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Comment by rubyist5eva | Hacker News Reader

Obsession with emissions has really made people start to miss the forest from the trees.

Emissions affect everyone on the planet, no matter where they happen. But polluting the ground or water only happens in China, so a lot of Americans that care about emissions don't care about the other types of pollution, because it doesn't affect them.

You would be surprised just how much food you eat has been grown in China using polluted land and water.

It's not so much fresh vegetables, but ingredients in other types of food -- especially the frozen fruit, vegetables and farmed seafood that finds its way into grocery store and restaurant supply chains.

> But polluting the ground or water only happens in China,

Do you have any idea how many superfund sites are in Silicon Valley alone?

Yes, one of them is under my house. But that’s not what my comment was about.

I was pointing out the mindset of people who don’t care about ground pollution of their products because their products are made elsewhere.

> But polluting the ground or water only happens in China

I see you've never been to Houston.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?

Not OP. Personally, I've had Dell, HP and Sony laptops. But the macs have been the longest lasting of them all. My personal pro is from 2015.

It has also come to a point where none of the extensions makes sense for me. 512GB is plenty. RAM might be an issue - but I honestly don't have enough data on that. The last time I had more than 16GB RAM was in 2008 on my hand built desktop.

As long as the battery can be replaced/fixed - even if it's not user serviceable, I'm okay with that. I'd guess I'm not in the minority here. Most people buy a computer and then take it to the store even if there's a minor issue. And Apple actually shines here. I have gotten my other laptop serviced - but only in unauthorized locations with questionable spare parts. With Apple, every non-tech savvy person I know has been able to take to an Apple store at some point and thereby extend the life.

That's why I believe having easily accessible service locations does more to device longevity than being user-serviceable.

(In comparison, HTC wanted 4 weeks to fix my phone plus 1wk either way in shipping time and me paying shipping costs in addition to the cost of repair. Of course, I abandoned the phone entirely than paying to fix it.)

We could actually test this hypothesis - if we could ask an electronics recycler on the average age of the devices they get by brand, we should get a clear idea on what brands actually last longer.

I'd much rather have the ability to fix a device myself than be locked into a vendor controlled repair solution. I've been able to extend the life of many devices I've had (the earliest from 2010) through repairs like dust removal, RAM upgrades and thermal paste reapplication.

Also worth noting that some people might be taking laptops to repair shops precisely because they are not user serviceable. Companies like framework are trying to change this with well-labelled internals and easily available parts.

Apple don't offer cheaper laptops. No one doubt it lasts longer in average.

I'm guessing they mean greenwashing statements about lower CO2 emissions glosses over more "traditional" pollution as heavy metals, organic solvents, SO2, NOx. Taming overconsumption is greener than finding ways to marginally reduce per unit emissions on ever more industrial production.

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