It's advertising. Admittedly, I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I would imagine that the economic impact of this advertising is worth more than the cost for Google to send a CR-48 to be blended.
But still, I just don't like the culture which shows that it's perfectly ok to smash and destroy stuff just for pleasure and marketing. Imagine that they would blend people in the show. Can't we have some respect for our machines as well?
Short answer, we've gained entropy. Over time, entropy will be the end of us, and therefore it is our responsibility as lifeforms to hold it back wherever we can. Otherwise what's the point? May as well just give up on the whole spontaneously emergent complexity deal altogether if you're just going to go wrecking up the place.
It's like when you get to the final level of Pac Man and it crashes.
If you're going to incur these (ethically, if not strictly economically) non-trivial externalities of manufacturing an electronic device, the ethical thing to do, it seems to me, is to at least make an effort to use the device as it was intended for a reasonable service life, rather than destroying it in a cheap stunt in a way that renders it unlikely to be recycled in any meaningful way and impossible to cannibalize for working parts.
This is especially so if your company pretends its motto is "Don't be evil".
As for the marketing value for the blender firm: They could always fake it. Put a "No Cr-48 Laptops Were Harmed During Production Of This Advertisement" disclaimer up at the end. Sure, that would probably reduce interest in later ads, but frankly the whole thing is just played out now. "Wanker posts video of a gadget being destroyed as cheap stunt to draw pageviews. Yawn." They'd probably get some PR for the switch to faking it, then they could bow out of the whole tired thing.
A lot of human resources are used for frivolous purposes. do you want to ban them all?
Beyond providing the bare essentials of survival to yourself or others, you're just playing around. Call it Serious Business if you like, but if you don't need to do it to survive then it's no more important than blending laptops to entertain the internet.
It's all nice to say "it's just a bunch of atoms", but some toxic compilations of atoms can't (without more "one-way" transformations to tap the available chemical energy) be easily transformed back into useful combinations.
If we take a useful arrangement of element and transform it into a useless arrangement without a good reason, what we've done is a net loss for whoever or whatever found the previous arrangement useful. The atoms can't be destroyed, but their immediate utility can.
(Not that I'd give this an up-vote.)
As I ponder the implications of Google engaged in this publicity stunt, I wonder. Was this device, sent off to sacrifice, my CR-48, lost in shipping?
As my desk maintains an empty spot, so carefully cleared, in anticipation of the arrival of the CR-48, perhaps now, my eagerness and expectation will turn regret, as I consider the future that may never be... Google, I beg you, send me my CR-48. <sob, tear>.
I know what it is called - but it is still clearly waste.
I was not referring to the economic impact but rather the environmental.
Sure, we can all say "who cares" -- I do, which is why I ask.
Have you seen the garbage problems we have? The toxic waste dumps that are china and other places.
I am not trying to be some tree hugging hippy here - I just dont see the need/value of such advertising.
If they want to advertise - why not go give the things to even more people who want/need it?
How about give one to every student in a school of their choice?
This is utter stupidity on the part of the advertising industry and proves how little value they provide society other than more and more thought pollution on top of the actual pollution they produce.
To start with, it is simply wasteful for the reasons you describe. However it also contributes in a small way to the paradigm of exponential growth that permeates everything about human civilisation, which we as hackers know represents certain death.
EDIT: I'm not saying google have created a "disposable computer." However all this advertising definitely shifts us culturally in that direction.
Corn/potato based cases, even if they need to be replaced often - or solid aluminum ones that are a set form factor and I simply replace the guts every time I upgrade.
I wish that apple would require/request/desire that any old apple product gets returned to them for disposal/credit when it reaches true EOL.
It has been said too many times by others greater than myself; Our garbage and waste will be the downfall of our species.
I present the cardboard computer (case): http://recomputepc.com
Unfortunately it's prohibitively expensive compared to conventional options, as you would expect. And you obviously can't fab the boards from card and the chips from potato, as it were.
>It has been said too many times by others greater than myself; Our garbage and waste will be the downfall of our species.
We can learn to recycle our waste. Mining landfill is going to be big business one day. It will however be much harder to repair the environmental and human damage caused by the extraction of the raw materials in the first place.
The case is probably the most recyclable part of a computer, unless there's something funky about the plastics used. An aluminum MacBook Pro case could be melted down, or, hell, probably used as-is as raw material to machine new small parts.
This video was part of the Chrome Demolition Lab http://www.google.com/chromeos/demolab/ and the four colors on the bottom strip are labeled "Learn", "Apply", "Recycle" (the green one) and "Legal". Recycle says "Electronic waste is piling up globally at a rate of 40 million tons a year. That's the same weight as 5 loaded buses every minute. Enter your zip code to locate electronic device recycling centers in your area" "The US produces 8% of the world's electronic waste per year (8% = 3.2 Million tons)" "Americans only recycle 13.7% of their electronic waste, leaving 2.9 million tons per year" "That's a big pile of electronic waste. So far this year 038,992,672 (increments by one every second)" The legal tab says "Google does not now, nor has it ever, endorsed or encouraged in any fashion, the hazing of or harming of electronic devices for entertainment purposes, anger management or stress relief. The demolitions and tests are performed using prototype notebooks. Chat interaction and user data are not being recorded. Do not try this at home. Please Recycle."
Here we see a device go straight from production to destruction intentionally and to a state where recycle/rebuild/re-use is impractical.
Sorry but all these arguments for advertising supporting the complete destruction of useful resources are misguided retarded and stupid.
Downvote all you want - but I'd prefer it were you that drank the water into which these toxic particles shall leach.
Fuck advertising.
And even when damaging the product is the approach taken, it's not usually a pointless stunt. When Timex abused their watches in commercials, the point was to show that the watches would keep working.
The blending thing is just stupid web-meme fan service, that is unlikely to make a notable contribution to selling Cr48s. Or blenders, for that matter.
Commenting that this is waste is like commenting that all the astronauts coming to the launch site in personal vehicles is a waste of fuel. You're about to burn in 10 minutes more fuel than anyone will likely ever use in their entire life. It doesn't matter at that point.
Please don't misunderstand me. I don't mean that since you can't change the big picture, you shouldn't do anything at all. I'm just saying you shouldn't blow things out of proportion.