An American Example Of Centrally Planned Economics

[Note: This post went off the rails. Blame cabin fever. I meant to bitch about modern life and “GET THOSE DAMN KIDS OFF MY LAWN”, etcetera. (Hey, why is “etcetera” not in my spell check? Am I spelling it wrong or is my spell check dumbed down? Hey, why is “dumbed” not in my spell check? A pox on my word-processor! Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Take that!)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I drifted into economic planning. Whoops! Just for the record (and the pedantic) the incandescent bulb I wanted is legal. Just because the local hardware store is poorly stocked and on the other side of a snowdrift I got in a spot where Amazon tried to boss me around. I know… first world problems.

Also folks tend to think “Centrally Planned Economy” is government only. Traditionally that’s the way of things (see: USSR, North Korea, Venezuela, etc…) but it doesn’t have to be a government thing. Perhaps, as things evolve Amazon might lead to something similar, or maybe Amazon and its cohorts will be something like an oligarchy? Also, “Centrally Planned” isn’t a new thing; Bronze Age Egypt and the Roman Empire under  Diocletian we’re both “planned”. (Both collapsed hard… but that’s a different topic.)]

The “Curmudgeonly blogging central command center” has an electric heater. It’s one of those 120 Volt / 1500 Watt deals that looks vaguely like a fireplace. The actual heating unit is about the size of a lunchbox and occupies maybe 10% of the volume of the object. The remaining 90% is decorative oak (veneer) “furniture” wrapped around a fake “hearth”. The “hearth” has translucent plastic “logs”. Within the “logs” two small dimmable lights and a rotating reflector make a flickering reddish glow. It looks something like a fire. It’s not the real thing, but I appreciate the attempt at a “cosy atmosphere”. It’s like tailfins on a 1950’s Buick. Pointless but pretty.

Several years ago the lights burned out. The bulbs were probably 5+ years old when they died. They’re functionally irrelevant so I ignored them. Last week, in the throes of cabin fever (which is hitting hard!) I sought to replace the bulbs.

What I extracted from the cabinet were two 40 watt “candelabra” bulbs. I can get them at the local store but the roads are sketchy and that’s why God made Amazon. On Amazon I found a zillion variants of such bulbs. The incandescent ones are still available (a pox on the EPA for fucking with lightbulbs!). Alas they’re generally sold in packs of a dozen bulbs or more. I’ll never use a dozen. All I wanted was two.  This was harder than it looks. Amazon is the great database in the sky and it knows damn well there’s no profit in mailing one tiny little cheapo bulb to a guy in the hinterland. I went around and around the search routines to no avail.

Then I clicked on an LED alternative. Yowza…. that set off an algorithm somewhere! Once I’d clicked on one LED alternative, their search routine snapped its pit bull jaws on my ass and wouldn’t let go. Searches that previously led to twelve packs of incandescent “candelabra” bulbs suddenly gave alternative results… all in LED form.

Fuck a duck; I hate being manipulated! However, I’m not going to fight all progress. Clearly the world, Amazon, the EPA, and probably the Pope are on the LED bandwagon. A 4o watt candelabra bulb ‘aint the hill I’m willing to die on. Also, I could buy a pair of LEDs for less than a dozen pack of incandescents that has ten bulbs I didn’t want. In fact, the LEDs were reasonably cheap. Cheap enough that I no longer gave a shit.

So I ordered 2 LEDs of the type the whole goddamn universe is desperately trying to shove up my ass.

They arrived (free shipping!) and they’re installed right now. They work fine. They have about the same light as what they replaced. Visually, the slightly more expensive LEDs are identical to the slightly cheaper incandescents.

Resistance is futile.

But wait… there’s more! LEDs, in their excessive packaging go out of their way to tell me all about how much more awesomely efficient they are. The old bulbs were 40 watt. 80 watt total for the appliance. The new bulbs are 3.6 watt. 7.2 watt total for the whole appliance.

The EPA helpfully digs up a formula that says I can run each bulb for 3 hours a day at an “average” of $0.11/KWh for 365 days at a cost of $0.43. You heard that right, 43 pennies a year. $0.86 for the whole appliance.

Suppose I was a Gaia killing troglodyte deplorable shithead who insisted on the  Neanderthal technology of an incandescent. In that case I’d spend 11x as much (40 watt/3.6 watt). That means $9.46 a year. From that point of view the LEDs are efficient enough to offset their purchase. The delta between the two is almost as large as a six pack of decent beer.

Maybe on year two the beer would be “free”? But not really!

What’s the waste product of an inefficient incandescent bulb? Heat!

What’s the appliance in which I’m installing these bulbs? A heater!

The heater is variable, it’s on a dial. If two bulbs of obsolete uncoolness are making waste heat it just means I’ll set the heater a smidge lower. I propose that “waste heat” from a heater component is just fine with me! It’ll go (with pretty decent efficiency) to the production of exactly what the appliance is meant for. At a practical scale there’s no drawback whatsoever to inefficient lighting in an electrical heat generating device.

The LED, in this application, is totally irrelevant.

But hey, what do I know? I’m just a redneck in flyover country. If some dude in DC wants to regulate my behavior and some other dweeb running Amazon’s search routine wants to maximize expense (they make their money selling shit!) then I’m just a speed bump bitching about progress. After all, reducing waste heat makes perfect sense on a chandelier in a summertime house of a Kennedy and that’s all that really matters. My cheap ass heater in the frozen hinterland is irrelevant. Right?

This is a tiny thing. Hardly matters at all. Unless of course the same dweebs start mucking about with our media, banking, consumer goods, or medicine… which they all do.

Fuck ’em. I’m an outlier. I can do math, I think about shit, and I’m a rebellious sort. We all should be on the lookout as other people “nudge” us “for our own good”! The person who knows best for you is… you.

As for me, I’m forever incorrigible in my habits. I have oil lamps and the same Amazon order included 3/4″ wicks. I’m sure the EPA (or some safety organization) shit their pants over that one. Next time I’ll see if I can order up whale oil and go old school.

Stand back y’all. I have oil lamps and I’m not afraid to use ’em!