with a masters
               | degree_ in this topic, then who on earth can weigh in
               | with an opinion do you think?
        
               | UIUC_06 wrote:
               | > if not a person with a masters degree in this topic,
               | then who on earth can weigh in with an opinion do you
               | think?
               | 
               | Who on earth? Someone with skin in the game -- someone
               | who actually makes business decisions about shipping and
               | manufacturing things. As opposed to studying them and
               | teaching about them.
        
               | dijit wrote:
               | > Someone with skin in the game -- someone who actually
               | makes business decisions about shipping and manufacturing
               | things. As opposed to studying them and teaching about
               | them.
               | 
               | Cool.
               | 
               | I'm CTO at a company of 150 people.
               | 
               | To be fair, we make video games.
               | 
               | I'm sure you'll find a way to disqualify me from having
               | an opinion in some other way.
        
               | UIUC_06 wrote:
               | > I'm sure you'll find a way to disqualify me
               | 
               | No. You've got skin in the game. Calm down.
        
               | have_faith wrote:
               | This reminds me of that fields medal HN comment.
               | Different scale but same theme.
        
             | lm28469 wrote:
             | But this was still sustainable, what happened in the last
             | century on the other hand....
        
         | tpmx wrote:
         | Trade is capitalism. It's how we push forward. It's inevitable,
         | but some people do hardcore roleplay that it's not. The world
         | is worse for that.
        
           | WalterBright wrote:
           | People trade under socialism and communism, too. Stone age
           | tribes trade. Families trade. Communes trade. Everybody
           | trades.
        
             | tpmx wrote:
             | > People trade under socialism and communism, too.
             | 
             | In trivially provably less efficient ways.
        
               | bitwize wrote:
               | > efficient
               | 
               | Economists and market fundamentalists keep using that
               | word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | Economists know what words mean.
        
               | moritzwarhier wrote:
               | Efficiency can mean a lot though. It depends on what you
               | want to maximize and what to minimize.
        
               | tpmx wrote:
               | They also know that free trade is superior to planned
               | economies, soviet union style.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | Planned economies haven't worked in the US, either. For
               | example, before Reagan deregulated the airlines, the
               | airline schedules, routes, and fares were set by the FAA.
               | 
               | The result is airliners often flew nearly empty.
               | 
               | Once that was deregulated, a titantic shift occurred,
               | such as the emergence of the hub-and-spoke system.
               | Airplanes have been packed since then.
               | 
               | The FAA bureaucrats proved incapable of efficiently
               | setting routes, schedules, and fares.
               | 
               | In the 1970s, the Energy Department decided a gas
               | station's gas allocation. They did this for every gas
               | station in the country. The result was simultaneous gluts
               | and shortages of gas. Reagan deregulated that with his
               | very first Executive Order, and the gluts, shortages, and
               | gas lines disappeared literally overnight.
               | 
               | Planned economies just don't work.
        
               | kzrdude wrote:
               | At what level of regulation is a market free? As an
               | example of a hard to capture word.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | Regulation to prevent use of force and fraud, and
               | contract enforcement, and dealing with externalities.
        
               | moritzwarhier wrote:
               | Who decides when "dealing with externalities" has been
               | done in a proper way?
               | 
               | The very word "externalities" and the state of the global
               | environment don't inspire much trust in the efficient
               | management of "externalities" through capitalism.
               | 
               | Pointing this out doesn't mean that I am a socialist ot
               | communist, I don't like this this kind of black and white
               | thinking.
               | 
               | Wouldn't "efficiency" mean that we use natural resources
               | sustainably?
               | 
               | That's not happening as far as I see.
        
           | ModernMech wrote:
           | Trade exists apart from capitalism, and is found in any
           | number of alternative economic systems. Capitalism is about
           | who has ownership of productive assets. Conflating capitalism
           | with trade makes it seem like no alternative economic systems
           | are possible.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | Seattle3503 wrote:
         | It makes about as much sense as saying watching paint dry
         | defines the experience of having decorated walls.
        
