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What are your thoughts and questions on "the magic washing machine"?
I will be answering questions on my new TED talk today at 11.30 -1.30 pm EST.
Please join the conversation!
Topics:
Live Conversation energy poverty
Manuel T. Ortega
Saee Keskar
I have enjoyed all your talks on TED.
The magic washing machine was a very creative presentation. I really admire the "art" in the way you explain science. I am from India an I am doing a PhD in biofuels in Australia. Some of the concepts you explained in this presentation such as the use of energy all over the world are very difficult to explain. But you make it really simple to understand for everyone. The crux of this story lies in the gross inequality that we have failed to acknowledge. Not just the West but also the wealthy East.
The attitude towards poverty and implementation of human rights is apathetic at least in my home country. People have been desensitized.
So thank you for revisiting it for us.
Cheers
Saee
William Parker
It isn't just your grandmother and mother who thought/think that the washing machine is a miracle. I've lived in flats where there wasn't one and to go to a laundrette or washing clothes at home!! Well, hard work and very time consuming!!
Whoever invented it should have got a Nobel Prize as the improvement in hygiene hence health-medicine has been huge IMHO
Sunitha Nair
I really appreciate the talk.
Chris Ke-Sihai 200+
Repetitive menial work in one sense is a great gift. There you are, producing an immediate tangible benefit in direct proportion to the effort you put in. You can be mentally at peace, enjoying the nobility of physical work, blah blah blah.
And then you snap out of it. Yes, this is great for a few days or months. But the injuries on your hands, the backache, the exhaustion from hard daily exertion under a hot sun, the thought that your life is going to be a hard unrearding slog with no possibility of change in the future, they start to take their toll. You start to think about all the other things you could be doing, imagining the cumulative impact of all that heavy lifting.
It's easy, from the comfort of a chair, to romanticise the simple lives of the poor and imagine the benefits that 'they' get from honest daily labour. Many of us have had similar short-term experiences which were valuable and worthwhile. But a character-building break from the complexities of modern life is not the same as a lifetime of drudgery and endless slog against overwhelming hardship.
The poor people I've known generally didn't need to build character, they needed to build wealth. Time is the most precious resource we have, and it should be used wisely to build wealth. Squandering our time on essential but automateable tasks is the worst possible barrier to progress, and this was an excellent talk highlighting one of those 'choke points' in our development.
Kevin Bell 200+
It's remarkable how quickly cultures forget where they came from, or how they got there.
Consider the development of electricity in the rural United States. In 1935, more than 90% of rural families in Europe had easy access to electricity. In the US, half of the country's population was still rural, and less than 10% of the rural families in the US (essentially none of them in the Western and Southern US) had access to electricity. The only thing that changed that situation was a commitment by the US government (like the commitments European governments had made more than a generation before) to make affordable electricity a basic right of every citizen, and to actively commit the resources to make it happen. This happened in living memory, and washing machines were one of the first things that rural families bought. My own parents and grandparents told me stories identical to the one that Hans tells here.
Lights, pumps, and washing machines for everybody changed the face of America in less than a generation, and when you look at the contemporary descriptions of what a washing machine meant to a rural American family in the 1930's, it is striking how similar they are to what Hans describes as the promise for developing nations today.
We can romanticize washing clothes by hand. We can blithely assert that capitalism, by definition, is infallible and that the problem is with "those people". We can certainly come up with a way to get basic appliances into the hands of every family that doesn't require billions of energy pigs sitting in billions of isolated homes across the globe, or require developing countries to repeat the infrastructure mistakes of the developed world. But Rosling's core point - appliances that liberate time, liberate people - is spot on.
Anna Białas
first, you're an excellent, very engaging speaker. I hardly ever see someone with the passion like you have.
The second thing is that I really liked your speech. I mean - it wasn't 100% serious but it doesn't have to be. The washing machine is a great leading theme and at the same time pretty unconventional. You presented the topic in a very catchy and surprising way. And the punchline - very funny. I loved it.
However, I have an impression that you could have done it with more of an insight. It was rather short and you just gave the audience a quick draft of what is going on. I wish I could see you developing the topic, giving more information, statistics (I know you're good at it ;). I'd be very curious to see a modified, longer version of "the magic washing machine".
Edward Hassler
You fail to recognize that in these lesser developed countries, people wash their clothes MUCH less often. It is a modern western practice to wear clothes only once or twice before throwing it in the dirty bin. The truth is, these people often don't wash their clothes for MONTHS.
