Saturday, July 28, 2012

"I, Pencil" Updated to 2012 Version "I, Smartphone"

The "I, Smartphone" below is a modernized 21st century version of the classic essay "I, Pencil," written in 1958 by Leonard Reed, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education.



(ht Mark Perry)

8 comments:

  1. They missed the point of the original, is how I would critique the video.

    Reed didn't pick something fancy or technologically savvy; he picked a pencil because of it's simplicity.

    He picked something extremely simple and taken for granted and showed how complex and interwoven the market processes are to create and deliver the product to consumers. It's a juxtaposition.

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  2. I think you missed the point of the original because as Reed explained the pencil isn't really that simple.

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    1. People assume that it's simple but it's really not. That's the point Reed was making, and that's what Anon @July 28,2012 10:24 PM was saying as well.

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    2. Actually, that was the whole point of my post. Thank you for reiterating. [And if I were Keith Olbermann, there would have been a "sir" in that last sentence.]

      A pencil, which seems simple and is taken for granted as such is actually built from "complex and interwoven" market processes. Did you happen to read the third paragraph, Anon?

      Contrasted with this video, which takes a complicated item that everybody realizes is complicated, and shows how complicated the processes are to bring it to market. There's no juxtaposition, and no stone is unearthed.

      And if you still disagree with my assessment, okay. It was only a critique.

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  3. Yep, the video is lame and totally misses the point. And it is not God who made the smartphone possible (except in a very roundabout way), it's market. And I didn't see it explained or even credited in this video.

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  4. Another one who didn't watch the video past the 1:15 minute mark.

    You have some strange and dunce curmudgeons posting here, Wenzel.

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    1. Oh, but I did watch. The market is not mentioned once, and the whole piece sounds exactly like the collectivist cooperation propaganda they used to dispense in the Soviet schools - with the sole exception of reference to competition, although hopelessly garbled to become a replica of "socialist competition" (yep,there was such a beast in the USSR).

      The crucial difference between real and socialist competition is that in the real competition losers go out of business. In socialist competitions winners are given medals (can show you mine, heh) to, guess what, inspire losers to do better.

      Now, who is the dunce, dear Anonymous?

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  5. "Make me more fabulous".

    Paging all English majors...

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