         | delusional wrote:
         | Observing the absurdity of something doesn't necessarily mean
         | you have a more desirable alternative. I can observe that it's
         | absurd that my apples were shipped halfway around the world
         | without saying "so i don't want them".
         | 
         | Capitalism is absurd, what it makes humans do is absurd. It's
         | also useful and has some worthwhile properties.
        
       | permo-w wrote:
       | the mid-section of this article is just rephrased paragraph after
       | rephrased paragraph, each less philosophically sound than the
       | last.
       | 
       | we get it, the film is an art piece making a point about how
       | capitalism compresses time and space into inconsequential
       | objects. it was a big undertaking schedule-wise. you don't have
       | to say this backwards and forwards 5 times
       | 
       | compress your article space and time-wise
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | manytree wrote:
       | What a lovely article and piece. Tremendous. I don't think I will
       | make such a commitment to this film as did the author, but in a
       | way I feel it is perhaps the only way to understand it: at the
       | speed of undilated time.
        
       | radicality wrote:
       | Is it available anywhere? Article says was on Vimeo but that it
       | was taken down.
       | 
       | I don't see any info on their page either
       | https://logisticsartproject.com/
       | 
       | I wonder how large (in file size) the final cut was and what
       | codecs were used. Such slow moving footage probably compresses
       | well, but at 857 hours of footage it's probably still big.
        
         | logisticsfilm wrote:
         | We had the film on Vimeo for a year but had to take it down due
         | to the cost of Vimeo hosting.
         | 
         | The original film is around 10TB of mpeg2 1080p 25mbit/sec 25
         | frames per second.
         | 
         | We later transcoded to h264, it now clocks in at about 2TB.
        
           | chaostheory wrote:
           | Out of curiosity, why aren't you on other platforms? Is it
           | mainly due to the size, maintaining rights, or a combination?
        
             | logisticsfilm wrote:
             | Size and rights are definitely an aspect, but so is
             | context. If we were to upload this to YouTube for example
             | we imagine that the film would be interrupted by commercial
             | breaks every now and then. Plus there is the 12 hour length
             | limit.
             | 
             | We did livestream it on Youtube back when you could opt out
             | of commercials. And in a way a livestream is our preferred
             | way of showing the work but doing so from home forces us to
             | make sure the stream is running 24/7 for 37 days...
        
               | philistine wrote:
               | Yeah, you should definitely find a way to stream it from
               | a third location. You have the same problem as the lofi
               | girl stream: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jfKfPfyJRdk
               | 
               | Before their problem with content ID last month, their
               | stream had been uninterrupted for two years.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | drited wrote:
       | The author mentioned that they started out looking for the
       | world's longest horror film but ended up finding a film which
       | exposes capitalism's underbelly and brings home why life is
       | turned into a blur by capitalism.
       | 
       | If you ask me though, based on this paragraph they did actually
       | find the world's longest horror film! As for the anti-capitalism
       | hints in the article, try watching an 857 hour film without
       | starving in a non-capitalist economy!
       | 
       | "There came a point about three weeks into my viewing where the
       | maddening, non-Euclidean shape of Logistics fully formed in my
       | mind. I had an unnerving migraine. I could barely get myself
       | together, let alone watch a boat not move for nine hours. I
       | thought about quitting or taking a few days off, but then it
       | occurred to me: the crew of the ship couldn't quit, and the
       | filmmakers couldn't take a day off. I was now a part of this
       | filmic thing, and I couldn't stop until it was done."
        
       | rahimnathwani wrote:
       | I really enjoyed Ascension https://g.co/kgs/agLbnp
        
       | boomboomsubban wrote:
       | I think I could handle watching the boat, 857 hours of silence
       | would drive me insane. I wonder if they supplemented their own
       | background music.
        
         | chha wrote:
         | Not quite that long, but the Norwegian national broadcaster NRK
         | did a week-long trip one one of the coastal shipping routes in
         | the nortern part of the country. Might be of interest for you.
         | I know they used to offer the whole thing as a torrent, but it
         | can also be found here: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/hurtigruten-
         | minutt-for-minutt
        
         | drdebug wrote:
         | You don't have kids do you? Silence is under-rated.
        
