Can we talk how no new hardware and (I think I'm right in saying) there never has been any hardware that has been made for video gaming that is sustainable environmentally?
Non-sustainable machines
- Thread starter Little Duck
- Start date
That's more or less the state of human technology as a whole than anything else, and even "green" tech isn't the most eco-friendly: dumping your electric car's batteries when they go dead for the last time isn't as clean a process as you might think. Manufacturing is also hardly eco-friendly either, so at the moment gaming machines just won't be any more so than the rest of our tech.
Well if anyone wanted to all the materials can be recycled, but rarely anyone wants to because that just costs more especially with parts that use up such minute amounts of materials, once your take the casing, heatsinks and batteries off there is barely anything left to scrap.
But even so there are companies that will buy circuit boards off you and recycle, if this sort of stuff truly concerns you I imagine you will be using their services in the future.
But even so there are companies that will buy circuit boards off you and recycle, if this sort of stuff truly concerns you I imagine you will be using their services in the future.
You can recycle some electronic parts, but it's a massive problem as most computers are obsolete within 10 years, and it's likely to continue that way for the foreseeable future. There's been some effort to move into a more modular direction e.g. phonebloks & the motorola project, but realistically I don't see electronics being sustainable until we invent machines that break down objects to their component elements...
I wouldn't be too hasty in making judgements like that.Mr.K. said:
Digital Distribution might save on things like fuel costs for transport and plastic for packaging, but it produces expenses in other areas.
For example, I frequently find myself leaving my PC turned on while I am out shopping to working to allow it to finish downloading a huge game. That kind of behaviour is encouraged by digital distribution since whenever I am at my PC, I use my bandwidth actively and don't want to put all of it to downloading games. It wastes electricity and electricity are carbon emissions, hazardous waste etc.
Then you have the entire infrastructure that needs to be set up and maintained to handle digital distribution. I am sure the Steam servers don't run on happy toughts and aren't built out of wood. Then you have the wide-spread installation of high-speed internet cables, which is also encouraged and/or necessary. Those cables require some pretty funky chemicals to be manufactured and digging holes in the ground to install them produces emissions.
In the grand scheme of things digital distribution might not be as eco-friendly as you made it out to be. It is always hard to get definitive information in this sort of thing. As of today I still can't tell for sure if glass bottles or plastic bottles are more eco-friendly! The Horror!
No technology is environmentally sustainable because all resources exist in limited supply. Heck, even DNA replication isn't environmentally sustainable, consuming ATP isn't sustainable. We fuck up the environment by breathing, we fuck it up by producing any kind of material, by shaping any kind of material and even if we recycle everything we're still going to release almost as much waste as if we were to start from scratch.
Technology isn't sustainable. Even hydrogen cars present some terrible problems despite the fact that they will only release pure water. Don't just point out the problem, most of us know they exist, try to think of a solution.
Technology isn't sustainable. Even hydrogen cars present some terrible problems despite the fact that they will only release pure water. Don't just point out the problem, most of us know they exist, try to think of a solution.
There is a key misconception, I think, when it comes to "sustainability". In the absolute sense, it is an impossible goal. The solar system has a finite set of resources and a finite source of energy after all thus nothing that uses a resource can be sustained. And since there is no known way to reduce entropy of the universe as a whole, the whole thing breaks down regardless of scale.
However, in the more accurate sense, few devices are truly sustainable. Wind energy, for example, is often cited as a currently viable source of energy which overlooks the fact that in it's service life a windmill will not produce more than a fraction of the total energy it took to build it. Consoles, like other electronics, rely heavily on relatively rare components and metals and even with the strongest possible drive to recycle, some portion of those are going to be lost. Even in this technical sense, you'll find few manufactured goods that are fully sustainable and those that are only gain that qualification because they rely entirely on a renewable resource. Paper goods are sustainable. Rubber is sustainable. Complex electronics of any sort are not.
However, in the more accurate sense, few devices are truly sustainable. Wind energy, for example, is often cited as a currently viable source of energy which overlooks the fact that in it's service life a windmill will not produce more than a fraction of the total energy it took to build it. Consoles, like other electronics, rely heavily on relatively rare components and metals and even with the strongest possible drive to recycle, some portion of those are going to be lost. Even in this technical sense, you'll find few manufactured goods that are fully sustainable and those that are only gain that qualification because they rely entirely on a renewable resource. Paper goods are sustainable. Rubber is sustainable. Complex electronics of any sort are not.
I think you're missing a key factor: MONEY!
If it was the same price to make consoles out or recycled/ recyclable parts or, for example, could be powered entirely by solar the big guns in gaming would have done so because it's the kind of thing that's guaranteed to increase sales. Unfortunately I can't see any way that this wouldn't cut a huge chunk out of those companies' profit margins, at least not with current technology.
If it was the same price to make consoles out or recycled/ recyclable parts or, for example, could be powered entirely by solar the big guns in gaming would have done so because it's the kind of thing that's guaranteed to increase sales. Unfortunately I can't see any way that this wouldn't cut a huge chunk out of those companies' profit margins, at least not with current technology.