I also think your tone tries too hard at emotionally triggering a guilt response. "If only us energy hoarders gave these poor people washing machines they'd have time to read books and learn." You don't mention the electricity, water and plumbing, infrastructure, and stable government required to have these luxuries such as a washing machine.
Although your statistics are interesting and engaging, you make it seem like a bell curve of energy consumption is unnatural and ethically wrong. The result of capitalism is of course a very uneven distribution, but it helps everyone raise their standard of living. These underdeveloped countries are not struggling, they have absurdly high birth rates because of our ability to provide them with the food to keep exploding in population. And if you're going to use an example to demonstrate improvements in standards of living, at least pick something like agriculture that actually makes sense.
Manikant Jha
It is a wonderful example and I appreciate Hans for selecting this indicator which is practical, understandable and to which most of the people can relate to.
Philip Crume
That is a link to a bicycle powered washing machine, made from two large drum barrels, and pipes. I'm sure a village could put together a few of these and save those who hand wash a full day of hard work. Now if they were to add a bicycle powered cart or wheel-barrow, they could bring their clean and wet clothes back home, and hang them to dry.
If you check other videos posted by the same people, you'll see one where they could use bicycle-powered machines that can do other things. Best thing of all, it only costs as much as a bicycle; no need for a super-expensive engineering project that bankrupts the country and that puts several generations into wage slavery, and that only benefits the elite of their country.
When Americans look back at their history, the greatest invention of all time wasn't something powered by steam or electricity, it was a simple machine that sped up our ability to remove seeds out of cotton. Teach people how to develop competency with simple machines and then let them build on that knowledge.
Chris Ke-Sihai 200+
Amy Li
How people use their free time is their own choice. Those who spend too much time in front of TV are yet to learn the art of using leisure. Again, at least now we have this leisure. It makes higher pursuit possible.
AbdelRahman Siddig
I agree with you wash machine and other tools save a lot of time
but we should also warn people to stay away from machines which steal our saved
Time Like T.V
let us assume wash mahine save 3 hours and T.V steal 7 hours
wash mahine +TV= -4 hours
studies show that average Americain spend 6-7 hours daily in front of T.V what a waste of time
Not all the people use the wash time in reading and usefull staff
Anke Tröder 30+
As for the washing machine – you would not have needed it. You are a master story teller. You have the words, the energy, the belief.
I am getting a little afraid that you might feel pushed to invent ever more dramatic acts on stage.
Please don’t.
You *are* the story.
As for the content, it was such an important talk.
Even though, at the end, I felt: Yes. Electricity makes time for reading. Electricity frees us.
But how many household machines, toys and gadgets do we really need?
Where does freedom start, luxury begin, and environmental responsibility end?
Do we really need washer-dryer combos, waffle irons and electric curlers?
Who needs to step up? Who needs to cut down? Those were my questions.
Will Peterson
I have another memory of watching women - I saw no men doing this work - as they washed their laundry in the river in Mexico. I merely assume they had no other choice. I didn't see a worthwhile conclave of women there. I saw a group of poor women having to do the necessary work for their family. There was no sharing of expertise or advice being given - just backbreaking labor.
My mother and grandmother were working hard even though they could work within their own residence. They were thrilled when they could get automatic machines - they never again dried laundry outdoors - they had done too much work for too many years. Somehow I think those Mexican women would have welcomed a respite from their hard work.
Tamar Hoffman
Comment deleted
Tamar Hoffman
Howard Brown
Here’s an important distinction: it wasn’t the washing machine - the physical object itself - that freed 2 billion women’s intellect and time (which could then be reinvested in solving problems). It was the washing machine’s function: cleaning clothes with less labor.
The future must be defined by design that delivers drastically more function (in this case, clean clothes) with drastically less resource mass (fewer tons of fuel, water, and materials). Innovation in resource performance, or dMass, will make it possible to get or keep clothes clean with little water or electricity, perhaps without a washing machine at all. This is not just a question of conservation, it is the nanotech and biotech design revolution. We are already beginning to see clothing that requires much less washing and washing machines that require a fraction of the energy and water; but this is just a scratch on the surface of what we can and must do.
amy obukuro
By way of anecdotal evidence for Prof Rosling's point that poor women do not find hand-washing laundry to be a beautiful, social Zen experience, I am reminded of the Amish women of the small Indiana town I used to live in when I taught German. Laundry hung out on lines, yes... but very often washed in the washing machines at the laundromat in town;-) (I also used to see them, mother and 4 or 5 kids in the horse and wagon, in the drive-thru at McDonald's-- one of my cherished memories of living in that town...)