         | RajT88 wrote:
         | Still. For my tastes at least, this is time better spent than
         | _The Cremaster Cycle_.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | rendall wrote:
       | > _Going on the Logistics journey means encountering a staggering
       | depiction of alienation, isolation and just how much capitalist
       | social relations have distorted our ability to understand time
       | and space._
       | 
       | Bit of a stretch. Would anarchist shipping take less time or be
       | less boring somehow?
        
         | exitb wrote:
         | One could question the decision to make the pedometer on the
         | other side of the world. Or even its necessity in the first
         | place.
        
           | UIUC_06 wrote:
           | One could, if "one" were an intellectual who thought himself
           | qualified to question everything, because reasons.
           | 
           | Someone wants a pedometer, and magically, or not so
           | magically, one appears on a shelf near them, or on their
           | doorstep.
        
             | sixstringtheory wrote:
             | Why did they want the pedometer? Did they come to that
             | desire in isolation, or were they advertised to by the
             | pedometer maker?
        
               | UIUC_06 wrote:
               | Maybe they're humans with agency? Just a thought.
        
           | fallingknife wrote:
           | You can decide on its necessity for yourself by buying it or
           | not. You are not entitled to make that choice for other
           | people.
        
         | kqr wrote:
         | Certainly the parties involved would have a _better
         | understanding of_ the time and space under discussion, because
         | they would have taken part in the decisions about sourcing and
         | logistics.
        
         | rendall wrote:
         | I mean, it seems like the guy went into the viewing already
         | with a notion that capitalism is bad, and then watched a lot of
         | really boring video, and then attributes the self-imposed
         | tedium to how capitalism "distorts or ability to understand
         | time and space". Only someone predisposed to this perspective
         | would think that makes any sense at all.
        
         | kuramitropolis wrote:
         | Increased likelihood of piracy, less stuff shipped overall,
         | probably less of the blandness inherent in economy of scale.
        
           | arise wrote:
           | So less boring, if nothing else.
        
             | Ygg2 wrote:
             | Sure. If you count waking up tomorrow as boring.
        
         | delusional wrote:
         | I don't think anarchy is the negation of capitalism.
        
           | AnimalMuppet wrote:
           | In practice, was communism _less_ alienating than capitalism?
           | I doubt it.
        
             | AlbertCory wrote:
             | Soviet workers used to say "We pretend to work, and they
             | pretend to pay us."
        
               | teakettle42 wrote:
               | Czech workers during the communist era used to say "If
               | you're not stealing from the state, you're stealing from
               | your family" ("Kdo neokrada stat, okrada rodinu")
        
           | kuramitropolis wrote:
           | Nah GP actually has a good radical/reductionist approach by
           | jumping straight to anarchies.
        
           | rakoo wrote:
           | The side effect of capitalism is that not only money becomes
           | concentrated, but also power. Not only because money buys
           | power, but because the one who ones the machines can dictate
           | how the one who operates it works. Anarchism refutes the idea
           | that one has power over another, and as such accumulation of
           | money and not owning the means of production _is_
           | antithetical to anarchism
        
             | docandrew wrote:
             | This reminds me of a small organic farm owner who said
             | something to the effect of "why can't I just trade my extra
             | produce with the farmer down the street who has extra eggs?
             | And then I can use the eggs to make pastries and trade
             | those with my neighbor who makes homemade clothing?"
             | Someone responded, "congrats, you just invented
             | capitalism."
             | 
             | Since eggs go bad and produce is heavy, maybe we could
             | invent a durable "value storage" or "token" or "fiat" to
             | trade instead. Storage and transmission of this value store
             | could become useful trades in their own right.
             | 
             | This sounds like a very natural thing to do, almost like it
             | would arise on its own without anyone having to _force_
             | this on anyone, as opposed to literally every other
             | economic system, including your definition. In your
             | "anarchism" how do you enforce the non-ownership of the
             | means of production except by force? Do you force the
             | farmer not to grow anything?
        
       | logisticsfilm wrote:
       | Hi there, creators of Logistics here. Super happy to see this
       | featured on Hacker News.
       | 
       | Feel free to ask us anything!
       | 
       | official site is logisticsartproject.com
        
         | gtsop wrote:
         | Where can we see it?
        
