Comments | miss_mimsy: The Story of Stuff

miss_mimsy

The Story of Stuff

Oct 20, 2009 17:18

Have you seen it? I am hoping to show it in my economics class on Friday. I am curious to see what others think. It is about 20 minutes long and you can stream it or download it.

Click to view

http://www.storyofstuff.com/downloads.html if you want to download it.

economics, teaching

Comments 8

bdot October 21 2009, 00:35:29 UTC

i saw it a while back... pretty cool and informative. high schoolers should like it.

elgecko October 21 2009, 03:08:22 UTC

I find it so completely and obviously propagandistic and one-sided it almost puts me off my liberalism. Sorry, but it's true. Nothing in here about the benefits of what gets produced. There's nothing about how USA consumes an outsize share of resources *while* directly and indirectly feeding and housing, employing, and aiding the greatest number of people around the world of any economy in human history. There's nothing about the nations such as my home country which derive growth and benefit from all of these processes ( ... )

polkamadness October 21 2009, 04:50:34 UTC

I'm with Alex. Other obvious mistakes I noticed were that more than 50% of taxes are spent on the military (I wish, that would make for an awesome peace dividend), and I am pretty sure the only 4% of our original forests left statistic is bogus/misleading.

And believe it or not, shelf space at RadioShack really does cost a lot less than $4.99... Trans-ocean shipping really is amazingly cheap.

Keep in mind that pretty much everything we eat is toxic by her standards. (no, really, plants are trying to kill the !%!%! animals that eat them -- that would be us -- by poisoning them.) In fact, can you name a single chemical proven not to be toxic?

plymouth October 21 2009, 07:30:45 UTC

I think you bring up a lot of good points but I disagree with your conclusion. I think showing the video would be a really good starting point to discuss EXACTLY the sorts of things you just brought up.

truehearted October 21 2009, 04:08:18 UTC

I have never seen this before, it was very good.

though, I do hope that some of the statistics are inflated...cause if not we is all screwed good...

sliv_1 October 21 2009, 16:42:07 UTC

Wow. What a load of BS. Pure unadulterated propaganda. Idiotic. There's an editorial in every sentence.

Are you genuinely seeking to educate your students? Find. Something. Else.

Embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing.

polymathwannabe October 21 2009, 18:15:27 UTC

I saw this a few months ago and had a simmilar reaction to elgecko, but was unable to sum it up or explain it in a way that made any sense to people who don't already see the huge problems with this video. You should have seen me as I was watching this. I was yelling at the TV. It was funny.

I agree that the *discussion* is worth having. This program paired with one that takes an opposing viewpoint might be useful. The main value I found in it was that it helps people see the whole system as an interconnected web instead of viewing various costs as individual components.

I would like to know the context in which the teacher used this in their lesson plan. Did they just show the video? Did they agree with everything in it? or did they challenge the statements made in order to jumpstart a discussion?