Alexander Lee
I would really like to work with you for a couple months to develop a TED Talk or some other forum for getting people engaged in this conversation about priorities, perhaps at the Aspen Institute, to explain why people should have washing machines and why they should not have tumble dryers. I am writing a book called More Time to Hang: Greening America's Dirty Laundry. Your assistance in assembling compelling stats would be invaluable.
There is evidence that using your hands in reward-driven work is stimulating to the receptors in the brain that fight depression. Using the body in light work is actually good for it. (This desk jockey can attest to the stiffness of his limbs and weakness of his major muscle groups because he he ironically spends too much time staring into this machine.) By using a dryer, clothes wear out faster and your rob yourself of needed sunlight, which, if the clothes are hanging outside, can actually disinfect and kill dust mites. The stats about dryer-caused house fires are astounding. (Has anybody studied the GHG emissions of structure fires?)
amy obukuro
Laura Wiebe
This could probably be expanded to include quite a bit of technology as helping people get time. You brought up some very good points.
Anthony Chow
I loved the delivery, always very capturing and inspiring. I hope your prediction comes true. By 2050, there may be a new "Space Travel Line" where the richest (or, most elite) group abandons Earth, leaving the mess behind.
Best,
Anthony
Philip Crume
Second, if there were non-electric based washing machines available, green-conscious consumers would buy them. If some entrepreneur wanted to make a quieter version of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le85KjalzwM&feature=watch_response_rev, I'm sure a lot of people would want one. A small village could pool together its resources to buy one or two of these. They need to make sure that they don't use harsh detergent soaps if they plan to take the water from a public source that other people use.
Third, if we combine other similar innovative approaches, we can give people in non-industrialized countries a high quality of life without using such destructive methods. Such as the clay jar refrigerator, solar thermal cooking, and more. The great thing about developing nations is that they can leap frog the industrial period and lead the green technology revolution.
Jose Luis Oliva
I have study the impact of the machines in the last 12 years, I have a classification of them and their impact. It is not juts a matter of energy is a matter of cosmovision, of consciousness of the world. For example the MAMACHINEs the one that substitute the work of mothers, all of them give time to the mothers but in the other hand lose the thights of the familiy if the time gain is not spend with the family. By the way the mother of all machines is the one who handles the time: the clock
Victor Petri 30+
We should not scholar developing nations in what they should prioritize, but look at ourselves, we should accept that we will use more energy each year, as we have done for centuries already, even when efficiency takes a leap forward and focus on solar energy to dramatically decrease our environmental impact. So that within 20 years all our energy comes from the sun.
Dennis Goos
My country has a political system that enables the distribution of human effort for mutual benefit. For people who produce their own energy no political arrangement gives incentive to community development.
Without recent political change in China, more billions would still be producing their own energy. If only all the poor countries had the drive to militarize that has driven China to seek an improved economy.
Enigma Valdez
Nawshir Mirza
Chris Ke-Sihai 200+
I live in Taiwan, which is culturally very similar to China but ruled by a different group of people. There has never been a one-child policy here, in fact the government offers incentives to people to have children - because the birth rate is actually lower that China's.
All across the developed world, educated wealthy people are choosing not to have babies. Poor people, on the other hand, are driving population growth upwards. I guess one solution would be to use force to punish people for having babies. Another would be to help them reach a level of development where they can make the choice on their own.
David Fernandez Parra
Mr. Obama, Mr. Hu Jintao, Mr. Putin, Mr. Singh, Ms. Rousseff, Mr. Naoto Kan, Mr. Harper, Ms. Merkel, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Sarkozy, Mr. Berlusconi, Mr. Zapatero... Mr. Ban Ki-moon... Do they all KNOW about this? If yes, what are they doing? If not, why?
Thank you again, Mr. Rosling for your brilliant speech and for sharing your knowledge and experience with this apprentice.
Best regards / David
Tully Sullamand
Jobie Kingston
Women find multiple ways to converse and maintain relations without having to do manual labor together as some have suggested on here. Why not make it easier? I know my grandmother had more time to spend with me and the family because of it.
I loved the talk.