           | logisticsfilm wrote:
           | Right now only at the library at Johns Hopkins University in
           | Baltimore. We had the full film up on Vimeo for a year but it
           | was too expensive too keep it there. Its hard to find a good
           | cheap place to host a movie of this length.
        
             | corny wrote:
             | The Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver, BC) hosted The Clock
             | a few years ago. But staying open for a 24 hour long film
             | must be much easier than for a month long film.
        
             | radihuq wrote:
             | out of curiosity, how big is the file?
             | 
             | EDIT: never mind, I see you answered this in another
             | comment:
             | 
             | > The original film is around 10TB of mpeg2 1080p
             | 25mbit/sec 25 frames per second.
             | 
             | > We later transcoded to h264, it now clocks in at about
             | 2TB.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | kevinmchugh wrote:
             | Could you continuously stream it on twitch or YouTube or
             | the like?
        
               | logisticsfilm wrote:
               | Great idea, thanks!
               | 
               | Since several of you have asked how to watch the movie,
               | we spontaneously decided to stream the first 21 hours of
               | Logistics on Twitch. Since it will soon be night here in
               | Sweden, we will not be able to keep track of the stream.
               | We're keeping our fingers crossed that it works.
               | Unfortunately we will not be able to stream the entire
               | film this time, but hope to do so later.
               | 
               | The stream is live now at
               | https://www.twitch.tv/logisticsartproject
        
               | logisticsfilm wrote:
               | Youtube has commercials which we would like to avoid, but
               | we had not considered twitch. Perhaps that's a good idea.
               | We have livestreamed it before, but it's quite a
               | commitment to keep a stream running 24/7 for 37 days.
        
               | junon wrote:
               | Torrents?
        
             | madmod wrote:
             | Can I please buy a copy?
        
               | logisticsfilm wrote:
               | unfortunately its not for sale, but we are actively
               | looking for a place to host it as a VOD again. Send us an
               | email if you want to be notified if and when its
               | available again. (email in profile)
        
             | buck4roo wrote:
             | Have you considered archive.org?
        
               | gregsadetsky wrote:
               | Really great suggestion -- @logisticsfilm you should
               | consider it!
               | 
               | Also https://ubu.com/ might be interested to
               | host/distribute it and it's a great fit as well.
        
             | chrismiller wrote:
             | Would love to help you get this back online if you are
             | interested! Happy to host it or point you in the right
             | direction if you'd like to do it yourself.
        
               | logisticsfilm wrote:
               | Sounds great! Our email is in our profile.
        
             | metadat wrote:
             | Are you open to distributing via torrent?
        
               | logisticsfilm wrote:
               | So far we have chosen not to because we consider the core
               | of the work to be the continuous length of the film. A
               | torrent would enable timelapses and short versions. But
               | we will think about it.
        
               | t6jvcereio wrote:
               | This is weird. No normal person is going to watch 857
               | hours. The only person to watch that long are movie
               | industry people, so they can write about it.
               | 
               | Separate question, how do you monetize this?
        
               | yunohn wrote:
               | What's wrong with a timelapse? Seems like the perfect
               | opportunity.
        
               | djbusby wrote:
               | That can/will happen regardless of distribution via Vimeo
               | or torrent or YT or whatever.
               | 
               | Torrent doesn't enable that any more than any other
               | distribution channel.
        
             | djbusby wrote:
             | Is this a case for PeerTube?
        
             | epolanski wrote:
             | Split it in different pieces and upload it on YouTube?
        
         | boomboomsubban wrote:
         | Why is it silent? Was a camera with an acceptable microphone
         | too expensive/difficult to maintain?
         | 
         | The article makes a big deal out of finally seeing a person. Is
         | that person aware of the movie?
         | 
         | Sounds like an interesting film, thanks for answering questions
         | about it.
        
           | logisticsfilm wrote:
           | We couldn't figure out what sound to have, so we opted for
           | silence. We also hoped it would be more contemplative without
           | sound.
           | 
           | Yes he is aware that the camera is recording, he needed to
           | wash the windows on the bridge.
        