Not to mention electric cars have about 12 rare earth materials in them, all renewable energy turbines require several.an annoyed writer said:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/27/rare-minerals-global-renewables-industry
There are no electronic products that are truly environmentally friendly. Some may be slightly less damaging to the environment than others, but as a whole the acquiring of the raw materials to make anything nowadays is brutally unsustainable. It's just happening in areas that we can't see it.
Nothing is more sustainable in both biology and economy than raising a few creatures to entertain us. Let the gladiatorial games return and kill some bulls in the meantime. Not 'green' but significantly more eco-friendly.
Haha, no. Modularity won't bring eco-friendlier devices nor significantly reduce the amount of garbage produced. It just causes a higher rate of obsolescence as replacement becomes more frequent. Each module inherently uses more resources than it would on a holistic device. The reason why people have devices for 10 years is that they still work to some degree and a new one would be expensive.Esotera said:
That doesn't make any sense, if you only want to upgrade 1 or 2 things then it's more efficient to swap out modular items rather than buy a whole new phone. Replacement is already pretty frequent for phones anyway - the average lifespan is about 1-2 years, it probably won't go much lower than that. You've just got to look at the contrast between the lifespan of a PC & a tablet if you don't want to use phones as an example - electronics are modular and therefore less hardware needs to be produced.somonels said:
I actually couldn't care less about environmentally friendly/sustainable computer components. I have nothing against the environment and won't abuse it out of spite, but my gaming rig is stock full of the best PC components money can buy. I don't care how much power it draws, whether or not I could save a penguin by playing at lower GFX settings or whatever. In my defense, this machine is likely to last me 4-5 years since building it last Sept. and I did reuse my HDDs, soundcard and ODD from my old machine, along with all external cables.
If I were offered a lower-power, more environmentally friendly version of a thing as opposed to the more powerful version I originally wanted I would buy the more powerful version whether it's cheaper or more expensive.
If I were offered a lower-power, more environmentally friendly version of a thing as opposed to the more powerful version I originally wanted I would buy the more powerful version whether it's cheaper or more expensive.
Sustainability really is a joke. I mean, we only have maybe 20 billion years, tops before the universe succumbs to entropy and existence ceases to have meaning.Eclectic Dreck said:
Even will all of the things you've mentioned, it's still such a far cry from physical manufacturing and distribution as to render that claim indefensible. It's like that "sometimes mice get killed by vegetable farmers" argument used against vegans.Exterminas said:
It's also worth mentioning that factory farming produces far more pollutants in far greater quantities than any other industry on the planet.
Okay, I'll try to explain to the whorish habitual consumer.Esotera said:
What happens to those one or two parts you just removed? Do they magically turn into a separate functioning device? No. One or two parts are thrown away/into a drawer, by you or by someone else who just got a second hand upgrade. There is no net loss in waste even if the materials and energy usage is the same. Even if somebody does scavenge and save parts in order to form a functioning device that would really be the shittiest model around. At some point it ALL becomes waste, everything we produce.
The easier and less costly it becomes the more often people will start upgrading. Today people throw away decent phones for marginal upgrades, in a modular tomorrow they throw out parts of phones every quarter/semiyear. You can see the analogy in computer enthusiasts. Those who assemble their own machines often have a much higher rate compared to those who buy pre-assembled, and then compare them to casual users who might still be running 1.2Ghz PIIIs. If it's made easier, you can bet it's going to be done more.
I would have taken the statement of a single hardware failure ruining the whole device as perfectly reasonable and something modularity does help with. However, the same could be done with holistic devices that are repairable by a technician... which is really the only problem modularity really addresses. It cuts out the repair technician. If something breaks you don't fix it, you replace it. Even if it's more wasteful to produce it's easier for you to do and I'll admit it's going to be cheaper. I quite liked the idea when it started gaining traction, but then I remembered you, the people. You buy the new models with marginal gains, you'll no doubt do the same with new modules. But it will be cheaper and if you won't do it more, more of you are going to do it. You and your ilk consume not out of need but of Want, hence the reason I called you a whorish habitual consumer.
Though it's really the same thing with PC enthusiasts, the ones on the cutting edge are wasteful but the gains do trickle down thanks to 2nd hand and subsidizing the progressive development of the industry. The difference is that I have respect and expectations for computers, but not for phones. I need to make calls and receive calls, messages and an alarm would be nice but the rest can fuck right off. Also, computers aren't actually modular to the extent the blockphones would be as individual components may still be repaired. If you had a modular monitor, how much would a single component cost? My holistic one cost me the whole of 50 cents ( two small capacitors ) and six hours to: google the symptoms, aquire materials, disassemble, learn to solder - a handy skill - and reassemble to working condition.
Also, originally I was talking about mobiles, my 1100 V5.62 brick was made in 25-10-04. I also have a clam - do you even remember those - somewhere that I could use, but what for? This is not me being all hipster or uppity, it's me saying I don't like phones and would never pay for one. Computers are not that much different, but had a set limit on how much I was willing to pay yearly for owning a machine capable of X when I bought it in 2007, same for the lappy, 2008 or 9.