         | Balgair wrote:
         | What was the hardest thing about accomplishing this?
         | 
         | What was the easiest?
         | 
         | Any advice for other film-makers?
        
           | logisticsfilm wrote:
           | Some of the hardest things were: - Gathering facts about the
           | product, where it was manufactured and what its shipping
           | routes were. - Getting permission to film during the trip. -
           | Finding a technical solution (in 2011) that could record
           | continuously during the entire journey of the container ship.
           | 
           | It was comparatively easy to design the concept, it then took
           | a very long time to implement.
           | 
           | We are not professional filmmakers, but something that helped
           | us was to be stubborn.
        
             | junon wrote:
             | Being stubborn is highly underrated!
        
         | testplzignore wrote:
         | How many times have you watched it yourself?
        
         | logisticsfilm wrote:
         | Since several of you have asked how to watch the movie, we
         | spontaneously decided to stream the first 21 hours of Logistics
         | on Twitch. Since it will soon be night here in Sweden, we will
         | not be able to keep track of the stream. We're keeping our
         | fingers crossed that it works. Unfortunately we will not be
         | able to stream the entire film this time, but hope to do so
         | later.
         | 
         | The stream is live now at
         | https://www.twitch.tv/logisticsartproject
        
       | caymanjim wrote:
       | Why did they do this backwards? It sounds like they took the trip
       | in reverse. I thought they recorded it forward (tracking an
       | actual object the whole time) and presented it in reverse, but it
       | looks like they didn't actually follow a real object. They just
       | chose a path and took the path in reverse, using the types of
       | transportation that such an object might in theory have taken:
       | 
       | > They write that, "Four years later we found ourselves on the
       | largest container ship in the world on our way from Sweden to
       | China." As per the trip: "We had started the journey by truck to
       | Middle Sweden, then by freight train to the port of Gothenburg,
       | and after four weeks at sea, we filmed from a truck again, this
       | time from the port of Shenzhen to a factory in Bao'an."
       | 
       | The idea of following a single, real object from point of
       | manufacture to destination--documenting all the transfers and
       | hiccups along the way--is interesting to me. Presenting it in
       | reverse chronological order is an artistic decision I'm
       | ambivalent about. But it doesn't sound like that's what they did.
       | They didn't track a pedometer; they just took freight vehicles
       | along a path that maybe the thing went on, without following the
       | actual transfer of the item from box to container, from truck to
       | ship, etc.
       | 
       | I'm disappointed. I was ready to actually watch the whole thing.
       | But it's contrived.
        
         | logisticsfilm wrote:
         | Absolutely, the best thing would have been to actually follow a
         | specific, unique product. We tried for one and a half years to
         | get the company where we bought the pedometer to cooperate with
         | us. It was impossible. But we managed to get the company to
         | tell us which route they used in most cases.
        
         | gizajob wrote:
         | It's only contrived in the way all art is contrived. The very
         | idea of an 857 hour move mostly filming the bridge of a
         | containership is a contrivance in the extreme.
        
         | fullshark wrote:
         | Your ideal film is the opening of the film Lord of War (edited
         | for time).
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/VHn1zogeyO4
        
           | reidjs wrote:
           | One of the most entertaining intros of any movie, ever.
        
       | 1-6 wrote:
        
         | vachina wrote:
         | How did you conclude it was communism/socialism that enabled
         | them to benefit from capitalism's extremes? Or is this another
         | attempt at "China Bad"?
        
           | steve76 wrote:
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological
         | arguments. Those are extremely repetitive and therefore off
         | topic here.
         | 
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
         | 
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
       | idiocrat wrote:
       | Here is more of container shipping pron.
       | 
       | A container ship is sailing through a water highway, docks. The
       | containers are getting unloaded/loaded.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h16zyxiwDLY
        
         | 7373737373 wrote:
         | Also this one by JeffHK:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHrCI9eSJGQ
        
         | ThinkingGuy wrote:
         | Also worth a listen: the Omega Tau podcast episode on container
         | ships:
         | 
         | https://omegataupodcast.net/146-container-shipping/
        
       | mpalmer wrote:
       | Was the author inspired by the filmmakers not to edit this piece
       | down to a sensible, non-redundant length?
        
       | keepquestioning wrote:
       | Container ships seem very inefficient. Is that why shipping from
       | taobao is horrible?
        
       | lifeisstillgood wrote:
       | I want to see (edited highlights) of the film now.
       | 
       | It is extraordinary but then again it's just "the container will
       | be here in three weeks"
        
         | Voloskaya wrote:
         | 72 minutes edit [1].
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYFG0xP12yE
        
           | logisticsfilm wrote:
           | Actually we did not create this, its made out of 2 minute
           | clips we hosted on our web page a few years back. The
           | original film has no sound.
        
             | lifeisstillgood wrote:
             | Well thank you for creating such an amazing piece of ...
             | art / documentary / politics.
             | 
             | Please do tell us where we can see the full work / where it
             | is available.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | tasuki wrote:
       | > It was on, in front of my eyes, while I worked, ate and lived.
       | 
       | Either you're working or you're watching a movie. I know people
       | who claim they do both at the same time, but I don't think
       | they're actually doing either.
        
         | colinsane wrote:
         | "either you're working or you're listening to music".
         | 
         | the progression of my career has looked like this:
         | 
         | - need total quiet: no music, no talking.
         | 
         | - some music is fine: it can't have lyrics though and it's best
         | if it's more textural.
         | 
         | - i can listen to (and process the lyrics to) hip hop and rap
         | and still type.
         | 
         | - i can listen to YouTube educationals and catch about a third
         | of the content.
         | 
         | - i can rewatch movies i've seen before and keep up with the
         | important plot parts.
         | 
         | sure, for the parts of the day where i'm working out
         | differential equations or solving circuits and such, i go back
         | to silence. but if 90% of your work is just plumbing values
         | from one place to another... if you've progressed anywhere
         | along that sequence i listed then i think it's naive to take
         | that simple "either/or" view of things.
        
         | Swenrekcah wrote:
         | It is in fact possible to do certain repetitive tasks and keep
         | track of a simple movie or tv show at the same time.
         | 
         | I find neither particularly enjoyable though.
        
           | tasuki wrote:
           | Yes, if one is doing menial work, sure. I thought the author
           | was a writer, which is in my opinion creative work requiring
           | full attention.
        
             | joemi wrote:
             | The author is a professional writer, so depending on what
             | specific writing tasks they're doing, they may be able to
             | do portions of their job almost automatically, devoting far
             | less than full attention to their work. (I know a few
             | writers who do this.) Additionally the movie is silent, so
             | I'd imagine that leaves the language parts of the brain
             | fairly free when watching the movie.
        
             | Swenrekcah wrote:
             | That's true. Although now that I read the article, the
             | quoted sentence comes right after they mentioned 9 hours of
             | a stationary ship so I guess it's possible to keep that on
             | in the background and not miss the plot.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | If this were an ambient display on a wall in a living space or
       | work space, I wonder what effect that would have on mood and
       | mode.
        
       | collegeburner wrote:
       | in the same vein (tho lots shorter) i reccomend giving _I,
       | Pencil_ a read: https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/
        
         | logisticsfilm wrote:
         | oh nice! didn't know about this book.
        
       | hef19898 wrote:
       | Not a critique if the film, but rather the article ablut it:
       | 
       | >> Logistics may have been birthed into this world in 2012, but
       | the past few years have given the film a second life, with the
       | pandemic laying bare the fragility of just-in-time logistics.
       | 
       | I so hoped we got past that already... JIT had nothing to do, as
       | a root cause that is, with the supply issues the world is facing
       | since the pandemic. I hate this meme so much.
       | 
       | That being said, I live the film project! Even if I would never
       | watch 35 days plus on part of my day job, the idea is great so!
        
       | causality0 wrote:
       | _just how much capitalist social relations have distorted our
       | ability to understand time and space._
       | 
       | This is meaningless bullshit. The fact you can purchase, for an
       | hour's wage, a digital pedometer than was built on one continent
       | from raw materials from another and then shipped to a third is a
       | breathtaking triumph.
        
       | gurumeditations wrote:
       | So much fluff I couldn't finish it.
        
         | toiletfuneral wrote:
        
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